[Historical] Campaign: An Orcish Incursion

[jp30]

I'm pleased to announce the release of my new campaign, "An Orcish Incursion".

You play Erlornas, commander of an elvish border post. When he persues a group of marauding orcs to the north away from his post, he finds himself singlehandedly repelling an invasion.

There are seven scenarios, each of which has a unique and definite winning strategy.

In spite of its low version number, this campaign is now complete and can be played right through to the end.

Version 0.1 can be downloaded from http://weka.ucdavis.edu/~jp30/orcish_in ... 0.1.tar.gz or from the campaign server.

[scott]

I don't want to be too much of a nag about this, but if it's complete in terms of all scenarios being present and nominally balanced, it should be at 1.0 to cooperate with the campaign versioning standard. That has the side effect of signaling the fact that it is complete and people understand that things are never really complete.

As for the campaign, it's nice. It could be a second tutorial or playable strategy guide.

[ott]

Great work. The scenarios are nice clear illustrations of specific aspects of Wesnoth strategy.

I finished the campaign on Hard, but the first scenario was truly fiendish. I played it about a dozen times before getting lucky with what seemed to be bad recruiting choices by the AI. One or two of the others I had to replay once, but most were quite straightforward in comparison to the first. Maybe tone down the amount of AI gold a _little_ on Hard?

[Elvish_Pillager]

"Force the assassins to attack you from the river"... what a stupid hint. I sat around on a river for a while while the Assassins just kept regrouping to the left. Then I just attacked and assasinated their leader when it had no guards, so it's not like the strategy didn't work... but stupid stupid stupid.

Other than the hints, this campaign is great, if a little easy. I'm playing in Hard and beat the first two scenarios easily:

#1: I was ridiculously lucky. I lost nothing but an Elvish Fighter, and got loads of experience for my units, including an Elvish Captain.

#2: The enemies were stupid. I leveled up a Druid on their leader, which should prove useful in the next scenario.

[turin]

in linaera the quick, it in unclear that you gain control on linaera. i started playing the scenario, and went on for five turns, before realizing i had control of her and her horsemen. (obviously i restarted).

[scott]

in linaera the quick, it in unclear that you gain control on linaera. i started playing the scenario, and went on for five turns, before realizing i had control of her and her horsemen. (obviously i restarted).

It bugged me a little because I had expected her to be able to recruit units since she sits on a castle. Lack of attention to detail on my part.

[Glowing Fish]

I like this campaign. Even though it teaches supposedly basic skills, it was pretty hard, and I've played through and won two campaigns.

What I noticed, especially about the first two scenarios, is that the fighting was more "raiding" then "battling". I moved my leader off my keep pretty early, and ran through the forest to kill the enemy leader, rather than trying to chase down and defeat all his units.

Which is an interesting style of fighting, but this might not be the best tutorial since not all scenarios follow this pattern.

I got to the trolls, and then gave up for a while...

[turin]

I like this campaign. Even though it teaches supposedly basic skills, it was pretty hard, and I've played through and won two campaigns.

What I noticed, especially about the first two scenarios, is that the fighting was more "raiding" then "battling". I moved my leader off my keep pretty early, and ran through the forest to kill the enemy leader, rather than trying to chase down and defeat all his units.

Which is an interesting style of fighting, but this might not be the best tutorial since not all scenarios follow this pattern.

I got to the trolls, and then gave up for a while...

most campaign scenarios follow that pattern in my experience. its only a few in TROW that don't.

[jp30]

I don't want to be too much of a nag about this, but if it's complete in terms of all scenarios being present and nominally balanced, it should be at 1.0 to cooperate with the campaign versioning standard....

As for the campaign, it's nice. It could be a second tutorial or playable strategy guide.

I'm pleased you liked it.

I'm not aware of the "campaign versioning standard" - can you direct me to where it's documented?

To be honest it doesn't sound like a great idea to me, for two reasons: 1) there are are some campaigns that do not have a fixed number of scenarios (e.g. Random Campaign, and my own Mystery Campaign) - they were "complete" from the first version, but it would be misleading to give them a major version numbers of 1 at the first release. 2) I have frequently needed to modify campaigns simply to track changes to the behaviour of wesnoth itself. A major version number >0 implies stability, and a wesnoth campaign can only be stable when it can be expected to work on future versions of wesnoth. This is quite a different thing from being complete, and will only be possible when wesnoth itself is more stable than it is at the moment.

That said, I'm not averse to cooperating with other campaign writers if it turns out my views on this matter are in the minority.

[jp30]

Thanks everyone for the comments so far.

Ott: I'm surprised you found the first scenario so hard. I find that I am consistently able to win it on HARD unless I make mistakes. The "Wasteland" scenario always seems much more difficult to me. It's possible you're not using the right tactics: others have mentioned "raiding play", and getting your leader into the fray, which I think is especially crucial in the first scenario, as your leader will be much more powerful than new recruits. Do you find yourself running out of time in this scenario, or just getting killed?

Pillager: Yeah, assassins has turned out hard to balance. Astute players will notice that I swiped this scenario from from Memoirs, so it was designed back when the AI wasn't as smart, and (I think) assassins were tougher. Perhaps I should cut back on the number of villages, to really make poison dangerous, drop the bridges perhaps, so that someone is gonna have to fight in the water.

Turin & Scott: The "all the powers at my command" line is supposed to clue the player in to the fact that he controls Linaera; and the hint says "use Linaera". At first I wanted L to be able to recruit horsemen and mages, while Erlornas can only recruit elves. This turned out to create more trouble than it was worth, and would have discouraged the player from using L. as an attacking unit (which is what they're supposed to do).

Fish: I'm not entirely sure what you mean by raiding versus battling... I've found that a "raiding" style of play - where that means moving your leader early, using a single compact army to harry isolated enemies - is in general more effective in wesnoth, mostly because you don't have to split your forces up in order to protect your leader. But it should also be important to take and hold villages - in order to starve the enemy of funds, or assure yourself of healing. A scenario which can be won by marching straight up to the enemy leader and assassinating them is too easy - I hope you're not finding that to be a good strategy for scenarios in Incursion.

[ott]

I think I was following the hint too closely, and consistently running out of time battling hordes of enemy recruits head on. When I did win it was by feinting to the west, then running for the enemy leader with my own -- an easy, early win (see attached replay).

Perhaps revise the hint wording?

For campaign versioning, see http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3346

[jp30]

I'm pleased to announce the release of Orcish Incursion version 0.2

Features:

• * compatibility with BFW 0.8.9
  * many balance changes (mainly making things harder).
  * some plot changes

Available from the campaign server and the wiki.

[markus_2]

I'm up to the showdown and so far noticed the following:
I got slaughtered repeatedly in the first scenario on easy. I finally did win because the AI for some reason massed its troups in the west and I could get mine up to the middle village in the north (not the very top, the one below). There, I could keep the enemy units out of the forest, which was absolutely vital to winning.
The other scenarios where relatively easy, because I got so much experience from the first battle.
However, I noticed bugs in Detour through the Swamps:
A unit called ultharn(?) must not die per scenario directives, yet does not appear on the map.
I am unable to recruit mages, despite the text saying so.

At any rate, a nice campaign, which taught be a good deal about strategy (Ok, I was aware of most of these things before, but the way they turn out to be crucial and absolutely essential to winning in this campaign highlights them very effectively.)

[Campy]

Just finished this campaign and enjoyed it very much. It was my second campaign and I played it on normal difficulty. I found it challenging, but not too hard and am sure I am a better player now than when I started.

Like markus_2, I was unable to recruit mages in the "Detour through the Swamps" scenario even though I was told in the starting text that I would now be able to do so. Fortunately, I was able to win without too much difficulty by using Erlornas and the Silver Mage I got at the start along with elves (a few recruits and several upgraded ones that I recalled).

Thanks for your efforts on this jp30.

[Altruist]

Good campaign, I definetly enjoyed it (played it on medium).

# simple but straight story
# all scenarios can be played in a reasonable time due to relatively small maps
# while you loose some units you can also easily level up some units (finished with 4 level 3 and 3 level 2 units)
# really great set of of challenges and encounters... showing a lot of different tactics which certainly aren't only interesting for beginners

I especially liked the scenario "Linaera the Quick" because it was my very first time playing with Silver Mages. Never imagined teleport to be that powerful.

I agree with the others that the first scenario is one of the most difficult. Without Erlornas the troops get slaughtered. For true beginners it might be helpful to give a hint like: "While the survival of your leader Erlornas is crucial, he is also your most powerful unit at the moment. Use him wisely."

Valley of Trolls:
Including Erlornas I had already 2 L3 and 3 L2 units which made the scenario rather easy. Without some high-level units it must be really difficult to kill those trolls, though. Having in mind that the whole campaign is really a splendid tactics tutorial, perhaps a hint to level up some units in earlier scenarios (wasteland, assassins) might be helpful.

A Detour through the Swamps:
Same problem here... mages are announced but none are there for recruitment. It is possible to play and win without recruited mages. But since I like the camapaign so much as the so far fines tactics tutorial I have seen, it's a pity the mages are thus left out. And I would suggest to give Erlornas either the help of a white mage and the silver mage from the scenario before or, if this makes the campaing too easy, a white mage only. Thus another feature could be shown.

"The End." Arrgh, I hate it when you play for hours, start to identify with the campaign and suddenly... "The End". While you have already some finishing lines, I would like it to have a proper ending including:
# last scenario should be always somehow announced as the last scenario
# I insist on a proper fairy tale ending in which the hero gets honoured and rewarded and the last lines describe how he lived well and long... (or the contrary) *grin

Great campaign! Thanks a lot for the work. As I said, IMHO a splendid tactics tutorial.