Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

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WanderingHero
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by WanderingHero »

(1) Normal
(2) 11(THIS IS A NOVICE CAMPAIGN) What... the.... hell? I had only a red mage and no white mages, but this was my first time what do you expect? My Calvery horde had served me well beforehand.... No seriously, how do I beat this level? I have calvery(including 2 great knights), and a few other vets, a red mage and a decent amount of gold. What do I do? Do I have to restart the campaign or a few levels?
Edit: Ok you use Grand Knights and Holy water and pray you can kill a lich or 2 while using elf fighters as sacrifcal meat shields.... and this is a novice campaign?
(3) It looks like just holding out is the best course, though you should probably killa lich if you can
(4) Not even that intresting..
(5) TOO MUCH ****ING UNDEAD
(6) 2 its an interesting design but Delfadoor's Memoir's (an intermediate campaign) doesn't have a scenario as hard as this
(7) Make it much easier, give more hints
Last edited by WanderingHero on November 5th, 2011, 8:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
WarpedRealities
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by WarpedRealities »

(1) 1.8.6 Normal
(2) 11. Scenario is absurd.
(3) The objectives are clear, the difficulty is absurd.
(4) Clear enough.
(5) Absolutely ludicrous amounts of undead.
(6) 0. Scenario is broken.
(7) Remove it, then find the person who made the scenario and remove him as well. Failing that tone down the amount of undead to merely biblical proportions.
monochromatic
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by monochromatic »

@WanderingHero Cavalry are actually very useful in achieving victory here. Note the holy water.
WanderingHero
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by WanderingHero »

monochromatic wrote:@WanderingHero Cavalry are actually very useful in achieving victory here. Note the holy water.
Yeah I eventually beat this when I killed one of the Liches with my Great Knight, which meant less undead, which meant I could actually hold out (after a few sacrifices...).

Still an epic pain in the ass, and much too hard for this campaign.
podbelski
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by podbelski »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.9.6 Normal

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
For a newbie campaign, I'd give 11. The reason is it's almost impossible to withstand an attack in a starting castle, yet this is what I feel I'm supposed to do. I've put all merman around the castle, recruited my best troops, and by reloading a ton managed to beat everything but not losing critical units. Most merman were slain though.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
It's clear you just have to survive.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
That's alright.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Battling the undead the hard way :) After watching some replays I understand this is not necessary, e.g. I like battling the bottom lich and occopying his keep.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
If you are pro it's really fun and quite challenging, but for a noob it's just a pain in the ass under a ton of curses.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Probably a bit less undead on a Normal difficulty. And what's most important, there should be a dialogue like on the 2nd turn clearly suggesting it's a suicide to stay in the castle, you have to either destroy the bottom lich, or run to the South-East, or look for some other way to win. It feels better when you know the "normal" way to win is to abaddon your castle.
Skaithe
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by Skaithe »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
v1.9.7 - Champion - Challenging

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8-9 At least when you kill all the liches.

(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?
I liked that Moremirmu had a line. He sure doesn't like those undead.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
it was just plain difficult. I had to send a small strike force north around the western side of the mountain in order to assassinate the lich up top. Without doing that I wouldn't have had enough time to kill all three. The map allowed for a lot of strategic options, well designed. Holy water was a nice addition.

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

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I would've liked to see a greater reward for destroying all three liches.
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ayearhasgone
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by ayearhasgone »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.8.6, Normal

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

(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?
5, the usual

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not being wiped off the face of the Earth.

Listen, I really do like a tactical challenge. I found 05b Isle of the Damned to be quite fun, organizing an assassin squad and holding out against all odds. I was hoping this would be the same... nope. Too many undead. It's not a challenge, it's a massacre. I have a number of unit 3's, including a few Fugitives which can normally mop up skellies no problem. By turn 7 they are all dead. And that's with a giant horde of Elvish Fighters I spammed to hold off the enemy. It's really just overwhelming.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
0. Just way too difficult.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Lower the difficulty, big time. Reduce the size of the enemy keeps, reduce their gold, bust all the enemy units down to level 1. Then maybe we will have a playable scenario here.
jonadab
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by jonadab »

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

I don't remember what the names are for the three settings, but I picked the one in the middle.
I have version 1.8.whatevercomeswithDebianstableatthemoment.

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

10.

(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?

Okay.

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

I have not yet managed to devise a new strategy for this revised version of the level. I'm working on it.

In previous versions of Wesnoth, it was possible to mostly hold my ground against the eastern lich, giving ground gradually enough to hold him off long enough to defeat the southern lich, which reduced things to a single front and allowed me to keep gradually giving ground and, with a bit of luck, make it to the end of turns. With careful play and a couple of reloads it was possible, at least in theory, to pull this off without losing any high-level or loyal characters. This is no longer possible.

I believe the major change that makes my old strategy nonviable in 1.8 is that the eastern baddie now has wraiths, which have significantly more mobility than anything he previously wielded. I am now finding it completely impossible to maintain that front. Two turns and he's either around or through. Level-1 fresh recruits cannot hold the line -- he cuts right through -- but if I use all high-level characters it is VERY hard to avoid losing them. Also, I do not have enough outriders (the only thing with enough mobility -- knights aren't fast enough) to reliably establish the NW-SE portion of my line before he gets there first, so the wraiths, if he moves them correctly (which the player cannot control), can outflank me on the southeast end no matter what I do.

I have amassed what I feel should be a reasonable collection of high-level units for this stage of the campaign: two champs and a hero; two avengers, a marksman, and a ranger; two red mages, one of whom who will level up if he kills a level-1 enemy; an assassin and a rogue; a grand knight, a paladin, and a knight; two shydes and a druid who needs 10xp to level up; two outriders; and Konrad is level 3. It's nowhere CLOSE to enough. After about the third turn of combat, so many of them are so badly injured that I do not have enough units left to hold the lines.

My gold (408 to start -- I know, I should replay the previous scenario) and the size of my castle are also inadequate. Even if I had infinitely many level-three units, I'm not sure I could recall them fast enough to supply both fronts. But I don't have infinitely many level-three units, so this is pretty well moot.

The front lines are so *long*, especially the eastern one. That's the problem. Those wraiths, they just move too far too fast. I can't defend that much space. I either get outflanked, or I spread myself too thin and he waltzes right through the middle.

(As an experiment, to verify that my meager 408 starting gold isn't my problem, I created an edited save with 1408 gold. The extra level 1 units I was able to recruit mainly succeeded in keeping Konrad in the keep until the northern baddie's forces made it a three-front war. My keep is obviously not large enough to support all three fronts, so infinite level 1 recruits is clearly not the answer.)

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

Not sure yet. If I figure out how to finish it, I'll get back to you on that. I do like a challenge, but I'm not yet confident that I'm up to this one.

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

If I wanted it to be playable using the strategy I used before, I'd either get rid of the eastern wraiths, or else revise the map to move the eastern keep northward and eastward a bit. Is there any terrain wraiths don't breeze over at full speed? Some of that might be nice, especially if it were placed so as to anchor the southeastern end of my eastern defense line. Also, I'm not sure, but the southern baddie might be a little overpowered. It's hard to tell, currently, because I can't send very many units that direction unless I want wraiths attacking them from behind.

The northern baddie *is* too powerful to fight, but he always was, and I think that was the designer's intention, so that's really not the problem.

I'm going to explore the possibility of fleeing westward and see if I can put my back to the mountains and hold out there. We'll see how that goes.
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PorkSol
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by PorkSol »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.9.8

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7. I found it a lot easier than Siege of Elenesfar and easier than Princess of Wesnoth and Isle of the Damned as well.

I did have to re-start the map several times, but I usually have to do that since I make a lot of mistakes. At least with this map it was usually pretty obvious when a strategy wasn't going to work. Once I figured out my final strategy it only took me one restart before I managed to kill all three liches while only losing one non-loyal knight and some freshly recruited fodder.

By comparison it took me at least half a day to do Siege of Elenesfar with no save loads and all loyal units surviving.

It seems to me that this is a bit of a trick map and the holy water potions serve as a trail of bread crumbs to hint at the route you need to take to assassinate the liches. In the day time strong Grand Knights can one shot the liches with holy water and there is a route that gives pretty reliable access to the unguarded liches, so the rest of your units just have to take out the southern lich.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
No complaints.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
No complaints.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
-Figuring out the trick.
-Killing the southern lich quickly with minimal losses.
- Making sure my grand knights land their 60+ damage arcane powered charges, there is a significant chance they'd miss which could lead to a re-start.
- Recovering after I noticed that while my Strong Grand Knight could one shot the lich, my non-strong Grand Knight only did 59 damage, meaning the lich survives the charge with 1 hp.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. Nicely designed, sort of a puzzle map. And it was nice to be able to give up on saving gold and just recall tons of guys and go deep into the negatives.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Some sort of minor reward for killing both liches. I finished 4 turns early but I still only came out 3 gold ahead of the minimum gold for the next scenario. It would be nice to have something to show for that, not necessarily anything too powerful.
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Valley of Death replay, 1.9.8, Hard, no save load, killed all liches
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glandis
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by glandis »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.8.6 Hard

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
11, or 9 if you're willing to cheat.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Objectives are clear, but methodology is a bit wacky.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Storyline is pretty good, but the dialogue doesn't realy support it enough.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Realizing that if all the liches are dead, their armies don't matter - that seemed lame, but the only way I've found to win.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4. It's just a bit too hard to do anything creative with this one.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
If "kill the liches while surrounded by their still-walking armies" really is the "win" condition here (on hard, I found mere survival to be only possible with gimmicky fodder-recruiting), make that clear in someone's dialogue ("If the ALL the liches die their armies will turn to dust!" or something). Overall, I think the toughness of the scenario is too much - there are no viable interesting options. I'd like it if it were at least possible for a three-front advance/fighting withdrawl to the central keep to work, but as far as I can tell, you are just too outmatched for that.
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vodot
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by vodot »

I'd be curious to see how many users posted their first message in either this thread or in the Elensefar thread...

1. Difficulty: Challenging (hard); 1.8.6; my first campaign ever; 330g.
2. Challenge: 9. Wow. Like Elensefar, this was abjectly impossible until I learned the trick; but once the trick was learned, easier than Elensefar- although my final losses in this scenario were atrocious.
3. Clarity: 1. +10 for "Survive the undead!" and -9 for the missing "But there's no way in heck you'll do it by staying in your pathetic castle!"
4. Dialog: 2. Not much. For such a brutal, landmark scenario, this dialog needs help. This is THE scenario of this campaign so far; subjecting the player to this kind of torture is crazy without some dialogue to make it worth it. I volunteer! For instance, by turn 2, there is no way the wizened heroes should fail to comment on the fact that they are about to get... um... 'violated' if they remain in the fortress.
5. Obstacles: 9. Surviving. Figuring out that you have to run. Figuring out that better than running is picking a Lich to whomp. Figuring out which Lich to whomp. Figuring out how to stall the remaining undead. Figuring out how to wail on the chosen Lich without catastrophic loss. Figuring out that loss is inevitable.
6. Enjoyment: 5. I actually had some fun once I got over my fury at not being able to defend that castle worth a damn. Wow, did it feel good to go wail (get it?? Wail?? ok) on that Eastern Lich and his Wraiths.
7. Changes: Dialogue. More than ever; or start Konrad in a more overtly indefensible location. He needs recruiting space, but the player should not even be given the illusion that his castle may be held with success.
8. Restarts: At least 8. Thankfully, they came much more rapidly than Elensefar, which took me over a day to beat. I would say, 2 restarts per "Obstacle" mentioned above. I still may go back and reload the campaign from T1 of this scenario, if campaign progress later becomes impossible, given the abject annihilation here of the majority of my advanced units.
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taptap
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by taptap »

It is funny how many people refer to "the trick" but upon looking to their replays everyone has a different strategy...

On normal I had enough gold to take out east with veterans (2 Mages of Light, Delfador, Elrian (Great or Arch mage I forgot), Paladin as main damage dealers + some others to shield them), defending against south with level1 + two holy horsemen, and slowing north with two or three fighters willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good until east returns. While most strategies involve taking on east first, I feel the niceties of implementation are rarely similar among players. At least on normal I found defending impossible while going for the kill was quite possible (but in the replays many people don't have enough mages it seems).
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vodot
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by vodot »

taptap wrote:It is funny how many people refer to "the trick" but upon looking to their replays everyone has a different strategy...
Agreed. By "trick" what I think people mean is "an effective strategy that seems to circumvent what appears to be the dialogue/objective/thematically-sanctioned strategy." Or maybe it's as simple as "I feel like I tricked my opponent." I mean, it's a strategy game, right? the lines between "strategy" "trick" and "exploit" are usually a little blurry.

EDIT: I can't resist. Maybe: "a obfuscated method which, once learned, renders a seemingly difficult task so simple that the originally perceived difficulty is revealed as an illusion."
icerom
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by icerom »

Pretty tough scenario. It's pretty cool when it dawns on you that if you can simply kill the liches, it'll be over. I simply didn't have the firepower to do it any other way. The first time I played the campaign I had trouble understanding the difference between magical and arcane. Other than that, things are pretty clear. I'd give it an 8.5

I see some people feel you can only sneak on two of the liches. I used Delfador and Kalenz to sneak on the East lich, and knights to take out the other two -it also serves the purpose of keeping two essential units safe.

I even had several thieves survive -in the mountains, as they have better defense than in the castle. However, if I did it again, I would send a rider with each of the knights to make sure I get the kill shot, and omit the mermaid. I made a couple of other mistakes, but this was a pretty sweet win. I guess I was lucky there weren't any chocobones, though...
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monokli
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Re: Scenario 9: The Valley of Death

Post by monokli »

1: V1.5 'phone. Easy
2: 8+
3: Clear
4: Ok, but as others have said it, some hints on not holding the godsdamned middle castle is key. The "trick" is Napoleon's Defeat in detail strategy: full castle then rush east and kill the lich before the other two armies arrive, then you can duke it out from there. Killing the other two liches is not really necessary: their armies give much more valuable experience.
5: RNG, unpreparedness, lack of anti-undead units.
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