Battle At The Ford is a creative eye-candy style of map which holds an interesting game.
The Norse have moved to attack the most northern state of Greece and so the Royal Guard
have gone in search of Ajax their commanding officer to lead them into battle.
The first battle will take place at the ford, but from then on it is up to you to defend
your base.
This scenario shows some of the my best triggers. I have made them fairly simple so that
other people having trouble with their triggers can look at mine and develop theirs easier.
Please have fun!
To be able to play thi scenario: Place the 'battle at the ford.scx' into the Scenario
folder in the AoM directory. You can discard this readme if you want to. Remember that
this scenario is only playable with "The Titans" expansion pack.
Playability: 3
There is a number of bugs in there:
When the enemy troops reach the ford they just stand there and admire the view. They won't attack or even cross the river on their own accord, so they can be safely ignored. (Idea: Have them move directly to the village.)
One of the enemy armies (the first one in the lineup) never does anything throughout the game. (Idea: Forget about the ghost armies and use these troops instead.)
No restoration is granted when all relics are collected. (Wrong trigger, use 'Grant GP' instead of 'Invoke GP'.)
Since the village only converts when a specific villager is in the player's LOS it's impossible to trigger this event with a hippikon and the player seems to be stuck. (Idea: Use the 'Distance to Unit' condition instead, or clearly state that Ajax has to go there personally.)
There is no clock yet when the soldier explains its meaning. It's created later, after the village has been converted. Also, it does not show the time until the first battle, but until the enemy starts moving on the other side of the map. (Idea: Start the clock immediately and rename the timer.)
And finally: There are a number of things that get an bit confusing when the player doesn't do things in the 'correct' order. Seemingly useless farms convert even if there are no villagers, a soldier says something about a good observation point when he's already in the middle of the enemy town... (Idea: Enable/disable the respective triggers.)
Balance: 2
Way too easy! The first time I played I won in about three minutes, simply by ignoring the objectives and rushing the enemy right at the start. (The base would need stronger fortifications or a strong army to fight back early attacks like that.)
But even without an early rush the scenario remains a pushover. The triggered attacks are easily pushed back and apart from that the enemy remains quite passive (even on Titan), sitting and waiting to be slaughtered by a big army or a Titan.
The scenario needs a much more challenging enemy. You have to put the player under constant pressure while he is trying to build up and have the enemy attack in wave after wave after wave.
Creativity: 3
I'm hard pressed to find anything I'd think of as especially creative here. The usual approach - start with a TC, build up and attack an enemy base. At least you took the time to add some 'colour' to the picture, so to speak (the migrating caribous, messages on the map etc.).
Map Design: 4
The map was nicely drawn, but it wasn't terrific. Nothing to complain, but nothing to go 'wow!' either.
Story/Instructions: 4
One problem I had with the instructions was that a lot of information came from spoofed chats. I personally prefer 'proper' objectives and hints - after all, that's what they are here for. Except from that there is not much to say here. The instructions are quite clear (though with a couple of spelling errors) and there is a background story as well.
Two details: You renamed the Major God to 'Ajax's Base' instead of the Player Name, and it would help if you added a message when resources are granted.
Additional Comments:
You should remove the black map during the cinematics, otherwise the camera track at the beginning will just show darkness between Ajax and the ford.