The Legacy of Qun-Jin

Episode II: The Sword of Peace

Episode II: The Sword of Peace

The Great War of Restoration is over. The territories conquered by your father, Qun-Jin, have been restored to your control, and your enemies have been utterly crushed. The surviving raiders have signed oaths of fealty, and in their ruined castles you have installed governors loyal only to yourself. The once-fearsome armies which threatened your kingdom have been brought under your command, and now scour the remote reaches of the swamps and mountains, destroying the last traces of opposition to your reign.

You have not forgotten, however, the lessons of your sister Corinna's downfall. Peace is, in many ways, more difficult to wage than war, and already old rivalries are beginning to resurface among your underlings. You are faced with the dual difficulty of maintaining order among the fractious petty leaders of your own nation, and keeping the resentful population of your newly-conquered territories from revolting against your rule. The task will require all your attention.

To complicate matters, your recently acquired territories on the underground sea have, in recent weeks, been subject to a steadily increasing number of mysterious raids. Large contingents of humans, arriving (for reasons that are far from clear) with non-combatants in tow, have landed on remote beaches, established primitive settlements, and made several incursions into your subterranean territory. Each occasion required the diversion of substantial forces from other duties, and though the invaders were crushed with relative ease, the attacks were highly inconvenient.

It is of the utmost importance that you have the freedom both to deploy your troops for internal security, and to divert funds from military operations to the restoration of vital infrastructure. It is imperative, therefore, that the incursions be stopped before they become more serious.

To this end, you are sending your two most trusted commanders, Wei and Britomart, to seek out the perpetrators of the attacks and teach them the errors of their ways. To do so will not be easy: you can ill-spare a large army for the expedition, and in any case public opinion would balk at the deployment of Elvish troops so far from the homeland. Your commanders have assured you, however, that, with a modest expeditionary force, they can establish a foothold within enemy territory, and, if the enemy does not comply peaceably, use the resources they find there to humble your foes.

You have dispatched a team of scouts to set up a forward base and perform reconnaissance work; tomorrow, Britomart and Wei sail, carrying your banner to foreign shores. They assure you that their victory will be quick and decisive.

Download the second episode of The Legacy of Qun-Jin.

Hier für die deutsche Version klicken.
(German translation courtesy of Jens Menne)

Or, click here for the Russian language version, translated by Dmitriy Pekshev.

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Reviews

Review by Stefan "Satanīs Puppet" Bjelkfelt

Iīve finished your second map - Legacy Of Qun-Jin 2 - and well, youīre getting really good at this, arenīt you? Itīs always a pleasure to see a map where every little thing on it has a meaning (as did your first map) and are not only put there "just because the map-maker couldnīt think of anything better..."
Iīve played it five times as green, at all the playable levels (easy-normal-hard-expert-impossible) and each of the computer players once as I normally do. At easy level itīs far to easy, normal level is a bit too easy, at hard it getīs "normal", at expert itīs A HELL OF A MAP but at impossible itīs, well, itīs almost impossible. (hence the name...)
Other than that, congratulations to a map extremely well done! What makes this such a brilliant map it that you have so many options right from the beginning, and depending on what you choose, the game gets quite different. Iīm really looking forward to see more maps like this one...

Review by Jagan

Just finished playing "The Legacy of Qun-Jin II" for the 3rd time. It is another terrific map design. The continuation of the story is very sound. The first time I played was on the hard difficulty setting, I won in just over 3 months. I then tried playing it on Impossible, I won in just over 4 months, From the outset you have to play very aggressively. I really enjoy maps where the human players have to be aggressive. As I played through the map, I found that rewards come from expansion. The third time I played was as of the Blue player. That was very tough. It took me almost 6 months of game time to win on the hard difficulty setting. The strategy I used was to guard the gates and take out one opponent first. I found the Red player easiest to take early and the most rewarding. I really liked the way you allowed the player to pick their skills for Wei and Britomat. Just a terrific scenario all around.

Review by Stanislav Sokolov

I’ve found the sequel as hard and as good as the first map, but twice larger. Well, I’ve spent nearly the whole weekend with your bloody maps (it was rainy here anyway), but got a deep satisfaction :)
I won them both on impossible for surprisingly identical score 448: the first one in 26 days and the second -on the last day of the 2nd month. I have nearly no comments on the design, it seems perfect.

Review that Eudora ate

I got a negative review from Al Mytko, which I fully intended to post (what good are reviews if you don't include the bad with the good?), but Eudora was feeling twitchy and depressed, and so decided to replace the body of the message with the text of a different message (from one of my students asking for paper advice--not exactly to the point here).
Anyway, the gist of the review was that he didn't like the map, because it was a struggle right from the start, and he prefers maps which allow a lot of exploring at the beginning, and slowly lead up to big fights. So, explorers take heed! This map (like the last one) requires you to be very aggressive right from the first turn, so if that's now the sort of map you like, these are not for you.

Review by Yung

I looked up the web site and played the sequel, completed in 52 days for another bone dragon rating. Actually it was better than the first. More often than not the sequel is not as good as the first, but there you have it.
I must admit that on my first try I was fatally wounded in the 2 week or so and had to try again. My mistake was to be seduced by the call of angels and a weaker opponent, should have know better. I head in and was just about to mop up the blue player when purple and red start hitting the teleporter and pink showed up in the west.
Second time around I hit the dragons first because red dragons are far more useful than giants and with that I took the dungeon player out of his original territory and then went after the towers lands followed by the castle and then the necromancers.
Quote from text file:
"You have dispatched a team of scouts to set up a forward base and perform reconnaissance work; tomorrow, Britomart and Wei sail, carrying your banner to foreign shores. They assure you that their victory will be quick and decisive."
Ah, to have such reliable lieutenants.

Review by Blitzkrieg Darkreign and Zhuge Tzarn Xing

This sequel to the first Legacy of Qun-Jin map is a slightly harder expansion of the first, giving a variety of options instead of linear play while still maintaining the strategic feel of the first map. It again promotes a no-nonsense, solid approach to gameplay and good use of the teleporters as well as many mobility considerations on a variety of terrain types. In short, if you loved the first map, you'll probably find yourself wanting to come back for a second dose of the action.

Review by BrentMTO9@aol.com

I finished the second map in your campaign "The Legacy of Qun Jin" and it appears that the problems (all relatively minor) with the first one are not present.

While this map was not as challenging as the first it is still not too easy (like most maps out there). It seems to require a specific strategy (I won't get into that) which is good because it forces the player to use a different strategy than they are perhaps used to.
For me the key to success was moving quickly; by the end of the first week I controlled 5 dungeons as well as the rampart that I began with. Typically, when I conquer an enemy castle I try to hold it, basically have solid control of a region and expand outward. However, on this map I was forced to conquer a castle and move on (leaving it virtually undefended) so that the enemy wouldn't grow too strong. I think maps like this, that challenge the player to use a different style, make players better. I understand, of course, that not everyone will have to change their typical style of play so they may not agree with me. For gameplay I would rate this map a 9 out of 10.

One of my criticisms of the first map of this campaign was the absence of location based events to tell the story as the player progresses; this was greatly improved in this map. After the first week or so of time-based events yielding an introduction and background information the story progressed through the location-based events as the player continued across the map. I particularly liked the events that gave the initial heroes their experience, (presumably experience they gained during the first scenario of the campaign) allowing the player to distribute skills as he/she chose instead of the random assignment the the game would have provided had they begun the scenario with that experience. I truly enjoyed the story for this map and even though it could be improved I rate the story aspect of this map a 10.

I also liked the layout of this map better than the first. While the resources remained judiciously placed the placement of the castles improved greatly minimizing empty space that was present in the first map. For layout and design I give this map a 9.
Overall rating
9.25/10

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