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Campaigns » Halfdan and the inheritance of the Ynglings
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Halfdan and the inheritance of the Ynglings
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| Author |
File Description |
| Stephen Richards |
Posted on 03/15/07 @ 06:04 PM
| File Details |
|---|
| Version: |
The Conquerors 1.0c |
| Style: |
Mix |
| Number of scenarios: |
2 |
"My history tells of a time when the Gods intervened less and less in the fate of humans. In those days a people lived far to the north. They nourished themselves from hunting, agriculture and trade. I will tell you of the Vikings, who built ships lightning fast, and could fight like furious bears or hungry wolves. Their country was split into many small kingdoms, which were governed by descendants of many clans. Rumour had it that some of them descended in a direct line from the Gods.
One of them was the clan of the Ynglings, of which some said, Odin, most powerful of all Gods, was the father. He lay with a mortal woman once and she bore him a son. And Odin took care of his child and gave him an amulet, called "Odin’s magic sword". This amulet passed from father to son and it protected the body, soul, health and the house of whoever carried it.
The day came when Gudröd "Hunting King", the 24th descendant of his clan, took over the legacy of the Ynglings and thus also received the amulet. He demanded Harald "Handsome Lip" give his daughter Asa to him to be his wife but Harald refused. Enraged by this disgrace Gudröd gathered his army together and went to Agdir in order to get Asa by force and take her to Vestfold. . ."
IMPORTANT NOTE: this campaign was designed by Günter Zengerle who submitted it to the German website AgeArena in 2005. All I've done is translate the on-screen text (the German voiceovers remain) so any textual errors, omissions or incomprehensible instructions are due solely to me. You can post a comment here or at AgeArena - if you know German so much the better, otherwise post in English (you'll have to register first).
I played Halfdan and thought it was a superb campaign - excellent and varied gameplay, full of creativity, a map design as good as any I've seen, and a decent story to boot. I think it deserves to be opened up to a bigger audience and I'm sure once you've played it you'll agree.
I'd like to thank Günter for his willingness to let me loose on his masterful design, various online translaters and dictionaries, my rusty school-level German, my mother with her rather-better German, DiGiT's Trigger Studio for helping solve a couple of problems, and, last but not least, Ingo for cracking the most obstinate nuts at the end.
Enjoy! |
| Pages: [1] 2 3 » Last » | | Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Mash
(id: Mashek)
Staff
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 03/16/07 @ 05:54 PM |
| S3XP3RT |
Posted on 03/22/07 @ 02:40 PM |
Jatayu
(id: Sword_of_STORM)
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 03/23/07 @ 06:50 AM |
Lord Basse
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 03/23/07 @ 09:41 AM
Or not was, IS! I'm only on Chapter 3 and I've played for 2 hours... on fast.
Great job, and great translation :D |
| Jas the Mace1 |
Posted on 03/23/07 @ 07:16 PM
Great looking map!
Good mix of gameplay!
After finishing Part 1 I wonder if there is a part 2? And if there is, are you translating it as well?
Thanks alot for translating this one Stephen! |
Stephen Richards
Official Reviewer
File Author |
Posted on 03/24/07 @ 07:11 AM
S3XP3RT - come on, cut me some slack!
Sword_of_STORM - er, that's why I translated it.[Edited on 01/02/09 @ 02:02 PM]
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| Emp Tyler13 |
Posted on 03/25/07 @ 09:40 PM [Edited on 04/06/07 @ 07:12 AM]
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| newIdea |
Posted on 03/26/07 @ 12:46 AM
Go to your "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II" directory and place each file in their respected folders.
Example: Scenarios(.scx) go in the "Scenario" folder.
Example: Sounds go in the "SOUNDS > scenario" folder.
If you have any more questions or concerns, you'll get better answers in our forums:
http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aokcgi/Ultimate.cgi[Edited on 03/26/07 @ 12:48 AM]
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Lord Basse
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 03/26/07 @ 10:26 AM
PLAYABILITY: 5
When the winner text came, my timer had reached 9h 20 minutes. 9 and a half hours of pure enjoyment, now that's what I call quality!
With thrilling story, superb design and deep charactors, the author got me bound to the scenario. I couldn't stop playing. Yet it took me a long time to complete it, and I'm happy for it.
As playability is rated for the enjoyment of the scenario, do I need to say anything more? This is one of the best scenarios ever if you ask me.
BALANCE: 5
The scenario was difficult, even on standard, which I played on. I dont know about the other difficulties, but if Standard is this hard and the ai works better on the higher levels, I assume it's even more challenging.
The scenario was very hard, thats true, but it was never frustrating. Every problem could be solved, you just need to think a little. The escape in the beginning was hard if you didnt do right. All wars and fights were hard, but all of them could be won without needing to restart 10 923 817 times.
The standard level suited me perfectly and I assume the higher levels would work good for more intense and better players than me.
There are a few places where one can think it there could be a few more enemies or so, but thats like once or twice, in the details. So to me, the balance of this scenario is as close to perfect as it can be.
CREATIVITY: 5
A full score here too. Every chapter was filled with intrigues, turning points, new aspects, beautiful nature, music and sound effects, charactor speech and so on. This scenario is a superb example on how a creative scenario can look like.
To mention a few things, the first thing you do is to hide in a ram while it goes off. All enemies have automatic creation for soldiers, all enemies also have different tech-values, like some having stronger archers, another have stronger longboats and so on. then there's speech to all dialogue, music and sound effects. The terrain is superb with eye-candy and mixed terrain, changing lands, enemy camps well placed out, smart problem solving and much more.
Then for the prologue, while the battles rages, there are many triggers setting off to make the soldiers do stuff and make it much funnier to watch. The view changes from time to time and its a great cut-scene, even if it wouldn't stand very well alone.
MAP DESIGN: 5
As mentioned before, the terrain mixing and eye-candy placing was terrific. The forests where walkable, although some where tougher and some even not reachable. There where both mountains and cliffs to make it more realistic, gold- and stonemines spread out, forage bushes as well, and so on. All to make it as realistic as possible. Loads of elevations to make the hills and everything else better looking and realistic, mixed snow which is, to me, the hardest terrain to mix. Broken bridges that repaired when you had finished the objectives for the area.
All superb, by far much better than a random map and much better than most other scenarios. Absolutely worth a 5.
STORY & INSTRUCTIONS: 5
The story was a superb one. Any scenario that has a story should be given a 4 here, and if its a great scenario it should get a 5. This story was great, I declared it before. Lots of turning points, twists, deep charactors, a great translation (it really seemed possible that it was made in english from the very beginning) and etc. The hints for the different chapters were very usefull and they where needed. The scenario even had a good bitmap to spice everyhting up even more.
The one thing that would lower the score was Ragnhild. Here presense was short and after you had "won" her, she never did anything again. She was a shallow charactor. Although it doesn't matter much to the story and enjoyment, it's still a fact, though I doubt it can be made much better than it already is.
So a 5, summing it up to a 5.0
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
I'm impressed by Germans. Just as in the old days, they come up with quality stuff. Ingo with his superb scenarios, Great Emperor with his few but ingenious projects, and now this - one of the best campaigns ever made according to me. It absolutely deserves a 5.0
Congratulations.
And thousands of thanks to Stephen Richards for translating this into English so that I can play it, and everyone else too for the matter! |
JackalRat
(id: BrandNewCar)
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 03/27/07 @ 11:51 AM
-will. |
| Pages: [1] 2 3 » Last » |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Rating |
|---|
| 4.9 | | Breakdown |
|---|
| Playability | 4.8 | | Balance | 4.8 | | Creativity | 5.0 | | Map Design | 5.0 | | Story/Instructions | 5.0 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 6,465 |
| Favorites: [] | 10 |
| Size: | 5.69 MB |
| Added: | 03/15/07 |
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