|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
he civilizations begin with only a single city, and they are spaced far apart. The first thing that needs to be changed is that civilizations need to be more established right from the beginning. Even having 3-5 cities would be a big improvement, as things are quite slow at the outset. Most of the civilizations are stone age, but the Americans are extremely high-tech and the Elves have some unique air units. The Hive (not for play) have a pair of extremely nasty combat and diplomacy units that mop the floor with even the high-tech American units. It isn't clear why the different tech levels exist. Huts are enabled and opening them often provides you with high-tech units, either in the form of barbarians to bribe or in the form of mercenaries. Some of the mercenary slots are filled with the super-powerful Hive units, and if you get them then you can quickly explore the rest of the world (4 movement, treat all squares as roads) and conquer your primitive neighbors. Something needs to be done about this as my strategy relied heavily on random chance - finding the lucky hut and opening it. Although the scenario has its moments, it quickly degenerates into a hunt-and-kill scenario where you search out other civs to crush them with your ultra-powerful units. |
A good job has been done creating new Wonders. I found this the most refreshing aspect of the scenario. Unfortunately, the Americans can build almost all of them at the start, while the other civs have to wait a LONG time. The difference between playing the Americans and the Indians was basically that my Americans had a city with 138 production near the end, while the Indians were able to build legions on their own and were still in Monarchy. Technology advancement is too slow for the stone agers, too fast for the Americans. The best solution is to devolve the Americans and lower the technology cost. The tech tree does not seem to follow the course described in the accompanying file. It seems all messed up, actually. The author has included several unneeded files in the packet, most notably the Atlantis intro file and an unused .SCN file. These should be deleted to avoid confusion. The pedia file is included and works fine. The author allows civilizations to be restarted if destroyed, which sometimes leads to strange situations. In one game, I met and destroyed no less than three different Japanese civilizations of different colors. Only one of them was actually in Japan. Either restarting should be disallowed, or the restart civilizations need to be edited and replaced with new civilizations to avoid duplication. The Egyptians are not located in Egypt, which is quite strange. They should either be moved or renamed. There are three events in the events.txt file, one of which never fires (because everyone starts with the technology that sets it off) and the other two of which seem poorly motivated. Better use of the events.txt file would help add atmosphere and improve the game. I suggest more frequent time-based events (the first time-based event occurs on turn 610, which is way longer than most people will play a particular scenario). The map is the standard Earth map. I think a major civilization crash followed by 450 years of upheaval would have changed the globe a bit. The map really ought to be changed somewhat to make it feel more futuristic. One very labor-intensive idea might be to redraw the world upside down and change the climate in some regions (shrink the Sahara, make a large desert in North America, destroy the isthmus of Panama, sink California, etc.). Eventually people would figure out what was going on, but it would be a nice surprise when they did! |
The scenario is somewhat original, but could use some more thought in the area of the particular civilizations chosen and their differences. ARTWORK: The artwork is poor. The author tried some things, but I'm afraid it's not too well done. He admits this himself. I suggest this is the first thing to improve. |
| NOTES: None. |
HTML Design by Blackclove and Monk