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A Christmas Story - Director's Cut
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Author |
File Description |
Lord Basse |
Posted on 12/21/06 @ 01:15 PM (updated 12/25/07)
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Mix |
A CHRISTMAS STORY
DIRECTOR'S CUT EDITION
by Lord Basse
presented by Stormwind Studios
'A Christmas Story' is my christmas present to everyone in Age of Kings Heaven. It includes styles that almost every player here will enjoy and I hope you wont be disappointed
The scenario uncludes many soundfiles and a data-file, thats absolutely neccesary to play the game. Dont ignore the data file, or the game will look plain stupid in several places!
Dont forget that it's a Christmas Present, so you cant open it until December 25th!
or 24th if you live in Sweden :P
Merry Christmas!
Please comment and review!
Director's Cut Edition Notes:
The DC version holds a fourth story added to the three older ones. this is the last installment to the 'A Christmas Story' scenario. Only if there are bugs or unwanted happenings will I make a big update to this. |
Pages: « First « 1 2 3 [4] | Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Popeychops
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 11/19/09 @ 01:38 PM
While its not quite christmas yet, you're in for a treat with Lord Basse's Christmas Story. You follow the tale of a boy named Tim, who is spending Christmas with his Granpa. All is ordinary, until Granpa tells a story which you, the player, is a part of! This scenario is neither a cutscene nor an RPG, but it has elements of both. There are four possible storylines, one of which is a cutscene (the true nativity story), while the other three are made-up, mostly humourous tales.
Playability: 5
From the offset, A Christmas Story is a masterpiece. Running around in the snow is almost like being a child again, only without having to dry your clothes afterwards.
See "Story/Instructions" for more detail.
Balance: 2
Unfortunately, the balance is not as successful as the storytelling. I found all three of the interactive sections hard, with the knight's story almost impossible. Others have commented on the difficulty, and perhaps this is something that needs to be remedied.
Played on both suggested difficulties.
Creativity: 5
An masterful creation, to be sure. When "Santa" appears, he is not only named as such, but also other traditional names for his character in other languages. Siege weapons become snowball throwers, and game glitches are used for comic purposes. But hey, enough spoilers :P
Map Design: 5
Initially I was skeptical when I saw the first area. However, I know from experience how limited AoK is for a winter environment, and I must say that the standard of design improves as it goes on. I can't really comment on which parts are good without spoiling some of the surprises, but the quality overall is excellent.
Story/Instructions: 5
And the reviewing structure saves the best until last. The storyline was riveting, and enough to get me replaying to see the other three endings. The "Love" story in particular genuinely made me emit sounds such as "n'awwwh" in response to some of the dialogue. The plot was humourous throughout, and was an entertaining viewing.
Additional Comments:
I strongly reccomend you play this when the time is right, and I believe this is right up there with the other Christmas scenarios, being sissi's "I hate Snow", and Julius' "An Unseasonal Tale".
As to which of the three is the best, I certainly think this has the most variety (being on a giant-sized map), but falls short of both for sheer craziness. Its not far behind in that respect though...
A worthwhile download.
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rakovsky |
Posted on 11/18/20 @ 07:32 PM
Playability: 4
The Playability was generally good. It ran smoothly from start to finish when you followed the clear installation instructions on AOE2:TC (original CD version). The main exception to this was the "Love Story" mission, which was so lopsided against my side in balance that I wasn't able to beat it until I gave it a hiatus, came back to it and tried again with more careful tactics.
Balance: 3
3 of the 4 stories have battles where you are one of the sides, and 1 of the 3 (the Love Story one) was so lopsided in balance that I was not able to beat it for a long time. I finally beat it using careful tactics and lots of both pausing to issue commands during battle and saving.
Creativity: 5
This was the strongest part of the scenario. There was so much creativity, fun, humor, and different stories and elements and decorations and surprise parts that the scenario was alot of fun.
It had a lot of neat features. I liked the snowboarding in the beginning.
I liked the music alot. There was alot of creativity and humor in the scenario. I liked it that the Designer had a detailed Bethlehem traditional Nativity story. The Vinland story in general is neat, as is the idea of the secret book from the temple. There were alot of places that made me laugh quietly to myself.
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Map Design: 5
The map design was great. It was a big map filled with lots of details and decorations and tasks to do and the triggers worked well.
There is a curious issue where the first time after talking to Grandpa, the boy spawns sometimes at his house, basically walking out the door, or else just to the left of the section in the north where he was talking to the grandfather. Neither one are really a bug that hampers play, but it's still curious why the game would spawn the boy in a location not near his actual houe building in the west of the map, but rather next to a cliff near where he was shown talking to the grandfather.
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Story/Instructions: 4
Each of the stories was fun and made sense. The instructions were also good enough to run the game well in general. There were a few places where things were not clear and could use Hints or a Walkthrough.
The Instructions say to play it on MODERATE or HARD, but if you are going to click on the relic to choose to play the "Love Story" path out of the four possible mini-stories, I suggest playing it on the STANDARD Difficulty. This is because this mini-story is both hard and strongly balanced against you. I finally beat it on STANDARD but some other players complained in the Comments section above that they weren't able to.
You should turn the "Music" in the Game Options menu all the way down because the scenario's own music apparently uses Sound files that it turns on using triggers.
In the beginning part it was a good idea to have the speed on fast as the directions say because you are dealing with a walking villager. but I think that after Grandpa tells his stories it's best to put it on normal because the turkey scene afterwards goes too fast. Also sometimes when in the stories, Normal is better in order to fight more exactly.
Also, it would be nicer if after Grandpa tells a story that you could have the option to get him to tell the other stories instead of the mission ending after just one story. But of course you can just save at that point. So a good way to address that would be to have a recommendation to the Player to save before picking one of the 4 ministories.
The "explore the garden" requirement could use Hints. It's not really clear if you are the Player what you have to do to complete the segment other than use the villager to walk around the area, uncovering the black "fog". One time I got it to work, but the next time, I slid down the hill, clicked on the big throwing catapult and clicked on all the snowmen, but when I went to the house in the middle of the open area again, there was no call for chocolate. It looks like the issue was that I did not click on each of the yellow villagers at the sledding ramp.
Let me explain that issue again. A little tricky thing was getting back into Grandpa's house the second time for his hot chocolate. You need to explore his garden and go near the two blue siege weapons, then click on the soldiers who are standing in a circle, and then slide down the slope with the Yellow man and woman standing near each other to do that, walk around the area around those two people until the game makes your unit slide down. You also need to click on the man and woman and make them slide down the hill. After doing all those things, go back to Grandpa's house for hot chocolate. After drinking it, Grandpa will give you a choice of your 4 stories.
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Additional Comments:
The AOK:TC HD Steam version didn't like the unit numbers because they were in the 800's. I don't know if the scenario would work with the Compatibility Patch for the AOK HD Steam version.
Here I'll review the 4 ministories:
1. Traditional Christmas story. It was basically just a cinematic that you watch.
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2. A Love Story: On Hard, my knight Kendros got killed in the battle in the Southwest. The enemy has a ton of soldiers and a castle, whereas you have only one knight. Your green allies attack but they are not strong enough to beat the grey masses. As a result, wave after wave of your allies gets slaughtered inside the castle walls.
On MODERATE, I killed the Colosuss and Sir Aroias. After that, Captain Alex is super hard because he's surrounded by his forces. You have infinite reinforcement spawns, but I don't know if the enemy does too. He has a ton of soldiers. I don't know if the giant catapults are supposed to pack up an advance on the enemy castle, but after destroying a few wall tiles they just stand still.
When I played this story on STANDARD last year, I killed the Colossus and Captain Alex. But after that, the enemy heroes were surrounded by their soldiers and would not follow me all the way out of their castle area so that the pack of green units by the SW edge of the map would attack them. So I practically gave up and used the Torpedo Cheat against Player 8 to get through the story.
In the Comments section above, the Designer quoted a Commentor, who wrote, "The love story's battle was far too easy, won first try, killed one enemy hero, brought down a tower, the castle and was surprised when my ally fulfilled the objectives, killing some hero units for me, which I did not spot in game." Then the Designer wrote: "I have a few ideas that might make it harder. Will come for the update." It looks like that Update made the "Love Story's" battle too hard. Sword of Storm wrote: "Kendoras' battle is really impossible, both sides spawn loads of troops and the enemy has better ones than mine and having only 1 unit it's nearly impossible to win."
Finally, I came back to the Scenario today in May 2021 and beat the Love Story on Standard Difficulty. In general when fighting I found it best to take on the enemy heroes when there were no other enemies near them engaged in fighting. Kendros' attack is great against enemies but his armor and HP are not great. So if my HP starts to get too low for a battle (like if I lose 200-300), then I find it's best to draw the enemies out south through the gate and into my Green Allies who stand south of the gate instead of the enemies just massing me. To get to Cpt. Alex and Artois who are behind the houses northwest of the gate, I helped my green allies in the fight. I gave priority to fighting archers and light cavalry first because their defense is weaker and then I fought the other infantry. Then when the enemy heroes did not have unengaged enemies near them I attacked those enemy heroes or drew them out south through the gates. It's important to make sure that you don't just fight the enemy heroes halfway and then flee if you don't have to, because the enemy heroes' HP regenerates when they are not fighting. So you want to either kill them or bring them out south through the gates if you begin a fight with them.
Here are tactics that I used to win:
- Go in to attack with each wave of green allies unless an enemy is going after you.
- Then after each of your ally's waves is destroyed, run back out of the city with a few enemies following you. Lead those enemies into the small mass of your green allies who are waiting by the SW edge of the map and who include special units like axe throwers and the Teutonic knight. When those enemies switch direction and go to attack your allies, turn around and attack those lone enemy units.
- Engage the enemy heroes one on one when you have enough HP to win a fight with them and when they don't unengaged enemy units near them who could fight you. It's good if the enemy heroes are in the process of fighting your allies when you attack the enemy heroes.
- Give priority to attacking enemy bowmen and second priority to attacking light cavalry.
- If enemy swordsmen are going to attack you during the fights, run away until they switch direction and go to attack one of your allies. Run out of the city if needed to flee to safety.
- Avoid getting into fights where enemy swordsmen attack you. Instead, attack enemy units when they are engaged against fighting your allies. One reason is because when you are not getting attacked, your HP recuperates. You want to have strong HP when attacking the enemy heroes, and the way to get this is by recuperating after fighting them. You need to spend time recuperating because you have only 600 HP and they have a combined total of 1200 HP among them.
- Avoid getting surrounded by enemy troops. You don't want them boxing you in so that they deal a lot of damage on you from different sides or box you in and kill you. Run away if you see a enemies going to you from 2 sides or more or if you see a bunch of enemies (like 3-4) coming right at you and getting near you.
- In between waves of your ally's troops, send your lone hero unit into the city to get a few enemy soldiers' attention so that they follow you. Then lead them out of the city and attack them while they attack your allies outside the castle. This way you will always be leading soldiers out or attacking soldiers while they are not attacking you, except for attacking archers and maybe at times enemy light cavalry.
- Don't be very scared to fight enemy light cavalry one on one if no one else is coming to attack you, but it's better to avoid it. This is true also of fighting enemy swordsmen who deal more damage against you than cavalry would.
- Pause often, like when you are in imminent danger, and give commands while the game is paused. The pause command on my Windows 7 computer in AOE2:TC is the F3 button.
- Save often, especially after you have defeated each of those 4 heroes.
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3. A Not So True Story (I beat it on HARD) On HARD, I raided the village directly West and got a new soldier.
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4. A True Story. Your scientist's health regenerates, but your other two units' don't. The missionary at the start can heal your units. There is a message that doesn't make sense at a sign in the beginning saying in Yellow: Sweden RT3HL33TSUP4H4XOR$! I don't understand it. If you go to the overlook east of the Gerkhara village, the Gerkhara warriors go hunt for you. It looks like you need to view that scene before the scenario lets you travel to the river in the far south of the area. On HARD, I got killed after hearing the Gekhara village speech at the overlook and then approaching the village from the Bottom. The path in the jungle looks like this (ignore the ____ lines):
____________________Overlook at Gekhara village and Dead End.
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____________________||==Dead End
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____________________===========START
____________________||mountain
____________Goal____||==Dead End
HealingPriest||_____||
_____________||___==||
_____________||___||_Dead End
___________RIVERPath=Dead End[Edited on 05/08/21 @ 06:07 PM]
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rakovsky |
Posted on 05/08/21 @ 05:40 PM
THE ENEMY SPAWNING ISSUE IN THE "LOVE STORY"
Someone complained that the Love Story part of the original version of the Scenario was too hard, so Lord Basse updated his scenario to make the Love Story harder. His latest Update was in 2007. After this, reviewers commented that it became too hard. Let me explain how the enemy spawning issue makes Lord Basse's 2007 version so tough.
The enemy spawning trigger is about 1/3 down the list of triggers in the Editor and is called "bad guys loop start".
It is turned on when your Green allies tear down the Green city gate.
So first, tearing down the gate activates the Trigger called "Gate Down". It turns on "good guys loop start" and "bad guys loop start."
Second, "Good guys loop start" has a 200 second timer for its effects to begin. It turns on Good Guys Loop and "Good Guys loop end."
"Good guys loop" is set to loop, it is timed to activate every 1 second, and it spawns 3 Man at arms, a knight, and a crossbowman for your Dark Age Green ally, Player 5.
"Good guys loop end" is set to activate at 10 seconds. It turns off good guys loop, but then it turns on Good Guys loop start.
The result of this set of triggers is that every 200 seconds, 30 Man at arms, 10 knights, and 10 crossbowmen get spawned for over a total of 10 seconds.
"Bad guys loop start" has only a 150 second timer. This means that Bad guys loop will play 33% faster than the Good Guys loop. In 600 seconds, the Bad Guys will spawn 4 times and the Good Guys will spawn only 3 times.
The Bad guys loop series is like the Good guys loop, except that it spawns a Huskarl, Archer, Long Sworsdman, and Light Cavalry for your grey enemy.
Additionally, "bad guys loop end" is set to activate at 12 seconds instead of 10, so the spawning it turns off after 12 seconds, so that it spawns 12 of each of those units.
As a result, whereas a single series of Good Guys Spawning creates 30 Man at arms, 10 knights, and 10 crossbowmen (50 units), the enemy gets 12 of each of its 4 units (48 units).
I would rate the enemy's Huskarls and Longsworsdmen (24 units) as far stronger than your ally's man at arms (30 units), but the enemy's archers and light cavalry (24 units) as weaker than your ally's crossbowmen and knights (20 units).
Just looking at those numbers, the enemy's forces and your ally's forces would seem to be relatively equal weighted if they had about the same spawn rate.
You also have to consider your own unit's power vs. the 4 enemy heroes. The enemy heroes are each strong (300 HP), whereas in the editor your hero, Kendros has only 600 HP.
There is actually a Trigger that switches the enemy heroes' HP to 300 each.
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MY PERSONAL EASIER VERSION
Lord Basse - the Designer - and I had been talking about editing the Love Story section to make it realistically beatable for average players because in the Comments section above, people complained that they couldn't beat it. So I edited my own copy of scenario today and added V2 into the title for "version 2." I edited my own version so that the Good Guys' army spawns every 150 seconds like the Bad Guys' army does instead of spawning only every 200 seconds, which is what Lord Basse's hard 2007 version has it set to in the Triggers menu.
You can find my own edited easier version here:
cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/840713479610302474/840714381510967306/A_Christmas_Story_--_Directors_Cut-V2.scx
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MY ADVICE: TRY LORD BASSE'S 2007 VERSION
I was actually able to beat Lord Basse's version today on STANDARD Difficulty using a lot of tries and combat tactics. So my advice is to try to beat Lord Basse's latest official version using the red DOWNLOAD button and then just trying my version if it's really too hard. That way at least people will be able to beat it if they can't otherwise.[Edited on 05/08/21 @ 05:41 PM]
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Pages: « First « 1 2 3 [4] |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.3 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.5 | Balance | 2.5 | Creativity | 5.0 | Map Design | 5.0 | Story/Instructions | 4.5 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 1,370 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 11.98 MB |
Added: | 12/21/06 |
Updated: | 12/25/07 |
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