you almost got all the names right, glad someone actually knows that aztec isnt their actually name, its mexica meaning reed people, like the game. Chichimeca btw translates to dog people refering to the roaming nomads in northern mexico who were named due to their practice of easting raw meat. the game is a little hard too look at needs a little time b4 i could figure everything out but besides that great strategy game
Reviews for "Aztec: Tactical Conquest"
Thunder-Hawk responds:
Glad someone actually cares.
(Btw, "chichi" indeed means "dog" in nahuatl, but wikipedia says something different about the Chichimeca name origin.)
Had a lot of fun!
But... the map is hard to navigate, especially at the edges. I can`t recount the number of times I "accidentally" clicked on the Helpa logo and ended up on the website. I say "accidentally", but with the way it is placed, it is way too easy to misclick on it. Also, on the right edge, the constantly popping information sidebar made it frustrating to say the least to move the units located on the far right edge. Moreover as I played I couldn't help but notice the view of the map seemed too zoomed in. I wish I could've zoomed out so that I wouldn't have to constantly move the map around. That, along with an option to NOT follow the enemy units when they move, would in my opinion greatly improve the game experience. I felt dizzy at times with the constant moving of the map on the enemy's turn. Fixing those issues would make this game deserve 5 stars in my honest opinion.
The only flaw I found is that if you lose a battle you can't replay it. The stage just become locked with an x mark saying battle lost that was disappointing.
I lost 2 battle in the level I had to battle other conquistadors from Cuba.
They hit really hard and a long range enemy 1 shot my leader making me lost the battle. He crit my leader of something because he was full health and then died completely.
The other time I lost in the same map was because many of my team got killed one after the other making my army to run even if I could have still won the battle.(It was the battle where I had to wait for reinforcements)
I think it would be great if you could zoom out to see what you're actually doing.
I liked the gameplay, though it took a little while to figure out. Overall i found it okay, but it turned a little boring after some time, it's the same over and over again. That might just be me though.
I have finally played this game enough to write a review. I beat both the Conquistador and Aztec campaigns on Normal difficulty.
Good:
1. Tactics- good depth of strategies involving unit synergy, terrain, range, and a wide variety of different units on both sides that are different enough from each other
2. Graphics and animation are adequate
3. Replayability- not a lot of games let you play on both sides, and with varying difficulty levels
Bad:
1. Music loops and game sounds got annoying after a while and lacked variety (maybe make different sounds in each level?)
2. Small playing field- a lot of times I had trouble clicking on a unit or square because the mouse kept switching from one square to another, or I clicked the wrong square or unit by accident because the areas are so small. When there were a lot of units, it was also hard to see who was where, especially in regards to straight line of sight. The playing field should have twice the number of pixels as it does now.
3. Computer AI was stupid. Most of my victories came when the opponent's leader charged to the front lines and got ganged up on by my units. Also, the computer's archers ignored friendly fire risks and killed as many of their own troops as they did mine by shooting their own units in the back. In fact, both of my campaign Final Victories came when the opponent's ranged units fatally shot their own leaders in the back (archers on Aztec Leader in the first campaign, and a cannon on Conquistador Leader in the second campaign, where the cannon was two spaces from my unit and in the middle was their Leader, and the cannon aimed at my unit and killed their Leader lol) Maybe the AI should be able to protect their leader and keep it in the back and hesitate to friendly fire.
Ugly:
1. Lack of thorough instructions. For example, I didn't know you could knock an opposing unit into the Pit and kill them instantly until the enemy did it to me. There was no mention of this anywhere in the instructions. Every potential gameplay mechanic should be described and explained in the instructions of a game.
2. I would rather have had the Aztec campaign start in Tenochtitlan and have the final battle end at the coast at Cempoala, pushing the Spaniards back to their first and final stronghold, rather than use the same geography movement as the Conquistador campaign and end in Tenochtitlan.
3. There was no way to tell which levels were easier or harder in a particular region- smaller villages were often harder battles than larger ones, and named villages weren't always harder than unnamed villages. Often times, I would start a region with a very hard battle and lose the battle permanently, and then click on another battle and crush them. The levels should be guided so that easier levels always come first and harder levels come later, after my units have leveled up.
4. It was also impossible to win a campaign without beating the "optional" stages in each region. When I advanced farther into the game without winning those "optional" stages, I found that my units were too weak to kill enough enemy units to win the game.
Overall, a promising game with several flaws that keep it from being higher than 3.5. Other suggestions I have for the game include hovering status boxes that appear only when you hover your mouse over a unit and disappear when you move the mouse away from the unit instead of the awkward Unit Info system there currently is, letting us customize our own armies or maybe even our own units, and maybe a live multiplayer version.
Thunder-Hawk responds:
Thank you for the thorough review! You found out both AI issues which won't be easily solved. The leader is important force and if you are getting weak, it's sometimes better (hard to define when) to let him involve in the slaughter personally, albeit exposing him to the enemy attacks, rather than hiding him in the back and letting the enemy prevail in numbers inevitably.
I decided to leave some features hidden until the player discovers them. Isn't it a shocking surprise to find out that you may push someone (or be pushed) to the pit and make the whole unit fall to death, or slay a horse instead of a man?
Why do you care which one of the villages is harder to conquer? Just do your best and watch the outcome - this is war! The order of attacking them almost doesn't matter anyway.
I win the game on hard difficulty almost every time I try, usually not even need to conquer the "optional" villages.