Topic: Empire Mission 4

I don´t have enough time to play the scenario at the moment, but I read the scripting.

The beginning is a bit unclear. The campaign storyline begins with Lutius being driven from an outpost by sneaky barbarians, then it tells the story of his struggle in exile. When he is "home" now, does that mean he´s regaining control over the colony or is he back in the mainland of the empire? If the first – how come? If the second – who are those barbarians, and what are they doing there?

In the campaign menu, the empire campaign is marked as "easy", whereas the atlantean scenario is medium-difficulty. But in my opinion, your scenarios are harder than the atl campaign

The chaotic economy the player starts with is a very nice idea But it seems strange that one has to dismantle or destroy almost everything; some more "normal" buildings in the mix wouldn´t be out of place.

One thing I´d been missing in the first and second scenario is religion, which was after all very important in ancient Rome. I like it that you put more focus on that, with Neptune in the 3rd mission and Vesta in the 4th. How about adding some more gods to the storyline? For example, the barbarians could be besieging a temple of Mars, and if the player rescues it before they destroy it, the god rewards him by giving his soldiers some free promotions. Or the temple could be Apollo´s, and he grants the player exclusive insights into the barbarians´ land…

The texts are fine (except for some typos) and suit the characters well. It would be nice though if the player found out the reasons for the economical mess after the victory over the barbarians or (even better) piece-by-piece during the mission, instead of being told to wait for the next scenario. Idea: the responsible person doesn´t appreciate Lutius´s interfering and keeps harassing him by making some bad economic decisions when the player isn´t looking, such as placing constructionsites for expensive, messed-up buildings the player has to keep removing.

However, even without any changes, this is in my opinion the most interesting scenario of all

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@Nordfriese: Here a SirVer quote for you:

SirVer wrote:

Please keep in mind that the Empire is the Empire. They are not the Romans :).

Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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Hi everybody thanks for the feedback. Will try to discuss it sequentially:

@ Nordfriese:
first of all thanks for the flowers. Now to your points:
1. At the end of mission 2 Lutius is ordered back home to help defend the empire in Fremil against the Babrian tribe he was forbidden to attack before the first mission. Mission 3 is just a temporary drawback from his return and in the end of mission 3 he set sail to Fremil. The Map in the beginning shows that he is sailnign to Fremil right now. Hope that this is explaining the beginning of mission 4 sufficiently.
2. You are right about the marking but I think difficulty should increase in the campaigns as well. and overall due to the easy nature the player is told exactly what are the essential things to do. Difficulty just arises from the better and more agressive AI. From my point of view a rating of the single missions regarding their difficulty inside the campaign leaving the campaign rating as an indication for the tribes general difficulty would suit the thing best.
3. You don't need to dismantle everything just the wells, the quarries, the lumberjacks and the fishermans houses to gain some material. You need to destroy the farms to get some more space and to trigger the quest. Any other building you could leave as they are if you want to. However the mill, the brewery, the forrester and the training camp just don't work very efficient. So I'd rather call this a good mix. In fact I started with less "screwed" buildings but found it to easy and to monodimensional so I came up just to this.
4. I don't take the religion thing to serious. They are just a means to transport the story somewhat further. so maybe vesta is not the "correct" goddess but that doesn't really matter. The idea with a time limited objective with rewards is appealing. I will think about this and probably will use it in one of the next missions. I already thought about introducing a malus for destroying the monastry. Something like randomly burning some buildings due to vesta letting escape the fire from the chimney. Or pirates robbing the headquarters. Probably I'll integrate this into this scenario. What do you think?
5. I fully agree with you regarding lifting the curtain from the secret cause of the chaos. The problem is I don't know it yet Any suggestions anybody? For creating constant chaos i'd rather prefer not to just in case the gods are provoked they could giv you a lesson.

@Kaputtnik:
1. regarding the flags and the unnormal roads. There are a couple of these issues. this is due to the rather dumb pseudo road building algorithm I created using the place_road function. I need to force the road otherwise the scripting fails. But I will think about a solution.
2. the new build forresters should be fine in any case (cause the setup of the scenario just alllows to build the normal buildings no "screwed" buildings can be build. But the intention was not to have them in the exact same place. I will change the texts to build 2 new ones near your lumberjacks.
3. coal is short but sufficient. But i will add an objective to build two charcoal_burners if the ratio of Iron to coal drops below a certain value. Would this be helpful?
4. I had the same problem once. Solutions might be to
a) count just for one hero
b) check for a certain ration between empire strength and babarian strength
c) add a totally different objective which is independent - any suggestions?

again thanks for the feedback

regards hessenfarmer

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Nordfriese wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

@Nordfriese: Here a SirVer quote for you:

SirVer wrote:

Please keep in mind that the Empire is the Empire. They are not the Romans :).

Oops

More emphasis on religion suits the campaign anyway. Details like that give the Empire´s background story more depth, which can never be out of place. And it would be weird if the Empire worried about upsetting Neptune or Vesta if they didn´t worship or believe in the other Roman gods…

I played the campaign, but I don't remember if gods are mentioned in the scenarios #1 and #2. If they are not mentioned, it is not necessary/good to mention them in the fourth scenario in my opinion....

Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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ok new revision is up containing:
- an objectiv to build charcoal kiln if coal is rare
- an karma function to give a constant malus or bonus taking into acount the decision regarding the monastry

if anybody knows a way to determine the state of enemy first seen by scriot I'd like to trigger the final objective either after having the first (or second ) hero or after first seen the enemy. that would solve the last problem kaputtnik mentioned.
Would love to have any inputs at which time Lutius could say something during the story cause he is very silent until now.

Would also highly appreciate if somebody could have a look on the texts to correct them or refine them to a more elaborated english. (@Venatrix: would especially love if you could prepare the translation by first correcting the english),

regards hessenfarmer

(PS: managed the map today in 10 hours gametime still making some mistakes, anybody to beat me? ;-))

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