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Author |
File Description |
Filthydelphia (id: Al_Kharn the Great) |
Posted on 11/25/21 @ 01:26 AM (updated 12/07/21)
File Details |
Version: |
Age of Empires II: DE |
Style: |
Build and Destroy |
Screenshot:
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As legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok, raid and conquer to become a legend of the sagas!
Rise from a petty jarl through raids and plunder to become King of the North and master of the Great Heathen Army in the largest and most ambitious custom scenario ever. Ragnar, your warbands await your command!
Features:
An all-new re-imagining of the custom scenario classic, Ragnar's Raids
Explore and raid from Iceland to Russia on a titanic Ludicrous-sized map (260K tiles!)
Be a Viking king and decide your path in a unique "open world" with 50 objectives to discover and complete
Recruit powerful Viking heroes like Hrolf the Ganger, Olaf the White, and Rurik the Troublemaker
Feel the might and power of the Northmen as you command Berserks, Huskarls, Throwing Axemen, and other units with totally overpowered technologies
Voiced story
About the Author:
Filthydelphia (xbox: PhillySouljah) is the award-winning designer of historical custom campaigns and official content for the Age of Empires franchise. Formerly part of the Forgotten Empires campaign team, his works include the Portuguese, Burmese, Bulgarian, Italian, Indian, and Sicilian campaigns featured in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition as well as several campaigns in Age of Empires: Definitive Edition. Outside of Age of Empires, he is a captain in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and has an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
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Pages: « First « 1 [2] | Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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rakovsky |
Posted on 05/14/22 @ 08:52 PM
Playability: 4
I beat it on HARD, and the most challenging part was the opening section, because I wanted to gradually explore and conquer eastwards, whereas the mission design seems to want you to begin by raiding the northern Scottish islands. The second most challenging part was conquering York because it seems to churn out an ongoing stream of enemy Teutonic knights and cavaliers on HARD, and because I was keeping units at my Mead Halls in case the enemies raided them, which lowered the size of my invasion force.
The biggest problem was that I couldn't figure out one of the 50 objectives, so I had to open it in the Editor in order to find out what the uncompleted objective was (I needed to build a Mead Hall in England). It would be helpful to give the player the list of Objectives in the form of a text Help file in case the player can't figure them all out.
Otherwise, I was able to explore the map and meet objectives with good ease.
Balance: 5
The balance was good because I beat it on HARD, I consider myself an above average Single Player gamer, and it was challenging when it came to fighting Northumbria in York. Fighting Jomsburg felt a little intimidating too because I didn't know ahead of time how strongly they would fight and how many units they would spawn.
The first time that I tried on Hard, I stupidly paid 425 gold for an upgrade in the opening stage of the game, thereby using up all my gold. I gave up because without gold, I couldn't train more soldiers, and I figured that if I explored to find gold, I could run into enemy viking ships that would sink my transports. Plus, I needed a home defense force against enemy raids.
So I restarted on HARD and I went first for the Swedish coast gold with a transport. Then I built a longship for costal fighting support and got the Sword on Bornholm island east of Denmark. Next I captured the two western Swedish coastal cities by using a raiding tactic. Then I captured Jutland and Ribe in north Germany. Soon afterward a viking raid marched against Jutland, but I defeated it because my troops were fairly close by in transport ships. Then I took Vastergotland and Smaland. In the case of the latter, their defenders followed me far from their home base as I retreated and then I came back and captured it while the defenders were sitting far away. I reunited Sweden and "the Thing" (assembly) recognized me.
After getting all the Mead halls and having a population limit of 130, I just had England (Light Blue and Yellow) and France left to capture. I took out the southeastern French city (Aachen) by attacking from the east, and that city was fairly easy. However, Northumbria (light blue) seems very difficult on HARD. I had been keeping about 1 soldier at each mead hall for protection from raids, and only lost 1 out of about 24 villagers and maybe 1 out of 10 hero units that I've gotten, so I have an army size limit of about 50 disposable units for attacking. Northumbria however seems to just send out a constant stream of enemies when I attack it. I don't know if it has a constant production rate or why it has so many enemies. It churns out cavaliers and Teutonic knights, along with a few priests. My army of about 50 units is enough to get through the first big wave of enemies after I've knocked some of their standing enemies with a little trick- when their enemies are near the water, they don't attack my longboats, but I can attack them. So by the time that they blew through my first assembled attacking army (almost 50 units), I had broken through their walls and destroyed 1 light blue monastery and their stable. Next I assembled another 50 unit army and it was not very hard at that point, since I had been whittling down the Light Blue units in the outskirts of the Light Blue city (York).
After beating Northumbria, and with the only remaining enemies being Yellow and Purple northeast of the French Seine river (I took Aachen and the northern French coast), I beat Jomsburg, which gave me the Victory option at the Meadhall. I actually found beating Jomsburg, which I thought might be the biggest battle, easier than beating York (Light Blue city).
One trick or exploit that I found helpful to deal with huge masses of tough units was to send Rognvald near the enemy city with some galleys, and then the enemies would come out, and surround and attack him while my galleys attacked the enemies. Since Rognvald has like 25 million HP, the only way that the enemies can overpower him is by mobbing him so that he can't move and by killing any of my units near him. But since land enemies don't attack my galleys, the galleys are able to whittle down the enemies.
CREATIVITY: 5
Combined with the "Story" element, this was the best part of the mission. It felt adventuresome to explore the map and try to meet objectives, as I wondered what new part of the "Saga" would open up. For example, exploring Russia led to the eastern steppes and to nomadic tribes there.
Map Design: 4
The map design was a lot of fun because of how much the Designer packed into this big map.
Rognvald, a unit who you can find, has over 25 million HP. I don't know if this is intentional.
When the enemies stand by the shores and practically let themselves get targeted by my arrow ships and only move away bit by bit when they get hit, it feels like they are mannequins or stuffed animals that don't react. It's alittle bit of a glitchy weird feeling. The owner might work out the bumps in his map by fixing Rognvald's huge HP and making it so that enemies run from galleys faster. But if he did that, it would make the map even harder, and it's hard enough even with these potential exploits.
It's not a big deal, but in the mead hall and in Kiev's stable, there is an option to upgrade my units, and the price is in food, stone/runes, and gold. It costs hundreds of gold that I don't have (like 750), yet the option to research the upgrade isn't grade out, and I was able to research the elite boyars even though I don't have enough gold. Maybe the runes count for gold, but I don't know.
STORY/INSTRUCTIONS: 4
I like this mission a lot. I became king of Denmark and then started exploring the NW edge of the map. the vikings' exploration of North America is a neat historical note. I got to the pretty Saxon monastery southwest of Hedeby and would rather capture it somehow, but I guess that I have to destroy it in order to meet one of Hrorek's Saga objectives, although to win the mission per se, all you need to do is defeat Jomsburg.
One of the tricks is figuring out the mission's special mechanics. Not only can you capture viking villages ("mead halls"), you can also lose them, and there are enemy viking raids against your bases. When you lose a viking village, it's not clear if enemies automatically spawn there, or if the ones at their newly-captured mead hall are the ones from the enemy raid.
I don't know how you are supposed to perform the "prayer" action that one of the Designer's comments mentions, if you are supposed to research something or move an object somewhere, or if this feature has been disabled.
On HARD, I met all the objectives except for one: It's in the Saga of Ragnar's Sons, which has 7 objectives. I succeeded in:
-Settling England
-Sacking York
-Sacking London.
-Killing Edmund
-Killing Aella
-Raising the Great Heathen Army
I checked the Editor and it turns out that the missing goal that I didn't meet is to build a Mead Hall for a "Jarldom" in England. This makes sense because one of the stated goals is to Settle England. However, it's not fully obvious because "settling" would normally mean to put a town center or "longhouse" someplace because they can make villagers. Plus, I already met the objective of "Settling" England.
The Editor also mentions a Trigger where you use a hero who you find in the southern section of the map by the French coast to kill the French knight Robert, one of the enemy heroes. But in my gameplay, I killed Robert before finding that playable hero.
There was no Outro. When I don't see one in AOE2 DE, I get worried that a glitch blocked it, because sometimes that happens in AOE2DE, and the only way to see the outro seems to be to use the victory cheat.
On one hand, it's neat to have an unspecified "achievement" pop up surprisingly during game play, but it's also a problem if you try unsuccessfully to figure out what you need to do in order to meet the 50 Saga goals. So I suggest that the Creator provide a list of all the objectives, like in a Help text file or Readme.
Additional Comments:
After an hour and 25 minutes of play, I notice that the I numeral for my Age at the top of the screen is blinking. I guess it means that I have enough resources that if I had a town center, I could age up there. But the mission doesn't let you build one- it's not part of the Scenario. I don't consider this a bug.
HINTS:
One way to help protect yourself against raids is to keep a little defensive force at the Hedeby or Jutland area that the enemies seem to focus on targeting.
When I got to Jomsburg (near Wolin in the NW corner of Poland today), it says that the place is dangerous, but there is no explanation on how to interact with it, and my units can't attack it. I figured that I need to explore or capture other things first. Eventually a message appeared saying that I could choose to fight Jomsburg by clicking an option in my Mead Halls. I am not sure what triggered that message, but building my forces and exploring elsewhere may have contributed. |
Ragnar Lodbrok |
Posted on 09/01/23 @ 03:40 AM
can i request some scnario? |
Pages: « First « 1 [2] |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.8 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.7 | Balance | 5.0 | Creativity | 5.0 | Map Design | 4.7 | Story/Instructions | 4.7 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 676 |
Favorites: [] | 2 |
Size: | 59.40 MB |
Added: | 11/25/21 |
Updated: | 12/07/21 |
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