Swamp Witch Curse: A Faerie Tale from the world of Four Moon

[Turuk]

Has everyone gotten stumped again or have you all given up on the campaign for being hopelessly boring?

Out of town visiting family since Thursday, so that's my excuse for not gettin any more scenarios in lately. Have no fear, starting again on this campaign is at the top of my Wesnoth list once I get back.

[Crow_T]

I'm playing on "easy."
first scenario took me 26 turns to beat, it was much comedic stealing of each others villages.

Spoiler:

The second one has those berserk lizard-y guys who do 1 damage but you can't hit them- anyway to make it less like that? There is a lot of time spent watching these guys and my guys do basically nothing

[Velensk]

I suppose that's less of an issue for me as I always have the animations very accelerated but I can see how it'd be annoying. I don't really know what to tell you there other than to speed them up for the scenarios that use them. Alternatively, if you don't want to do that and don't plan on playing EoFM multiplayer you could modify your copy so that they have +50% hp and 20% lower defenses for similar effect.

@Rajier thanks for pointing that out. I'll get that in the patch with all the other fixes as soon as this set of playtesters gets through.

[hebetude]

I made some progress. Like a challenge? Yeah. I think hard campaigns are supposed to be punishing. If they're not tedious, or overwhelmingly hard, it can be fun for a long time. I reached the finale here, tried it once, and it's scary. I need to stop and think about it for a while. No, it is not hopelessly boring.

I wasn't confident about giving any feedback at all, but after scenario 6 I couldn't resist and I said something. Well, now, I'll try to say more. Hard level, with as much restarting as it takes.

Spoiler:

I had pretty much the same experience as Turuk with scenario 1: I tried and failed to hold the pass a few times; then moved everything north, and that worked. I think this is just right.

Scenario 2 was interesting and fun. Restarted once. I was also surprised by the win condition, even though the objectives spell it out.

Scenario 3 gave me a little trouble. What worked was to take all of the allied villages and let the ally take a lot of abuse.

I already said some things about struggling with scenario 4. Apparently, I missed a good plan. I never thought to form a line around the Roc, so I did most of the fighting around the 14, 13 village.

I already mentioned scenario 5, too.

Eventually survived scenario 6. I backed up to scenario 5, played it carefully for experience, and made better plans. There were lots of veteran deaths, a couple of them very sloppy. The map was nearly empty by turn 20, save for the base defenders. Won on turn 30, could have won faster, received huge gold. Okay... (The "turn 3 win" gambit succeeded one more time, when I wasn't looking for it. After that, I swore off the unreasonable, aggressive placement that allows it to happen. I suspect it's too easy to scum for a win this way.)

Scenario 7 was plain easy. I think I over-recruited. Most of the fighting occurred in the southeast corner of the map, outside of the forest.

Scenario 8, I lost on the first try, under-recruited. Second try worked, using more troops. Is the enemy supposed to recruit only level 1s here? The last two maps have felt much easier than the early ones. They felt too easy for a hard campaign in general. To be frank, I wonder if somehow I downloaded the wrong campaign files. The difference is that stark.

I have no clue what to do about scenario 9.

I don't want to be arrogant or anything. I'm not a great player, maybe not a good player. But I like struggling, I've finished a few hard campaigns, and I have some slight idea of what a good one feels like.

P.S. I see a reference to Zask and 2 references to Maknaz in the utils/ directory. I assume these names were changed later.

[Velensk]

Thanks for pointing out the names. You are correct. When I write the campaign I give everyone placeholder names. When I complete it I send it over to the woman who does the art and she alters the names to fit the setting better (it's her setting).

There's nothing arrogant about giving feedback (though you can certainly be arrogant while doing so).

Yes, the last scenario is pretty scary. Even on normal. Still, Kudo's for clearing scenario 6, that's my record for hard. The two scenarios after are quite intentionally easier than either it or the final one. They're to give you a feeling for the pygmies and give you a time to rebuild your stock of veterans. If I could think of a good way to make them harder without having them give out more experience points or being too annoying, I'd do it instantly. I maybe ought to make them harder anyway.

I don't particuarly like it when campaigns fall into the trap of having to send an even bigger army at you each scenario (Northern Rebirth being by far the most guilty contender).

[Turuk]

I don't particuarly like it when campaigns fall into the trap of having to send an even bigger army at you each scenario (Northern Rebirth being by far the most guilty contender).

cough This will be fixed... cough

Thanks for pointing out the names. You are correct. When I write the campaign I give everyone placeholder names. When I complete it I send it over to the woman who does the art and she alters the names to fit the setting better (it's her setting).

I meant to mention this previously as well and apparently completely forgot, it showed up in some of the lose conditions for me in the objectives (the placeholder names), but I'm sure that's because you have it defined once somewhere and are just calling it each time.

[Velensk]

So, has everyone given up on this yet? Whether yes or no, should I lower the difficulty?

[Turuk]

So, has everyone given up on this yet? Whether yes or no, should I lower the difficulty?

Currently trying to get through S6 without losing my army.

S5
-Very easy to send Rocs down the side of the map, and assassinate the enemy leader
-Terrain favors player too heavily, perhaps a road cutting west-east towards the ford, allowing the Imperialists to get into the forest to cut off the player's units?
-Premise for attack at the beginning is a little flimsy

SWC-Mercenaries_replay.gz

(32.31 KiB) Downloaded 281 times

[Velensk]

For what it's worth, you can afford to lose the vast majority of your army on scenario 6. There is a rebuilding/grace period between that and the final scenario. Of course if you're playing through it the first time I guess you wouldn't know that. Then again, you did choose to play your first time through on hard.

As for scenario 5: I agree the excuse is a bit flimsy and could probably be written better. I am quite fine with it being easy to assassinate the imperialist leader (among other things it makes sense that your party would wish to find a solution which does not involve wasting their time or strength fighting mercenaries). That said, I also have no objection to making it slightly trickier to do so. In any event, it is important that the player should be able to finish the scenario with a massive gold bonus reliably.

[Velensk]

Did anyone actually finish this?

[SSDP]

I'm going to adopt the format used by maiklas3000 in the panther lord thread, except without the WML section because I have no understanding in that department.

S1 - Nomad Raiders
(1)What difficulty and version? Easy. BfW v 1.12.0. SWC v 1.0
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 7
(3) How clear? Very. The objectives refer to Liaram and Biasso by different names which made me do a double-take one late evening, but I understand you're already aware of this from reading the thread.
(4) Dialog? The intro was a good length and well written. I noticed through playing your campaigns that you don't have artwork attached to story segments, which I enjoy; reading them feels more like a novel and allows my imagination to take over.
(5) Challenges? Prior to this scenario, my experience with the era was confined to the four main factions. This campaign is obviously designed to showcase the extended factions, and so understanding them was a challenge throughout. A mirror match on preferred terrain was a good way to get to know the one I'd be controlling. Getting used to Liaram's curse was also challenging here and beyond, forcing me to rethink the shortand of troop movements one develops while playing Wesnoth.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8
(7) Changes? The "drainage ditch" swamp tile on the road seems a little out of place. Not thematically, just in colour. I'd recommend changing it to the brown one.
(8) Restarts? one in order to figure things out. One more after noticing Liaram can recruit
(9) Game summary? My first attempt involved Liaram charging in and getting slaughtered as I derped around reading unit descriptions. The second was defined by a late realization of Liaram's ability to recruit, leading to the third and successful attempt. Liaram charged off northwards with two village-grabbing camel-riders, while biasso recuited a mix of everything heading towards the mountain gap. things got rough in the south, but by the time Liaram's reinforcements arrived the tide was already turning.

S2 - The Witch Appears
(1)What difficulty and version? Easy. BfW v 1.12.0. SWC v 1.0
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 9
(3) How clear? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Short but to the point.
(5) Challenges? Poison. I had managed to acquire a mufti during the first scenario, but even with him and an abundance of villages the poison was hard to manage due to the freeman's lack of scorpion-killing options outside melee.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 5
(7) Changes? As mentioned earlier by Crow_T, the berserkers are annoying to watch. they're cool, but not fun. I normally play at 2x speed and found myself frequently switching between that and 16x, which in itself became more annoying than just enduring it at 2x. As much as I like the unit on principle, I suggest removing it from the campaign entirely.
(8) Restarts? Several.
(9) Game summary? I recruited a keep o' camels in all attempts, followed mostly by aristocrats and sand walkers once I knew what was coming. I took many casualties amongst the forces that actually fought, and one try even ended with Biasso eating sand. Eventually I was able to walk the line between fighting and village grabbing long enough for the camels to win the day, though another turn would have proven that attempt a failure also due to my recklessness with Liaram. Basically, I got lucky here. In retrospect, this scenario is a breeze compared to "Return of the Witch".

S3 - Mountain Pass
(1)What difficulty and version? Easy. BfW v 1.12.0. SWC v 1.0
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 7
(3) How clear? Very.
(4) Dialog? Biasso says "Do you know why hey are attacking".
(5) Challenges? My first encounter with Dalemen outside PL's "feral three".
(6) How fun? (1-10) 9
(7) Changes? None.
(8) Restarts? one due to not protecting my flank. Another after protecting it too much.
(9) Game summary? This scenario was a great intro to Dalemen. Watching miners get destroyed by shapeshifters, combined with shroud, gave it an almost horror movie atmosphere. The scenario itself was rather difficult only because I had no knowledge of dalemen, but after a couple restarts things were easy.

S4 - Magestic Should be "Majestic".
(1)What difficulty and version? Easy. BfW v 1.12.0. SWC v 1.0
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 7
(3) How clear? Very.
(4) Dialog? In the intro, Biasso narrates: "It happened, that during the journey something happened". I suggest changing it to "something occured".
(5) Challenges? Keeping camels alive in the face of pierce-heavy highlanders, especially Lion Warriors.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8
(7) Changes? None.
(8) Restarts? Just one surprisingly.
(9) Game summary? I read this thread prior to playing the campaign and was expecting a challenge here, but on easy it was just that. The enemy avoided Hod'norhussin entirely (not sure if intentional) and most of the fighting occured at the river. The defensive AI wasn't jumping at the chance to be slaughtered which led to heavy posturing on both sides a la dragonball, but a slow and steady advance ended well for everyone that wasn't a sand walker or camel. Restart came early upon discovery of the nearby keep.

S5 - Mercenaries
(1)What difficulty and version? Easy. BfW v 1.12.0. SWC v 1.0
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 2
(3) How clear? Very.
(4) Dialog? Good.
(5) Challenges? None really.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 6
(7) Changes? I agree with Turuk about a road in the forest - either east-west as he suggested or even north-south - to make things more interesting and challenging.
(8) Restarts? None.
(9) Game summary? I recalled the rocs and a couple nomads for assassination followed by spam walkers. A couple slingers were attracted by the hit squads' quick advance but they fell quickly, leaving the enemy leader fully exposed. This is the easiest scenario in an otherwise quite difficult campaign (even on easy), in stark contrast to the one that follows it.

This post is getting big so I'll save the back half for tomorrow.

[Velensk]

Swamp Witch Curse is up on 1.16

As always before republishing it I played through it again and I was relieved that I was able to get through most of it, including the final scenario without too many attempts though Betrayal had me stuck for awhile. Admittedly I've only played through it on normal which means that this is still my only campaign which I have not beaten on hard yet.