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Death's Pass - Duke's Road Mountain Outpost
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Author |
File Description |
lollard97367 |
Posted on 09/12/05 @ 02:10 AM
File Details |
Map Size: |
200x200 (Small) |
Difficulty: |
Hard |
Minimap:
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Death's Pass, Duke's Road
The Cruth Mountains of the Grand Dutchy of Karamiekos are home to both the highest peaks and fiercest fighters of the land. Winding through the clouded mountain peaks, The Duke's Road is the only passage between Specularum (the capital city) and Selenica (the neighboring capital city to the NW). Duke Stephen Karamiekos II has recently ordered that new outposts be built along the Duke's Road. The main mission of these mountain outposts is to "influence by force" (kill) the mountain tribes who launch raids on the merchant caravans as they travel between the two capitals. The Duke also wishes to prevent an eventual alliance of the mountain tribes into one unstoppable army. The Duke's Road is approximately 550 miles long and rises to over 9000 feet elevation (Death's Pass) at some points. You have just been promoted to Commander of Northern Forts and Roads. Many happy returns and be sure to pack your cold weather gear.
You have made the long journey north into the mountains following the Duke's Road. Numerous archers, pikemen, and crossbowmen accompany you. You passed the first fortified mountain base of Jerod's Peak two days ago. After a quick inspection of the tiny base, your group continued to climb north up the road. Finally, you are nearing Death's Pass. At the treeline below the pass is your new base of operations, a fort called Fuel Summit. Named for the natural pools of pitch discovered in close proximity, Fuel Summit is larger than Jerod's Peak, but still small in comparison to sprawling southern castles you are used to defending. At some time during its construction, a dry moat was excavated around Fuel Summit. This man-made moat floods with glacier ice melt run-off most of the year, and never drains completely. The pitch comodity, the location of the camp in relation to the pass, and the natural water barrier makes Fuel Summit the model outpost. Settle in and collect the precious fuel (100 pitch) and keep it guarded on the nearby stockpile. Without a fuel reserve the fort will not endure! Also, prevent Fuel Summit from being taken by raiding mountain residents at all costs. You have taken a Mountain King captive (along with his followers) and holding them in a secure area (the square wall area in the lower left corner). They will attempt to escape at the earliest opportunity and should be considered armed and dangerous and need to be shot on sight (killing the enemy king is a win condition). The Cruth Mountains are a miserable place to live, so you need to get 100% of your population drinking ale up here (win condition). You are also a capitalist, use the market to get your share of the profits as well as defend your homeland's most important international thoroughfare, The Duke's Road.
Lets Keep Up the Ratings and Comments!
Lollard
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Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Skaarj |
Posted on 10/11/05 @ 09:05 AM
Playability: 5
WOW! What can I say... This map is absolutely perfect in every respect. The scenario is very challenging and very fun. I thoroughly enjoyed this map, and I recommend any1 new or old with stroghold crusader to download. I rate this map as my number 1 favourite economic/invasion map. Good Job Lollard!
Balance: 5
Absolutely perfect nothing wrong here. Seems properly play-tested several times at least, and so I cant find anything that needs work :)
Creativity: 5
Pure genius. Lollard, your maps are fantastic!
Map Design: 5
Brilliant. I love the excellent use of varying terrain types. The author obviously knows how to use the map editor to its full capacity (and more!).
Story/Instructions: 5
This story was absolutely perfect. I could not resist playing the map after reading it. Fantastic!
Additional Comments:
Brilliant map, brilliant map maker. Nothing much more to say except that you should work for firefly studious (unless you already do!) ;) |
Stratego |
Posted on 10/16/05 @ 02:00 PM
Hi Lollard,
this map might be great, if there wasn't one thing that's making playability worse:
In case you should lose the only two hovels through fire ( and this bad event happened several times) it makes no sense to play on, so you are forced to restart; alas, you aren't allowed to build hovels here...!
I suggest to allow wells, at least.
Stratego |
lollard97367
File Author |
Posted on 10/16/05 @ 06:08 PM
The starting well is all you get. The map is possible to win.
Lollard |
Lord_of_Hell |
Posted on 12/13/10 @ 12:56 PM
As this map already holds an outstanding score of 5, told myself I should try it out. What I saw is just another old map overrated.
Playability: 2.5; Balance 3,5
Few things can be placed in this scenario, among them not being hovels and wells. 2 Hovels and few wells are already placed - a limited peasants game, already an original idea, unless fire event comes and ruin most of the gameplay, being forced to restart the map. Most of the times fire is estinguished but after several times occuring, hovels stand less and less chances to make it alive. Invasions bothers you all the time, that wouldn't be a major problem unless they target the moat nearby the singpost which cannot be re-digged, so every next invasion they will just go for the king.
Plague event, not one, not two but a lot of them - set to occur periodically - what taxes could I use to do the 10k gold request for winning then?
No single good event at all, the fate doesn't want you to win this game.
As the time passes, stronger invasions will arrive, but that's not what makes the game "hard" - no, the game is not hard. It is rather the things which ruins the gameplay that also ruins most of the balance, being forced to restart the game over 20 times and playing like 200 game years just to win this one(annoying, believe me). As for the moat bug which the AI uses it in his advantage (can't re-dig it as it's too close to singpost; but not surprising as this is a 160x160 map), I had to use the trick known as "open walls" but instead of walls there is moat here. Just open a gap in the moat and invasions will bindly rush to that hole, the few crossbowmen you posses doing a great job.
Creativity: 3
It is really a challenge to show excellent creativity in a very small map 160x160 like this one, and can well be seen that, except for the story which saves most of the scenario from getting an under-average score, the author didn't do much on this matter.
Map Design: 2.5
It is possible to design an outstanding terrain on a very small map, but it seems that the author didn't even try to make a realistic ground. Even from the minimap there can be seen a hill in the middle with some moat surrounding it and some grass here & there.
Story/Instructions: 4
Well at least the author tried to do something better on this map - the story. A preety funny thing which amused me on this stage: The story avaiable in a Word file is written with size 22 TNR which is huge. Apparently the story has 2 pages and a half but after resizing the words to standard size of 12, it doesn't take more than one page. That takes me to the thinking that the author tried to influence reviewers by "impressing" them with the story's apparent lenght so it would get an outstanding score. Of course, on another hand the story can be read better for some people if written bigger.
Anyway, 'long' or 'short', I think the story fairly deserves a 4.
Additional Comments:
TNR = Times New Roman. |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.1 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 3.8 | Balance | 4.3 | Creativity | 4.0 | Map Design | 3.8 | Story/Instructions | 4.5 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 1,958 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 366.91 KB |
Added: | 09/12/05 |
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