Scenario 6: The Siege of Elensefar

[Jozrael]

I don't think this is necessary. First off, I don't think an excess of assassins are normally recruited (unless this also has been changed). A.

B, Merman are not the end-all be-all key to this scenario (though they certainly have their use).

C: You don't need to retreat a merman to a village. Just hop it back two hexes on to land, behind a healer, and have it chill there until it's ready for action again. While you make a good point that more effective poison hampers the length of time a merman can tank the front lines, you can easily rotate fresh ones in.

I haven't played this since the assassin remake, but I will do so and see if it's really that significant of an increase in difficulty. With the poor AI (or at least, not as suicidal/good as it was back in the gold old days of 1.4), I think that would at least balance it out.

All that being said, you raise a good point and it's worth reviewing.

[silent]

I don't think this is necessary. First off, I don't think an excess of assassins are normally recruited (unless this also has been changed). A.

B, Merman are not the end-all be-all key to this scenario (though they certainly have their use).

C: You don't need to retreat a merman to a village. Just hop it back two hexes on to land, behind a healer, and have it chill there until it's ready for action again. While you make a good point that more effective poison hampers the length of time a merman can tank the front lines, you can easily rotate fresh ones in.

I haven't played this since the assassin remake, but I will do so and see if it's really that significant of an increase in difficulty. With the poor AI (or at least, not as suicidal/good as it was back in the gold old days of 1.4), I think that would at least balance it out.

All that being said, you raise a good point and it's worth reviewing.

Actually, If I recall the scenario correctly, the water separating elensefar and your keep is at least 2 hexes wide, therefore the 1st line should have orcs walking into the water, resulting in them having only 20% def, or 40% in the assassins case. The second line should contain mermen. Rotate frequently to heal (therefore, leveling the initiate into a priestess, druids or moremirmu will all help in keeping mermen fresh) If also desired (or gold permits), you could combine horseman into the mix who would get very easy experience finishing off half-injured orcs.

[Nova5555]

As this is your only post, I guess you feel quite strongly about this scenario. Hopefully you'll return to read the response.

In terms of balancing wesnoth scenarios, especially ones as long-established as the HttT ones, the best course of action if you are encountering serious difficulty in a campaign (especially this early on: this is the -first- of the 'challenge' scenarios) is to drop down a difficulty level. The difficulty levels exist to address the broadest possible spectrum of players. So to challenge truly veteran players (who may have played this scenario on 20 previous playthroughs or more), the hardest difficulty level must be sufficiently hard. However, the newest player to wesnoth (since this is a novice campaign) should theoretically be able to beat this on easy, so easy must be sufficiently easy. This leaves a BROAD skill spectrum that medium must cover, a daunting task for any campaign balancer.

There is no shame in dropping down a difficulty level, but I usually return to campaigns I have done that on after I have completed them and find it far easier to complete a difficulty level higher, because of three reasons. One: I now know the campaign intimately. I know what unit types to focus on, any easter eggs or surprises that might change the flow of the scenario, and gold management. Two: I've improved as a wesnoth player since my last playthrough, so my raw skill is higher. And three: At higher difficulty levels, there is more enemy XP flowing into your army, so I personally find harder difficulty levels 'easier' in some ways (But they certainly have compensating challenges ).

I abuse parenthetical expressions.

My configuration of units and gold was not sufficient to allow me to beat this scenario so I did end up dropping to easy and beating it that way. That unfortunately meant I had to restart the campaign. In addition to this I find that easy is... well... too easy for most scenarios. I read through this entire thread and tend to agree with some of the other users in that I think this scenario might be a tad too difficult for its placement. I don't think it matches the difficulty curve of the surrounding scenarios. However I admit that with more experience I may change my tune. I've restarted for a 3rd time on medium difficulty and I'm putting more of an emphasis on gaining experience for my units... I'll see if that helps.

[Jozrael]

Aight, I just replayed this on hard and SoE was a breeeeeeze this time around. Those assassins certainly didn't do more than mildly hinder my mermen. I will attach a replay shortly, when I'm able to get the laptop on the internet.

As for general campaign advice: It matters SIGNIFICANTLY (in any campaign, but more importantly the early scenarios) which types of units you should have experience focused on.

In general, here are your priorities by scenario (as in, you need X unit BY (before) this scenario):

1. Elves Besieged
2. Blackwater Port
3. Isle of Alduin
4. Bay of Pearls (healer, preferably quite a bit earlier than here).
5a. Muff Malal's Peninsula (This is a better scenario to setup for SoE).
5b. Isle of the Damned (This is a better scenario for the longterm campaign, thus I take this one. Konrad being level 3 by this scenario is a HUGE boost, plus having a lvl2 initiate does wonders.)
6. The Siege of Elensefar (Magic users to some degree to deal with the skellies, a VARIETY of troops for the orcs. You need Knight(s), levelled fighters, magic users(especially healers), a smattering of levelled mermen, and any other levels you can eek out of the first 5 scenarios. First 'checkpoint' scenario.
7. Crossroads
8. Princess of Wesnoth (The true difficulty in this scenario is having a strong enough army while not overrecruiting to leave yourself money for the next scenario).
9. Valley of Death (If you aim to merely survive and don't have much attachment to your troops, mere survival is trivial. Defeating all the liches is a difficult, difficult task. Mages of all colors are absolute necessity (the more, the better. I aim for 6-9 levelled mages/shamans. Paladins are nice to help with defeating all the liches).
10. Gryphon Mountain
11. Ford of Abez
12. Northern Winter
13. Dwarven Doors
14. Plunging into the Darkness ( Interlude )
15. The Lost General (This will test your ability to toughen up your dwarven recruits quickly.).
16. Hasty Alliance
17. Scepter of Fire
18. A Choice Must be Made
19a. Snow Plains
19b. The Swamp of Dread (I recommend this branch to net Li'sar the Void Armor to make her absolutely imba).
19c. Cliffs of Thoria
20a.Home of the North Elves (You need a full castle of expendable level 3s with 6 MP or more.)
20b. Underground Channels
21. Elven Council ( Interlude )
22. Return to Wesnoth
23. Test of the Clans (Pointies).
24. The Battle for Wesnoth (Everything).
25. Epilogue

You'll notice that after Valley of Death, there are few scenarios that require specific units. This is generally because it is assumed that you have levelled, expendable units to fill EVERY role. In general, earlygame you want to focus on healers (something which is nice to have a surplus of all game long). For IotD you want Konrad3, for SoE you need a little bit of everything (a tall order), and for VoD you need mages, mages, mages. Afterwards, just continue to diversify your unstoppable army and try to have levellups outbalance losses pretty significantly.

[Beorn]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.6 medium

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10... pretty much a show stopper

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
good, except the first time I came to the spies dialog I didn't really understand the option about helping me into the city... but that option seems the inferior one anyway

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Orcs with so many assassins would be tough, but with the wave of undead right behind them, I lose every time. I have read through the above posts and tried relying heavily on mermen (too slow; undead arrive) and also on scouts and horsemen (too quickly crushed by the second wave of undead).

I think the real problem is the difference between easy and medium difficulty. When I start this campaign on easy difficulty, it is hard to stay awake. There are so few opponents, that there is no challenge, other than deciding how to divvy up the experience points -- which feels cheesy when there is no real risk and is just based on pre-knowledge of later scenerios and what units I will need... At medium level, earlier scenerios are appropriate difficulty, where there is some risk and tension, but the battles can be won; then this scenerio is a whole different tale for me.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
Have never defeated it... actually, never came anywhere close

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

[Scipion121212]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.6.2, hard
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9 (had to restart it a few times, but was okay when I figured strategy)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Completely. Kill (nearly) everything.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Was okay. Another scenario showing that the queen is super-evil, but nothing THAT interesting.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Everyone getting killed. My strategy was simple, I positioned my units along the road and river, horsemaning/maging any orc silly enough to go to the river. After killing most rocs, I went to the city, thieves appeared (all except lvl2 died), but I came too late, undead were already there. Luckily, I was able to lvl up loyal horseman to paladin, but they still killed nearly all thieves and red mage, knight and elvish captain. After I took the city, it was only about getting as fast as possible up.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10. I enyojed scenario very much and it is probably my favourite one.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
On hard I can´t think of any.

[potatomanjack]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario 1.4.1 - Medium

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7 (at first 10, then I found a pretty good strategy)

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Pretty interesting, and it was nice to be in the shoes of the sieging party

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
At first, I kept losing all my leveled units in the first clash against the orcs. I knew this would nail me later on so I would restart and didn't know what to do. The challenge was to figure out a way to get passed this.

Once I figured out a strategy that worked (1st wave of fodder fighters & Thieves / scouts stealing villages and sitting on them with my leveled units coming in to clean up injured orcs) things went much better.

I never found the undead to be too big of a problem.


(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9 - I really enjoyed this one

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Loved it - I don't think it needs any changes and is the first 'real' challenge that this campaign throws at you which is a good wake-up call to anyone who thinks that they can waltz through the campaign just because they're playing medium difficulty.

[forbiddian]

I came back to this game after a few years' hiatus. I played it recently on 1.6.4 and it was quite easy for me (played on Hard). Instructions were clear, etc. etc. But I remember that I had a huge problem with it on my first play through (played on Medium a few years back and I have no idea what version). I had to drop down to Easy (which is ridiculously boring both before and after this scenario -- I ended up quitting Wesnoth and HttT after Isle of the Damned on Easy I realized that Easy was too easy).

I believe that this scenario faces serious, possibly irreconcilable problems with balance for the new player. I experienced the same frustrations as virtually everyone in this thread the first time through, possibly to a greater extent as I simply stopped playing Battle for Wesnoth after this scenario. I don't know if these forums existed back then or what, but I'd like to point out that a lot of the people most-frustrated by this scenario (or other scenarios in HttT) don't ever find these forums and post. They simply quit the game. "It's a free download. It sucked. Bummer, seemed like a good idea." To get more people to enjoy Wesnoth, Heir to the Throne has to be accessible to everyone as both a challenge and a learning scenario.

I'm much more mature as a gamer this time around and don’t have much trouble now, but for whatever reason this was impossible before. It's not like I hadn't played any games before, I had played strategy games: Chess (had 1600 elo as a kid), Risk, Settlers, Magic: The Gathering, and RTSs: Starcraft, Age of Mythology, etc. I wasn't pro, but I was very accomplished in all of those games. I had also played turn based strategy games: Master of Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic (I-III), and Age of Wonders: Shadowmagic (I assume those are both influences toward this game, and had no problems beating those on the hardest difficulty settings every time without using exploits).

The game at the start recommends that experienced gamers play through the tutorial and jump right into the campaign noting that a restart is likely. I was certainly in that category.

The first few scenarios are pretty fun. You make guys. They die. You make more guys. Your opponents die. You eventually notice some interesting things about the game like the value of terrain, the fact that levelling guys is cool, the fact that it sucks to get stuck in water, and that Orcs destroy you at night but are softies during the day. I learned all of that, but never learned the value of experienced troops. I definitely shepherded troops to higher levels properly (funneled all the exp to a few select troops), but once leveled I treated them like the rest of my troops: expendable. Not that I would send them to their deaths out of stupidity, but that my goal was to win the battle and accomplish the scenario’s objectives. I understood all the tactical applications, but was missing one or two critical details that prevented me from realizing that leveled troops were sacred.

You follow instructions. You beat the scenario. Yay. There are a few scenarios where you have to fight, but until SoE, each is easily passable even if you do nothing to improve your army. One person on the previous page of this thread pointed out that there’s a huge difference between sufficient to pass the scenario and sufficient to start the next scenario. I find that is a completely nonsensical stance. HttT is a new player’s first experience with Battle for Wesnoth. I wouldn’t want new players falling into traps because they didn’t know better. It doesn’t make the game more interesting to learn by failure.

I guess it seems silly to experienced players that new players might not level up guys and carefully conserve their high level units, but nowhere does it really tell you that you have to do it. And no mission before Siege of Elensefar remotely requires it. And frankly, it's very easy to lose level 2 units unless you're weighing them much more heavily than the cost. Two level 1 units is much better than a level 2 unit for the cost to upkeep, and they can also take twice as many board actions, take up more ZoC, and they will eventually turn into level 2 units anyway. To a new player, but one experienced in games, it might seem not only acceptable but prudent to sacrifice a level 2 unit to save two level 1 units. Yet everyone who has played the game extensively would gladly do the opposite. It also might seem like a good trade to trade your level 2 unit for three of your opponent’s level 1 units, which is again a terrible trade.

In fact, beyond making a conscious decision to sacrifice level 2 units to save multiple level 1 units, I also remember consciously making a decision that Loyalty was unimportant. In the other missions, I'd generally have maybe 5-10 units out at the same time, the bulk of which were level 1s. My total upkeep costs for my whole army was like 6-10, and I could easily hold 6 towns for the majority of a scenario. I didn't realize that later on, you'd have, like, 10 level 3+ units running around and the massive upkeep costs would bleed you to death if you don't have a lot of Loyals. But I noticed the rules behind having Loyals and I noticed my upkeep costs got zeroed as early as turn 1 or 2. I concluded that upkeep was not a very significant factor. I'd gladly pay 1 or 2 extra gold to get, say 1 extra movement or 5 extra hitpoints on my whole army. The game tells you that Loyalty is important, but in no way does it stress the fact that Loyal troops are as important to progression as keeping Konrad or Delfador alive.

Fundamentally, the only thing preventing new players from running into the cockblock that is SoE is that they simple don’t know what to do during the first few scenarios. The goal isn’t to get Konrad to the end, it’s to get high level units. High-level units can be recalled cheaply and allow you to recall a very strong fighting force in the critical first two turns. Why not tell players that? It’s like some puzzle that they have to figure out: “Yeah, the game TELLS you this is what you’re supposed to do, but if you just did it then you ruined yourself because really you’ll need to be leveling a healer because two levels later THIS happens.”

I guess more than a discussion on SoE this is more of a discussion on the way the game is presented and the learning curve that a very long campaign has. But I put it here because SoE is the first scenario (and possibly only scenario) where new players can be totally stumped. With good tactics even without any strategy, you can pass the other scenarios easily. Far from being the intended wake up call to new players "Hey, look, you played through some scenarios. You saw the mechanics of the game, but you made a lot of mistakes in the first few scenarios that will cost you in the end. With all that you've learned in mind, now it's time to restart from the beginning and really sculpt a powerful army to reclaim Wesnoth!" it’s like you just start losing over and over again and can’t really figure out a winning strategy. Someone pretty much has to tell you, “Look, you gotta go back and prepare for this.”

That doesn’t seem like a Novice scenario to me, when you have to read spoilers or have played through it already before you can pass. And then I’m sure a lot of players did what I did: switched to easy (which is appallingly trivial… I couldn’t GET my high level characters killed if I tried) and then quit.



It doesn’t seem like I’m alone. Other people in this thread have identical issues with this scenario:

Difficulty: Medium
Challenge rating: 10, couldn’t finish!!!

Then someone says, “O try leveling ur d00dz b4 u get 2 SoE”

Difficulty: Medium
Challenge rating: 6, easy with healers and high levels.


The difference between those two reviews shouldn’t be as trivial as that sentence. This is a learning scenario, so help the new players out by explaining to them what’s going on, what they should be doing now, and what their longterm goal is.


Anyway, criticisms aside for the learning curve on the game, here are some suggestions. Note: All these suggestions try to steer players in the right direction but reduce the freedom that players have. Since players playing on the Hard setting shouldn't need to be steered in the right direction, I recommend these changes only for Easy and Medium settings, since people playing on Hard should know what they’re doing anyway.

Make Haldiel's (and Elrian's) death a defeat condition for the first few missions. It's easy to lose him in Blackwater Port if you don’t know how important he is. Losing him basically means that you’ll eventually fail a scenario anyway (only players good enough to know de facto not to lose him could survive without him).

Require a certain number of leveled characters to continue, at least to pass Bay of Pearls and to pass Isle of the Damned or MM Penninsula. Maybe require Haldiel, Konrad, Elrian, and one other unit to be level 2. That alone would probably be insufficient to pass SoE, but it would direct players toward the importance of levelling characters and conserving troops.

Explain at the start of the scenario that Konrad has a long term goal to accumulate the wealth and army required to reclaim Wesnoth: “Your army looks inexperienced. I think you should take some time to find great leaders in your army. Every King needs generals. You, I fear will need them more than anyone." That's pretty damn cheesy, but you get the picture and you have better writers than I that could jazz it up with a more somber timbre. Exactly why I’m not a writer, because I say incongruous stuff like “Jazz it up with a more somber timbre.”

Explain in the tutorial about the effects of healing better. I was very unclear about the mechanics until reading guides online. I thought among other things the common misconception, “If I put two healers next to a guy, he’ll gain so much life, lolol!” But it’s very easy to underestimate their value, especially in a long campaign people will often invest a third or more of their total army slots to healers.

[mal]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Medium 1.6.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9/10

(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?
Clear

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
I think it's just too difficult - I can't get up to the city, the waterline makes no difference, the orcs come too fast, too levelled, the undead rush down too fast. I've tried this about 20-30 times, different tactics, sent scouts this way and that to get to the island to activate the thieves. I honestly am on the verge of giving up the whole game just because of this scenario - it's way too soon. I've got plenty of level 2 characters - seems to make no difference, they just come in and die like everything else.

I've gone back a step and rushed through MMP so I get more gold - gets me closer, but really, only a bit.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
About a 2 at the moment. I feel a bit like I've gone to a new karate class, had fun for the first 4 lessons and then spent the next 10 getting kicked in the head. That's how much fun I'm having.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Some vague chance of survival would really improve things for me.

[mal]

Yep, I give up.

[Schierke]

Yep, I give up.

I'm barely a decent player but i didn't really have too many troubles finishing this scenario on medium.

If i recall correctly, the AI will recruit three types of units: lvl 2 Warriors, lvl 2 Crossbowman and lvl 1 Assassin. If you want to win, at least without taking too many losses, you should reload on turn one until you get as many Assassins and as few Warriors as posible.

In my experience, the best way to beat this scenario is with a Horseman rush, you should have at least one lvl 2 Knight or Lancer and recruit/recall some 4 or 5 Horseman and charge into the city. Assasins, with their low hp and weak melee attack will get raped, Crossbowman will get hit hard as well without much retaliation (but they will do a lot of damage on your Horseman on the next turn) and Warriors will be hard to kill and will hit pretty hard on the counter attack, that's why it's important to make sure the AI doesn't recruit so many of them.

As soon as the Thieves offer their help, put one of your units in a village to get them and use the Thieves and the Rogue to sorround the orc leader in his keep. You may try to use backstab to hurt him and force him to backoff but that may cause you to lose a few of them, which might be a big risk, so the choice is up to you. The next turn the orcs should go for the Thieves and with their 70% dodge (i think) on the castle, they will most likely not even attack your main force on that turn.

Now you can charge again with your remaining units and unless you have some very bad luck, the orcs should be all but defeated right now.

As for the Undead, you should have at least one White Mage and a couple of mages on the rear, hold the skeletons off with some of your elves in villages while you hit them whit your ranged and magic attacks and that's all.

Killing the Undead leader might be hard to do without losing some units (unless you can lure him out) but not much of a problem if you can accept a few losses.

[mal]

Followed your advice, reloaded, got a situation with only a couple of warriors, charged my horsemen up, charged up to an assassin. Nothing - 2 blocks in a row (middle of the day). Unlucky, charged my next guy up to the same assassin - nothing, 2 blocks in a row. Bad luck? Probably, but I didn't kill a single orc on my charge, got wiped out the next go.

Oof, another kick to the head!

[monochromatic]

If i recall correctly, the AI will recruit three types of units: lvl 2 Warriors, lvl 2 Crossbowman and lvl 1 Assassin. If you want to win, at least without taking too many losses, you should reload on turn one until you get as many Assassins and as few Warriors as posible.

In my experience, the best way to beat this scenario is with a Horseman rush, you should have at least one lvl 2 Knight or Lancer and recruit/recall some 4 or 5 Horseman and charge into the city. Assasins, with their low hp and weak melee attack will get raped, Crossbowman will get hit hard as well without much retaliation (but they will do a lot of damage on your Horseman on the next turn) and Warriors will be hard to kill and will hit pretty hard on the counter attack, that's why it's important to make sure the AI doesn't recruit so many of them.

The reason your strategy doesn't really work is because assassins have 70% defense on castles, villages, forests, and other rough terrains and 60% on flat terrain. So it's difficult to charge properly with horsemen/knights/lancers. I recalled most of the lvl 2 units I had and recruited and good number of lvl 1 fodder (fighters and archers) and formed a strong defensive line right below the river. Place your lvl 2's behind your lvl 1's so they can have a more effective counter-attack the next turn. I had leveled a mage into a white mage and an elvish shaman into a druid, so I had ample healing. Then, during the following night, the orcs charged and killed some of my lvl 1s, which then I retreated to heal and counter-attacked with the lvl 2s. Remember, orcs have 20% defense on shallow water and assassin's have 40%, while you consistently have 40% defense, so the strikes should be in your favor. The this way the orcs should mostly run out of units within 3 or 4 turns, so then use whatever marksmen/sharpshooters/mages your have to pierce though their line and surround the leader. The thieves are loyal, so you might want to keep them. By now the undead will be marching down. Use your elves and especially horsemen/knights to block the undead. Once you finish the orc leader, recruit a few more mages and slowly pierce though the undead. Within 2 or 3 turns you should be on the north side of the map. Spend the rest of your turns strolling up to his cave; enter the cave not from the south but from the west, and kill him. That's what I did. And I am no expert player.

EDIT1: A couple typos

EDIT2: Here's a replay. I just played through the first couple scenarios of HttT on medium. The AI surprised me, though. I attempted to do what I wrote above, but it didn't turn out as expected. I probably wouldn't have been swarmed with skeles if I had remembered to move that mermaid around turn ~6/7.

So...I arrived at SoE with 376 gold, Konrad lvl 3, and an auto-recalled Elvish Captain. Also on my recall list was:
1 Elvish Sharpshooter, 1 Elvish Marksman, 1 Elvish Druid, 1 Outlaw (loyal; you get him from IotD), 1 Elvish Hero, 1 Elvish Sorceress, 2 Knights (including loyal Haldiel), 1 Mermaid Priestess (loyal), 1 White Mage (loyal with Holy Sword, you get him also from IotD), 1 Mage (loyal Elrian), 3 Thugs (including one almost leveled, also from IotD), and a bunch of loyal mermen. I finished on turn 18/32 and I owned almost every village on the map (except for one)... which gave me 514 gold to start Crossroads.

HttT-The_Siege_of_Elensefar_replay.gz

Played using 1.7.15

(34.04 KiB) Downloaded 476 times

[mal]

376 gold seems like a lot. Even running through MMP, I only start with 205. There must be some sort of gold carry-over thing going on that I'm not aware of - I'll go back to the tactics and try to work it out.

Thanks for the replay, I'll try and watch it later.

[monochromatic]

Ah, it's because I charged though Isle of Alduin, finishing it in like 9 turns.