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Age of Empires: Single Player Campaigns » Roman Expansion into Britannia

Roman Expansion into Britannia

Author

File Description

Sean Egan

Posted on 11/16/98 @ 12:00 AM

File Details
Number of Scenarios:	3
Difficulty:	Moderate

This Campaign revolves around Rome's empire in Britannia. You must first invade Brittania from France, then suppress Boudiccea's revolt, followed by building Hadrian's wall. These scenarios accurately depict Roman expansion into Britannia.

Author

Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only )

Steve Ryan

Posted on 11/30/-1 @ 12:00 AM

Rating
3.6
Breakdown
Playability	4.0
Balance	4.0
Creativity	4.0
Map Design	4.0
Story/Instructions	2.0

Added category for all contest campaigns: Historical Rating - 3 Brief description of topic area: This Campaign revolves around Rome's empire in Britannia. You must first invade Brittania from France, then suppress Boudiccea's revolt, followed by building Hadrian's wall. OVERALL SUMMARY/COMMENTS ON THE CAMPAIGN: I .liked this campaign a lot. From a playability and balance point of view this would have made the cut. It't apity he let himself down with story, and victory conditions or he may have gotten over the line. Maybe worth a look at anyway ? Playability: Overall very good, really pushed the perfect score in each scenario. Creativity: A good feel for each of the situations presented, good use of troops. Scenario 2 has an excellent set up for a big battle, with the exception of a couple of Gordon Farrells probably the best I've seen. Balance: This was the authors best point, all the scenarios were balanced well, Especially #2 with the big battle being superbly crafted. Map Design: Above average and generally covered the right terrain. Could have probably got better scores with just a little more effort. Story/Instructions: Probably cost this author ago at round 2. Just basic stories and Failed Victory Conditions won't win any prizes. Historical Accuracy: Covered the basic histrory and used AOE well to deliver the feel for the situation. Scenario # 1 Comments: Playability: (Is the scenario captivating and enjoyable?) I got wiped out the first time I invaded and this always sets me off on the right foot. It mean the scenario has got me in and I know I'm going to have to thing about this one. You get hit by sea initially which keeps you on your toes and the land enemy throws plenty at you. Creativity: (Have we seen these ideas before, or is there something fresh and remarkable?) Gives a really nice feel for an invasion. Doesn't get carried away with massive troop numbers so you can micromanage quite well. The unit usage is quite comparable to the romans and overall acceptable design. Balance: (Winable but not too easy? Challenging even after you've won it?) Good put you under pressure and went for your villagers. Until I got some priests and academy units going I was struggling. Eventually I had enough resource to wipe out the enemy. Map Design: (Enjoyable to look at? Cliffs and elevations used reasonably?) Followed the historic map pretty well. The cliff emplacement was nice and you had to be careful where you landed. Story/Instructions: (Are they clear? Do you know everything you need? Do they draw you into the scenario?) Just the basics without a lot of interesting additions. Sadly the Victory conditions did not work. I built the required number of villagers and military units, barracks and towers but no victory drumroll, I even exterminated all the enemy but no drumroll. This is frustrating and unless I went into the editor (I didn't) I am not sure what was wrong (thank god for 'Home Run'). Historical Accuracy: (Accurate bit map? Accurate scenario map? Accurate situation/dates/characters?) Covered the facts but more importantly used AOE well to give a feel for what Caesar may have really gone through! Scenario #2 Comments: Playability: (Is the scenario captivating and enjoyable?) Quite and interesting scenario that really had me guessing most of the way through. Did I have enough troops ? You pick up plenty of troops and you will need them all ! I don't normally like big battles but this was just right. It pushed the limit of my micromanagement skills and I really had the feel for being involved in the battle. Creativity: (Have we seen these ideas before, or is there something fresh and remarkable?) Yeah I think he really hit upon some good ideas here. He really pulled of the need to use terrain, many have tried but failed at forcing you to get your army into a good position. If you didn't get it right in this one you lost !.To win this I had to keep some reserves, put my missile troops on high ground, set my tough ground forces at stand ground in front and arrange for cavalry charges at his missile troops. All this and keeping my priest in the rear to heal any wounded I managed to pull from the battle. How many battle scenarios can you say make you fight like a real battle! Balance: (Winable but not too easy? Challenging even after you've won it?) This was excellent. I fought this battle 4 times before winning. You must of course find all your troops. Map scouting is tougher than you may think with maruaders spread over the map. In the end I was forced to use the lay of the land and manage my troops intelligently. Just throwing them into the fray meant a loss each time! Map Design: (Enjoyable to look at? Cliffs and elevations used reasonably?) Good city design and a nice setup to force the battle ground. Map is basically inland so terrain accuracy is moot. Story/Instructions: (Are they clear? Do you know everything you need? Do they draw you into the scenario?) Just the basics but the victory conditions did work. Got the drumroll as that last legionnaire finally fell to my centurion. Historical Accuracy: (Accurate bit map? Accurate scenario map? Accurate situation/dates/characters?) Covered the basic history but could have gone to a little more effort. You really had to fight to beat Boadicea and I liked this as she really put the Romans in Britain under some pressure. Scenario #3 Comments: Playability: (Is the scenario captivating and enjoyable?) Pressure right from the word go. I did enjoy this little fight. Save the village and build your wall. Creativity: (Have we seen these ideas before, or is there something fresh and remarkable?) I liked this the need to build the big wall had me captivated (and it looked good when it was finished). A constant if threat from the North kept thing bubbling along. Balance: (Winable but not too easy? Challenging even after you've won it?) A bit of pressure at the start was overcome and when my explorers found all that stone and gold .. well, it was all over, except for my wall and towers. Map Design: (Enjoyable to look at? Cliffs and elevations used reasonably?) Not a lot of effort but effective and followed the general terrain of Northern Britain meets Scotland. Story/Instructions: (Are they clear? Do you know everything you need? Do they draw you into the scenario?) Again just a basic outline. Ooops the victory condition again failed. Annoying as I wonder if building my wall was necessary at all ! ( I'll be pissed if it wasnt). I have a feeling the problem was with tower placement in the victory condition. Unless they are spot - on you cant win. This can be overcome by highlighting a larger build area so that any overlay is unlikely to stop the condition working. It is feasible that in testing this worked but any body else doing the scenario would be highly unlikely to get a Victory Drumroll. Historical Accuracy: (Accurate bit map? Accurate scenario map? Accurate situation/dates/characters?) Covered the basics and troop usage was quite relevant.

Frank Steidel

Posted on 11/30/-1 @ 12:00 AM

Rating
4.4
Breakdown
Playability	5.0
Balance	3.0
Creativity	4.0
Map Design	5.0
Story/Instructions	5.0

Added category for all contest campaigns: Historical Rating - 5 This Campaign does a bang up job of presenting the Roman Empires spread to Britannia. The History is direct and focused. The author gives you enough history to set the stage, without bogging down in excess text or irrelevant details. The Bit maps that accompany the introductions are excellent. I particually liked the "Ghost Towers" in the last one. The maps have a soft look to them that's worth a download just to check out. In the first scenario, it is your job to gain a foothold on England and start a colony there. You start out coming under fire almost instantly. I had to reload a couple of times to get started. You have several options for landing sites and the best ones aren't readily apparent. The Balance on both this scenario and the campaign as a whole is very well done. You will need a good plan in addition to a quick finger. The second scenario, Finds the Romans in London. The Boudiccians have started a rebellion and to make it worse, have sacked Colchester. It's your duty to round up your far flung forces and retake the city. The countryside is inhabited by Mauraders who don't like Rome much themselves. Many of the Mauraders are purposefully hidden behind large trees, so you'll need to keep a sharp eye on things. The Author did a good job laying out the City of London. He put the work into it to make it look like a town and not just a collection of buildings. Several other nice touches are the realistic looking formations found throughout the campaign and the thought-fully placed terrain. In this scenario, I had amassed a huge army and believed the fall of Colchester was a foregone conclusion. My mistake, the Boudiccians counterattacked hard and fast. Two minutes later I was pulling back the shattered remnents of my once proud Army. It's always a good sign, when I get beat unexpectedly. I took a Mulligan and set up a little more carefully for the onslaught. Once again the balance was spot on target. You will need to think this battle out and plan a well coordinated and supported attack to prevail. "Hadrians Wall" is the final chapter in this campaign and has you in charge of building the wall to keep the northern tribes out of the empire. You need to gather the resources to build this yourself. Lots of things vie for your attention and they all had to be done yesterday. Exploring, Building up your ecomony and fending off the enemy attacks will keep you busy. The enemy attack in large enough groups that they are a menace that needs your instant attention. These aren't axemen, but high quality killers. I'm really sorry to say that the campaign does have one glaring problem. In the final scenario, it wouldn't end even though I had built the wall and towers carefully. I double checked with the other reviewer on this campaign and he confirmed that he had the same trouble. I believe the problem lies in not making the victory areas quite large enough. So, I had to use the "Home Run" cheat to finish the campaign. Please don't let that single mistake stop you from downloading this otherwise great Campaign. "Roman Expansion into Brittannia" is a campaign that is easily worth your time to play. It's obvious that the author put the time and effort into this work to make it as good as he could and should be commended for doing so.

Gordon Farrell

Posted on 11/30/-1 @ 12:00 AM

Rating
3.6
Breakdown
Playability	3.0
Balance	4.0
Creativity	3.0
Map Design	4.0
Story/Instructions	4.0

Added category for all contest campaigns: Historical Rating - 4 OVERALL SUMMARY/COMMENTS ON THE CAMPAIGN: This is a very enjoyable, historic campaign. It follows the basic paradigm of level designing laid out in the original ES package and many players will find it quite a pleasant playing experience for that reason. The final score of 3.8 reflects that good, solid AoE editting but also reflects this judge's opinion that to score highly in a contest like this, more imagination and/or attention to detail is required. Don't get me wrong. This is a good campaign. The simplicity of the situations presented is one of its strengths, supported by some of the most attractive bitmaps I've ever seen. However, story instructions were marred by misspellings and though the overall historical accuracy was quite good, it would have benefitted from more details -- naming units after the actual Roman commanders for example. Finally, the terrain maps were basic, minimal jobs with geographically accurate coastlines but not much else to add to the game. Regardless of these misgivings, many gamers will dig this campaign and find it superior to most of the original AoE scenarios.

rakovsky

Posted on 04/10/19 @ 09:29 PM

Rating
4.3
Breakdown
Playability	3.0
Balance	5.0
Creativity	5.0
Map Design	3.5
Story/Instructions	5.0

NOTE: This Scenario was made in 1998 on AOE 1.0 before the 2002 1.0c patch came out. I probably played in on AOE 1.0c when I made the review below. Later on, I was able to beat it using AOE:ROR. So apparently I can only win it in ROR, even though it was made in AOE 1.0. The problem with playing in AOE:ROR is that it uses map sharing with allies, whereas the campaign was designed for you to explore your allies' territory.

Playability: 3
I wasn't able to beat missions 1 and 3, even though I met the victory requirements.

Balance: 5
Good balance. I met the victory requirements on Moderate on all three missions.

Creativity: 5
Very creative.

Map Design: 3.5
I met the victory requirements for missions 1 and 3, but the game didn't end. Maybe there is a problem with the wall zones in mission 3. I even built walls on all the land in a straight line across the map, even where there were no desert tiles! I even cut down forest to do it, and I beat all the enemies on mission 3!

Story/Instructions: 5
I thought that there could have been a problem with the Instructions for Scenarios 1 and 3 because even after I met the Victory Conditions, my games for those two Scenarios didn't end. But using Campaign Manager 3 and the Scenario Editor, I checked Scenarios 1 and 3 as my Update says and the Victory Requirements there look fine. I don't know what the problem is that keeps the Scenario from presenting a Victory Screen when all the Victory Conditions are met.

Additional Comments:
MISSION 1: Invasion of Britania
On MODERATE, I think that I completed the requirements, and even killed all the enemies, but the game didn't end. I don't know why. The instructions say to build a TC, government center and barracks; GROW to a population of 15 villagers, which I did, including the 5 I already had from the beginning; build 4 guard towers, which I did, especially if one includes the sentry towers that I upgraded to guard towers; and create a garrison of 20 soldiers, which I did (besides the ones that I started with. I even put the ones I built in four groups of five.). This could be a glitch, but I don't know how to review this scenario in the scenario editor, as it's a "Campaign."

MISSION 3: Building Hadrian's Wall (120 AD)
On Moderate, I built walls on all the desert places and towers on all the flags and I beat all enemies, but the game didn't end.

[Edited on 08/22/20 @ 06:18 PM]

rakovsky

Posted on 08/15/20 @ 05:27 PM

UPDATE:
I used the Application called "Campaign Manager 3" to extract the "Invasion of Britannia" Scenario from the Campaign file. The designer doesn't say on this webpage or in his Readme whether it was made for AOE 1.0 or 1.0C, but it must be for 1.0 because AOE1 came out in 1997, the Scenario came out in September 1998, and AOE 1.0C came out in 2002 (based on the Date Modified value for the 1.0c Patch file). Probably I had been playing it in 1.0c, considering 1.0c to be the better version of AOE.

I was able to open the file in the Editors of both AOE 1.0 and 1.0c.

The Scenario's Victory Conditions are exactly what is stated in the Instructions:
1. Build 1 Town Center in Britain (except for a strip 3 spaces wide on the southernmost part.
2. Build 1 Barracks in Britain
3. Build 1 Government Center in Britain
4. Build 4 "Guard Towers" in Britain
5. Attribute: Villager Population to 15.
6. Attribute: "Military Population to 20.

To use Process of Deduction, I deleted all Victory Conditions except for one, which I tried individually. In both AOE 1.0 and 1.0C, I was able to beat the mission set to Condition #6 by building just 5 or 6 axemen. You start with 5 arch horsemen, 5 swordsmen, 3 triremes, and 2 transports. I only needed to build 5 axemen because the military population condition must mean that you need that total number of soldiers (ships count). Probably one of my boats had gotten killed in the opening battle and this was why I needed to build 6 axemen instead of 5.

I also tried Condition #5 and found that I only needed to build 10 villagers to meet the 15 required, because I start with 5. I tried Condition #1 on AOE 1.0 and 1.0c and built a Town Center in Britain and that worked. Next, I tried Condition #4 (build guard towers) on AOE 1.0 and that worked too, although I think that you have to build them as guard towers, instead of just building sentry towers and then upgrading them to guard towers.

In the Scenario Editor, if I destroy Players 2 and 3 (eg. with Kill Command) before accomplishing those individual objectives, the scenario goes to Victory before I have a chance to beat those individual objectives. But that doesn't seem to matter when I load up my savegame, since I accomplished the individual objectives before beating the enemy players.

I tried a Test Game in the Scenario Editor using all the preset Victory Conditions (#1-6) as the Designer made it, gave myself a ton of resources and 9 villagers in Britain and very quickly built a base and met the individual victory conditions and got a victory.

Another time, I loaded up the Tester and tried a normal style of game where I brought all my units from France and built up a base in Britain to meet the 6 VCs, yet this time the game would not end when I met the 6 VCs. I even used the Kill command to destroy Players 2 and 3, and this did not end the game either, even though it did in those other tests that I mentioned. I am not sure what the difference is.

Thinking that I might be able to win if I met the VCs ASAP, I started a game on the Easiest mode, destroyed the Red Town Center ASAP, planted my base there and met the VCs, to no avail.

The problem might have to do with the combination of timing and the fact that the Designer used special AI and PER files. It took a lot longer and I did more fighting when I brought my units from France. Maybe the issue comes up because in longer games the enemies have to use the AI and PER files and get stuck while doing so.
Scenario 1 uses the "Pirate" and "Britons" strategy and Personality AI and PER files, whereas Scenario 3 uses the "Britons 3" and "Picts" Strategy and Personality. In comparison, the Designer's folder for the game comes with Pirate AI and PER files, and a Britons PER file, but no Britons AI file. I don't know if it's a factor, but the Britons PER file says: "Civilization Created For: Babylonians", whereas the Scenario has the Sumerians as the Civilization for Player 3 (Britons).

Finally, I used the Rise of Rome Scenario Editor to change the Britons' Civilization to Babylonians and their Strategy to Babylonian Swordsmen, and I tried playing it on EASIEST in Rise of Rome and was able to beat it that way. I picked the Babylonians for the Britons' civilization because the Britons' PER file says that the file is for the Babylonians.

Next, I loaded up my old AOE1.0 Savegame in Rise of Rome, and it turns out that I was able to beat it in ROR, even without changing any of the Civilization or Strategy values in the Editor.

=============================================
The same kind of thing happens with the "Building Hadrian's Wall" Scenario. I used the Campaign Manager and Scenario Editor and checked the Victory Conditions.
Victory Condition #1 is to build 180 "Fortified Wall" structures on a strip running three squares deep running through the one-square deep strip of desert spaces. The strip runs from the shore of the Lake in the Northwest, the whole way through the enemy city, through the forest, and finally stops at the SE edge of the map. This is different from the Instructions that players read because the Instructions don't mention the wall area as being three spaces deep. It does say "The markings are at places interrupted. The wall continues in a straight line across the entire map". So the instructions suggest that the Wall should run from the lake to the SE edge of the Map.
I counted 179 Wall spaces from the SE corner to the lake, meaning that you would need to build at least one more wall structure on one more ajacent space to reach the needed 180. But I could have miscounted, in which case the wall depth issue isn't important.
Victory Conditions #2-5 are to build 4 Ballista Towers total next to four flags. The third flag from the left is obscured by the Yellow Player's NW city wall, and the Instructions don't say that you need to build "four" towers. They only say "Build Ballista Towers in places marked by flags."
You also must keep Player 2 alive, because the other two players win if they defeat Player 2. This is reflected in the instructions that say that you must protect the Roman city, ie. the Red Player's city.

I checked my Savegame for "Building Hadrian's Wall" and actually I achieved all the required conditions and the Game still did not give me a Victory Screen or end the game. I built the four Ballista Towers in the right places, I built more than 180 Fortified Wall structures along the narrow long strip, and I protected the Red Player. So I don't know what the problem is that is blocking the Victory Screen. Just to be sure, this evening I started a fresh game of this Scenario using AOE version 1.0C on the Easiest Difficulty, Built a straight line of Fortified Walls across the map from West to East and Ballista Towers and it still doesn't give me the Victory Screen.

[Edited on 08/22/20 @ 05:53 PM]

rakovsky

Posted on 08/25/20 @ 03:16 PM

UPDATE:
I just fixed the glitches and submitted the fixed Campaign as "Roman Expansion into Britannia, Version 2".

YOU CAN FIND THE FIXED VERSION HERE:
http://aoe.heavengames.com/dl-php/showfile.php?fileid=2796

[Edited on 11/11/20 @ 01:59 PM]

HGDL v0.8.2

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Rating
4.0
Breakdown
Playability	3.8
Balance	4.0
Creativity	4.0
Map Design	4.1
Story/Instructions	4.0

Statistics
Downloads:	947
Favorites: [Who?]	0
Size:	821.00 Bytes
Added:	11/16/98

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