|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
a) The scenario ends in AD 2000. I just do not understand this. It would seem to me that the author forgot to set the time limit. However I have noticed that another of his scenarios, Pelloponesian War, suffers from the same deficiency. I assume therefore that this is intentional. It would have been nice for the author to explain in a readme the reasons that moved him to do this. b) Readme? There is no readme!!!
This is again a pity because the scenario includes some really
brilliant ideas that, in the lack of exposure, may go unnoticed.
For example, the idea of the fort cannon (air unit with 1-movement
allowance so it has always to stay inside the cities) is really
neat. However I lost four of these before I realized what was
going on (they 'die' when you try to get them out of the city).
The pop-up box that shows when one of these units disappears,
is highly unsatisfactory. In the absence of a readme, Alex could
have used this pop-up box to warn about this unit. c) The package does not include a pedia.txt file. Among many other things, the absence of this file makes you go blind in many respects because there is no way for you to assess how good your units are in comparison with those of the rivals. d) The scenario is totally uncovered. In a scenario like this is a shame for two reasons. On one hand, it eliminates the need for exploration (in my humble opinion one of the most entertaining aspects of Civ2). On the other hand increases way too much the waiting time between turns, which may lead to boredom. After you move your units, you have to watch the AI moving all of its units, which is plain boring. To make things worse, there seems to be an event that creates bears at random. Well, there may come a moment in which there are too many bears, especially on the upper left corner of the map. e) The scenario relies too much in the beginning on event units. The first turns of any scenario are crucial for the player to decide whether it is worth continuing or not. In Quebec you do not have many building options. As the units you can build are too weak you must rely on the ones already in the scenario or the ones that come via events. Either way, you do nothing to "deserve" these units and planning a rational strategy is not possible. f) The scenario has no objectives. It scores just like a normal game. If there are no clear objective games the scenario loses a lot of interest, particularly if it's a conquest scenario. |
The scenario intro begins with "In the middle of XVI century…" I know it's only a typographical mistake, but a rather gross one! There is a tribe called "indian" whose chief is called "chief". This is not very nice, especially when it is clear that the author has invested a lot of time researching the scenario. Just after loading the scenario, a pop-up box warns that a city has built a trading post, that another one is building something that has already been built and that two other cities need an aqueduct to grow. Just like the typo mentioned above, attention to these minor details, while not important for gameplay itself, is frequently what makes the difference between an outstanding, well-constructed scenario ('professional' looking') and a regular one. It could have been very easy for Alex to fix these small problems. The aqueduct problem appears to be subtler as the cities cannot build them because they lack the appropriate technology. In my eyes this is a glaring design mistake. How could the English settlers in mid XVIII century ignore how to supply their cities with water? Perhaps the author's intention was to stop city growth. Manipulating the number of rows and columns in the granary box could have better done this. On another point (a small one), the scenario commences with the Huron and French as allies against the English, which I believe is historically accurate. However a few turns into the scenario, the Huron break the alliance and declare war on France, which I believe is neither accurate nor adequate. Despite the Huron being at war with me as well I found them very helpful to spot French troops (you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend). There is a way to get around this by forbidding via events any kind of talk between French and Huron - if they can't talk, they can't break their alliance. In my humble opinion, the terrain produces too many shields. The problem with this is that many city screens display the radioactive signs of pollution. This is an anachronistic touch that could have been easily avoided by deleting the radioactive icon from icons.gif. On the good side, the events.txt is remarkable and accompanies very well the scenario. It's one of the best I have seen. Tech tree and wonders - Undoubtedly a little bit more work could (and should) have been put into these sections. The wonders are by far the weakest part of the scenario. |
If I have not given 10/10 in this section is because the other graphical aspects of the scenario have been ignored. Given the author's talent in graphical design this ignorance is a sin. With only one exception, the wonder and city icons are the same as in normal games. The terrain has also been left untouched (the map looks beautiful though). I believe Alex should work on these files as well. On a final note, the faces for the Indian cities are particularly disappointing. |
| FINAL COMMENTS: I was eager to play this scenario, given the good comments that I had read about it over the Apolyton forums. To me this scenario nicely illustrates the fact that fancy unit graphics do not necessarily make for a top-notch scenario. Still, the scenario has potential. I would really love to see a version 2.0 of Quebec that addresses the several deficiencies indicated in this review. Then I would be very happy to rate this scenario at the level I think it deserves. |
HTML Design by Blackclove and Monk