The campaign was okay, but it had issues with pacing, confusing plot, the heroes not being allowed to shine, repetitive missions, and a meh ending. So here’s how I would change the campaign:
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Houyi going from a whiney brat to one of the good guys happened way too quickly. And the witch didn’t really do anything? She awkwardly professed her love to him, Houyi was like “I don’t even know you lady” and killed her.
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Instead, Houyi should be initially seduced by promises of eternal glory by the witch. Mission 2 would then be Houyi being tricked into fighting the forces of good. The objective would still be to build a base, attack some “bad guys,” perhaps with the witch being a player controlled unit.
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At the end, the other heroes would show up to stop you from attacking innocent people. The witch would try to convince Houyi it was necessary, but Houyi would realize he needed to change his ways, and Nüchou would retreat temporarily.
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Mission 3 would then segue into the first pillar being destroyed. The bad guys would move on, but leave Nüchou to deal with the heroes. The heroes see the pillar destroyed and fight their way to the pillar to find out what happened. No base-building, but they get reinforcements and capture some buildings to siege their way thru enemy fortifications. They find the ruins and the map of the other pillars + god trap macguffin.
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In Mission 4, on their way to the second pillar, the get ambushed by Nüchou and split up. Nüchou tries to snipe Cangjie and Yan Feifeng so Houyi will have no choice but to submit to her. It’ll be a heavily forested map, maybe at night too. You’ll have to reunite the trio without alerting myth units, sneaking and scouting, and then rush to an extraction zone after Nüchou gets frustrated and sicks them on you, swearing to make Houyi hers.
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In the post cinematic, the good guys make it out of the forest by sunrise, and hurry towards the second pillar.
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The new Mission 5 would be much like the original Mission 4, building your base and attacking theirs, and finding the 2nd pillar suspiciously intact.
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Mission 6 and 7 can copy the current Mission 5 and 6, but the cinematics about Chiyou needs to be rewritten. His fight with Huang Zhaowu to become leader of the bad guys made no difference. Just have him monologue about getting revenge (his myth is about how he was defeated by the Yellow Emperor) instead. That prevents the god-trap from being such a deus ex machina…
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I would also cut out the explanation of the 5 gems needed to repair the pillars back at the first pillar, and only introduce them after the 4th pillar is destroyed, to make YFF’s sacrifice more poignant.
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Mission 8 and 9 would be the same as the original 7 and 8: going into the underworld, building a wonder for Nüwa, except I would replace the dwarves with Amanra, because she has more presence.
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Finally for the last mission, defending until you summon a titan felt too similar to the previous mission defending while building a wonder. Your norse and greek allies stalling for you is unoriginal and uninteractive, it’d be more fun to control them as reinforcements. And Shennong remaining captured at the end is weird.
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So I would make the last mission like this: You and your allies need to bumrush to the god-trap to free Shennong. Make YFF find out about his capture from the dead wife when he’s fighting her in the underworld.
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Yan Feifeng gets a powerup after being revived, so he 1v1’s Huang Zhaowu to keep him occupied. Your Greek and Egyptian reinforcements will be used to stall Chiyou, while Cangjie and Houyi use a Roc to get to the god-trap.
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In the post-cinematic, Shennong would be released (in a blinding flash of light), and the Chinese titan would also be released too. The titan will go fight Chiyou. Huang Zhaowu realizes what happened and rushes to the god-trap to prevent any other entities from being released, but an arrow from Houyi momentarily distracts him, allowing Cangjie to use the god-trap on him.
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The epilogue will remain the same, but I would pan to sky as soon as Cangjie asks the other two to tell him of their adventures. The montage of random buildings and units is lame…