Blacksmith Features
October 26, 2004 by Anastasia

Download Now!

Towton 1461 AD

By MCrnigoj

Towton 1461 AD, by MCrnigoj is a challenging fixed force campaign with anengaging historical theme depicting what is known as “England’s bloodiestbattle.” The battle of Towton was waged early — just six years into thethirty year struggle for the throne of England known as the War of the Roses.The brutal battle is generally viewed as indecisive of the long anddestructive civil war, however in terms of the sheer ferocity and liveslost, it is perhaps the most memorable. In any event, it is certainlyfitting of this awesome one scenario campaign that is a virtual reenactmentcreated for Age of Kings. Agers, relive the bitterness of the historicbattle waged in a snow storm, and experience the driven snow at Towton thatwas said to have turned to crimson from the bloodshed.

The campaign begins with captivating cut-scenes that characterize thehistorical figures and portray the preparation and the battle’s opening.Although Marko Crnigoj concedes a less than 100% accuracy of the historicportrayal, I was unable to find a detail of the history not visited in someway in the map design and game play. Besides this is a scenario withgame-plot, and it provides the potential for the player cast on the side ofthe historic victor (the Yorkist faction), to be defeated by the Lancastrianfaction. A five-second history lesson on the War of the Roses is, the namecame from the badges of arms worn by the two factions. The symbol of the Houseof York was a white rose. The symbol of the House of Lancaster was a redrose. The actual phrase “War of the Roses” didn’t appear until Shakespeare’stime, and Shakespeare did make use of this imagery in Henry VI and inRichard III. In contrast to any romantic images, this campaign paints amuch more realistic picture of the cruel war and fierce battle at Towton’sbloody meadow.

The game play is a new twist on the enhanced fixed force campaignsconceived and made popular by scenario designer MCrnigoj, in that playersonly control a limited number of units to effect the outcome. I’m not sure,but I think this is the first of the unique designs by Marko where the ‘KillRatio’ plays a major role in achieving victory. Still, the unique moralesystem that was featured in his previous titles, continues to challenge usto shape our strategy using calculated tactics. The limited number, andvariation of actual player units might cause some to consider the game playto be easier in regard to tactical advances. However, there is a built inpersonality for the key hero class units, and it posed a new difficulty tocontrolling them. The three major heroes; King Edward IV, Earl of Warwick,and Lord Fauconberg are being controlled with triggers to behave in theirhistoric personalities. This aspect of the built in personality was somewhatdisconcerting for me, and although it added to the overall challenge it wasnot particularly favored by me. From the standpoint of creativity for theconcept it is excellent, however it was a cause for frustration and especiallyin the Moderate and Hard levels of difficulty. Try as I might, I couldnot achieve victory on Moderate in time for and prior to this feature, andI think it’s fair to imagine that the balance of the Hard level makes thescenario virtually impossible to achieve victory in. Therefore, I recommendplaying on Standard difficulty first and then if you are experienced playerto play Moderate. Also, I should note that this game is for The Conquerorsexpansion only and is recommended that it is played on a system with atleast 256MB of RAM. However, I did play on two systems and while on a lowerend system (128MB RAM), I found the lag created bearable.

The experience of the campaign is phenomenal, and even if your not up tothe test of the game-play, I recommend the campaign just for the openingscenes alone. Whatever the motivation, I doubt that anyone will be able toleave the campaign without victory due to the incredible portrayal of theenemy faction and the audio taunts of the Duke of Somerset. Finally, tointensify and further underscore the historic realism created, there istwo versions of the campaign given, and with one intended for use with a’snow mod’ that was easily installed and uninstalled using MPS 2.0(Mod Pack Studio). Nonetheless, players can experience the bitter forecastof the fateful day in both versions of Towton 1461 AD, by MCrnigoj, and atthe Blacksmith now!