Scenario Review: THoT 3 - Strange Allies

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Below is a small 'survey'. It'd be greatly appreciated if people who have played the third scenario of The Hammer of Thursagan would fill it out.

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?

[WarHamster]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Pretty easy. Only real problem was the charging ally orc leader (see below). Well, he's an orc, what did you expect...

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
They were clear (although at first I assumed I'd be fighting both the orcs and the bandits, even if the objectives claimed otherwise. Expected the orcs to turn on me at some point. Shows how biased I am. Heh. But as a dwarf, how can I really trust an orc?! It's madness! )

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Very nice twist with the orcs being on my side (orcs and dwarves fighting side by side, good golly, what next, paladins and zombies?!). Very good dialog and storyline so far. Two thumbs up!

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
As the orcs start closer to the bandits, they get to engage the bandits first and bear the brunt of their onslaught. This (at least in my game) put a heavy toll on the orc leader's forces as the bandits managed to swarm them pretty badly. (How can you swarm an orcish horde? Shouldn't it be the other way around? Well, the bandits did swarm the orcs all right. ) Once I got my dwarven force formed up and marched across the north-south river, the orcs were few in number and their leader had decided to go out with a bang - he charged the bandits. IIRC, you lose the scenario if the orc leader dies, so I had to quickly send part of my force to rescue that damned fool. (Imagine, a dwarven life guard on an orc boss! Oh, hope my clan ancestors did not witness that, as this would require some serious explaining in the afterlife...) All's well that ends well, the orc boss regained his senses and withdrew to his camp under the protection of my dwarven warriors. After that, and after the great effort from the orcish warriors now dead, it was relatively easy to defeat the remaining bandits.
(Sorry, if this was a bit on the long side. I get carried away so easily. )

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
I had a lot of fun! Fun to fight along the orcs for a change.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Well, the orcs could start a bit further away from the bandits, so that the dwarves could get to join the battle around the same time with them. (Sure, you could just rush your dwarves forward, to get there around the same time, but this would be commiting your forces in small separate trickles instead of en masse, a wave of axes and hammers. Raah!!) However, this "orc relocation" would change the dynamics of the scenario and I'm not at all sure if the change would be for the better.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
Don't know it.

[Jozrael]

As a note, I think the amount of orcish intercession varies too greatly with the difficulty of this scenario. There's really no complaints at all about the orcs being too strong on hard, you found them a bit strong but were still able to intervene, and on easy it's basically like you sit there and watch them play for you. I think the orcs should have the same amount of gold on all three difficulty levels, which is what they currently have for hard. And I think the easy difficulty should have slightly more gold than before, perhaps halfway between the previous easy and medium difficulties.

[Akkarin345]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

Normal

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

4

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Extremely

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Good kept me enertained

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Executing a brillaint strategy for it to be ruined by the orc getting loads of bad luck. When i played it again after the dwarven dorrs i understood it more.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

7

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

None

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Nope

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?

Not that good at WML

[Turuk]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Lord (Challenging) 1.5.7

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3. Even a couple leveled dwarves are plenty to wipe out the outlaws, just let the orcs do the brunt work.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Good, I liked the inherent irony of the player having to fight alongside orcs given that he was sent to kill them in the first scenario.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5. Nice map, letting the player make the most of the dwarves with the bits of hill/mountain. Not that hard/fun beyond the normal mission of kill them all.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Have the outlaws pose more of a threat in besieging/attacking the dwarves, so that the player is focused more on saving the orc leader than in just going across the northern part of the map to kill the outlaw. Perhaps given the orc less recruits to start with, having him tell the player he was taken off guard and reinforcements from the rest of his tribe are coming? (Gold bonus to him in 5 turns, or unit spawn)

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
Looks alright to me.

[zaimoni]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

Easy, Hard. [Wesnoth 1.6.2]

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

Easy: can be converted to 10 (automatic defeat) by a strategy error that isn't foreseeable by a novice on first play, 4 with reasonable strategy.
Hard: haven't verified this properly (couldn't complete without spamming reloads turns 6-9). Minimum 8 (no way to force winning). Probably 9 with ideal recall list, 10 with bad recall list.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Transparent.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Reasonable.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Easy: your ally has enough forces to cover one of the two bridges, so you have to split forces and cover his bridge that is nearer to yours as well. This is not at all evident on turn 2 (the last chance to avoid automatic death of your ally by strategic error), and it would not be in-character for the orc leader to mention this.

Hard: your ally can't cover either of the bridges, and you can't get Dwarves to the melee before the orcs are completely wasted. Forget balanced recruiting on turn 1 (guardians don't have enough killing power); a bad recall list could make this a 10.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

Easy: 7, once the automatic strategic loss on Turn 2 is avoided (permitting the automatic strategic loss is a 1).
Hard: Unknown.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

Easy: There needs to be some dialog to warn off the player from the strategic automatic loss. I'd probably key this to the "most experienced dwarf recruited" on Turn 1, as an end of turn event.
Hard: Undecided whether this needs dialog, or no change. Dialog key would be as Easy, but would be different.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Easy: the automatic death of the orc leader from bungling Turn 2.
Hard: see difficulty rating

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?

Yes. Nominating Marth-Tak as a high priority target on Hard should be redundant.

[cph]

(1) Lord, 1.8.1
(2) Hard to say, as I'm not sure that the difficulty is very stable. Because the ally boss got himself surrounded in the open plain on my first real attempt, which I couldn't practically rescue him from, I'll give it a 7.

(If the ally doesn't do that then the level becomes easy: hold up the enemy attack on the ally while a strike force takes out the enemy leader - who sends his whole army away south and doesn't resist my attack on him at all. Your strike force can reach the enemy boss unopposed on turn 8, which is about the same time that the enemy's force reaches the ally's casle, so you only need to buy 1 or 2 turns with your defense.)

(3) Fairly clear, although I didn't pick up on the need to protect the ally first time around.
(4) Fine.
(5)
Keeping the ally alive can be either very hard or very easy, depending on how the initial fight goes between him and the enemy. First realistic attempt at the level, the enemy won the fight with lots of strength to spare, and the ally commander charged out in front of my defenders and was trapped and killed in the open plain; I tried a few save-loads varying tactics to try and save him from himself (I needed only 1 more turn to beat the enemy boss reliably) but couldn't find a sane combination.

I replayed with a different strategy, sending a sacrificial force to block the plain in front of the ally (instead of defending his castle as in my first attempt) and the level played out entirely differently (not due to anything I did). The enemy barely won the battle with my ally, and his weakened forces stumbled into my dwarves in daylight and were easily defeated (whereas, with the strength that the enemy had on the previous attempt, I expected my sacrificial dwarves to have no chance). I could have beaten the whole thing with just the 6 raw dwarven fighters in this outcome.

(6) 6 - it made me think, but I think the difficulty varies rather widely depending on luck.
(7) Well, I wouldn't care about the ally so much if he was set to have a passive leader - then I could defend him without worrying about him throwing his boss away.
(8) The ally boss dying as a result of a reckless sortie into the plain.

[Maiklas3000]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
hard; 1.8.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Not at all clear. It says nothing about protecting the orc leader, but you lose if he dies.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Interesting. The orc seems more eloquent than I would have expected.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The main challenge is trying to divert the outlaws from the orcs without getting overwhelmed and losing units as a result.

The slowness of the dwarves and widely spaced villages caused me to "level up" my playing style. I took a half-dead dwarf and gave him two easy kills to level him up in order to heal him, saving the long trip to medical facilities. Never done that with two kills before.

I also saved a surrounded and critically wounded guardsman by having him make a desperate attack in order to level up if he would make a low probability kill, after everyone and their mothers failed to break him out. That's sort of a no brainer, but still thrilling to gamble and win.

Instead of rushing the finish for a bigger gold bonus, I concentrated on distributing XP optimally. Instead of leader assassination, I annihilated every last unit. And even when the leader was the last one left standing, I stood on my head to give the kill of the outlaw leader to Angarthing, using suboptimal attacks with suboptimal units, and lots of them, in order to whittle the leader's hit points down to the point that wimpy Angarthing could kill him. I've done similar things before, just not to such an extreme.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. It improved my play, which was thrilling.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Just clarify the objectives.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Death of Marth Tak caused unexpected loss.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
Yeah, it's well documented, saying "the stinger is that if Marth Tak dies, you lose." Too bad the player doesn't know that if he doesn't read the WML.

[monochromatic]

Below is a small 'survey'. It'd be greatly appreciated if people who have played the third scenario of The Hammer of Thursagan would fill it out.

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal 1.8.3
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2 - The outlaws were no match for my steelclads.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Allying with orcs is a nice twist. But I don't get why the outlaws wanted to attack?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting enough experience.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7 - it's fun, the orcish assassins make the battle interesting.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
More gold for the outlaws. Level ones are okay but they need to swarm the map.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope.
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
Didn't check.

[Thrash]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

1.8.3, Medium, 266 starting gold

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

2, no real challenge.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Kill bandit leader, keep orc leader alive.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Above average.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Getting to the fight. By the time I got there the orcs were just about finished off. The remaining bandits weren't much of a fight and offered some good leveling opportunities. I never had any units in real danger.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

5

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

Start the orcs a little further away so they don't take so much of the brunt of the battle.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

No.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?

Looks good. Nice comment block at begging again.

[turin]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.9+svn

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4. Slightly harder than the first scenario, mainly because you worry about letting the orcs die, but still quite easy.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
I'd have liked for it to be slightly more obvious that I had to keep the allied leader alive. It didn't seem warranted by the dialogue. I didn't have any trouble with it, but it kind of surprised me that it was the case.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It's quite good. I like the world-building done as we learn the Alliance contains orcs and the outlaw dialogue is well written. But again, I think it needs to be better explained that the orc must stay alive.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7. Maybe I just like easy scenarios, but I enjoyed it.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Add a bit of dialogue (see above).

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.

[santosis]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium 1.8.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6 - No real chance for me to lose this one. It was more a matter of maximizing XP and not loosing any units.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Quite clear - Go kill the punk, don't let the other fool die.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Um, it did seem strange that an orc was working with the "good guys."

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Again, not getting anyone killed. I started with just over 300 gold and will carry 252 into the next scenario. I took my units over the mountains; I did not lose any units and leveled a Steelclad.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 - Go. Kill. Roar.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I would leave it as is.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Got too aggressive with my griffin.

[Etheri]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Challenging 1.8.4

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5. Once my brain learned how to cope with the absence of saveloading and kicked into gear.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Exceptionally clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

I liked the circumstance of being forced into an alliance with the orcs. However, there was nothing in the dialog to give an indication that the orc leader needed to stay alive.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Keeping suicide mc stabby stab from going skinny dipping. Frankly, I think the alliance would have been better served if I had let this mentally challenged leader quietly disappear. Even on my successful attempt, right after I got everything under control, he decided to take on 2x L2s from a river tile then retreat to a 65% ctk tile the following turn, luck was in my favour though

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

7.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

Rather than making orc leader dying a loss condition, the runemaster should give mr. wet behind the ears an admonishment about the importance of serving the alliance well. (EDIT: Maybe not )

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Reloaded to the start a few times, no saveloading.
Orc leader charging bravely into battle
The orc player army getting annihilated in the first battle, until I learned how to cope with them getting trashed.
Trying to repeatedly take and hold the forward mountain position past the river (since this is what I did on medium), which cannot work unless the orc player does well in the initial battle.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?

Don't know WML.

[Yrth]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.8.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5, if you start with some leveled units and with the right strategy

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Not very, you have to learn from bad experienced that you have to protect your ally

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Clear, nice twist allying with the orcs

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Forming a good strategy, dividing your army into a sufficiently strong support to your ally and a task force to dispatch the leader

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
no proposal

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Leaving my ally unsupported

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
...

[Ferox]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy on 1.9.2
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
8/10
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Other than losing maybe one unit, none.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8.5/10 Playing with the Orcs was awesome. I would love to see it included in later campaigns.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make the orcs just slightly weaker. I barely had anyone to fight.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No