Epic of Vaniyera

[Chefu]

Campaign ported over to Wesnoth 1.8 - Please leave your feedback below or over at the Orbivm forums: http://www.exong.net/orbivm/forum/index.php

Thanks,
Chefu

[taptap]

Orbivm forum is down. So I write here:

Very nice little campaign. Playing Sidhe is a new experience full of swift strikes and long retreats (high damage, high mobility, but no line holding and no healers and many casualties). The first and second scenario are good as is, in the third scenario there is no indication that the loyal units will join you later if surviving - especially as you have no influence over where a 8 MP skirmisher is running to, still miraculously Cardrew did survive by restoring his health in a level-up - in the file I saw dialog about the auxiliaries joining you under certain circumstances, a little foreshadowing in the dialog would help here. The wanderer is too nice a unit to be mainly left out of the campaign, while I understand that you don't want to give them too early - as they might be very useful in scenario 1 and 2, why not allow them in scenario 3, where your ally fields plenty of them anyway. The ghosts might be overpowered, but it works fine for this campaign, finally a unit against lavinian legions.

AMLA conditions for the whole era are out of touch with mainline.

Retribution)
The winning conditions in Retribution (which I didn't yet manage to finish) are unclear. When you attack the imperator and he flees, they change - the objectives are still the same but the dialog gives an unspecified "No! We must defeat the men here first." Did I say that Retribution is pretty hard with only 120 gold - on the one had you have a huge map enough to produce you some income for some more units, on the other hand the units you want to recruit (ghosts and wanderers) are pretty expensive so I am drawn between veterans and those new recruitable types. I guess I will settle for a mix concentrate on levelling ghosts somewhere in the woods and rush forward pretty late.

[GangrN]

What you made with imperial era is one of the best UMC in my opinion (with velensk's Count Kromire and unfinished war of the dragon... and inferno8 innovations, too).

[taptap]

I would love to see a replay winning "Retribution" on hard. I don't manage to do that even with one surviving AI loyal from scenario 3.

[UnwiseOwl]

Pretty sure that I have a replay here for that somewhere, I'll see if I can dig it up. It was JUST doable, at the loss of almost all my advanced raindancers, and it would have been impossible had the Imperators hippo army appeared, but for some reason if failed to fire. The slow build-up and last minute rush is definitely the strategy to use (as it almost always is for Sidhe).

As for AMLA being out of step with mainline, that's the result of the IE being OLD, it matches the old standard. That's on my list to fix, but it'll probably be a long term project.

[taptap]

Ok, so I had the right idea. (I once had some units placed to assassinate the emperor in Retribution, but was badly surprised by the event that followed.) Still I would love to see someone actually doing it.

[UnwiseOwl]

A quick check shows that I don't have my replays for last time I ran through EoV, but if I manage to finish it again I'll post a replay.

[taptap]

The Epic of Vaniyera, scenario 01 - Ambush:

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

Hard, 1.10.3

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

7

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

Very clear.

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

Please remove "Anabasis of the Emperor" which makes no sense at all from the introduction.

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

Deciding on a workable strategy first (I want the kill in principle and pass by only if I lack the necessary time to finish the enemy leader). While not forced to do so the AI recruits only blade resistant melee units with the same alignment, so there isn't a chance to use ToD, no use in maneuvering to get the first strike. Raindancers are very expensive and furies are completely useless. After being overrun with a more conventional campaign strategy (fight in formation, mixed recruit), I simply put warriors in single spots with high defense (preferably villages) and as much flat around them as possible. Without formation I am not able to save individual units but do more marginally more damage and heal more and will win in the end - even with 10% or more bad luck. I try to keep the income high - especially by outflanking the AI in the north and east. I recruit Raindancers only when I am convinced that I can protect them (1-2 of them). I try to put as much experience as possible into the Raindancers (who are cheaper to recall than to recruit anyway) and level a (resilient, quick) herald. I am at a complete loss how anyone can play Epic of Vaniyera lossless (Turin wrote this) - I have ten losses already in this scenario, it is impossible with this spammy strategy, but I can't imagine anything else that works.

Finishing with bonus gold would be great, but I don't manage to do so.

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

8, quite fun, but I have the impression I play this differently from everyone else

(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?

Playing with a different strategy.

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The Epic of Vaniyera, scenario 02 - Too late:

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?

Hard, 1.10.3

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

7

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

Very clear.

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

Ok.

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

Finishing with enough bonus gold to make rescuing the loyals in the next scenario viable. With 200+ carry over (resulting in 160+ gold) this should be viable.

Forcing myself to strictly back off at dawn.

Giving up any ambition to recruit or level furies.

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

8, quite fun

(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?

Nothing this time, but when I played the campaign the first time some month ago it was a major puzzle.

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The Epic of Vaniyera, scenario 03 - Just in Time - 2 major issues

1) Saving the L2, who will be auto-recall later is both crucial (it matters a lot with the very limited gold on hard) and completely out of your control. Often they kill themselves before you can even reach them. At the very least they need some serious - individual - caution

2) The winning conditions and hidden bonuses are completely unclear from the dialog and the objectives window.

[UnwiseOwl]

Thanks taptap, I appreciate you giving EoV another go, good luck with the next few levels, and rest assured that I'll take your advice on board. I am currently (well, it's in the works) developing a walkthrough for EoV that should make it easier for players that aren't familiar with the Sidhe to complete the campaign. If you'll allow me to make some comments on your progress so far:

Please remove "Anabasis of the Emperor" which makes no sense at all from the introduction.

This is here because the campaign in its current form is part one of the Epic of Vaniyera, which as originally dreampt up has the current campaign followed by alternate versions of Fall of Silvium and Alfhelm the Wise as they impacted upon the Sidhe (think of substituting 'Vaniyera' for 'Kalenz' and you get the idea) . Since those further sections are now unlikely to happen, I will remove this in the next release, and if I or someone else ever writes these other parts we can always put it back in.

I recruit Raindancers only when I am convinced that I can protect them (1-2 of them). I try to put as much experience as possible into the Raindancers (who are cheaper to recall than to recruit anyway) and level a (resilient, quick) herald. I am at a complete loss how anyone can play Epic of Vaniyera lossless (Turin wrote this) - I have ten losses already in this scenario, it is impossible with this spammy strategy, but I can't imagine anything else that works.

I have always gone with a half raindancer, half warrior split, and I generally throw a fury in there for the lols, though they are utterly useless, I agree. Keeping to the defensive terrain (elves in forests, you know) generally allows you to get good retaliation against the warriors and then you can use the raindancers (and Vaniyera's backstab) to destroy them, but apart from that the flanking strategy is a good one, and using the Sidhe's mobility to use hit and run tactics is the way to make it (relatively) lossless. I generally aim to have two raindancers levelled or close to leveled by the end of this one on hard. Once upon a time Turin was planning to give the Sidhe access to wanderers from the beginning of the campaign, and I think that I'll implement this when I do the next release too, which should give you a few more options.

I have no idea why the AI recruits only warriors, but I'll seek to give them a more complete recall list and have them actually use it in time for the next release of EoV.

Finishing with enough bonus gold to make rescuing the loyals in the next scenario viable. With 200+ carry over (resulting in 160+ gold) this should be viable.

I find that the key to this level is to throw a bunch of warriors north to grab villages and delay and harry the lavinians while the main force eliminates the auxillaries, then you can beat the Lavinians with ease. It's a high-risk strategy and you will incur some losses (the centurion in particular is a tank), but if you think of warriors as grunts it suddenly doesn't seem so important. I have never managed to keep both the loyals alive in the following level, so although they're handy they're not the be all and end all, you should have a few good levelled units by the end of this level, so a couple of level twos won't change the world too much.

2) The winning conditions and hidden bonuses are completely unclear from the dialog and the objectives window.

Yes, they are. I'm hoping to do a significant re-work of the dialogue to make the objectives of this one more clear and give some hints as to the disposition of the auxilla. If you have any ideas in this direction please let me know.

EoV is in need of some updating, remember that this campaign is venerable, almost five years old (it was the third orbivm campaign after FoS and IoA), but I hope that with some input from you and the rest of the Wesnoth community I can turn it into an enjoyable campaign for all Wesnoth's add-on players. Keep the criticism coming. wOl.

[UnwiseOwl]

Hey taptap,
Here's my latest playthrough of retribution, I think it was on 1.9.11, so it should work on any 1.10 branch without any issues. It's by no means excellent play on my behalf, but it shows how you can use the speed, high defense (and silly low AMLAs, I'll fix that one day) and TOD powers of the Sidhe to win the level, even if you only have 120 starting gold.
I got lazy towards the end in a rush to finish when I should have taken my time and preserved a couple of units that I ended up losing, but you get the idea.

[UnwiseOwl]

Just in response to axlararaflame:

EoV is a badly balance campaign on hardest difficulties. Some scenerios are but insanely hard, while in general the whole campaign does not even have enough scenerios to cultivate a good numbers of Lv3s.

I do my best to respond positively to criticism of these campaigns, but I don't agree with this. EoV is hard, possibly even too hard on the highest difficulties, but I don't think that it is 'unbalanced' on hard. It might be unbalanced on easy, but if you wanted to play a hard campaign then that's what EoV on hard is for, and the difficulty is actually very consistent, it doesn't let up on the pressure throughout the whole campaign.
I disagree with the whole idea that a good or balanced campaign has to be long and easy enough to win with a bunch of high-level units. To me, the joy of EoV is battling through Retribution, suiciding the Tempest that you've been feeding kills since the first level to force the gap in enemy lines to finally win with two turns to go. If you have to lose units that you regret losing then to me that's a well-balanced campaign, and when I try to balance things for the IE I take that as my benchmark. There are better players than me out there, and I want to challenge them too.
If you have specific issues that you'd like me to look at, feel free to let me know, but please don't just throw out criticism like that unless you can provide specific examples of the problems and maybe a suggestion or two on how to fix them.

[AxalaraFlame]

Sorry, it is kinda messed up here. This campaign is good, but the highest difficulty is really somehow tooo hard--even to beat. Notice that the cultivation of Lv3s does not necessarily indicate that we would want it long and easy(or easier), the problem is without high level units we cannot even beat some scenerios, because they are the key of it.

Balance work could be done on impossible and make it really hard and challenging, but "really impossible" is making little sense for a campaign, so I am not sure whether it is going to be a good idea to make it that hard.

Besides, I feel sorry for the bad choices of word "badly". It is just not so good, and in actuality beat the campaign on 1.9 series before, at greatest costs.

[taptap]

I share the feeling of unwiseowl (the more losses for me, the better the campaign), although I never made it past retribution when I tried. I didn't play since my last contributions in the thread. = I didn't play w/ the newest version and the intended changes for Imperial Era, I guess balancing will change completely with the planned changes both in the era and the different ai recruit in the campaign and earlier wanderer availability that I understand are considered by unwiseowl.

As it was then I believe what would help balancing going into retribution is to tweak the AI ally in just in time, so that you have a better chance to save the L2 fielded by the ally which have a huge impact on balance later as powerful, free recall loyals. It doesn't need to be more powerful, just a little more careful - although fiddling around with the standard AI parameters didn't yield any results as I tried. At least last time I tried I felt like I have to save them, but it was completely out of my hands to achieve it. (The one time I was trying around w/ retribution I had at least the loyal wanderer surviving.) But maybe this is the wrong approach and I don't need them - but the inability to play for gold because after just in time is a gold draining scenario makes the auto-recall + loyal-trait look very powerful for retribution. And that made me play just in time again and again instead of continuing w/o the loyals I am not as obsessed with picking up bonus-loyals in other campaigns, but here it is sooooooooo tempting because they really make a difference in retribution.

[UnwiseOwl]

It's true. I've finally done this (a couple weeks back) in the version that I'm currently re-working and I survived Too Late saving Cardrew for the first time ever, and I must have played it at least 20 times. I'll be posting a new version within the next few weeks, so if you're thinking of picking this one up again and would like to feel like it's not totally impossible I'd wait until then. Sorry this stuff takes so long, but I can only really work on one wesnoth project at a time.

[AxalaraFlame]

If you were to post it, I am always glad to retest its dificulty. I am so curious about who is maintaining the other Imperial campaigns, because The Fall of Slivia is a bit hard as well. Not suggesting to change to difficulty too much, just make them beatable on normal luck and normal strategies would be fine, but I would suggest you guys to mark the difficulty as "expert".

This campaign's difficulties are mainly focus on two scenerios, if I were not wrong. One is...Lavinians were landing on the south border? I gotta check the names of the scenerios