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Valar Morghulis - 'All Men Must Die'
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Author |
File Description |
Impeached (id: MeGaIdIoT) |
Posted on 09/15/08 @ 08:57 PM (updated 09/20/08)
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Mix |
Number of players: |
8 |
Screenshot:
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Eight nations battle for land on a torn continent.
Which nation of the eight will you choose to lead? What alliances will you forge? Who will you choose to betray?
Valar Morghulis - 'All Men Must Die'
At the scenario's start, each player must choose which nation to lead. There are eight choices:
Ebunisia
Ebunisia is located to the far north. This nation produces high amounts of cavalry and cavalry archers. They also slowly are able to produce cannon.
The Wilds
The Wilds are located to the northeast, and have an outpost in the desert. Their desert outpost constantly receives reinforcements of cavalry, and their northeast base receives some of the best infantry known to man.
Ayrindal
Ayrindal contains the world's best scientists and inventors. They bring large amounts of hand cannoneers to the field, as well as saboteurs. Aydinral uses masses of swordsmen on their front line.
Barathenin
Barathenin is located in the southeast of the continent. Their archers are feared by all. They can bring multiple squads of bowmen to bear, as well as cavalry.
Galea
Galea is a swampy land to the far south. They are very fast runners; their archers and infantry are extremely quick. Their infantry poison the tips of their spears. Some galeans are complete war fanatics; they go into battle carrying explosives and ignite beside enemies to deal massive damage.
D'Hara
D'Hara is located in the desert to the southwest. They bring in heavy cavalry, also legions of archers and swordsmen.
Kelton
Kelton is located to the far west. Keltons have much pride in their axemen, who are able to throw their axes for lethal amounts of damage. To support their axemen, they also have swordsmen and archers.
Altur'Ran
Altur'Ran is located in the middle of the land. Altur'Ran's main strength are clubmen and cavalry archers. Their clubmen are great anti-infantry. They bring swordsmen and archers to bear, as well.
Game Mechanics
Each nation/base has several buildings, as well as fortifications. Each non-fortification building spawns a group one or two types of units (as listed above), up to a total of anywhere from 30-100, every 60-90 seconds.
Whenever a building is destroyed, the units that were spawning from it stop. To win, destroy all enemy buildings.
The game is very strategical, deciding who to attack when (a sneak attack while a player's units are away, a straight out charge, deciding whether it would be better to help an ally defend or attack, etc). Valar Morghulis is best when played with teams, but that is optional. Teamwork is greatly encouraged in this game. |
Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Mash (id: Mashek)
Staff
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 12/04/09 @ 09:40 AM
Valar Morghulis - 'All Men Must Die' is a multiplayer scenario, and uniquely presents each player the option to choose between eight countries of the region, contending with one another through conquest, alliance and betrayal. How you manage your army and strategy on the battlefield, forge alliances, behave toward neighbouring territories, is distinct to game play, and only the one who is able to master all of this will be determined the victor.
PLAYABILITY: Being a little more complex than most other multiplayer scenarios, Valar Morghulis - 'All Men Must Die' is entertaining to play and highly strategy-based when pitted against seven other players, with the same determination as your own in seeing victory through. The design is a collaborative effort between two designers, and offers a high quality mix of FF-style game play and other elements of the multiplayer genre. In saying that, game play is three fold. Conquest was never harder when one nation risks a vulnerable town when he marches his army out to conquer another nation. Players will do wisely to seek alliances with neighbouring territories in order to defeat a common foe. How the player acts during game play, in diplomacy, strategy and management will play a major role and essentially forms the essence of the file. 5.0
BALANCE: This category is rated differently according to other files not designed to field more than one player. From the guidelines, quote, "Each human player should start out in a position of approximately the same strength, with an equal chance of winning provided the skill of the players is equal. Obviously, the players' positions don't have to match exactly, but they should be balanced. There are many creative ways that designers can make each player different, yet still balanced." The design manages this almost perfectly, however I thought that there were a few players lacking the ideal starting positions of other players, or featuring less impregnable towns as others, such as the barbarian tribe to the north and centre - however, these were generally balanced off with other features, such as inaccessible units that provide great defence, or stronger units all-round. 5.0
CREATIVITY: The main component of this design is having the choice to operate as any of the eight nations presented, which offers high replayability in this area, as players can always opt for a different nation and starting location every time they play a game. The concept for this design was especially complimentary to game play, with a variety of unique kingdoms fighting one another across a vast landscape, and some interesting names besides, as well as containing a degree of strategy-reliant play that few other multiplayer scenarios of this calibre manage to achieve. In addition, the spawn-based trigger work giving the player a set amount of troops every 60-90 seconds was highly creative, with victory gained by destroying the spawn locations, essentially all non-fortification buildings. 4.0
MAP DESIGN: The map design is well above average, with plenty of terrain mixing covering a continent of many races and cultures, but is however very minimal in its application of eye candy to further enhance the design. The large wasteland looked well enough but lacked possible features to draw the players eye around the map, or to offer places of interest, such as defendable locations. However, the design is still of a very high quality, with very few flaws, if any, traced across the map. Players starting locations, such as towns, forts and outposts are all generally well designed, some ideal for defence and others merely providing a foothold to launch further raids against outlying territories. In particular, notable strengths of the design feature starting locations in a whole variety of terrain to give a strong impression of the different climate expectedly traced across a continent, such as snow, desert and forest and even marsh - all of this implemented rather well. 5.0
STORY/INSTRUCTIONS: Although a story would not have been hard to write given the scenario's layout, story is not rated here in a multiplayer scenario unless the designer decided to feature one. However, this is not the case with this design. Instructions were light but suitable, not streaming away from the more important aspect of game play, and while hints were very general they provided all the player needed to know for this map. On another note, a 'Scouts' section detailing the seven unique nations would have been helpful, if not a pocket of interest for the curious player or two. While the variety of kingdoms and their strengths are indeed featured in the file's topic description above, a reviewer rates only what is seen within the file itself. Having said all that, a disappointing effort here; further polishing in this category would be much appreciated. 4.0
CONCLUDING: Valar Morghulis - 'All Men Must Die' is quite a unique multiplayer scenario in its field, and certainly a notable design of detail. The large map design, coupled with many optional nations to go to war as, was innovative and refreshing from the more common blood maps found all over the Blacksmith. This is certainly worth downloading.
In a sentence - Fun, distinct and strategically-involving.
In closing - A highly-recommended download.[Edited on 09/29/16 @ 04:40 AM]
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.6 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 5.0 | Balance | 5.0 | Creativity | 4.0 | Map Design | 5.0 | Story/Instructions | 4.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 870 |
Favorites: [] | 1 |
Size: | 64.19 KB |
Added: | 09/15/08 |
Updated: | 09/20/08 |
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