Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

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taptap
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by taptap »

Made it through the second chapter today.

Battleground - beautiful map. I know, that I am supposed to level ghosts here, but I had trouble doing so. Saurians are bad against ghosts, but if you overrely on ghosts damage output suffers and then even saurians chill ghosts to death, not to speak of the nagas. Five ghosts recruited only one wraith coming out of the adventure. Bones do fine here, so I finally got the death knight I have been working toward (lost two mid-xp revenants in earlier scenarios). I had some luck with ghouls as well, so I have a necrophage, who already started feeding.

Walking trees - recalled death knight for leadership, wraith and recruited 9 more ghosts. In the second attempt from start it worked - straight through the center pushing early. Then I was past the woses (the ancient one destroyed) and just waited a little to get two more turns of fighting out of them. They would have overwhelmed me, if I had not been past them already. Made a L1 immortal and another wraith here.

The story was more polished and engaging in the first part. Ardonna had this sense of discovery, of flexing new muscles. In the second chapter the ease with which Ras-Tabahn and Ardonna get together
(you had great monologue at start with Ardonna contemplating why you need a trustworthy partner to achieve immortality, that could be revisited) and the plot-item driven planning ("I know Crelanu has a book, where he wrote down everything. Convenient, hu?") are not as good. I reckon, it won't be as easy as taking the book, but there is some wishful thinking in there. I like how Ras-Tabahn has apparently lung cancer (he coughs a lot at least), maybe elaborate with a single sentence - immortality as the "natural" extension of his daily struggle for survival. I do like Vendraxis' dialogue (vague memories of Earthsea came up), but I expected a little more afterwards than Ardonna just renaming herself. Rudic still hangs around, but he is much less of an asset now.

In place of a new post:

Entering the Northlands - enjoyable battle. Started with 219 gold, I depended mainly on melee bones + my 4 + 1 (recalled) spellcasters (occasionally some shielding with then 2 necrophages). No wraith-line units at all, but I levelled an experienced ghost all the way to nightgaunt (My first L3 ghost. I lost Ras Tabahns shadow in Carcyn.) Opponents went mainly with L2 orc warriors. The close opponent could not withstand my assault and was dead by turn 7, defeating the left forces and the steady reinforcements took some time with regrouping / healing and increasingly heavy terrain. Lost one of my precious necrophages when I needed it to shield a loyal towards the end. 2 bats ran interference and recapped villages as soon as it was possible. I went into negative to about -50, but started to recover from around turn 15, I finished turn 25 with 126 carryover (hope this is enough for the gryphons).
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by beetlenaut »

I agree that leveling ghosts in Battleground is hard. That's really what the next scenario is for as they are your only good units against woses.

I had a lot of other background information in my head about the characters and their motivations that I didn't use because I was trying to keep the dialog from getting too long. The only place it seemed acceptable was in the introduction. However, quite a few people are not happy with the dialog later in the campaign, so I will think about what to add to improve it.

Ras-Tabahn has tuberculosis, but he hasn't been battling it long, so his quest for immortality doesn't have anything to do with that.
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by taptap »

Mountain Pass is hard with 176 gold. Did not yet manage to do it. I feel obliged to save all the loyals... and not to go too deep into negative gold. Probably it is meant as gold drain and I should recall more L3 and L2 and stop worrying about gold since I will end in negative anyway.
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by Aldarisvet »

2 taptap

I am rubbing my hands awaiting how you will pass the next scenario with Crelanu. Hope you have some Ghasts already.
Also as I understood that you passed scenario with woses relatively fast, avoiding a big fight, that probably means that you do not have much level3 wraithes against gryphons. I really doubt that Bone Archers/Banebow would help in this scenario if you have little gold. Yes, they can effectively kill grypons with arrows, but that would change nothing, because enemy leaders recruits too much. It would take ages to come with archers through the mountains. What is really needed at that scenario is as much as possible Spectres to hold the line and rotate wounded ones.

2 beetlenaut

I do not think that dialogs can be boring if they are in place. I really expected that relationship between two necromancers would develop somehow.
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by taptap »

Aldarisvet wrote:2 taptap

I am rubbing my hands awaiting how you will pass the next scenario with Crelanu. Hope you have some Ghasts already.
Also as I understood that you passed scenario with woses relatively fast, avoiding a big fight, that probably means that you do not have much level3 wraithes against gryphons. I really doubt that Bone Archers/Banebow would help in this scenario if you have little gold. Yes, they can effectively kill grypons with arrows, but that would change nothing, because enemy leaders recruits too much. It would take ages to come with archers through the mountains. What is really needed at that scenario is as much as possible Spectres to hold the line and rotate wounded ones.

2 beetlenaut

I do not think that dialogs can be boring if they are in place. I really expected that relationship between two necromancers would develop somehow.
I have exactly 1 L3 ghost and that is a nightgaunt. No ghast, even though I am fond of them. 4 wraiths, but I only recalled one in my last attempt. (My level 3 are mainly bones 3 banebows archers and 2 death knights and apart from the loyals (L3 and close to L3 by now) another necromancer. Plenty of L2 bones (>10) and another mage as well.) I am a retaliation damage person, so I was going more with normal, blade resistant skeletons instead of archers, which would work fine if movement were better. Have to try how a more veteran heavy recruit / recall works.
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by beetlenaut »

You can absolutely get through the pass relying mostly on skeletons as long as several of them are high level. That's how I've done it. Your gold is a bit tight though.

Also, you don't need ghasts for the next scenario. I've done it without them. They are just nice to have.
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

I finished the whole campaign recently. Left a review in the feedback thread.

Other thoughts:

Didn't see where the Chocobones would be useful, made a little bit of use of them on the Mage map, but in general found them hard to use without great risk to them. Anyone have any suggestions?

Also, the major use I find for Ghouls in sp campaigns is still just using them as a lightning rod to draw enemy fire. Anyone have a replay in the campaign using them to good effect?
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by beetlenaut »

two_of_the_new_images.jpg
New version up: 1.1.0. There are lots of changes. Some minor, some not so small. First, I changed a lot of the dialog. It may not be enough to alleviate all of the problems people have noted, but it should help.

Other changes:
Spoiler:
It's possible that I introduced a new bug, so if you find one let me know in this thread.
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by marat »

Russian translation
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by beetlenaut »

Thank you very much! It's on the server now. (I didn't increase the version number because most people won't see the change.)
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by RatArmy »

I fixed Japanese translation.
Could you update it?
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Japanese Translator: Mainline components, and some Add-on campaigns...
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by beetlenaut »

Okay, thanks RatArmy! Its updated.
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by Aldarisvet »

I really wonder, beetlenaut, why while having not a bad sprite of zombie wolf in your files you prefer it zombified to mounted human zombie!
And actually I looked in your campaign today to see what you have with zombie rat (it is happened that I need it :D ). And I found that it transforms to saurian zombie!!!
LoL!
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by beetlenaut »

I didn't think the wolf zombie I drew was good enough to go through the trouble of drawing a soulless one and animating them both. The "rat" being there at all is a mistake. It was actually my first, quick attempt at drawing a wolf! It's way too big to work as a zombie rat. I would certainly prefer good wolf and rat zombies, but I don't think I am the one to draw them. If someone else draws them, I can probably animate them though. (The rider and saurian zombies were the choices of the original authors of those units; not my choice.)
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Re: Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

Post by Lumen »

We need more campaings like this :D Good story and characters .
Beautiful custom meshes like the ship and graveyard .
Love the pics between scenarions.
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