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Campaigns » Chinese Design Contest: The dynasty of Tang
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Chinese Design Contest: The dynasty of Tang
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Author |
File Description |
Rickard Stenberg |
Posted on 02/10/01 @ 12:00 AM
File Details |
Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
Style: |
Mix |
Number of scenarios: |
3 |
No Description Available |
Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Angel Jerusalem
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 02/23/01 @ 12:00 AM
I know, I know, it is incredibly cruel to give a sub-average score for such a nice campaign. It really does have everything any campaign should have: The playability is okay, as are the balance and map design. The story is a little bland but it is informative and clear. But the history, oh the history...
Since this is such a nice campaign after all, I'd like to finish the review with an up note, so History, the worst area, will come first.
Not in one scenario of the three, the history section consisted of anything over a handful of sentences. Not that I mind concise explanations, but important details, like what year it was, who was emporer, and what main characters were involved in the story, were lacking. And it is such a shame really.
Playability was alright. Agers of all sorts can enjoy this campaign because all the scenarios involve both economy and military, the first scenario being more economic, the last scenario being more military and the middle scenario being, well, somewhere in the middle.
Balance was average. Some bits are easier than others, and although there are some balance bugs, they aren't numerous. In the first scenario, there are no attacks from a red, Japanese computer player before the user hits the Castle Age. Which is a nice idea, come to think of it.
In the second scenario, one has a hero and three camels to slaughter some spunky rebels who have taken over an ally's town. Once that's done, there's build-up to do and a rather stubborn Tibetan opponent to crush. So this scenario starts off with one hero on the map and ends with a massive empire waging a winning battle. Which is a nice metaphor, come to think of it.
The last scenario's instructions instructed to safekeep a wonder for 200 years. But a rather surprising beginning to the scenario requires resourcefullness and being quick at the mouse...
The campaign was mildly creative, enough to get a 3. Nothing much to add here. I just thought that it would be interesting if the player would be timed in some missions, that's all.
Map design met a climax in the second scenario, which, if would be judged alone, would recieve a 4. But, alas, the first and last scenarios featured way too many straight lines and jungle trees, and way too little bamboo or forest mixing or elevation changes or eye candy.
Story/Instructions were sufficient, told the story breifly, gave the player clear instructions and that was it. No characters involved, no surprising plot changes, no dilemmas. The three bitmaps were almost identical, with the exception of the top-left corner illustration, which varied from scenario to scenario.
Nice campaign, the effort shows, and alas, if I could only turn the overall score 0.2 points up in some sort of a "general impression" field. |
Rasher (id: Angel Rasher)
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 02/27/01 @ 12:00 AM
Well, this is a campaign with a lot of potential, but one that in the end falls decidedly short of its possibilities. After playing through the first scenario, I had some pretty high hopes for this campaign, but sadly I never saw these hopes come to life. Allow me to explain:
In “The dynasty of Tang”, you will take control of a number of towns and villages in various situations, as you guide your nation into a new dynasty... or so the author claims. However, there is little continuity from scenario to scenario... it seems almost as if this campaign would have been more appropriate as three separate scenarios.
The first scenario. “Miss Kanton”, is definitely the most interesting of the three. Your goal is to build your economic and military strength through trade and diplomacy, until you have finally achieved your ultimate goal of reaching the Imperial age and researching a number of technologies. It is a fairly interesting idea, and is carried out well for the most part. My only real complaint with this scenario was the degree of difficulty: I breezed through most of the scenario with little or no trouble, until the few final, tense, minutes, when the AI mounted some pretty large attacks, which I was able to survive long enough to complete my research. Unfortunately, since only the standard AI is used, the author had little control over the actions of the AI, which resulted in some rather stupid AI attacks.
After the first scenario “The dynasty of Tang” goes steadily downhill. Both the second and third scenarios are a little bland, in particular the third. The second scenario “What a wonderful day!” gets off to a good start, and is actually quite fun... for the first ten minutes, in which you must recruit mercenaries and defeat an angry mob. After that, however, it’s pretty much a matter of surviving one enemy attack, then just building up your forces and clearing the map of remaining enemies.
The third and final scenario can just be written off as not worth it. You have a very small force of units, and must defend a wonder for “200 years”. I knew I was in trouble when I started off the scenario and found there was no visual countdown. After defeating the brain-dead attacks that the AI was throwing at me, I sat down to wait... and wait... and wait. Finally, after over an hour of sitting there, I came to the conclusion that nothing was going to happen.
The Map Design itself is rather bland, for the most part, and resembles that of a random map. The Story/Instructions are not bad, although they are a tad basic, and are not incredibly historically accurate. Overall, this is a fairly solid campaign that shows a lot of potential, but sadly fails to follow through. If the other two scenarios were on par with the first, this would be a campaign to watch for. As it is now, it is still definitely worth a play as a solid entry to the contest, if only to see what it could have been. |
kud13 |
Posted on 12/16/20 @ 07:59 PM
Destiny of the Dynasty: the T'ang (this is how it comes up in my campaign selection, so that's the name I'm sticking with) is unlike the other scenarios submitted for the Chinese Design Contest, in that instead of focusing on a single individual and their accomplishments, it tries to chart the course of one of the longest-reigning Chinese imperial dynasties, honing in on some key themes in the civilization's development. A bold idea, but one that ultimately fails to impress. The campaign was played using the HD version on Normal difficulty and speed.
Playability: 3
Playability is where I talk about how fun the campaign was, and about any quirks that affected the play experience. I can honestly say, it runs well. Due to lack of any real common threads (the three scenarios are set at different points in history, skipping centuries in between), the whole experience feels a bit disjointed. The scenarios are a mix of build & destroy with some FF, and the last scenario is a DTS. All are done well enough, but aside from scenario 2, nothing really stands out, due to the lack of overall challenge. Sometimes with low-difficulty scenarios the fun can be had in the pure catharsis of overrunning a numerous, but weak enemy and seeing your map control grow. That really isn't the case here though either, unfortunately.
Balance: 2
There's no way to sugar coat this. The difficulty is laughably easy. in 2 of the 3 scenarios the Standard AI would resign after the initial skirmishes (because it had a limited force to begin with that I wiped out, and no production) or, in one case, after being unable to attack my stone mine due to a few quick walls. The only scenario that presented a challenge was 2, where you take over a Feudal Age Chinese settlement against a Castle-Age mongol player that immediately comes knocking with cavalry archer packs and monks. The only viable solution at that point is to channel Quin Shi Huang, the legendary First Emperor and erect your own Great Walls- the designer clearly had the same idea, since there's only 2 river fords that give enemy access to your third of the map. Once you survive those initial shocks, the game has some of that typical B&D flow for the remainder of the scenario, but then completely drops it in the last one. There you have to defend a Wonder ("Government center") from rampaging tribes. These stage exactly one assault of Dark Age Champions, Archers and Mangonels that make a beeline for the Wonder, letting your paltry starting force of 5 castle-age Knights mop them up on their way to the Wonder. The champions don't even fight back when you attack them, so hell-bent they are on destroying the Wonder. This could've maybe worked if there were multiple waves lime that, giving you limited time to effect emergency repairs to keep it standing. But nope, there's only one wave, and then the attacking player resigns, and you're stuck watching the Wonder clock tick down to the inevitable victory that ends up feeling un-earned. I struggle to think who this could be aimed at. Scenario 2 could end up punishing you if you spend too long just turtling and waiting for post-Imperial Mongols to come a-knocking; but the rest literally play themselves, and with your enemies resigned or scattered, you end up turning the game speed up just to reach your non-conquest victory conditions quicker.
Creativity: 2
The idea of having a "thematic" campaign, rather than a personality- or story-driven one, is an interesting approach. There's a few touches early on, such as the unique victory condition in Scenario 1 (amass gold through trade, as there's no gold mines, and build universities in outlying villages and research imperial techs to symbolize the spread of culture throughout the Empire; and scenario 2 had a few trigger tricks as your recruited individual mercenaries; overall, though, the whole thing felt rather by the numbers, and the lack of real challenge made the it all feel unnecessary.
Map Design: 3
Scenario 2, the one you spend the bulk of your time in, was decently well-done. The map design was clearly aiming to funnel both the player and the AI into walling up and setting up for a prolonged post-imp fight- both bases are surrounded by cliffs that are easy to wall and provide natural chokepoints. The remainder of the mar was decently well detailed as well.
The same cannot be said for Scenarios 1 and 3. Large swathes of the mar were either generic plain, or generic forests- especially egregious in Scen 3, that's supposed to be on the outskirts of the deserts to the West of Tang territory. Given how objective-driven those scenarios are, I can understand why the designer felt it wasn't important to address the areas the player wasn't likely to see in-game, but it still feels lacking, since these areas ARE accessible;
Story/Instructions: 3
The bitmaps and history/Aftermath sections were sparse, but did provide a certain amount of context to the scenarios, helping to tie the action to the greater course of development of the Tang empire. Nothing really stood out, though, and the scenario names in particular seemed fairly arbitrary.
Additional Comments:
Although the idea to trace an empire's cultural development throughout the centuries of expansion and contact with other cultures was an interesting one, the execution really fails to hold the player's interest. Lack of challenge, lack of reward for exploration, and lack of memorable story moments all combine to make this an ultimately disappointing effort |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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2.9 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 2.7 | Balance | 2.7 | Creativity | 3.0 | Map Design | 3.0 | Story/Instructions | 3.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 1,055 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 1.34 MB |
Added: | 02/10/01 |
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