Hot on the heels of my replay of the Fall of the Trident campaign after over a decade without touching Age of Mythology, I just finished my rediscovery of The New Atlantis campaign (took a matter of days - I had more time than I had initially thought! well that and I couldn't help it)
Since it had been over a decade since I last played the campaign, I only remembered disjointed things like the first time you see a titan (cool in-game cutscene!), Odin's Tower, the Atlanteans as a fully-fledged faction, the ability to reuse some god powers multiple times by default within one scenario, the finale with Gaia vs Kronos, the general theme of some maps and the fact that you sometimes got to play as the Egyptians or Norse again. I also remembered from my teenage years that there was some challenge to the campaign, though even then (as with theFall of the Trident), it appeared easier than the campaigns in Age of Empires (I & II) on the same difficulty setting ("normal", "medium" or "moderate" equivalent). Stuff like map layouts were forgotten, along with strategies and most gameplay specifics (apart from the ability to reuse some god powers multiple times by default).
Thus, I again played theThe New Atlantis campaign on the moderate difficulty setting - and now I shall relay my impressions on the overall difficulty level. My impressions are tied to my experience with RTS games so context matters - see my other thread on the Fall of the Trident campaign for that.
Unsurprisingly, the campaign is easy overall - and to be honest, only one scenario gave me a modicum of challenge:Betrayal at Sikyos... that's right, the same scenario where you first encounter a titan, and which after your first try will always be easy (unless you only beat it once and later don't play the game at all for over a decade! that's me). That first try matters though: here I actually saw the game over screen for the first time since returning to Age of Mythology + expansion after over a decade! (so yeah, after all that time the only foreknowledge I had left of this scenario was its intro cutscene, the general "temperate climate" look of the map, and the fact that I would not be killing the titan in this scenario but in a later one)
Like I said in the other thread, for me, a scenario of "average" difficulty differs from one which is "easy" by having you beat least once genuinely threatened with a mandatory reload where you need to seriously fight, and still you might have to reload once. A scenario can be of average difficulty within the context of a typical "build & destroy" design (like A Long Way From Home), or can be of average difficulty because of a "puzzle-like" design where foreknowledge really helps (like Unlikely Heroes). Betrayal at Sikyos falls squarely into the latter category: without foreknowledge, you don't know enemy attacks will consist solely of Prometheans (hints are helpful but don't tell you to expect only Prometheans), you don't know exactly where the enemy will concentrate attacks (also depends on the walls you build, very important), you of course don't know yet the exact layout of the map, you don't know you'll need to make 3 Rocs after holding out for 15 minutes, and even simple things like the placement of gold piles - first time round, you'll set your laborers to mine the small gold pile at your base, but you focus so much on building up defenses and dealing with the frequent attacks that you might miss the moment when the pile is depleted, and since you urgently focus on the areas highlighted by the scenario as critical ("behind the cliffs" and around the settlement to the west) you might miss checking out the immediate east - where there are two easily accessible piles of gold just beyond the fog of war! Foreknowledge of enemy behaviour helps immensely: on my first try, I walled off the immediate north and built a Migdol Stronghold there for added defence but even after walling off all the other passages, the enemy never came through here. Another funny thing which happened to me is that after having been primed by Atlantean gameplay specifics, I actually overlooked at first the need to build monuments to generate favor as Egyptians - and since I had used favor for tech development, I didn't have enough favor the moment the game asked me to build 3 Rocs! Hence, though I survived the initial 15 minutes, I got wiped out after an epic attempt at smuggling 2 villagers to some corner of the map with a gold pile - the Prometheans found me once I had built the mining camp second attempt worked of course.
Besides that, it's all easy -Odin's Tower (awesome design), Making Amends and War of the Titans do require you struggle a bit to complete your objectives, but never threaten you with a game over.
Ditto: I had a great time, but for sure next time I'll bump up the difficulty setting!
Other comments:
- funny thing I discovered online after playing the campaigns - apparently, on the higher difficulty settings ("Titan" in particular), the consensus seems to be thatCerberus is the hardest scenario in The New Atlantis campaign! (it's just easy on the moderate setting)
- theFall of the Trident campaign is significantly better: that is not because The New Atlantis is less polished - on an individual scenario basis, it's just as good as the original campaign - but simply because it is much shorter (less than half the length of the former); hence, the story in The New Atlantis doesn't have the time to develop as much and feels fast-paced and to the point, it's good overall (just enough in terms of twists and epic moments to be solid) but the Fall of the Trident story is very good.
- I will not be touching the post-ES content - for me, officialAge of Mythology ended with The Titans (and yes, reviews helped cement that opinion)
- I will be glad to play scenarios and campaigns made by the community now, never did before so I'm excited
Since it had been over a decade since I last played the campaign, I only remembered disjointed things like the first time you see a titan (cool in-game cutscene!), Odin's Tower, the Atlanteans as a fully-fledged faction, the ability to reuse some god powers multiple times by default within one scenario, the finale with Gaia vs Kronos, the general theme of some maps and the fact that you sometimes got to play as the Egyptians or Norse again. I also remembered from my teenage years that there was some challenge to the campaign, though even then (as with the
Thus, I again played the
Unsurprisingly, the campaign is easy overall - and to be honest, only one scenario gave me a modicum of challenge:
Like I said in the other thread, for me, a scenario of "average" difficulty differs from one which is "easy" by having you be
Besides that, it's all easy -
Ditto: I had a great time, but for sure next time I'll bump up the difficulty setting!
Other comments:
- funny thing I discovered online after playing the campaigns - apparently, on the higher difficulty settings ("Titan" in particular), the consensus seems to be that
- the
- I will not be touching the post-ES content - for me, official
- I will be glad to play scenarios and campaigns made by the community now, never did before so I'm excited