[Historical] Scenario Review - EI 10 - Xenophobia

Feedback for the mainline campaign Eastern Invasion.

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podbelski
Posts: 151
Joined: June 7th, 2011, 8:35 pm

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by podbelski »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.9.8, top difficulty, no reloads

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
"6"
I recruited two keeps and went for elves, but somehow lured 3 units of orcs... Dwarves and elves crushed the remaining orcs, then were slain by my split forces.
Btw Owaec has the "shock" skill, which seems to be not working, see turn 14 and later.

(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?
never saw such childish talks... usually I don't bother much about the dialogues/storyline, as long as they are sufficient to understand what's going on. But here it's a bit too much, can't take it any seriously.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Keeping my veterans alive, especially vs dwarves who are tough

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
"7".
if you put aside the storyline, it's the funniest map so far. Not too tough, yet you have to carefully think through what you are doing, and it's fun to watch 4 fractions clash.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
the plot is awful (as Mailkas said, the "ground" for such battles should be prepared in earlier scenarios). Also, the map leaves a slight "not-polished" feeling, yet it's good from tactical perspective.
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by line »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.8.6, hard
279 starting gold

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6. You are fighting level 2 only and each leader is lvl 3. Also the fractions prefer to attack themselves except you bring ogres with you. When I played it without an ogre (when I didn't manage to save the ogre nor to train them afterwards) they always avoided to attack me but went for someone else. (So there must be something special about the ogres, they are everyone's primary target.)
I sent a small force to the elvish leader and the rest north. As the orc leader is the first who might get killed, because he's attacked by both elves and dwarfs, he is first priority for your main force. Then kill the dwarf.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear. Total war. Everyone fights everyone and I gotta kill everyone.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Clear. As elves, orcs and dwarfs always fight themselves this could be a border area, where there sectors meet (border triangle). It didn't seemed too contrived to be acceptable to me.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Killing as many enemys as possible with the mages, especially the lvl-3 orc and dwarf leader.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. You can milk lots of XP, but also have to move cautious, as the enemies can do severe damage with their lvl 2 units.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
First we ask, if we can at least fight the orcs unchallenged by the others to simply proceed on our way. Then Dacyn also points out, that we might be able to pass them without fighting. Where's the need in killing everyone, especially after we opened a way by killing elvish and orcish leader? It should be clearer that every fraction will not stop fighting us, even if we pass. An explanation could be, that they know about the undead following us and want us to return where we came from to keep the undead away from themselves. That would make everyone do his utmost to keep us out.
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Ninjuri
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by Ninjuri »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Easy 1.10.2
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
100%
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Storyline: Pretty good, a race free for all is always fun.
Dialogue: Cheesy but OK. I thought "Argh! I'm dead! Well, dwarves are still the best!" was quite humorous.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting the experience where i wanted it :lol2:
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It's good. I managed to get a cavalier as i was pushing the orcs near the end, who i gave the arcane amulet to, and he took out a slightly damaged troll on hills in 1 turn, it was amazing!
Fate is against me.
SBak
Posts: 78
Joined: October 8th, 2011, 1:36 am

Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by SBak »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Easy and medium 1.8.5 and 1.10.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
This depends. On Medium it's about a 7, but on Easy it's 8 if you go for the Dwarves first and 10 if you head for the Elves first.

(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?
Infantile, quite literally. In fact I think your average four year old could easily come up with a better storyline.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
In a nutshell - killing the Elvish leader. For some reason this has got to be one of the hardest units you can come across in any campaign particularly on Easy and the strange thing about this is that we're talking about an Elvish Captain who stays on his keep.

If I were a more experienced or better player I would probably have more sense than to start out with the Elves. But sometimes you have to try things out to learn why, to understand and sometimes go against common sense to see what happens. Fighting Elves in forests is hard work especially when you are playing Loyalists and you need both numbers and strength to do so. But I figured that I'm not playing on hard, and on Easy I'm probably not going to be overwhelmed. I send my forces west into the forests, and we deal with the Elvish Scout/Rider spam backed up by the Druids and ranger ambushes.

'Easier than I thought' goes through my mind as I amass my units by the Elvish keep for the first finale. I have my own young Ogre spam and a mix of units, the Orcs are split between the Dwarves and the other Elves who have been sent north. Then it all goes pear-shaped and I start seriously losing units. One time on easy when I had heavily recruited and just trying to take out the Elvish leader I lost four young Ogres, three Spearmen, two Swordsmen, a Red Mage, an Ogre and a White Mage to find said Elvish Captain still sat in his keep still with more than half his hitpoints. At this point he recruited two Druids and I lost a further eight units to be left with Gweddry (General), Owaec (lvl2), Dacyn (high XP White Mage) and a Mage to fight everyone else on the map. I've even experimented in debug and tried with four Yetis and a level 5 Fire Dragon and he's killed all of them in little more than half a dozen turns (albeit aided by two Druids).

This was on Easy. I've found the only way of getting through the scenario is to attack the Dwarves first with Ogres and Mages and sending the rest of my army north west towards the Orcs and then bring them all south to deal with the Elvish leader. It seems somewhat easier this way, but then again it might be because I have better units by then or I was seriously unlucky when I tried attacking the Elves first.

I'd be curious to see how the Orcs would fare but they never even get to penetrate the forest.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4 - the stress of having to deal with the Elvish leader takes much of the fun out of this scenario for me.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I would completely change the scenario storyline for something way more mature and credible. The entire concept of Wesnoth is brilliant and has taken a lot of work and creativity from so many people and you could even make movies from some of the plots and stories you come across in the campaigns. There's even been a credible attempt at developing a history and a global story involving all the campaigns. This campaign sadly falls short of a standard set by others such as SotBE, TRoW and Liberty.

There is plenty of scope here, given that this campaign comes after Northern Rebirth and the formation of the Northern Alliance and it would appear that generally the Undead are working to undermine the Northern Alliance. This campaign takes place simultaneously with Dead Water, which appears to have a much stronger storyline.

I feel that what this scenario needs is an artifact of some sort which all the four factions want to deal with the Undead which would give a credible reason for the conflict. As this is an intermediate campaign you could perhaps promote the add on campaigns by referring to some distant faction such as the Khalifate or Aragwaithi such as a book or even an oracle which confers greater arcane powers on the faction who gets it.

The Aragwaithi are very similar to the Elves (from what I understand between human and elf) and also use arcane attacks. You could have a conflict based on the end of a race for a spell book left by the Aragwaithi which confers better magical powers on whichever faction gets the book, e.g. Elves get Sprites, Orcs get Troll Shamen, Dwarves get Runemasters and for Gweddry's forces say Dacyn gets the ability to summon Eagle Riders (a bit weaker than Gryphons but a flying unit which deals impact damage).

This would make this scenario far more important, give the whole campaign a better sense of purpose and.. much better than picking up yet another Holy Amulet gives the player a new unit costing 23 gold. Dacyn could be his same mysterious self not telling either Gweddry or Owaec much about this artifact until the start of the scenario (which is also kept secret from the other factions and characters such as Volas, the Dwarves in the caves, etc).

I got the idea of giving Dacyn the power to summon Eagle Riders from the Barbarians in one of the MP factions (Goblin Warbanners have this ability to summon Roc Riders which appear next to the Warbanner). This would keep the castle tiles free from recruiting Eagle Riders, which have a beak attack and a prey crush (impact) of 17-2 (attack only) and like the Warbanners Dacyn would only be able to summon them if he had not used any movement turns on his turn (the Eagle Rider would start from the next turn).

This wouldn't give you however that big an advantage. Eagle Riders wouldn't be helpful in the following next scenarios such as Lake Vrug and Captured (except perhaps to either soften up or finish off Troll Whelps) as they would be torn apart by the Gryphons which would dominate any aerial battle. However they would be useful perhaps in later scenarios, particularly against bats, Dark Adepts and Skeletons.

This is just a suggestion.
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flammstrudel
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by flammstrudel »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.10.3 hard (Challenging - Royal Guard)
251 gold

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Avoiding unnecessary losses is the only challenge. The enemies are too spread out to be dangerous. The hardest part was probably killing the dwarf. Overall very easy.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
It's a little bit too long. Once you defeated the dwarf (and even that fight isn't particularly thrilling) it's just a tedious clean-up operation. 5/10

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
More gold for all opponents. I don't really care about the storyline, but this one is really contrived.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
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taptap
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by taptap »

Piecemeal fighting in the plains is easy, but being forced to go against an unknown number of rangers, avengers in a forest, eww. I killed the dwarf, the elves got the orc, then went to the elves. A lot experience.
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
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Inky
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by Inky »

(1) Level and version? Hard, 1.12.4, 257 starting gold
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 5
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Fine.
(5) Challenges? Elves in the forest, killing the Dwarf leader.
(6) Fun? (1-10) 8
(7) Changes? -
(8) Restarts? None.

Finished turn 14/32, leveled a bunch of mages.
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shadow12
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by shadow12 »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Med.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10
3
(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? Ok.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Being able to kill any units myself, by the time I got to the fighting they had killed off most of each other's army. (Darn!)
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Move the fighting closer so I can get in the midst of it.
Sometimes life unexpectedly throws a Troll or a nasty Queen Naga in your path.
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revolting_peasant
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by revolting_peasant »

The walkthrough says this level offers another holy amulet - supposedly between one of the Orc keeps and the Dwarven keep. Yet - I don't see it anywhere! Could it be in some village? Or hidden rather than out in the open? Or was it removed from the scenario by now (v1.13)?
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zookeeper
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by zookeeper »

revolting_peasant wrote:The walkthrough says this level offers another holy amulet - supposedly between one of the Orc keeps and the Dwarven keep. Yet - I don't see it anywhere! Could it be in some village? Or hidden rather than out in the open? Or was it removed from the scenario by now (v1.13)?
Yeah, it was removed, although it looks like that might be just another mistake and not intentional. I'll look into that too.
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revolting_peasant
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by revolting_peasant »

I wonder, then, how come the Walkthough says it's updated for 1.12 when it clearly isn't. This is the second error I'm reporting in the forum, and I've already edited out a bunch of scenario strategy suggestions which are based on the way things were in versions 1.6 or 1.8, a l-o-n-g time ago. Hmph.
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zookeeper
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by zookeeper »

revolting_peasant wrote:I wonder, then, how come the Walkthough says it's updated for 1.12 when it clearly isn't. This is the second error I'm reporting in the forum, and I've already edited out a bunch of scenario strategy suggestions which are based on the way things were in versions 1.6 or 1.8, a l-o-n-g time ago. Hmph.
Well this one and the bonus/carryover problems were in 1.13 only, no? But other than that, sure, it's more likely than not that the wiki walkthroughs are outdated at any given time. :whistle:
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revolting_peasant
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Re: Scenario Review - EI: Xenophobia

Post by revolting_peasant »

Being outdated is ok, but having a notice saying "up to date for version 1.12" is not ok. What you just said mitigates this, though; I had assumed these weren't 1.13 gaffes but rather than earlier work on the campaign caused them.
LordWolfDan
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 10 - Xenophobia

Post by LordWolfDan »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?

- 1.14.5, Easy

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

- 6

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

- Easy peasy

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

- It's pretty fun. I like how no one trusts each other and everyone goes ape-sh*t, causing this pretty fun scenario.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

- Dealing with elves as they have 30-40% of defense in forests

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

- 9

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

- As I said about the ideas of having a loyal dwarf ally in scenario 2 and loyal elvish ally in scenario 4, I might imagine some kind of dialogue between the loyal elf/dwarf with either of their kins, but hopeless. All in all, nothing much to change.
Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review - EI 9 - Xenophobia

Post by Konrad2 »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?

Hard, 1.14.6

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


3

(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. But not interesting.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Doing nothing for the first few turns.

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

4

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

-
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