Oath of Allegiance [SP Desert People Campaign for 1.13.5]

[ahmannar]

Thanks, will redo the Th'arwya level in that case before i pass the harbour xD.

Harbor of Th'arwya

Spoiler:

Difficulty: 6, only because wanted to level up the genie in this scenario and wanted to save some gold for more upgrades on th'rwya. Otherwise, it would be lower and, even then, it was fairly manageable to pass this level with no losses.
Dialog/story: The ally leader can die (as it happened in my replay) and, in that case, the final dialogue doesn't make much sense cause dawoud is giving a response to someone that doesn't exist anymore.
Some dialogue from the half djinn when a unit gets the genie out of the magical lamp could be good in here, like him asking for the help of it against the upcoming battle against the hordes of kesh, which have the power of the sphere with them, a force that will also endanger his life. Being informed with this, along with being in the presence of an half-djinn, the genie would lend his strength to the cause of the group.
Uthain could tell dawoud that he will finally be able to get the satisfaction to smash the plague that are the orcs, to which dawoud could answer that taking revenge on old enemies is irrelevant now, as the great khalid is could end the lifes of the orcs in a blink and these "quests" are merely giving more time for the poison of kesh to spread along the lands.
Upon defeating one of the ships, Nuvdael could shown uneasiness on the fact that he has been so much time away from his land and saying that he hopes no harm comes to the people of southwoods while he and ilriel are away.
Level of fun: 7, a nice and simple scenario that serves more to test how much the main units are leveled up until this point.
Major challenges: Not losing a unit on the left side of the battle, which was more fragile.
Restarts: 1, my genie died after he received too much beating when trying to level him up and had to restart the level.
Bug: No one.
Final statistics: 7 recalls, 4 advancements, 53 kills, 200 bonus gold.
Choice of AMLA: Since i'm not valuing drain and attacking in melle form with ilriel is mostly never a good idea, i was gonna get one of the other 2 AMLA. The ability to get slows is limited to 2 units until now, so the slow special seemed like a good option. I didn't get an heroic AMLA on her since i feel like, at this point, it takes too much exp to get the ultimate AMLA on her if i did that.

I got the unite option when i talked to whadet with the Genie-kabir, however the transformation failed and whadet joined my side normally without fusing with the genie, giving the following error:

[Kwandulin]

Ah, that's an unfortunate relict of moving the djinn-wahash from its own unit type to a variation of the wahash. Your dialogue suggestions are great, thanks for doing these!

[ahmannar]

I'm glad you're liking them, anything that i can do to help improve this awesome campaign is worth it I should be able to finish my play trough of the campaign until the end of this week. After that i'll see if i can help you in some other way.

EDIT: Don´t know if it's intentional but upon returning to the city, after doing the first side quest, the potion seller was no longer there.
Regarding a possible dialogue for whadet in case the player has him on the scenario "harbor of th'rwya", i would suggest for him to mock this new species that he's never seen before (the orcs) for their use of subterfuge to get into the port, saying that only the vile and weak of mind would resort to anything with the sole purpose of pillaging lands. He could conclude that the day he joined the player's group was a fated one, as it gave him the opportunity to purge such creatures from this world.

Sandthorn Pass

Spoiler:

Difficulty: 3, no matter the amount of saurians that is thrown at the player in this point of the campaign, the existence of 2 healer units and about 5/6 good tanking units is sufficient to make a wall that is impassable to the enemy. As you can see in my replay, i could hold on for much longer even if there were more enemies. Considering that 3 guaranteed units are good tanking ones if they are properly leveled up(dawoud, uthain and iskhandar), this level feels almost impossible to lose.
Dialog/story: If present, whadet could talk about a possible background reason that lead him to fight bare handed, related to the saurians. An example could be that the war against the three kings, in it's beginning, led to saurians being attracted to his village (because of them being hungry in a time where resources where scarce everywhere) and he failed to protect his friends when his hammer broke against the fearless assault. Alone and harmless, he had to force his way out of the carnage with his bare hands until he was out of reach.
Following this, azayn could answer that there's no harm on relying on others now, as he is doing after preying upon innocent people in his previous quest of survival. Whadet could say that only he can save himself from harm's way and that he won't make the same mistake again.
Uthain could then conclude with something like "Is this a good time to start bashing some vermins? I bet they have something shiny, those creepy bastards!!"
Level of fun: 3, i think this level is the one that is definitively most underdeveloped in the campaign. At the current time, there's nothing more to do than cycling units and standing still until the turns end. It feels like a cross check scenario also because, with the low amount of money one comes here after upgrading the army, there's only two outcomes posssible: either the player has good units to use this strategy or he doesn't and is beaten without mercy.
There could be made the argument that gold could be saved just to pass this scenario if there's no good units to hold the line but, if that's the case at this point of the campaign, then there's no way to pass the final scenario.
Major challenges: No one.
Restarts: 0.
Bugs: No one.
Final statistics: 7 recalls, 1 advancement, 28 kills, 31 bonus gold.

Th'rwya (battle scenario)

Spoiler:

Difficulty: 7, it requires some planning and being careful with units because of the spawn of the enemies. Even so, i would propose a change in here: you could reduce the amount of allies in this scenario (which would go along with the storyline of the army being away and only the personal guads being here, as well as sending a stronger message of the great khalid thinking the magical barrier can protect him from kesh) and increase the amount of enemies that come from the portals, but disabling them from attacking on the turn they spawn. This way there's an increase on enemy forces, but there's less risk of spawning skirmishers that can zap trough the lines and kill someone without warning.
Dialog/story: I think some words of encouragement and battle crys, which could be related to the main/ secondary characters, would be the most appropriat thing in here. Having a battle on a huge city like this it would help to achieve the feeling of "getting hyped up".
Level of fun: 8, could be even more without crazy skirmishers xP.
Major challenges: Being stubborn and forcing to pass this level with some bonus gold, while having to divide the army in tiny bits.
Restarts:2, too few units the first time and lost the sylph and 2 level 4 units the second time due to being rushed.
Bugs: There's a second whadat in this scenario, i guess it's something to do with the "unite" option having failed previously.
There's probably good reason to make an event that prevents the allies to step on the portals. The turn limit in here was highly amplified because one unit stepped on one portal and wouldn't move from there, as you can see on the replay.
The spear that explicitely says that can be used by wyvern riders and their advancements can not be equipped on them, while the others that don't say it can indeed be equipped on them, but don't give any increase on damage.
Final statisticas: 14 recalls, 6 advancementes, 64 kills, 61 bonus gold.
Choice of AMLA: Since the most dangerous enemies on this campaign are melle heavy and i already have 3 units with slow, i decided to give more attacks to whadat.

This "mini arc" consisting of the side quests and this last scenario are the ones that i would say that need more work/that need something else to be more interesting compared to the rest of the campaign. While this level and the one of the harbor can easily be resolved with more enemies/less allies/tinkering values of gold on one or both sides, the level of the saurians is not quite on the same level as the rest of the campaign regarding the fun and tactical side of it. I was not sure if having too much allies and few enemies was the problem there, but i can safely say now that havig no allies there and having 2 times the number of enemies would probably not change the outcome of it. More important than difficulty, the strategy on that level will always be just rotate units while standing still because the corridor is too narrow for the saurians to pose any threat.

The Great Wall

Spoiler:

Difficulty: Around 5 or 6, it's not easy to break the initial ambush and the times when the mercenaries and the kesh forces collapse together, it might require a little bit of formation planning. However, beyond that, there's not many enemies to face at the same time, they are somewhat scarce around the map. I would suggest to increase the number of enemies coming down the broken wall and, when entering through the broken wall, the personal guards of the enemy leader could spawn around the castle in order to protect him. I suggest this because the last 10/15 turns have hardly any action and are just moving units to the end point (of course this would also come with the need of increasing largely the turn limit).
Dialog/story: There fact that only until the 2 turn the player can recruit should be hinted in the initial dialogue with something like "We need to pass trough the portal quickly before it closes permanently and we're trapped in here with these "beasts" " . This could be said by ilriel/dawoud/any other character and it would also foreshadow the fact that the player doesn´t have too much time to recruit/recall.
It would be a good place for the enemy leader to be affiliated with azayn in some way (like having been the one who tried to recruit him and his comrades to Kesh's side) and having azayn wanting to kill him for the pain/harm that he has caused in his life. This could be further transformed in an optional objective that would be hard to achieve if someone wanted to do it (having some extra guards that would not leave his side, something like hurasch) and the reward could be something that would make him stronger.
At the sight of the mercenaries, whadat could express his disdain for their way of living, saying that he'll gladly send them to the earth's guts.
Nuvdael could express his insecurities regarding the large forces that kesh still has at their disposal, even with their main army far away, and that they should hasten themselves before they are encircled from all sides by opposition, to which Ilriel could say that, no matter the obstacles they face, they must prevail like they did so many times before in the desert and in wesnoth (possible reference to their life before the time of this campaign).
Level of fun: 7, with more forces sent to the player in a continuous way (while not being overwhelmingly large), this can be even better and have no dead times.
Major challenges: Not falling too much behind in terms of time and getting that dammed spear at the end. Poor spear...
Restarts: 0.
Bugs: Ibn khazul starts this scenario as it being the first time he is playable (0 exp). Considering that he was in the group in a previous scenario, that's a potential number of exp wasted on him and, in my case, a whole AMLA wasted.
I don't really think the ability "fortify" is working at all. I tested the number of attacking a mercenary with the melee attack of Nuvdael in the situations of being near a maequil or away from him. In both situations, he would receive 14 damage per attack, which doesn't seems right if the +10% resistance to all attacks is being applied.
Final statistics: 6 recalls, 36 kills, 161 bonus gold.

Uzar the Betrayer

Spoiler:

Difficulty: 4, there should be a substantial amount of level 3 enemies at this point of the campaign i think. The fact that the enemy doesn't have much gold and that the terrain can be easily used to hinder their movements also contributes to make this level easier than it could be.
Dialog/story: Maybe the fact that ridwan has an affiliation could be more hinted or foreshadowed? I didn't even remembered that he had a new sword given by iskandar but that may be to the fact that i'm not very good with memories.
What if something could happen with the people that are petrified? Maybe their spirits would be released from their corporeal forms(acting like enemy units are spawned from the statues) and be enslaved by the three kings? It would be a way to showcase the power that they/the sphere has over people, it would add an extra layer of complexity to the scenario and it could be eventually used in previous scenarios where they are featured. Seeing as the vizier was able to perform necromancy by the mere use of their power, it would also tie-in with the "cloud" river scenario.
At this point of the campaign of reaching it's end, i think it might be more difficult to come with ways to increase the dialogue of the characters without having long walls of text on each one. I'm also running out of ideas in here, i must confess that also xD.
Level of fun: 7, i think some kind of spawn like the one i mentioned would increase the strategy and fun factor of this level, as well as making sense from a story perspective, as the group is so near an artifact like the sphere, which has been said several times in the campaign to be a source of magic and power.
Major challenges: Not really anything in particular.
Restarts: 0.
Bugs: 0.
Final statistics: 5 recruits, 15 recalls, 2 advancements, 4 losses, 25 kills, 43 bonus gold.

Above the Stars and below Earth

Spoiler:

Difficulty: Not really applicable, it's similar to isanbar level where it's more like a development of the story and to so much of a playable scenario. However, in this case, i think that the player should have it's main units leveled up enough at this point that this can safely be transformed in a "real scenario" without fear of being unfair (considering this is also before the last level, it's reasonable to expect it). Considering what i've read on the campaign and from what i have understood from it, i'm giving here a wild suggestion: The three kings could resort to necromancy/some other kinds of invoking enemies trough magic in order to try to kill the group and the player could have access to some elementals/other kind of recruits that aren't evil(such as necromancy). I'll try to give some explanations for this suggestion in the dialogue part.
Dialog/story: The idea of having a "magic battle" would be a way to make this a battle scenario without having more humans fighting in it and to showcase the power that the sphere can generate. Since it can be used both for good and for evil (from what i have understood, although the influence of the three kings has caused it to be more malevolent), this could be a way to explore that side and show that the construct by itself isn't evil, it's the people that use it's power that can be evil. This use of it's power could be seen with different emotions and opinions from the group (azayn would probably not be happy with it, while ridwan wouldn't mind doing anything to get rid of the three kings, for example).
In order for this idea not be an obstacle to the fact that having the use of magic to be an extra difficulty on the last scenario (which surely is hard), there could be an explanation in here or in the last one that the release of the three kings must have sucked temporarily much of the power of the sphere and that this is the moment the group should use to defeat them, before they regain much of their power and become unstoppable.
Although whadar is an optional hero, couldn't he appear at least automatically in this scenario? It feels strange for every hero and commander unit to be here except him, poor guy.
Level of fun: Not really applicable in here, but potentially high. The setting (inside a magical construct) has potential for a scenario that has rules separated from the campaign and, given that only one more is to be done after this, balance wouldn't be a great factor (even more considering the mechanic of recall used in the last scenario). Even if you don't use my suggestion in here, there are more possibilities to explore.
Major challenges: Not really applicable in here.
Restarts: Not really applicable in here.
Bugs: Ridwan starts the scenario with no movement points.

Battle of Aeons:

Spoiler:

Difficulty: 6, although i lost many units in this scenario, the risk of losing the scenario was not really high since only half of my army died in here. Seeing as all of the player's recall list is recalled now (which didn't happened the last time i played it, if i remember it correctly), that might be a reason to increase the forces of the enemy on this scenario.
There's also the option of maintaining the state of this scenario while increasing the difficulty of previous scenarios that i have already given suggestions for that. The second part of the campaign is overall easier than the first part (as can be seen by the few number of losses that i had while reaching the finale) and that might be unintended.
Dialog/story: I think it's fine as it is, although i would make sure that every hero has some encouraging line in this one. I would just suggest to give some explanation on what has changed to make the heroes be able to get out of the sphere now, seeing as they couldn't do it immediately after ilriel.
Level of fun: Total slaughter of units on both parts is always nice to watch .
Major challenges: Not losing track of important units and putting them in harm's way.
Restarts: 0.
Bugs: The heroes (other than ilriel) start with the HP that they had on the last level. Don't know if this is intended to show that almost no time as passed, but i think that gameplay-wise this feels strange and produces some artificial difficulty with the need of healing them before the 2 armies clash.
Although it isn't stated in the objectives, killing the Three kings without anyone other than ilriel ledas to the player's defeat.
Choice of AMLA: Seeing as getting leadership with better leadership units available would be a waste of an AMLA in my opinion, i had the option of going for the berserk or the double attack AMLA on ridwan. Since there's no way to get a berserk-like unit other than him, i choose that AMLA.
Final statistics: 2 advancements, 32 losses, 57 kills.

I will put the replay of this last scenario in a new post, since i've reached the limit in here. I'll also post a general review in there. where i highlight the principal points that i think are important to be focused on to help improve the campaign.

[ahmannar]

General Campaign Review:

Spoiler:

Difficulty: 6, i would divide the campaign in two parts regarding this parameter:

1-> From the initial scenario up until the eye of the hurricane, there's a good balance between normal scenarios, hard scenarios and "breath" scenarios. Most of the time they are nicely switched on and there's not the feeling that a sequence of one of those 3 types happens too often. While i have given feedback that some of them could be harder or easier, the overall feeling that i get is that one balances the another;

2-> From the city of th'rwya until the finale, i feel like the difficulty lowers and there's not hard scenarios anymore, only normal scenarios and "breath" scenarios. While i have given some suggestions and opinions on each one of them, i feel that this is mainly from the fact that the quality of the player units is too good compared to the enemies at this point and there isn't a combination of variables that deters the player from adopting the strategy of recalling the best units and not losing units that way. For example, the scenario with the trolls and the evil djinn was a good away to prevent this method of playing, as it forced a special kind of units to be used and needed a high level of aggression to be passed. In contrast, most of the levels on the second part can be passed without hurries or, even if the turn limit is reached, it's not because of being pressured by the enemy (example of "the great wall" scenario). This is the part that largely affects my opinion of giving a 6 to this parameter, altough the fact that i have already played it before might influence this opinion.

Dialog/story: I think that the story that you wrote in here is very good. What may lack at the moment is character characterization, as well as some minor things that personally "annoyed" me (the group being able to get out of the sphere without no reason presented is a good example of this). Anyway i think this will be resolved with time and the story will become superb .


New units:
->The alternative advancement of the naffat is one of the best units in this category: good ability, nice numbers on the melee and ranged attack and have quite high hp for their level and type of unit;
-> I would say that, while the alqasir/his advancement have an interesting leveling system, being introduced mid way trough campaign makes them less desired to be recruited exactly because of it. If someone can keep 1 of the level 2 alive, there's not really much incentive to use exp to get the alternative advancements on them, as their power ups aren't really efficient on them.
-> The masun and it's advancements are highly useful. Having a good tanking unit that doesn't kill anything that closes on it is good when there's a need to hold a line and the skirmisher one is like a saurian on steroids, which is awesome in my book.
-> While the calik seems like a good addition to the player army, his advancement is not really good and feels like a waste of exp,even more considering the amount needed for him (75 exp). That amount for more 5 hp and 2 damage per hit doesn't justify the price paid for them in th'rwya. I would suggest giving something special to his advancement or just increasing some of the stats.
-> The qismat feels, in theory, like an awesome specialized unit to have. However, the fact that he can't advance to level 3, while being a unit with a high probability of killing it's targets when used correctly, makes me feel sad of buying them. Maybe an AMLA system like the one used for the alqasir would be a good option in here? Because this is the only assassin unit possbile tog et on the campaign, it would probably feel better in these also.
-> The wyvern riders are awesome with their high hp, poison and knocback. Wyverns for life.


Level of fun: I would probably give an 8 in here. I feel like previously i would have given a 9 when i played on normal, but when the campaign is replayed the second part of it feels much more easy than it should be and that affects the fun aspect of the campaign in a way.


Final comments: I noticed that the second part of the campaign has an overall lack of optional objectives. I have given suggestions in some of them already but, if you want more ideas regarding this matter, i would happily think of something more for the scenarios that you would be interested for this to happen.

If you are interested in talking about something in specific i will be happy to do it, since i have done almost everything that i can think to help your campaign. Good luck with your work in here .

[Kwandulin]

Thanks a lot for all your efforts and taking time for another playthrough! I will start applying the suggested changes at the end of the week/ beginning of the next week. As I don't have much time yet, I'll leave it at that for now and return to your posts when I'm working on these things. Thanks again!

[ahmannar]

I'll gladly discuss the suggestions with you when you have the time to look at them. Meanwhile i wrote this document while my memory is fresh so that i don't forget all of the secrets, loyals and items that exist in the campaign. Since you said you wanted to write a guide for the people that wanted to see them without look at the WML, i'll post mine here in case it can be useful to you.
If eventually you write such guide, i would suggest that you put it as an option to be seen while playing the campaign itself. LoTI by dugi has something like that, where the players can see the walktrough of the campaign while playing it in case they are stuck or are just curious. It has the advantage of being more accessible to the players and hard to miss it.

[Kwandulin]

That's really helpful, I'll use it as a base when writing the guide. Thanks!

[Sudipta]

I started playing the campaign and just finished the first scenario. It seems that the gold carryover system has a problem. The objectives say that 40% of gold carried over to the net scenario but when i won the fight it showed 80% carryover instead.

Spoiler:

Is this intentional or an error ? I personally like the 40% carryover system of adding to the starting gold, but if u intended it to be 80% then i'm all for it

[Kwandulin]

This isn't intentional. I've always thought that the gold_carryover is taken over from the [objectives] but apparently there's its own scenario level gold_carryover tag. I'll fix this, thanks for the note

[Sudipta]

The 40% gold carryover works fine in the next scenario though. S3 - Peril has 40% carryover just the way its intended.
Btw, i gave the item narfi dropped ( the one which reduces level up exp by 25 % ) to a loyal arif whom i plan to make a khalid. Was this wise or should i have given it to a hero instead ?

[Kwandulin]

Yes, whenever there is an [endlevel]-tag used, the correct carryover bonus is applied, there's just a few scenarios with a flawed carryover bonus.
In S5 you can find a strong item that should be given to Ilriel, giving the circlet to a loyal arif is totally fine.

[Sudipta]

Yes, whenever there is an [endlevel]-tag used, the correct carryover bonus is applied, there's just a few scenarios with a flawed carryover bonus..

I see..Well in S4 A Whisper In The Sands, its back to 80% carryover again. And in S5 Six Feet Under it reverts back to 40% carryover. Seems like there's an alternating system. Haha

In S5 you can find a strong item that should be given to Ilriel, giving the circlet to a loyal arif is totally fine.

Are you talking about the crystal that grants an extra attack? I already gave it to Ilriel Anyway, this campaign seems to be filled with many super powerful units. The wyvern is just mighty. And there are so many loyal units, don't u think giving me 6 loyal mudafi is a bit excessive ? I hope the later scenarios will be sufficiently difficult enough to balance out this early strength.

[ahmannar]

Regarding what sudipta said about the high amount of loyal units, i think he might have a good point, as the latter scenarios can be passed with a force mostly composed of them, which also results in more gold overall. If in the end you feel like there are too many loyals given to the players, you can also make some of them non-loyal or not staying the the player more than the scenario where they are at (for example, in the "A Whisper in the Sands", part of them could stay behind in order to continue protecting the outpost) instead of just reducing their numbers or giving the same numbers of units but applying those methods. Having so much on easy is not that big of a deal but on hard, for example, there's probably more than should be there.
On the first time playing the campaign they might be very needed due to the variety of units and secrets but, upon replaying and knowing the campaign more, their value is even higher.

[Sudipta]

So i finished the first 7 scenarios today, playing on normal difficulty. Until now, i think this is a great campaign with definite potential to be mainlined. The story line seems very intriguing and i like the appearance of the athvari and the sphere. And I love the dialogue. It seems like you took a lot of quotes from the LOTR and whenever one of them pop up, i burst out laughing. ( 1. A red sun rises. Blood has been spilled this night. 2. You have no might here! {you should change might to power as it is in the original} 3. Fly you fools 4.Back to Daylight! ) Using the khaliphate is also a new experience for me since i don't play multiplayer.
All this being said, i feel that the first 7 scenarios are way too easy. You have given so many loyals to the player that i don't have to recruit a single non loyal unit. I have been playing with all loyal units leading to a huge amount of gold for me due to no upkeep, and easy victories since my high level loyals make short work of the enemies. Also 20 gold is very cheap IMO for the potions, i bought quite a few of them. I feel that you should increase the difficulty of this campaign on normal whether by making loyal units non loyal, or largely increasing enemy numbers or giving less "free" units to the player.
I look forward to continuing it tomorrow.
P.S the gold carryover continues to alternate between 40% and 80%

[Sudipta]

I found several bugs. Scenario 9 Beneath the sands ends when i killed the purple troll leader even though the objectives tell me to take dawoud to the southern border of the map.. I never saw the green troll leader but a couple of the afariyaten went his way and they must have killed him.
Also, when Nuvdael and Uthain level up the second time, i do not get the AMLA tree. Instead he gains +8 hp and +1 damage to his meleeand ranged attack. Is this a bug?
The knockback ability is bugged. Even if the attack misses the foe is still knocked back.