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Author |
File Description |
Emperor Alexus |
Posted on 01/27/04 @ 12:00 AM
File Details |
Map Size: |
300x300 (Medium) |
Difficulty: |
Normal |
Minimap:
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With your men returning and no word of Lord Managant or his whereabouts you decide to set a trap.
You begin the long march to one of the snakes empty counties and begin construction on a castle in order to draw out most of his men from his home county.
Build up ypur economy and then prepare for battle,
richer,smarter and with more military experience than the rat, the snakes men will surely put you to the test.
Enjoy. |
Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Best Willis |
Posted on 01/28/04 @ 12:00 AM
Playability: This was a good scenario, but with a lil´ knowledge of Stronghold, you can easily get rid of the enemy by simply building a stairs near the river to connect the upland and lowland and than destroying them, when enemy arrive.
Balance: The balance of the enemy is good if you r playin fair play and also balance of economical aspect.
Creativity: Well, I must say, you should be more creative. For example there are no animals on the map and there are also no events during the game.
Map design: This is one of the best part of this scenario. There is a sea and a tiny nice islands. There is also a river (I think so) between the 2 uplands. I also like the old ruins of snakes castle.
Story/Instructions: Story wasnt that original, but the instructions are OK. |
Sulis |
Posted on 01/29/04 @ 12:00 AM
Playability: 4/5
This is a simplistic invasion map that draws on a mixture of combat and freebuild maps. Yep, freebuild. There are no events to trouble you, save the invasions, and whilst the first invasion can be disposed of, the later ones are much larger and harder to overcome. It's a different approach to how many people would design with the lack of events, and whilst some may find this boring, or lacking in content, I personally enjoyed it. There is more than enough to do without events kicking in here, there and everywhere as you set up a big economy and manufacture weapons. I was never bored, always busy playing around with something or other and enjoyed the large invasions. Nice work.
Balance: 5/5
Given my pretty basic skills at setting up a large, functioning economy quickly, I found this to be really quite difficult, in terms of amassing a large enough army to withstand the attacks of the Snake. But as hard as it is, the balance here is beautifully set. You could easily play on different difficulty levels if you wished and the scenario would suit many types of player, many skill levels and many tactics. Personally, I played this through by defending the castle area alone, which I found to be in keeping with the game. Can't fault the balance of the map here at all.
Creativity: 3/5
I always find creativeness a difficult category to rate and comment about. Sometimes it's not clearly evident that there is anything special about a map and more often than not the creative aspect is subtle. In this particular map, it's case of less is more. The basic scenario works for me, and I can't help but like it. The no-frills approach is a nice change from over-scripted maps. Combined with the landscape panorama created by Emperor Alexus, it's a good 3.0 score here for me.
Map Design: 4/5
The designer is making huge strides in designing maps. Here, the landscape gains respect. It's not over-modelled, nor is it littered with eye candy. The ruined castle across the steep gorge is well done and I liked the general feel and placement of higher terrain. It's triggered ideas of my own once more, and therein lies the secret of good map design, from full-blown terrain modelling to more subtle, simple approaches... if it inspires in some way, it has to be noted. A well deserved 4.0 score.
Story/Instructions: 4/5
There is, in truth, no real instructions here and my personal preference is for some notes, ideas and thoughts by the author in how the map was made, obstacles that were overcome and pointers on how to play. Saying that, the story was good and follows on from the previous works in this series. Make a note to read the introduction screen just when the game launches, as there are comments within that cover this area. A nice story, easy to read and more than enough content.
IN SUMMARY
The map is generally a fine work on a basic level. Very playable, highly addictive in fact. I'll be playing this one a good number of times yet, such is the replayability it offers. And it's given me ideas! Certainly worth a download, especially given that you start your settlement from scratch and build up your fortification throughout. I like it. Check it out. |
NAT |
Posted on 01/29/04 @ 12:00 AM
As reviewer of the entire series so far I sat down to play this one really looking forward to it - it was good fun and a real classic invasion. This was a very playable map - good for anyone to play and a lot of fun to build up a full economy. A real joy to play - good work! A bit too easy however - played the map on normal and only the last invasion came close to the keep. However I will be replaying the map on hard to see what it is like - found it quite easy to build up a full castle and load it with men. For creativity very nearly a four but not quite - there were scripted events which was a shame but still a nice ruined castle in the top right. Good stuff still. Well designed as always - a few slightly balnk areas of grassland but generally of a high standard. One little thing was my second wall was on the hi-plain where it began to go down to min height - I could not see it which was a shame as it was annoying having to press space bar the whole time. A longer better storyline for this one and a safe 4. Overall I would define this as a classic invasion - really enjoyable to play - I have been following the entire series and this one does not dissapoint. Really looking forward to the rest of the series. Good work! |
zerotide |
Posted on 01/30/04 @ 12:00 AM
Very, Very, Nicely done alexus. The design was superb. I built my castle behind the ruined walls and made a stand there. There was a nice abundance of stone quarries. I liked the twin hills with a canyon in between above the rest of the plain. It was well balanced too. My only qualm was lack of trees. Nicely done again. Keep it up.
At Willis: You don't use the F word when reviewing a map. |
lord_yoshi |
Posted on 01/30/04 @ 12:00 AM
Playability - I found this map entertaining and fun to play in the beginning, but unfortunately it got boring for me towards the end of the game. This was mainly because of the fact that there aren't any events and the invasions are perhaps a bit too infrequent. Some players undoubtly like this slow-paced scenario, but I got a bit bored in the end where all I could do was to train archers and build more walls without any trouble at all with the economy or anything.
Balance - I played it at Normal and I found the map moderately challenging. I had to re-start once, but on the second try I trained more archers and built more fortifications and it wasn't actually all that difficult then. I had about 200+ archers, which quite effortlessly eliminated the enemy.
Creativity - I agree with Sulis when he says that it's difficult to review the Creativity of a a scenario. I had this problem again with this scenario, just like I have this problem with almost every scenario I've reviewed. To be honest, there wasn't really anything new or highly creative stuff in this scenario, so I decided to go with a neutral 3.0.
Map Design - Map Design was good. I really liked the looks of the map. There weren't any design flaws either, so the map deserves a 4.0.
Story/Instructions - The story was good and since this scenario is part of a series that already has had a good story in the previous scenarios, a 4.0 is deserved here as well.
Final comments: I had mixed feelings with this scenario. It has a good beginning, but it just got a bit too boring for me as the game progressed towards the end. |
ericgolf
Staff |
Posted on 12/11/04 @ 12:00 AM
A great map for fortification building! Yes its another good map in this super series!
Playability 5: Plenty of opportunity to build your settlement and fortifications as you wish. You do have to read the terrain and decide how to exploit it. I agree with GillB and Sir Lurchalot on the point about "fair play". I found two places to place defence towers to overlook the signpost. I enjoyed this aspect of the map. By the end of the map I had bridged the ravine and, having chipped down some of that wonderful ruined castle, was building my own in its place. Having no fires or the like to hassle you was also good.
Balance 3: On normal I was not really troubled by the invasions and I'm not that great a player. This did not spoil my fun though.
Creativity/Map Design 4: Yet again the author has created an interesting terrain which makes the fort building such fun. The ruined castle was very good. I liked being able to place my own keep.
Story/Instructions 4: Good in-map story but no mini-map on the site. However, I'm starting to feel that the context of the series is now significantly adding to the story of each individual map. So, despite the brevity of the story on the site description page, I give this "4" as being very good.
In Summary A very good medium length map with plenty of fun available for those who love building fortifications while beating off the enemy. Thanks again, author! Now! Onward to No.11!
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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3.9 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.3 | Balance | 3.8 | Creativity | 3.3 | Map Design | 4.0 | Story/Instructions | 4.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 692 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 456.11 KB |
Added: | 01/27/04 |
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