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Magna Grecia [Playtest] - Completed
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Author |
File Description |
dulano |
Posted on 05/02/21 @ 04:08 AM
File Details |
Adventure: |
Custom |
Difficulty: |
Hero |
Population: |
5560 |
Magna Grecia [Playtest] - Completed. From Poseidon Custom Adventure "Magna Grecia [Playtest]" by ilpaesaggista
Though the adventure was incomplete, I found it very enjoyable. Maps looked nice. Good writing at the story, hints for players were seamless too. No notable bugs or crashes. Overall a nice effort!
Here are 4 savefiles for the adventure. 3 colonies, and the parent city after completing the final episode.
-Zankle
-Panticapaeum
-Agrokes
-Kyme (parent)
I'll post my comments based on each episodes later.
Thanks!
-dulano |
Author | Comments ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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dulano
File Author |
Posted on 05/02/21 @ 10:43 AM
Foreword:
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My comments of the playtest will obviously contain spoiler, should any player who wish to play this 'fresh'... well, they shouldn't read a Completed Cities thread anyways lol.
The breakdown and my comments were based on episodes played in sequence, in point form. [SUGGEST] were my humble suggestions. Apologies for incoming long texts/lack of formatting/grammar mistakes/bias etc.
EP1: Parent (Kyme)
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- Parent city Kyme, I think the map was good. It's smaller than the usual Parent maps out there, but its acceptable and perfectly playable.
- Starting money was OK (4000 on Olympian; 5000 on Hero; 7500 on Beginner), its a fair challenge spot on.
- Some fishing spots were odd, a little too close to coast/rocks/ground etc. A visual issue, but its no big deal here.
- Limited aesthetics at the start (no avenue, baths only etc) deter template blocks, players need to adapt. My main block was based on Seneter's housing block.
- Episode was rather fast paced, money struggles were somewhat unavoidable at the start. The main challenge was to build up a steady income FAST. Bribes were always better than rabbles. ;)
- [SUGGEST] A settled player could choose to dally around to build-up some money. A good idea to set a deadline (10 or 20 years in) for ultimate invasions, to push players to leave for next episode asap, or risk getting overwhelmed by the increasing invasions/bribes.
EP2: Colony 1 (Zankle)
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I picked Zankle as first colony per story.
- Great effort on map design, especially the cliffs and ramps. Meadow on cliff was nice too.
- North orientation have few visual tears on cliffs (darkened, smiley faces etc). Its not unusual in this game (elevated cliffs more than 2 levels have such issue if I'm not mistaken), I guess little can be done here.
- Vertical land seperated by a river: deters the usual go-to of squarish/big housing blocks. Nice challenge for players to go creative.
- River was too wide to place any bridge connection, making land on the right inaccessible, was this intended? Though the land on the left was more than enough for this episode.
- [SUGGEST] The goal of 12 olive oil per year was a little low. Higher number like 18 to 24 could provide more of a challenge.
EP3: Parent (Kyme)
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- Hydra's spawn point was a real surprise and extremely close to my base. It was a nice pressure to get to Hercules.
- Troops request was a surprise too, since we don't have troops yet. But I managed to send Hercules to go solo, with success. I'm not sure if he'd still pull this off on higher difficulty though.
EP4: Colony 2 (Panticapaeum)
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- Panticapaeum was a contrast among the maps in this adventure. This episode was relatively easy due to wide spaces afforded here.
- Strategy was quite straightforward. There was big enough room for 1 or 2 standard housing blocks. To avoid wolves, the sheep and goats go on the higher plateau, grapes on the lower southwest meadow. Industries and trades as usual. Artemis near palace and entrance. All that left was to summon Odysseus for quest. Stick around to sell wine, armor, SCULPTURES for tons of money before sending Odysseus.
- Not too shabby, a nice chill episode for a change of pace.
EP5: Parent (Kyme)
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- [SUGGEST] The goal "2500 in Townhouses or better" was a duplicate from the previous Parent episode. I'd probably re-adjust either one; to reduce the previous goal into 2000+, or to keep/increase the goal here into 3000+.
- [SUGGEST] There were various price changes especially commodities Kyme was producing. Perhaps a little unnecessary, especially since city's income were snowballing at this stage anyways, yet there was no real use of these money. For the editors, a few or more large invasions from Corinth would be some nice additions (Corinth is 6 shield, and since other rivals could've been already conquered at this point).
EP6: Colony 3 (Agrokes)
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- Agrokes was interesting. In terms of gameplay, I'd pick this episode as the highlight of the adventure.
- The challenge was to fit 3 sanctuaries in such a small map, along with houses, industries and land trades. Most likely we came into this episode with loads of money, there was nothing much but to focus on the goals. And quickly, Cyclops was looming.
- Without spoiling the fun, I'd just say the goals were brilliantly linked. For me Apollo was really the MVP.
- [SUGGEST] Disable Poseidon sanctuary. Since there was no water in this map, pity Poseidon for getting stuck/bugged whenever he greets for his worship lol. Hades should fit his role fine.
- [SUGGEST] Adding more monsters could be fun, Cyclops again or others. Few notes though: The unused Maenad was listed as Monster1, both Hephaestus and Athena listed as proponent gods (note: Achilles), editors may want adjust these accordingly. And spawn points should be considerate too, since monsters could be destructive in such a small map.
EP7: Parent (Kyme)
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This episode was a work-in-progress, evident by the lack of events and story. But luckily it doesn't disrupt the progress.
- The goal for Poseidon Sanctuary appears belatedly, and very likely to force a rebuild in the already-cramped Kyme; not everyone would've expect it, or much less enjoy this sort of rebuild, but fair game if that's the intention lol. For my case, there was barely room at the bottom right near the entrance, just managed to fit the sanctuary there.
- Corinth was still a 6 shield rival. This was a personal preference though - usually I'd like to have everyone conquerable by the end of an adventure, unless the narrative explained otherwise. World domination FTW.
- [SUGGEST] One of the goals was to conquer Tarchna, which was still our ally at this point. There were plenty of adventures that required us to conquer an ally (and turn on every other allies), but for this case I suspect this was an oversight. So I checked on the editor and it shows a "City Become Rival" event, but instead of City 10 (Tarchna) it points to City 9 (Syrakousai). In truth, the error sort-of didn't matter, intentional or not. Just conquer Syrakousai (again) and then mow down every other cities one by one. Except Corinth of course. I was feeling lazy to conquer at this point lol.
- Yay, adventure completed!
Footnote:
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So that's my take on this adventure. Generally playable as-it and showed plenty of promise despite being incomplete. I hope the author or anyone could give this adventure a well deserved polish/ending, or the very least give it a play. And hopefully this wall-of-text could inspire in any way.
Thanks for reading!
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ilpaesaggista |
Posted on 05/10/21 @ 11:12 AM
dulano, thank you so much for this incredible review of the initial playtest.
First, I'll say, I have now completed the full adventure and playtested all episodes myself, so I will be preparing to release the full story shortly. (I am going to attempt to add voiceovers, mostly because that seems extremely fun and I had a *lot* of fun writing the ~5,000 word story)
thank you for your extremely thorough feedback and i'll offer some comments here:
- EP Kyme
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>[SUGGEST] A settled player could choose to dally around to build-up some money. A good idea to set a deadline (10 or 20 years in) for ultimate invasions, to push players to leave for next episode asap, or risk getting overwhelmed by the increasing invasions/bribes.
glad you suggested this, i was thinking similar, so look out for this addition in the final.
EP3: Kyme
>- Troops request was a surprise too, since we don't have troops yet. But I managed to send Hercules to go solo, with success. I'm not sure if he'd still pull this off on higher difficulty though.
i'll add a hint in the text i think, the intention here is to dump some of the extra unemployment capacity into triremes and use tririemes to support military requests. (at least that was what i did on my playthrough, good to know the play has options in using Hercules though).
>EP4: Colony 2 (Panticapaeum)
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were the invasions enough to keep the player busy? i did intent for it to be a change of pace, but not overwhelming basically.
>EP5: Parent (Kyme)
definite oversight on the housing goals on my part, thanks for picking up on that.
>For the editors, a few or more large invasions from Corinth would be some nice additions (Corinth is 6 shield, and since other rivals could've been already conquered at this point).
this is a good suggestion!
>EP6: Colony 3 (Agrokes)
i am so glad you enjoyed agrokres! i had a lot of fun measuring the space on the acropolis to fit the temples.
more monsters is a good suggestion, it took me a few playthroughs to get the cyclops just right. the first few times he just kept destroying all my agoras and i couldn't get enough workers - LOL
i tuned down his agression a bunch but kept him on the acropolis, basically i was able to beat him by putting sheep and goats in his way so he didnt destroy my temple and i will put a hint in the introduction accordingly!
>EP7: Parent (Kyme)
> The goal for Poseidon Sanctuary appears belatedly, and very likely to force a rebuild in the already-cramped Kyme; not everyone would've expect it, or much less enjoy this sort of rebuild, but fair game if that's the intention lol.
yup the rebuild is my intention. just something to mix up the endless drachmas one acquires with so much trade.
i ended up doing a rebuild over my luxury housing (going from 6-7 companies down to 2-3) as once you conquer tarchna you dont need a huge conquering military so much anymore. perhaps i could put a hint in to that effect?
you're correct about tarchna, that was an oversight, thats supposed to become your rival.
> Corinth was still a 6 shield rival.
have no fear about corinth they will be dealt with (creatively) in the penultimate episode!
again- thank you so much for playing and i am very glad that you enjoyed!
i had so much fun making it, this was my first time making an adventure! (although probably have 500+ hours in this game if you count when it first came out decades ago)
-ilpaesaggista |
dulano
File Author |
Posted on 05/13/21 @ 01:57 AM
> triremes
I totally overlooked triremes here. And then there was Ares too. Well, glad it somehow worked out lol.
> were the invasions enough to keep the player busy? i did intent for it to be a change of pace, but not overwhelming basically.
Military invasions were fair enough. The frequency (yearly?) was a slight worry during early-on, money was running low fast and I usually prefer to pay-off bribes rather than rabble defense. But once trades were up, the city could keep up with the money demands just fine, even after Oblia became vassal.
As for the gods, Dionysus was no threat. Not a surprise since he's among the least threatening God, stomped by Artemis (or Apollo) every time. That said, I probably wouldn't wish for any of the other gods to show up here.
> Agrokes
Yea I enjoyed Agrokes very much. Had to think about where the houses, sanctuaries and everything. Cyclops aggression was fine - he came in sudden I remember I had to track him each time he went for the agoras and granary, smashing stuffs along the way. No time and room to go for Odysseus, Apollo was simply the faster route. Nervy moments but fun.
> Rebuild over luxury housing
Yea that could work. I'm bias since rebuilding wasn't my preference. It's a last resort for me. Usually I'd look to squeeze into space as much as possible lol.
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For a first time adventure this is truly well-made! I do not have the creativity or patience to create one lol, so I truly respect and appreciate the efforts of the creators here, and not least yours too.
I'm gladly wait for your updates.
Thanks![Edited on 05/13/21 @ 02:03 AM]
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Mazeppa |
Posted on 05/14/21 @ 03:09 AM
Very nice city design! |
dulano
File Author |
Posted on 05/15/21 @ 09:46 PM
Thanks Mazeppa! |
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Added: | 05/02/21 |
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