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Author |
File Description |
JustAnotherAger |
Posted on 02/14/01 @ 12:00 AM
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Build and Destroy |
Background:
Your tribe has been living on this Island for years, constantly at war with the other tribes on the surrounding Islands. Through the years of fighting, no tribe has gained the upper hand. Can you lead your tribe to victory? Or will the fighting continue on to infinity? Your task is to defeat the other tribes surrounding you, but watch out for those cannibals! They inhabit an Island seldom frequented by visitors. But perhaps they can be persuaded to join you side?
Map Features:
- Lot's of Jungle and Beach, along with some Leaves terrain
- Double the normal amount of Fish
- Tons of random resources (see below)
- Basic land terrain is GRASS3
- About 8 mountains
- Eye-Candy (and I mean piles of it!)
Special Features:
+ All the Gold, Stone and Forage are LOOSELY grouped, which looks nice when it's placed at the edge of the Jungle.
+ Also, I have a ton of resources (Gold and Stone), that are just placed randomly on the map. This gets really interesting, because sometimes you'll have more than ordinary resources and sometimes less.
+ To make up for those extra resources, I've cut down the normal resources.
+ There are tons of gaia rock, plants, shipwrecks, and other eye-andy strewn around the map.
+ Also, some gaia militia and villagers. Along with there houses, of course.
+ To make it look more crowded with out restricting player movement, I set 100 trees to be randomly placed around the map.
Design Goals:
I wanted to make a really pretty map, with Jungle and lot's of animals. Initially, I had trouble with Jungle placing, it tended to surround the players, so they would have to cut through Jungle to reach most of the resources and Water.
Notes:
* I was just having fun with this map, so there may be some things you want to change. One thing that may annoy is that some of the objects are not set to avoid player start areas. So sometimes your TC will be in between two mountains (this has happened to me once). Feel free to change anything in the map you want.
* There is one bug I haven't been able to fix, that is that the gaia objects (usually people and "heads") aren't placed where they are explicitly told to be placed (those disobedient wretches!). So, somethimes your Island with have a few Militia and villager objects just standing around. Maybe you can fix it, if you find a way, let me know, because it will be useful in other maps I make.
* There is a really cool far mod-pack I found on http://aok.heavengames.com that really looks good with this map. Maybe you should check it out. It's under the mod-packs section in the blacksmith |
Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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JustAnotherAger
File Author |
Posted on 02/15/01 @ 12:00 AM
Oops! I was looking over my descript and noticed some errors. For one thing, I've now changed the mountains so that they avoid your TC.
Also, that mod-pack reference is a little obscure ;) , it really is a farm mod-pack called "farming" and I think it is made by Topknot |
davecasa |
Posted on 09/11/01 @ 12:00 AM
Theme
The theme of this map was to create a tropical island setting, with wars between tribes. The center island, full of gaia units, is almost like another tribe which you can take under your control. The theme is very well executed. There is nothing that the author didn’t think of. This gets a 5.
Visual Appeal
When I first played this map, I was positive I had accidentally loaded a scenario. A very well done scenario. It is amazing. Somehow (I can’t figure out by looking at the code), all the eyecandy was placed perfectly. There is even some eyecandy involving multiple units. I played a few games of this online against other people, and every single tile of map I explored made it look even better. The yurts on the middle island add the perfect touch. I give this map a 5 for Visual Appeal. It’s a pity I can’t give it higher.
Playability
The eyecandy sometimes makes it difficult to play a simple game. It is hard to place many farms near your town center, but if you move a little further away, there is more room to do so. The gaia militia and yurts provide even more incentive to getting to the Feudal Age first and transporting your scout to the center island to claim all these units before all of your enemies do. A very difficult decision between 3 and 4, but in this category, I give this map a 4. |
RF_Gandalf
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 09/11/01 @ 12:00 AM
Galapagos Islands is a rms which has several serious problems both in playability and in its appearance.
THEME - Score: Average(3) The idea behind the script has some creativity to it, certainly, but the execution is where I see problems. The author could not have done any significant play-testing with this or some of the problems would have been seen(note that I am not referring to just looking at the script or resulting maps, but actually playing it). The creativity alone is what has raised this score from poor.
VISUAL APPEAL - Score: Poor(2) The excessive junk all over the map is visually distracting. The 'CRACKS' running into the ocean look odd. Seeing patches of flowers on land and sea (some of same flowers in both areas) was odd.
PLAYABILITY - Score: Poor(2) The map has 3 major flaws with regards to fairness. First, the random scattering of mountains and rocks and beach terrain on land sometimes gave players almost unusable starting positions. I saw TCs that, due to the above items, could have supported only 2 nearby farms (and that only after the adjacent trees were cleared), while other TCs on the same map were better positioned. I saw starting berry bushes that were not easily accessible. There was one instance of no clump of berry bushes noted, and several instances of no usual gold or stone because these are placed after the mts, trees,and hosts of other things instead of before them. Second, there are lots of resources are scattered randomly(single gold mines, berry bushes, etc.), giving some players better or worse starting places. Third, the script includes an extra island that is not accessible by shallows which contains gaia vills, militia and yurts(=housing). Unfortunately finding this mother lode gives the first player to it a real large advantage. Sometimes the shallows around each starting island, however, are close enough to the extra island that a scout(esp. Mongol) can convert one or more of the units without even having to transport, essentially giving all to that player early on. This is extremely unfair. |
JustAnotherAger
File Author |
Posted on 09/14/01 @ 12:00 AM
Thanks RF_Gandalf and davecasa for your reviews.
I appreciate your input! :)
RF, I wasn't aware of some of those playability flaws, thank you for pointing them out. It was not play tested extensively, as you pointed out, and I kind of hurried it. My only defense is that I did this one manually, i.e without RMScripter, and I was just learning how to script random maps. I would ask that you would also review my other two maps, Balkan Mountains and Abandoned valley, and tell me if they are improved over this one.
Again, thank you very much for you review, rest assured your advice is well taken, and I will keep it in mind in future maps.
dave - Wow, your opinion is a little different than RF_Gandalf's! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much. Thanks for your review!
jaa |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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3.5 | Breakdown |
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Theme | 4.0 | Visual Appeal | 3.5 | Playability | 3.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 2,347 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 4.41 KB |
Added: | 02/14/01 |
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