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Author |
File Description |
Lord Ako |
Posted on 03/25/04 @ 12:00 AM
File Details |
Map Size: |
400x400 (Large) |
Difficulty: |
Normal |
First of all there are two things that are very important:
1: YOU MUST HAVE AQUIRED 200 CHEESE AND 200 BREAD IN JANUARI 1450, ANY LATER AND YOU WILL LOSE! (This is because of the story and I will explain how the scripting works below) 2: PLAY ONLY AT NORMAL OR HARD DIFFICULTY, OTHERWISE THE SCRIPTING DOESN'T WORK!
STORY
The mighty Lord d'Arnise is organizing a contest for the hand of his most weighty daughter, Andrea! Not only will this be your chance to aquire a voloptuous wife, but Lord d'Arnise offers some of his riches and land as a wedding gift as well! Andrea wants two hundred loafs of delicious bread and two hundred of the finest cheddar cheeses for her wedding. Contestants will have untill januari 1450 to amass these delicacies, the first to succeed will be Andrea's lawull wedded husband no later than june that same year. Be aware however that Lord d'Arnise does not allow bloodshed among contestants because he fears he will be held responsible by the King. So far there are four contestants: local lords known as "The Snake" and "The Rat" have entered probably because they are looking to expand their wealth, influence and territory."The Wolf", who has been passionately in love with Andrea for years, has entered as well. The final contestant is a mysterious stranger that has taken up residence at the ruined abbey near Glendalough, which was tragically lost in a great fire last year. Perhaps he is not aware that the starving and parched troops of cruel Lord "The Pig" have been plundering the nearby countryside recently? Or maybe he is hoping to aquire some help from the few survivors and outlaws that have been rumoured to dwell in the nearby woods? Whatever his reasons, he better be ready for a challenge...
NOTES This map is part economic, part battlefield. What I mean is that you will first have a long time to build up your forces and reach some economic goals and then you will have to defend yourself against multiple invasions, probably in the open field. This map might be a little different from what you are used to because you can't build any fortifications. (walls,towers and gates) However, there are an abbey and a nearby small fortification present, you can see them in this screenshot:
While you might be initially let down because you can't build any fortifications, I still advice you to give this map a try because you will probably find that fighting in the open field can also be a lot fun! I have also compensated for this restiction by giving you almost limitless options concerning your army and economy. You can either choose to settle inside the abbey or nearby. Settling inside will provide some protection but will probably result in lower productivity of your workers. Whatever you decide, I advice you to station your main force at the nearby fortification because the abbey won't be able to withstand a direct assault for long. Fighting near the fortification will also allow you to make efficient use of pitch and rotten cows and you can put a mangonel/ballista and some of your archers on top of it. Here is an example of what I did:
Note that you'll be able to aquire some reinforcements in this map. First of all you can recruit the help of some monks that survived the fire and retreated to the nearby woods, they will bring their outlaw fiends with them. (Archers) They will come when you have blessed your people (25,50,75,100%), when you aquire lots of gold (1000,2000,3000) and when you have cleared the map of wolves. You can decide for yourself whether or not you persue this but you can receive up to a hundred archers at once!(100% blessed)
The second way to receive reinforcements is by "ceding" the invasion of the Pig late in 1449. (The "cede" event makes all enemy troops on the map yours.) I will now explain how the cede and lose events work in this map. They are both related to the invasion(s) by the Pig and can result in three different outcomes:
POSSIBILITY 1: At least 200, but less than 250 cheese AND bread is aquired januari 1450 at the latest. This triggers the "Turn off repeating invasions" event and will prevent the player from losing due to having too little food. This will result in ONLY one invasion of the Pig to show up. Now the player either kills the Pigs men or the Pigs men kill the player.
POSSIBILITY 2: At least 250 bread AND cheese is aquired and 100% of your people is drinking ale. This will also result in ONLY one invasion by the pig which will then be ceded in Nov or Dec 1449 or Jan 1450. It cant happen any later because the granary is stolen empty in feb 1450. (The food is collected by Andrea.)This also automatically means that the player will not lose because he/she will surely have the 200 bread and cheese by Januari 1450 and the repeating invasions will be turned off. The food requirement for the cede is higher than the food requirement for the wedding because I have to be sure that the player will not be lucky and cede the invasion and then his food stocks drop below the requirement because that way my method of determining if the player has the food does not work, and the player will not lose, even though he/she should.
POSSIBILITY 3: LESS than 200 bread and/or cheese have been aquired before januari 1450 and the "Turn off repeating invasions" event is NOT triggered. This will ALWAYS result in the player losing, either by the hand of the Pigs troops or because the "Enemy troops killed: 55 Pig >>Lose" event is triggered in may 1450.
TIPS
Now that that's clear I will provide some additional tips, but note that I consider the freedom and number of options you have in this map as its strongest point so experiment and use your own strategy. ;) >You may have to put food consumption at "half rations" for some time. >You can disable the consumption of specific food types by pressing the "stop sign" when you have the granary selected. >I found it very handy to use religion and ale to get the reinforcements, as well as a popularity bonus. >Collect as much pitch as you can, it will make the battle much easier. >Use trebuchets or catapults to hurl dead cows at your enemies. >Don't be afraid to place a lot of buildings, or even your keep, outside the abbey, but try to place your more expensive buildings inside it. >Peasants and troops are UNABLE TO WALK THROUGH the farm parts of Hops Farms. This can be a problem when placing hops farms inside the abbey. If the next Hops Farm you place blocks walking just place it somewhere else and then delete it, now the one you place will be rotated and will probably not block your pathway. >This map has a few "good things" in it which you can either delete for money or use as a bonus to your popularity and the damage your troops do. (Note that this also lowers the productivity of your workers however.)
CREDITS
Special thanks to my playtesters, Jalis, NAT, Aubergine/Admin and Finrod_Felagund! I recently learned how to do some more advanced scripting (cedes especially) from the SD Bible at www.stronghold-knights.com Also thanks to Google for providing me with the idea for the abbey, lol.
In case you are wondering: the Zip file also contains this information as well as a screenshot of the minimap and the map itself ofcourse, hehe.
I hope you will enjoy playing this map as much as I enjoyed making it, cheers, Lord_Ako. (Aron Groot)
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Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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bloodhoof |
Posted on 04/10/04 @ 12:00 AM
Playability 5
Cool, what can I say? Very good map, I had a lot of fun when playing it. Good use of scripting made the map very, very interesting to play. I liked that there weren’t any fire events (personally I don’t like fire). I liked that you must use all resources and build as much as possible farms, mines, etc to raise more money and defend against lots of enemy at the end.
Balance 4
I think it could be a bit harder. When you use maximum chances you can easily defend against the enemy. I had about 90 archers and about 45 crossbowmen when the invasions started and they were all at that tower (near the chapel) plus I had about 15 crossbowmen on the gate. At the end there was left 81 archer and 43 crossbowmen. Can you believe it, the enemy didn’t even crumbled a wall of monastery.
Creativity 5
Very creative monastery idea! Your scripting was very creative, I especially liked when you collect gold and raise religion then lots of archers come. Very creative!
Map Design 5
Of course five or even more. Your marsh was great and very great exposition of resources.
Story/Instructions 4
Story and instruction were great and very interesting, but everything was mixed up a bit.
Very good work, long ago I played such a great map!
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Bismuth |
Posted on 05/22/04 @ 12:00 AM
Hard to know where to begin in reviewing Glendalough Abbey. This excellent game has been on the website for almost two months with only one review and it deserves more attention.
The first thing that struck me was the superb terrain that Lord Ako has created. It is beautiful and yet sinister at the same time. The swamps, seashore and the rocky terrain are carefully crafted. The land has many resources including pitch and quarry stone. But these items are not just stuck out in some unnatural spot but are worked into the overall landscape in a very natural looking way.
The ruined abbey also is especially well done and realistic. The ground has been textured and peppered with small stones in a way that also limits where building and production facilities can be placed. Map - 5, Creativity - 5
OK, let me be honest, I played maybe four times and I never won this game. I attribute this to my skill level plus the fact that I had several kids looking over my shoulders giving sometimes conflicting advice. I was going to try on EASY but then I noticed the warning not to use this setting.
The game is very carefully balanced. Lord Ako must have spent hours playing and replaying plus he has involved several playtesters. There seem to be just enough land to produce just enough of the resources needed. The timing is very close and the scripting very clever. A small mistake in any direction can bring disastrous shortages and low popularity. Though I did not reach victory I kept wanting to try again and to a little better. Playability - 5, Balance - 4.5
Well written story with over 1200 words of textual support. Lord Ako explains the various win options and also gives many hints. (Guess I need to study these more carefully!) I only wish the author had included bit of actual historical background on the Abbey. Story – 4.5
Thanks for the great scenario Lord Ako.
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.7 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 5.0 | Balance | 4.0 | Creativity | 5.0 | Map Design | 5.0 | Story/Instructions | 4.5 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 1,603 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 751.91 KB |
Added: | 03/25/04 |
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