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ESHotAC - Lion of the Emerald Island
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Author |
File Description |
Serge L |
Posted on 06/09/01 @ 12:00 AM (updated 06/13/01)
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Role Playing Strategy |
Story of Brian Boru, the last of the great Kings of Ireland. This is my second submission to ES Heroes of the Age contest (the first one was "the Iron Limper", which was posted yet on this site)
The game is a very quick one (due to the contest rules) and you can win in three ways:
1) accomplish all the tasks and unify Ireland
2) defeat the other players (or, at least, the ones you did not annex as per point 1)
3) have the higher score totalized when the game expires (yes, it's a time game)
There is a lot of historic you would like to read.
The map is a close-to-real-world one of Ireland. Feel free to re-use it for other scenarios, as soon as you give me credit for it.
Enjoy :)
N.B.: in this update I rebuilt the zip file so that each compressed file will automatically go in the right sub-folder just by decompressing it in your "Age of Empires II" folder.
Sorry for not doing it before. |
Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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louisev |
Posted on 06/30/01 @ 12:00 AM
I have tried this scenario any number of times and cannot convert the first (green) town, nor stay alive to get through the berserkers to the next. Frustrating to say the least. |
Serge L
File Author |
Posted on 07/02/01 @ 12:00 AM
Sorry for your frustration. As a matter of fact you are right, the scenario is rather challenging and maybe I should have given more instructions. In fact I did not win the contest! ;)
Well, here some tips:
First of all, as the game starts, try and find as many allies as you can. The most powerful ones among those closest to Brian are on the West. There you can find Janitors, a Ram, two scorpions and two trebucets. Just a little nortern than them you will find two monks with a relic. After collecting them you wiill be attached by some berserkers, but it will be easy to eliminate them from afar.
Proceed with Brian, Janitors and monks, leaving the siege units where they are, because it's easie to avoid them to be desroyed this way. Afterwards, go East of the yellow city, and collect at least the two or three groups of skirmishers and other light units you can find. You will be attacked by some more Danes (Blue) but you should be able to easily overcome them. Let the yellow monks heal your injured units.
At this time, more or less, you will be required to avenge your brother Mahon. Go north, where you will find the city of Limerick (Cyan). Here, concentrate on killing Imar, ignoring the other units. As soon as you kill him, you will inherit the Munster. Put again the villagers on work, send the monks to catch relics (at least two) and have your units healed again. As soon as the other cities' positions are revealed, send asap a unit (possible not military, since the other players are mostly neutral). This way, the new tasks will be presented, and all the other players will become allies, escept Blue and Cyan (foes) and Green (neutral).
Forget the Blues. They are umbeatible (a trigger creates new ones when their number becomes too small), but also not so dangerous. Just a nuisance.
The green ones are, in my opinion, the first one to convert. To do it, send Brian alone following the South coast down to Leinster (green player). This way he will avoid towers an castles. He will encounter some Dane and some green warrior, but he will easily be able to eliminate them. At a certain point, go straight towards the castle courtyard, ignoring the attacks. As soon as you enter the queen Gormlaith will declare her love, and the green will be converted.
At this point send your siege units (remember them?) towards the ex-green city, which will be your advanced base to attack Dublin.
while preparing the attack to dublin, try and convert at least some of the other players.
To convert the Connacht (gray) it's enough to built a monastery on thei land (quite easy). For Ulster it's necessary to put two relics into one of their monasteries. I found it's safer to send them on a boat, sailing close to the West coast (the East one is infested with Vikings' long boats). To convert the meath you need to send at least 30 military units into the red city. It's a not so easy task, but, on the other hand, the conquest of meath could be very useful in order to attack Dublin (Cyan on the West coast).
In order to do so, it could be of help to gather the other "gaia" units. There are some North of Limerick (archers), South East of Meath (Teutonic knights), between meath an Ulster (Paladins), South of Limerick (Woad riders) and among the North-West forest (Champions and other ones)
Check the time countdown.If time is near to expire, forget the other players and attack Dublin. In order to do so you Need to destriy its two strongholds (castles) use all your siege units to destroy the South one first, while protecting them with your other military units. You can use King Brian and Queen Gormlaith too (they are very powerful and self healing), but be careful, if one of them dies you lose.
As soon as the Southern stronghold is destroyed, attack the northern with everything you have (except Brian and Gormlaith)
It's hard, but you can win! |
emtilt |
Posted on 07/14/01 @ 12:00 AM
A good scenario that is fun to play. A bit confusing, but fun. I enjoyed playing it and was able to win on my first try. Is worth the download. |
Cataphract887
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 02/02/17 @ 10:16 AM
ESHotAC - Lion of the Emerald Island
The Lion of the Emerald Island is an average and nondescript FF scenario.
Playability 1
The game is a fixed force affair in which you basically need to convert 5 bases to your cause. Mostly all you do is find a way to siege them down while killing the few enemies that come out. After you learn the blue berserkers cannot be defeated, they are simple enough to avoid. You would expect to have to do something to earn the conversion of troops or bases, but they simply flip to you for no reason. The princess gormaith for instance, declares her undying love for our hero the moment she sets eyes on him and joins you.
This trigger event was broken on both UP1.4 and 1.0c and you had no choice but to kill her. The author said he updated the scenario to include the AI files but there are none in the zip. Because of these are game breaking bugs, i believe a minimum rating is appropriate here.
Balance 3
This game is fairly hard. You start out on the clock, needing to gain the top rating score within 500 years, and when the top guy has 5000+ and you have 16, it looks pretty daunting. There are no difficulty mechanics.
Creativity 3
The author put a good amount of thought into making a different gameplay experience. The overall concept is not a common one and the timer is interesting as i was immediately invested and nervous about it. However the scenario is quite on the simplistic side and really doesnt offer much in the way of varied gameplay elements to make things fresh on a tactical level, with meaningful multiple choices or varied approaches. Yes there are multiple win conditions but the way you go about fulfilling these is quite frankly primitive.
Map Design 2
It looks like a random map and only has sufficient details added to be said anything had been done at all in this department. There is no terrain mixing or forest work done at all. The bases are quite poor.
Story\Objectives 3
The objectives, hints, and scouts are well done with good writing and detail. There is some characterization ingame with dialogue but its no indepth story by any means. This story mostly exists to serve the needs of a faster paced, gameplay focused scenario. A nice bitmap is the first thing you encounter and its easily the highpoint of this map
Final thoughts: Its an average scenario without anything special. It seems some triggers are broken on both UP1.4 and 1.0c so i dont recommend playing it.
[Edited on 02/12/17 @ 12:45 PM]
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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2.0 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 1.0 | Balance | 3.0 | Creativity | 3.0 | Map Design | 2.0 | Story/Instructions | 1.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 883 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 123.69 KB |
Added: | 06/09/01 |
Updated: | 06/13/01 |
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