After the downfall of jerusalem the kings were on the way to egypt,but on they way the have capured the dominian fort of the arab forces.The fort was important whie the supleis (food gold weapons)for the people in the country.
MISSION:Take down by a little army the castle and bring back the suplies!
Playability:
“Dirty Land” is an unspectacular siege scenario that fell short of my expectations regarding the concept and creative aspects. “Kill the enemy Lord”, that’s your unmistakable task, and if you take your initial contingent of units into consideration, you may doubt about it. The enemy’s small and irregularly formed castle is located on a spacious craggy elevation and manned by relatively powerful defensive forces, consisting of crossbowmen, archers, macemen, spearmen, and a handful of swordsmen.
There’s a narrow path leading up to the gate at the rear, obviously the one and only natural access to the interior area of the fortifications. After a systematical approach I hadn’t any problems to clear off the enemy walls and towers by using the two fire ballistae and the bunch of archers. Hoping to be confronted with a cede scenario I got a bit disappointed that the game finished abruptly after the Lord’s death. The author wrote about different food, gold and weapon supplies, but there weren’t any economic activities/objectives to accomplish.
Balance:
I personally managed to win with the assistance of my fire ballistae, the archers and slingers (just one assassin in order to open the gatehouse). Other units like pikemen, mounted knights, spearmen or Arabian swordsmen, didn’t come into action, and in favor of a more challenging tougher map, it might be a good idea to reduce the starting number of troops. I’ve just lost three archers while advancing carefully, and this is a fairly respectable score in my opinion. I’d mark the difficulty level down to “normal” as it’s no real fun if you’re capable of wiping out the defenders without any resistance.
Creativity:
This is another weaker point that could be optimized as well. Roughly said, it’s a custom and decent siege map, which provides solid foundations of various tactical possibilities to get over this mission. Nevertheless, I missed some additional input (especially a potential economic part) to slip the previously noticed supplies in.
Map Design:
I confess it’s been the interesting minimap that had attracted my interest at first. Oh, how I love such maps like this one! It’s a clear not overloaded layout, and the landscape modeling is well done. The plain areas are patterned and peppered with pebbles, a few isolated big rocks, sandy and sparely grassy ground perfectly blended together. This example of a map design proves that you don’t need much to create a convincing map. Northeast to the castle there’s a peacefully rippling river maybe just for decorative purpose. The castle design isn’t spectacular, and the buildings inside aren’t functional nor used by any of the idle peasants gathering around the camp fire.
Story:
Alas, no real storyline here; and apart from several spelling mistakes it’s a quite rudimentary work.
Additional comments:
Try this nice map and train your siege skills … it will be a satisfying victory!