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| Author |
File Description |
Nick The Hun
(id: Nick_The_Hunn) |
Posted on 11/03/10 @ 02:02 PM (updated 11/04/10)
| File Details |
|---|
| # of Players: |
7 |
| Version: |
AoM: The Titans |
Shougi is the Japanese name for Chess.
This is a multiplayer scenario a geographical map of China. It will be played as supremacy.
The era will be the Han Dynasty, story: The Three Kingdoms Saga.
There are 7 different factions.
- Liu Bei
- Yuan Shao
- Dong Zhuo (and Lu Bu)
- Sima Clan (Zhang Liao and Diao Chan)
- Liu Biao
- Sun Quan
- Cao Cao (with Yuan Shu)
The objectives will explain their bonusses.
The military units are as the following:
- Hoplite (anti cavalry)
- Toxotes (anti infantry and anti myth)
- Prodromos (anti foot units)
- Turma (peltast = turma) (anti infantry and cavalry, weak vs other archers)
- Hero
- Myth Units
If there are any bugs, please post them.
Have fun with this scenario!!
Update:
-I forgot to remove hippikons, they're gone now.
-Update on Heroes stats
-Peltast (Turma) costs have increased. |
| Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
|---|
| BSU_DoLhades |
Posted on 11/03/10 @ 03:03 PM
Heres the info people want to hear: you followed my advice mate! So first download is only fitting! XD Ill check this right out and a review shall be on its way! (when i saw it without the buildings it was at 4/5 for eye candy and mapping anyway :D) |
| Murmillo Of Zeus |
Posted on 11/03/10 @ 11:56 PM |
| krunx146 |
Posted on 11/04/10 @ 03:23 AM |
| Izello |
Posted on 11/04/10 @ 06:11 AM |
| PauloCot |
Posted on 05/12/15 @ 05:25 PM
Superb map, hence the effort of messaging on here! |
| rakovsky |
Posted on 06/04/21 @ 09:21 PM |
| rakovsky |
Posted on 06/05/21 @ 01:47 AM
The Map is made for Multiplayer and its dimensions are 1200 X 900, according to the Editor. The biggest size that you can make with the normal Editor is 800 X 800, and crashes are common on Multiplayer for oversized maps, according to AOM gamers much more advanced than I am. On Voobly on AOM:TT, I set all the Players to AIs, except of course for myself. The Players' identities are set to Unavailable in the Player Menu in the Editor, and this could be a problem for AOM:EE, but in my experience, it's not a problem for AOM:TT.
Nonetheless, the map crashed at or right after the loading screen when I tried to play it in a test run in Voobly. This was the same crash problem that Paulocot noted. It's kind of distressing that this scenario got over 400 downloads, starting in 2010, yet for 5 years no one noted in the comments section that it was crash prone, and instead just noted things like how pretty the map looks.
The reason for the crash is certainly because it's an oversized map (1200 X 900).
In talking with Nick the Designer on Steam, he told me that originally this map did work on the original ESO Multiplayer server for AOM, but after they closed it, it does not work on the currently available Multiplayer platforms (AOM:EE's Microsoft platform, Voobly, and Gameranger.)
The Description says "It will be played as supremacy." And Supremacy in the AOE series includes things like finding all the artifacts on the map or building a Wonder. I built a Wonder at 56 minutes into the game while on Playtesting mode (which gives you an idea of how slow this giant map is), yet the game just continued on. Maps where building a Wonder don't matter are called Conquest (SEE: http://aom.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=1,11385,16230,all).
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Balance: 4
Each Player apparently started with a village, making their starting positions relatively equal. But some forces probably started in a much better spot. For example, Player 1 has a river going around his 1/5 or 1/6 of the map with no fords or bridges on it, making him in effect put on an island or guarded by the river. This could give him an advantage. Plus, I think that he starts near the capitol, which he can capture for a much stronger starting spot.
Creativity: 5
It was a pretty Creative idea to have a map split between the famous warlords of the Late Han era, and I liked the creativity with the villages' eye candy and setups, like the capitol city.
====================
Map Design: 3
I am kind of stuck between the map's great points and its bad ones.
PROS:
The opening cinematic was pretty cool that surrounded the fort capitol in the top corner and the history involving Dong Zhuo. The graphics I think are pretty good with lots of eye candy and with fun towns and buildings to take over, not to mention snowy mountains in the west and jungles in the south.
The Designer's giant stone block style for the Chinese capitol where Dong Zhuo is based looks neat and reminds me of a kind of built up Stone Age / Neolithic Chinese castle that would go great with the Prehistoric period that the Chinese in AOM:EE (Tale of the Dragon) deals with. However, it looks more ancient than the period depicted in the Three Kingdoms series, which takes place in the Han Dynasty period (late 2nd century AD), when the buildings would have looked more like the Chinese buildings in AOE1 or even the late Age Chinese buildings in AOM:EE.
CONS:
The size is ginormous (1200 X 900, compared to the maximum size you get in the normal Map Editor: 800 X 800). The Designer might not realize enough that bigger does not always equal better. A great example of this is the AOE1 Custom Map "Advance of Antonius" (http://aoe.heavengames.com/dl-php/showfile.php?fileid=2425), which was a giant map that started with over 1000 units on two sides, many of which started facing each other in battle. After the initial battle, it gets even harder because it's a giant map and you have to play in lots of places at once. When I played, my opponent practically beat me in the opening battle and he had maybe 20 percent more troops than me, but I decided that I was going to keep fighting, even though I felt my skills were worse than his. So he resigned!!! He in effect surrendered because he didn't want to slog through a super long series of skirmishes even though he was looking like he would probably win.
Looking at the Shougi map, I see that it's cluttered with a TON TON TON of villages and cities. It might be OK in the first hour when 7 players have comparable sized bases and fight each other in their respective sections of the map, but after some of them surrender, you are going to have a ginormous gameplay area split between like 4-5 Players, and it will become even more ungainly. The more Players get conquered, the more overwhelming it will become to try to micromanage this huge map. And the game can drag on and on and on...
These kinds of maps are OK for Single Player, like Advance of Antonius was (it was meant for both Single and Multiplayer) because you can use savegames, but not for Multiplayer.
When I played, I thought I was Dong Zhuo because I was Player 1 and the Objective menu listed Dong Zhuo at the top of the Objectives. If Player 1 was Dong, then it's not real clear why what I thought was the Capitol should be guarded from me (Player 1) by Mother Nature's soldiers. But I didn't notice Dong's forces at the capitol either. So what I thought was the capitol maybe was not. And I realize now when I read the description, that as Player 1, since I had Zhang Liao, I belonged to the Sima Clan (actually listed fourth in the Description) instead of to Dong Zhuo's faction.
There are no berries or deer near my opening base, although I start with about 900 Food, so I don't really need it if I Age up with my Food and then build farms after getting the Farming tech in the next age. There is fish in the river though that I can get.
======================
Story/Instructions: 2
Alot more could be explained for the Story and instructions using the Description space in this webpage above or in a Readme or in the Objectives tab during gameplay. For instance, he could explain that there are empty city spots around the map and that you can build on them, and that if you get to them or the Mother Nature buildings around them, then those buildings switch to your control. But those buildings are guarded by Mother Nature units that you need to fight.
The Objectives menu says that Dong Zhuo (who I mistakenly thought was me, Player 1) gets horse archers / Turmas, but it wasn't immediately clear from the Objective Menu how. The Description page here explains that Peltast = Turma. This issue with the units' identity (ie. using a Peltast foot unit icon for a horse unit) is the kind of confusion that could be cleared up in longer Instructions in the Objectives tab, because the secondary Human players who get invited to games by hosts won't probably have read the Description page online.
Then there is also the problem that building a Wonder doesn't give you a Victory despite the Description saying that it's for Supremacy mode for its objectives.
It felt like you were supposed to win by crushing all other players, but it wasn't clear if you could also ally with other players and get an "Allied Victory." In my view, it would be nice if you could do that.
Historically, Liu Bei and Liu Biao teamed up and didn't fight each other. They were from the same clan.
The Players in the Player Menu are Numbered instead of given names. So instead of Player 1 being named Dong Zhuo or the Sima Clan, for instance, or even "1. Dong Zhuo," it just says Player 1. That feels alittle confusing because the players in the objective menu are listed by name, not by number. So when I played as Player 1, I wasn't sure if I was Dong Zhuo or not. It felt like I started near the capitol, which would make me think that I was Dong Zhuo. Plus, I got Turmas, which the Objective menu says that Dong Zhuo gets, and the Objective menu lists Dong Zhuo first. But I had no Dong Zhuo unit and the Description menu above puts Liu Bei as first, which would imply that Player 1 is Dong Zhuo. The Description seems to list the Players this way:
There are 7 different factions.
- Liu Bei
- Yuan Shao
- Dong Zhuo (and Lu Bu)
- Sima Clan (Zhang Liao and Diao Chan)
(etc.)
Instead of a Dong Zhuo unit, I get a Zhang Liao unit, which means that I belong to the Sima faction instead of Dong's. Wikipedia says about Zhang Liao:
"Formerly a subordinate of other warlords such as Ding Yuan, Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu, Zhang Liao joined Cao Cao around 198 after Lü Bu's downfall at the Battle of Xiapi."
And this brings up the next point: It would be nice for the Story if the Description or a Readme or the Objectives had at least a line explaining who the different factions or heroes were.
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Additional Comments:
Shougi is a real Japanese game and it's pretty similar to chess. This map certainly isn't like chess or Shougi, and is much more like AOM... which it is! At most, you can say that it's like Chess/Shougi in spirit, because for example instead of having a checkerboard grid, it has a grid of village spaces for you to capture.[Edited on 06/05/21 @ 09:23 PM]
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Rating |
|---|
| 3.0 | | Breakdown |
|---|
| Playability | 1.0 | | Balance | 4.0 | | Creativity | 5.0 | | Map Design | 3.0 | | Story/Instructions | 2.0 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 448 |
| Favorites: [] | 0 |
| Size: | 1.52 MB |
| Added: | 11/03/10 |
| Updated: | 11/04/10 |
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