Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Feedback for the mainline campaign Northern Rebirth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

shadowblack
Posts: 368
Joined: April 15th, 2010, 3:03 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by shadowblack »

1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.8.3, Spearman (Challenging), i.e. Normal difficulty

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Starts as 6, ends as 2-4 (varies depending on your luck) if you finish before the Ghouls appear. If they appear – no idea, but, considering how much water there is on the map, I suspect it’ll be 8 to 10

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Again with the confusing objectives. Do I need to kill all enemy units, or just the leaders? Based on the previous missions I assumed it is the latter, and I was right.

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Minimizing losses. I finished on turn 18, so the Ghouls never appeared. If I had not read the wiki and the scenario file I would not even know about them.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 – I enjoyed smashing all those skeletons – sort of revenge for the trouble I had during the second scenario

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Maybe give a hint about the Ghouls. And/or make them appear when you kill 2 or 3 of the enemy leaders.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No


From looking at the scenario code I know about the (currently unavailable) dark path. Any news on it? Or has the idea been scrapped? The scenarios and maps are there, but the comments mention 1.4 – nothing about the newer versions…
You are a Dark Adept: You immerse yourself in the dark arts... potentially with great rewards...
User avatar
Herduk
Posts: 97
Joined: August 18th, 2005, 9:19 am
Location: Bergamo - Italy

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by Herduk »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6- not difficult, but long (take me about 30 turns)
(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?
Nice
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Avoid to lose important units
(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?
Some hints on necrophage peril would be interesting.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Necrophage. I sent a very small group of high level units (the mage, lord Hammel and another L3 dwarf) to clear north way and i got no problems. Until necrophages shows up and kill my mage. I cheated, and reloaded a couple of turns before the die (with necrophages already around) to retreat mage.
Don't bother a dwarf.. you can argue with his hammer!
User avatar
Maiklas3000
Posts: 532
Joined: June 23rd, 2010, 10:43 am

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) Difficulty? Nightmare; 1.9.4; 350 starting gold
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 6
(3) How clear? "Clear the mines" should be "Kill all enemy leaders".
(4) Dialog? Fine. I think there was an "of" used where "off" is correct.
(5) Challenges? None really, so I made it harder by recruiting only peasants. The ghouls were no match for my underground peasant army, so I edited the scenario file to turn the ghouls all into necrophages. Just kidding.
(6) Fun? (1-10) 8
(7) Changes? Okay as is.
(8) Restarts? Yes, the Lich darted out to fry my leader, restarted from start. No save-reloads.
(9) WML? Very good.
(10) Replay? Attached. I suggest very high acceleration.
wesnoth - NR - Clearing the Mines - turn 30 - stalemating the ghouls.jpg
Due to anticipated damage, poison, and terrain, I went fairly heavy on fast troops: Outlaws, Footpads, and Dwarf Scouts. Of course, I recruited many Dwarf Fighters too. I sent all my elite troops north, with a weaker contingent east. The elite troops took out their local Draug and then camped out just short of the stronghold. The bottleneck makes it easy to defend. The weaker troops in the east had to pull back in the face of the ghouls before finishing off their Draug. My level 3 units got the lion's share of the kills, which was a waste, but I still finished with something like 6 Dwarf Lords (not counting the loyal), 3 Fugitives, 2 Steelheads, and a couple of Nissan Pathfinders. My leader and loyal unit both made Royal Guard. Towards the end in the replay, you might notice when a Steelhead moves to intentionally lure out the lich, fully expecting to die, but manages to live. I finished on the last turn with a failed 25% attack, followed by a successful 50% attack, cutting it close.
Attachments
NR-Clearing_the_Mines_replay.gz
(100.99 KiB) Downloaded 878 times
Benefuchs
Posts: 54
Joined: February 24th, 2009, 9:40 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by Benefuchs »

(1) challenging, 1.8.5
(2) 7-8
(3) quite clear, as it's the same as in the previous scenarios
(4) Well, the lich is just like all the other lichs in Wesnoth; when you've seen one, you know them all. ^_^
(5) Lots of poisoning units and no healer. Bats grabbing most of my villages upon retreat (OK, just annoying). Adepts that are really lucky. An ancient lich threatening Tallin.
(6) 7
(7) a bit less ghouls/necrophages. Maybe stronger skeletons instead?
(8) no, lucky enough none of my main characters got killed
(9) n/a
Ceres
Forum Regular
Posts: 620
Joined: September 18th, 2010, 7:56 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by Ceres »

1) Level, Version? Normal, 1.9.4
2) Difficulty? 7.
3) Clear? Yes.
4) Dialogue? Well done.
5) Challenges? None really. The ghouls feared to attack my lords and steelclads, and because I camped near the southeastern and northwestern corner, there were plenty of villages to heal poisoned fighters.
6) Fun? 6.
7) Changes? Nice as it is.
8) Restarts? No.
9) WML? Just wanted to point out, the start event is commented with 'placing army of guardian skeletons', which is already done in the prestart event.
User avatar
taptap
Posts: 980
Joined: October 6th, 2011, 5:42 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by taptap »

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

Swordsman (Difficult), 1.9.9

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

7 (after you know there are ghouls on their way)

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

Having a plan and the information to make it.

I don't know how to get to Malifor before turn 20, but killing the ghouls is quite doable once you know they arrive. So the challenge was to take out NW in time to get some economy - balancing economy and quality to get there in time. The ghouls are slow, sacrificing some dwarf fighters in village defence in the middle of the map makes for a good distraction (making sure they don't arrive together). The ghouls were scared by my entrenched dwarf lords / iron clads / mage in the NW and went for the weaker units in the middle and on the left. Around turn 21 the SE leader suicided by jumping out of his castle into my arms. Then it was mainly attrition, heavy rotating (you don't need healers if you have so many villages to heal in) and killing all the ghouls with mainly level 1 units in the west, levelling up quite a bunch of them.

Even levelled footpads (outlaws, fugitives) are quite brittle when faced with some lucky hits. Those I had or got during the scenario were dead by its end.

Learning that you don't have to make strict lines. Leaving a little space in between gets less units poisoned without reducing your retaliation and leaves you on better terrain.

(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?

Give a warning about the ghouls at turn 10 not 19. Then maybe people can do it in the first run and unspoilt.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Not knowing about the ghouls. Not being able to push through to NW in time. Restarted the scenario more than once.
Last edited by taptap on October 28th, 2011, 11:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
brabar
Posts: 22
Joined: August 30th, 2011, 8:18 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by brabar »

Hello !

I'm playing the 18.1.5 version, with 713 starting gold on "easy" mode ... :shock: :roll:

After 2 unsuccessful attempts to do what is said in the "walkthrough", I tried to rush everyone northwards, assuming that dwarves act crazy, and don't give a damn about getting killed ... :whistle:

I got very, very disapointed, when I found out that killing the lich on turn 19 would'nt avoid the incredibly massive spawn of ghouls ... I was left with alltogether a dozen of warriors : a few dwarfwish warriors, some outlaws, and the loyal friends ... I did'nt try further, though I only had one enemy leader to wipe out ...

So I come by with a question :

_ Can't you avoid the very disapointing arrival of the muddy monsters ?

_ Are later versions of this scenario more easy to play ?

I'm surprised to find such difficulty on the 4th scenario of a campaign, even played ont the "easy" mode ... I don't find that much fun playing against overwhelming numbers of poisoning monsters without any healer to help ...
Sorry for my poor english, it's not my native language
User avatar
taptap
Posts: 980
Joined: October 6th, 2011, 5:42 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by taptap »

brabar wrote:Hello !

I'm playing the 18.1.5 version, with 713 starting gold on "easy" mode ... :shock: :roll:

After 2 unsuccessful attempts to do what is said in the "walkthrough", I tried to rush everyone northwards, assuming that dwarves act crazy, and don't give a damn about getting killed ... :whistle:

I got very, very disapointed, when I found out that killing the lich on turn 19 would'nt avoid the incredibly massive spawn of ghouls ... I was left with alltogether a dozen of warriors : a few dwarfwish warriors, some outlaws, and the loyal friends ... I did'nt try further, though I only had one enemy leader to wipe out ...

So I come by with a question :

_ Can't you avoid the very disapointing arrival of the muddy monsters ?

_ Are later versions of this scenario more easy to play ?

I'm surprised to find such difficulty on the 4th scenario of a campaign, even played ont the "easy" mode ... I don't find that much fun playing against overwhelming numbers of poisoning monsters without any healer to help ...
There is no "easy mode" in Northern Rebirth, even the easiest difficulty maps to normal as far as I know. The walkthrough didn't work for me either, because surrounding the water by turn 19 is impossible to me and finishing before turn 19 even more so (I had much less gold.). However, killing the ghouls is possible, for my strategy see the previous post. I found taking the NW fast before turn 20 is mandatory (it will give you the production necessary to resist the ghouls, the units there should be able to defend themselves while at the same time carefully advancing to the southeast (took out the leader at turn 21 or so). If you kill the ghouls you gain so much experience to so many units that you later won't be short on experienced dwarves even when you lose an occasional dwarf lord or two. So, better kill the ghouls than omitting it. You really want to have many experienced dwarves at the start of the next scenario.
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
brabar
Posts: 22
Joined: August 30th, 2011, 8:18 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by brabar »

Thank you Taptap, i'm going to try once again ... :doh: :geek:

I found out that Outlaws are quite good against bats and skeletons as well, and I'll try to be careful about the dwarves lifes ... :roll:

If I understand correctly, I should go North as fast as possible (last time the first Draug was dead on turn 4), and then wait for the ghouls with the north-western "hospital" behind me, to cure repeated poisoning ? :hmm:

I'll let you know :wink:

Thanks again !

PS : On the 18.1.5 version, one can choose between 4 modes, from "easy" to "nightmare"
Sorry for my poor english, it's not my native language
Ceres
Forum Regular
Posts: 620
Joined: September 18th, 2010, 7:56 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by Ceres »

brabar wrote:PS : On the 18.1.5 version, one can choose between 4 modes, from "easy" to "nightmare"
But even if, you can't expect hard campaign "easy" to be the same as easy campaign "easy". And NR is definitely not an easy campaign.
When I was playing Clearing the Mines I used the same strategy taptap proposed, and it worked out quite well. Some of the Ghouls didnt even dare attack my awesome Dwarvish Lords 8)

Btw, I guess you mean version 1.8.5, not 18.1.5.
brabar
Posts: 22
Joined: August 30th, 2011, 8:18 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by brabar »

Ceres wrote:Btw, I guess you mean version 1.8.5, not 18.1.5.
Yes, you're right ! Sorry ! :D

I still wonder if the latest versions of Wesnoth are much different in terms of playability ?
Sorry for my poor english, it's not my native language
User avatar
taptap
Posts: 980
Joined: October 6th, 2011, 5:42 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by taptap »

brabar wrote:
Ceres wrote:Btw, I guess you mean version 1.8.5, not 18.1.5.
Yes, you're right ! Sorry ! :D

I still wonder if the latest versions of Wesnoth are much different in terms of playability ?
The footpad is weaker in 1.9.x :)

That doesn't effect Clearing the Mines, but probably Infested Caves a little.
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
brabar
Posts: 22
Joined: August 30th, 2011, 8:18 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by brabar »

taptap wrote:The footpad is weaker in 1.9.x :)

That doesn't effect Clearing the Mines, but probably Infested Caves a little.
I love footpads, especially when they grow up ! :D

I'll try to find my way out ... tonight, my beloved looks at silly series on TV :P

EDIT :

I eventually cleared the mines ... left with only 15 people, and no gold (-428) ...

I feel like I should begin again the whole game in hard mode before coming around the "expert" corner :P
Sorry for my poor english, it's not my native language
batoonike
Posts: 75
Joined: January 3rd, 2009, 8:14 pm

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by batoonike »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Nightmare, version 1.8.6 wesnoth though

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7. I've played this many times on different difficulty settings and never found anything hard, once I knew there will be ghouls. At nightmare it got a bit challenging at around turn 12. I reqruited solely dwarvish fighters and thunderers and sent them 50-50 to left and right, trying to finish 2 bosses. It worked out but was kinda edgy. After that it was walk in the park until ghouls arrived. Ghouls were ok, since they don't appear behind your lines anymore. I had leader in west so the east side of my army had to retreat quite a bit in order to survive.

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Pretty clear, lich is kinda stupid but I guess it adds flavour. I wouldn't make the lich any more "normal".

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Finishing fast in order to get cash for next scenario. I think I finished in 35/55, which is quite slow. Also not losing valuable units at the beginning for bat-assassins.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7. The map layout is somewhat un-aesthetic. Huge cave areas could use a colorful touch here and there, occasional green or white spot. Currently the map looks like it has been by some other guy, compared to other maps of this scenario. However it plays nicely.
In Infested caves I can reqruit only unit's that are "decent" against the skeletons, which makes it pretty interesting. I don't have heavy infantry or dwarish fighters. However here the dwarvish fighters just smash everything which is kinda lame, as I don't even have any other unit that I could reqruit that would be a mistake or variation.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Occasional stronger skeletons and more adepts would make it far more varied. I like it that the necrophages don't appear anymore so deep in your newly conquered lands.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Even though 50+ necrophages/ghouls seems like a lot, it wouldn't have caused me to lose the game even if I didn't know it I guess. It just takes a lot of time to finish them, they don't deal a lot of damage really to dwarves in caves and mountains.
User avatar
Chief_Chasso
Posts: 132
Joined: December 15th, 2012, 2:36 am

Re: Scenario Review: NR 4 - Clearing the Mines

Post by Chief_Chasso »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5- not terribly difficult, but a lot of enemy units.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The dialogue was clear but a little too much blah blah, too many dialogue screens at the beginning. Maybe it can be condensed? I didn't like the Lich's dialogue in general.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The Draug's were pretty tough. Trying not to lose too many units was challenging.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6- I liked the vastness of the map and the fact that it wasn't shrouded, like most cave crawlers.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I would have liked a hint stating that this scenario is the last one where you can recruit dwarves.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
When all the necrophages showed up and ambushed and killed my arch mage.
Post Reply