[Historical] Orcish campaign

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How is this campaign ?

Too hard, I'm stuck!
0
No votes
Hard, but challenging
3
75%
Just as it ought
1
25%
Too easy, I already have 20 lvl3 trolls !
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 4

benj
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Post by benj »

Loriel wrote:
Circon wrote:A tip for the Desert level...
If the scorpions are coming singly, blast them with the PDs. They take loads of damage from fire, so 2 PDs should kill one.
My mainline was the one being recommended *against*... Trolls. Regeneration cures poison, hehehe. Even with the 70% resistance, I still get an effective 7-2 with Troll Warriors. Not too shabby.
An interesting approach.

I developed a completely different one, following the advice more closely - use ranged attacks, from orc archers, crossbowmen or warlords.

The scorpion only uses its poison in response to a melee attack, so the problem is avoided (until Benj changes its characteristics, or Dave changes the AI ...).
In fact, I used a "bug" that caused scorpions not to use the same attack in defense and in attack. This bug has been fixed in 0.7.1 so now scorpions never use poison, but I submitted a patch to correct this.

Also, I changed shaman's attack from magic to drain. This means, less usable in woods against elves, but dreadful in desert where they still get 70% chances to hit ... testing it, I had a shaman with 40HP ! 8)

Circon's approach with troll warriors is interesting, I tried hard to prevent that but it seems that players are unpredictable. :-D CIrcon, do you have a replay available so that I can see how you did it ?

Loriel, many thanks for your comments, they help a lot. As usual, they will be included in next release. Also, if you think editorial changes are needed, don't hesitate :-).
cynic

Silent forest victory condition

Post by cynic »

I'm not sure how exactly Silent Forest is won (see my comment in the Strategies and Tips forum), but it would be helpful to have the scenario objectives allude to the fact that you don't have to kill both leaders. Something like:

Victory: Cleanse all areas west of the Bork River of elves.

The current victory condition seems to indicate that you have to kill all the elves on the map.
Circon
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Post by Circon »

Here's the replay. It's with 0.7, mind you.
Watch as the trolls hand out buttkick, and two of them have green exp (nearly had 6 troll warriors in total!)
benj
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Post by benj »

telex4 wrote:I'm playing on medium difficulty level, and I've just reached the seige level. But after four attempts, I've lost because the elves have killed one of the shamans each time... before I've been able to reach them with wolf riders.

I'd suggest giving the orc allies a few more units, so the elves can't go straight for the orc shamans.
Perhaps another way is to move the citadel closer from the player's castle. This would allow player to rescue shamans quicker. I'll think about this for next release.

cynic wrote: The current victory condition seems to indicate that you have to kill all the elves on the map.
Yes, I changed it recently because of a "bug" in my WML code, I wasn't able to write initial victory condition properly. Now I fixed this but I'm waiting for my patch to be commited (my WML code require some change to the source code). So next version will be fixed. :-)

Circon wrote: Here's the replay
Your replay is impressive ! Though, I bet defeating the scenario in medium or hard even with troll warriors would be more difficult.

I also note that AI is very dumb and sends all of his warriors to take a single village ... then, once it is taken, they run after you... but it is too late :-)
telex4
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Re: General Comments

Post by telex4 »

benj wrote:
Loriel wrote:It also appears that the following scenario, "The Siege of Barag Gor", might have a similar problem - depending on how the AI plays the elves and orc defenders, the Orc Doctors could be left defenceless before you can get reinforcements there, or the Doctors can flee safely. This seems to happen in about half my attempts, and I'm not sure yet how much of it is luck in the choices the AIs make and how much (if any) it depends on my skill and choices.
Hmmm, in my attemps, they can run away (yes, sometimes wounded) in 4/5 of times. But that's true, sometimes, you loose this scenario without it being your fault. OTOH, this can happen in the first three turns, so that I think this is acceptable because you don't loose too much gameplay.
I've just played this scenario (checked out of CVS) four times leaving the shamans in their base, and each time they died before I could reach them. Then I tried moving them away, and each time on the second turn three elven archers moved in and killed a shaman with ease, three times in a row. I've not yet had two consecutive turns where I've been able to attack the enemy with my own recalled units!

I'd suggest adding a couple of extra allied units there so you can leave the shamans where they are safely until your fastest units can reach them.

Btw I'm playing on the medium difficulty level.
benj
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Re: General Comments

Post by benj »

telex4 wrote:I'd suggest adding a couple of extra allied units there so you can leave the shamans where they are safely until your fastest units can reach them.

Btw I'm playing on the medium difficulty level.
OK, I'll do something to ease the beginning of this scenario. It might be too difficult.

To prove shamans can survive, here is a replay of the scenario (for wesnoth 0.7.0). I swear it is my first attempt. ;-)
Loriel
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Further comments

Post by Loriel »

Based on the current version of Wesnoth (0.7.2 and later CVS in some cases), and a setting of "easy", I've been replaying the start of the Orcish Campaign to see how it has changed.

I've also converted Kapou'e to a multi-level character, using stats similar to Konrad's, to see how that changes the balance.

The first scenario is tough, made more so by my weaker version of Kapou'e. Apart from the obvious tactic of using night to attack, I found that careful use of wolf riders played a major role in my games - avoid being caught by horesmen in open territory, specially when outnumbered, but they can defend themselves fairly well in villages.

I also tried the proposed Orcich Irregular units here, but found them of relatively little benefit - a mix of grunts and archers seemed at least as effective, though more expensive.

Unfortunately the "Taming of the Trolls" has been too effective in the second scenario - they just stand on the sidelines watching. Looks like their aggressiveness needs more tweaking.

The scenario seemed relatively easy, by the standards of the rest of the campaign.

The first replay of the third scenario went rather better than I recall from playing earlier - I'm not sure whether that was luck, or the changes to the priests, or maybe better tactics on my part. Anyway the priests escaped fairly easily, killing the one elf who was in their path.
telex4
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Re: General Comments

Post by telex4 »

benj wrote:To prove shamans can survive, here is a replay of the scenario (for wesnoth 0.7.0). I swear it is my first attempt. ;-)
Hmm, I load that in 0.7 and it tells me the file is corrupt. I load it in the CVS version and it stops replaying in the third turn. Oh well ;)
Kamahawk
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Re: General Comments

Post by Kamahawk »

telex4 wrote:
benj wrote:To prove shamans can survive, here is a replay of the scenario (for wesnoth 0.7.0). I swear it is my first attempt. ;-)
Hmm, I load that in 0.7 and it tells me the file is corrupt. I load it in the CVS version and it stops replaying in the third turn. Oh well ;)
It only goes to the third turn, at wich point the Shaman are safe.
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telex4
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Post by telex4 »

This campaign is really proving a challenge ;) I'm in the Harbour level, and trying to kill the lichs. The problem is that only blade and impact attacks are any good against the undead, and I don't yet have enough powerful units to overcome the lich's drain ability :?
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turin
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Post by turin »

telex4 wrote:This campaign is really proving a challenge ;) I'm in the Harbour level, and trying to kill the lichs. The problem is that only blade and impact attacks are any good against the undead, and I don't yet have enough powerful units to overcome the lich's drain ability :?
i would advise using trolls and troll warriors. they move slow, but get there eventually and really kill the enemy.
if you don't have at least 3 trolls/troll warriors by now, i would advise going back and replaying a few scenarios.
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Kamahawk
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Post by Kamahawk »

telex4 wrote:This campaign is really proving a challenge ;) I'm in the Harbour level, and trying to kill the lichs. The problem is that only blade and impact attacks are any good against the undead, and I don't yet have enough powerful units to overcome the lich's drain ability :?
Four or five young trolls is good suficient to kill the northern leader, In fack I ened up with 3 2nd level trolls after fighting him.
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benj
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Post by benj »

For those who are wondering what is going on this campaign (I haven't posted for a while), here is the status :

- Silent Forest is now better balanced. It might still require some tweaking, thought, but it should be much more playable. Particularly, victory conditions are now clear: kill all elves on the western side of the river.

- scorpions of Desert of Death now use their poisoneous attack when attacked (only in CVS atm).

- trolls are no more cowards in Toward Mountains of Haag.

I'm working on balancing Shan Taum the Smug, last scenario atm and writing the last two scenarios of the campaign chapter 1. The map is ready (they will use nearly the same), I just have to write the WML. ;-)
Jyhem
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Names of trolls in Towards_Mountains_of_Haag

Post by Jyhem »

Benj,

I feel sorry to raise this matter, but the name of Gnondpom
(Grüü's father) is taken from the "Trolls de Troy" french
comic strip, as far as my memory tells me.
I don't think this is the case with Grüü, but it may
be the case also for Roken and Fydelkass. I don't have
the books with me, but they both constitute loose french
puns when "troll" is added to them, as is the case for
all troll names in the comics ("Roken troll" also
works in english)

I thought it was very funny the first time I played
this scenario, and I assume that you did it as satyre.
But now I realise that there may be an
intellectual property risk. I am not a lawyer, but I don't
think this can be done without a written authorisation
from the rights holders (is that the author or the editor ?)

If you don't have it, I suggest renaming them, otherwise
you and Dave take the risk if receiving nasty letters some
day, when Wesnoth is well known throughout the world.
(a bit like happened to the Linux distribution formerly
known as Mandrake)

I like the names, and the humor, and the campaign, but
I'm just trying to avoid unnecessary problems.
Especially as these names only appear in one scenario,
it would involve much to change them.
Insinuator
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Post by Insinuator »

Small bug report: On the "Smug" level, an error was made in turns; a big one. Turns are set to two instead of twenty, thus making the scenario impossible. Also, some of the dialog had spaces such as this:" ." And the last or second to last dialog line says something to the effect of: "Leave your troops there and then go defend the city." The there was not mentioned in the rest of the subject matter, so I assume it means here.

Easily fixed. Very nice balanced gameplay.
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