05 - The Saurian Treasury

Feedback for the mainline single-player campaign Legend of Wesmere.

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paul_ik
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by paul_ik »

I want to say thanks to the authors of this scenario.
On hard, with minimum gold (if I remeber correctly it was 200) it was a really tough mission. It took 5-6 attempts to get through, but never the gameplay was annoying.
Saurians are great, demand unique tactics with compact positions. Playing with no reloads the blunders are easy to make with lonely skirmisher sneaking past front lines and killing main character. Combined with scenario's small turn limit this leads to challenging gameplay.
So what were my attempts.
Most of the time I tried to recall high level units from previous scenarios (3lvl archers, fighters), adding a couple of Cleodil's units just because I had money left. With this approach I first tried to go forward and kill leaders. No need to say this was a complete failure. Saurians swarming and killing my units easily.
Then I tried to keep my small army in forest, this time I hold against saurians with minimal loses. But when the wave of enemies was cleared I had no time to kill leaders. I tried this strategy in different variations until I finally gave up on it. This was a real disappointment.
But then I tried woses-all-in strategy (just for fun): spent all money on woses. So I got 8 woses, 1lvl Kalenz, 3lvl Sharpshooter Landar, Cleodil, loyal 1lvl fighter. Seemed like a [censored] army, not capable of delivering any damage, when compared to my previous variants. I sent 3 woses to the north forest to distract some forces and possibly kill north leader. The rest of the army went to south part of the forest. Interesting, but main enemy forces ignored my woses commando squad (even though I moved them out of forest) and head directly to my main army. "Here we go, another reload" was my initial thought. Stand against this ridiculously large amount of lizards with only 5 woses and a couple of main characters seemed impossible. But I managed to do this without losing anyone! There were some lucky moments, but the main point was that the western forest is large enough to allow to block skirmishers from reaching damaged units. Leveling woses helped a lot with healing them. While this epic battle occured my woses commando went directly to north leader. Some battles occured with decent lizard forces, but woses managed to kill north leader. I had 5 turns left to kill south leader with main wave of saurians dead. This part was relatively easy, thanks to leader coming out to meet us. I finished the scenario on turn 16.

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.10.2, Hard

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
The way to complete sceario by stealing treasure is unclear. At first I've thought that moving my unit on treasure tile is sufficient. Then I've thought that any unit can carry treasure to the sign (I really refused to believe I need scout for this). Maybe the goals stated in the description are ok in english, but in my locale (russian) it simply states something like "enter the treasury and take money", without any mention of scout until I actully do enter the treasure. There is a slight hint from Cleodil at the start but that is not enough. And by the way is it really possible to steal treasure on hard?

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The dialogs are minimal but sufficient

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

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8, nice scenario where you really have to think

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make better description of objectives, make treasure stealing easier to accomplish

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Most of the time running out of turns, sometimes losing main character
fabi
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by fabi »

paul_ik wrote:...
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make better description of objectives, make treasure stealing easier to accomplish
Noted,
thank you for the feedback.
goblin
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Joined: June 23rd, 2013, 8:51 pm

Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by goblin »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
hard, 1.10.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10. Hardest scenario I came across so far.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Pretty clear, although after reading the forums I didn't even attempt to take the gold. But the scenario now gives a hint that it's pretty hard to carry it.

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Way too many saurian skirmishers. They totally change the rules of the game by avoiding ZoC. I just couldn't defeat them in any way after 5 attempts of playing the scenario properly. I reverted to save/load to favour my fights. I sent out two squads of woses mixed with rangers (three woses and a ranger to the top leader, two woses and a ranger to the bottom one). The top squad did OK, the bottom one lost a ranger due to an accidental ambush. I ended up hitting all 4 attacks with woses against the leader, by the well-tested mechanism of save/load.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5. Neutral about fun. It's just very hard.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Give the top leader fewer squares to recruit and/or less gold. There's just so many saurians that no matter what you do they'll surround you. The terrain is not favourable and there's no way I could maintain any sort of line of defense.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Yeah. Getting surrounded and killed off by saurians, as above.
WanderingHero
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by WanderingHero »

I think this scenario might be too hard on hard, its a giant difficulty spike, and even when i finished the last scenario on turn 12, i still only entered this one with the minimun of 200 gold.....
Ninjamestari
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Ninjamestari »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.10.7 Hard
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Not very hard, maybe 5, but only because I happened to read this thread and found out about the mass wose strategy.
I'll try to not read guides in the following missions unless they're extremely difficult.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear, but I didn't realize there are only 2 leaders you need to kill. The one guarding the gold doesn't count.
It was a pleasant surprise because I don't think I could have beaten the time limit otherwise.
(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?
Losing everyone the first time I tried to rush to the gold with elvish forces.
This try went better because I had woses but still lost a loyal unit, can't bother replaying it to keep him.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
It was ok, not very fun but not bad either. 6/10
Might have been better if I didn't just camp in my forest most of the time but that seemed like a good strategy.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Trying to rush to the gold.
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Maiklas3000
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) Level, version, and gold? Hard, 1.11.15, 200 starting gold (the minimum.)
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 9 initially, 7 once you figure out you need to go heavy on Woses.
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Fine.
(5) Challenges? Keeping every loyal alive is by far the biggest challenge. I just couldn't do it until I recruited 6 Woses instead of 3. Then it was relatively easy. I won by transporting the gold, with no time to spare, though I could have done it a turn earlier if I had planned better. I would have killed the northern leader if my archer bait had survived the attacks from that leader's last two recruits. (The bait died, so the leader didn't come out.)
(6) Fun? (1-10) 8.
(7) Changes? As it is, the player kills most of the Saurians, and then it's a race against time to get the gold to the signpost or else kill the last leader. So, the ending is not all that interesting, because it's more of matter of whether you can move the distance in time than whether you have a strategy. I think it would be more interesting if the gold had to be stolen and taken away during a fighting retreat. If you want to try that, then maybe give a lot less starting gold and move the treasury south, close to the forest. That will also make the northern leader almost undefeatable, which is good if you want to encourage moving the gold.
(8) Restarts? A lot of restarts from start due to death of loyals. No save-reloads.
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Inky
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Inky »

Original post (version 1.10.4)
Spoiler:
(1) Level and version? Hard, 1.12.4, 195 starting gold
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 9, mostly due to time pressure
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Fine.
(5) Challenges? Turn limit is very tight.
(6) Fun? (1-10) 7
(7) Changes? Seems fine as is.
(8) Restarts? one (to beginning) due to losing Landar.

Strategy: Mass woses is definitely the easy way to beat this. In my replay I get an opportunity to kill the southern saurian early (with some luck) so I go for it.
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Elfarion
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Elfarion »

I played on 1.12.5 the first time today and levelled Huraldur, a loyal scout to mounted archer. He survuved the battle but is'nt recalled in later scenarios. I took a look at the files, but since I'm not that familiar with WML I could'nt find an obvious mistake. Any tips?
"Each of mankind's steps towards tomorrow is a breaking of today's laws."
- Sergej Lukianenko
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Inky
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Inky »

Elfarion wrote:I played on 1.12.5 the first time today and levelled Huraldur, a loyal scout to mounted archer. He survuved the battle but is'nt recalled in later scenarios. I took a look at the files, but since I'm not that familiar with WML I could'nt find an obvious mistake. Any tips?
That's a bug with the horse archer unit (https://gna.org/bugs/index.php?23883) since apparently they weren't supposed to be included in the campaign.

I guess the best thing to do for now is to just level all your scouts into riders.
Caladbolg
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Caladbolg »

(1) Level and version?
1.12.5, medium.

(2) Difficult? (1-10)
7.5. Because saurians.

(3) Objectives?
Clear. One small nitpick: mention that you can only take the gold with the scouts. It's noted in the dialog but it's still a good idea to have it in the objectives as well.

(4) Dialog?
I like it though I'm a bit confused by what Kalenz says at the end of the scenario about returning to Wesmere: "The Saurians will likely be infesting the direct route, so we will detour to the north." But they just arrived by the direct route so how is it suddenly infested to the point that they can't use it to go back?

(5) Challenges?
Keeping loyal units safe and dealing with skirmirshers. Augurs weren't much better- I always thought of them as really weak and borderline useless units but this scenario proved me wrong. I was also slightly down on the luck which didn't help either.

(6) Fun? (1-10)
6.5. Slightly less than the previous scenario as this one was a touch more frustrating.

(7) Changes?
Maybe add more swamps? On the big map, this area is a part of a huge swamp and this doesn't seem really swampy when you look at it, it's more of a desert-forest mishmash. Though that would make the scenario harder so I'm not sure...

(8) Restarts?
Nope.

Strategy: divide army in 2 to deal with both armies at the same time. Maybe not the brightest choice as going all out on the southern leader would probably be better. If there are too many skirmirshers that could get to the wounded units, throwing some fodder at them is sometimes better than forming lines for protection. Rangers retreat to forests when attacked, marksmen pick off skirmirshers, woses crush whatever is nearby.

Details:
-on the 1st turn recalled lvl2 units and recruited some fighters; Cleodil recalled/recruited woses; on the 2nd turn recalled lvl1 units with high xp and recruited more fighters in hopes of getting some captains- alas, it was not meant to be- they mostly ended up as sacrifices; Cleodil recalls a druid and gets another wose and a shaman and all my leaders head into the battle; half the army goes N, half S; some initial village-grabbing
-on the 3rd turn we get the first contact with enemy units on both fronts

-turn 4, N: my ranger leaves the forest to kill a saurian so I put out 4 fighters on the plain as better targets; 2 of them get killed but saurians decide to go after my ranger instead of the other 2; one skirmirsher fortunately misses all 4 hits on the ranger so others decide their efforts are better spent elsewhere
-turn 5, S: 2x archer->ranger; one fighter is sent closer to the enemy as sacrifice and/or to lure out the enemy leader (he succeeds and dies);
-turn 5, N: my 2 high xp woses fail to kill an ambusher, leaving him on low hp; however I need other units elsewhere so I can't finish him off; fortunately, I realised that a shaman from the southern front can reach him and kill him, thus getting her a lot of unplanned xp ^_^ (she gets attacked later but lives)
--- a wounded ranger retreats west, an elvish hero close to advancing acts as a deterrent and a druid gets a kill; as she's in the forest I expected that she'll be attacked by augurs (higher hit rate) and she'll slow them in return; there are also 2 fighters left as bait; I was slightly wrong but the outcome is the same- fighters died and the druid lived

-turn 6, S: I lower the hp of one saurian and then finish him with the shaman from before, advancing her into a sorceress; most of the enemies are gone; loyal sorceress is in slight danger but I have a low hp fighter next to her- he'll die for the greater good (it's totally voluntary though :whistle: );
-turn 6, N: 3 augurs gang up on my wose, hitting 9/9 times and evaporating him even though he had full hp; Note to self: don't underestimate them
-turn 7: on the S I try to kill the leader with Kalenz but he fails and is reduced to 6 hp so a sorceress gets the kill; on the N my loyal hero becomes a champion and one pesky saurian evades 4 hits from the woses and 4 hits from a marksman (!) :x ; both woses advance as they needed 1 xp

-turn 8: on the S a scout fights a skirmirsher and neither of them gets any hits; S army is gone, as well as most of the N one
-turn 9: S, sorceress kills a flanker in the treasury, advancing to an enchantress; scout takes the gold; everyone moves north
-turn 12: on the previous turn, the N leader came out so I surround him and attack with units that could use xp before finishing him with a sorceress

Stats: starting gold 885, ending gold 692, villages 29/29, income 29, recruited 9, recalled 9, advanced 7, lost 7, killed 31, -3% dmg dealt, +3% dmg received
Slightly bad luck overall and I didn't manage to advance any fighters into captains but my lvl2 units are all safe.
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devavrata
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by devavrata »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Battle for Wesnoth 1.8.3, Easy/Medium, Battle for Wesnoth 1.10.7 Hard.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8
(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?
7
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The combination of skirmishers and unfavourable terrain. First time I took this level on easy, it was an ugly surprise.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6 - Constantly fearing for the fate of your best unit is not much fun.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Saurians are too powerful. They're fast, they've many attacks and they deal a lot of damage in each attack. Too much.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
-
troomar
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by troomar »

(1) Level and version? High Lord (Challenging), no reloads. Version 1.13.6.
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 10.
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? I don't mind the dialogues.
(5) Challenges? To realize it doesn't matter where you fight. Saurians are overpowered, they have 60% defense almost everywhere, half of them are skirmishers, the second half are mages / healers. It's basically impossible to hold the line against them, so the strategy is almost non-existent. And definitely not fun. They also have good resistances and elves are inefficient against them, so the only strategy was a stream of wooses. Ok, not fun, but manageable if you know that mages are your primary target. Then the number of turns (18) and villages. It's impossible to steal the villages, Saurians are fast (with skirmish ability) and powerful. So you cannot break the flood of enemies from southern leader. Also the number of turns does not give you any tactical possibilities, the game ends when you survive the first wave. I won the map by recruiting only wooses. I sent all wooses to the wood in the north and two Avengers to the south (the are invisible in wood) to assassinate the south leader.
(6) Fun? (1-10) -10. Fighting Saurians is simply not fun.
(7) Changes? Give me more turns or lower the income of southern leader.
(8) Restarts? Uncountable. I also had to reload few turns to kill the southern leader in time. I wanted to quit the campaign at this point, but somehow I finished the map and moved on.
Puscifer
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Puscifer »

I'm not sure if my game is buggy or not, but I was under the impression that you can recruit shamans and Woses from this point onward since I rescued Cleodil.

However my game only allows me to recruit archers, fighters, and scouts :(

I'm playing 1.12.6 if that matters
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Poison
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Re: V1.9/1.10 - 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Poison »

Puscifer wrote:I'm not sure if my game is buggy or not, but I was under the impression that you can recruit shamans and Woses from this point onward since I rescued Cleodil.

However my game only allows me to recruit archers, fighters, and scouts :(

I'm playing 1.12.6 if that matters
You have to move Cleodil to the encampment keep tile (the one where Kalenz starts). She will do the recruiting.

Edit: Or from her own keep, if she has one. I don't remember the scenario well.
Hestelvar
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Re: 05 - The Saurian Treasury

Post by Hestelvar »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.14.5
Solider (Easy)
Starting Gold 866
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5. I barely recruited and took my time.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Perfectly clear, until I picked up the treasure - then I had to search the map carefully for the signpost.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline of the scenario?
I know “authentic” Elvish dialogue is total subjective, but I found this a little off.
Examples:
1. "Elvish scouts found the trail of the Saurian war party without difficulty. The way back to the saurians’ treasury was clear..." Is a verbose version of “Burdened by plunder the Saurian war party were easily tracked to their treasury...”
2. “...Guard me while I bring the pillage home.” Is this diliberate? Pillage is the sort of word I’d expect an orc to use.
3"...to do so is to invite defeat in detail." In detail looks awkward and unnecessary.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Patience. Keeping a solid line. Forcing Saurians to attacked from unfavourable terrain.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6.
(7) What, if any, are the changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Rather than give the Saurians keeps, start with a group clustered defensively around the treasure and have reinforcement appear at the edges of the map at intervals. This would remove the rather predictable defeat all enemies victory condition.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Losing Loyal/Royal units due to reckless positioning.
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
N/a
Remarks:

Why don’t the Saurians use the stolen gold for recruitment? For there own version of Landar’s thunder-stroke. I think this requires an explanation: either remove the possibility of Saurian recruitment as above or Cleodil could explain that it will take some time the Saurians to break the enchantment which prevent anyone but an elf using their gold.
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