Scenario 3: Isle of Alduin

Feedback for the mainline campaign Heir to the Throne.

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Invisible Philosopher
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Post by Invisible Philosopher »

Villages vary a lot in significance from scenario to scenario. One thing I like, though, is that you almost never have to focus on the villages - you can, if you want, win most scenarios just by winning the combats and letting the enemies grab the villages. Which does make them have more units, so I think it is well balanced.
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BigMoney
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Post by BigMoney »

Dave wrote:Initially I didn't like it that strategies were flowing in this direction, away from villages being so important. But now I don't mind it so much: I think it gives the game a unique feel.
Yes, it defies comparison to other strategy games.

After reading the wesnoth.org site and comments at Happy Penguin I was thinking BfW is like Civilization. I downloaded it, jumped into the tutorial and started thinking it was more like Warcraft except turn-based and simplified by having no infrastructure (e.g. Lumber Mills, Gryphon Aviaries) to build.

However I quickly learned it is much more complex than that with the variety of units, terrain and the day-night cycle. Then it occured to me BfW is like a dynamic chess game where time and terrain are added factors. In some levels it also feels like a puzzle game--like there's some level-specific strategy that the designer had in mind that will make this scenario much easier to pass.

So there ya have it. Battle for Wesnoth is kind of a mixture of Civ genre, WC genre, chess and puzzle games. Too bad nobody understands what we're talking about until they play it.

The nice thing is that it seems you can approach this games from several different angles and still have fun playing it. Sometimes resource hogging helps, sometimes money management helps, sometimes excrutiating micromanagement helps.... Sometimes you have to rethink what you're doing and try a completely different tack.
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

BigMoney wrote:Sometimes resource hogging helps, sometimes money management helps, sometimes excrutiating micromanagement helps....
ALWAYS excrutiating micromanagement helps.
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Post by Dave »

Elvish Pillager wrote:
BigMoney wrote:Sometimes resource hogging helps, sometimes money management helps, sometimes excrutiating micromanagement helps....
ALWAYS excrutiating micromanagement helps.
I disagree. Wesnoth barely has micromanagement at all, and no 'excruciating' micromanagement.

If you play a game of Civilization, and even though you have 20 cities and 100 units, you go through and specify exactly what every worker does, calculating what the optimal size of each team of workers does, then you're approaching excruciating micromanagement. Then if you modify the research/luxury slider each and every turn to yield the maximum benefit, and review each city's production configuration every turn, and meet with each of your rivals to see if there are any new deals that can be made, then that is excrutiating micromanagement.

Sure, careful planning in Wesnoth -- including whether to move your unit to one tile or another -- is important, but I don't think it has any real amount of micromanagement compared to most '4X' TBS games.

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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Dave wrote:some stuff about micromanagement.
Well, there's hardly any of that kind of micromanagement at all in Wesnoth.

Of course, there's selecting individually the units with which traits you want to level up, but if extremely picky location-to-attack-from choosing isn't micromanagement, then trait-picking is about the only kind of micromanagement that's even possible.
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Post by Dave »

Elvish Pillager wrote:
Dave wrote:some stuff about micromanagement.
Well, there's hardly any of that kind of micromanagement at all in Wesnoth.
Precisely my point. I don't think saying "excruciating micromanagement helps" makes sense much at all in Wesnoth, since there is very little micromanagement at all in Wesnoth.

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Post by ZombieEater »

Villages vary a lot in significance from scenario to scenario.
Aside from the income, villages also serve as a healing center and "a rock in the surf", since most units get a nice defensive and healing bonus if they sit in a Village, making them nice anchors in your defensive line.
Well, there's hardly any of that kind of micromanagement at all in Wesnoth.
The only micromanagement I have found so far is checking on xp levels (who needs this kill the most) and what traits a unit has.
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Post by Zhukov »

1) Difficulty level:
Medium only

2) Difficulty to complete:
6/10 - I hate to admit it but it took me ages to get the "key" to this level. However the very first time I played it (before I realised my lack of XP and restarted the campaign) I finished it no problems. However 2nd time round (after restart) I found myself totally baffled as to why I could never win the battles. (Without casualties that is, I'm something of a perfectionist :irritated:)

3) Objective clarity:
Fine. Couldn't be better.

4) Dialog:
Dialog wasn't too painful, to the point and explanitory. Can't really think how to make it better.

5) Challenges:
Found winning to be a hefty challange all on its own, perhaps because it's the first level that requires effort. Took me way too long to think of sending scouts south to snatch villages (thus increasing production), split enemy forces and threaten leader. However once I gave that a try the level was a pushover, got it first go with no casualties.

6) Fun:
8/10 - However that is because I can hardly remember the frustration of being defeated time and time again in the north-west. If I had written this just after having Delfador pinned and killed by wolfriders for the 3rd time I may well have given this level a 1. :? However on reflection Anduin was something of a 'perfect level, you really need to get your brain in gear to pass it. Or at least I had to...

7) Changes:
None really, although maybe there could be the slightest, tiniest, most minute little hint that splitting enemy forces is reccomended. Or would that be shielding the player too much?
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Re: Scenario Review: Isle of Anduin

Post by Eleazar »

(1) What difficulty levels?
Easy

(2) How difficult? (1-10)
4 I conside this level (though a good one) a major jump in the difficulty level. First time playing HttT, i was stuck here a very long time. It's significantly more difficult that Bay of Pearls.

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Not bad, but i think it could be improved

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Working 2 separate fronts. Knowing when to push forward, and when to stay behind the river. Getting enough troops to both fronts when i don't start out with much money, and at least one front should be far away from the keep. As i mentioned, this is much harder than taking on an Orc on a small map who would be defeated by your ally even if you do nothing.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4 It could be more fun for newbies if it came after a little more preparation.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I think this would be more compelling if the island had recently been taken over by Orcs. (throw in some rubble and patches of dirt. Make it look trashed!) If we expect there to be survivors somewhere, we have a better reason to take it back from the orcs. Currently the reason for taking on the orcs seems to be Defador's nostalgia for the way it used to be.

Also it would make more sense if you couldn't recruit mages until after you beat this level, and if there were 1 or 2 other mages hiding out, who, naturally, would join you.
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Aloo
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Scenario Review: Isle of Anduin

Post by Aloo »

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

Easy, Medium

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

4

(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?

Clear

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

Without knowing that the orks go mostly north it was easy to loose Delfador.

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

6

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

Tips on using the magi for beggining players? This is the main campaign that introduces many units - each should be described properly. At least at the easy level.
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Post by Keelta MacRonan »

1. Easy
2.2
3.Pretty Clear
4. I woud not write a book about it, but interesting enough for an otherwise perfect game.
5.Not being too reckless in my quest for experience.
6.8
7.Can't think of any at the moment.
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Post by scott »

Scenario update (for v1.1):

The spike in difficulty for the Isle of Anduin compared to the scenarios near it has long been an issue. Some minor difficulty tweaks were made as well as a hint on easy difficulty.

- the time of day cycle was rotated by two so that you first contact the enemy at dawn rather than during first watch. The effect should be subtle but helpful.
- you are given 140 min gold rather than 100. This has traditionally be a gold-starved scenario for new players. If you can recall a full castle, you will do ok. If you can only recall a couple units on the other hand, you're in trouble unless you're a really good player.
- If playing on easy, you are told that mages have a high chance to hit but require protection when used on the front lines
- I did not want to put the strategy guide makers out of business by telling you HOW to play the scenario. Otherwise, what's the fun of figuring it out?

Thank you for resurrecting this topic. The scenario changes won't be available for a while unless you compile SVN and play that. Scenario reviews continue to be welcome.
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Post by Eleazar »

Something like this is what i meant by "make it look trashed"
I think this map was originally made when there were far fewer tiles available.

hex for hex, this map has the identical strategic value.
...except i changed 2 unimportant hill hexes to mountains so it would show more of freim's multi-hex goodness.
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Post by FCDallas96 »

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

Medium

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

8, it took a long time for me to beat this. It got slightly more managable once I went back to previous scenarios and leveled 4 units plus Konrad. Even then, I struggled a bit and would not have beat it when I did had the enemy commander not left his keep.

(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?

Clear and interesting, although as has been noted above, the story doesn't really give a good strategical reason to take the island.

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

Beating the time limit.

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

6

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

Maybe a slight reduction in difficulty.
Quitch
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Re: Scenario Review: HttT - Isle of Anduin

Post by 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) [1]
7, you're challenged by a decent force, and your performance in the previous scenarios, mainly how many troops you leveled, will make a real difference here.

(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'd have expected a bit... more from Delfador. I'd like to bond to the characters a bit more here in what should be a fairly devestating blow.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Avoiding the temptation to split my force 50/50 between West and South.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9, a good, clean battle where you have a fair chance, but need to play well to win. You can use the terrain to your advantage, but there isn't so much of it that front lines are pre-determined.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
In the first scenario the AI uses elves and you can watch them in action. In scenario two the AI uses horsemen for you to see. Here you're introduced to mages, but you're not given an opportunity to see them used "properly" as it were, and messing up with them here may lead you to under-use them in the future.

I'd find it far more interesting if, rather than stumbling across a mage in a village, a pocket of mages were doing battle with some orcs for me to see. Might encourage me to recruit mages, which I avoided because they're pretty slow for a unit you're probably not recruiting on the first turn.
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