You start in the Stone Age with a Town Center and 3 Villagers. I don't like to start from scratch but you may. Your opponents start exactly the same way. The map is perfectly balanced with everything the same. Many of the forests are even perfect squares to make everything perfectly symmetrical. It seems like a Random Map that has been worked over to make it seem less natural looking and more artificial. You might play this, or you might play a scen that already shipped with the game, or you might create your own Random Map and add features to make it more creative.
skald
Posted on 03/09/10 @ 04:42 PM
Rating
2.1
Breakdown
Playability
3.0
Balance
2.0
Creativity
2.5
Map Design
2.0
Story/Instructions
1.0
Zolons 2
Playability: 3. I start out Greek, I hate this because I can't have my two favorite units, cav arch and chariots, but later it develops I can have them after all, so we must be playing with full tech tree. We are on a huge map with lots of resources and it drags a little in the second half as I gather more and more resources before launching final attacks. The map is divided into quarters by thick bands of forest. Very artificial looking but it does provide some thought for strategy, when to go through the wall, how to stop enemy villies from chopping through the wall, and most of all playing over the wall, I had a lot of fun using a tag team of two priests to convert units over the wall, have them attract enemy units, and then converting the enemy units they attracted. The first opponent always disappears in the first few minutes (I tried the opening game many times) it seems he can't stay away from the herds of all king elephants. So I took over his area and accumulated 5 times more gold and stone than the enemy CP's. The instructions say to get all the ruins and kill everybody. As I was finishing off the last CP's hordes of priests with my waves of chariot archers I was suddenly Victorious !? Without killing everybody.
Balance: 2. P4 disappears in the first few minutes, wiped out by king elephants. That leaves me with half the map and all its resources available, and I am safe behind a wall of forest unless the enemy CPs chop through, which is easily prevented by ballista towers and priests stationed at the forest wall, and scouts patrolling, looking for breakthrough spots. The enemy CPs are quite vigorous in their defense but with 5 times the resources, I can simply trade units with them until they run out of gold, which I never will, especially since I am using chariots while the CPs are using priests and catapults.
Creativity: 2.5. While the setup of the map seems simplistic, it actually provides opportunities for strategic thinking and tactical decisions and maneuvering. The victory conditions were creative, especially if they had worked.
Map: 2. All the elephants are kings. There are no lions. The lake has no shallow water to build a dock. Indicating possibly untested scenario. There are no cliffs and no elevations. Totally flat made from scratch.
Story etc. 1. Nothing except the instruction to get all the ruins AND kill everybody, which was broken.
Comments: The victory conditions are set to custom, conquest, get 5 ruins, all. But I didn't do all, I just got 5 ruins and won without wiping out the last opponent. This is the sequel to Zolons which Dean rated a 1.7.