Of Kings and Mercenaries

deepstrasz · Jul 21, 2021

Honestly, this is more altered melee than strategy/risk.

The terrain is pretty flat and blank.
It's pretty hard to tell which units are which because of their small size.
There's no random start position or factions. It's all fixed. That ruins some of the replayability.
The mercenaries basically start with all upgrades done since they have access to all armours and weapons from the start.

The gameplay is pretty repetitive. Unit variety is lacking. Armours and weapons are pretty much the same but more powerful on each tier.
There could be control points, things to do, like gather various resources or something other than just hunt trees and build stuff the old Warcraft III way.

Awaiting Update.

If you want more reviews, you should participate in the The Grand Review Exchange!

R U L E S

Site Rules
Map Submission Rules

M A P - D E S C R I P T I O N

BB CODES
BB Codes | HIVE

MELEE MAPS
Description Guide - Melee Maps
Describing Your Melee Map
Melee Map Description Generator v1.3

MAPS IN GENERAL
The importance of a Description
Description Guide - Maps
Map Thread Guide
Map Description Making: Good & Bad
Map Description - Templates
Map Description Generator [1.2]

How to Add a Screenshot to your Map Description

ADDITIONAL NECESSARY INFORMATION

A credits list in the map thread description is required where the names of the resource (models, skins, icons, spells, sound etc.) authors are mentioned along with the specific resource. It would be a luxury to have links leading to the used resources. Credits in the Quest Log would be appreciated too.
A detailed changelog in the first post would be helpful to reviewers and notify fans about the newest implementations to your map.
Map thread tags are important. Please use those that fit and not more or none.

M A P - C R E A T I O N - G U I D E S

GENERAL MAPPING
A Beginner's Guide to Map Making
The Ultimate Beginners Terrain Tutorial
Advanced Terraining Tutorial
A Guideline to Terraining and the Hive's Terraining Section
Various Terraining Tips!
Basic Mapping Video Tutorial
WE Map Editor for Newbies!
The Path Of Proper Map Making - What to do and what should be avoided

MELEE MAPPING
How to create Melee Maps
General - Melee Maps like the Professionals
Competitive Melee Map
Melee mapping - The reasons behind common aspects of competitive 1v1 maps
Melee Do's and Dont's

PATHING
Pathing - Everything about it
[Terraining] Alternative Pathing Technique

LEAKS
Triggers - Memory Leaks and Custom Scripts

If you're not satisfied with the review and wish another opinion, contact the other reviewers or use the staff contact:
Paillan
Alexen
eubz
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/staff-contact.692/

Oliver · Aug 31, 2021

I like the equipment system, love stuff like that, very satisfying seeing a mob of individually armed guys marching forward. Could you have some way to have units start with basic gear? Like maybe an arms house you pay upkeep for (1 gold per x seconds) but nearby militia raised start with a spear and helmet or something, suboptimal perhaps but for late game when players want to raise larger armies it might help reduce micro. Or maybe a building which holds a bunch of spears/swords/shields and when someone becomes militia nearby they automatically take gear from the building.

The houses raising taxes are cool too, would be interesting if there was some "class" element to it, maybe building a blacksmith would upgrade a nearby hut to be an "artisan hut" which you can collect more taxes from, church to a priests house etc. Maybe houses look at nearby stuff and automatically upgrade, eg a well or a butcher buffs nearby houses. Almost like a city builder game style.

A potential bug: I can't seem to select a valid patron for the market to sell the Bascinet helmet and Lamellar Harness though. Also the Cavalier hat seems like a downgrade from the mail hood, despite being from a better building? Is this to encourage having several forges at different levels of development?

I'd also suggest starting with a Hut, it would visually inform the player how to get gold and allow the player to train peasants from the get go, I was confused at first wondering to myself: "are there finite peasants? do they automatically reproduce?" etc

It'd be cool to have some kind of morale system too, to encourage disengagement or reserves. When morale is low after a longer battle they do less damage, then you're encouraged to keep some kind of reserve force to hit their tired troops with your fresh guys. That's just personal preference stuff though.

In terms of general gameplay, might be an idea to reveal nearby capturable towns (protected by teal?) so the player knows where to expand to, my first move was to attack a yellow camp, I wasted a buncha troops and didn't manage to capture any buildings when I went after the nearer camps it was much more rewarding and put me in a good position for expansion.

Hazop · Sep 2, 2021

Oliver said:
I like the equipment system, love stuff like that, very satisfying seeing a mob of individually armed guys marching forward. Could you have some way to have units start with basic gear? Like maybe an arms house you pay upkeep for (1 gold per x seconds) but nearby militia raised start with a spear and helmet or something, suboptimal perhaps but for late game when players want to raise larger armies it might help reduce micro. Or maybe a building which holds a bunch of spears/swords/shields and when someone becomes militia nearby they automatically take gear from the building.

The houses raising taxes are cool too, would be interesting if there was some "class" element to it, maybe building a blacksmith would upgrade a nearby hut to be an "artisan hut" which you can collect more taxes from, church to a priests house etc. Maybe houses look at nearby stuff and automatically upgrade, eg a well or a butcher buffs nearby houses. Almost like a city builder game style.

A potential bug: I can't seem to select a valid patron for the market to sell the Bascinet helmet and Lamellar Harness though. Also the Cavalier hat seems like a downgrade from the mail hood, despite being from a better building? Is this to encourage having several forges at different levels of development?

I'd also suggest starting with a Hut, it would visually inform the player how to get gold and allow the player to train peasants from the get go, I was confused at first wondering to myself: "are there finite peasants? do they automatically reproduce?" etc

It'd be cool to have some kind of morale system too, to encourage disengagement or reserves. When morale is low after a longer battle they do less damage, then you're encouraged to keep some kind of reserve force to hit their tired troops with your fresh guys. That's just personal preference stuff though.

In terms of general gameplay, might be an idea to reveal nearby capturable towns (protected by teal?) so the player knows where to expand to, my first move was to attack a yellow camp, I wasted a buncha troops and didn't manage to capture any buildings when I went after the nearer camps it was much more rewarding and put me in a good position for expansion.

Yeah, definitely a lot of interesting mechanics, though it might end up over cluttering/over-complicating the gameplay if I add all of em, I'll see what I can do, maybe I can add a few good ones. Overall, I put in a lot of hours into making this map and got burnt out in the process, maybe sometime in the future I can expand this further from just a one-off, but for now, I'll be taking a break, might continue development on another map of mine. The town ping/reveal thingy is 100% a top priority, playing with friends we ran into the same issues with them not being able to find them at times.

deepstrasz · Nov 29, 2021

Still no updates and improvements.
Substandard.

Of Kings and Mercenaries

Of Kings and Mercenaries (Map)

deepstrasz

deepstrasz

Resources

Oliver

Oliver

Resources

Hazop

Hazop

Resources

deepstrasz

deepstrasz

Resources

Similar threads