[Historical] Scenario Review - EI 12 - Captured

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[Historical] Scenario Review - EI 12 - Captured

Post by Content Feedback »

(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?
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Jgrr
Posts: 121
Joined: June 19th, 2006, 5:53 pm
Location: Espoo, Finland

Post by Jgrr »

(1) Medium, 1.1.7
(2) somewhat hard (7)
(3) I'm not sure if I was supposed to head North first and West next with all my troops. However, things were quite clear after that.
(4) The initial dialogue was a bit messy (possibly the translation again.)
(5) Not getting my point units killed by lv3 Trolls. Also, scouting in general. Of the 3 Ogres I had, only one was with me in this scenario, and when I captured the castle, I was below -100 gold.
(6) I like the torture chamber (6)
(7) The initial force is quite weak against the Orc leader (I had a Swordsman and a Great Mage, and Owaec was too slow to be waited for) - the enemy could basically wipe me out 6-0 if he had the slightest sense. Victory by relying on enemy's stupidity is not so good that it might be.
cph
Posts: 129
Joined: May 12th, 2007, 4:29 pm
Location: London, UK

Post by cph »

1) Medium, 1.2.4
2) 6
3) Clear
4) Good
5) Your initial force has a tough time against the orcs; it requires some very careful play, taking one or two of the orc warriors at a time, then healing before drawing the next one out.

I had a lot of shock troopers in the torture chamber recall, which fared badly underground against trolls.

6) 6 - frustrating in places, but it's good to play an underground level that isn't a featureless cave. And the torture chamber is cool.
7) -
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tr0ll
Posts: 551
Joined: June 11th, 2006, 8:13 pm
Location: canada

Post by tr0ll »

  1. 1.3.8 normal
  2. 6 but 10 if i wanted to escape with any decent units
  3. at first i went straight southwest with Gweddry and ran right into the troll warrior encampment. then i realized we were supposed to find another way to the southwest corner.

    wasnt sure if it is worth using the imprisoned soldiers - almost all of them are lost if they try to help break the leaders out so it seems better to leave them in the torture chamber
  4. quite clear, but the orc king didnt do much and i almost killed him sitting alone on his throne in my second pass at this scenario.

    there didnt seem much point in having all the villages in the "city" section as it didnt affect anything to go and occupy them all.
  5. my reluctance to sacrifice veteran units to save the leaders
  6. 6 Owaec moves infuriatingly slowly underground.
    • get Owaec off his high horse
    • some cheering when the troops free themselves
    • some debate among the troops as to which way to go (this could be used give some hints that they could help the leaders by going northwest or flee quickly by going southwest)
    • some kind of dialogue when/if the leaders meet up with the freed troops
    • more cat-and-mouse activity with orc guards (if you don't move much, they don't seem to come after you in the throne room)
    • relatively more junior guards/staff (some may be on errands and not interested in the prisoners)
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Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by Orcish Shyde »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.6.1, Medium; 1.4.x, Medium

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9, since I reserve 10 for "did not finish"

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Would have helped to be certain that it wasn't ****ing Owaec who had to get to the grass patch. Otherwise clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Clear, not that interesting

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Owaec having 7 moves when 99% of the terrain needs 4 moves for him.
Getting mostly mounted units the prisoners in the torture chamber.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
1; it's a work of either complete incompetence or sadistic genius, and given the quality of the campaign up until this point I'm betting on the latter.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make a special Dismounted Owaec unit line so he isn't totally useless down there.
Make damn sure that all Ogres and Young Ogres have been recalled before picking horses as Prisoner recalls.
Remove Shroud & Fog, entirely. Trolls should not be able to ambush people. Ever.
Shameless Crossover Excuse
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You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
sabalzen
Posts: 25
Joined: April 1st, 2009, 12:50 pm

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by sabalzen »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.6, Easy (Though whoever tried to balance this campaign, and especially this scenario, needs to check on the definition of the word in a dictionary :wink: )

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9+ Haven't finished yet...

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Sort of clear, but how are the prisoners are supposed to know which way to go?

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Could have been great, this scenario has lots of potential.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
A single level 3 troll can kill almost any of my units in one round. They can move faster than my units, and I can't see them.
Cue repeated reloading/restarting of scenario.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
1; any time I have to restart a scenario, that's my enjoyment down by 50%. When (or if...) I get through this one, it will be well below 1%.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make a special Dismounted Owaec unit line so he isn't totally useless down there. (I second this!)
At least on Easy, take out the Troll Warriors, you have nothing that can stand up to them, and watching all your best units get creamed is not fun. I'd say this is a general problem with the whole campaign - on 'easy' you get very few chances to level up units as the numbers of opposing troops are lower, but the levels of the opposing troops remain high. I've never found myself so often having to pit level 1s against level 2s or even 3s.
Cut down on the guards holding the prisoners in the SE, its impossible to get out without massive losses, and by the time you do its too late to do anything.
Krellja
Posts: 19
Joined: May 11th, 2008, 5:17 pm

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by Krellja »

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5, I think I had a lot of luck to get a fast red mage and a fast swordsman as additional units in the start. In the throne room I didn't engage the orc boss but stayed in the west. So there was not much fighting in that room.

(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?
ok

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting the prisoners through the narrow exit (the torture chamber)

(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?
none
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Maiklas3000
Posts: 532
Joined: June 23rd, 2010, 10:43 am

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
challenging; 1.8.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Let's call it an 8. It's not that hard to finish, but it is hard to finish the first time and without losing any level 3 units.

(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?
Great.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The first time through I thought I had to kill the guard where he stood, since there was a fence between the prisoners and him. With only one unit able to engage him, it took forever to kill him, only to have him replaced by another.

A troll popped out of the fog in the throne room. Even though I was expecting a troll after playing before, I wasn't expecting it to pop out of the fog so far north.

The battle in the City can be tense. Taking out the troll is difficult if he has warriors protecting his flanks. Well, it's difficult even if he doesn't have warriors protecting his flanks, since I have hardly any units capable of ranged attacks.

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

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
The scenario is light on strategy and tactics. But it's fun and different. Good job.

An important tactic in the scenario is to hang back from the prison guard, letting him enter. However, in the player's mind, there's little reason to think the guard will enter. Get rid of the fence, so it's obvious that the guard can enter. And add some dialog to suggest the guard is going to charge, something like, "It's time for more 'questioning.' Put your hands on the wall, prisoners, I'm coming in." His line of "Who said that?" doesn't do it for me.

Do something to mister troll to make sure he doesn't pop out of the fog, e.g., position him where we can see him on first entering the throne room, and maybe make him non-quick.

Replay attached. It comes up with a sync error, because an ogre gets poisoned but wasn't for me. You can continue the replay by selecting "ignore all" and answer "no" to saving the game.
Attachments
EI-Captured_replay.gz
(28.5 KiB) Downloaded 1034 times
monochromatic
Posts: 1549
Joined: June 18th, 2009, 1:45 am

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by monochromatic »

turin wrote:(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Normal 1.8.3
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
1 - *yawn* luckily I had my MoL there so I had no problems.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Unclear. Southwest? But that's blocked....ohhh north then southwest....Lather rinse repeat.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
No real dialogue, eh?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Troll Warriors. They can *kill* Gweddry, they can *kill* him, they can *kill* him.....
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
The Orc never recruits, why?
Thrash
Posts: 223
Joined: June 25th, 2010, 1:54 pm

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by Thrash »

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

1.8.3, Medium

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

8, mainly it just takes lots of luck not to get Gweddry or Dacryn killed by the Troll jumping out of the darkness, especially if an orc joins him. I finally saved at the point when Geddry enters the throne room just so I could quit fighting bats over and over and over...

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

Find SW tunnel and escape. Of course the fact you have to go North to do that is left for the player to guess (or read the wiki).

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

Why doesn't Gweddry run east to the outside inside of deeper into the cave?

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

The damn troll in the throne room appears without warning and kills Gweddry or Dacryn, especially if you are already fighting an orc. Given you can't protect both of those characters, it's just pure luck if you survive. And then even if you survive, Dacryn can then miss 2 (or 3!) times, which means you have no chance to kill the roll and you get to spin the wheel of "do I die?" again...

Even getting attacked by two orcs at once can easily be death. The only way I can see to avoid this is experiment with where you move and reload trying to trigger the orcs to attack one at a time.

I would say keeping Oweac alive, but seriously, he's so worthless there is no point in moving him ever. In the dozen or so times I played this, I once got him in position to attack, and of course he missed all three times. If Gweddry and Darc wait for him, it's turn 15 or so before they even get to the throne room.

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

3 and that is all for the city room. Everything else is shuffling characters around slowly in the dark, waiting for an attacker to pop out and hoping you live.

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

1. Please make Oweac in some way interesting to play. He's a liability. I'm doing my best to level him up, but its hard. I did get him an amulet a while back, hopefully that will help if I ever seen undead again.

2. Put one unit (besides Oweac the magnificent) with Gweddry and Darc just so them surviving isn't such a crap shoot.

3. Add a bonus for defeating the orc chief just to give me something good to feel about this scenario.

BTW, it seems like the units I had being held prisoner were the unit that I had left at the end of Lake Vrug and not from the recall list (maybe with some from the recall list in addition?)

BTW^2, Wesnoth kinda loses its mind with enough restarts on this scenario - the first time I played my captured units were wounded (as they were at the end of Lake Vrug). Subsequently they started at full strength. Also I checkpointed just because I couldn't take playing over and over again only to have the throne room troll step out the darkness and kill Gweddry in one turn, and I noticed on re-loads units would change experience - I leveled a white mage breaking out of the prison and on some reloads he would start at the lower level again. Normally I'd attached a replay, but mine is completely broken with sync errors (even after I restart the app).
Thrash
Posts: 223
Joined: June 25th, 2010, 1:54 pm

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by Thrash »

Maiklas3000 wrote:An important tactic in the scenario is to hang back from the prison guard...
I used a Mage of Light on him, which got him out of the way in two turns. I didn't think to try letting him come in.
Replay attached.
You started with a couple extra units with Gweddry and Darc - is there some trick to that? Or maybe it just happens on hard? Sure seemed to make your life easier than mine in the throne room.
monochromatic
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Joined: June 18th, 2009, 1:45 am

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by monochromatic »

I had a swordsman with Gweddry, Dacyn, and Owaec.
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Maiklas3000
Posts: 532
Joined: June 23rd, 2010, 10:43 am

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by Maiklas3000 »

Thrash wrote: You started with a couple extra units with Gweddry and Darc - is there some trick to that? Or maybe it just happens on hard? Sure seemed to make your life easier than mine in the throne room.
I was given a Silver Mage and a Swordsman, in addition to Gweddry, Dacyn and Owaec.

From the .cfg file:

Code: Select all

        #getting Dacyn and Owaec
        [recall]
            id=Dacyn
            x,y=28,11
        [/recall]
        [recall]
            id=Owaec
            x,y=28,10
        [/recall]
        #getting the sidekicks
        {ROLE (Red Mage,Longbowman,Master Bowman,Arch Mage,Silver Mage,Great Mage) SIDE1 27 10}
        {ROLE (Swordsman,Pikeman,Javelineer,Royal Guard,Halberdier) SIDE2 29 10}
So, it looks like you are given out of your recall list one Red Mage, Longbowman, Master Bowman, Arch Mage, Silver Mage, or Great Mage, plus one Swordsman, Pikeman, Javelineer, Royal Guard, or Halberdier. If you have none of the above, you are really hosed and must survive the throne room with just Gweddry, Dacyn and that useless gimp, Owaec. His sluggish movement in this scenario brought to mind an episode of "I Should Not Be Alive", where it told the true story of some guys lost in the Amazon... one man came down with trenchfoot and two out of three of the others were like, "Well, sorry, we're going on without you. Good luck."

By the way, I've rewritten most of the walkthrough for this campaign to bring it up to date. You guys who took different paths from me could fill in the rest on this Wiki page. (I did not play the track to Mal-Ravanal's Castle and the alternate final scenario Weldyn Besieged.) You might also take a look the walkthrough for the first scenario, as I took a hatchet to it and stripped out three alternate strategies, because they were based on very old game versions. I did try to hint at the different possible approaches.

One thing I did in rewriting the section on Captured was to strip out all the references to the idea that you would not have any units in Captured that you used in Lake Vrag. I found that I did have units in Captured that I used in Lake Vrag (as well as units that I did not use in Lake Vrag.)
Thrash
Posts: 223
Joined: June 25th, 2010, 1:54 pm

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by Thrash »

Maiklas3000 wrote:From the .cfg file
I was just about to go look there :-)
So, it looks like you are given out of your recall list one Red Mage, Longbowman, Master Bowman, Arch Mage, Silver Mage, or Great Mage, plus one Swordsman, Pikeman, Javelineer, Royal Guard, or Halberdier. If you have none of the above, you are really hosed and must survive the throne room with just Gweddry, Dacyn and that useless gimp, Owaec.
Yep, that would be me.
His sluggish movement in this scenario brought to mind an episode of "I Should Not Be Alive", where it told the true story of some guys lost in the Amazon... one man came down with trenchfoot and two out of three of the others were like, "Well, sorry, we're going on without you. Good luck."
I think we need to start a support group for those of us having to deal with Oweac.
By the way, I've rewritten most of the walkthrough for this campaign to bring it up to date.
Cool - I'd been meaning to investigate what protocol is for updating the wiki. I'll chip in with what I've found.
One thing I did in rewriting the section on Captured was to strip out all the references to the idea that you would not have any units in Captured that you used in Lake Vrag. I found that I did have units in Captured that I used in Lake Vrag (as well as units that I did not use in Lake Vrag.)
Yes, I think I had all my units from the Lake, plus a few.
dsa
Posts: 58
Joined: August 22nd, 2008, 8:46 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Captured

Post by dsa »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Challenging, 1.8.4.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8, in this scenario I was kind of punished for not levelling up a Spearman. I missed this additional melee unit, to support Gweddry. Owaec was too slow to be useful.

(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?
The shroud, so I got ambushed several times and couldn't prevent, that one of my heroes was killed.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7, actually interesting, but sometimes frustrating.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It would be nice, if also one Heavy Infantryman (including upgrades) could be a starting unit to support Gweddry.
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