The Rise of Wesnoth 3 - A Harrowing Escape

Feedback for the mainline campaign The Rise of Wesnoth.

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random-hero
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by random-hero »

scott 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) 1.6.5 hard
(2) 7, quite hard to survive the second wave, then it was big slaughtery with heavy losses for the enemy, but only slow avancement
(3) clear
(4) quite fun. but without a look in the forum i would never have fould the dwarf, who was very very important
(5) the first and second night - my tactic was to retreat step by step after i had taken the villages until the first orkish outpost with my horsemen. the orcish riders coming through the mountains were nice. when they came, i hated them of course.
(6) 7 my tactic was to recruit and recall a lot of bowmen. by this way my progress was kind of slow, actually most of the time i was retreatring until i had beaten the orcish main forces. during this time it was a very hard battle.
didn't like so much the suprise at the end, if i wouldnt have had 7 level 2/3 bowmen and still plenty of time at the end it ended up in total fiasko
(7) hmm don't know. just had the impression the battle was a little dull sometimes, all my bowmen against all the grunts and wolf riders. but still very good
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tr0ll
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by tr0ll »

  1. What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
    medium, 1.7.11, with outlaw leader.
    last played this around version 1.4, with outlaw leader.
    never managed to get here with more than one heavy infantry.
  2. How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
    6
  3. How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
    quite.
    for easy or medium level, perhaps have some dialogue hint that it would be good to advance some units for later.
  4. How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
    good.
    it seems to be necessary to grab all the villages even the remote ones to ensure enough income until units reach the leaders at the other end.
  5. What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
    to advance units even while rushing to move them down the pass.
  6. How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
    7
  7. What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
    some dialog with outlaw leader to indicate friction as Haldric gets used to working with her.
shadowblack
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by shadowblack »

I had the Lady Outlaw and was allowed to recruit outlaw units. Things may have been different without her.

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6 most of the time, but 8 when fighting the leaders

(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?
Good

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

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

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
No changes

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Bad planning on my first attempt, so I decided to start over.
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fenny
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by fenny »

1) 1.8.2 medium difficulty
2) 6, Burin is very useful in the mountains, the outlaws are good for capturing the villages
3) clear
4) ok
5) to capture most of the villages early and don't let wolf riders capture them back, hold my forces together and don't risk single units through impatience.
6) 6
7) one or two more villages in the mountains to have more action there
8 ) no
Thrash
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by Thrash »

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

1.8.4, Hard, 277 starting gold

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

9.

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

Kill bad guys.

(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?

Not getting my ass kicked.

First time I tried this scenario I had ~250 starting gold, but not many tough units. Got my butt kicked over and over.

After about a half dozen tried I replayed previous scarnio, and got tougher units, but only about 150 gold. Not enough units. Got my butt kicker over and over.

Went back and replayed previous scenario, and this time I turned down offer of help from outlaw lady. With the 200 extra gold that gave me, then I had 277 gold plus tough units and then I was able to handle this scenario fairly easily by just taking it conservatively.

My big problem was the wolves flanking me. Without outlaws (since I turned down outlaw lady), I really only had the dwarf able to run them down and it sucked not to have him on my front line.

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

7. It's a good fight if you have the resources.

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

Good as is.

I found this a really challenging scenario, if others beat it on hard, I'd like to see their replays so I can learn.
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Maiklas3000
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Lord (challenging, hardest); 1.9.3; 203 starting gold

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9.5

(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. I didn't like when the Prince started shouting at the Dwarf from miles away in his keep. Better to have the one who is in the Dwarf village to say, "I'm with King Eldaric's army, in the famous platoon headed by Prince Haldric himself." And the Dwarf can say, "Never heard of any of you."

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Surviving the initial onslaught is only barely possible on hard. I had no White Mage, so I had to make one fast. It's still easy to run out of time at the end because of the surprise reinforcements.

(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?
Make the surprise at the end less difficult.

Increase minimum starting gold on hard and/or gift a White Mage or other healer.

(8) Restarts?
Many failures, restarting from start each time. Twice ran out of time due to surprise near the end.

(9) WML?
Should comment the surprise.

(10) Replay?
Attached.
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taptap
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by taptap »

I hate to admit it, maybe I am too weak (on Lord, Challenging). This time I arrived with 193 gold, Lady Outlaw, unexp. Haldric but 2 White mages and 1 spearman about to level. I never won this in a repeatable and satisfying way, usually I am just wiped out.

Looking into replays on Lord (Challenging) it seems other players had positive luck in the critical early stages (this will happen sooner or later if you retry the scenario from start often enough). Most importantly it seems to me they didn't face as much Orcish archers as I do. Can it be that the buff of the archer led the AI to recruit them much more often? (All those horses and HI are just walking dead with an archer heavy recruit.)

---

Finally I finished this with 11 losses (among others loyal HI, Swordsman, Longbowman, White Mage), 53 kills, but this was possible only by AI recruit manipulation (I recruited bowman and mage first to make the AI go for melee units). If you have such heavy losses you get income soon and you are able to recruit again. Wesfolk lady and poachers saved the day.

Difficulty: 10 (my personal nightmare)
Fun: 8 (nothing better than a challenge, though I don't like my lack of mobility here)
Dialog: I guess good, but on the nth repetition you stop reading.
Surprise: Doesn't work, when one farms XP for a last minute kill of both leaders.
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roidanton
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by roidanton »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Hard, iPad
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
"Defeat all enemy leaders" - simple and clear
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Hey, that initial dialog with Burin was really cool :lol2:
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Well, basically getting into this scenario with enough gold and units. If you get into this with enough gold and about-to-level units, it's a piece of cake.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
Was greatly outnumbered, then smartly outplayed the AI with superior tactics, that was a lot of fun.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I could not think of anything, this was just so much fun to play !

Strategy:
Getting into this scenario with enough gold and units (6 about-to-level, including 2 mages plus the HI's within 25 XP) was really tough, I had to play "The Fall" several times, then restarted the entire campaign from the beginning. One important thing I learned was not to over-recruit.

However, even with these perfect preparations, I was so vastly outnumbered in this scenario that it would have been impossible to win this if the AI didn't make two huge mistakes.

I started by recalling my three horsemen and a quick spearman, sent Haldric and the Lady grab these two villages behind the keep on the first turn. Then sent the spearman to the dwarf and the horsemen down the road until almost in front of the orc's keep (not attempting to take the village immediately in front of that, though), then made them retreat back to my keep. They grabbed these four villages and made it back in one piece - severely wounded, but alive. But this allowed me to actually stay positive on upkeep until I really needed the recruit my army.

In the meantime, Haldric took the village in front of his keep, then recalled the three HI's. Since they're loyal I wanted to to that asap, then keep the keep clear for quick emergency recruits. And then I waited for the orcs to get to me ....

After looking at the map, I decided not to send any of my units down that road, but instead stay in my keep and defend the initial wave there. I was a bit worried that time might eventually run out, but still wanted to try this - and I actually stayed over 20 turns in the keep.

Defending in the keep had a lot of advantages: I had access to two healing vilages behind the line, my HI's and other units have the castle defense bonus and there's water and swamp around the keep, thus allowing me to stand in good defensive position.

The AI made its first big mistake by sending wolf riders and archers ahead of the main wave. Big mistake because I could see them coming, already had my 3 HI's and enough time to recall en entire castle and get them into position before they could reach me. I got two of the HI's leveled and did a kinda risky gamble with the mages: one was within one kill of leveling, the other one needed three kills - I gave the XP to the second one first, hoping to get two white mages quickly instead of just one. Then, when the main wave hit me, I used a third mage first which had almost no XP at all - waiting for a good spot for the other ones when it's safe.

Mistake #2 was the game loser for the AI: don't even foolishly let your most valuable units get killed!

Apparently the AI saw that I didn't have a single healer yet and decided to mass-poison my army at any cost. The main wave was 5 orcish assassins, some 20+ orcish grunts and a bunch of wolf riders and archers. I only had 15 units and it was night. That's just impossible. At least against a human.

Not a single assassin saw the next morning !

How's that possible ? Well, I defended with my knights on the castle and had the dwarf on the tile right next to it (so the dwarf's neighboring tiles were my knight on the castle, the water and that swamp tile). The foolish AI made three of the assassins jump into that water and put the other two into the swamp south of the castle (where my units were standing in front of the keep). And to make the stupidity complete, the AI decided to poison the knights and not the dwarf (which could not reach the village in a single turn from his position).

So yeah, the AI succeeded in poisoning all three of my knights - so I simply pull them back, let my Shock Troopers step forward and bang! bang! bang! their "morning star" quickly finishes the swimming assassins :lol2:

Three gone, two left - in the swamp (!) south of my keep. Here, I actually lose a few units because so many grunts are coming over the mountains, but I really had to finish these assassins as quickly as possible.

Once the assassins are dead, the AI makes another mistake:

It is now broad daylight and I had the impression that the orcs were afraid of my high damage dealers. However, almost my entire army was severely wounded from the battle at night, so put all units that I could not live without into the keep, healers in the middle - and send three of my spearmen out to die for the greater good.

The AI felt for the trap, slaughtered them even without taking any damage - the final, game losing mistake. Sure, my valuable units were standing in perfect defensive position - but still, I would not have had a chance in an all-or-nothing fight. At that point, I had about twice as many units as the remaining orcs, but none of mine could have taken even a single hit from the enemy.

But yeah, the heroic deeds of these spearmen shall be remembered till the end of times - after their fall, Haldric, the Dwarf and the Lady marched to victory with 2 White Mages, a Red Mage, 2 Knights, 3 Shock Troopers, a Pikeman and a Master Bowman.

At the end, I was extremely short on time, so quickly finishing off both enemy leaders was quite a bit of a challenge.

However, the Master Bowman really helped a lot. Because the first orc leader's keep is so small that only 3 units could attack him at the same time, I split my troops and marched to the second one with my main force.

Reading the walkthrough helped a lot here, since I knew about these assassins that could pop up out of nowhere when killing the first leader, I simply synchronized it, let my main army get within attack range of the second leader's keep before attacking the first one. Three assassins popped up and poisoned several of my crew, but since the second leader died just two turns after the first one, that wasn't really a problem.
line
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by line »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Lord (Challenging) 1.10.3
158 starting gold, enemies: 200/200
Finished turn 31/42

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
I started with very few gold (because of my way playing the scenario before), what caused me to delay recruiting a bit. Because of that, I had to lure out the orcish warriors at night. The day after I was really busy too keep my few units alive and to prevent getting flanked. I hurried to promote my mage to a white mage (letting him kill the orcish warrior and giving up a good defensive position to go for the level-up-kill afterwards). Just when my lines where stretched to a maximum and my units severely damaged the flow of orcs stopped.
With more starting gold this one might be easier, for me it was 8-9.

(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?
Finding a good defensive position, while keeping the orcs on worse ground and not getting flanked.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7. My little gold made me more reacting to the orcs’ moves, than to take the initiative.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
None. I personally would like more starting gold. But other players show, that it is possible to start with more gold, so it’s up to me.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Too many losses.
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Maiklas3000
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) Level and version? hard, 1.11.15, 261 starting gold (I took the gold in previous scenario, no outlaw leader.)
(2) Difficult? I'll call it a 9.5, since I had to replay the previous two scenarios to beat it. However, with gold, it's more like a 7.
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? As with my previous review, I still don't like the dwarf yelling at Price Haldric across the valley when he should be talking to the person who knocked on his door.
(5) Challenges? With a lot less gold, I was able to make a stand on the north side of the river and around my keep, but then I ran out of time. Trying instead to move along the road got me quickly overwhelmed. Once I had replayed the previous scenarios for more gold, I was able to make a stand near the first pair of guards. I stuck out the necks of my Mages a bit to level them both to White Mages. Killing the two leaders took forever! I guess I needed L2 Archers or something. My Knights and Horsemen could not safely attack. Since I knew about the surprise, I made sure to kill the leaders on the same turn. I also kept all their recruitment hexes covered. I finished on turn 31/42.
(6) Fun? 8, pretty nice, but ending is anticlimatic due to passive leaders.
(7) Changes? If I'm not mistaken, both the leaders are set to be passive. This means they won't attack on their turn, even if they can attack without retaliation. They just sit there and take it. Set them to be normally aggressive, but set their movement cost prohibitively high to move off their recruiting hex.
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Theron
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by Theron »

difficulty: HARD / wesnoth version: 1.11.15

Stats:
Scenario, starting gold (default+carryover),turns/max turns,recruits-recalls-advancements-losses-kills
3 100+134 30/42 13-4-8-3-50

Comments:
Recall only a couple of key veterans.
Recruit cheap units (=more units) as it is important to avoid getting flanked.
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taptap
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by taptap »

Lord / Challenging. 216 gold + outlaws for my best start ever in this scenario. Needed two kills for the first mage to level up, but thanks to recalled sword, longbow + knight, who did a lot of work, this wasn't a huge problem. The tomato surprise at the end is still no good, even if it doesn't surprise me anymore. It doesn't make any sense, either.
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Hestelvar
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by Hestelvar »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Easy. 1.13.4

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3, without and 4 with Wesfolk.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Couldn’t be clearer - defeat all enemy leaders.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline of the scenario?
Maintains the campaigns high standard by keeping the player immersed, definitely the highlight of this scenario.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None. The assassins surprise appearance was a minor challenge.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4, Burin and the orcish slayer enlivened an otherwise functional scenario.

(7) What, if any, are the changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Activate fog of war for all sides. “Low cloud filled the pass.”
Make orc leader(s) active. Is there a story reason to have two? Can there be a story reason to make them passive?
1, If they guard separate passes the scenario should reflect this; in that the next scenario depends upon which you defeat.
2, Have a mutiny take place at the start (what orc wants to guard a mountain pass when there are rich pickings to be had in the lowlands) but make the orcs unite once they encounter humans.
3, Have only one orc leader and trigger the assassins when a human unit gets within n hexes.
Perhaps hint at the undead menace with a few randomly appearing ghosts. "Vengeful spirits of the mountains."

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
None.

Remarks
It is hypocritical while playing on Easy to complain that a scenario is too easy, however TRoW is a expert campaign and I expected a more original challenge.
Looking at the map I thought the orcs would use their superior mobility in mountains to flank me and send wolf-riders to steal some villages. Awkwardly placed villages is becoming a theme of the campaign. The one in the eastern mountains was so remote as to be almost pointless; neither I nor the AI considered it worth capturing.
Passive leaders are anticlimactic.
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Thrash
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by Thrash »

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

Normal, 1.12.6 (with Wesfolk)

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

3.

(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?

Fine.

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

Dealing with the assassins without letting key units get exposed. There were a couple of days of trying to keep healthy units up front while I tried to conservatively wear down the enemy, while keeping an eye on the wolves (the dwarf was an immense help with that). Lost one half-leveled spearman when I just couldn't keep up one round.

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

7. Having to watch for flanking wolves was a new challenge.

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

Not having the dwarf would make a huge difference, probably too much of one without the Wesfolk.
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Aldarisvet
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: A Harrowing Escape

Post by Aldarisvet »

Here are replays of an unthinkable thing - passing The Rise of Wesnoth campaign on hardest difficulty recruiting only Mages.
The game version is 1.12.6

Well. After some quite failed attempts I thought that it is impossible. Only mages to recruit against hordes of orcs! And no Eldaric with high leadership here.

And given after 2 scenarios I got no level2 mages!
But I was able to do this! I even had to sacrifice Burin for this. I retreated at the night at one moment and sacrificed him. Armored guys helped a lot however.
The key point for this scenario for me was using mage on the hills. They have 60% defence on hills so are not so weak there.

Hardest scenario I ever had in Wesnoth given that only-mages rescriction. Losing Burin was very bad for me, he would be extremely useful later for sure but I decided to play fairly.

Statistics:

turns 34/42
inflicted -1%
taken -1%
losses 3
kills 59
advancement 9

start gold 198
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