Story summary:
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You have served the king for long three years before you recieve a letter from your foster parent. In it, he informs you that a new barbaric invasion has come from the north and the king is pulling back his warlords from the south (where you are) and sending new troops do defend the border. When you finally arrive at your keep you realise that all the great lords are with the king at war and your land is greatly undefended. An old enemy by the name of count De'Arnise "snake" Vaakith is recruiting a large army of mercenaries to raid your lands and kill you in the process. With the smoke collums from distant raided villages already raising in the horizon, you wonder if the messages you sent to the king and your foster parents have been delivered or not. You finally send a letter to the Archbishop, claiming that your land is at peril. He can't do much though as your land is but a small settlement. With this in mind you must create a profitable deal so the church will heed to your cause.
Play Tips
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The map presents you with various signposts so you must be prepared to be attacked from various directions.
You cannot construct an extra mill so protect yours at all costs!
Use the lands between the two rivers for apple orchards and farms. Wood is abundant but the stone quarries are far away so don't be afraid to erect wooden walls early and then replace them as you can.
I don't like how fires can just destroy a city in minutes so don't fear for there are no fires!
(until you set up a pitch path on fire in midlle of your base)
Beware of large armies coming your way. Be sure to have many foot troops in addition to archers in order to block your enemy in places where the wall might not be closed and stop him from destroying all your farms and churches!
I wanted to create a realistic river with a sloping terrain showing where the river goes and making some long high bridges over it. I also wanted to have a swamp of sorts and am very happy with the result.
Notice the rocks that mark where fords cross the river.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the map.
** SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON **
When I played this map after many tests I had a blast. The constant enemy invasions really keep you up to pace. I have set up my castle with many dairy farms in the middle in front of the keep and my industry buildings (weapons makers and breweries) around the keep itself. My hovels where scattered trough the forest on the back.
The very early game had me run like mad for wood to set up my perimeter. I also invested heavily on the stone carriers and could have a thin stone wall all across one face of the map before the first medium invasions. There where inumerous times though when my thin wall would be breached and the maceman would spread trough the farms creating havoc before I could send my own macemen to take care of them.
As the war escalated I had a full perimeter of stone walls with small turrets and crenelattions and could resist the two big invasions in the middle. By this time I had already plenty of gold and the required population cap with plenty of troop reserves. I then started to build churches everywhere to get the right blessed percentage and it worked really well.
By the time the last big invasio narrived I had built many big towers with ballistas, had plenty of pitch and firepots that the battle was not very hard, but still had that satisfying feeling of a job well done.
I hope you enjoy this map as much I have enjoyed making it!
Thanks, I appreciate your compliment. Did you find it hard or easy?
I had my walls breached all the time, and the enemy coming from all around the map had me changing my archers & crossbowman all the time.
FroobaChoob
Posted on 02/16/07 @ 12:12 PM
This Map Looks Sweet. I'll Have to play This.
Will Rate Soon, Real Soon.
arhurt File Author
Posted on 02/16/07 @ 12:40 PM
Thanks, I look foward to it :)
Sir Lurchalot
Posted on 02/18/07 @ 08:33 AM
Nice map, I enjoyed playing it. Also, a refreshing break not having to fight fires. {smile}
I played it twice, which is my usual method; first on easy to learn the enemy's movements and to learn the different aspects of the terrain. Then on Very Hard which I found very enjoyable and managed to win without loosing a single trooper.
Personally, I like having to manage resources and feeding the population while increasing it to 300 proved interesting. Particulary so when the deer didn't re-spawn quite as fast as I had expected. But thanks to the ample space for building dairies, it wasn't realy difficult.
Overall, I'd say it was fairly easy but that might be because of my playing style. I'm much better at defense than offense and take full advantage of what the landscape has to offer in defensive positioning. The attackers never even came close to my keep nor did the do any significent damage to anything. I pretty well dropped them like flies. {grin}
arhurt File Author
Posted on 02/22/07 @ 06:19 PM
"... I'm much better at defense than offense and take full advantage of what the landscape has to offer in defensive positioning. The attackers never even came close to my keep nor did the do any significent damage to anything. I pretty well dropped them like flies. {grin}"
Really? What did you do with the marsh area south of the keep? That was my weakest area as it was hard to actually close the walls around it. As I said my main problem was having few stone slabs and as a consequence, Thin walls that the enemy kept breaching.
Thank you for the kind reply. Indeed, after I played it a few more times it became easier. I guess I'm getting better at the game :D because I had some difficult times the first time I played it.