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Author |
File Description |
GLWizard |
Posted on 11/22/13 @ 09:17 AM
File Details |
Difficulty: |
Mortal |
Number of episodes: |
5 |
Minimap:
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Hand-picked by the leaders of the Atlantean continent to head a new center of commerce, Reetale has the potential to become the richest city in the world- though you'll have to overcome the enmity of Hermes, God of Merchants and Thieves, to do so.
Adventure parameters: 4 home episodes, one colony
Size: 1024 X 768
#4 in the Godsbane series.
EDIT 12/16/13: Updated difficulty to Mortal. |
Author | Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Mazeppa |
Posted on 12/16/13 @ 10:27 AM
Playability: 3
In the beginning, the adventure starts out pretty nice. A unique storyline that you are chosen by Atlantis to lead a city of commerce to improve atlantean riches delves you into the scenario. The different objectives in each scenario presented unique situations for the player to accomplish and that is a thumbs up I'd personally give to any adventure.
However, playing on Olympian with a starting treasury of around 12,000 made it too easy. But, that's pretty acceptable as some adventures would start on easy and end up difficult as you progress. Though I, as a looking-for-challenges ****, would personally protest, but I can't criticize on that aspect. Also, it kinda upsetted me that there was no conquering involved in this adventure.. And what about the last episode you may ask? The last episode was very boring :( . I'll explain why on the next 2 paragraphs.
Firstly, with plenty of rivals around you, I would expect that you have to conquer these rivals in order to accomplish that 9 trading partners goal. But no, apparently, I have to fulfil quests to "unlock" their friendliness; That's ok, as clues of that particular scenario was included in the episode introduction text - however, on the down side, it decreases the challenge I'd love to experience on the last episode. Using these triggering of events on a climax episode made everything too easy and disappointing; it was boring, especially due to the fact that you could instantly summon those heroes given that you'd normally already have an advanced city by the last episode.
Secondly, (and most importantly) why was a '6 pyramids' objective included in the last episode? With all due respect, I believe it is utterly pointless to include a full 6 pyramids goal as an objective in the last episode - or in fact, any episode as that should be reserved for the player after he completes the entire adventure. It would be okay for one (like the museum atlantika and its purpose for building it) or even two in an episode as a matter of fact. But 6 is a big no-no and I see no point in them being put in as an objective. As a result, I became utterly bored for an hour waiting, waiting and flucking WAITING for that goal to be finished.
In addition, on the last episode, I've made around 700,000 drachmas on completion. Therefore, the invasions sent (though not frequent) could easily be bribed. But considering the "retale" aspect, I guess that was meant to be in the adventure?
Also, why only one colony? You could perhaps make another colony based on militaristic development in order to give the adventure at least a little bit of an 'economic-military mixture of experience'. Making only one colony city in my opinion, decreases the re-playability value of an adventure.
-> My suggestion is you could give the player some kind of choice. If the player wants a militaristic kind of colony and a change of action in the adventure, place another colony without orichalc and black marble and maybe put another oceanid city - possibly a 'main oceanid resource city' to conquer. That oceanid city could produce orichalc/black marble making the next parent episode possible perhaps, and somehow trigger frequent 8-10k drachma invasions due to the player choosing that particular colony. - Say, triggered by a city request of low amounts of food or some other stuff for instance. That could make the next episodes more interesting for a player who hungers for break-neck challenges. :)
Another criticism on this aspect was that every episode had 6 objectives in them. This makes the 'ease' of the adventure low indeed and made the entire adventure seem very tedious.
Balance: 3
Objectives placed in each episode was unique and there were little signs of repetitive objectives anywhere - except at the colony episode; my gosh.. It was like episode 1 and 2 mated with each other and produced episode 3 as their offspring. Episode 5 also had some hints of repeated objectives with the slay monster events o.O .. But nevertheless, they were indeed realistic and can be achieved.
On difficulty terms however, there was a constant 'easy mode' on every episode and almost no aspect of challenges anywhere. That may make the adventure playable by all sorts, but it would also make the adventure quite boring as a result the more it progressed.
Also, the entire adventure more/less featured on economic development and building. There were almost no signs of military development. Yes, there is a '64 charioteers or better' goal (something like that), but they were of no use.
Creativity: 3
The storyline was creative and engaging; how a person from a ranch family was chosen to enrich the wealth/commerce of the atlanteans was a pretty nice thought. It was also maintained throughout the adventure and never lost track of the main plot.
The triggering was okay except from certain bizarre events such as passive monsters and their spawn points at various non-harming locations of the map which rendered an episode bare from any challenges whatsoever; and 'rival becomes ally' events triggered from quests. Moreover, I would like to see the effects it had on those cities wanting to ally to me after the quests were completed - at the episode completion text.
The map; with irregular scrubbing and odd meadows, intertwined with odd placement of forest almost put me off from playing the adventure initially. But it was spacious enough to lay down a beautiful city in the last episode. However, there were obvious green markings, black spots after landslide events and a few other map bugs the author failed to recognize which kinda humiliated the map and left it unpolished. The colony map was pretty okay too.
Map Design: 3
Like what I said in the creativity segment, irregular scrubbing, odd shaped meadows and forests, repetitive straight lines at cliffs and ultimately, map graphic glitches unfixed decreased the overall score in this category.
Though the colony episode was decent and the spacing provided in the parent city was adequate.
Story/Instructions: 5
The strongest point of the adventure. It was unique and solid. It was also easy to read/follow the story and was detailed enough to provide decent clues the player could take note of prior to starting the episode. It was engaging. Furthermore, it provided reasons behind certain events, objectives and the like. This is the main part of the adventure I liked best.
Additional Comments:
I seriously believe it should be set as mortal.
Hope my review wasn't too harsh on you. :)[Edited on 02/05/14 @ 10:27 AM]
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divodu |
Posted on 07/23/22 @ 04:31 AM
Playability: 5
I played it on Olympian and enjoyed it a lot.
Balance: 5
Everything worked fine.
Creativity: 4
It's hard to be creative in these games, but in your other adventures it feels like you somehow managed to do more than here (I'd usually learn a new mechanic, or there would be specific uses of certains gods...).
Map Design: 5
After the landslide it feels like the new areas should fit pyramids. But, for some reason I couldn't get to them. Not sure if this was intentional or a bug (I had built something there before the landslide so maybe something got stuck), but it bugged me as I had planned to put the pyramids there, hoping for a new landslide or something.
Other than that, I really liked the map as it made me use both flanks of the river.
Story/Instructions: 5
Very nice, as always with your adventures!
Additional Comments:
I really wish you hadn't stopped posting, I'd love to see more adventures in the Godsbane series. This is how I would rank them (starting with the one I enjoyed the most):
1) Wrath of the Grapes
2) Rock and a Hard Place / Grand Larceny (hard to decide which one to put first)
3) Blood Money
[Edited on 07/23/22 @ 04:33 AM]
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HGDL v0.8.2 |
Rating |
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4.1 | Breakdown |
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Playability | 4.0 | Balance | 4.0 | Creativity | 3.5 | Map Design | 4.0 | Story/Instructions | 5.0 |
Statistics |
Downloads: | 1,414 |
Favorites: [] | 1 |
Size: | 280.30 KB |
Added: | 11/22/13 |
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