After i sucessfuly completed the crusader skirmish trail I and II, then I made my first map..
Lord Mahard fortress. the strong fortress where placed on the small island, this fortress are surrounded by coral and sea, like the Byzantium fortress For attack the fortress u will uses:
1.500 Horse Archers
2.100 Crossbowmen
3.50 Arabic Bow
4.190 Swordsmen
5.100 Assassins
6.60 Slaves
7.30 Fire Thrower
8.24 Engineers and
9.10 Catapults
Kill Lord Mahard if possible.
Hi mate. So I'd like to compliment you on a great playability for a first map. There were a lot of problems with how my army would advance but I aslo know some tricks. Note that if I took the mistakes in mind the playability and balance would recieve 3 too, but I managed to pass them, some by dirty tricks other by luck and I'll explain them down.
So as I statred I waited till the enemy has thrown all it's infranty at me and then counter attacked with everything that can shoot from range. Horse archers arabin bow x-bow ballistae everything. I quickly killed all the garrison and sent assasians to open the gates. Then followed a slaughter from half of my swordsmen. After the coast was clear I noticed the first problem--the stairs. Archers and siege equipment cannot go up them. I used a trick to square all the army and when the horse archers are marked with ex. swordsmen they gan go up the stairs. But imagine if your map was played by a less experinced player. He'll figure this was a bug and immediately low your score. Place ground which the hevay troops can scale. So anyways I continued and killed all resitance untill i reached the square keep. It wasn't such a creative design most players prefer to use square stronghold because of their strenght and it's commonly seen. Nevertheless it was really strong and required quite a lot of effort to crack it. Than came another problem. I had lots of gold and the most powerful siege equipments-I never worried a lot about them because if they get damaged I could easily replace them. I advise to lower the treasury and that way the player will be a bit more stressed ;) Killin' killin' I threw some cows on the garrison,not to waste any more units and started to pummel the towers. Than came the third problem. I destroyed the walls and the keep was unreachable for my men. Thats a serious error most people would hate to find,luckily I had assasians and just needed to clear them the path. I think you ought to take a look at the lowered walls tutorial posted here or in stronghold knights. With your cool designs I thnik it will come in handy. Well I killed all the archers and sent about 20 as. with lowerd health towards the Lord. Amazingly he killed them and was left with just one tiny part of life. So I aimed the siege equipment and archers at him and waited till he dided. I had a lot of swordsmen so I sent them around the outer wall to eliminate everything else. Just when they killed the last x-bowmen I got the victory sign.
Here is a screenie:
http://media4.dropshots.com/photos/498070/20080628/030106.jpg
And that was the stategy. Despite of the problems I had a really good time and thats why they deserve full 5s.
About the terraining. Everything was placed and moddeled really well,but it just looked unreal. There is no specific advise here in time you'll start to feel the look of the map and immediately correct troubled places. Never hesitate to correct something you don't like. And don't count on that other designers may find it good. Practise makes perfect.
As for the story. There was more of an explanation than a story so thats why it's a 3. I advise writing long and interesting tales. you may even use microsoft word to correct mistakes if you make any. :)
All in all I think it was a wonderful challange as a first map. I hope to see more from you.