The Rise of Wesnoth 22 - The Rise of Wesnoth

Feedback for the mainline campaign The Rise of Wesnoth.

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thesoothsayer
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Joined: November 12th, 2007, 2:08 am

Post by thesoothsayer »

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

Medium, 1.2.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Very, I liked the ending.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting the Lt. there to be killed. The first time round the lich left him with 1hp and ke got killed by a bat!

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10! I liked having all my veterans back without worrying about gold. Too bad my javelineer and assassin had to die.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
None!


I came in with 500+ gold and recalled almost all my veterans.
Started with:-
3 Royal guards
3 Grand Knights
3 Paladins
2 Master bowmen
4 Mage of Light
2 Silver mages
1 Arch mage
1 Bandit Queen
1 Dwarf Lord
1 Halberdier
1 Assassin
3 Iron Maulers
1 Javelineer
1 Lt.

Just absorb the first 3 waves and you've won. Ended up with -700 gold but it didn't matter anymore. ;)
Isen
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Joined: June 18th, 2007, 12:29 am

Post by Isen »

(1) 1.2.6 Hard

(2) 9. This is both harder and easier than the preceding level. The true difficulty lies in reaching this far with a decent reserve of units and the gold to hire them,

(3) A bit contrived, but simple enough to understand. A tad harder to execute, though.

(4) Much of the dialogue was lost to me as only the Minister made it this far. I love the concept of diverting the orcish invasion onto the elves, though. A fitting beginning to a great kingdom.

(5) The hordes of walking dead and goblins made a swift breakthrough all but impossible, and the time limit was all too real. Barely made it by the 38th turn, and only thanks to a cavalry charge at that.

(6) 8. Didn't feel like an 8 while I was playing it, but I can't penalise a map for my ineptitude at the game.

(7) - Your casualties turn to undead even after Jeyvan has been slain. This seems both like an oversight story wise, and, in my case at least, this almost cost me the game.
- Perhaps the Aether sacrifice could be more automated. Must confess I resorted to reloading to make sure he died to Jeyvan rather than a bodyguard.


Great campaign, overall. Even if it does take you through the nine circles of hell after you depart from the Green Isle.
IoN
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Joined: March 20th, 2008, 10:15 pm

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by IoN »

(1) 1.2.6 Easy, 1.4.5 Medium

(2) 7.5 - When I first played this back in my Easy savescumming days, it was ridiculously easy; I had inordinate amounts of gold (though not the best recall list). I just sent my veterans south and swarmed the map with dozens of level one units (mainly Horsemen and Mages). However, on medium, I vowed not to use savescumming, which put me at a little under 1000 gold for this scenario, so I decided to employ an alternate strategy: Rush east with Haldric, all the units you start with (I make sure never to let a unit that has lines die) and around 2 castles of veterans. Take out the first leader there, and recall your mermen in his keep. Use the mermen to keep naga and bats at bay. Send all your cavalry veterans, along with some fresh horsemen recruits, south to take out the orcish leader there. Send all your veteran mages, along with new ones, east to retake your original encampment and then head south with them to take out the remaining orcish mainland encampment. Send the rest of your veterans to the plained area to your southeast to keep the undead and any orcish stragglers at bay. Once all that's done, unite the three forces to take out Jevyan.

(3) Brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

(4) See #3.

(5) Orcish reinforcements often arrived at the camp I was trying to take before I could move Haldric to the keep. My mages kept getting overwhelmed. Aethyr (or however you spell it) kept getting killed by units other than Jevyan.

(6) 10 - An awesome scenario.

(7) I echo Isen.
maclag
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Joined: October 27th, 2008, 1:22 pm

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth - final scenario

Post by maclag »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Easy. I always play on easy level, because I NEVER go back in the campaign to make previous scenarios in a different way. I think this aspect makes the game boring.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10
My current best achievement: kill ONE leader around turn 20.
At this time, I have few units left, the ennemy is around 50 or 60. The bat and wolves are too fast to keep control of villages if you move your host, and you can't afford keeping any unit back to keep them. So 3-4 new ennemy units per turn!!
I don't have cash issue, but maybe I should be able to recruit 20 lvl3 (I don't have that in stock...)
Anyway, killing only one leader after 20 turns totally excludes the possibility to finish in time...

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear. Actually, I've not been far enough to understand if I've missed something.

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Less than hundreds of ennemies continuously recruiting...

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
1.
Started again around 10 times. I always play on easy level because I hate starting back scenarios thinking "you should have done...". What the pleasure of a surprise if you need to know about it 4 scenarios before to handle it??

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make it feasible for people who don't think in term of "how many combinations of all the previous scenarios must I try to beat this one?"

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Surrounded by ennemies. Until today, all I could achieve is "survive as long as possible". Today I could kill one leader.
Tried the idea of cavalry: they're too slow to reach the west leader before too many ennemies block the way, and the south leader is protected by the "bridge that collapses with the surprise's monster".

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
I've not had a look at this one, I would be too much tempted to cheat...

I clearly admit I'm a very poor player, I'm not ashamed of that. But frankly speaking, the gap between all previous scenarios, and final scenarios of all campaign I've done so far, and this precise scenario is incredibly huge!!
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zookeeper
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth - final scenario

Post by zookeeper »

maclag wrote:(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Easy.
You missed the crucial other half of the question.
maclag
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Joined: October 27th, 2008, 1:22 pm

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by maclag »

Hum, seems like my yesterdays' post was lost.
The answer was:
1 - Sorry for the delay, computer access issue, could not remember the version.
2 - The version is 1.5.4

(by the way: yet another failure yesterday evening :'( )
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zookeeper
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by zookeeper »

maclag wrote:2 - The version is 1.5.4
That's a really old version in terms of how the balance in TRoW has probably changed. The campaign is probably much easier on the latest version.
silent
Posts: 244
Joined: February 20th, 2009, 5:53 am

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by silent »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Medium 1.4.7
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5. Disappointed. The enemies are far too scattered and unorganized. Why would you send naga's on land when they'd be a pain in the ass blocking the river, and all of them except for Jevyan's troops were disorganized as.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear. Nice touch on deliberate death of commander Aethyr.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Burin is awesome, there should be more characters like him, moaning or bloodthirsty. I agree with him, to hell with politics too. Dialogue was great, battle cries for the win.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting the commander to Jevyan I guess. At least Jevyan had the decency to organize his forces somewhat. (stupid orcs)
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. There is nothing more satisfying than having orc warriors and goblin knights run themselves into a ring of death :)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
The Orc forces should get their act together.
Joram
Posts: 366
Joined: September 2nd, 2008, 5:36 am

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Joram »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Hard 1.6.0

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3- I got it on my first try

I came in with 584 gold, which was not enough to get my full recall list.

Unit list:
1 Great Mage
1 Merman Triton
1 Merman Hopilite
3 Fugitives
2 Grand Knights
4 Halberdiers
1 Highwayman
2 Iron Maulers
3 Mages of Light
1 Master Bowman
4 Rangers
4 Royal Guards
4 Silver Mages
2 Red Mages
1 Outlaw

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
A little bit complex.

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

From my perspective, the storyline in this and the last scenario was a big letdown. I’d forgotten exactly how it turned out.

[mild rant]
When the elves plot to betray the humans, what is the player’s reaction? In my case, it was righteous feeling indignation against the scheming backstabbers!

Then Haldric says that the ultimate lesson that he has learned through all of his trials and tribulation is that “Survival trumps honor”.



In other words: The elves were fully justified in doing what they were doing; sacrificing honor to survival... What?

Now, Jessica made a fair number of allusions to what she overheard the elves plotting. However, Haldric never says that he feels justified in doing this because the elves did it first (which would have been a dubious argument, imo, anyway; though it would have been an improvement). It is all about “we have to do it to survive; therefore, it is the right thing to do”. The impression that I got was that Haldric would have come up with this scheme even if he hadn't gotten definite confirmation that the elves were going to betray him (he never talks about what Jessica overheard, he just talks about "survival").

I would prefer it that the main characters did not stoop to lies to make the orcs and undead target a different people group (most of whom is innocent of any wrongdoing) in order to save their own. Is it somehow better that the orcs kill innocent elves than that they kill innocent humans?

That's the big kicker. Most of the elves had nothing to do with the treachery.

Does anyone remember Eldaric? Well he gave his life to preserve his people, but he managed to retain his honor when doing it. He didn't send a lot of strangers to the chopping block to save his own small group that is somehow more important. He didn't play around with diplomacy and the lives of others. When he sacrificed a life, it was his own and no one else's.

I was sad before that Eldaric didn't survive, but now I'm even sadder. :cry:
[/mild rant]

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not losing any of the characters the make you lose the scenario. Also, getting Jevyn to kill Lt. Aethyr

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8- The climax. I can recall all I want and not have to worry about gold or upkeep. This is the first scenario for a long time that I have ever had negative gold. I wasn’t able to recall everything, but I did my best.

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

Give me more gold! I had to leave 4 leveled units on my recall list. That is unacceptable. I want the ENTIRE recall list! :twisted:


MAXIMUM CARNAGE!!!
The Fires of Pride 0.3, a heavily story based campaign.
On hold while I try and finish my book
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fenny
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by fenny »

1) 1.8.2 medium
2) 9, it's the hardest scenario in The Rise of Wesnoth, but it's easier than DID Alone at Last or Bad Moon Rising-Scenarios.
3) clear
4) very good
5) Survive the strong opposition in the beginning, kill quick one or two orcish leaders, beware of the cuttle fishes.
6) 6, it's a bit annoying after so much hard work let Aethyr getting killed
7) nothing

Some time ago in a previous version i played it on easy and accidantally i killed Jeyyan with Aethyr !
shadowblack
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by shadowblack »

The following is for the final three scenarios, since only Rise of Wesnoth is playable.

(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)
5 – didn’t seem so hard to me

(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. So that’s what really happened and how and why the orcs thought the elves had the ruby, eh? Nice!

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The destruction of the bridges – a very unpleasant surprise that made me reload the first time it happened. The following times I was more or less prepared.

Avoiding losses in order to not give the enemy free troops.

Last, but not least, the enemies grouped together while I was busy killing the west orc, so I ended up having to deal with two groups of enemies – one in the east (undead and orcs) and another one west of it consisting entirely of orcs. So I had to plan my moves a bit more carefully than usual.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7 – I enjoyed crushing that Lich once and for all

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Give proper warning that the Lich gets extra gold every time an orc leader dies!

Give some hint that the bridges get destroyed, for example when a unit gets close to a bridge have him/her say something like: “Hmm, that bridge looks old and unstable. I hope it doesn’t collapse as we cross it!” so that it’s less of a tomato surprise

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Jessene got killed by one of the orc leaders when he got lucky and hit her 3/3 despite her 70% def.



Overall, I enjoyed the campaign despite the large number of kill-em-all scenarios.
You are a Dark Adept: You immerse yourself in the dark arts... potentially with great rewards...
sv75
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by sv75 »

(1) 1.9.2, hard

(2) 6/10. Too easy for final scenario.

(6) 7/10. See below.

(7) It was way too easy for final combat. Maybe Jevyan should summon some 3rd level undead when player advances far enough, it will be more thrilling. If I remeber correctly, Jevyan was not so defendless in older game version.


New graphics are just great.
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Maiklas3000
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Lord (challenging/hardest); 1.9.3; 452 starting gold (minimum is 200)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9.5. I had to go back and replay the previous scenario, Return of the Fleet, to get more gold. I had 399 starting gold the first time. It's not easy to squeeze much more out of the previous scenario, and more gold doesn't do you much good here (because you are going negative on gold so quickly.)

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Excellent, though wordy.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Although it can be difficult just to survive, the main challenge on hard is the time limit of 39 turns. There's just so much spam that you can't get through it and to the lich without planning your strategy around killing enemy units quickly.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Fix a couple of bugs:

Bug #1: The player has the option to recruit Saurians. This occurs after the Saurians are triggered in Return of the Fleet and persists into the final scenario. Start the scenario Return of the Fleet, run a fast unit due north, trigger the Saurians, and then check your recruitment list. On hard, you will see you can recruit level 1 and level 2 Saurian Skirmishers. On medium, just level 1's, I think. I don't think this was the intended effect.

Bug #2: When a Walking Corpse kills a unit, it turns into a Walking Corpse. Fair enough, but the problem is that when any other unit kills a unit, it turns into Soulless (on hard, at least.) See if you can change a kill by a Walking Corpse so that it generates a Soulless with the "A Former Friend" label. Also, I much prefer the method the Walking Corpses use to spawn a new unit: it appears in place of the dead unit, whereas your "raised dead" always spawns into a different hex from the dead unit. This caused a serious problem in an earlier scenario, where Soulless spawned into cave walls.

(8) Restarts?
Several losses, mostly due to time, restarting from start each time. My single save-reload will probably haunt me and I'll have to redo the scenario.

Edit: I redid the scenario and won with no save-reloads (none in the whole fampaign.)

(9) WML?
Whoh, this may be the longest WML file for a mainline scenario. It is well commented.

(10) Replay?
Attached.

Edit: New screenshot and replay.
wesnoth - TRoW - The Rise of Wesnoth - early lines.jpg
I very carefully left the bridges intact until I had crossed them with some of my forces. (And then got my force split when I forgot to protect the bridges.)

In the replay, you can see where the AI has created good lines - and blobs, which are like hedgehogs. That's due to the use of "grouping" in the WML code:

Code: Select all

        team_name=orcs
        user_team_name=_"Evil"
        [ai]
            #{NO_SCOUTS}
            recruitment_ignore_bad_movement=yes
            recruitment_pattern=scout,fighter,fighter,archer,scout,fighter,fighter,archer,mixed fighter
            grouping=defensive
            {ATTACK_DEPTH 5 5 6}
        [/ai]
        [ai]
            time_of_day=dusk,first_watch,second_watch
            aggression=0.65
            grouping=offensive
        [/ai]
Cool, I wish more scenarios in other campaigns used "grouping".

If you watch the following replay, I suggest at least 4x acceleration.
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Lord-Knightmare
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

1. Easy 1.9.8
2. 7 (I lost my Great Mages! and a hell-load of units. Total loses for the scenario was 8 and overall campaign loses was 28)
3. Very Clear
4. Excellent
5. Protecting my flanks from Goblin Knights, and Vampire Bat assaults on severely wounded units.
6. Awesome
7. Jevyan's pet Skeletal Dragon shows up. :twisted:
8. Nope
9. No comment
10.
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Telchin
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Rise of Wesnoth

Post by Telchin »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.10.0, easiest dificulty(Fighter), save/loads were abused
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6, but might be as much as 10, depending on player's starting gold. As I've mentioned in my review of "Return of the Fleet", the two penultimate battles may drain player's gold, rendering the final battle impossible. Thanks to my mediocre strategy and heavy save/load abuse I had enough gold to recall 30 level 3 units (well, some of them were lvel 4 great magi), so the scenario was possible.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Rather complex, but well explained by the storyline. I like that one of the orcs is secluded on an isle, so it prevents the player from killing all orcs accidentaly (and thus losing).
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
TRoW is my favorite campaign as far story is concerned (I liked UtBS gameplay better, but it's story is too angsty for my taste). IIRC, previous versions of the epilogue left Haldric's and Jessene's relationship ambiguous, now it confirms, that they get married. I liked them more than most other mainline protagonists, so I approve.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Nothing save/load abuse couldn't overcome. The first hiccup was getting over the bridge with Inky ( :D ), as I was surrouned by Orcs on both sides. However, I had a vast army as mentioned above, so I sent one third of my soldiers to deal with the north-western orc, while the rest pushed south. Then it got easier, but I found the objective of Aethyr getting killed by Jevyan rather luck based. On my first try Jevyan missed and then killed Aethyr with a random Revenant.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9, but might be lower, if I had less money. A climatic battle with interesting objectives an cuttlefish whose names I used for my campaign.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
The scenario itself is fine, but as mentioned above I'd like some breather level before it. Even with my huge army I found it challenging enough for my not-stellar skills and I don't know what I would do with only the 200 starting gold.
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