Free Falls
By Lord Vetka
Free Falls
The clear blue water flowed down past the first set of falls down to the next set of falls before slowing down in the lowlands, shallow water making a fine home for the reeds and shrubs that grew there and any thing else that lived in the area, the trees were plentiful along the waters edge along with plenty of farm land.
From the edge of the high ground by the upper falls started the valley that worked it's way down to the sea as well as the river, giving more fertile land for trees and farming, but on the river side could be found a vein of iron, enough for weapons and enough stone on the east side to build a dozen castles.
To the North you will find four marker posts, these will help you to test the fine castle you built, along with the two sign posts down in the south west corner, to use the markers you can move a soldier beside one to trigger the invasion, each invasion is set to repeat once on the next day, there are 6 markers all together, trigger them one at a time or all at once as it suits you, but be warned the invasions are meant to be hard and could stall your computer if your trigger to many at once.
I hope you enjoy my little creation, have fun!
By Lord Vetka
I have to admit I was definitely the most impressed by the waterfall - it's not only natural looking but a kind of 'waterfall system' - so not even a single waterfall. I also really like the way that you've included ground in between the waterfalls, it makes it feel even more like a real waterfall system, and the trees there are even better for that being included - they really make it come alive. And the different drops were angled just right to make it look even better.
The texture used for the stone surface is very impressive, and the fact that it's incorporated on top of the trees and the middle of the waterfall. I also think the plants below the trees next to the shoreline were a great addition, they are the first thing you notice, although they tend to just blend in completely with the trees. I had to look much closer to actually find they were shrubbery.
For anyone who hasn't yet played the map, I have uploaded an image to our gallery!
At the start, the player has the choice of placing their stockpile near stone or the trees. This is quite a decision at first, because of the fact that stone isn't in a massive supply. However, once you spammed a few stone quarries it helped a bit - towards the end I had over 800 stone! xD
There was a lot of space for grassland and food buildings, which was a good thing - and even more so since you have to chop down trees to be able to use all of it effectively. This helped a lot towards the end when I was placing several breweries and hops farm. This was a very good map and easy to build up your economy very quickly.
Really, there's not much more I can say about the detail, other than that it's incredibly good like it normally is, and that the statues looked very impressive where they were.
When triggering the invasions, I had not realised just how big they were going to be. Suddenly I have a massive army on me that brings my computer down to an absolute crawl, and the troops just kept coming and coming!
Honestly, I was shocked at how powerful it was. And I was thinking that my army could handle it no problems...
And from the invasions I triggered, I only went next to one marker. So this was pretty big indeed! It was a good move placing invasions on both sides of the map, this made me feel that they were going to flank my castle and come round to my Granary. For this reason, I had to leave troops outside my main castle walls - but not for long as I soon realised I needed them back at my keep.
It was very well co-ordinated; by the time that the catapults were at the walls, most of the archers were dead. You said it was a challenge, but I didn't think it would be this much of one ;)
It's fairly good for playable content and very well detailed for a good map. The invasions are also incredibly hard to defeat, if not impossible. I suggest this for anyone interested in playing Free Build Crusader 2 scenarios!
[Edited by Lord_Chris on 28th Jan 2016 14:27:01]
This map editor does allow for some good landscaping, when I first saw what they gave us for water falls, I was thinking what the... is this, but after playing around, and seeing what other people have done, the water falls can look very good, Thank You!
There is more than enough stone and iron on the map to make any kind of castle you want, and I really like the fact that you can use the neutral ground for placing a lot of your buildings, I do believe that I gave you more than enough room for a great castle.
Yes the invasions are hard, I did want to be sure that any castle could be sieged and have a chance to be destroyed, trigger one at a time for an easy invasion, do them all at once and you will be in for a hard fought battle, and coming from 2 sides makes it more fun, you do need a good PC to trigger all of the invasions at once though.
I still had not figured out how to get Harass troops to attack your eco buildings, so it's not as hard as it could be, the invasions go for your Lord instead. So you just have to deal with large amounts of troops and siege equipment coming your way.
This is a great map for testing your castle building skills, now you can test that castle and see if you can build a good castle, then overcome your mistakes to be a real good castle builder, there are no time limits, just start the invasions when you are ready!