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Ly Thuong Kiet: Hero of the Age
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Author |
File Description |
Ngoc Huynh |
Posted on 08/16/01 @ 12:00 AM
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Mix |
Number of scenarios: |
4 |
This Campaign tell the legend of a Vietnamese Hero that lead the country against the Chinese invasion. Mix styles (rpg, ff, b&d)
Since there is not a Vietnamese civs, I use a closest civ to Vietnames, that is Chinese, but Please don't mitstake that Vietnamese is chinese.
P.s: Give me some feedback |
Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Scorcher |
Posted on 07/24/02 @ 12:00 AM
Playability:
I played this 2 part campaign on hard,and really got into the game.It left me wishing i had a few more parts to play.I didn't encounter any bugs,but did experience a little lag.All in all, the lag was so minor that it did not take away from my gaming experience.
Balance:
This was a classic mixture of a great role playing game with a small acquired fixed force,and build and destroy.I loved every minute of game play.The heros and the opposition was perfectly balanced,which made for a interesting campaign.
Creativity:
There was so much on every level,I guess i'll start at the beginning.The story was original and full of rich content.It had good objectives,some of which were very original.There was plenty of good dialogue.Excellent use of triggers.A good cut-scene.There was a good mixture of game play.The creativity is the heart of this campaign.A perfect score of 5 does not do the combination of creativity justice.
Map Design:
There were 2 original maps,with good use of elevation,terrain and loaded with eye candy.All the cities were laid out good.The forrests could be traveled through.
Story/Instructions:
This campaign had a good original story.The instructions and hints were clear and easy to follow.There was plenty of good dialogue,and even a little humor.
In closing,I would highly recommend downloading this campaign.This is the kind of campaign that reminds you why you like Age of Empires.It really was loaded with everything.
Scorcher |
rwilde |
Posted on 05/21/05 @ 03:06 AM
Playability: 5
This is a well balanced 4 mission campaign, featuring a mix of challenges. The core was smash and bash build and destroy, with the first mission having a role playing element especially at the beginning and end. The prostitute in the first level is classic. I'd recommend you remind yourself this isn't GTA when you make your decision on that one.
The second and final missions are build and destroy with a touch of defend. They are quite long, especially the last one. Personally I would have made the second mission a little shorter, since one long B&D style mission is enough.
In the third mission you play a very similar style to the Mongols campaign opening mission where you do a sort of role playing fixed force by going around to each village and completing tasks.
The last mission combines both naval and land fighting, and it's fairly intense to start off with. In this mission my allies turned on me, and I had to destroy their town centre, but after they changed their minds I simply continued to destroy them, a merciless revenge for their betrayal.
I found no bugs at all in the missions, which shows excellent testing.
Balance: 4
The first mission is a role playing fixed force mission. The role playing part is good, and very funny. The beginning has a little walking but you can talk to people as you go and they will change response later on. The fixed force part was a bit weaker in this mission, lacking a little in creativity and balance. The enjoyment of the role playing and humour made up for it though.
The remaining missions were well balanced generally, although two long B&D missions can be a little frustrating. Often it took an hour or so after the enemy was overpowered to complete the mission. Overall it was just a little too easy and lacking balance in a few other areas, but still challenging for most players
Creativity: 4
The campaign hardly lacked in creativity. Many historical campaigns are on well known subjects presented from a dull point of view. In this case I got to learn about the history of Vietnam, a small country south west of China, which was often engaged in war with its powerful neighbour. Not only that, you also get to play as General Ly Thuong Kiet, instead of seeing the battles from a meaningless third person perspective.
The role playing was the most creative, with a buy an army style at the beginning. You are given a small amount of gold, and with it walk around the city and buy troops to join you. There was a lot of dialogue, and funny moments, including the halarious "horny woman".
The build and destroy and FF missions/elements weren't quite as creative, but still much more variation than most campaigns. The third mission was a little borrowed, but it had its own unique mini-missions which were well thought up.
Map Design: 5
The map design isn't perfect, but with the AoKH rating system I can only give it a 4 or 5, so a 5 is more appropriate here. The maps are quite large and yet very well decorated, without using too much eye candy or demanding too much of the machine. The cities are impressive, although the main form of eye candy seemed to be trees and terrain, a little more use of Gaia would have made it stronger.
The towns are lacking a little in features, mainly containing just the buildings with no additions like graveyards, reservoirs, gardens etc. A little better choice of trees would also help. The worst thing visually are cliffs on elevation, this has been an issue since AoE.
Story/Instructions: 5
The story is detailed and well balanced, also with bitmaps and a long history section, although this wasn't updated with each new mission. The instructions are clear and dialogue is a frequent part in the mission. The story is told well by a non english speaker, and was very funny at times. The only thing I would improve on is a little more historical information/accuracy. |
Possidon
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 01/18/10 @ 11:50 AM
Playability: 5
Ly Thuong Kiet: Hero of the Age is a Mix of RPG, Fixed Force and Build & Destroy. These scenarios blended together nicely and were very challenging but can still be done. The mix made the campaign very enjoyable because it makes every level different. One is RPG and then the next ids B&D.
Balance: 5
The balance is excellent. There are lots of Chinese soldiers but if you build your army quick enough and strong enough you will be able to defeat the Chinese. In the second scenario I found the easiest way to get into Candor (or something like that) was by boat.
Creativity: 4
This campaign has many creative aspects to it. The prostitute who was really a guard and the way you get all your soldiers. I liked the tournament and the B&D missions worked very well. However the third scenario reminded me of the first level in the ES Campaign Genghis Kahn. It looked and felt too much like it which is why I have only given a 4.
Map Design: 5
The map design was very good. The towns/camps were spaced out evenly and there was some nice eye-candy. For the very large maps they were well decorated, with good elevation and cliffs. I would however, like to see more use of GAIA. Graves, Flowers, stuff like that.
Story/Instructions: 5
The Story was very interesting and fun. The instructions were clear and the dialog is a very important part in the Campaign. The story is told well by a non English speaker, and was very funny at times. I do not know much about Vietnamese history and this taught me a lot.
Additional Comments:
A highly recommended download
Edited for typo[Edited on 02/03/11 @ 02:19 PM]
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kud13 |
Posted on 08/19/17 @ 11:28 AM
"Ly Thoung Kiet- Hero of the Age" is another early AoC campaign dealing with the history of Vietnam, specifically its war with China circa 1075. As the campaign far pre-dates Rise of Rajas expansion, Chinese Civ is used to represent both Vietnam and China. It was played using HD version on Moderate difficulty.
Playability: 5
The campaign is fun: i't s important to put that out there right away. You start off in an exploration-type RPG/FF, and move on to have a major B&D scen, then another FF, and another B&D. The mix of styles keeps you from getting bored, and it all flows together quite nicely.
Balance: 4
My only real complaint would be, the scenarios tend to be rather easy. This is especially evident in B&D, where the enemy AIs give you plenty of breathing room to consolidate and boom before they start their (rather massive) attack waves. There is still some urgency, but any player who's familiar with the Chinese civ's strengths can easily get into an un-assailable position, and then it's just a matter of time before you can launch your own attacks, for which the AI usually has no good answers.
Creativity: 5
I rather liked the mix of styles, the trigger tricks in Scen 1, as well as Scen 3, which was, yes, a twist on the Genghis Khan Scen 1 formula. YMMV on the originality of that segment, I didn't feel it should detract from the score here. The topic picked was fairly original as well, as there aren't a lot of Vietnam-themed campaigns/scenarios on AoKH
Map Design: 5
This should really be a 4.5 since the last scen only used about half of the map, with the rest being first a dense ES-style forest and then 1/3 of the map being Grass 1. However, I really enjoyed the previous maps, especially scen 3, which, intentionally or not, was a joy to explore using the ships you receive during the mission. The use of shallow waterways made the scenario feel a lot more interesting.
Likewise, Scen 2 did a very good job with mixed terrain and elevations, as well as water, integrating into the gameplay by allowing me to use navy to assault one of the enemy cities using the river that flowed through the city. On the strength of the 3 scent that came before it, I'll round the 4.5 up.
Story/Instructions: 4
The story inside scenarios was limited, but to the point. There were different bitmaps, but none of them gave you any idea of the scenario's layout. The History section was the same background of Sino-Vietnamese relations in all 4 scens, providing same background. Nothing bad about this, but nothing exceptional, either.
Additional Comments:
Overall, a great campaign, dealing with a topic that's rare to find in AoK. Hopefully, now with RoR offering a Vietnamese civ the topic will be looked at again, but even if it does not, this enjoyable campaign should be played by more people. It's worth your time. [Edited on 07/09/19 @ 09:04 PM]
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Cataphract887
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 09/02/17 @ 10:44 AM
"Ly Thuong Kiet: Hero of the Age" depicts one of the many attempted Chinese conquests of Veitnam, thwarted this time by the Veitnamese hero of the title. The campaign delivers a decent range of genre with half FF and half B&D. The scenarios certainly show their age, and by this date many great works had already made their debut. Certainly the word "clunky" would apply to the content here.
Playability 3
I found the gameplay to be quite slow paced, entirely lacking in excitement most of the way through. The opening mission was a FF\light RPGish travel to China with some trade carts. There is an enormous amount of walking without much in the way of gameplay, with just a few nondescript enemy encounters concluding with a mission to conquer a town, which is very straightforwardly handled. The first B&D was unremarkable except in how awkward it is to gather resources or build structures, with the map being practically covered in bits of trees. The enhanced UP AI made the best of it, but could only really defend its bases with any vigor. The third mission was quite unimpressive, having even more walking than the first and being literally a copy of Ghengis1. The content of this mission was quite boring and simple. The finale mission was likely the best, with the player defending against a massive invasion but for the most part only the enemies infinite spawning navy was the problem. The land based invasion was underwhelming.
Balance 3
The games were quite easy on the Hard setting, and only the B&D put up a reasonable game. The two FF missions were cakewalks with no interesting situations to speak of. The enemies in the first B&D do come with significant troop numbers but the player has an unrestricted tech tree and many resources to handle the enemies;this is a reasonably balanced scenario but one that is quite annoying to play on, as its map is not conducive to B&D. The player needs to delete some buildings just to move about in his own base, and has quite a nice fortified start to make things easier. The final mission being a B&D invasion defense scenario was also reasonable but not very interesting in the way the enemies attack;mostly its a naval problem with the land enemies easy to handle. The enemy fleet continues to spawn in even after destroying their docks, which is unfortunate.
Creativity 4
The campaign was well varied with a mix of genres. The missions that shared the same genre of FF or B&D were differentiated from each other enough to have their own character, while the gameplay of each was mixed up with sidequests and optional missions. A lack of custom AI made itself felt over the entirety of the campaign, and the encounters in the FF were not interesting, lacking any depth in development. The B&D sidequests gave you things for free, such as a pack of elephants from a trainer in one mission. The use of ES artwork as bitmaps was a nice touch.
One of the maps was simply the Ghengis1 mission copied over and retooled into a new experience, with mapping improvements...sort of. This isn't a bad thing in terms of creativity, but when measured against the original mission this variant feels underwhelming. It hasn't gotten better in any meaningful way and I prefer the straightforward simplicity of the original ES version. There is an immense amount of walking due to its poor layout.
Map Design 2+
Mapping was decent for the most part, but the biggest problem was that the maps rarely served the gameplay particularly well. I found the first B&D extremely aggravating needing to delete buildings to traverse ones own town, and the maps were practically filled with straggler trees. The two FF missions had a large amount of pointless walk time simply waiting to get back and forth to some objectives. The final mission was decent in its setup, but the invading army was required to attack through a narrow canyon, something the AI isn't particularly well suited towards doing. I rarely would say this, but a customized random map would have gotten a better score here. When making B&D its important to leave open space for gameplay, and restrain ones urge to put "the eyecandies" on every square inch of the map.
The visual aesthetic of the maps was fairly pleasant. The broken up forest look with patches of flowers underneath was used heavily with bamboo mixed in. Unfortunately all the trees are placed with the terrain tool, leaving splotches of leaf everywhere. The cities and villages for the most part were looking quite nice, with no symmetry problems, though in the first mission there was quite a bland one with simplistic roads. Shorelines except at rare key points tended to lack any detailing looking quite random mapish. The usage of gaia mountains was quite clumsy with little thought given to appropriate usage, while cliffs had many exposed diagonals and cuts with plenty of them in plain sight from paths. As expected from older maps, there were plenty of baffling eye candy attempts such as bridges with cracks and cactus on them. The maps were jam packed to the limit with white outlines, as resources and deer were sometimes entirely covered by trees, which leaves a very poor impression.
In summary the aesthetic visual appeal of the maps and overall map design is sufficient for a 3\5 but when combined with numerous technical drawbacks and the negative effect on gameplay on atleast 3\4 of the maps, I give at a 2+. It looks better than a random map for the most part, but lacks the functionality and pleasant gameplay of one.
Story\Objectives 4
The story elements were fairly substantial, and presented a good amount of historical elements. It isn't clear what was historical or fictional, which requires the reader to investigate wikipedia to get answers. The history tab before each game was a stock message, which would have been a great place to explain what was actually historical in the scenarios. The objectives, hints, and scouts reports are standard fare. The overall grammar and spelling level is somewhat decent, though mistakes abound. Some unfortunately silly dialogues in mission one make the player realize the immaturity of the author at this time, and remind one why you should stay somewhat serious;this stuff rarely ages well. The story as a whole is fairly nice, depicting events as "Ly Thuong Kiet" attempts to thwart the Chinese;each mission leads into the next, and you get to see the positive or negative outcome of each scenario.
Final Thoughts:Its an alright game but I wouldn't recommend playing it unless you are quite bored and have a goodly amount of time on your hands. Perhaps those interested in Veitnamese history should give it a higher consideration, however. |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.4 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.6 | Balance | 4.2 | Creativity | 4.4 | Map Design | 4.4 | Story/Instructions | 4.6 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 13,126 |
Favorites: [] | 3 |
Size: | 697.80 KB |
Added: | 08/16/01 |
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