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Author |
File Description |
Hammister (id: hammister) |
Posted on 01/23/20 @ 09:50 AM
File Details |
Version: |
Age of Empires II: DE |
Style: |
Build and Destroy |
Number of scenarios: |
5 |
Screenshot:
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Experience a dramatic campaign about kings, love and betrayal!
Many years after Barbarossa's death, the Holy Roman Empire fell apart into many small kingdoms. In this chaotic time begins King Ottokar of Bohemia legendary rise to power. He will live a life full of romances, struggles and intrigue. Experience how he strives for the imperial crown and finally faces his most dangerous enemy in one of the biggest battles of all time...
Features:
* 5 exciting single player scenarios - hours of fun guaranteed!
* An exciting story about the life of King Ottokar of Bohemia. Experience his bloody, dramatic battle for the imperial crown!
* Build and Destroy gameplay with exciting surprises, twists and turns!
* Lots of new and fun gameplay mechanics: new units, buildings and technologies!
* Sounds, images and self-designed introscreens will tell this fascinating story
How to install:
Please extract the folder ("Ottokar") that is included in the .zip file to C:\Users\[Your Username]\Games\Age of Empires 2 DE\[Your Usertag]\mods\local
Then start the campaign from the campaign menu (Custom Campaigns)
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Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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kud13 |
Posted on 01/13/21 @ 01:16 PM
"Ottokar" is a primarily B&D campaign (with emphasis on exploration) that tells the story of the rise and fall of the last and greatest Bohemian monarch, Przemysl II Ottokar. Starting out as an heir to the kingdom ravaged by the Mongol invasion, the player must rebuild their country to glory, before making a name for themselves among the German princes to eventually try to claim the Imperial crown. It was played on Moderate difficulty.
Playability: 5
I had a lot of fun with this campaign. I'll admit to be biased as the subject matter is near and dear to my heart (being one of the greatest "what could've been"s in the history of Central Europe); In addition, I have expressed on numerous occasions my love of the designer's prior works in the same style. However, all that aside, I felt the campaign offered a very good mix of Build and destroy, exploration and occasionally DTS elements, all wrapped up with an interesting story. Scenario 3 was a particular highlight for me, being a "Risk-Lite" with some unique tactical challenges. The campaign ran flawlessly, and exploring the various nooks and crannies generally felt rewarding. In addition, the campaign gave me multiple opportunities to appreciate the might of Slav siege weapons, as several scenarios were designed to make Siege Onagers shine.
Balance: 3
I felt this was a bit uneven, as a lot of the difficulty (on Moderate) came from scripted events, rather than pure AI pressure. The designer made some clever decisions in both Scenarios 2 and 4 that kept me on my toes, but overall, the AI's efforts at baseline Moderate felt a bit underwhelming. There were also some story inconsistencies, such as Scenario 3 giving me a "this is your very last warning" message as I was about 60% towards completing my objective; At that point I took my army to a chokepoint, expecting an immediate invasion, but the AI was content to continue milling behind a rock barrier, giving me an opportunity to flatten most of them with my Siege from a safe distance. Though the Hints suggested I take the fight to the enemy early, I don't think this one-sided slaughter was the intended outcome.
Creativity: 5
All scenarios featured a heavily modified Slav civilization that largely relied of Teutonic Knights and Leitis as the core of Bohemian armies. The campaign also featured several innovative mechanics, such as random fires during the Siege of Vienna Scenario, as well as the core "occupation" mechanic of Scenario 3, which is a new take on Risk that I have not seen before. The last scenario felt the most "by the numbers", being a fairly simple "build up and destroy a fixed force enemy army", though even there, there were some unique mechanics associated with new construction options. Overall, the campaign is brimming with clever ideas, and they are largely incorporated into gameplay in interesting ways.
Map Design: 4
the maps were fun to explore, but overall, they felt less detailed than some prior campaign-length scenarios from the same author; there were also some strange design choices, such as the abovementioned ford chokepoint in Scenario 3, as well as the inclusion of Hungary in Scenario 1 that didn't have any impact on the game, or the story - though I suppose it could have been foreshadowing. While I still enjoyed exploring the maps, Scenarios 2 and 5 were far more barren than what I would've hoped for.
Story/Instructions: 5
The designer put a lot of effort into the story, and a text-to-speech voicework accompanied the entire campaign, with intro/outro slideshows and a decent amount of voice lines throughout each scenario. Barring a few typos in the slides, the story was well-told. The Hints and Scouts section for each scenario was likewise informative and useful. There was a discrepancy with the final cutscene in scenario 5, where only a part of the voiced line was captioned; aside from that, had no issues, and I really enjoyed the introduction of the antagonists early on, serving as foreshadowing for the eventual conflict.
Additional Comments: "Ottokar" is a fantastic campaign, dealing with an episode of European history that doesn't usually get a lot of attention, and doing so in absolutely fantastic manner. There's a ton of creative ideas here and the campaign does a lot to showcase the power of the DE scenario editor. I strongly recommend this one, both for the gameplay, and for the story.
[Edited on 02/17/21 @ 01:06 AM]
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.4 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 5.0 | Balance | 3.0 | Creativity | 5.0 | Map Design | 4.0 | Story/Instructions | 5.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 1,232 |
Favorites: [] | 1 |
Size: | 134.90 MB |
Added: | 01/23/20 |
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