The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

[TheScribe]

Question about Orcs in the Port:

Spoiler:

I found a glowing ring, and my leader said to bring it to her. What am I supposed to do? I moved the unit next to her, and nothing happened.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Add a limited number of level 2 units to the recruit list of the troll leader.

For a second here I thought you said recall list. By "limited" do you mean something where they can only have (for example) a maximum of 3 Dwarf Pathfinders at any given time?

Maybe a matter of taste, but I think an Outlaw would better fit as leader for the misfit side, instead of the Troll Shaman.

You're probably right. I like having a troll shaman though. I dunno. (I suppose I could make troll shamans recruitable. )

Question about Orcs in the Port:

Spoiler:

I found a glowing ring, and my leader said to bring it to her. What am I supposed to do? I moved the unit next to her, and nothing happened.

Spoiler:

Ooh, I didn't think of that interpretation. I guess I'd better change the dialogue to something like "hold onto it for now". Having it is necessary for an optional event in the scenario, but you don't need to actually send the unit who got it back to where the leader is.

[TheScribe]

Spoiler:

Refering to your answer, that'd work better.

[taptap]

Wah... so much gold, so many loyals (I had 9 at the end of scenario 3), so many special abilities. Seriously, I would tone this down. Right now it looks like this campaign will be playable only with loyals after some scenarios. Tree walking is a neat idea. Frenzy on the L1, turns to more attacks on the L2 and starts to resemble agile special ability at that point. The teacher druid has her second ranged attack non-magical while otherwise being a normal druid.

1st scenario) When I go around and trigger all the initiates in the villages first and kill the goblins with them much of the dialog ("No, there are no goblins anymore.") doesn't make sense. Being forced to recruit and play with initiates for some time would be fun, but allowing to recruit fighters and archers and giving 3 loyals for free makes it very easy.

2nd scenario) Allows to get infinite gold as is.

3rd scenario) If you take the wrong dialog option you don't get the sorceress, but you can't just go to the mine as well and ignore her at that point but you are forced to give her the ring. (If she doesn't care about the fate of the initiates I wouldn't bother recruiting her.) I would always offer to enter the mine when moving to the entrance, even if earlier I chose to look for the sorceress.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

The teacher druid has her second ranged attack non-magical while otherwise being a normal druid.

Uh... what?

much of the dialog ("No, there are no goblins anymore.") doesn't make sense.

I'm aware of this, but fixing it is not a trivial matter.

Being forced to recruit and play with initiates for some time would be fun, but allowing to recruit fighters and archers and giving 3 loyals for free makes it very easy.

Okay, I'll keep that in mind.

2nd scenario) Allows to get infinite gold as is.

How so?

3rd scenario) If you take the wrong dialog option you don't get the sorceress, but you can't just go to the mine as well and ignore her at that point but you are forced to give her the ring.

I guess you found her after killing the orc leader, then?

(If she doesn't care about the fate of the initiates I wouldn't bother recruiting her.)

Aw, you'd miss out on a slightly useful ability.

I would always offer to enter the mine when moving to the entrance, even if earlier I chose to look for the sorceress.

I didn't think of this option; it sounds like a reasonable idea, so I'll likely add it. That said, you should be able to wait out the turn limit if you really don't want her.

Right now it looks like this campaign will be playable only with loyals after some scenarios.

I think this is unlikely, actually. Though if you wanted to try to prove it, go ahead!

Anyway! Version 0.2.2 now on the add-on server. (Actually it's been there for several hours now.)

Spoiler:

• Recoloured Elvish Archmage sprites
• Fixed dialogue when finding the ring, as suggested by TheScribe
• Fixed a situation in which the fifth scenario would kill your loyal ghost
• Add the correct Special Notes to all custom units, and fixed/removed erroneous descriptions
• Fixed Malcorn's squire being "more scary than the necromancer", as Faerie_Storm noted (though more work is needed on this issue still)
• Mother rats get more gold; giant frogs no longer leap into the caves to assassinate the first mother rat
• Elvish Wisp can now move over unwalkable terrain (30% defense, movement cost 2)
• Spruced up the map for the first scenario (and last, since it's the same map); furthermore, the map is appropriately altered for the last scenario
• Fixed bug where Ariandela's dominate ability wouldn't work in the last scenario
• Add Elvish Civilian portrait; also, Civilians are now always male

[taptap]

Earendils thorn ranged attack has no magical weapon special as long as she is L2, but she gets it on L3 surprisingly.

The second scenario has no turn limit and a good positive income.

[Adamant14]

(1) Number or Name of the scenario.
06 Into the Dread Marsh

(2) What difficulty level have you played the scenario on?


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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline? What can be added to make the story clearer / more interesting?


(5) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6-7

(6) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
To fight with elves in swamp.

(7) Did you cheat? And why?
No.

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

(9) Was there a bug in the scenario?
No

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

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Earendils thorn ranged attack has no magical weapon special as long as she is L2, but she gets it on L3 surprisingly.

What? It has the magical special for me...

The second scenario has no turn limit and a good positive income.

I see. Are you saying you can simply wait out some extra turns to get more gold?

Adamant: Uh, does that mean you liked the scenario, or what...?

[Adamant14]

Adamant: Uh, does that mean you liked the scenario, or what...?

Why, because of the '7' ?
A '7' is not bad ...
For a swamp-scenario is it really OK (normally I hate to play swamp maps)


And I thought about to write something like Taptap, about the turn-limit.
For some reason I did not.
But now Taptap did it.

[Celtic_Minstrel]

No, just because you barely said anything at all in the post.

[Adamant14]

No, just because you barely said anything at all in the post.

Maybe this means the scenario is perfect, because there is nothing to complain about.




(1) Number or Name of the scenario.
07 Descent into the Chasm
version 0.2.2

(2) What difficulty level have you played the scenario on?


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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline? What can be added to make the story clearer / more interesting?
There is not much dialogue at the end of the scenario.
1. The big bad enemy is killed, and all the elves say is: "At last! Our enemy is dead!"
2. The big bad enemy dies very quiet, he has nothing to say when the elves intrude and kill him.

(5) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7

(6) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The level 3 (and the one level 4) enemy killed some of my dear loyal or/and levelled units.


(7) Did you cheat? And why?
No

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

(9) Was there a bug in the scenario?
No.

(10) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the campaign to make it more fun?
1. Add some dialogue as I mentioned above.
2. I had to much gold at the start. You should reduce the gold carryover in the previous scenario.
3. I would like to see that the elvish initiates and the elvish civilian are limited (not only in this scenario, in the whole campaign), because I had so much gold, I could recruit nearly unlimmited cannon-fodder, so the scenario was no real challenge.

[Adamant14]

(1) Number or Name of the scenario.
08 The Journey Home
version 0.2.2

(2) What difficulty level have you played the scenario on?


(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Hm
Its a little strange.
The scenario is won if any side 1 unit reaches the bridge.
And what about the others?
What about the enemy?
I don't know ... somehow weird.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline? What can be added to make the story clearer / more interesting?


(5) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
I had so much gold, I was able to beat every enemy.
I spammed so much initiates and civilians that the Orcs had no chance.

(6) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Because of the gold and the unlimited recruit, there were no challenge.

(7) Did you cheat? And why?
No.

(8) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5-6 (only '5-6' because it was so easy to win)

(9) Was there a bug in the scenario?
No.

(10) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the campaign to make it more fun?
1. Limit the recruits.
2. Reduce the gold.

Note: After I managed to kill the Orc's there was nothing to do, just move one of my units down to the bridge. Across a great area without any enemies. Not very exiting


Btw.
This campaign is a good campaign.
Yet it needs balancing.
When it's well balanced, it will be a very good campaign.



P.S. The image for the server is not a good choice.
I don't like it.
Maybe some people decide not to download this campaign because of this 'un-cool' image.
Sorry, too offensive.

[taptap]

I like the fight in the swamp. Mermaids and netcasters rock and the orcish allies are not only useful but intelligent too! With scenario 4 difficulty increases a lot - easy to lose quite a number of units there or in the swamp against the undead). I like btw. that you strictly limit recruits, I never played with such respect for mere elvish fighters, and at some point even a million loyals doesn't help anymore, because you don't have enough gold for recalls and not enough time to level them all and I don't in fact want to waste too much experience on them. Interesting effect.

I got a walking corpse into my recall list, is this still only temporary mine or can I keep it? (I wish I had done this with a bat )

[Celtic_Minstrel]

I got a walking corpse into my recall list, is this still only temporary mine or can I keep it? (I wish I had done this with a bat )

It'll still be dominated when you recall it, so as long as you recall it next to Ariandela and keep it next to her, I think you'd be able to keep control of it... until it levels up, that is.

Note that I haven't extensively tested the case of recalling a dominated unit, though. It may be buggy in some little ways (if the side it was dominated from doesn't exist, perhaps?).

[Adamant14]

Scenario 04:
As you changed the coordinates of the Holy Necklace, you miss to change the coordinates of the [filter] and the coordinates for the overlay too.

And somehow the 'holyauraresistanim' animation seems not to work.