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Author |
File Description |
rakovsky |
Posted on 09/17/20 @ 02:13 AM
File Details |
Difficulty: |
Moderate |
Version: |
Rise of Rome |
Mission Name: Nero's Persecution
Mission Designer: Rakovsky
Scenario Version: 1.0
Date: 9/17/20
Difficulty: Moderate
Rise of Rome or AOE: Rise Of Rome.
Single Player or Multiplayer: Single Player
Historical Notes:
This Scenario depicts Nero's persecution of Rome's Christians following the Great Fire of Rome in 64-67 AD. Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the fire, but he might have been responsible himself. The Roman historian Tacitus reported that some people said that there were people who said that they were ordered to help make the fire burn worse. According to rumors in ancient Rome, Nero wanted the fire as a pretext for building himself a new palace.
As part of his persecution of the Christians, Nero put them in his Circus near the Vatican Hill and used them for brutal entertainment, like having them wear animal skins and making dogs attack them. He also beheaded Paul and crucified Peter upside down in this persecution.
Gameplay Notes:
I beat this mission myself on the Hard setting. An easier setting will give you a better
chance at winning the mini-battles in the circuses. The main difficulty is in following the instructions carefully because there are several tasks to do, but they are fun rather than hard. So it is not really a hard Scenario in my opinion.
Design Notes:
I am excited to present you this Scenario. I used an accurate layout for the city of
Rome and used rubble tiles from the "Hidden units" data file in order to simulate the
ruins from Rome's Great Fire.
Age of Kings has a "Roman Cross" unit, whereas the closest that I could do here was a
combination of dead pine trees and single pole flags. Nero's towers shooting fire arrows at
the units by the pine trees represents the human torches that he created.
Ideally, you could be automatically allied to Rome (red) and share map terrain information with Red in order to get a good view of the
city. The best that you can do is temporarily ally with Rome to uncover the city's full
terrain by map-sharing, and then switch Rome back to neutral. But it doesn't make much practical difference as long as you don't attack Red, because Rome (Red) has an allied stance toward you, even though you only have a Neutral stance toward Rome. In other words, just attack Orange (Nero), don't attack Red (Rome), and you should be fine.
The scenario is part of a Series on early Christianity that can be found in the Heaven Games Granary:
1. Gethsemane (30-33 AD)
2. Conversions and Catacombs of Rome (41-62 AD)
3. Thomas' Mission to Indo-Parthia (46-51 AD)
4. Abgar V's Mesopotamian Campaign (49 AD)
5. Nero's Persecution (64-67 AD)
6. Josephus Takes Command of Eastern Galilee (66 AD)
7. Josephus Retakes Tiberias (66 AD)
8. Nero's Killing (68 AD)
9. Domitian's Persecution (93-96 AD)
10. Domitian's Killing (96 AD)
11. Journey to Edessa (177-212 AD) |
Author | Comments ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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Fisk (id: Fruktfisk)
Staff |
Posted on 09/19/20 @ 05:01 PM
"This Scenario depicts Nero's persecution of Rome's Christians following the Great Fire of Rome in 64-67 AD. Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the fire, but he might have been responsible himself."
Guess he shouldn't have left that ROM-burner running huh.
In part I was pretty impressed when I saw this map, and the mix of stone mines and rubble to create the burned down buildings is a really neat trick. In all though I can't help but feel your rendition of Rome is missing some buildings. There is way too much open grass spaces inside the walls. Try adding some more buildings, bot just houses but GC's and Temples and markets, and don't be afraid to put mililtary buildings in there too. Then you can leave some alleyways and open gardens in a manner that looks more planned. As for the problem with Line of Sight for the player, maybe you could find some other unused player slot than the red one to ally with the player and then just place some passive scouts and priests around the city to light it up? Having some civilians standing around would also improve the alive-look of your city.
Also, I'm not sure if you think it fits or not, as the scenario shows the aftermath of the fire rather than the fire itself, but have you seen the tick of using Elephants or catapults to create burning buildings? I think that could be really neat in a scenario like this if you care to get it to work. |
rakovsky
File Author |
Posted on 09/21/20 @ 12:57 AM
Thanks for commenting, Fisk.
ISSUE #1: I know what you mean about Rome missing buildings. I used the buildings that you are talking about inside the walls in the earlier mission, Catacombs and Conversions. The reason why the buildings are missing is that 2/3 of Rome's districts burned, up to the Esquiline Hill. I am not sure exactly on a map which ones burned, but my impression is that it would be every district inside the walls up to the eastern hill, the way that I made it.
AOEII, and IIRC AOM, has building ruins structures, but without that, I am left putting either whole unharmed houses ( and GCs and temples) or else rubble, so I opted for the rubble, when probably ruined buildings (eg. ruined GCs) would be better to address your suggestion.
Basically, I get that it would look better not to just have empty land, but my problem is depicting the image of a 2/3 ruined city, and if I put GCs there, then it wouldn't match that... I aimed for making it as realistic as possible. To do a better job I would want a map of which sections didn't burn (it's like only 3 out of 14 sections), and I couldn't find that.
One way that I tried to make up for this is by giving Red a Town Center to slowly rebuild the city.
ISSUE #2: As for the Line of Sight problem and using an unused player slot to make scouts and priests like you suggested, I didn't explain the source of the problem in enough detail earlier. The problem is that you are "Allied" with Jesus and I want the Victory Screen to say that you and Jesus won, and not that you "defeated" Jesus. The way to make both Players win is to turn on "Allied Victory." And this makes things confusing if I am ALSO allied with an unused player, eg. "Aqua Scouts and priests and civilians", since in order for me to win with Allied Victory turned on in that situation, Aqua Scouts will also have to be Allied ONLY to me and Jesus. And then you could get the weird situation where the "Scouts and civilians" units might get into a fight with the other Players (eg. with Red who the Scouts are Neutral to).
I think that your suggestion might work if I set an Aqua ally, to passive, but it feels uncertain, and anyway, it doesn't seem much of an issue to me if the Player wants to switch Rome On and Off as an ally.
ISSUE #3. Thanks for suggesting the interesting burning building trick. However, the Scenario takes place 3 months after the fire, so the fire would have already burned down.[Edited on 09/21/20 @ 09:48 AM]
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Added: | 09/17/20 |
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