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Author |
File Description |
Sir_Vet |
Posted on 02/26/09 @ 05:27 PM
File Details |
Map Size: |
300x300 (Medium) |
Difficulty: |
Normal |
Made with version: |
1.2 |
Minimap:
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Boris the Thief - Part 1
The story is included in the zip folder, it's a bit to long to put it up here.
You are Boris the Thief and you have stolen both the Rats and the Snakes gold from their treasuries. Your escape has brought you to an old abandoned outpost, place your market and get ready to spend your gold, there are a few goals to meet and a timer to push you. Spend your gold wisely making more will be hard, your 2 new friends want it back and will be crashing your party.
I hope you enjoy my creation.
By - Sir_Vet |
Pages: [1] 2 » Last » | Author | Comments ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Lord_of_Hell |
Posted on 02/27/09 @ 04:27 PM
wow, gonna download this. looks nice |
peter2008 |
Posted on 02/27/09 @ 04:29 PM
Welcome, Sir_Vet, as now also a Stronghold 1 mapmaker !
A special and dense map once again. It is entertaining and full of trouble on normal, most exciting for power play on very hard.
At the start you have to decide quickly how to employ or train your peasants. The numerous events feel like a yoke - I had to find out how to move my shoulders to bear it.
Numerous hunters brought in food in pleasing amounts. Without them I would have lost popularity during the plagues. Once I had 47 and needed a bribe. Ran out of gold, also twice of food, but food came back quickly. After every catastrophe I disbanded the water bearers to get workers quickly.
The invasions on very hard seem endless, with some archers staying behind killing peasants. Hunters shot back and blocked the charging melees a while. So, though I lost many peasants their dead was quite helpful ...
In the end, the Snake comes with a bad surprise. Managed to survive with low game speed.
Could win only by buying 5 bars of iron.
Enjoyed the hills that you shaped. Liked the distribution of trees, bushes and rocks. And the numerous fine alterations of the elevations. Searched them with my archers hunting hostile animals. The marshy valley looks really interesting with the feeling of a stream turned into a swamp area clearly provided. Funny the single tile of water within the marsh.
Ironically the thief runs out of gold again. But ... he wins new companions.
Many thanks, my friend.[Edited on 03/02/09 @ 06:05 PM]
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MasterofPhate |
Posted on 02/28/09 @ 12:27 AM
Hmm story looks nice for the bit I've read so far. I'll get around to playing it and have a review up in a week or so. |
Captain Diablo |
Posted on 03/02/09 @ 03:29 AM
I just submitted a review as well. I really enjoyed the map, thanks for putting it out! :) |
Sir_Vet
File Author |
Posted on 03/02/09 @ 02:01 PM
Hi Guys, Thank You for the comments and ratings!
And Thank You for the nice welcome to SH1.
MasterofPhate, Thank You for the fine rating. I am a little disappointed with the 3, I put a lot of effort into making the playability match with the different difficulty settings. For an average player you should have some difficulty winning the map on the first try, leaving easy as easy and hard and very hard for the better experienced players.
I have posted a lot of maps for Crusader and SH2, but am now finding that my maps are to hard for the average player, now I have been trying to make my maps a little easier. Sorry you found my map to easy.
Boris 2 has you against the Pig, you have 4 items to gather for the win, all 4 items are needed during game play, and like this map your attackers have better troops and weapons than you do to make it a little more interesting.
Overall I'm glad you enjoyed my map, getting a 4.1 on any map to me is a success, especially when it's the first map I've made for SH1.
Captain Diablo, I will eagerly await your rating, and I will come back and make a response.
Sir_Vet
[Edited on 03/02/09 @ 02:04 PM]
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peter2008 |
Posted on 03/02/09 @ 02:38 PM
Hi MasterofPhate,
I'm sincerely interested in reading your impressions and opinions about maps on SHH. Also I'd like to recommend you reading the Review Guidelines cause your ratings of the single sections seem rather subjective to me.
Creativity, e.g., is not a matter of the player's likes and dislikes, it's more about wether the concept and details of a given map are original or usually known.
Happy writing.[Edited on 03/02/09 @ 02:40 PM]
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MasterofPhate |
Posted on 03/03/09 @ 12:14 AM
I shall clarify my reasoning on playability for ya peter.
this is my creativity rating
3.5
"Personally I am not a fan of such an eco based map, so the rating is lower here. They are fine as vic. conditions, but I still prefer a more militarily based one. Scenario does not stand out too much, as far as uniqueness goes. It is very high quality, just not super unique, only stay in a small portion of the map and defend while making weapons..."
The following quote is from the guideline which I have read.
Creativity
This area is probably second in subjectivity behind playability. Creativity is found in all aspects of a scenario, from map design, to the story, to what units a player is given, to the objectives, to eye-candy used, etc. Every aspect of a scenario factors into creativity. Note that a scenario doesn’t have to be full of the latest tricks or eye-candy to be creative, though these can be considered.
Some things you might like to consider are –
Is there something truly unique about this scenario?
Does the author make good use out of the design tools provided?
Does the scenario stand out in your memory because it features something not found in other scenarios?
How creative is the map design?
How creative are the story/events?
The starting units and positions (the beginning of the scenario
Clarification:
This scenario does not have anything truly unique. It has very normal victory conditions, gather a quantity of goods. The starting position is on an edge, and very little of the map is used, not creative in my opinion. I do not think that I will remember this map in the long run. I have already stated I don't like eco based things. Therefore, I won't like playing it as much, I won't have as much fun and therefore won't remeber it as well. If this map was super creative and stands out, then I would remeber it EVEN though it is not my favorite kind of map. The map did not make me sit amazed at its unigueness, some maps actually have. It feels like it would fit in as one of the invasion maps that are included with the game, which is a great thing, but that means it is very standard, not creative. The map design is flowing and natural. Great for map design, but not creative, several maps are based on marshes, and just as good, again it has nothing to make it stand out.
In the guide, playability and creativity are listed as the top two most subjective of the categories, thus my opinions are going to be implemented in them.
Sorry if this comes across bad, I don't mean it to. I think I have followed the guide to a decent extent. And it is a guide, that means it is not the end all rule doesn't it?
p.s. I am happy to review any maps that you make if you can point me in their direction =)[Edited on 03/03/09 @ 08:49 AM]
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peter2008 |
Posted on 03/03/09 @ 06:58 AM
Hi MasterofPhate,
I esteem how much effort you took to answer my submission. Your clarification really helped me to better understand your approach.
Furthermore, I'm impressed of how decisive subjectivity rules. We guys are individual, our different impressions fascinating and – for mapmaking – challenging.
There is something I had kept in my mind and which made me bother about the first sentence of your creativity rating (but I messed up the categories in the Guidelines). Regarding playability it says: "One thing to look out for when reviewing is to only play scenarios that use a style you enjoy. For example, if you hate playing Economic scenarios, don't try to review one since you are bound to not enjoy the scenario. Try to keep within styles that you enjoy."
Fun and feelings are of course the most important reasons to play a mission at all. When I write a review I let some time pass to get a distance from the personal emotions and try to assume a more comparative view.
As for creativity, I find two things special with "Boris" which both come from Sir_Vet alone (I'm not skilled yet to achieve this level). Scripting is very dense, the player is busy all the time. Either you're perparing for bad events and invasions or you're assimilating the consequences. And the basic concept of initial (stolen) gold you have to get along with during the entire mission. This limitation struck me because it forces the player to decide for a certain strategy at the very beginning. I am honestly astonished you – and Captain Diablo – did not experience it as a unique feature. The only map I know using such a concept (for units only) is "The Castle of Dr Moureau" where the reviewer praised this as "Flexibility buying any troops instead of fixed starting troops."
This map I helped play testing. Though I could take up the distance to write more than some comments, my back list of maps I want to review is long (and my style of replaying and writing is soo slow).
If you want to see how I tried mapmaking, you can play "Apple War" for Crusader.
Soon a Stronghold1 map of Fintrollx and me will be finished, "Lauchheim". Though I'm afraid it will turn into just another invasion map, I'd appreciate to hear your impressions then.
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MasterofPhate |
Posted on 03/03/09 @ 08:43 AM
I will keep my eye out for your map, screens look very nice. And tbh I expected a more military based game in a map that is from the invasions section, thats why I played it. |
Sir_Vet
File Author |
Posted on 03/05/09 @ 04:53 PM
Hi Captain Diablo, I thank you for the rating, you have made some interesting points and a few have missed the mark. If I was a writer then you would have had a better idea of what I was trying to do.
You are Boris the thief, you are moving threw unknown territory being chased by 2 Lords wanting your head or some of their gold back.
You have managed to get a head start and find yourself at an old abandoned outpost, people living in the area know of your exploit's and the gold you carry, so when you arrive there are villagers there and working.
The main creative part of this map is the fact that you start with 6421 in gold and it's very difficult to make more. I have down loaded hundreds of maps from this site and don't remember finding any maps with that type of condition, there probably are of course I just haven't seen any:-)
The 2 dairy farms are left from when the outpost was working, now the peasants have got them up and working again, but you can't make more, that would ruin the game.
Fire! Why do you people cry about something that was an everyday occurrence back in those days. 1 well down by the farms, no problems! 2 more by the keep. What to expensive?
The mad cow disease and plague and other annoying problems are there not to annoy the player but to keep you from making taxes, everyday problems in the day!
The 2 objectives are not uneven, getting enough leather armor is easy and enough to buy crossbowmen as well, and I have made the maces without buying iron and had enough to make a few swords!
As far as the invasions not being equal, 2 different AIs attacking at different times, how can you respect the Rat or expect any real trials from the Snake. On normal I did struggle to keep the invaders from killing me!
And I was trying to balance the map for easy to very hard.
Instead of just marching threw my map and conquering it with sloppy game play and poor economic planning. Why not try it a few times on different difficulty levels and get a feel for it? That's what my play tester did and he thought it was just about right!
And you also missed my subtle ruins where the old berry picking farms were, that's eye candy! I thought that was a nice touch, to subtle I guess.
I appreciate the fact my story is not well written, but it was about the 5th draft. I did send it to my tester for proof reading, he told me mostly the same as you, made some suggestions and pointed out some mistakes.
I am not a writer and don't plan on it, coming to this site and posting my maps has forced me to try and write something, sometime I get carried away and try something like this.
If you would like to take a red pen and mark my story and send it back, I will try and take the advice given and get a better story for part 2:-) It's disappointing though to get a 3 when most reviewers would give me that for what I wrote on the front page!
Thank you all for the comments, I will take what you have said and try and improve as I go along.
Happy gaming!
Sir_Vet
Hopefully you could get through my poor writing style and understand what I was trying to achieve with Boris the Thief.
PS: sirvetka-at-gmail-dot-com |
Pages: [1] 2 » Last » |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.1 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 3.7 | Balance | 4.2 | Creativity | 4.0 | Map Design | 4.3 | Story/Instructions | 4.2 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 715 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 610.03 KB |
Added: | 02/26/09 |
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