four hundred babies (id: Lord_Fadawah) |
Posted on 09/05/04 @ 12:00 AM
The Archbishop is a single-scenario B&D. For a reason that is never explained, Huns have settled on Persian territory, and you must drive them out by destroying their castle. That's the synopsis, anyway. Essential to your mission is a cantankerous Archbishop living in the hills...
PLAYABILITY
This scenario was incredibly uninteresting. You have a massive city, and can freely build up for as long as you want before the fighting starts. There is a barrier between your city and that of the Huns, and you can only lift this barrier by consulting with the Archbishop, who agrees to give you knowledge of the Hunnic camp (euphemistically saying that the wall dividing you and the Huns will be removed) if you find some relics for him. These relics are easily found, they are less then a screen's length away from the Archbishop and in plain view. Once the relics are in the Archbishop's monastery, you are free to attack the wretchedly inferior Huns. The whole scenario can be finished in fifteen minutes.
And it's a boring fifteen minutes. The scenario is just a plain, generic B&D. The irritating 75 unit limit screams "ARTIFICIAL LIMITATION", and while there are no bugs, there is nothing that grabbed my interest. It's basically a random map with a couple of triggers, and walled cities. 2
BALANCE
Nuking the Hunnic castle is easy, and the scenario poses no challenge. Played on hard (you could even further stack the deck against yourself by deleting your walls, towers and castle, if you wish), the Hunnic horde launches a few attacks of Heavy Cavalry Archers and then does nothing. The Huns are miles away from forests, have no gold or stone, and have a couple dozen or so farms but no means of rebuilding them. The computer can't do anything to protect itself once it exhausts its initial stockpile of resources. 1
CREATIVITY
No innovation in gameplay, and has nothing to separate it from countless others. Still, a few nice eye-candy tricks are in evidence. Buildings on water, river gates, a realistic-looking cave, buildings map-copied on top of one another and good use of the Sea Tower such as in Ulio. However, just eye-candy alone doesn't cut it. 2
MAP DESIGN
As stated above, some excellent eye-candy tricks added sparkle to an otherwise bland map. Large areas of grass, some parts overloaded with gaia, and unrealistic, square cities. The Hun encampment is made up of two layers of walls, with a small gap in between that is completely stuffed with watch towers. A lot of the map was obviously map-copied, and it shows. The author placed a forest of pines near the cave, and then map copied the pines across all the northern edge of the map. The pines are all the same type, and the visual effect is somewhat goofy. Don't forget, you can always generate a random map and then add to it. 2
STORY/INSTRUCTIONS
This scenario has no story. Basically you have to kill a bunch of Huns who have settled on your lands for whatever reason. It is never explained why (Muslim) Persians would be ruled by an Archbishop. There are some hints, but they are neither concise nor helpful. One says: "Take care of your monks, you only have five to work with and the Archbishop forbids the creation of other monasteries". Uh...the player already has a monastery in his town, and can train monks to his heart's content. 2
SUMMARY
I do not recommend this campaign. While the author has talent, I believe that effort is more important then talent. |