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Retreat of the Mongol Empire
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Author |
File Description |
Draakje |
Posted on 06/05/06 @ 09:49 PM (updated 06/07/06)
File Details |
Age: |
Steel |
# of Episodes: |
2 |
# of Cities: |
1 |
Difficulty: |
Hard |
Custom Maps: |
Yes |
Minimap:
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This is my second campaign ever made. I made one earlier, but that one got deleted. Anyhow, it's a map where I'm juggling around with scripted invasions. There are 3 total.
They increase in strength each year.
The biggest challenge in this map is turning a profit in time. I didn't give the city a lot money. About 8500.
It took me a second try on hard. It might be duable on hardest, but I think it's going to be really tough if you try that.
The follow up mission is just building two monuments. It's sorta like a "continue building this city", except you can now build some extra monuments.
Edit: Pak file now included.
Thanks for pointing that out Gweilo. |
Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Gweilo2
Staff |
Posted on 06/06/06 @ 07:19 PM
Hi Draakje, I noticed you did not include the 'pak' file in this download. (It's the file with the .pak extension on the filename.) Without the pak file included, only a very few people who are familiar with creating campaigns will be able to play this (by using the editor to generate their own pak file).
You did include the files necessary to edit the campaign. Was this intentional? It's ok if you want to include them, but you should definitely update the zip file to include the pak file.
Thanks, Gweilo[Edited on 06/06/06 @ 07:45 PM]
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Draakje
File Author |
Posted on 06/07/06 @ 06:08 AM
I included the Pak file.
I also have a screenshot of the city with all three monuments in it:
[img]http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v237/Superpropje/?action=view¤t=Fuyengi2Rotmk.jpg[/img] |
Gweilo2
Staff |
Posted on 06/07/06 @ 07:46 AM
I looked at your zipfile and it's all good now, thanks.
I look forward to playing this and leaving a review sometime in the future. It's always good to see a new campaign designer emerge from the player ranks; hope you will keep at it.
The minimap image you provided above looks interesting. You may consider submitting the saved game of that city into our 'Completed Cities' section of the EH downloads. That would provide a 'mini-walkthrough' of a successful strategy for playing your custom campaign. Just a thought. |
Gweilo2
Staff |
Posted on 06/08/06 @ 08:02 AM
Playability: 2
Playability is about the 'fun factor' more than anything else. This rating can be a little more subjective than most, but I will list my reasons for the rating.
1. The map does not have enough trees near rocks and elevation changes to support flexible options for maintaining perfect Feng Shui. This is a turn off to many advanced players who love to micromanage structure placement to achieve perfect FS.
2. Daoist and Buddhist temples and shrines are disallowed, so any elite housing placed can never evolve beyond Humble Compounds.
3. All cities in the campaign are 'temperate' climate, which makes meeting the menagerie goal frustratingly difficult. When played at 'very hard' difficulty (as I did), I could only make one animal request from each other city; they refused all further requests, even though their favor was 'Philanthropic' towards me. I ended up having to wait for my zodiac year to come to request 'special gifts' as my bonus, to obtain the 5th animal I needed to meet the menagerie goal. If at least one of the other cities had a different climate set, this difficulty with the menagerie goal would have been avoided.
4. No splash screen beyond the campaign intro has any story text, which is a letdown to me.
5. Even though mission 2 is a continuation of mission 1, the starting funds are reset to a predesignated amount when mission 2 begins. I found this frustrating, especially after I had struggled so long to build up my cash in mission 1.
6. Mission 1 ended for me in the 1370s CE, but when mission 2 begins, the year is 1370 BCE. I didn't seem to experience any adverse game play by time-warping backwards some 2700-odd years, but game anomalies could be possible (due to jumping from the steel age back to the bronze age.)
7. Having very few scripted events throughout the campaign gives a lackluster feel, similar to playing Open Play.
Balance: 3
I found this campaign to have adequate balance and challenge for advanced players, but mainly because when played at 'very hard' the player starts with less than $7K. That makes it a real challenge to set up a city and begin to turn a profit without spiraling into terminal debt. I was also happy to see the designer showed restraint in the size and timing of the scripted invasions. Unbalanced scripted invasions is a pitfall that many new designers fall into, but kudos to this designer for avoiding it.
Creativity: 2
The title of the campaign had me hoping there would be some interesting interplay with the Mongols, but this never really materialized. A lack of story text and scripted events hurt the creativity rating. There was one strange event where the Nomad Camps asked for 7 cash. Being familiar with the editor, I know this is the default event that is created when a designer chooses to 'add' a new event to a mission. So it appears this may have been an oversight that was not corrected during testing.
Map Design: 4
In spite of my problem with a lack of trees on the game map, the map itself was otherwise good. I liked the pre-built fortress area, and I enjoyed the challenge of having to set up my weapons manufacturing on the far east side of the map. I rated this category higher than average because I factored in the design of the Empire map. I really liked the design of the empire map; the effort on it impressed me. The cities seemed well-balanced in terms of commodities for trade, and the trade levels for each commodity. The trade routes looked realistic, not just straight lines on the empire map. The cities on the empire map were also well-balanced in terms of military and economic strengths (their shield and coin icons). I also noticed (by peeking at the campaign design in the editor) that the designer showed good sense in setting initial favor levels for computer-controlled cities.
Story/Instructions: 2
As previously stated, only the campaign intro screen had any text to explain the storyline of the campaign. All other missions had no text, and after winning the campaign only a 'Success' message was put on the campaign victory screen. I found this disappointing, and the only reason I didn't rate this a 1 is because a readme text file was included in the download package that gives basic installation instructions.
Additional Comments:
In spite of my critique above, I was impressed by this campaign as a worthy effort for a new designer. Learning to use the Emperor Campaign Creator is not easy. I see real potential in the designer and I hope he continues to evolve his skill and offer us new campaigns. I hope the designer will accept my comments as tips for future improvement (as they are certainly intended), not overt criticism.
When played at 'very hard', this campaign provides good entertainment for advanced players (especially mission 1). They will need to suspend their expectations on some aspects of the game (especially obtaining menagerie animals), but by focusing on the challenge of low starting funds a good play experience can be found.
My winning strategy for the campaign involved using only common housing retarded at the spacious dwelling level. I had a population just over 1600 for the whole campaign. I built two infantry forts to fight off the first Mongol invasion, then shortly after that my gifts to the Mongols raised their favor to the point they would accept an alliance with me. I sent periodic gifts to them afterwards, and this made them call off all further attacks against me. My biggest problem was obtaining the menagerie animals. Mission 2 was won in only about two years, as I built both monuments simultaneously and augmented stone imports with goods requests from my allies.
[Edited on 06/08/06 @ 08:27 PM]
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Beijing Tag |
Posted on 06/13/06 @ 05:56 AM
Playability: 3
The early years are quite fun. Playing at Very Hard and aiming for Perfect Harmony you need to think a little bit in terms of city layout and the limited initial funds prevent a player from simply going on a building splurge. This is a gradual build.
However, as mission 1 progresses things taper off. The invasions get progressively larger but are relatively simple to deal with assuming you get a few forts going. The biggest problem is the menagerie goal (as Gweilo mentioned). Getting the three initial animals is easy but I had to get the other two via zodiac years and as nothing else was happening the mission had become a little boring.
M2 is a continuation of M1 requiring a couple of monument builds. The BCE/CE switch in M2 is a novelty!
Balance: 2
Good choice of starting funds for VH. A variety of challenges - invasions, monuments, trading. Points lost due to lack of consistency in that early years are fun but later years a little lacking.
Creativity: 2
The title suggests that Mongol hordes will make an appearance at some time but no luck. Lack of continuation of scripted events results in a lowish mark. I did like the last hero led invasion.
Map Design: 3
Natural looking map which is always a good sign. Could of perhaps used elevated terrain more to spice up the look.
A large population mission goal would have forced a player to build more and so use more of the map. As it is the campaign has a large map but does not require the player to utilise a lot of it.
Story/Instructions: 2
Splash screen story a bit sparse.
Additional Comments:
The comments above should be taken as constructive criticism as I think this campaign/designer shows real promise. A couple of tweaks and this would be much higher scoring campaign. The early years were certainly fun and the addition of some more scripted events and/or mission goals would round out this campaign quite nicely.
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Beijing Tag |
Posted on 06/13/06 @ 11:04 AM
Draakje - don't be disheartened by the scores or comments on your campaign. I think a little tweaking and this would score well.
Thanks for making this campaign for us players to enjoy. |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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2.5 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 2.5 | Balance | 2.5 | Creativity | 2.0 | Map Design | 3.5 | Story/Instructions | 2.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 1,461 |
Favorites: [] | 0 |
Size: | 407.58 KB |
Added: | 06/05/06 |
Updated: | 06/07/06 |
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