South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Feedback for the mainline campaign The South Guard.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

epignosis
Posts: 1
Joined: August 13th, 2007, 4:23 pm
Location: California

Fun, but best if you kill the trolls

Post by epignosis »

(1) Normal 1.3.6 (Mac)
(2) 5: Hardest part is getting around the narrow tunnels clogged with trolls if you pay them off. Killed the Lich off very easily. Surrounded him and had an elf shaman and Ethiliel to heal units. Didn't lose many.
(3) Very clear.
(4) Very clear, not very interesting, but not bad either. Could use a little more depth.
(5) Getting around the stupid trolls that block the passages and never move was the most difficult thing.
(6) 5: Wasn't enough to do if you pay the trolls. I'll kill them next time.
(7) Adding more units to kill and widening the tunnels a little to prevent blockages by the trolls for those that pay them off.
ubr
Posts: 4
Joined: September 21st, 2007, 10:03 pm
Location: Indonesia

Post by ubr »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
-normal, 1.2.6

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
- 2, troll does the job what i have to do? just killing the Lich?

(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?
-none

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
-1, no fun to move my army through the cave with only 1-2 grid advancement and the cave only 1 grid wide.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
- widen the cave road, 2-3 grid.
motorbitch
Posts: 9
Joined: September 13th, 2006, 12:20 am

Post by motorbitch »

1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
hard, 1.2.6
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
grml
(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?
not much dialoge, i hate dialoges where you have to try and error the "right answer"
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
culd not beat the lich
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
math dont offer numbers for this... just subterrane. made me quit with this campaign.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
on my xp sys with 2 gig ram 2.5 ghz dual-core, this mission is almost unplayable. about 2 mins waittime, to next turn and even more when load/save. there is no chalange until the lich, and the lich himself eats up most units with a single attack. to make it short: i like most of your campaigns, them are verry well done.... exept this mission.

[edit] i found out why its so slow. the game cloned all my unplaced reserve unitst like 20 times. this results in savegames about 7 mb, slowing down the game. [/edit]
Dwachs
Posts: 11
Joined: December 11th, 2007, 7:51 am

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by Dwachs »

Eleazar wrote:(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
(1) 1.2.8 / normal
(2) once you know the trick: 1, without knwoing the trick the scenario should be kind of unbeatable.
(3) clear
(4) why should I destroy this wall? what advantage does this give??
(5) trial and error - save and load
(6) 1
(7) ?? no idea. I had to try the scenario couple of times: First hire strong troops, fight against the trolls - no chance to win. Then ally wth the trolls, but I had no 75 gold, they fight and won against me. Last attempt: hiring one L2-archer, ally with the trolls, wait til they killed the Lich - fine. I had no chance to bring Hylas in the battle, cause the trolls flooded the area around the lich.
Lyinar
Posts: 13
Joined: February 18th, 2008, 1:23 am

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by Lyinar »

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

Medium, 1.2.8

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

4. After what happened the last time I offered to be nice to someone (elves getting in a huff and leaving) I just chose to pay off the trolls. They took the main route, fighting the undead, and I took the back way. En route I think I ran into a single ghost, which Hylas disposed of handily.

When it came to fighting the lich, I got lucky. I had two level 3 infantry (Royal Guards) that I rotated into the created choke point, with Hylas behind healing. The lucky part is that the lich himself decided to come fight instead of his skellies (who were also being distracted by trolls). My Royal Guards were tough and lucky enough to take a few rounds of magickry from Mr. Lich, and had Hylas offering heals, and simply wore him down with their melee slayage.

I did reload twice: First when the ice bridge left my very best soldier stranded to die, and second when I had already advanced quite far down the 'main' route before finding the trolls and the powderkeg way to get in the 'back'.

(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?

Passable for what it was, although that line about rescuing the stranded soldier was a lie.

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

The stranded soldier. First time through it was my very best soldier, because with so few troops he of course took point. After a few turns of ghosts and wraiths floating across the canyon and whittling him away, I reloaded and ignored the ice bridge. I wasn't going to leave my best soldier to die because of some stupid scripted trap.

Also, the fact that it is eternal darkness and all my soldiers are Lawful facing Chaotic enemies. Most importantly, the very slow move rate in the caves makes the time limit a factor.

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

3. Although it was an interesting change to be working in an almost guerrilla-war style, since there's not enough money to recruit a large number of units, the disadvantage due to darkness and the very slow movement thanks to cave terrain were downers.

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

Allow faster movement in the caves. Set all units to neutral for purposes of damage modifiers.


As others have said, Konrad's HP is bugged.
Jota
Posts: 1
Joined: September 11th, 2008, 6:58 pm

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by Jota »

men... i've tried to win this scenario two times and i lost the two times...

i'm new in this game... and i'm playing in the easy mode... if someone can give me some tips i would be grateful...
LAZA
Posts: 26
Joined: October 13th, 2007, 9:52 am
Location: Winterhill, Swabia, Germany

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by LAZA »

I hope, I rememer the right scene:

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
middle, 1.4.6. on Ubuntu 8.04

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
middle, after paying out the trolls...

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
not exactly clear (imho)

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
how many units? break through the enemys at the first narrow passage, lich makes enormous injury

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
is 10 better than 1? over the complete scenario about 8-9

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
at older maps the water channel could explored,(?)

I found a bug (might on!):
On the hex bases 14,10 + 15,10 and 16,10 is wall but some of the ghosts(?, I play it in german!) could move there and attack from behind!
Played it several times, all the same result....

I also post it in the bugs section!
Last edited by LAZA on February 4th, 2010, 4:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Dell Precision T3500
-
* Manjaro Xfce 64 Bit - Testing *
User avatar
Turuk
Sithslayer
Posts: 5283
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:58 pm
Contact:

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by Turuk »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Soldier (Normal) 1.5.6

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5. Caves can be a bit tricky, especially when you are not always sure around the next corner, given the fog, but that is a nice change.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal, find and kill the evil at the source.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Good dialogue, especially the confrontation between the two elves. The trolls add a nice touch as well.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7. Good map, interesting challenges, and the ability to choose the help of the trolls is nice.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
None, like it as it is.
Mainline Maintainer: AOI, DM, NR, TB and THoT.
UMC Maintainer: Forward They Cried, A Few Logs, A Few More Logs, Start of the War, and Battle Against Time
shikijiyu
Posts: 2
Joined: February 7th, 2009, 8:24 pm

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by shikijiyu »

(1) Civilian (my very first campaign), on version 1.5.9

(2) 10. I don't have a lot to base my comparison on other than the previous (and subsequent) levels in the same campaign, but the difficulty ramped up by an obscene degree. My brother and I started playing BfW at the same time, and he told me he was having severe problems with this level. I had been breezing through the previous levels, so I thought he might be a tool. Turns out I was wrong. Wraiths. Swarming wraiths. I had to play in a bottleneck, rotating out my troops constantly, and they STILL slaughtered me more times than I can count. They also slaughtered most of the trolls. I finally beat it, but ALL the rest of the levels in the campaign were a joke compared to this beast.

(3) Seemed pretty straightforward.

(4) I'm pretty compulsive when it comes to reading all the descriptions of the various factions, units, etc - and I have to say, given that trolls were described as mostly not caring about anything other than sleeping in a quiet corner of their cave, it seemed unlikely that they would kill themselves over 100 gold. But whatever.

(5) Beating my way past a swarm of 20+ wraiths?

(6) Meh... the challenge was interesting (and illuminated how much more strategy would be necessary on a harder difficulty), but it was a pain given how easy the previous levels had been.

(7) Bring the difficulty more inline with ALL the other levels in this campaign (at least on civilian).
User avatar
zookeeper
WML Wizard
Posts: 9742
Joined: September 11th, 2004, 10:40 pm
Location: Finland

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by zookeeper »

shikijiyu wrote:(1) Civilian (my very first campaign), on version 1.5.9

(2) 10. I don't have a lot to base my comparison on other than the previous (and subsequent) levels in the same campaign, but the difficulty ramped up by an obscene degree. My brother and I started playing BfW at the same time, and he told me he was having severe problems with this level. I had been breezing through the previous levels, so I thought he might be a tool. Turns out I was wrong. Wraiths. Swarming wraiths. I had to play in a bottleneck, rotating out my troops constantly, and they STILL slaughtered me more times than I can count. They also slaughtered most of the trolls. I finally beat it, but ALL the rest of the levels in the campaign were a joke compared to this beast.

(3) Seemed pretty straightforward.

(4) I'm pretty compulsive when it comes to reading all the descriptions of the various factions, units, etc - and I have to say, given that trolls were described as mostly not caring about anything other than sleeping in a quiet corner of their cave, it seemed unlikely that they would kill themselves over 100 gold. But whatever.

(5) Beating my way past a swarm of 20+ wraiths?

(6) Meh... the challenge was interesting (and illuminated how much more strategy would be necessary on a harder difficulty), but it was a pain given how easy the previous levels had been.

(7) Bring the difficulty more inline with ALL the other levels in this campaign (at least on civilian).
How could you have faced a swarm of wraiths? Firstly, M'Brin can't recruit wraiths except on the hardest difficulty, and secondly the scenario code explicitly prevents him from having more than 3 wraiths at any given time.

I did some adjustments to the difficulty anyway, but I'm not sure what to make of that wraith claim. Could you post a mid-scenario save where you see lots of wraiths? I guess it could be some obscure bug somewhere.

EDIT: Interesting, I managed to reproduce that in 1.5.9 just fine. I'll be taking a look at it, no need for that save. :o

EDIT 2: Duh. It was a dumb WML bug which caused it. It's fixed now. However, there still shouldn't have been more than max 3 wraiths around at any given time. If you really have a save of a situation where there's more than that, please do post that.
shikijiyu
Posts: 2
Joined: February 7th, 2009, 8:24 pm

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by shikijiyu »

Didn't mean to imply that there were 20 wraiths at a single time, but rather that I faced around 20 total (sorry). In fact, I think you are quite right regarding a max of three, as I can't remember there ever being more than three at a time, and mostly it was just two at a time. But the fact that they kept pouring in, along with ghouls and skeletons (combined with my lack of skill), made it a serious challenge for me.

It is -definitely- reassuring to know that M'Brin wasn't supposed to have wraiths at all on the civilian difficulty. :)

Thanks for the response!
Daedal
Posts: 26
Joined: March 25th, 2009, 7:37 pm

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by Daedal »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Hard. 1.4.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7
(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 the lich dialogue best, though all of it was pretty good.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
1. Finding the lich is a pain. I had to split my troops in half at one point near the end because I was worried I'd run out of turns. Luckily, the stronger half of my army met the lich.
2. The mechanic for getting gold to pay the trolls isn't terribly fun and the trolls are useless once you get them. I killed the lich without their help because half my troops found the lich nearly at the same time as the other half found the trolls. By the time my troops got to the bomb the battle was over.
3. Like a few other scenarios in this campaign, this one seems to be balanced around playing the scenario twice in its entirety. The first time around you have no idea where you're going and you have to get to a very specific end point. I'm not a big fan of the 'guess what the developer is thinking' style.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. Despite the scenario's shortcomings, it builds up well from previous scenarios and it gave me the feeling that I was getting to the bottom of something big. It has a good, epic feel to it.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
If you want to make a maze, give the player more time to get to the end of it. If you want to keep the player pressed for time, give a better indication of which way to go. When the trail forks, for example, one of the troops could give in-character hints about what lies ahead. Troop: "Phew! The tunnel south of here reeks of troll filth. We'd best stay away." D: "Maybe so. And then again, maybe they'd be of help to us." T: "Milord, the trolls are savage beasts!" D: "Mind your post, [name]. They are stupid creatures and fierce in battle, but they have some measure of reason. I will decide what path we take."
silent
Posts: 244
Joined: February 20th, 2009, 5:53 am

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by silent »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Soldier (normal) 1.6
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4. The wraiths were slightly difficult to deal with, as were the necrophages but after that it was far too easy to waltz down towards M'brin. Also helped M'brin is stupid as thinking he could kill a full health royal guard with his magic attack and as a result was slaughtered. Also helped I had 2 elvish sorceress'. The only real challenge is the eye stalk, and that is easy if you have hylas as M.O.L at this point
(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?
Very clear. The "anything for revenge" idea seems to echo over many campaigns though
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Necrophages, and not getting my loyal mermen killed. They helped a bit
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6. Difficult due to lack of good undead killing units but remedied if you level a few shamans down the sorceress path in the previous scenario
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
M'brin more passive may have made it more of a challenge.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Not really, i replayed a few turns if I realised i left units slightly too exposed though
Gugunja
Posts: 2
Joined: September 12th, 2009, 7:12 pm

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by Gugunja »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Soldier(normal) 1.6.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10 - after many retries I've decided to play another campaign instead.
(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 and entertaining. The idea of having the trolls help you is interesting, although I think the execution is a bit flawed.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The turn limit combined with the general lack of gold and powerful enemies waiting around corners to abruptly kill off weak units.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4. I found the initial battle with the eye stalk and necrophages + drain enemies to be quite fun, but this is counterbalanced by the rest of the level which is very tedious and frustrating. Generally I thought the mix of monsters was this level's strong point.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
  • Increase the turn limit by at least 5, possibly as much as 10 (although 10 would admittedly allow for some pretty leisurely progress). Several times I started fighting the lich on my 40th and final turn (very frustrating way to lose, especially since a good number of turns are spent simply moving through empty space or waiting in traffic).
  • The trolls are of very limited usefulness due to the narrow tunnel they have to squeeze through to get to the lich and how easily the enemies farm them for experience. The tunnel should be widened, and/or the trolls should be higher quality and less numerous.
  • The layout of the level and the damage output of the enemy units makes unit quality very important, which left me lamenting the loss of certain units in earlier missions. It would be nice if there was a means by which to get one's hands on a few strong units (from the trolls maybe?) since I think the handicap suffered by a player who hasn't managed to keep all of his leveled units alive and reclaimable is too great for a beginner campaign.
Jabie
Posts: 107
Joined: December 2nd, 2010, 12:50 pm

Re: South Guard 7a. Into the Depths

Post by Jabie »

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

The easiest dififuclty levl 1.8.5. Prior to that I was on 1.4ish, which I think I downloaded from tigsource

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

On 1.4, 10, second time round 7 at first, 3 once I bribed the trolls.

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

Pretty clear.

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

Fine.

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

The first room was very challenging. Once I blew open the walls, I couldn't get past the undead (not enough room to maneouvre my forces) but it didn't matter as the trolls took care of business for me.

(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?

I had to restart the scenario at this point, but I downloaded a new version (1.8.5) before I did so. The reason I had to restart was that the importance of levelling my characters wasn't stated in the early scenarios, so I didn't have strong enough troops to get past the Eyestalk + Revenant combo. As this campaign string is designed for beginners (like me) it is worth stressing at the start of the second and third scenarios that players should recall thier units and try to level them up. It might also be worth stressing in the previous scenario that any units recalled for Sir Gerrick (?) won't be available for recall in Into the Depths.

The first room is a real swine, principally cos your not far enough into the dungeon to rearrange itself with ease. Widening the entrance to the chamber to two hexes wide would alleviate this problem immensely.

At the split between the trolls and the undead, you might want to trigger an event which gives some indication as to the different parties within the chambers, such as:

Crude chalk markings and strata of limestone and granite mark the walls of this dull passage. In a pool of mud, deep footprints lead West. To the East, nothing can be heard but the constant dripping of water on stalactites and the shrill moan of a subterranean breeze... or something altogether more unpleasant.
Post Reply