Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

[Nova]

Drake Escape

[Nova]

Aye. I do not ask that you wait for me. I’m heading East. Unlike you flyin’ types, I leave footprints. If I have any luck at all, there will be something left of the Unforgiver and I can be out of here before the army’s done following me. Good luck on your journey, Malakar.

[Nova]

...

[Nova]

The Drake Escape


Turn 1:
Kogw: The cave is no resting place! We must escape through the bowels of the earth!

Malakar: No, Kogw, we must rejoin with the tribe and begin a counterattack. We are not bats! Wings do not work very well underground. Neither do cold-blooded Drakes!


Turn 2:
Einelen: We have found the foul one and his escorts. Remember! Parley with him not, and beware his silver tongue. We have traveled far, but shall not rest until our arrows pin him to the very earth his touch corrupts.

Kogw: Wow. Now that’s a firm order. If there’s any way to get to the cave without going through those forests, I’d really appreciate it, Malakar.


The Truce:
Hago: Hail, Orcish… um… King! You see our forces and must know that we have the ability to crush you. I propose an alternate plan: you bring us the head of the Drake leader, and we will leave your land. Additionally, we will leave behind every weapon we carry with us. You could become the most powerful Leader on the Isle of Storms!

Dredgno: Heuh! Now that is treating a warrior with respect! So be it!



Kogw: They murdered those people in cold blood! Those bloodthirsty monsters…

Malakar: You are shocked only because the orcs are disorganized. The thinskins plan their killings; they are the ones we must be wary of.



End of Turns:
Theracar: Forgive me, Malakar, but there is no time. Drakes! Seal the cave before the Human reinforcements arrive!

Malakar: No, I beg you! I can make it!

Malakar: Theracar!

[MadMax]

@Nova: This doesn't have new Malakar graphics (yet), and the changes extend only to Drake Escape.

Also, I've got an idea for the Elves' hatred of Kogw. The Unforgiver could be made of Wose wood, and the Elves are angry at his logging of woses. However, this is not included in this update.


version 4.1 released
many new storyline images added
many dialogue changes
extra enemy added to Survival, to shorten it
balancing changes to Pirate Schooner and Clipper
all ships have reasonably fitting hit and die sounds
Manor recruitment bug precluded
cutscene code moved to separate file (a purely internal change)
rain added to Open Ocean
ships should have names

[Ornedan]

The wolves in the Caravan mission still target the drakes. It'd be nice to either have a bunch more starting gold to deal with them or have them actually target the caravan as the mission objectives text implies they should.


Edit: Actually, how is one supposed to beat this scenario? Starting with 100 gold, I can only get a few units. Dealing with the wolves delays and hurts them and by the time the wolves are dead the two castlefulls of elves are starting to get close.
Charging across the lower half of the map at the caravan fails, since the elven horde is fast enough to block the way. And staying at the eastern hills waiting for the caravan fails, since the elves just come and slaughter you.

[Nova]

Caravan is a tough map. My suggestion is to send a lone glider south-east to try to draw off some of the elves, and to not ignore the cheap strength of Hatchlings within Malakar's leadership aura.

Beyond that, restart until the farthest-right wolf goes north instead of south. This is totally random, as far as I can tell, but it only needs to slow the elves by a turn for you to have a chance.

@MadMax: What's 1.3.2 do to FtF? Should I upgrade, or will it break?
I've got some ideas and pictures half-done, but unfortunately I'm going to be pretty busy for the next few weeks. I'm either going to vanish or post small things here and there until my schedule clears up.

[Nova]

First, though, I'd like to re-air my complaints with River of Skulls, which has the same problems as it always has had.

1> Very slow map.
It's huge and the drakes move between 1 and 3 hexes a turn in caves, depending on their type. Just walking Malakar to the exit nearly drains the clock. This is hurt even further by:
a) Many, many chokepoints. Many turns are wasted trying to move burners one hex at a time through an empty chokepoint. This doesn't even begin to cover the guarded chokepoints.
b) Narrow tunnels. Anything less than 3 hexes is continually jammed with drakes trying to get through.
c) Not enough roads. My drakes are sooo slow. Dwarves are running circles around them. Dwarves!
d) Many dead-ends. So many dead-ends. It can take a unit 20 turns to back up out of some of these dead-ends.

2> Very difficult map. This is the hardest of any map I've ever played.
a) Drakes are bad against dwarves. The average dwarf can slaughter any level 1 drake in hand-to-hand combat if it's in a cave, in the dark. In this map, it always is. Even level twos take a brutal beating.
b) Few villages. There's actually a lot of villages, but backtracking is so slow that to heal a unit is to completely remove it from the fight. A huge army is needed to keep a healthy front line.
c) Enemy leaders (7 of them, right?) are nearly unbeatable. If you can actually reach an enemy leader, you can't touch it. The east-south-east dwarf can be surrounded, which helps a lot (even then, he leveled up to level 4 fighting my army solo), but most of them have inter-castle chokepoints and easy access to villages. So, 7 enemies which don't die and keep spitting out dangerous level 1s that can easily catch up to any you from nearly anywhere on the map. Swell.
d) Sometimes the map kills you. Exploding dwarven ale is funny, but not on River of Skulls. Not there at all.

3> Not very fun map.
a) You have to watch many leveled units get slaughtered for a looong time. It's disheartening. This kind of dramatic desperate fight can be good, but it feels too lopsided (and long) to be enjoyable.
b) No good surprises. Lots of bad surprises, like treasure that kills you, deadly spiders, and <I>surprise!</I> yet another enemy castle around the corner.
c) Not many rewards. I killed the human leader and the one dwarf I could surround, and wanted a big pat on the back. Or my dozens of level 2s back from the dead.
d) Hard to tell what you're doing. The instruction is "explore," but every step in any direction is a desperate, slow fight.


I love this campaign. I never want to play this map again.


Suggestions:

Give a few special units at the beginning for scouting. Something that's fast, and maybe has cavestalk or something. If you can reach key points with these scouts, you'll get a message saying "There's nothing in this direction" or "This leads to the exit." If the scouts die, you're back to exploring on your own and trying to find the exit.

Map redesign: widen any corridor 3 hexes or less, and put roads through all of the chokepoints. Even two-hex corridors can act as effective chokepoints, with drakes v dwarves, and it wouldn't be so annoying trying to move units through after the fight is done. This is a dwarf metropolis -- why are all the roads so broken? Dwarves love building roads.

Allow hiring of Workers. They're the only things that can effectively fight the golems hand-to-hand, and move faster than almost everything else. I certainly never bothered to build them up in previous levels, however, so I only have 3 to use. Maybe that's my fault.

Enemy leaders: Cut a little of their initial funding. Don't give them castles in which they cannot be surrounded -- or make them level 2s.

Rewards: If you can beat an enemy leader in one of the dead-ends, how about opening up a hex of cave to allow your army to rejoin the correct path? It's a long, uninteresting, crowded walk back, otherwise. Or how about the ability to release dwarven prisoners... like golems or something. The help would be nice.

Anyways, I've used up all 100 turns again, so I'm setting it to the side for a while before I start over.

[/gripe]

[Nova]

I'm getting a lot of terrain error messages with 1.3.2. I assume this is something that you're aware of.

[MadMax]

I'm getting a lot of terrain error messages with 1.3.2. I assume this is something that you're aware of.

Yes, and I think I've nailed most of them. However, I've been very busy in real life, and I haven't had much time to work on FtF.

In River of Skulls, I am thinking about causing the skeletal dragon from Underground to be friendly, and recallable. Or, I might provide an opportunity to rescue some trapped trolls.

[garak]

I totally agree with NOVA this map sucks and i stop playing the campaign!
my suggestion make the drakes quiker or put some trolls or humans to help the drakes (the Persuit in NR is an example for a helping hand)also some easter eggs in the several tunnels would it be make funnier to go somewhere ,but there is nothing only dwarves dwarves dwarves!!!!

[MadMax]

garak: try this version, starting from Underground.

version 4.2 released

dragon in Underground is now friendly
River of Skulls rebalanced, map edited
several bugfixes
Blockade enhanced
new Malakar and Kamalar graphics
terrain error messages fixed
FtF will sort properly in campaign menu
ships now have names
experience gained in Survival by Malakar will carry over to Rebellion

NOTE: This will break saves of River of Skulls. Other saves will work, but they may use the old Malakar (which should work fine).

[garak]

Nice .but where can I get it,or is it only for 1.3.3. ?.I am using 1.2.4. under windows.
I was very frustrated as I wrote the last massage ,so maybe it was a little bit to rude Actually i like the campaign so far.There are some really nice ideas .Like fighting with the ships and the randomly appearing ghosts.
good job

[MadMax]

Nice .but where can I get it,or is it only for 1.3.3. ?.I am using 1.2.4. under windows.

It's only for 1.3.3. Campaigns are not platform-specific, so having Windows shouldn't matter.

I was very frustrated as I wrote the last massage ,so maybe it was a little bit to rude

Don't worry about it.

Actually i like the campaign so far.There are some really nice ideas .Like fighting with the ships and the randomly appearing ghosts.
good job

Thanks!

[Nova]

Great!

I'm back -- I'll be able to take a look at the new version by this upcoming weekend. I'll see about updating the pics to use new graphics, too.