8th August 2013: A Settlers Story
Not long back I bought Settlers 3 from GOG, which gave me more stuff to play with than the normal version I had previously. This collection gave me the Amazons, extra missions, and a groovy map editor, which I had to jump right into using. I wanted to make a map that promoted massive battles but also could be played in a much shorter time. To that end, I set up everyone's guard towers, mining and food industry as part of the map, leaving players the simple tasks of building their smiths and residences and getting stuck in. At least that was the plan. I tested the map out with CPU players, and it didn't go quite as I hoped...
As reds, I teamed up with blues and yellows against greens, cyans and oranges. It did not take long for all 6 teams to build up a considerable force of soldiers. Then I played a waiting game. A very loooooong waiting game. All I wanted was for something to happen, for either my allies to attack or the enemy teams to attack. I knew if I went in at the enemy alone I would be wiped out. But nothing happened. For hours. Literally.
Eventually, I couldn't be bothered any more. As all 5 CPU armies shuffled around nervously, I grabbed all my little guys (by this time around 1000) and sent them forward. Seems like the blues had also been waiting for the chance, deciding to follow me in, and we crashed into the enemy defences. Unfortunately, the yellow team defiantly sat in their territory, and the enemy armies battered myself and the blues into submission in short order. The sheer volume of soldiers on the screen during this engagement was something I'd never seen before in this game.
Now things had kicked off at last, the enemy counter attacked. With all my soldiers gone, and few blues remaining, the yellows finally had to step up and were able to hold them off. After the first crazy engagement, every attack that followed from the CPU players were small ones, easily defended from both sides. I wasn't quite sure how the game was ever going to end, but then I realised to my concern that both the blues and yellows had stopped creating soldiers. They had used up all their stone supplies building dozens of buildings they didn't need, most of which I'd already supplied them with by default. Stupid CPU players. This meant they couldn't build any more residences. By contrast, I'd not even used half of my stone yet.
I realised this was probably true of the enemy players as well, so built up another large force and sent them in. Joined by the remaining yellow soldiers, I was finally able to punch through the enemy forward defences, and rolled through the entire cyan settlement. My final army was then easily able to take out the oranges and greens with little resistance. Phew.
The map definitely promotes huge battles, but needs more tweaks in order to be played faster. Oh, and human players. Always helps, that.
In other news, pretty much still just playing LoL a couple of times a week, but no other gaming has happened for a while now. I gave up Star Trek again. Game is just too much of a dull grind fest. MMOs I guess.