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| Author |
File Description |
| westcoastcustoms |
Posted on 05/04/12 @ 05:25 AM (updated 05/06/12)
| File Details |
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| Difficulty: |
Hardest |
Marcus Aquila and his slave have stopped on a small island off the coast of Caledonia to get ready for their quest to get back Marcus's families war emblem - The Eagle
In 2nd-Century Britain, two men – master and slave – venture beyond the edge of the known world on a dangerous and obsessive quest that will push them beyond the boundaries of loyalty and betrayal, friendship and hatred, deceit and heroism.
In 140 AD, the Roman Empire extends all the way to Britain – though its grasp is incomplete, as the rebellious tribes of Caledonia (now Scotland) hold sway in the far North. Marcus Aquila arrives in Britain, determined to restore the tarnished reputation of his father, Flavius Aquila. It was 20 years earlier that Rome’s 5,000-strong Ninth Legion, under the command of Flavius and carrying their golden emblem, the Eagle of the Ninth, marched north into Caledonia. They never returned; Legion and Eagle simply vanished into the mists. Angered, the Roman Emperor Hadrian ordered the building of a wall to seal off the territory; Hadrian’s Wall became the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire – the edge of the known world.Hearing a rumor that the Eagle has been seen in a tribal temple in the far north, Marcus is galvanized into action, and sets off with Esca across Hadrian’s Wall. But the highlands of Caledonia are a vast and savage wilderness, and Marcus must rely on his slave to navigate the region. When they encounter ex-Roman soldier Guern(you may run into him and his army of centurions in your travels), Marcus realizes that the mystery of his father’s disappearance may well be linked to the secret of his own slave’s identity and loyalty – a secret all the more pressing when the two come face-to-face with the warriors of the fearsome Seal Prince. |
| Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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| Durin_PT |
Posted on 05/08/12 @ 05:23 AM
I really liked the small starting islands. But once you reached the mainland, movement of units was quite difficult specially when you moved towards the enemy base.
Balance: 2
That was a big problem. The enemy was rather weak. You gave it loads of tool age units and once you found the centurion army you could practically mow them down! Also as they were well over the pop limit they couldn't train new units either (there was no food on the map for that matter).
Creativity: 2.5
Traditional VC conditions but alas you didnt set out a well defined area where to bring the artifact which pretty mich ruled out that option!
Map Design: 2.5
I like the small island where you start and there were some pleasing areas here and there!
Story/Instructions: 1
Just the basics!
Additional Comments:
You show promise but you must test your campaigns a few time to make sure you gets things right. If you're going with the bring object to area victory, make sure you set a flag or a flare to design the area it has to be brought too!
And be sure to check out the granary! There are lots of great design articles there! Additionally you can download some of the highly rated campaigns/scenarios here and play them; some are really inspirational!
[Edited on 05/08/12 @ 05:25 AM]
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westcoastcustoms
File Author |
Posted on 05/08/12 @ 11:07 PM |
PhatFish
Staff |
Posted on 06/07/12 @ 09:49 AM
Here's a guide on how to do proper reviews: http://aoe.heavengames.com/downsnew/ratingdescription.shtml
Pimp my rating, heh. |
| Thompsoncs |
Posted on 06/07/12 @ 11:31 AM
Atlantagaming's review was most likely a smurf-review. Same goes for his review on "Birth of Pirates", also by westcoastcustoms |
| rakovsky |
Posted on 04/13/19 @ 08:49 PM
The game wasn't playable in a way where you could meet the first victory strategy of bringing the chest back to the Red base. It took me about 2 years to recognize a special trick that I could use to get more gold than the map held and to win using the second victory method, because winning was practically impossible without the trick.
According to the Instructions, there are two strategies or alternative goals below, either of which are supposed to give you a victory but which are made made impractical due to a glitch and to your team's resource weaknesses, except for the second strategy, which you can win with the enemy trading trick.
VICTORY STRATEGY #1) Get the ark chest and bring it into the area inside of Hadrian's wall. Hadrian's wall is the long line of walls that run through about a third of the map. I was able to get the chest from the enemy base in the northeast using the mass of centurions that I found, and I brought it into the top of the "T" that serves as the northern gate of Hadrian's Wall. However, I couldn't bring it further down through the T and into the red Roman camp because the neck of the narrow "T" area had a Roman soldier standing in it and blocking the path. The gate for the wall is only about one or two spaces across, which would be just enough for the ark to pass through if there were no allied red soldiers blocking it.
I used the Scenario Editor to check the Victory Conditions and the area where you must bring the ark is the rectangular space that is Red's walled base with his Town Center that you pass through in the beginning of the mission. So you don't just have to get the ark past Hadrian's Wall, you actually have to bring it within this particular rectangular area, which has a NW entrance and a NE one.
I was finally able to achieve Objective 1, yet the mission still did not end. To achieve the Objective, I chopped through the forest below the Brown base, switched Red to enemy, then broke through Red's western wall. Next, I brought the ark south and south east along the western shore, so that the ark and my soldiers were south of Red's main base. Then, I broke northward through the south wall of Red's main base (the walled rectangular area with Red's Town Center). This way I got the ark in Red's main base, meeting the Victory requirement. Yet the mission still did not end.
I thought that the game might not be ending because I might have temporarily lost the ark during the Scenario. So I created a test scenario and it turns out that losing and regaining a war chest should not interfere with these kinds of victory conditions, ie. capturing a war chest (Obj. 1) and then bringing it to a given location (Obj. 2). Besides, nothing in the instructions warn that losing the ark will prevent the scenario from ending. So it looks like there is a game glitch that keeps the Player from being able to win the game.
Now after much experience editing Scenarios, I can see that the problem is that the Designer gave you (Player 1) an Individual Victory Condition (bringing home the chest) and also turned on "Allied Victory",. Turning this on requires you to meet your allies' VCs to win, and in this case the allies have no individual VC, and just need to meet the Global VC to win. This in turn means that you would not only have to meet your own VC, but also the Global VC of beating your team's enemy, Player 4.
VICTORY STRATEGY #2) Kill off Player 4, the brown seal warrior enemy. The problem with accomplishing this mission is that the brown base is protected inside by very powerful Zenobia towers. I practically used up my whole centurion army attacking the towers, and the best that I did was take out two towers guarding the southern part of the brown base (so that I could get in and get the ark), and then take out about half of one of the towers guarding the enemy wonders. Without a trick to get more gold than is on the map, there is no realistic way to kill the brown enemy, because you would need catapults or a ton of priests, whereas the scenario only gives you about 347-400 gold (That 347-400 gold is a gold pile near the base that you get south of the main red base). You would need alot more gold than that to build up catapults or a small mass of priests. You can build a Market, but AOE1's game design doesn't allow you to sell resources for gold. ie. you can't buy or sell using your Marketplace.
And anyway you can't build catapults because you can't build a siege workshop, since the building is disabled from your inventory, ie. it doesn't show up in your villagers' Build menu. Plus, the Monotheism technology is not available for research at your Temples in the Bronze Age, so you couldn't research monotheism to convert the enemy mirror towers even if you had enough gold.
The Victory Conditions would at least allow you to win if you destroyed Player 4, and the real problem is accomplishing this because of your limited gold and your limited army. I figured out a trick where I can get a constant slow stream of gold by trading with the enemy dock though. So it's possible to make Victory Strategy #2 work and to defeat Player #4, but I am skeptical that the Designers were actually thinking of you trading with the enemy dock.
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Balance: 2.5
The Zenobia's Towers make the enemy base normally too hard to take down, which is goal #2 above. But you can use a trick where you trade wood for gold with the enemy by putting a dock in the northern lake. I guess that the mission's Designer did not think of this, in part because it takes a long time get enough gold this way to advance to the Iron Age. It took me like 9 ships on both enemy docks and a lot of time fending off sporadic waves of enemy axemen to get enough gold for that.
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Creativity: 5
Very creative concept of playing the movie, and it was fun to discover bases for yourself.
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Map Design: 3
I had fun exploring the map, but I couldn't fit the ark through the gates and past the red allied soldier blocking the narrow entrance into the red base.
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Story/Instructions: 4
It was pretty simple and clear. The problem was that even if I follow the instructions, the goals can't realistically be met.
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Additional Comments:
HERE ARE HINTS TO GET THROUGH MOST OF THE MAP:
You get 2 swordsmen that you can find in the red base in the middle of the map. I think that you need to get there ASAP and go through the narrow wall passage or else it gets stopped up by allied villagers before you can get your own soldiers through (even if you get your soldiers through the allied soldiers probably generally block it though so you can't get back in with the chest). Starting with Default resources, you only have 400 food. There are some deer to the east of the middle red base's eastern narrow gates. The deer provide enough food to advance to the next age, when you can build farms. You can delete the walls and cut the trees to the north of your discovered base to the south of the red base. That way, you can get your priests and villagers out and have them and the other troops get out without passing through the two towers blocking you in.
HERE IS HOW TO USE THE SPECIAL TRADING TRICK TO WIN WITH STRATEGY #2 (Defeating Player #4). I came back to "The Eagle" about two years after getting stuck on it and used this trick to get enough gold to beat the game, but it took so long that my total game time came to about 2 hours 45 minutes.
- First, when you finally make it to the Brown base, use your centurions and the rest of your army to wipe out the eastern part of the Brown base that is out of range of the Brown Zenobia's Towers, but make sure to leave the enemy's docks alone.
- Second, build a dock on the northern lake and use it to trade wood for gold with the enemy's dock. You will have to protect your dock from enemy troops using your own troops. The enemy mostly uses axemen in their attacks against you.
- After you get enough gold, make catapult triremes, advance to the Iron Age, and research any missile upgrades, like those in your Market and Government Center. Then use your catapult trireme to destroy most of the enemy's base, leaving only enemy docks and siege workshops.
- Convert any enemy siege workshops using priests with the Monotheism ability, which you can get in the Iron Age. Then make catapults and destroy the rest of the brown base with them. There are two sets of two Brown towers each around the middle of the map and you can destroy them with your catapults. There are also two Brown fire ships and a bunch of Brown rafts in the river running out of the west end of the Northern lake, and you can destroy them with a couple triremes from your dock on the northern lake.
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UPDATE:
I fixed the glitch for VICTORY STRATEGY #1 (bringing the chest to the Red base) and resubmitted the file here:
http://aoe.heavengames.com/dl-php/showfile.php?fileid=2794[Edited on 08/18/21 @ 08:32 PM]
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| rakovsky |
Posted on 08/22/20 @ 02:30 AM [Edited on 08/22/20 @ 11:15 AM]
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| rakovsky |
Posted on 08/25/20 @ 05:44 PM
I just realized that you can actually get more than 400 gold by using your dock in the northern lake to trade with the Brown enemy's dock for gold. Maybe you could get enough heavy infantry that way to take out Zenobia's towers.
Also, I found today that when I use the Kill4 Command, the Scenario ends in Victory, regardless of whether I got the war chest home or not. The Editor clearly shows that getting the war chest home was in fact the Designer's intent, because he has a special Victory Condition for that for Player 1. So it was worth me making "The Eagle Version 2". In my "Version 2", if you use the "Kill4" Cheat, you should see that it works to give you a victory without you bringing home the relic. |
 
HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Rating |
|---|
| 2.8 | | Breakdown |
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| Playability | 2.3 | | Balance | 2.3 | | Creativity | 3.8 | | Map Design | 2.8 | | Story/Instructions | 2.8 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 414 |
| Favorites: [] | 0 |
| Size: | 162.76 KB |
| Added: | 05/04/12 |
| Updated: | 05/06/12 |
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