Scenario 1: The Elves Besieged

[Moroder]

Currently replaying HttT, so...

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

Easy, Medium, Hard

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

4 (hard) if you're fleeing. Depending on what you want to do (not losing units and leveling), it can increase to 7 (on hard).

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

Clear enough.

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

Very good, very clear, but it could be shorter.

(5) What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?

As the majority of reviews, not losing units.

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

6. From all the first scenarios of the official campaigns, this is the only one I never lost interest into replaying.

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

As Silene wrote almost 2 years ago, I would bring the south opponent slightly closer to Konrad's keep. It would be more challenging to have to avoid Pillagers and Riders while taking the west path (but this certainly isn't what the scenario designer intented). And it's sad to see Galdrad die, please give him a little more gold!

[neroden]

This one's fun now. It used to be too long and too hard, but now it's balanced quite comfortably. I'm playing at "Hero" level.

So far they've all been pretty interesting well-balanced.... until Crossroads, which is totally busted in 1.1.7. In the finest tradition of only complaining when something is wrong, I put a review there. I would put a "yeah, I loved it" review in each of the previous ones, but that's a lot of work.

[Quitch]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium, 1.1.8

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3, some added difficulty from trying to swing the right result, that is, escaping yet having leveled units.

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
I liked it, several characters, some nice scripted events "they're destroying our home", and an effective beginning to a story. Only thing I didn't believe is that the battlecry of a bunch of "mercenaries" would be "for the Queen!"

(5) What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?
Completing it was easy, the tough bit is leveling up enough units, especially as at this stage. Luck can play a big factor, but bigger is what your AI allies try to do and which units they kill.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5, it sometimes feels more of a leveling chore, since completing the mission itself is so easy. It can be doubly fustrating because your allies don't help setup kills for you, they try and score kills for themselves.

I think the time limit is tighter in 1.1.8 than 1.0.2 (played once or twice back then) and it's better for it as you don't hang around farming XP.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Have the forces of Galahad aways focus on the NE, rather than splitting between NE and NW.

Have the AI try to help me level.

Possibly bring blue closer to my start as he's pretty much irrelevant to the battle.

[Clonkinator]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy, Normal, Hard at versions 1.0.1 and Normal 1.1.7
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
If you just want to fulfill the objective of the scenario, it is really pretty easy. I would give it a 1. But trying to kill some of the enemy-leaders is slightly more difficult. I would give it a 6 then.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Pretty clear. I wouldn't know anyone who could misunderstand the objective...
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
I guess the story is one of the best in that campaign. It is very interesting and makes wanting to play more.
(5) What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?
There were no challanges in just completing the scenario. The major challange was to level up more than 5 units or to defeat the leader in the south. However, one time (of about 30 times I played it yet) one of the riders of the South-leader managed to get into the northern forest...
Ah, and getting gold in this scenario isn't easy, too. One time, I managed to get 378 gold (including bonus) for the next scenario - but that was on version 1.0.1.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10. It is just fun to read the story, to gain the first XP and to try to kill as many enemies as possible. It is my favorite scenario.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Maybe I would have placed the southern leader a BIT more north. And I would have given Galdrad about 50 Gold more - and stronger units. Also it should give a reward when Galdrad and Chantal survive. (Perhaps they could send some units as help in some of the very difficult scenarios later?)
All in all, it is one of the best scenarios, I think.

[JW]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Hard 1.1.8 (and previously Hard 1.0)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) [1]
5/10. It's not that hard to beat, but beating it with some levelling took me a couple restarts. I advanced with 1 Captain, 2 Marksmen, 1 Druid.

[1] preferably, this should be rated relative to other scenarios in the campaign, such that the easiest scenario in the campaign is rated '1', and the most difficult '10'. i.e. even if you didn't think the campaign is very hard, you should still rate the hardest scenario '10'.

I'm rating this on perceived difficulty since I haven't played all the way through the campaign again.

(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?
To be honest, I skipped through most of it. (Having already played it on 1.0)

(5) What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?
Levelling units. It took me a few tries to get the right situations where I could kill several level 2s. I couldn't escape with 125g+, so I wanted to get xp to make up for it.

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

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I've been thinking about the turn order of the AI and how the AI will often steal your kills and then block your units from attacking. I was wondering if the turn order could go like this:

1-human
2-southern orcs
3-western elves
4-northwestern orcs
5-northeastern orcs
6-eastern elves

I'm sure this has been thought about before, but I'm just bringing it up again in case anyone's perspective has changed.

[RoddyVR]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
hard, v1.1 (actualy played medium and hard before but dont remember enough about it now)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2 for the official objective, 5 for getting some good exp.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
prety clear, might be nice to put a hint in there that recruiting units isnt realy needed.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
tell you the truth i skipped it most times. it does set up the story prety well, so its good.

(5) What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?
getting daffy (the old wizard guy) to not die. i use him very offencively, and he keeps wanting to die on me.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8, a lot of fun.
i run the gauntlet with konrad by himself (go west then north), if the western elves dont do well, it can be interesting.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
not sure, i think its good as is.


to all those that have issue with not being able to get good exp cause the allies steal it all, here's a suggestion... send your recruited forces south, instead of north... you have the southern orc's forces all to yourself, mostly comming up the road that you can blockade prety easily. with daffy shooting up the annoying units (i use him to just kill the poisoning units that have like a 30% chance to hit them).
got a bunch of lvl 2s this way... konrad made it to the signpost himself, he did have to survive geting bashed in the head by a lvl2 troll, but other then that adreneline rush, he did fine by himself.

[Flametrooper]

When I try that, I get annhilated. The best way IMO is to attack Northeast's Troll Warriors with Delfador and then finish them off with archers or shamans, while Konrad hangs around long enough to level and then runs.

[Dawgas]

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

Medium, 1.1.11 (and many other times with previous versions, but I forgets)

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

lets go with... 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?

not very, but then again, I've read it alot (more than once)

5. What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?

Getting units to level

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

lets go with... 3

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

It's the first secnario, it's not supposed to be fun!

[Ator]

What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Hard

How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1. It's not very difficult, at all, to get Konrad to the NW exit point, even in Hard mode.

How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear. Clearer than the first time I played Langrisser, anyway.

How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline of the scenario?
Quite clear, and interesting enough. Glad that it was kept short as some commercial games tend to bore you with too much chatter. (i.e. Brigandine, Shining Force) A reminder midway through the scenario, perhaps one of your allies telling you to head northwest would help the novice player keep an eye on the target.

What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?
Difficult to judge damage, particularly when you aren't accustomed to dusk/dawn, terrain, hit ratio and other factors. A bit unsettling to line up your troops to begin an offensive only to find that the majority of your strikes end in a miss.

How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6. Hard to give it a better score because it's the intro scenario. You are concerned more with the mission objective, than you would be with building or exploring.

What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Definatley indicate the limit of rounds before the scenario ends. I would advise this for all the maps. Something simple like "get out in 12 moves" would clearify the parameters - even though it is displayed in the menubar, a mention at the beginning of the battle would be welcome.

[Mist]

What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium (v1.3.1)

How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1 - No problems in reaching the signpost, western elves usualy do enough to contain the western orc and because there is nothing that could seriously challenge Delfador along that way you could probably reach the signpost recruiting nothing at all.

How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal clear.

How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline of the scenario?
Campaign intro is pretty interesting, but the scenario itself could be better. Dialogue fine, could use some more interaction with other two elven factions.

What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?
Challenge lied in lvling units with allies blocking paths and stealing kills. And dices, not hitting nearly as often as percents tell you while getting hit twice as often tends to get on your nerves.

How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4 - No pressure, no side stories, no story twists. It has nothing to get you involved until you really want to.

What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Change the scope a little bit, hard to belive that this maps represents whole forest as shown on the world map. Make whole thing an escape from three orcish strike groups that penetrated forest by stealth and are after main heroes. Make the map smaller and let everyone start with some units on it. It would be much more fun if you actualy had to escape, instead of taking a walk trough the forest.

[borsook]

(7) Would it be possible to add in the campaign description info that this camp features characters from the tutorial? Being a beginner I started with the tutorial, then I wanted to play a contituation of it and I had to start each campaign in turn before I found this one.

[kazper]

(1) Hard
(2) 5
(3) They were clear
(4) It was pretty good
(5) Just avoiding being crushed by the orcs and their flood of units on hard... And trying to level just one or two units and keep them alive within the timelimit.
(6) 2
(7) More turns. You will be driven out by the orcs anyway, so the low number of turns is an unnecessary annoyance that limits options severely

[irrevenant]

I've just noticed:

When he's attacked Galdred says "I am Galdred. You will have to defeat me to proceed any further". However, this does not happen when Galdred initiates hostilities.

He was involved in a brawl for 3 turns before he uttered this line in the game I just played.

[Veke]

1. Easy, 1.2.
2. 1.
3. Clear enough to not to cause any problems.
4. Clear, simple and interesting as for an introduction.
5. Gaining significant experience. (not letting allies kill enemies)
6. 3. Pretty boring, if you want to do it the easy(easier) way and just let the allies handle 'em.
7. Add more enemies to seriously make you need to do some holding off.

[cathyr19355]

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

Easy, medium, and hard.

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

Depends. Meeting the basic victory condition, namely, getting Konrad to the signpost before turns run out, is easy at all three levels. In fact, it's kind of boring at "easy" level. However, trying to get him to the signpost quickly is challenging at the higher two levels, and if you do that correctly you don't see enough combat to level much of anything up.

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

Clear. No problems here.

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

Reasonably so. The basic idea was clear; get out of Dodge to live to fight another day.

(5) What were your major challenges in completing the scenario?

None, really.

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

About a 3. Especially at "hard" level, you spend a lot of time watching your allies fight orcs, which isn't a lot of fun.

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

Not sure. Konrad doesn't have enough time to gather a big enough army to take any of the opponent on in a serious way. Having control over some of the allied units might make the game play more interesting at the harder levels.