Where is my review of ACW2000?

[Dracon]

Well, my upcoming project is religious, so it'll touch a few nerves I'm sure. I'm having a ball editing the game.txt, maybe I'll send it to Mike, and see how apoplectic he gets.

Well, I'm not making version 3, but I'm learning from my mistakes, and I'm sure you'll all enjoy Jihad 2000: The Unenlightenment. It's gonna be cool, basically, in the year 2000, six major religions battle it out against each other and the atheists. I'm including such Apolyton special characters as Giant Squid, St Leo, and myself for the Atheists. MJ, and Black Dragon for the Christians. Monk for the Hindus. Imran Siddiqui for the Islamics. MrTemba for the Primitives. Markos, Kwang, and Kunal Shah for the Barbarians(Nihilists).
I hope MJ doesn't complain
Basically, whoever's religion (or in the case of the Atheists, non-religion) wins, it becomes the only reality for the universe.
For example, if the Christians win, God and Jesus become the supreme rulers of the universe, which becomes an Earth-centered Ptolemaic universe, with the planets and sun revolving around the Earth, and a fixed sphere of stars surrounding it. There would be no evolution, or any form of science. Everything explained in the Bible is fact, and anyone who openly doubts it is branded a heretic. This is just an example.

[MagyarCrusader]

I can already predeict that this scenario will be crap. Not because of what its about, just based on Dracon's creation ability.

[mrtemba]

Cam,

I really don't get your point. Are you saying that just because other scenarios borrow grahpics, lack complexity, etc, that we should give ACW19992 a high score? I'm not following you.....I also don't think that whether it was intentional or not is an issue at all.

[Dracon]

You have only fueled my determination to make this a good scenario, MJ.

[Cam]

In response to Mr. Temba...

I'm not suggesting that if a 'read me' says that "this scenario is simple in design" it need necessarily be 'let 100% off the hook', but I think if someone sets out to do a conquest-focussed scenario where they have noted that they did not consider technological development a factor of high priority or for that matter relevance, then when assessing the scenario the player should at least accommodate this design approach a little. Typically I would hope that this would be counter-measured with some other interesting twist, great artwork, or good playability.

Take 'Cromwell' (the English Civil War') for instance. I'm not sure of the score you'll give in your upcoming review, however... The scenario lacks a tech' tree, but it doesn't make it a bad scenario because of this deliberate omission. The author has indicated that he didn't set out to write a scenario that was full of tech' advances, quests, and so on. Fine, it works well nonetheless as I considered it had some good original graphics and played well. Simple? Yes. Bad? Not necessarily.

Is it lazy or unadventurous not to include a tech' tree? What I'm suggesting is that not if this was a reasonable part of the scenario design. Sometimes it's reasonable, sometimes it's an excuse.

I'm sure we all share the view that scenarios that don't use the technology tree effectively handicap themselves and have to work extra hard to make up this in other areas.

On the matter of 'borrowed' graphics, I tend to agree with the position that effort should be made here. Some people claim that they're more concerned with good playability than with good graphics. Possibly that's true, but not much of an justification for not making an effort. Others say that they're simply not good at doing graphics. Perhaps - but I (for one) would rather reward a scenario where some effort has been put in than one where none has.

More directly - "Are you saying that just because other scenarios borrow graphics, lack complexity, etc, that we should give ACW1999 a high score?" - no, but I'm saying I wouldn't penalise it if the League has a dozen other scenarios that have no original graphics nor plot and still score '6' and '7' where ACW1999 got '4' or '5'. Again, I respect your right to score a scenario what you think, however I'd like to know why something scored particularly badly or well if it's not that clearly explained in the review and I might have given it much more or less credit than the reviewer - such is the joy of subjectivity!

(Sorry about the verboseness!)