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| Author |
File Description |
Mash
(id: Mashek) |
Posted on 01/19/17 @ 03:26 AM (updated 08/11/17)
| File Details |
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| Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
| Style: |
Build and Destroy |
Screenshot:
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"Deliver us O Lord from the fury of the Northmen!"
Norse longboats have been sighted on the ocean waves!
Take control of an isolated fishing village somewhere off the coast of Ireland, with limited technology, few resources and no immediate soldiers to call upon. You will have to make do with what is available to you. Battle-hardened Norse warriors are also on the prowl for your holy Christian relics and you will need to keep them safe if you are to secure victory.
Can you withstand the Norse raids?
FEATURES INCLUDE:
- Classic build-&-destroy game play with numerous events progressing the story
- Multiple outcomes depending on decisions made in-game
- Plenty of atmosphere in this highly-detailed and unique ocean setting
- Military mechanic: train your villagers into soldiers when battle is upon you, then demobilise them back into the workforce to continue feeding the economy
- Over 30 custom sounds
- More than 300 triggers
- Custom AI
- Some difficulty-level-dynamic features
I hope you enjoy this scenario!
SETTINGS:
Speed: Normal
Resolution: 1024 x 768
This file requires only the base game in the Conquerors to function but it works fine with Userpatch 1.4. |
| Pages: [1] 2 3 » Last » | | Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Mash
(id: Mashek)
Staff
Official Reviewer
File Author |
Posted on 01/20/17 @ 05:49 AM
- Fixed the accumulate relics bug whereby the computer mistakes the player for owning more relics than what he might actually have at the time. This relates specifically to an objective later in the game.
- Abbot Greig now makes mention of taking your villagers either to the Armoury or Practice Range to equip them for battle.
- Amended a number of timer conditions for important events that occur throughout the game.[Edited on 08/11/17 @ 06:18 AM]
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| sirkurt |
Posted on 01/20/17 @ 12:40 PM |
| Thomas_Elliott |
Posted on 01/21/17 @ 04:07 PM
I did have a few ideas and comments though.
-I thought the Monastery capturing/sacking on our Island was a really cool idea but it could have been explained better. At one point I received a warning that if any more relics were captured we would lose, but later on they captured the monastery again (and we recaptured it shortly after). It suggested in the hints that we might want to keep the relics in the village to keep them safe but I never felt like I needed to do that because we recaptured the monastery both times we lost it without any penalty. Also, we went and destroyed one of their monasteries and stole a relic from them and never received any acknowledgement for that. Perhaps my playthrough was a bit bugged and we should have lost?
-Perhaps the blacksmith could have been explained; I did not see it mentioned in the hints and I did not even try using it until quite a bit later into the game because I assumed the technologies would not do anything. The fact they did shows really impressive design; but maybe you should make it more clear to players?
-I really liked the idea of activating and deactivating my villagers to act as warriors but the balance of this scenario seemed to make that quite foolish. I was playing on moderate. It cost 100 food and 100 food, 50 wood to train the militia and skirmishers respectively. This was a huge amount; it did not really make sense to every deactivate your troops because another raid would arrive a minute later and if you de-activated someone, you would need to spend another 100 food to reactivate them. Additionally, your 'militia'(the skirmishers and militia) were so weak compared to the rest of your army (the berserkers, throwing-axemen and men at arms you would steal from the raiders) that it did not make sense to ever use them. Most raids would be best handled by using the monks to attempt to convert the enemy elite units and let your standing army of stolen troops fight the rest. I think the conversion aspect was really cool, especially considering the historical aspects with Vikings and Christianity, and I loved the bit later on in the game where they research heresy, but the 'activation/deactivation' mechanic was really rendered moot by the conversion. It did not make sense to spend 150 food on a weak militia when you could just as easily steal much better troops.
I wonder if you could either lower the prices of activation, increase the quality of the militia troops (perhaps instead of militia you could recruit the 'infiltrator' unit?) and perhaps have the Vikings recruit heresy much earlier on? Otherwise I think this excellent mechanic will just not be used.
I know I made a lot of negative remarks in this comment but I was just trying to point out the issues I found; overall I think this is a fantastic game with one of the most beautiful maps I have seen in a while and some really excellent gameplay ideas. I hope to write a review at some point soon. Thank you for making such an excellent game. |
| Thomas_Elliott |
Posted on 01/21/17 @ 11:31 PM
If I do pay him twice, he still does move to attack, at which point killing him does not seem sufficient to stop the attack. I find the pacing of this a bit strange as I receive a message suggesting I go steal the relic (which is pretty simple) but also optional missions to attack the enemy docks...but that is very difficult with the short period of time as there is only a minute or so after receiving this mission before he lands. Is this intentional? If you pay him twice, is the relic victory the only way to win?
Once again though, really cool AI. When Boniface does land his multi-pronged attack was really impressive; my village was surrounded on every side. [Edited on 01/22/17 @ 07:21 PM]
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Mash
(id: Mashek)
Staff
Official Reviewer
File Author |
Posted on 01/22/17 @ 05:40 AM
@Sirkurt, I am largely unfamiliar with HD as I do not actively design for it. I guess the files should be placed in the following: Age2HD\resources\_common\campaign.
@Thomas_Elliott, no need to apologise. There's a big difference between being negative and posting constructive criticism, and your observations are nothing short of excellent. My thanks to you! I should have requested your playtesting skills before uploading the file, as to my great shame there appears to be a whole number of issues I need to get to work on immediately. That being said, if you do plan on reviewing this file I would appreciate it if you hold off for another week, by which time I should have ironed out the majority of the issues you listed in a fresh update.
1. Bornifast's invasion has been quite troublesome to trigger. The AI is meant to send the transport ships when I trigger 10 food to player 5 (the gold tributes made earlier should not affect this). On my last playthrough the AI worked and the transport ships were sent straight to my island. I could always just trigger the landing zones for the transport ships but I wanted a certain degree of spontaneity with the enemy's attacks.
I will explain how the attacks work in correlation to the tributes:
A: If you succeed in sending both gold tributes to Bornifast/Player 5, the enemy should cease the majority of their attacks, giving you a moment of peace to strike at the third relic. Bornifast and his men will unload from their ships at the main Norse encampment, but he will betray you in several minutes and renew his attacks.
B: If you fail any of the tributes, 10 food is triggered to player 5 which signals the enemy to attack. It appears this seldom works. I might even just create a fail safe whereby a simple trigger sends the ships to the beach if Bornifast hasn't already left to attack.
2. There's a game coded bug that doesn't seem to recognise the accumulate relics condition, but sometimes fires after a save/load. I will tinker with the relic loss condition and make it so you no longer lose the game, but the dialogue will remain as a note to be wary of the enemy's attacks. Also, each Norse capture of your monastery deducts 200 gold from your stockpile. I will need to make mention of that somewhere too.
3. I'll write something up in hints for the Blacksmith.
4. I agree with you on the prices of the troops and I will lower them accordingly. My thoughts at the time were to try and challenge the player who would very quickly and ably accumulate lots of food at the start of the game. As for the weak militia unit, I'm afraid that's the point of the game. The Norse were experienced and battle-hardened warriors, the Irish in this scenario however are defenceless fishermen who must quickly prepare themselves for war from virtually nothing. Perhaps for the sake of playability I will make it so that the player receives men-at-arms when he researches both forging and scale mail armour at the blacksmith. In the same way the player also receives elite skirmishers for researching fletching and padded archer armour.
5. I will tweak the conversion mechanic to ensure it's properly balanced over the three difficulty levels. Obviously on standard the player should be able to convert a few units before the mechanics kick in, while on moderate and hard the range for converting units lowers dramatically, meaning the player should only be able to convert a few choice units before the enemy receives heresy.
As for the remarks from your second comment, it would appear there are some bugs involved. I will rectify these issues as soon as possible and have a fresh update hopefully resolving all your issues. Until then, many thanks for the observations and your compliments! |
| Thomas_Elliott |
Posted on 01/22/17 @ 10:17 PM
I am looking forward to the update and intend to write a review after that. I think maybe I did not correctly explain my issue with the relics. I do not think you should remove the relic capture aspect from the game as a loss condition. My remark was almost the opposite; I seemed unable to lose from the relics.
I think that it is a really good aspect to the game that you lose the game if the enemy control all of the relics; I think this would encourage you to be either more strategic in protecting the monastery, or force you to pull at least one relic back into the town. I think my issue might have arisen because the enemy captured my monastery but then did not put the captured relics back into it? Perhaps all of their seers were dead at this point? If they had done so, would they have won the game? If I have a bit more time I might try to test this a bit more myself.
I think I was confused because every time I loaded from a save I received the message about captured relics, and I was not aware I would lose the game if the enemy captured them all. I think this is a really great concept though to capture the idea of the Vikings raiding for loot and the vulnerability of remote monasteries.
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Mash
(id: Mashek)
Staff
Official Reviewer
File Author |
Posted on 01/25/17 @ 06:33 PM
There is an objective after the first raid against the monastery that says you should prevent the Northmen from capturing the relics. |
Cataphract887
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 01/28/17 @ 11:20 AM
Nicely detailed island, i liked the use of revealers to show it at the start.
Monk towers, construct by placing 2-3 houses within which are hidden the players two monks, are extremely effective. I was able to convert intital berserkers and get a strong force early.
Dock\house walls, which are a dock on the shore+a row of houses, i used quite a bit to segment the island up into zones. Raiding forces were contained inside the zones allowing me to kill the units efficiently and safely. For example convert-killing the enemies then using the wolf\hunting dog to finish off their monks.
The monastary event early on, which for me was the second viking raid, had red take ownership of the monastary and evict my relics. Thats a good mechanic, except i had a house wall there already with 2 berserks\2M@A\2monks behind and the red units pinned down on the beach and soon killed. Maybe some detection if the vikings actually control the area of the monastery would be called for.
Infact i even managed to convert some longboats and gain some naval supremacy, sinking transports. Thereafter my 1 longboat+3 galley were able to do quite well, and i kept a villager near them to repair em up. I killed one hero on a boat and another hero enemy by sniping them as they tried to board a vessel near a dock wall. This would have been even easier if i realized there was a cap on conversions allowed and had 2-3 more longboats instead of those early M@A i nabbed.
After refusing to pay the tribute, i did manage to sink the entire enemy navy which showed up, by microing around my 4 vessels near the shore and repairing with 3 villagers. Unfortunately the triggers for the Jarls invasion must of misfired for after waiting ahwile and not seeing transports show up, i found his two transports ships sitting idle in the map corner and sunk him and his men without contest.
In conclusion:im afraid i did cheese the scenario, and i think ill give it another playthrough with a self-ban on religious conversions this time. I still had a blast playing! My main suggestion would be to figure out the monk balance more;its an extremely powerful unit and either the vikings should have heresy from the start or maybe they get a 50% conversion resistance from somewhere. Boats are extra resistant to conversion but i still found it easy to convert the longboats, and infact the 3 monks can easily dispatch many longboats singlehandly(as they typically stream in 1 at a time) while healing themselves. The use of houses+docks to form walls also will trivialize the difficulty i fear, but ill see how it goes when i replay with a self-ban on conversions.[Edited on 01/28/17 @ 11:21 AM]
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Mash
(id: Mashek)
Staff
Official Reviewer
File Author |
Posted on 01/28/17 @ 10:16 PM
The pending update includes a new conversion mechanic that affects each difficulty level, meaning on moderate and hard you won't be able to convert as many enemy units. Improvements to the AI should also mean the enemy attacks by land and sea are a little more challenging, but alas this is something that is very hard to achieve without outright cheating on behalf of the computer - which is something I refuse to do!
As for your style utilising the docks and houses as walls, I'm afraid that's a chink in AoK that no game can stand up to! My only recommendation is to await the update in a day or two and play without building "house walls". :) |
Cataphract887
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 01/29/17 @ 10:28 AM
Looking forward to the new version, ill definitely try it out :-)[Edited on 01/31/17 @ 09:22 PM]
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| Pages: [1] 2 3 » Last » |
 
HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Rating |
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| 4.8 | | Breakdown |
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| Playability | 4.5 | | Balance | 5.0 | | Creativity | 5.0 | | Map Design | 4.5 | | Story/Instructions | 5.0 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 2,157 |
| Favorites: [] | 4 |
| Size: | 16.23 MB |
| Added: | 01/19/17 |
| Updated: | 08/11/17 |
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