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Wrath and Ruin - The Giants Playpits
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| Author |
File Description |
| Knightly_Maps |
Posted on 05/13/08 @ 03:03 AM
| File Details |
|---|
| Map Size: |
300x300 (Medium) |
| Difficulty: |
Hard |
Minimap:
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Wrath and Ruin - The Giants Playpits
A Knightly_Maps Project.
Wrath and Ruin - The Giants Playpits
February 13th 1187
"In ancient times, it was spoken that these mountains were the Playpits of the Giants. The large river their paddling pool,
the dips and mounds were the markings left by the footfells. And to this day, nobody has dared to live among them, for
fear they would return."
"Why Grandad," chimed Harry, "What would the giants do?"
The old man rubbed his temple writh gnarled fingers. "The giants, my boy, what would the giants do, you ask. They would ruin
the crops, kill the men, bring their houses to rubble, steal the ladies and eat the children. The hills are a mysterious
place, and please, I beg of you, do not go near them, for me at least."
March 18th 1201
"They are coming," screamed the scout, spurring his horse into the middle of his village "The invaders are upon us! Flee,
flee for your wives and children." Harry brought his horse to a halt outside the house of the freeman in charge of the
village. "Where sir, where do we go?"
The mans face looked downfallen, no ideas came to him. "I do not know. There is nowhere we can go.. They will find us
eventually, and our fate will be worse for trying to hide. Come to your senses and come with me to confess, we shall
meet the lord soon."
Harrys face was contorted with rage as he swung his boot, knocking the villages leader to the ground. "You weak and useless
man! You would abandon your people to ruin and their wrath. You are dispicable." He turned to the rest of the village, who,
as crowds do, had stopped in view of the comotion. "Who will come with me, who will live for their families." He turned and
glared at the freeman "He, may have abandoned us, but I shall not we will run and live together in safety and in freedom."
"And where would you go, boy?" Asked the man from the ground scornfully, holding his sleeve to his nose to stymy the
bleeding. "Where is there that is safe? No place is safe in this land anymore, no land under the kings control is safe.
They will find you, and they will kill you."
A part of his last sentance triggered something in the boys mind, something almost forgotten. His silence only encouraged
the freeman.
"He does not know! Look at the fool, gazing into the distance. He is no village leader, nay, he is the village idiot."
Letting out a deep belly-laugh the freeman rose to his feet and looked Harry in the eye. "Step down boy, and maybe I
will show you mercy."
Kicking out again and walking his horse away, Harry brought the freeman to the ground. "We will go to the Giants Playpits.
The enemy would not dare set foot in them if they heard a fraction of the rumours."
Another villager was dubious and called out. "We have heard these stories, do you seriously expect us to follow you?"
As if in reply, a horn sounded, less than a mile away. A marching company could be seen under the banner they carried,
black enlayed with a silver wolf, earning them the nickname of "The Wolves".
"Unless you leave with me now, you will die. Who will come?"
Slowly at first, but with mor eand more confidence, members of the village walked towards him.
"Gather what supplies you can carry. We go now!"
Atop his horse, Harry silently ran through the best chance of the refugees. 'We'll need to keep small,' he thought,
'No more than thirty people probably in the castle. We'll need to create a small garrison, possibly something quite
substantial.' He raised the brim of his hood to look around. They had just reached the foothills of the mountains,
and were already well into the downpour. The people were drenched, and more than likely would probably rather be back
in their houses in the village. They would all be dead though, or enslaved by the Wolves. Steeling himself and trying to
force his grandfathers wordds out of his head, he pushed his horse onwards into the mountains, trying vainly to see
through the haze infront of him.
Hi everyone. This is a small series being worked on by Nathan AKA The Knight, of Knightly Maps. It started as something to improve his skills with, and now has evolved into something larger.
This is a simple enough invasion map, where the key objective is to eliminate all the enemies. It's a Place-Your-Own-Keep scenario, so remember if you struggle too much in a certain location, try somewhere else.
Inside the .zip, you'll find the story and a small hints section in case you get stuck.
There will be more to follow, if this map gets enough downloads, but then, they'll probably be more to follow even if there isn't.
Good luck, and happy gaming!
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| Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
|---|
| IrishKern |
Posted on 05/13/08 @ 11:36 AM |
| Synyster |
Posted on 05/13/08 @ 05:38 PM |
Knightly_Maps
File Author |
Posted on 05/17/08 @ 04:11 AM |
| STreTcH23 |
Posted on 05/19/08 @ 09:32 PM
:( |
| Fintrollx |
Posted on 05/25/08 @ 08:18 AM |
Knightly_Maps
File Author |
Posted on 05/26/08 @ 12:14 AM |
ericgolf
Staff |
Posted on 06/29/08 @ 11:53 AM
Summary- Overall score 4.0
An excellent scenario. Fun to play. Anyone who enjoys building up their settlement from scratch and confounding the enemy’s invasions should downloading this one.
Playability: 4.0 – Excellent.
The difficult choice of where to place the keep was just the first of many enjoyable decisions needed on the way to victory. The landscape’s layout and signpost placement produced unpredictability and a great challenge. On the minus side: I did feel it was a little too long. It could safely have spanned 20% less years, I think. However if you are the kind of player who cranks up the speed this might not worry you.
Balance: 3.5 – Very Good:
Won on first time on Hard setting but I had some anxious moments. I was almost lulled into a false sense of security by the early invasions but a comment left by another player in the DL page forewarned me that some tougher troops were coming.
Creativity: 4.0 - Excellent: Not a whole lot of creative stuff but excellent points are:
1) Excellent and original story which gave an atmosphere to the start of the map.
2) The scripting was skilful in that events struck at the right time (i.e. stirring things up just when I though everything was going well).
3) Well thought out restrictions in build/troop options.
Map Design: 3.5 – Overall Very Good:
Positives: The terraining was purposeful and contributed well to game play. The scripting (see Creativity above). Signpost placement was good (see Playability above). Some thought has gone into blocking some areas from keep placement.
Negatives: Some of it was a little rough and ready, such as the stream from the centre and the occasional low tile in the mountain area. (You might consider Creativity and Map Design together here as 7.5/10, as I think I have mentioned some Map design things in Creativity above).
Story/Instructions 5.0
An outstanding story to set the stage for the map to come. The zip contains a text file of the story and also a hints file (Although I, personally do not agree with all that is said in the hints, it is good to see an author trying to help players, who are stuck, find a way through the map).
Additional Comments:
To the author I say thanks for making this PYOK map and giving me a great morning’s fun at Stronghold :-) and if you want to see where I built my fort I took some screenies at the end, let me know if you want to see them.
[Readers of this review please note. This review contains *my* opinions. If you have different opinions then write your own review. Please don’t expect me to hold the same opinions as you. I detail here the URL to the review guidelines should you harbour any thought that this review does not conform to them:
http://stronghold.heavengames.com/dl/guide
][Edited on 06/29/08 @ 11:58 AM]
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| Sarariman |
Posted on 08/03/12 @ 09:57 AM
I'd be interested to hear where other people put their keep. I put mine in the bottom left hand corner, because it made it easier to surround my keep with walls. Sometimes, that's where the enemy appeared, but when I eventually won, that didn't happen. This lead me to believe that enemy forces appears at random flagposts, which it would be nice to hear confirmed. |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Rating |
|---|
| 4.0 | | Breakdown |
|---|
| Playability | 4.0 | | Balance | 3.5 | | Creativity | 4.0 | | Map Design | 3.5 | | Story/Instructions | 5.0 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 629 |
| Favorites: [] | 0 |
| Size: | 522.82 KB |
| Added: | 05/13/08 |
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