Scenario Review Scenario Title: Quest for El Dorado Author: Jesús Balsinde Reviewer: Blackclove   Historical scenario. A very unconventional romp through the jungle at the head of a rogue Basque's army. Download at Spanish Civ Site Download Sounds at Spanish Civ Site

Overall Rating 28/30 SYNOPSIS: In this creative scenario, you have 110 days to bring a force of soldiers through a deadly Central American jungle to attack Spanish settlements. Along the way, you will face threats from disease, indian attacks, swampy terrain and the Spanish themselves. As you control no cities to speak of, you will quickly find yourself running out of units to conquer the Spanish at the end of the jungle gauntlet. You can't produce new units without cheating, which means protecting each unit become a priority. You will howl in agony every time a force is lost to the jungle. Once you take some cities you can produce new indian scounts to find the other cities. The scenario is tough but far from impossible. I managed to escape the jungle and conquer all but one of the Spanish cities before running out of time, but I know that I tend to enjoy very difficult scenarios. Less experienced players may need to save and reload a few times to make it through alive.

Playability Rating 10/10 COMMENTS: This is a tremendously well done scenario. The author channels you into a narrow, winding "passage" of jungle that forces you to encounter the dangers along the way. You will continually be weighing moving forward quickly to beat the clock versus holding back and scouting ahead for dangers. I can't explain too much about how he has done it if I don't want to ruin the game, but the author has once again demonstrated that he is probably the best Civ2 designer out there. You really have only a few units. Pikemen are good on defense, while harquebusiers are your best offensive units. In addition to them, you have two leaders, each of which can capture a city pretty much on their own. Occasionally you will capture or build indian slaves, who can scout ahead very quickly but aren't very strong on attack or defense. They do make good police for quelling rebellions, though. One of the dangers you face is "invisible" indian units that look like jungle. When they move around, they leave tell-tail trails in the forest, but are hard to see when stationary. It lends a sense of paranoia to the design that I have not gotten elsewhere. You will also face sudden changes in the landscape as floods break out, plus deadly airborne plagues carried by mosquitos. A truly remarkable feature is the degree to which Jesús has timed everything. Because you have only 110 turns to complete the scenario, you must always move forward. You are always hitting the "traps" he has set at just the wrong time if you aren't careful. The ending is a real thrill. You burst out of the jungle and spot farmsteads, then quickly start searching for the cities and crushing them. The author has cleverly made the cost of building Spanish units (for Spanish cities) very high so that the garrisons will not grow dramatically while you are wandering around in the jungle. The events are quotes from the main character's letter to the King of Spain declaring his rebellious intent. Along with that the events create some of the hazards you will face. It works.

Level of General Care 9 / 10 COMMENTS: The author has taken care of the details, but oddly because of the simple nature of the scenario there aren't many to take care of anyway. You can't found new cities, for example, or build any new units other than indian slaves. Your only improvements are city walls. For most of the game, you can't even do that. What details are included work well. In particular, the author uses a green color scheme in the frame that matches the monotonous jungle. The jungle itself has a few different tiles to keep it interesting. I even found myself developing superstitions about which kinds of squares were safer than others. The readme is very good and should be read before starting. There is not much to the tech tree; tech advancement is not part of the scenario. Nor are there wonders or much in the way of city improvements. Still, given the unusual constraints of the scenario, all relevant details are taken care of. One quibble - I might have liked some kind of text message after capturing each of the Spanish cities. Something like, "Lope captures San Miguel! The governor and garrison troops are put to the sword. It will be a long and hungry year for the citizens."

Art and Originality 9 / 10 ORIGINALITY: The idea of using Civ2 to create a quest, using a fixed number of units, is a very clever one and one I have not seen done before. In addition there are a number of other clever ideas that support this concept, described under playability, above. MEDIA: The terrains look good and so do the units. Most of the units come from other scenarios by the same author. The author has also made good use of sound files to make arrow sounds and buzzing mosquito sounds as you traverse the jungle. The mosquito doesn't sound quite right to me, but the other sounds are pretty good. Some bird noises or other jungle noises might also have been nice. Still, there is little to complain about here.

NOTES: None.

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