A Song of Fire: SP Campaign Feedback and Reviews

[revansurik]

marecki, first of all, thanks for your excellent feedback!
Now, to the comments:


Monstrous Help: Yes, I thought it would be interesting to fight with giant spiders rather than against them for a change

Lightning Strike: I see, I was actually thinking about that too, but I forgot to make this change when releasing the last version.

Forest Ablaze: Funny, he wasn't so crazy when I played the scenario; maybe I should make him more cautious...

The Wilderness: Well, it was actually supposed to be hard; Jevyan specifically says in the previous scenario that 'no human expedition had ever returned from there'. The secret here, I think, is to choose a diverse array of units and move them well through the map: fire elementals completely own scorpions, earth elementals provide a good defense against ogres and wolves, as do dwarves, if you still have them; wind elementals can move well across the map and aid units in trouble, and Myra can basically kick everyone's asses Also, I'd suggest moving your units in two compact groups, abusing of Myra's and Ravyan's leadership skills; don't take much time killing wild beasts, if you reduce their numbers and hp they'll flee, use these moments to keep going. As for the entrance to the caves, I couldn't give a better hint in the beginning for storyline reasons: Myra was asleep when she accidentally entered the mountain; but she does says the entrance 'may' be near the river. I expected the player to send water elementals scouting. I also purposefully made the gold carryover in this scenario greater, thinking that it would deplete the player's reserves, but 1522 gold... Maybe I should reduce scenario 11's number of villages

Legend of the Water Dragon: But I did make earth elementals appear to cover the heroes, they are quite resistant against the saurians' piercing attacks. Were Jevyan and Ravyan still low-level when you played the scenario?

Farewell: Well, don't worry, there won't be more respawn in the campaign But here I thought it was necessary, or the player would drown in a sea of high-level drakes and saurians - and in the forest, where neither dwarves nor Aragwaithi nor Windsong nor elementals do particularly well, but where the lizards have a higher defence.

Why is the fountain harmful to wicked beings? After all, it's, uhm composed of spirits of nature and, as I see it, nature has nothing to do with concepts of good and evil. Or maybe I just played too much D&D in the past... For that matter, why can Maat suddently commune with the nature spirits herself when she's facing the Sky Dragon, even though it was explicitly stated before that only Myra had that special connection with the fountain?

I agree, nature has nothing to do with that. The thing is, Nitiballi thought about the possibility of other creatures seeking the Fountain to absorb more of its powers than one was allowed to, so he put a curse on the fountain, in order that only those who really need the waters would be allowed to drink from it as they wished. Maybe I should have explained it better in the dialogue with nature's spirits...
About Maat... Well, let's say the spirits made her an 'exception', just as they did with Agniballi in the past, for deeming her truy worthy - after all, if they hadn't done that, all life on Irdya would have been destroyed by Svarballi. The difference between Myra and Maat in channelling the spirits powers is that Myra, for her connection, can channel much more power; Maat was able to do it, but, for not having that special connection (which every being has, for all beings are connected to Nature), she couldn't channel much - but the little she did channel, allied to her own powers, still made her formidable.

One thing that stands out throughout the campaign is the large number of units that must be kept alive, sometimes for no apparent reason. This can be annoying, but I guess that's the only way to provide more varied story exposition and to flesh out some of those characters (at first I couldn't care less about, say, Ravyan or Jevyan, but by the end they sort of grew on me ).

I know, but every one of them is actually necessary, though I can't explain why right now, for spoiler reasons Cheer up though, in certain scenarios some of the heroes will not be present

Thanks again for the feedback, I hope you enjoy Part II as well; there are a few surprises there, one of them being that Myra will finally show how it is really like, to have the power of a High Dragon within herself
I'm looking forward to more feedbacks!

[marecki]

But I did make earth elementals appear to cover the heroes, they are quite resistant against the saurians' piercing attacks. Were Jevyan and Ravyan still low-level when you played the scenario?

The elementals appear on the other side of the flankers. I did what any sane person would: put highest hp units in front and attacked with kobolds to make them more attractive (injured) targets, but the saurians focused one of the Aragwaithi anyway and killed him (even though he was lvl3). It doesn't really matter, I was just unlucky, you could however place Myra outside the pool, so that she can join the fight earlier.

The thing is, Nitiballi thought about the possibility of other creatures seeking the Fountain to absorb more of its powers than one was allowed to, so he put a curse on the fountain, in order that only those who really need the waters would be allowed to drink from it as they wished. Maybe I should have explained it better in the dialogue with nature's spirits...

Alright, that explains it. There's a chance I didn't pay enough attention to the text in this scenario.

Omigosh, I get to keep my entire recall list from Chapter I! For some reason I thought it would start with a clean slate. Hm, I have 20 Dwarvish Lords (some with multiple AMLAs) and 14 Guardians and that's not even half of the list. Hopefully the campaign is balanced for that. And getting to keep all Windsong units from the last big battle is definitely overkill. For example, I have a bunch of lorekeepers and savants and therefore no reason to level these unit lines from scratch, but it somehow feels like cheating.

Blood of the Steppes
Subutai can be triggered and "defeated" before he has a chance to recruit, not sure if that's intentional. I actually did it by accident. Perhaps he should start with some horse archers as guards? Same goes for that second Hannuk.
Scenario doesn't end with the death of Denziq and Bleda, you have to kill ALL leaders on the map (I triggered the swamp ogre with a scout, moved on, defeated both Hannuk leaders and had to go back to the ogre). This is actually a great opportunity to rake in experience, but I assume it's something that should be fixed.

[revansurik]

Omigosh, I get to keep my entire recall list from Chapter I! For some reason I thought it would start with a clean slate. Hm, I have 20 Dwarvish Lords (some with multiple AMLAs) and 14 Guardians and that's not even half of the list. Hopefully the campaign is balanced for that. And getting to keep all Windsong units from the last big battle is definitely overkill. For example, I have a bunch of lorekeepers and savants and therefore no reason to level these unit lines from scratch, but it somehow feels like cheating.

20 Dwarf Lords? Geez, every time I played I reached scenario 16 with over 3; I thought it would make little sense to start part II with an empty recall list, since Myra's group has the warriors from the Last War, not only civilians; but I expected that the player would lose many soldiers in scenarios 14 and 15, so I didn't bother about the size of the recall list. But anyway, scenarios 18 and 19 may wear would this recall list
However, you should recruit new units too, especially Windsong, Aragwaithi and later, Hannuks; I should have put a note at the beginning og scen. 16 warning the player about it, and if I haven't I'll correct it; because the dwarves won't always be available.

Subutai can be triggered and "defeated" before he has a chance to recruit, not sure if that's intentional. I actually did it by accident. Perhaps he should start with some horse archers as guards? Same goes for that second Hannuk.
Scenario doesn't end with the death of Denziq and Bleda, you have to kill ALL leaders on the map (I triggered the swamp ogre with a scout, moved on, defeated both Hannuk leaders and had to go back to the ogre). This is actually a great opportunity to rake in experience, but I assume it's something that should be fixed.

My, my, I should really fix the Subutai thing, he was supposed to give the player a chance to see how Hannuks fight...
And yes, scenario is supposed to end with the deaths of Bleda and Denziq only; I know where I did wrong, and I'll correct it in the next release.

[marecki]

Sorry for the quiet time. Banner Saga came out and it turns out viking-math-chess is surprisingly addictive...

[20 Dwarf Lords? Geez, every time I played I reached scenario 16 with over 3

Oh, I only had like 6 of my own, but apparently all of Dvalin's recruits are added to the recall list. It would be much better for the campaign's balance to remove Lords from recruit list in Sky Dragon Descends.

However, you should recruit new units too, especially Windsong, Aragwaithi and later, Hannuks; I should have put a note at the beginning og scen. 16 warning the player about it, and if I haven't I'll correct it; because the dwarves won't always be available.

That's a good hint. I'm doing just that, trying to get exp on some Hannuks.

Ashes of the War
First of all, cool-looking saurian lich sprite!
On top of the fact that this one is REALLY easy, you gain experience every time you reduce Attix to 0hp. Now this is probably intentional (and after all he gains AMLA each time), but considering that the early finish bonus is only slightly better than what you get per turn from villages, it might be seen as an exploit. With all the slow-attack units player has access to (hunters and scribes), it's a risk-free game I call farming the lich. I didn't take advantage because, y'know, play fair and all, but I could easily have gotten two Librarians in that scenario.

Just started Besieged and, oh boy, mass chariots are brutal (War Chariot does 77dmg in daytime!).
Also, I've been checking out what various characters say when they die and Dvalin says something like: "No, I cannot die now, Alenya needs me." Alenya and Dvalin? Curiouser and curiouser.

[revansurik]

No problem about the delay, take your time

Oh, I only had like 6 of my own, but apparently all of Dvalin's recruits are added to the recall list. It would be much better for the campaign's balance to remove Lords from recruit list in Sky Dragon Descends.

Could be... I expected that many dwarf lords would die in both scenarios 14 and 15, but I think I underestimated them

Ashes of the War: I was really thinking about making some changes in it to make it a bit harder... Farming the lich? Now that's something I've never heard of before But still, attacking him with Wood Hunters and Scribes is dangerous for them, since neither have much hp, whilst Assix's ranged attacks are just those of a lich. Unless, of course, you slow him down with mighty Alenya
Speaking of which, yes, there is something going on between them I don't know if you noticed, but in scenario 6 (Council with the King), while Maat is talking with Myra and Veela is meeting Jevyan, Alenya and Dvalin are alone in a corner, talking beside a water pool. You see, I thought that, because they are the only non-humans in the group, they would end up closer to each other. But I still don't know how they will end, so...

[Lord-Knightmare]

Speaking of which, yes, there is something going on between them I don't know if you noticed, but in scenario 6 (Council with the King), while Maat is talking with Myra and Veela is meeting Jevyan, Alenya and Dvalin are alone in a corner, talking beside a water pool. You see, I thought that, because they are the only non-humans in the group, they would end up closer to each other. But I still don't know how they will end, so...

So, that's how the Dwelves originated.

[marecki]

So, that's how the Dwelves originated.

Beauty and the dwarf.

Besieged
Situation looks rather grim at the start, but with generous use of fodder it can be done relatively painlessly. I blocked the bridge with a sacrifical dwarf, quickly moved Myra to the other wall-keep and on second turn got out an army of hunters and some veterans. Hunters are good counter to mangudai in defense and chariots will miss them more often than not (70% def). One has to move swiftly, because once the chariots and/or drakes catch up it's over. I lost more than half of fodder (felt bad about sending those brave clanswomen to their deaths ), but only one veteran. A very well-designed scenario and my favourite in this chapter.

Fires of hope
Four serious attempts in and so far this scenario has completely destroyed me. I've played a lot of tough Wesnoth campaigns (hell, I finished Panther Lord on hard), faced some bad odds, but this definitely takes the cake. It doesn't even matter that I don't have access to dwarves, I don't think it would have made a difference. I tried different approaches, sets of recruits and recalls, defensive positions, etc. - at some point I simply run out of troops, there's just too much damage coming my way. I could maybe do it, if the enemy didn't spam fire dragons, but I dunno, really. The river hardly makes a difference, because enemies are mostly flyers and I don't have enough forces to defend the eastmost ford anyway. Enemy leaders get ridiculous reinforcements, in quick succession, I can't even deal with the second wave before the third hits and burns me away. Some numbers: overall enemy starting gold on normal is 2.980. Add to that 2x reinforcements (maybe more, I haven't lasted that long) of 3.200, that's more than 6.000 gold worth of dragons and drakes within the first ten rounds, that's insane.
What's funny is that I could probably hold out in this situation against any other faction, but the drakes have just too much firepower and mobility and the dragons, well, you know...
Note that I'm talking strict ironman here, I could always reload my way to victory, but that would just be sad.
There's also a distinct possibility that I'm slipping, so it would be best if other players gave their feedback on this. I wouldn't want you to make any changes to an otherwise excellent campaign just because one person's skill was inadequate. I'll give it another go tomorrow, but frankly I don't see it going any better.

[revansurik]

Besieged - Great! That was exactly the strategy I meant for this scenario: hurry to the east before the troops of Mundzuk or Shek'har catch up! About the chariots, I have changed their terrain defence on flat to 20%, to compensate their power, high hp and resistances, but this will come with therelease of the next version only.

Fires of Hope -Don't worry, I acknowledge I exagerated in this scenario. But, see, it is supposed to be hard: Myra's group is weary from the travels and from the siege at Ughure, whilst Khrakrahs' army is fresher for combat. The dragon ishould be the only one to be recruited, did others appear?
Try this strategy: in the first turn, recall high-level water elementals, if you have them, or recruit a handful of them; move them east, to the sea, and the to the river's mouth. I placed 1 lvl 3 Nymph and 3 lvl 1 water elementals there, they held off thrashers and arbiters for a good while (they were too terrified of the Nymph to attack her). The only great threat for those elements are fire drakes, drake flares and sky drakes. Also, if you have a good amount of gold, recruit lots of Aragwaithi spearmen: with Ravyan's leadership, they can do a max of 50 hp damage to drakes. I wouldn't advise recruiting chariots, they're vulnerable to fire and don't do drakes much damage with their impact attacks; use scribes and wood hunters together against Drake Warriors, scribes halves their ranged attack for the hunters to rain arrows on them without getting much damage. Next version will have Tarkans with Leadership ability, so Tarkyn, with his great mobility, will be a greater help in this scenario. And, of course, do not give Alenya any rest using Akashia's berserk attack against Warriors and Trashers may be a double-edged sword, but it is quite effective against Fire and Sky Drakes. It may be a good idea to keep Myraat the keep (pun not intended) to recruit new units in an emergency.

PS.: Do not refrain much from spending gold in Fires of Hope; the next scenario is (or should be anyway) easy enough for you to win with just a handful of powerful high-level units beside the main heroes. Also, I have a question for you when you play scenario 20: does Atargatis, the allied leader, die before you can reach her? I had this problem when I first played it, but I made some changes that apparently solved it.
EDIT: Forgot to say: cheer up, Fires of Hope is the last time you'll see drakes in this campaign

[marecki]

The dragon ishould be the only one to be recruited, did others appear?

Huh? Khrakrahs keeps recruiting dragons, not just at the beginning, but each time he gets reinforcements. In one attempt he recruited 4 on the first turn, then 2 and then some more, bringing it to a total of about 10 dragons in the first ten turns (and 6 in the initial strike). Each dragon basically kills one unit per turn, unless I'm super-lucky. This adds up. Dragons have 8 movement+flight+marksman, so they control the battlefield, there's no evading them AND they first attack at night AND their leadership means drakes around them do stupid amounts of dmg. To keep them slowed I have to risk positioning arbiters or sacrifice hunters.

Try this strategy: in the first turn, recall high-level water elementals, if you have them, or recruit a handful of them; move them east, to the sea, and the to the river's mouth. I placed 1 lvl 3 Nymph and 3 lvl 1 water elementals there, they held off thrashers and arbiters for a good while (they were too terrified of the Nymph to attack her).

Unfortunately I don't have any high-level water elementals.

Also, if you have a good amount of gold, recruit lots of Aragwaithi spearmen: with Ravyan's leadership, they can do a max of 50 hp damage to drakes. I wouldn't advise recruiting chariots, they're vulnerable to fire and don't do drakes much damage with their impact attacks

Well, obviously, I recruit lots of them, I use up all of my starting gold (approx. 1.000), recruiting full keeps every turn. I use leadership to great effect (two Great Banners). Chariots are garbage in this scenario.
Don't get me wrong, I kill HUGE numbers of drakes in each attempt, but eventually they wear me out.

Also, I have a question for you when you play scenario 20: does Atargatis, the allied leader, die before you can reach her? I had this problem when I first played it, but I made some changes that apparently solved it.

I'm starting to doubt I'm ever gonna reach this stage.

[revansurik]

Damn it, i think I know what I got wrong there... Krahkrahs was supposed to recruit only 2 dragons on Medium. No wonder you can't finish this scenario, if the enemy keeps recruiting lots of fire dragons
I think I have corrected that mistake now; I imagine other players are facing the same difficulties in this scenario as well, so I'm uploading the new version. It also has the changes to chariots, tarkans, sharpshooters and forest banes.
Well, I'm uploading version 0.2.2, and also version 0.1.2 of the ASoF Music add-on, which contains 3 extra songs:

Code: Select all

Version 0.2.2:
-------------------

- Units:
    - Improved balancing of the Hannuk Charioteer and Hannuk Wood Hunter's trees (decreased chariots' defence on flat terrain and reduced the damage of the forest bane's arrows, which was as strong as an elvish sharpshooter)

- Scenarios:
   -16 - Blood of the Steppes: added some units to appear alongside Subutai and Kublai when they appear, to protect them from being killed in the spot; now player only has to kill Bleda and Denziq to win the scenario, in the previous version every onscreen leader had to be killed.
   - 19 - Fires of Hope: decreased amount of gold enemies receive in reinforcements; corrected mistake that enabled Khrakrahs to recruit endless Fire Dragons

- Music:
    - Added 3 new songs to the ASoF Music Pack.

PS.: I'm thinking about having portraits for important characters that still don't have them (like Liliel and the Seraphin Lords), new portraits for some who already have, new sprites for Myra's lvls 2 and 3, and if possible, some animation for them; I wonder whether it'd be ok to just go to the Art Workshop and ask a willing soul to do them, since I'm no artist.

[marecki]

Phew, thanks, that's much better, for starters my army is no longer burned to a cinder in the first couple of turns - the threat of fiery death is more manageable. The scenario is still very difficult and significant losses are inevitable, but that's to be expected, at least it's doable now. Ethereal Orbs helped a lot, I knew they would come in handy at some point.

Ring of Fire

I have a question for you when you play scenario 20: does Atargatis, the allied leader, die before you can reach her? I had this problem when I first played it, but I made some changes that apparently solved it

Whatever you did worked, Atargatis herself wasn't even attacked, enemies swarmed the keep, but focused on the mermen she recruited each turn. With a little help from Alenya and my Reavers, the ally actually did a good job clearing out the naga.
Stuff looks fairly balanced; if I may offer one suggestion, make a second keep tile in the naiad's castle for Myra to recruit (then again, if someone has high-level water elementals to recall, it could make the scenario too easy).
Btw, this map is beautiful, one of the best I've seen.
"Kill as less of them as possible" should be "Kill as few of them as possible."

Are you sure the music pack works? Because so far I haven't heard any new songs other than the regular Wesnoth tunes (well, there's rain splashing in "stormy" scenarios, or is that standard now?).

[revansurik]

Whatever you did worked, Atargatis herself wasn't even attacked, enemies swarmed the keep, but focused on the mermen she recruited each turn. With a little help from Alenya and my Reavers, the ally actually did a good job clearing out the naga.
Stuff looks fairly balanced; if I may offer one suggestion, make a second keep tile in the naiad's castle for Myra to recruit (then again, if someone has high-level water elementals to recall, it could make the scenario too easy).
Btw, this map is beautiful, one of the best I've seen.
"Kill as less of them as possible" should be "Kill as few of them as possible."

Good; I had to replay this scenario 5 times until I foud a way to keep her safe
The keep is a good idea; maybe I should add some recruiting ground near those keeps surrouding Atargatis' castle...
Yeee, I really put effort in making that map beautiful
And thanks for pointing out the grammar mistake

Are you sure the music pack works? Because so far I haven't heard any new songs other than the regular Wesnoth tunes (well, there's rain splashing in "stormy" scenarios, or is that standard now?).

Well, it worked with me... See, was there any music in scenario 11 - Legend of the Water Dragon - before finding the fountain? Up to that point, the scenario only has 1 theme, and it's one of the extra. Scenario 21 has that same song, as well as Into the Shadows. As for the rain splashing sound, I borrowed it from another umc which name I can't remember now, but it's in the campaign's files, not in the music pack.

[marecki]

Hey, what do you know, LotWD does have a custom theme, I totally forgot about it.

Will of the Naiad
Nice relaxing scenario, I liked the idea of limited resources, water elementals found in villages. Half-expected some sort of ambush at the end, this campaign is making me paranoid.
A new shiny toy and getup for Myra (power overwhelming!), but she now requires, ehm, 415exp to advance to lvl5...Yeah, that's not going to happen.

Holy Fire
On turn 2, when the fog clears and both enemies are revealed, Myra says "Let's kill them both," but objectives do not change from "Defeat Liliel," which might be confusing.
Some minor grammar stuff (don't hate me, just trying to give comprehensive feedback ):
"honoured leader" in this context should be "honourable leader"
"Exhilarating, Myra told (...)" > "Exhilarated, Myra told (...)"
"something strange with them" > "something strange about them"
"evil you talk about refer to us" > "evil you talk about refers to us" (or better: "I wonder whether by this 'evil' you mean us")
"pour the holy will" > "pours the holy will"
"My my, I thought I was pedant, but she totally wins me" > "And here I thought I was uptight."
Seraphin > Seraphim?
I don't think Akashia referring to Liliel as a "prick" is, heh, anatomically appropriate (or maybe I am just ignorant of celestial physiology...). In any case, such colloquialisms are best avoided.

It's fun to play against the celestials, takes me back to Count Kromire. The scenario is smooth sailing, a great time to level up some seldom used units. I sent a small force of sharpshooters + healbot to the western woods and they annihilated everything that entered the forest.
The minotaur leader should have much more gold, or at least a decent income, right now he's not a threat at all.

[revansurik]

A new shiny toy and getup for Myra (power overwhelming!), but she now requires, ehm, 415exp to advance to lvl5...Yeah, that's not going to happen.

Well, if you use her to kill as many enemies as possible, you can advance her; when part III is released, there'll be even more scenarios to gather xp. It shouldn't take so many xp for her to advance, it's just that, when I transformed her into that new unit, the game takes her amla as well. I think reducing the xp of the unit type Dragon Sorceress will solve this problem...

Holy Fire - Indeed, that could confuse the player as to the scenario's objectives. As for the grammar mistakes, acknowledged them, but for the "pour the holy will" and the "pedant" bits; "pour" refers to "mouths", so it's not wrong; and "pedant" there refers to their way of speaking in an ostensibly formal way. About the 'prick'... Well, that was a gross misunderstanding of mine about that word's meaning Corrected that as welll.

It's fun to play against the celestials, takes me back to Count Kromire. The scenario is smooth sailing, a great time to level up some seldom used units. I sent a small force of sharpshooters + healbot to the western woods and they annihilated everything that entered the forest.
The minotaur leader should have much more gold, or at least a decent income, right now he's not a threat at all.

Yes, I did that as well; they demonstrated well why they're called Forest Banes
The minotaur is not supposed to be that strong actually; he's mostly there to distract the orcs and provide that defeating Liliel is not too easy, but the scenario itself is not hard.

[marecki]

Damn, I should really be working right now...

Sun Path
Bug: missing event/dialogue. After you defeat the second vampire leader in the mountains, there's a disconnected piece of dialogue mentioning some dude called Alcatas (doesn't show up, I assume he's the leader of that previously-mentioned dwarf clan), then Dvalin and all dwarves disappear. Obviously something missing here.

Wings of Rebellion
Of course I went for the heroic victory and killed all enemies by turn 16 - I think the early finish bonus should be better. Dialogue with the Seraphim after the battle doesn't recognize heroic victory, i.e. Alenya says "Do not forget how they crushed that orcish host as if it were nothing." No they didn't, I did.

The strongbow which joins the group by the end of chapter 1 has the "loyal" icon, but not the trait. Yara the water nymph (in the last scenario), on the other hand, has the trait but not the icon.