Discuss Anacaona-EN
There’s brutal and then there’s whatever this is. I’d make this a review, but for some reason the site refuses to ever recognize if I’ve downloaded a mod.
I’ve noticed campaigns with Chinese devs tend to be significantly more difficult. Usually they’re doable if I’m willing to tryhard it and dedicate enough hours. The enemy tends to build very large armies and attack frequently, but if you go all-in on multiple TCs and build up a strong economy you can grind the enemy down and win. Targeting their eco is usually a viable strategy for that.
This…is not that. The enemy has no economy. They build units faster than you can imagine. By the time any attack is fought off the next one has already started. Winning is not about strategy or skill, it’s about finding some way to cheese the AI. In the second scenario the utter flood of enemy units was so constant that I had to give up on actually fighting them and just snipe their production by taking advantage of the fact that the AI’s army actually ignores your military until attacked.
The first scenario was tough, but as long as you expand your economy quickly enough, build a couple dozen canoes, and plant your first castle in your ally’s base it’s possible to save them from the first wave of attacks. At that point orange doesn’t attack again until you’ve defeated the other two. I managed to ally with all three, but the nature of the scenario effectively makes it impossible to do so without wiping out all their production, at which point they’re not very helpful. For some inane reason all three TCs are directly next to castles and heavily defended with towers, gates, and walls, so the whole message about peaceful victory goes out the window because by the time you get Anacaona and the cart anywhere near a town center you’ve slaughtered hundreds of tribesmen and burned the settlement to the ground. There is literally no difference between defeating and allying your opponents here in terms of strategy.
Scenario two is where I quit. The first part gives you extremely little time to prepare and absolutely zero information about the consequences of your choices. What does it mean that the Spanish are “bolstered” by your aid? In what way is Guacanagarix’s combat strength greatly strengthened? I have no idea, because the scenario never explains. It basically just makes it sound like you’re screwed either way. What I do know is that if you don’t help the Spanish you lose out on, in order: Imperial Age blacksmith upgrades, Imperial Age university upgrades, all siege weapons, and the cure to smallpox.
That’s not a tradeoff. You do not have a choice here, practically speaking. You either give the Spanish what they want, “strengthening” them in some vague way, or you’re stuck dealing with whatever unspecified buffs your other enemy gets while stuck with Castle Age techs and fighting a heavily fortified opponent with no siege weapons. I skipped on the university because the Taino have a bad university anyway, personally, but I didn’t feel like I have much choice in the other three.
From the instant the scenario began I boomed on three TCs and built up as much economy as I could in the small area you’re given. Second problem: it looks like you have a lot of gold, but it runs out fast and the only other gold piles are in range of enemy ships. Theoretically it’s possible to unlock the dock by destroying anchored ships, but practically speaking it may as well be impossible to secure the coast. You have no counter to their cannon galleons. Period. Even if you destroy all of those ships somehow there’s no way to hold the coast long enough to build a navy while being bombarded by the cannon galleons. And even if you stick to land, the map is built so that you’re still in range of the cannon galleons most of the time.
I compensated for the lack of gold with market abuse and trade carts, but after my first couple attacks I realized there was no conventional way of getting through the enemy defenses. They train units too fast to keep up with; it drains your gold too quick and you just don’t have enough in the first place. Trash units? Worthless. Their army is composed of units that counter trash. I took massive losses eliminating the first two enemy castles and the nearby towers, then sent twenty or thirty Wind Scouts to distract the enemy while my trebs took out their stable and siege workshop. At that point my castles could hold on their own while I ground down everything else, finally ending this section.
So, why’d I give up? Because part two of the scenario is pointlessly cruel to the player. You start with twenty units and immediately get jumped by an army of paladins and conquistadors, then have to fight your way through a nearby Spanish base. That part was actually fine. But it quickly becomes apparent that despite your limited resources and lack of economy, the enemy will throw literally infinite units at you for the rest of the level. Destroying their buildings stops production, but you have to do it quickly and efficiently, because you will never be given any time to recover. At certain intervals more paladins and conqs spawn behind you for some reason, which wiped out half my villagers while I was busy with the attacks from in front, because why would I be expecting that?
The explosive barrels in the Spanish bases help, but not nearly enough. You have no breathing room. There are always more units attacking you and you have no siege weapons. You can’t clear out the enemies and then deal with the bases, because there’s more units already. You can’t recover your losses, because there’s always more units charging at you. I ran out of steam just after destroying the Spanish siege workshop and tried to pull back and recover, but guess what! More paladins and conquistadors from behind!
Oh, and just for extra “screw you,” the third group of villagers is in range of enemy units and behind a fort gate. While I was dealing with the unending enemies from the front and had nothing to spare to break down the gate a scorpion came up behind them and slaughtered them. Yay.
If I have one piece of advice, it’s this: infinite units with no breaks between attacks are not fun to play against. This campaign seems to run on that and nothing else, as if you don’t know of any way to make something difficult except to throw more units at the player in shorter intervals. That can be fine sometimes, but the player needs ways of actually countering it, not more and greater handicaps against them like this campaign seems to revel in employing.
Uh, you have to restart the game to load the choices menu.After first downloading this campaign, please restart the game to fully load all assets, including branching story choices. If the options fail to load, you’ll just have to watch the countdown end, and Guacanagaríx will get buffed.Regarding the difficulty, all I can tell you is that the second mission is the hardest. You’ve already beaten it—so why not finish the remaining three missions?