Focused mainly on the gameplay rather than an eye candy map design, this missions main objective is to defend your keep and the land around it from the arabic lord while collecting food for your ally in distant lands. Collecting the goods required and fighting off your opposition proves hard in this mission since resources are limited and the local trader insists that he will only carry limited stock items. Build your stronghold up quickly because you dont have long before the attacks begin. Collect all the goods required to acomplish your task.
-Acquire 3000 Gold
-Acquire 1500 Bread
-Acquire 1500 Fruit
This mission is very hard and took me many retries to complete it. Can you complete it?
Playability:
At first sight, it’s a (very) promising map and not that hard as the author announced; however, it’s been a fairly lengthy and time-consuming game play.
I managed this typical eco-invasion in my first attempt, but I needed no less than 60 game years and 15 granaries to accomplish all the objectives!
I suggest lowering both food goals (bread and apples) in favor of a shorter playing time. In general, this map is well-playable requiring a good deal of methodical and strategic thinking. To prevent eventually up coming boredom during the final game years you should revise the scripting in the editor, and possibly add more various events livening up the entire playing time. To increase the challenge delete that “invasions stop”-event in 2036 or put it off to 2050 or even later.
Balance:
I was able to beat off the first attacks without any serious problems, though it took me quite a long time till I found an appropriate strategy to handle those annoying lave attacks permanently burning off my food, stone and iron industries. The only two fertile oasis areas are located far away in the south. Towards the end it’s been more a question of individual technique to fulfill the demanded food objectives, particularly since the regularly occurring invasions stopped in 2036 giving you the opportunity to concentrate on the economic part of the mission.
Creativity:
It’s true, this map requires the player’s creativity and his technical abilities to be successful. Any intelligent starting location for the granary will be your first big decision of great import right in the beginning. An intensive exploitation of all iron and stone resources might facilitate your efforts in order to strengthen your army and build up faster your wall system and your gates /towers. I also liked those economic restrictions in the market, especially the possibilities of buying and selling bows. You my not expect a creative masterpiece here; I personally would say it’s an average work.
Map Design:
You’re facing an unspectacular but functional map design, no eye-candies at all, but a respectable good job; you see a good mixture of half-desert grounds and few flat elevations. Your unfavorable starting position isn’t the best on the map up on a dusty and meager plateau. In my opinion, the over supply of wood is quite unusual for the character of a desert landscape.
Story:
The author was anxious to present a compressed survey of what the player would expect. Anyhow, in content I missed more imagination and an embroidered story by making use of direct or indirect speech, for instance.