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Campaigns » Challenge at Westlake - Singleplayer Campaign
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Challenge at Westlake - Singleplayer Campaign
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| Author |
File Description |
| Gweilo2 |
Posted on 11/01/04 @ 07:21 AM
| File Details |
|---|
| Age: |
Steel |
| # of Episodes: |
3 |
| # of Cities: |
1 |
| Difficulty: |
Hard |
| Custom Maps: |
Yes |
Minimap:
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"North of Gushan Temple,
Cloud mists hug the newly brimming banks.
Here and there first orioles contend in sunny trees;
To which households do new swallows wing, bearing their spring mud?
Riotous flowers more and more dazzle the eye,
The short grass barely covers the horses' hooves.
I most love walking for hours east of the lake,
Where green willows shade the white bank." - Bai Ju Yi, "A Spring Outing by Westlake"
Since the time of the Tang dynasty, Westlake has been famous for its beauty. This beauty has attracted emperors, poets, and the powerful from throughout China's history. Even today, Westlake is one of the most beautiful tourist sites in all of China.
It was quite understandable, then, how great the sadness was when the area was destroyed by an earthquake in 1240 CE. The relief and restoration of Westlake is the assignment you will undertake for the emperor in this campaign. Do not underestimate this challenge, for rebuilding in the aftermath of such destruction will be difficult. The emperor expects timely results, and will make a personal inspection of your progress.
A player will interact with 9 historically-accurate cities. Resources, commodities, and available structures follow the Emperor model for the Steel Age. This campaign uses a customized pricing scheme for commodities (designed by Shaun), which replaces the game's default Imperial Standard Prices. We believe it offers a more realistic price structure. These customized prices ripple into several aspects of gameplay, and the overall impact adds an additional level of challenge.
This campaign features a new custom map of original design, and 'enormous' size. The map was modeled from actual maps of the Westlake area.
Sabotage by spies is prohibited in this campaign, although spies can still be used for information gathering.
For chronological continuity, this campaign should be played just after concluding the Song-Jin 'Invaders from the North' campaign.
Four extra files are included in the download package. The first is a text file 'CW_Readme.txt', which contains installation instructions, historical background information, campaign design notes, general play tips, and mission hints (warning: contains spoilers). The other three files are images called 'Southern_Song_map1.gif', 'Westlake_map1.jpg', and 'Westlake_map2.gif'. These extra files are included solely for historical reference.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This campaign is rated 'hard', and should prove interesting for advanced players. For the best play experience, a player should possess an advanced understanding of time-constrained missions, money management, trading, labor allocation, monument construction, summoning and using the Heroes, and empire-map diplomacy. This is a peaceful campaign, but there is also an optional military component that a player can choose to explore after finishing, by continuing in extended play.
Missions Teasers: (note: the first two missions have a 'time limit' goal)
Mission 1 - 'Wrath of the Earth Dragon' - 5 years, from 1240 CE to the end of 1244 CE
Mission 2 - 'A Time of Recovery' - 8 years, from 1245 CE to the end of 1252 CE
Mission 3 - 'A Beauty Akin to Xizi' - no time limit, begins in 1253 CE |
| Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
|---|
| verdano |
Posted on 11/03/04 @ 06:44 AM
The program crashes when collecting stones (47).
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Gweilo2
Staff
File Author |
Posted on 11/03/04 @ 09:03 AM [Edited on 11/03/04 @ 09:12 AM]
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| Beijing Tag |
Posted on 03/05/06 @ 12:37 AM
A triptych of missions that should appeal to all levels of player. Only negative would be that once you've completed the missions/campaign it's not really the sort of campaign you'd go back to and try a different way IMHO. A charming campaign but not one that is particularly replayable unless you are aiming to produce a more polished version of the same thing.
Balance: 4
A good mixture of challenges. Only combat bunnies will dislike for lack of military requirements.
Creativity: 4
Can't think of another campaign that is quite like it, so points for originality.
Map Design: 4
Three cute monuments made to measure for placement on islands in the lake - very clever. Good choice of monuments as well, none of those take-forever-to-build monstrosities (not so subtle dig here, Gweilo will understand!).
Western and Northern shores make you think about pathing ways in order to access required commodities.
Only slight negative would be that housing sites more or less choose themselves, with only a little room for manoeuvre.
Story/Instructions: 4
Story is historically based and instructions up to usual standard from this campaign author.
Additional Comments:
Despite my reservations on replayability I really liked this campaign as it was a little out of the ordinary. Good to take a break from marauding army type missions.
A cheeky question for Gweilo - on your save for M1, you have deleted the labour camp(s) that would been required for the Temple. I can't see where they would have been for you to maintain PH. Or am I missing something?!
[Edited on 03/05/06 @ 02:28 AM]
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Gweilo2
Staff
File Author |
Posted on 03/05/06 @ 01:07 AM
BT, thanks again for leaving this review.
P.S. The "combat bunnies" can have all they could want, if they are willing to show patience until after winning mission 3. The Mongols begin to invade in 1274 CE![Edited on 03/13/06 @ 07:29 AM]
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TuShaWuJin
(id: shaun1) |
Posted on 05/08/06 @ 03:51 PM
(low?)
I will be replaying this campaign to rebuild the historical city with my own style. I perceive this campaign as a ‘beauty map’ or a chance to recreate a city in your style. Graphics are included to assist in this endeavor. The player is going to have to challenge themselves with personal rules and/or objectives. It’s a bit easy without challenging yourself to learn/relearn some aspect of the game usually not bothered with.
Balance: 4
(high?)
I disagree with the rating of 'Hard'. I would have suggested 'Normal'. The player will not struggle with the requirements, which is a good thing for novice players that may want to tackle an advanced strategy but don't want to be blindsided with a string of challenging events. The player can ‘opt’ into advanced strategy focusing attention to efficient trade cycles, price gouging, cross-country pathing (prey and cart pushers), land usage, etc. Run the final mission to the year 1274 and you can have a little military action or use advanced diplomacy options. There is something for everyone but not particularly challenging for the advanced player.
Creativity: 4
Map, price changes for gouging, storyline and a lot of peaceful time to build.
Map Design: 5
(high?)
There are plenty of interesting terrain aspects to challenge you. Beatiful rendered map of an actual place that I plan to cram as much onto it as I can in a future build.
Story/Instructions: 5
As alwas there is LOTS of info in the readme.
Additional Comments:
This would be a good campaign for a novice-intermediate player wishing to explore advanced strategies in laying-out a city build. Learning requires the student to ask questions that he in turn answers.
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Gweilo2
Staff
File Author |
Posted on 05/08/06 @ 10:15 PM
The save-games for this campaign that I made available for download in our Completed Cities section are NOT completely historically-accurate. Students of Westlake will know that the great temple monument I built on Fairy Isle does not exist. As can be seen from the map image files included in the campaign download, the game-map of Westlake I built is an adaptation of the actual topography, with some deviations thrown in to give players more building options. Making Fairy Isle large enough to hold a monument was one deviation (I visited Fairy Isle in 2000 and it's actually much smaller).
There were a few reasons I decided to rate this campaign 'hard'. Major ones were the time limits on the missions, the scripted earthquake, and the restriction of some building types (herbalists & acupuncturists) in mission 1.
My design attempted to draw attention to some rarely-used game elements (reliance on ferries, restricting safety buildings) that I thought might be fun to tinker with. So in some respects, this campaign was an experiment. At the time this campaign was under construction, I was going through a phase of great interest in Chinese poetry. I think this influenced the design (most obviously in the storyline, but elsewhere too).
With hindsight, I agree it probably isn't the biggest challenge out there for advanced players. [Edited on 05/09/06 @ 07:44 AM]
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
| Rating |
|---|
| 4.0 | | Breakdown |
|---|
| Playability | 3.0 | | Balance | 4.0 | | Creativity | 4.0 | | Map Design | 4.5 | | Story/Instructions | 4.5 |
| Statistics |
| Downloads: | 3,362 |
| Favorites: [] | 0 |
| Size: | 923.65 KB |
| Added: | 11/01/04 |
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