Confederacy of Swamp Creatures: Big Battle 1

[Helmet]

This is the feedback thread for my 1-shot scenario Confederacy of Swamp Creatures: Big Battle 1.

"Confederacy of Swamp Creatures: Big Battle 1" is an intermediate-level scenario, made for Battle for Wesnoth 1.16 (Mac OS).

My scenario features original units based on frogs, mushrooms, and bugs. All units are thoroughly animated with attack animations, death animations, etc.

The player must defend the swamp against two default factions: Loyalists (humans) and the Knalgan Alliance (dwarves).

The large map was designed to allow brilliant attacks and retreats in battle. Impassible mountains and deep water prevent non-flying units from beelining across the map.

A casual player will probably win on Easy. A pretty good player will enjoy a nice challenge on Normal. Hard is winnable, but definitely hard.

(The battle is designated "1" in the event I release additional battles featuring the CSC.)

FEEDBACK QUESTIONS:
What difficulty mode did you choose (easy, normal, hard)?
How challenging was the scenario, on a scale of 1-10?
How enjoyable was the scenario, on a scale of 1-10?
Do you have any comments about any of the CSC units (Grumber, Shroomkin, Frog Fighter, Frog Shaman, Conglodon, or Xendar)?
Anything else?

Thanks for playing my scenario.

[throwtheaccount]

Great scenario, had a lot of fun playing it.

I have previously played the Frogfolk delivery service campaign, so I knew more about the units than players new to the faction.

I played it at the Hard difficulty, and made two attempts. The first attempt failed, since I had a poor strategy and grossly misjudged what the AI would do (I am not good at predicting what Wesnoth's AI will do, apart from typically rushing the enemy). For the second attempt,

Spoiler:

I decided on an assassination type of strategy using a ton of frog fighters and the leader for healing, together with capturing enemy villages with dragon flies. The second attempt succeeded with 4 turns left, despite the turn limit being 50. I think I could easily have lost if I had engaged in more battles with my fireflies or been a bit more unlucky with them. They helped keep the number of enemy-controlled villages down a lot, and helped draw enemy units away from my main army. Later on in the battle, I became more careful with not wasting the few remaining fireflies I had on combat. I was careful in the battle to stay in or near the water with my main army.

I have attached a replay of my second attempt.

On comments for the units, I think they are interesting. I have no idea how they would hold up in multiplayer (I don't play multiplayer either way), but for single-player, they have atypical mechanics, strengths and weaknesses compared to the default factions, which I like. In the Frogfolk Delivery Service campaign, I used a mixture of all the units, while for this scenario in the second attempt,

Spoiler:

I only used Frogfolk fighters and the fireflies.

[Atreides]

Found some minor errors in the web database report:

https://units.wesnoth.org/1.16/CSC_Big_ ... error.html

[Helmet]

Found some minor errors in the web database report:

https://units.wesnoth.org/1.16/CSC_Big_ ... error.html

Thanks. I had considered using a special unit called a Mountain Ram, but decided against it. Apparently I should have deleted its data.

Anyhow, it's fixed.

[Helmet]

Great scenario, had a lot of fun playing it.

Thank you!

I have previously played the Frogfolk delivery service campaign, so I knew more about the units than players new to the faction.

I played it at the Hard difficulty, and made two attempts. The first attempt failed, since I had a poor strategy and grossly misjudged what the AI would do (I am not good at predicting what Wesnoth's AI will do, apart from typically rushing the enemy).

For the second attempt,

Spoiler:

I decided on an assassination type of strategy using a ton of frog fighters and the leader for healing, together with capturing enemy villages with dragon flies. The second attempt succeeded with 4 turns left, despite the turn limit being 50. I think I could easily have lost if I had engaged in more battles with my fireflies or been a bit more unlucky with them. They helped keep the number of enemy-controlled villages down a lot, and helped draw enemy units away from my main army. Later on in the battle, I became more careful with not wasting the few remaining fireflies I had on combat. I was careful in the battle to stay in or near the water with my main army.

I have attached a replay of my second attempt.

On comments for the units, I think they are interesting. I have no idea how they would hold up in multiplayer (I don't play multiplayer either way), but for single-player, they have atypical mechanics, strengths and weaknesses compared to the default factions, which I like. In the Frogfolk Delivery Service campaign, I used a mixture of all the units, while for this scenario in the second attempt,

Spoiler:

I only used Frogfolk fighters and the fireflies.

I watched your game. You are a really good player, winning 4 turns early. The best I've done is win on turn 50 (yes, I barely won).

I'm glad the AI beat you the first time. It makes me confident that the Hard mode is hard, like I promised. Thanks for letting me know.

I was glad to see that you got a Frog Fighter all the way to Level 3 and earned him a fancy blue cape.

Thanks for the feedback, and congratulations for beating it on Hard mode!

[Konrad2]

Here is my attempt on hard.

Spoiler:

Due to the terrain and the humans recruiting horses vs the dwarves being slow units, you can focus on the humans at first. And use some fliers to steal villages which is important because of the high income villages provide to my enemies.
As you can see, I stopped recruiting and caring to some degree, because I knew I had enough units. (I was almost wrong, because I also ignored the dwarves collecting lots of villages, so they could recruit more and more.) Probably should have gone back 5-10 turns to send some units north to win without those risky losses. And the Shrooms reliably produced cannon fodder / damage soakers.

[Helmet]

Thanks for using the spoiler tag. I watched your game before I read your post, so I didn't know what was going to happen.

Excellent battle. Your leader was attacked and in serious danger a few times, but managed to stay alive, which was pretty exciting. But since you won with so many turns to spare, it made me wonder if maybe I should make hard-mode a little harder...

But I probably won't. You are probably in the top 5% of players, so if the scenario was much harder, the average player would lose too often.

Congratulations on the hard-mode victory and for earning a spore halo for one of your mushroom units.

And thanks for the feedback.

[forgetpassword]

Here is my attempt on hard.

Spoiler:

Due to the terrain and the humans recruiting horses vs the dwarves being slow units, you can focus on the humans at first. And use some fliers to steal villages which is important because of the high income villages provide to my enemies.
As you can see, I stopped recruiting and caring to some degree, because I knew I had enough units. (I was almost wrong, because I also ignored the dwarves collecting lots of villages, so they could recruit more and more.) Probably should have gone back 5-10 turns to send some units north to win without those risky losses. And the Shrooms reliably produced cannon fodder / damage soakers.

Very nice.

I underestimated Shroomkin in my attempts. I knew they were good, especially the ranged plague attack, but thought they were fragile, considering they cost 17 gold for 27 HP. But I forgot that they also have 50% defense on flat terrain, and no vulnerabilities.

At the AI dwarves' turn 10, the gryphon riders could have attacked your leader and at a small chance killed her (1/16, 6.25%), or at least deal good damage while surrounding your leader. I do not understand why the AI did not take the chance, and instead went for a non-important firefly. I would also have felt that it would be too risky to leave my leader that exposed, but it worked out well for you. Is it because the leader has a strong melee attack, 7x3, and that deterred the AI from attacking with the gryphon riders? Or too low chance of killing the leader and the AI winning? Or was it for the AI to kill off backstabbing units? Again at turn 11, the AI could have risked it and attacked your leader with two gryphon riders together with a footpad, though the gryphon riders were at low health at that point. (you also attacked a gryphon rider in melee with your leader multiple times, even after your leader was wounded. And attacked a footpad). At turn 17, your leader was at 21 HP, with both an enemy dwarven fighter and dwarven thunderer in range, with two hexes free for them both to attack. Yet the dwarven fighter attacks a frog fighter on another village, and the thunderer attacks a shroomling. The dwarven fighter could have killed your leader by himself, or at least dealt good damage, and the thunderer might have finished off your leader if even one dwarven fighter attack hit. If the dwarven figthter and the dwarven thunderer had only attacked with their axe and knife respectively, it would be 7x5 attacks against 21 HP at 50% defense. That means only 3 attacks out of five have to hit to kill, which should be exactly 50% probability to kill your leader. And those dwarven units had enough HP and resistance to survive the counter-attacks. I do not understand why the AI did not attempt to kill your leader those times.

But I also have a poor understanding of the AI.

I think your strategy was overall better than mine, in particular since I grossly misjudged shroomkin. Though in your execution, gryphon riders and later units by the dwarven player possibly meant that you probably should have kept more units to defend near your leader. Otherwise much better played than me, in particular when considering the turn count.

I should mention that I played my attempts without any save-scumming.

[Helmet]

I do not understand why the AI did not take the chance, and instead went for a non-important firefly...

In the next update, I may modify the AI a little, to make it target the leader more. I'm generally happy with how the AI plays, but letting a Leader escape is not something humans usually do.

I already made some other changes, though, after watching the replays. The scenario got a little harder.

I reduced the damage done by the frogfolk slingshots. The slingshots made the Frog Fighter slighty too powerful, considering their effective melee weapons.

I updated the map a little bit, to help the dwarfs. I moved their primary village one hex closer to the Leader and shrunk the swamp near their castle to make it less troublesome.

After the changes, I played the scenario again on Normal mode (that's my favorite mode on this map). The battle was more difficult, like I expected, but I still won on turn 46/55.

[Helmet]

Big Battle 1 has been updated to improve the tactical skills of the AI. The conglodon's movement has been improved to 6. The default crowing of a rooster has been replaced with the croaking of a swampfrog.

If you beat the game previously, you might consider replaying it. The AI is merciless.

[Lord-Knightmare]

can you change the name of the campaign in the menu to this?

Code: Select all

name= _ "Confederacy of Swamp Creatures
" + _ "Big Battle 1"

It looks better than widening the campaign list...

[Helmet]

can you change the name of the campaign in the menu to this?

Changed!

Thanks for the idea.

[Atreides]

Oh hey, also this is technically a 1 scenario campaign but was uploaded as a scenario. Harmless but maybe you wanna change it. Up to you. Actually it's a small pain because people will first look for it under scenarios for MP rather than campaigns.

[Helmet]

Oh hey, also this is technically a 1 scenario campaign...

I thought "campaign" was plural for more than 1 scenario. Oops.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Updated!