"Birth of a Knalgan Alliance" First Scenario

[Guolin]

Here is "Raid on Bitok", the first scenario of my campaign in progress, Birth of a Knalgan Alliance. Since I'm currently focusing on quality rather than on speed, I only have this one scenario finished, although I do have a very detailed plan of the campaign's plot and mechanics. Due to the unique victory conditions of this scenario, I am in dire need of playtesting for difficulty and loopholes. Is it easy enough for a first scenario? Is it too hard to complete without losing a unit? Is it too easy to complete if you don't care about losing units? Is there a very easy and surefire way to complete the scenario that I did not intend? Does the dialogue take away too much from gameplay? Does the dialogue make sense? These are just some of the questions that I would like to have answered.

Please feel free to respond with constructive critcism, problems with the campaigns, comments on certain areas - basically, anything that I may need to fix. Although praise would encourage me to continue this campaign, it does not help me refine and enhance this campaign. Also, if you're not sure why a certain unit behaves a certain way, and you skipped some the dialogue, then please check the dialogue first before asking me why that certain unit is acting weird.

Thank you in advance!

[Shakeshake]

Played the scenario on normal. It seemed pretty straightforward/easy--the villagers were easy to fight and only a few orcs arrived before I collected 150 gold. I wouldn't say it was too easy, but neither was it that challenging (I didn't lose any units, although the peasants came close to killing a couple). I couldn't think of any sneaky ways to beat the scenario--capturing villages seems to be the only way to get gold, so there's not really a lot of options there.
I did think it a little odd that the "orc" villagers looked like human peasants, so if you can find something more orc-like to substitute in for them it would help(I think I've seen goblin sprites elsewhere that could probably pass for orcish villagers)
I think it is a promising start! I am looking forward to seeing more!

[Guolin]

Thanks for the response! What would have made the scenario challenging without being too frustrating? I wanted it to be possible to keep all units, but only if played correctly. Would it still be fun if I increased the orcs' income so that the player must strategically maneuver to prevent being destroyed by the orcs?

Also, I'll definitely take a look around for some decent sprites. I'm not much of an artist, although I could probably frakenstein some orc heads on the peasants when I have the time. I'd really appreciate it iff you know anyone that's good with sprite artwork.

[Shakeshake]

The orcs recruited plenty of units to pose problems, most of them simply didn't arrive before I had gotten 150 gold.
Rather than increasing the orcs' income, I would suggest increasing the amount of gold required to win, decreasing the player's income, or just making it a "survive x # of turns" scenario (this might seem like it makes less sense story wise, because as bandits one would think they would just flee at the first sign of trouble, but you could have them say something to the effect of "Ok men, let's see how much loot we can find in x # of turns/days.")

I will say I was worried when I killed the one orc's wife/love interest and he seemed to upgrade out of rage before killing himself. I think having him upgrade and rush back to the village for revenge instead of killing himself, would be another way to make things more difficult. I think it would be a fun challenge that makes sense with the character you set up through his dialogue, although I imagine some players might see it as an unwelcome surprise. It could also play into the characters second thoughts about killing the villagers in the ending--seeing someone, even an orc enemy, so affected by the villagers' death would likely have an impact on the leader of the bandits.

[Guolin]

You make some great points! I will play around with the variables and test it out. My only and main concern is this: what strategy would you use to hold out against the orcs if, say, you needed more gold to advance and therefore need to hold out a couple more turns? Would you resort to recruiting more units to throw at the orcs so that your loyal units are safe? Or would you just retreat? If you had the time, it would be awesome if I could see some replays of you playing it on maybe hard difficulty, but if you're playing other campaigns or multiplayer, I completely understand.

And yes, that was my original plan, but I soon found that a level 3 enemy in the first scenario (when you have all level 1's, of course) is not a great idea. However, that should be an excellent idea for hard difficulty. It would make playing on hard that much challenging and interesting.

Thanks once again for your insightful comments!

EDIT: I've modify the campaign to make the level 3 orc to stay in HARD difficulty, complete with many lines of conditional dialogue, depending on who the level 3 orc kills, and modifications to the upgrading animation: