This is the second map in the series of the royal love affairs in which you always seem to get intwined in...
Time has passed since your first encounter with the French soldiers under the Count de la Rouen where you saved his life. A time which by most has been passed amongst handsome mademoiselles and delirious french wine in your newly assigned post at the river Seine.
But one day, whilst leading a hunting party along with the earl, you come across the wounded, french commander Comte de la Rouen - a ghost from the past. Remembering the queens request from your first mission, your first impulse is to help him heal his wounds, but considering the earl being the kings nephew that would not be a good idea.
Consequently you place him under arrest and place him in your secret dungeon. Sending a courier to the King and another to the Queen.
Expecting an answer in two weeks you set out for Caen hoping to settle the testamonial dispute your father left you.
Coming home you find the castle in chaos. The french had raided the castle in search for the captive, luckily he was well hidden. Unluckily your castle are in ruins and you must build it up quickly to withstand the probable invasions.
At last your orders arrive, from both the King and the Queen.
His Majesty charges you with the task of retrieving the 20000 in ransom, which has been ordered, then kill the Comte.
The Queen has in secret ordered you to spare him.
Consequently: the french want him back, the Queen wants him with her and the King wants him dead.
This is a hard map and requires quick action at the beginning to survive.
P.S. NAT: thank you for a nice review, your advice has been noted as you may see.
The file has been updated and corrected, hopefully. Post bugs please...
NAT
Posted on 08/27/04 @ 12:00 AM
This is a good fun map to play, an equally good sequel to chapter one. Very playable map with loads to do, lots of building space and invasiosn to hold off. I started well (as the storyline advised) building up to the 20 thousand gold target strongly (big target!). I did complete the map first attempt (amazingly!) and I enjoyed it greatly. I slightly redesigend the city layout by scrapping the ruined wooden fort to the South but built up the main castle with plenty of buildings outside the walls.
The map was on the whole well designed and the scores here are nearly 4s with a nice ruined castle and fort. There are some good but simple hills around the outside as well as the odd river. There are also good amounts of wood, stone and iron. The castle itself is my favourite bit in the map in design terms and the addition of the enemy lord penned in is a nice feature.
Storyline is good, certainly an interesting tale - you have to concentrate quite hard to know whats going on! One thing that isn't too good is in the site desciption saying how you not 'caring' to post the storyline again on the site. Not a particulaly attrctive feature - could have put it with slightly more subtle touch! Overall though this is a good fun map to play, well balanced and another solid invasion map. Good work!
No major bugs to mention that I found - all fine :)