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| Author |
File Description |
| David Dvorak |
Posted on 01/16/00 @ 12:00 AM
| File Details |
|---|
| Version: |
Age of Kings 1.0 |
| Number of players: |
3 |
In A.D. 70 the Roman army besieged Jerusalem. This scenario recreates the siege as the Romans surround the city and start to build siegeworks. The Jews are split into two groups, the Zealots and Idumeans, and are fighting
inside the city. Each group is for itself. That's all that can be said. If you've read Josephus' "The Wars of the Jews", you'll find this scenario and its solution fascinating. You may even have to(this sounds harder than
it is)think about it. The catch is there are no in-game instructions, instead each player has to read a file for his instructions. If you read another player's file before you play the scenario the first time(ie. cheating) you won't enjoy it as much. You can play the scenario twice if
you want to see what would happen differently. |
| Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
|---|
| rakovsky |
Posted on 10/04/20 @ 08:03 PM
It was very playable because it worked fine in AOK: The Conquerors.
Unlike in AOE1, you can actually chose between different players in the Scenario loading screen in Single Player, so in this mission you can pick between the Romans, Idumeans, and Zealots. As the Zealots, you win if you can get your forces to the far eastern base, and you can only build houses and walls.
Balance: 3
It was balanced OK in Single Player because I beat it as the Romans and the Zealots on Hard. As the Zealots it was not difficult for me to escape to the east to win, whereas as Rome on Hard I could simply wait while the factions destroyed each other in the main city.
My impression from playing on Single Player was that on Multiplayer things would be different as the Romans would have to fight the Zealots trying to escape. It is not hard for the Romans to stop their escape if they post soldiers near the path across the river as a chokepoint. But I thought that it would not be hard either for the Zealots to escape, so long as the Romans didn't notice them.
I also think that the map is not well balanced in terms of fighting for the Zealots. The Romans and Idumeans so much overpower the Zealots that the latter's best chance seems to be to try to escape, and as I mentioned, escape is hard if the Roman player knows how to block it. One of the issues is that the Roman player is in the Post-imperial age with advanced troops, whereas the city defenders are two ages lower on the Castle age, with simpler swordsmen. In the higher ages, the players get more blacksmith and university upgrades for their armor and fighters automatically. So if it is on a higher age level, a single soldier of the same unit type as another outmatches the latter.
Then, playing on MULTIPLAYER on the AOK HD Steam version, as Rome I beat Alecalvar and Luojiaying719 playing as the defenders. My Player's color was blue though, although P1 must be red according to the setup. The problem must be that if you play on Steam, the colors don't stay consistent because the scenario is made for AOK (CD). Next, I changed the game settings in the staging area on Multiplayer so that I was Yellow Player 4 when I was P1 and it just gave me a TC, even though I was in Slot #1. IOW, it didn't give me contorl over P1's forces. Maybe I have to edit the colors in AOK:HD to make it playable for Steam with the right colors.
Playing on MULTIPLAYER on Voobly, with me as Rome, I beat +koandcul13 and _Suro playing as P2 and P3, respectively. Afterwards, +koandcul13 and I had a discussion where we said that it was a good map but P1 probably has to fight weakly or be unfamiliar with the ford area of the river for P2 and P3 to win, even if P2 and P3 are allied with each other and experts. But then +koandcul13 and "[dopers]AaryanKing" (a good player) as P3 and P2 beat me allied with each other and with me as P1 by sending their troops all together to the east end and getting to the base there while I was still building towers to guard the ford but before I put walls there.
Next, +koandcul13 and I discussed the map and said that if P1 blocks the ford with stone and guards the ford, then the only way to win is by killing P1. And the only way to kill P1 is by P1 attacking in a stupid way like sending all units to attack P2's and P3's city walls while the latter two shoot over the walls at P1 with ballistas and Archers and if P1 does not shoot back at the ballistas and archers.
So on Multiplayer, there are practically only three ways that P2 and P3 can win: First, if P1 doesn't know to block the ford, then P2 and P3 can ally with each other and race across it to win. Second, if P1 knows about blocking the ford but doesn't do it well (eg. he focuses on building towers or wood pallisades), then P2 and P3 can still race across it. Third, if P1 blocks the ford quickly with stone walls and troops, then P2 and P3 could still win if P1 attacks the city in a stupid way, like by having his units attack the walls while the defenders shoot over the walls with their ballistas and archers if he (P1) doesn't shoot back over the walls with ballistas and archers.
So in practice, whether P2 and P3 have a chance on MULTIPLAYER seems to just depend on how Nooby P1 is and how unfamiliar he is with the ford area.
Creativity: 5
I think that it was a very creative design to map out the city of Jerusalem, and also to include BMP instructions for each of the 3 sides. The victory condition of escaping was a neat creative idea.
Map Design: 4
My main criticism is that Jerusalem looked and felt much more like a "fort" due to its palisade walls than a city. Maybe the designer wanted this because he expected the defenders to build lots of walls.
On MULTIPLAYER, my playmates and I said that it was a good, fun map, but that P2 and P3 don't have much chance if P1 quickly stonewalls the ford and guards it with troops and attacks P2 and P3 with skills that are better than stupid.
Story/Instructions: 4
For the Romans, the Instructions say that you can build siegeworks, but in fact all that shows up in the Romans' build screen are a Wonder, a tower, and walls. I don't know if the Designer meant to put in siege works instead of a wonder, or if by siegeworks he meant the walls and tower.
One design issue that comes to mind is that the Idumeans were not historically a group that was fighting the Zealots. Rather the Zealots let them in to the city to fight a priestly group whom they suspected, perhaps wrongly, of wanting to surrender the city to Rome.
Additional Comments:
On Hard, playing as the Zealots on Single Player, I beat it by sending my forces east to the eastern base soon after the mission began. I did distract some of the Roman soldiers on the east of my base by attacking them with some soldiers while the rest fled. In the beginning, the Idumeans attack the Zealot forces pretty hard while the Romans invade the city from the north.
On Hard, playing as the Romans on Single Player, the Orange and Yellow Players fought each other alot while I waited and Yellow surrendered. Historically there was actually a ton of fighting between rival factions, although I couldn't find online the Idumeans fighting the Zealots.
I would recommend making this map for AOE1:ROR to give it a more historically accurate look.[Edited on 02/19/21 @ 01:14 PM]
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| rakovsky |
Posted on 01/30/21 @ 08:03 PM
P1= Romans (Red)
P2= Idumeans (Orange) in SW of city
P3= Zealots (Yellow) in NE of city
Romans' Instructions: https://i.ibb.co/Tb2wJKm/Romans.jpg
Idumeans' Instructions: https://i.ibb.co/YcT2xbH/Idumeans.jpg
Zealots' Instructions: https://i.ibb.co/CncZWDb/Zealots.jpg[Edited on 01/30/21 @ 08:03 PM]
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Rating |
|---|
| 4.2 | | Breakdown |
|---|
| Playability | 5.0 | | Balance | 3.0 | | Creativity | 5.0 | | Map Design | 4.0 | | Story/Instructions | 4.0 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 1,805 |
| Favorites: [] | 0 |
| Size: | 753.39 KB |
| Added: | 01/16/00 |
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