Honourless
[attach=8326]
General
Game type: RPG
Number of human players: 1
Game length: 2 - 3 hours
Map Size: 256x256
Story
The kingdom of Asagorthe has been split in half by a bloody war between its king and its prince. As the body count rises, trust and honour prove obsolete as the kingdom's inhabitants struggle to survive. A boy from a small village named Ardanos has become a young man and seeks to carry his own weight. As he finds himself more deeply entangled in the political and military strife, he discovers what lengths he and others will go to in the names of victory and survival.
Main Characters
- Ardanos: A young idealist that joins the military in the hopes of supporting his family. His understanding of right and wrong will be challenged in many ways and he runs the risk of growing into a cold and evil man.
- Silvanes: A professional thief and all-around rogue that finds a friend in the trusting Ardanos.
- Celestine: A hermit woman with a reputation for witchcraft. Her reputation has ostracized her from the nearby town of Durvin.
- King Tenarus: The benevolent ruler of Citadel. His renowned kindness has gradually dried up as he is forced to make difficult decisions in the war against his own son.
- Prince Correon: The son of Teranus. His idealistic differences with his father morphed into a declaration of war after an attempt was made to murder him.
- Kordanux: King Teranus' adviser and commander of his efficient special agents, the Honourless.
- Beroud & Carsian: Two swashbucklers from the northern island of Ashia that find themselves stranded in the middle of the war.
- Alaira: A lady of nobility who has grown disillusioned by the rift between Teranus and her beloved Correon.
Description
This is a redux of PGConquerer's original map. It has been one of my favorites since I first played it in 2005 or so, but a couple of glitches stuck out to me. After a recent revisit, I decided to make some changes to the map. I feel justified in doing so because I believe some of the problems were simply oversights and alterations in the game's programming due to patches. I did not alter the story in any way. I don't believe my changes conflict with the original author's intentions. I do hope that no one (especially PGConquerer himself) takes offense to my modifying the map. The exact changes (spoilers included) are listed below.
Differences from the original
- Added hyper triggers.
- Corrected spelling/grammar errors in the game's text.
- Modified the amount of time some of the text spent onscreen, which was way too much or too little, in some cases.
- There were a few cases where relationships weren't clear. In one such case, two unseen characters are sometimes referenced as being father and daughter, and at other times, uncle and niece. I made sure that father/daughter was consistently mentioned, in that example.
- There were a couple of spots in the map's terrain that were difficult or impossible for player-controlled vultures to navigate. I fixed those.
- At some point, a patch caused the AI to tard out and not attack whenever its alliance status was switched with the human player. There are several cases in the original game where units were clearly meant to attack and simply didn't. I fixed this by issuing a "patrol" order just after an AI player switched alliances and it seems to work pretty well. My luck with the "attack" order was much worse.
- I fixed a few cases of randomness that could not be controlled by the player and that sometimes made the game unbeatable. The most significant case is when the kingdom that Ardanos originally fights for turns against him and he must escape the city with almost no help. In the original, an invincible enemy would sometimes wander into the player's safe zone and force a restart. I made sure that was fixed. At other times a unit would be unexpectedly taken from the player's control and then given back just as unexpectedly. If the player did not get a chance to heal the character before it was taken and returned, it might be in a very difficult spot with no health. I made sure cases like that were eliminated too.
- I made a fairly significant alteration to the final battle. After defeating the main villain, and after all the hype about the northern barbarians, the actual fight with them felt anti-climactic in the original. It was easy to arrange your units in such a way that you simply held off wave after wave for 10 minutes until the game ended without losing any men. I made the barbarians' chieftain much tougher and gave him a tough henchman. I also reduced the time you spend holding off the barbarians from 10 minutes to 5 minutes.
Any feedback given would be appreciated. I hope you enjoy it!
Download My Version Here: http://www.staredit.net/?file=2434
Download PGConquerer's Original Version Here: http://www.staredit.net/files/856/
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Post has been edited 6 time(s), last time on Jan 31 2012, 12:33 am by Doodan.
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