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Author |
File Description |
BDJ |
Posted on 04/04/04 @ 11:39 AM
File Details |
Age: |
Steel |
# of Episodes: |
9 |
# of Cities: |
5 |
Difficulty: |
Hard |
Custom Maps: |
Yes |
Minimap:
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Thanks to Gweilo - he made it possible that this campaign is available in english now.
You have the job to develop a huge city with 15.000 inhabitants. From time to time you're send to the country to arrange some important things for the capital.
You'll probably reach the building limit of 4.000 slots if you don't avoid slots from the beginning on. This can easily be done by using gardens instead of trees. Remember: every single tile of cropland needs one slot.
The mission is tested in middle and very high difficulty and it's possible to have always perfect feng shui.
Have fun!
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Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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edatakis |
Posted on 08/10/04 @ 02:10 PM
Playability: 4
(Insert Playability analysis here)
Balance: 4
(Insert Balance analysis here)
Creativity: 4
(Insert Creativity analysis here)
Map Design: 4
(Insert Map Design analysis here)
Story/Instructions: 5
(Insert Story/Instructions analysis here)
Additional Comments:
Great game (untill now...): I just don't seem to get past "trade with the west" . How on earth do you produce 150 canisters of salt?
I have 20 saltmines places on the map, but the maximum amount they can produce is less than 100 canisters. Even my ancestors can't help me with this one, or can they?
Every comment is welcome!
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Draakje |
Posted on 06/06/06 @ 07:07 AM
Playability: 4
The flood was a bit of a downer, but the rest was nice. Production goals were nice challenges.
Also gave you an insight in the walking distance penalties.
Balance: 4
(Insert Balance analysis here)
Creativity: 5
The Rice map was awesome, with all the layers of elevation.
Map Design: 5
Feng shui was really a challenge sometimes, but duable.
Story/Instructions: 5
(Insert Story/Instructions analysis here)
Additional Comments:
I really enjoyed this campaign. One downside though. When there's a flood in Kaifeng, the labor pool gets cut off for some reason. :-(
Resulting in the loss of my menagerie animals. |
Gweilo2
Staff |
Posted on 03/11/07 @ 11:52 AM
Playability: 3
Playability is essentially all about the 'fun factor'. I found many points to share on this, which I have divided into 'Pros' and 'Cons'
Pros:
1. I found this campaign quite challenging to play, and I believe this would be true even at the lower difficulty settings (I played at 'very hard'). After playing this game for so many years, it's refreshing to find new challenges.
2. This campaign has some of the hardest maps I've ever played (especially Shanzhou), with the caveat that a player forces themself to maintain perfect Feng Shui (as I did).
3. Salt and spices were introduced to Kaifeng at just the right time to avoid frustration in food quality woes. The storyline tied that in nicely too.
Cons:
1. The campaign required extra levels of micro-management, which can become tedious after awhile.
2. Several of the maps had problems, such as terrain graphic glitches, which hurt the eyes and caused playability issues.
3. Allowing sabotage by spies effectively removes any challenge to the military goal of ruling cities.
4. Usage of the bugged menagerie request event was confusing, and hurt the storyline.
5. The profit goals were not challenging because of the bug with 'bleed over' of income from prior missions.
6. In the Anxi mission, Huanxian launches an invasion even though it is inactive. So nothing happens. Why? Was this missed in playtesting?
7. Usage of the 'city under attack' event when the attacking city is not set up as city zero on the empire map generates a confusing event message, which hurts the storyline.
8. Disallowing the hero Xi Wang Mu in the Shanzhou mission drags out the mission to an agonizing number of game-years (it took me 27 game-years to complete the mission).
Balance: 4
The balance is good; this campaign is quite challenging for even veteran players. I do believe BJ's suggested balance setting of 'hard' is inaccurate; it should in reality have been set at 'very hard' when this campaign was submitted. So why didn't I give full marks in this category? Here is why: the usage of bugged events coupled with the bugs and problems on the maps indicated a lack of playtesting in some areas.
Creativity: 3
The creativity was adequate, but hurt somewhat by the various bugs noted. However, no matter how entertaining the storyline was, the real focus of the campaign revolved around two elements: getting a big population in good housing, and meeting tough production goals. Points were also lost because Kaifeng's treasury is reset to a predefined amount in the last mission.
Map Design: 3
The maps got the job done but were not without a variety of problems.The problems were not show-stoppers to playing, but they did cause a lower rating in this category. My notes on the maps are:
1. Several of the maps have terrain graphic glitches, which cause 'garbage' tiles to appear on the maps. Distracting and ugly; should have been cleaned up in playtesting.
2. The trade routes on the empire map are set to flow through other cities on the empire map. While this might have been more historically accurate, it also makes the trade routes hard to see for a player.
3. The climate selected for the cities on the empire map does not reflect their geographic placement in China (north/northwest arid and temperate, south humid). The historical accuracy of the cities is not important, but their climate could at least have been made consistent with Chinese geography.
4. On the empire map, the Suzhou city icon overlaps the Ji city icon, making things crowded and ugly.
5. The Shanzhou map has a beautiful valley which, unfortunately, is completely cut-off from pathing due to no ramps being placed on its bordering elevation changes. This makes it nothing more than wasted space on the map.
6. The Shanzhou map only has one spot where the Grand Temple Complex will fit, which hurts replayability of the mission.
7. A lack of trees on every map in this campaign greatly limits the building options for those players who want to maintain perfect Feng Shui. It's still possible to achieve perfect FS, it's just makes the maps rather limiting and hurts replayability.
Story/Instructions: 4
A good story with a consistent plotline and a logical progression was maintained throughout the campaign. For those of you who are interested, this story was at least 95% BJ's, all I did was cleanup the English a bit. The only real issue I had with the story was that it gave no explanation why Kaifeng's treasury had plummeted at the start of the last mission. Perhaps a few sentences about a robbery/embezzlement/etc. would have been nice to explain it for the player.
Additional Comments:
I have intentionally waited several years to play and review this campaign, because I had peeked at the scripting during assisting BJ with his English language version. I wanted all that intimate knowledge to fade, so I could play and review it fresh.
Overall, I enjoyed playing this campaign even though I am not a big fan of building huge cities. I did find evidence of problems that could (and should) have been caught during playtesting. If you like building big cities, you will like this campaign, but it's definitely something for veteran players, not novices.
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SeaWorld |
Posted on 11/10/11 @ 05:49 AM
Playability: 4
Balance: 4
Creativity: 3
Map Design: 4
Story/Instructions: 4
Additional Comments:
Fabulous thanks
Can't finish, i've got a city limit on building Kaifeng M7... Little disappointing.
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.0 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 3.8 | Balance | 4.0 | Creativity | 3.8 | Map Design | 4.0 | Story/Instructions | 4.5 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 5,325 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 563.54 KB |
Added: | 04/04/04 |
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