posted 01-07-12 01:03 AM CT (US)
Winners: Age of Kings Myth, Legend and History Campaign Design Contest
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Few passed the initial test of submitting a campaign, but those that did shall be rewarded! Special thanks to our judges
If there are any calculation errors, please let me know in the comments below.
I will need addresses from each contestant, and
Comments for each campaign are further below.
1. The Princes' Revolt 4.45
Playability 4.75
I loved this campaign. From start to finish, it kept me on my toes and constantly working. The cutscene scenario was very well executed and played without a hitch, so no problems there. In the siege of London, it was touch and go for a little while, but once I figured out that the train cost and time of unit was much lower than normal, things became a lot easier. My first time through, I didn't bother training any units, planning on doing so after I had broken the siege. After my rapidly decreasing army was nearly dead, I tried to train more units and was surprised at the cost and speed, but by then, it was too late. The next time, I constantly trained units and immediately destroyed one siege camp to supply myself, then methodically worked my way around. Even then, though, I constantly had to be aware of everything else around me.
I especially loved the RISK/B&D crossover that Julius designed. Capturing towns and gathering food from them was a brilliantly implemented idea and worked very well. I also appreciated that the AI didn't just sit back and wait for you to amass enormous amounts of resources and soldiers. There was never a lack of action and the pace of the scenario never fell.
The one minor problem I had was a bit of lag towards the end of the game when I was at my population limit. This, however, is not nearly enough to lower an entire point.
The playability was pretty good considering the number of triggers used for various different aspects of the game. I did however notice one bug in Lincoln; even when I'd captured it and owned the barracks, there were enemy units coming from it - which was strange to say the least and annoying when my own defenses of the town wore thin. There were a couple of very minor points, like some of the positioning of the stables and so on would cause 'flooding' when spawning quite a few units, which meant you'd have to manually move everyone after setting waypoints. Everything else ran as it should and there were no problems. I also vary rarely found myself actually using the siege engineers, as most of the time I'd just be attacking the cities themselves. I don't think it placed enough emphasis on the need for the siege engineers and I wasn't entirely sure how effective they were when I did use them. Overall the game kind of reminded me like a Risk sort of style, in which you take control points on the map to move forward onto the next - sometimes I lost towns, others I'd gain. What was slightly annoying is that sometimes, enemy units would spawn all the way back behind my lines and sneak up on me from behind - perhaps this is good for a challenge, but in some cases they'd come from the bottom of London, which is way down and far away from any of their remaining settlements.
Balance 4
I feel like on standard, it is a little too easy, while on moderate, it's too hard. Once the besiegers were defeated, a quick sweep through the empty villages to produce more food was enough to set me up for the rest of the game. As I captured more towns (Oxford and Bishop's Lynn) I was able to support larger armies and fight off the attackers quite easily. Even the last towns (Durham and Nottingham) were easy, especially Durham, which fell quickly to siege. Nottingham, well, there's not much they could do against nearly 200 soldiers. On moderate, I wasn't able to even protect London, let alone take any other towns. I think the problem is less a problem of it being too easy or hard in general, but more that the difficulty progression is too steep. Maybe making Standard a little harder and moderate a little easier would work.
At first, I was completely overwhelmed by the enemy units on standard, but after a couple of goes I finally realized what I was meant to be doing and played pretty well after that. I think the difficulty all in all was challenging enough, which meant it was fun to play and even annoying in parts. That annoyance however came down to the way I played and wasting units on silly battles. As I went up the levels I realized I'd have to be much more careful with my resources and counters rather than just flooding the area with knights and archers; which is what I did on standard.
Creativity 4.5
This scenario was very creative. Some of my highlights were the RISK/B&D system and the siege camp aspect (both as the besiegers and the besieged). The near-instant training system also created a new aspect to the game and the food/gold system redefined the economy of the game. The map design also included a number of creative elements, including palisade bridges and shoreless water. The music fit very well and and both scenarios illustrated a great deal of creativity.
The creativity was pretty good and to be honest it wasn't what I was expecting - which is a good thing. I like the way the sieges worked, the way the units only cost gold and the trade routes. I enjoyed the element of the siege engineers but I wasn't entirely convinced they did much. It wasn't your typical defend the spot/build and destroy type game and I greatly enjoyed it because of this.
Map Design 4.75
This map was a pleasure to play on. Every single tile was the way it was for a reason. The amount of detail on the map is just another example of Julius' design skills. I liked Sherwood forest especially and all the huts, houses, and inns helped fill the countryside between towns, which were also quite good. In general, the the map design put a great deal of detail, creativity, and life into the scenario, without overdoing it.
The map design was pretty good, the cities and towns were well made and the overall layout meant for some good positioning of your defenses. There isn't much to say of this design as everything was as it should be and overall looked very good. The reason it is a 4 is based on the authors success here; perhaps there could have been more choke points, strategic positions, perhaps there could have been more eye candy etc. Also, in terms of the cutscene, overall it was very nice, however there were some parts which I thought could have been done with a little bit more work and looked plainer than the rest of the design.
Story/Instructions 4.25
Between the introductory history and instructions, the scouts tab in the objectives, and the cutscene, the story was very well laid out. Almost all the significant information needed was present (ie, siege camps). Notable exceptions here include the change in the cost and train times of units. This would have been helpful, even as a note in the hints section. Also, I did not know how I was supposed to pillage towns. I eventually assumed that it was taunt-activated, but this would be a good point to include in the instructions as well. These points, however, were easily discovered in the game, so this does not lower the score an entire point.
Overall the instructions were quite good, however, they weren’t really needed when you got the hang of things. I was still slightly confused about the siege engineers but this is just a minor point really. The largest let down was the introductory cutscene. The instructions were sufficient, but the story was too fast. By the end of the cutscene I was left confused about what had just happened and forgot who did what when. I felt confused when I was led into the actually scenario and wasn't exactly sure what or who I was or what I was fighting.
Final comments
Overall, this was a great campaign. I enjoyed every minute of it and would recommend this for downloading immediately.
All in all this was a very good scenario and was fun to play, great to look at and just enough of a challenge to keep boredom or frustration at bay. I liked the length of it, perfect for just a just a quick fun game, perfect for those who don't want to sit through a 6 hour long epic.
2. The Travels of Marco Polo 4.0
Playability 2.75
I enjoyed this scenario. It was entertaining and kept my attention. The design of the map contributed to this. The problem here was the bugs. The first occurred when Ancona attacked. After the short siege and Ancona retreated, the Venetian soldiers were so numerous that I could not get through the gate to get back to the Doge. I had to quit because I couldn't get around them. The next time, they at least were outside the city, but they still blocked the path and I had to take a roundabout path to get back into the city. The next major bug was when I had defeated Ancona. What was supposed to happen was that the Doge would send a messenger to the Castle in Ancona and give the Polos their next task. Unfortunately, a few triggers were turned off or missing and even after I adjusted a number of triggers, I could not get this part of the scenario to start, so I missed everything after the Ancona siege. I did, however, sail the horses to Zara and sell them, skipping the Dalmatians, but even after I talked to governor of Zara and he told me to go to the ship, the scenario didn't end. This could be due to the fact that I didn't defeat the Dalmatians, but it would be good if the "We should get a ship to go to Acre" line didn't occur until all the tasks had been completed. (ie, conditions for the trigger should be 1)defeat Ancona, 2) defeat Dalmatians, 3) restore Polo estate, 4) sell horses). As is, I was able to skip the Dalmatians, but at the cost of not finishing the scenario and some dialogue being out of order.
There was also the issue of being unable to load saved games. I'm unsure of the reason behind this, but having to start over every time got old quite quickly.
The playability of Marco Polo was shrouded by bugs and was a major let down for what was a promising scenario. From simple things ranging from objective changes not being updated correctly to major bugs such as the fish merchant constantly taking 50 gold from my coffers every second, even when I wasn't clicked on him. The game started off to be really enjoyable and creative but the numerous bugs got the better of it, in the end it required me to use robin hood to gather enough gold (before it all quickly disappeared) and also 'I r winner' once I had completed all objectives. I sat on the pier, garrisoned inside the transport ship, clicked every building as it told me to but no ship ever changed hands and I was never escorted anywhere. There was also a major bug during the full battle where by none of the Venice units were handed over to me until I clicked on a guard tower (during my click parade figuring out what to do) and then all of a sudden the objective was met, ticked off the list and everything was finished. There was also a slight error in the horse seller, in which, I clicked on it but nothing happened. For some reason though it started working again out of the blue 5 minutes later. The only other complaint I had was after the other town attacked, the house to buy villagers was destroyed. Now, depending on how fast you play and so on, this could have been destroyed before I'd even realized it was the only place to get villagers - practically making it impossible to expand my estate.
The main point however would be the saving and loading problem; basically, it's wasn't possible. I was unable to load any of my saved games without it crashing, which meant having to replay it 3 separate times and again, I'd encounter random bugs during each play and sometimes not even have to do certain parts of the scenario to finish.
Overall, these bugs were a disappointment to what could have been a great scenario. If this is updated and polished a little bit more I'd certainly place it higher and might even play it again.
Balance 4.5
I think that the balance here was a little off. The scenario was quite easy for the most part, once you know what to do. Marco tended to wade into battle and get killed too often, but if you leave him out of the battle, most of the fighting can be won without losing your entire army. This evaluation, however, is incomplete, due to the bug preventing the Dalmatian battle; however, with the resources and buildings of Ancona at our disposal, I doubt it would have been overwhelmingly difficult. Gathering such a large amount of resources was also not a difficult task after defeating Ancona. Overall, a little too easy.
I can't really fault the balance at all as it was pretty nicely done. I liked the different trade points and options you had when it came to gathering resources. The combat was pretty well done, nothing over or underpowered. There were enough enemy units to provide a challenge but not too many to be difficult. I think that mainly was dependent on how many units Venice had left after the first battle though tbh. The first time I played I couldn't move because the whole gate was swarmed with them after the battle. The second time I played there was one man at arms left, which, didn't provide a problem because the balance with the resources elsewhere meant I could just build my own army. This is one of the better parts of the game which meant it was enjoyable while the bugs stayed away.
Creativity 4.5
This scenario was quite creative. I enjoyed seeing the story of Marco Polo, and enjoyed that the author decided to create a prologue instead of starting the story in the East. I believe that this will set up the campaign very well and it serves as a perfect teaser for the full campaign. The map design, tasks, and structure of the scenario were all fresh and new. I especially enjoyed the commercial aspect of the scenario, with the buying, selling, and transporting of goods. It fit perfectly with the Polo's background as merchants.
I liked the creativity of the game, the story, the trade aspects and so on. The author’s use of modpacks really enhanced the feel of the game and didn't overwhelm the scenario at all, merely complimenting the aok feel to it with some nice added additions. I guess in some aspects it could have improved slightly, such as possibly making the estate a bit more manageable with pre built foundations or something along those lines, using gold to improve it. But it is what it is and felt the author did enough here to deserve the score placed here.
Map Design 4.75
The map was designed beautifully. Venice was a bustling trade city with busy merchants and beautiful streets. The countryside around Venice was also very well done, and I especially loved the abandoned Polo estate. It almost hurt to cut down the trees and gather the food at the estate and disrupt the great environment. Zara and Ancona were also well-designed, and Dalmatia was a perfect base for raiding pirates. The one minor flaw I saw was that the bay was empty. I feel like a few roaming pirates, traveling merchant ships, or small islands could have really helped fill this large open sea. This isn't enough to lower an entire point, so this gets a 5.
Map design was very good and fit the game nicely. The layout of the city and the map was well done with only a few problems where units would clog up a street after the battle. It seems there was enough thought gone into the placement of eye candy and the author did a good job of picking the right modded pieces to compliment the design overall. There were not really any classic mistakes in map design and overall looked nice across the whole map.
Story/Instructions 3.75
A detailed history and background was very good, as well as the narration at the beginning. Every task was clearly laid out in dialogue in the scenario and was easy to follow. The problem in this category was that many of the quests had broken triggers. For example, when given the task to defeat Ancona, when I open my objectives window, the two tasks (defeat Ancona military, defeat Duke Leovigild) were already crossed off. Also, the objective "Restore the Polo estate to productivity" is a little ambiguous. The pregame instructions specified 7000 wood and 5000 food, but it would have been good to have this amount listed in the objective ingame so the play can check to see their progress. These minor bugs only detract 1 point, however, and the rest of the story and instructions were clear, engaging, and well done.
The story was well told and I particularly liked the narrative intro at the beginning with the voice and so on. I fully understood what was going on, who was who and why I was playing etc. The only let down really was the instructions which I felt were a little vague at times; I'd often find myself wondering around the town or using the marco polo cheat just to click on people where I think I should because the objectives didn't update properly. The overall aim of gathering a certain amount of wood and food etc wasn't even necessary in the end but I did feel like there could have been a bit more emphasis on that, since once the other objectives came in that one quickly disappeared and was forgotten.
Final comments
This was a fun scenario to play; I'm only disappointed at the bugs preventing me from playing the Dalmatian section. I would recommend that the author fix these triggers and the re-upload it, as I very much enjoyed the portions that I was able to play. I would recommend this for downloading, but be forewarned that with the current bugs, you may be a little disappointed.
Overall I did enjoy it and there were some nice, creative ideas in there. It had a nice relaxing feeling to it which I enjoyed and encouraged me to explore and do new things. However, the problems throughout the game really disappointed me and made certain parts of the game unplayable.
I sincerely hope the author releases the actual campaign (after the prologue) and possible updates this scenario and fixes the bugs, perhaps adding a few more additions as well to the game and expanding on the trade and estate aspect of it. Definitely worth playing, but make sure you have enough time to make mistakes and play from the start - as the ability to save is nonexistent.
3. Song of Roland 3.9
Playability 3.5
I enjoyed playing this scenario quite a bit, although at times, it was a little frustrating. The scenario was mostly bug-free and except for the lack of specificity about the exact objectives, was easy to play. One little thing that confused me a little was that sometimes Sargossa would resign partway through the scenario. This didn't really affect anything, so it's more a note for the designer than anything.
It was frustrating to be told to protect all of your heroes when in reality, your goal was to let them all die, while protecting Roland. This was especially difficult given two factors. The first is that your main heroes (Oliver and the priest) are extremely strong and it's almost impossible to get them killed before Roland. Now, this wouldn't be as significant a problem if it wasn't for the second factor: all the enemy units are trying to kill Roland. They don't care about our other heroes, unless they're in the way and hacking at them. Because of this, the only way to get your heroes killed is to send them into the largest group of enemy units you can find and set Oliver on No Attack Stance and hope the priest gets stuck, because otherwise, he'll run away and no one will follow him. Aside from the two over-powered heroes, I greatly enjoyed playing, and wish it could have been longer.
The game started off ok, except when I tried moving one of my archers forward as a scout but eventually his path was blocked for no apparent reason which I thought was quite odd. This is just a minor point though as eventually it was because I hadn't moved the rest of my army forward and is not enough to downgrade the points. The main letdown was the main battle; big time.
The first battle started off to what I thought would be an exciting match but I was quite sadly mistaken. For a start - it dragged. It was just never ending quickly got very bored of the swarms of enemies coming in for no apparent explanation. The kill counter was going up to over 2000 and then to top it all off after however many minutes my hero died and I had to restart - I was quite annoyed. It wasn't fun because there was no sense of achievement and just became tedious. Occasionally objective notifications or text would come up, one of which I thought meant I was supposed to fail (or was coming to an end); the huge sigh of relief however was short lived. The worst part was the fact my hero converted to an ally so I couldn't even control him to attack people; if he was going to die, at least let me be the judge of that and not my ally; or at least give me the opportunity to move in from harm’s way perhaps to the higher elevation where my pikes could defend. My second time playing I did better, 3000 kills and 59 minutes (59 minutes of the exact same thing over and over again!) Put it this way, when my hero died and it told me 'you have to defend your hero better I felt like cursing'.
I don't mind defend the spot scenarios but this had no real tactical thought to it, it was repetitive and prolonged. After 40 minutes of doing the exact same thing for the second time, I honestly felt like quitting. I'd managed to take advantage of one of the cliff points by cramming all of my paladins onto the ridge so that it effected the spawn location of the enemy, it was literally just a whole mass of troops doing nothing as the battle continued on the other side of my paladins on stand by - I'm not sure if this is what the author meant when he said take advantage of choke points, but it worked. In the other choke point where it only spawned knights and camels I rested my pikes, which took control of the whole situation for the entire battle. Once the enemy finally broke through they seemed to settle their own choke point anyway, with a lot of them massed up and unable to move - it was quite strange to watch. Eventually I had to read the blacksmith comments in order to find how to win and found about this fantastic trick called the delete button! Hoorah! I had won, I deleted Oliver and my paladins then all of a sudden the scenario ended, woohoo! By the end of my second game I'd just like to point out: Oliver pretty much had full health even though he had been in the brunt of the battle throughout the whole game fighting. By the end with everyone targeting an idle Roland it became impossible to even force Oliver to die, I'd throw him in a bunch of powerful enemies and he'd fight to the end - he should be the hero, not Roland!
Balance 3.75
This scenario was both easy and hard at the same time. If you were playing by what you thought the rules were (protect all heroes), it would have been quite easy, given how powerful your heroes are. Unfortunately, your goal is to lose all your heroes while keeping Roland alive. This sounds easy, but because of the two factors mentioned above, it's actually quite difficult. I was able to defeat the scenario only after I realized this. I had to send my heroes immediately into battle while keeping my other units in reserve, essentially sending my heroes to their death. The paladins didn't last long standing alone against the enemy, but Oliver and the priest were a pain to get killed, especially that darn priest. He always ran away and the enemy couldn't care less about him once he was out of their way. And with 8000 HP, killing him took a lot. Still, it was difficult, but not unbeatable once you knew what to do.
The balance kind of ties in with the playability a lot on this one, however, it does fair better than it's counterpart. All in all the units I had were a pretty strong bunch and were able to hold off the enemy for a while. I had a good number of counter units and was able to use them in the best way possible. The game was actually quite well balanced on an individual unit basis as the health and strengths of each one was pretty good. The problem came in with the whole vastness of the enemy thing, it was kind of ridiculous the number of units the enemy had - it wasn't exciting, more frustrating. I didn't like the way Roland has little balance and ability and I was mainly left to my other units to defend, which did a pretty good job up until about 45 minutes when all of a sudden a load more enemy soldiers broke through from out the blue. It was quite dramatic and epic, but not to my tastes. There could have been many improvements here, especially as your units were actually supposed to die before Roland did.
Creativity 4
One of the underused methods that the author used quite well was the high-HP armies, which allow for battles to last longer without needing enormous numbers of soldiers. Scenarios with this method are fun to play, simply because battles take a while. The story itself was also creative, both in the fact that this was the first scenario telling the story of Roland and in the dialogue itself. Overall, the map design, the story, the concepts and methods created a fresh new scenario that, while it didn't unveil any new discovery or trick, was still well-done and quite original.
The ideas and creativity were pretty straightforward for a defend the spot campaign, and could have been much improved. There wasn't anything that really stood out to me as impressive or made me say 'that was a nice idea, cool addition etc'. It was, unoriginal, generic and offered what a standard scenario could offer, maybe slightly less.
Map Design 4.5
While the author only used a small portion of the map, it was very well done. Not only was the cliff area where Roland's army was traveling and the canyon where the battle took place well done, Sargossa and Charlemagne's camp also evidenced the designer's care and detail. About half the map was nearly solid forest, but since this was merely excess space, this didn't affect this score much.
The map design was pretty good, cliffs worked well. They can tend to look quite blocky when using cliffs but I think the author pulled off a pretty good job with them. The terrain was mixed well and there was enough eye candy to make it believable. I felt the map was a little flat with minimal elavation. In something like a defend the spot, elevation can become a make or break and a very tactical choice, so I was surprised to see this not being used more - it probably would have helped a lot.
Story/Instructions 3.75
The story of Roland is one that I'm not overly familiar with, and I enjoyed the background information, not only about Roland and the setting of the story, but the story itself. While the story itself is not developed overmuch during the majority of the scenario (the battle), it is more than made up for in the setting up of the story and the post-battle dialogue. The only reason this doesn't score a five is a number of grammatical errors, confusing phrasing and the distorted bmp at the beginning of the scenario. If these were fixed, this would get a 5 as well.
The story was pretty good, easy to follow and was a nice read. The instructions were good to start with though once the objectives were crossed out during the battle I didn't really have any idea what I was supposed to be doing, so I just carried on and tried not to get everyone killed - big mistake, that's what I was supposed to be doing! Getting everyone killed!
Final comments
Overall, I enjoyed this scenario, but it was frustrating and confusing when the goal of the scenario was actually the opposite of the stated objective. If it weren't for this, and the over-powered heroes, this would be a great scenario. As is, it's nothing to be ashamed of and I would heartily recommend this for download.
I'd like to have been able to express more on certain categories and perhaps be a bit more positive in my reaction but overall I was plagued by the playability and balance, which stood with me right up until writing this. This map could have been so much better and has so much more potential to it.
I'd probably recommend playing it if you are a big fan of defend the spot and would like to maybe beat the authors score of an hour and six minutes. I managed 59 minutes, so go figure. If you don't like defend the spot necessarily or want a quick and fun game - I really wouldn't recommend this. Maybe if the objectives actually stated you need to defend Roland before the others died, if we knew it was just going to be a swarm of enemies and hold out until you can; then it might have been more fun. It works as a time test, an endurance race, a battle for failure but nothing more.
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." -Carl Sagan
[This message has been edited by Gojoseon (edited 01-16-2012 @ 12:15 PM).]
