The South Guard, Re-Revised - New Mainline Candidate

[SexyPringles]

I think this is a great improvement compared to the first revised version. I'm still against the whole idea of turning a campaign into a tutorial but it seems that it already is set in stone so it is what it is, gotta work with what we have, aye?

I think it was a good call to cut the size of the maps a little bit but still keep the aesthetic of the original version and in some places, even improve it. Campaign becomes a noob friendlier with its smaller maps. Objectives are pretty much similar like in the original but still varying, I also liked the completely revamped Vale of Tears scenario. Giving the player choice on who will be your companion was a good idea too and the tips UI is much more appealing. Good stuff overall with the maps, scenarios and gameplay.

Plot too is greatly improved. The unnecessary Asheviere stuff was removed, in the first version it felt too bloated with Asheviere's own sideplot alongside the South Guard's plot. She already has her own plot in TDG and HttT and adding her to TSG would be too much imo. In the first version it felt like she is being shoved down my throat overly enthusiastically. Now the focus is solely on Deoran and the South Guard, Deoran also feels like a main character in this version. Gerrick, Hylas and Mari are good supporting characters and don't overshadow Deoran, they also feel like characters this time and not npc's. Also, the branching route is back! Let's goooo! Nice prank with changing Pebbles in the Flood scenario to the elf route, I allied myself with the outlaws in the first playthrough thinking it would be in that route. Now the both routes seem equally good imo and after looking at the achievements there is 3rd route that I missed, probably going to the cave route . Need to test that route too at some point.

[Dalas120]

I'm really glad to hear you liked the campaign! It's taken a ton of work so I'm pleased it's had a generally positive reception

I'm still against the whole idea of turning a campaign into a tutorial but it seems that it already is set in stone so it is what it is, gotta work with what we have, aye?

I, personally, do very strongly prefer the current integration - virtually every game design source I've read encourages integrating stand-alone tutorial levels, and I also feel that it's simply more enjoyable to play.

But, given the number of Wesnoth players who've expressed a preference for splitting out the tutorial, I do think it's something that needs to be seriously considered. We have some possibilities here:

- Cut out the first half of TSG's first scenario, and make that a single-scenario Battle Training.

- Cut out TSG's entire first scenario as Battle Training, with the first half as part 1 and the second half as part 2. Part 1 would need to be expanded; maybe you have to fight Mari herself, and some Fencers that she recruits.

- Remove tutorial elements from the first couple scenarios of TSG, and create a from-scratch 2-3 scenario tutorial. Perhaps Deoran is training at a military academy in Weldyn, or perphaps Gerrick is training new recruits to repel a bandit attack.

- Keep the tutorial in TSG. This is my preferred option, as it's a lot less work and I feel it's a far superior new player experience.

- Alternatively, maybe we should get some actual new players to try things out and get their opinions? I have two or three I could bring in, but I'd need all of your help for any others.

I'm not open to keeping the current Battle Training, with Delfador/Konrad/Li'sar. I very strongly feel that the units, characters, and plot of the tutorial must lead into the first player campaign, rather than being completely unrelated like they are now.

When $companion_name is limited to the set of three companions, it's better to have three copies of the string instead of using a variable.

Will do, thanks for letting me know.

[Konrad2]

(Btw, I want to say I very much appreciate that there is no longer a cave map where you control any elves.)

[Gothyoba]

Here’s my personal review of the campaign. I would like to note that while I am by no means an expert or even a very good player, I now the game quite well for many years, and am quite far removed from target audience for this campaign. I played on the easiest difficulty to get idea of what this is lime for a completely new player, however my feedback on difficulty and tutorial aspects probably will not be great, but I hope to do my best to think like a completely new player.

I would also like to note that this campaign is excellent, and is a significant improvement over the old tutorial, the old TSG, and the first TSG Revision (which I have already played some time ago). Most of my criticism here are nitpicking, and this campaign is excellent overall.

Review:

Spoiler:

Scenario 1

- I personally preferred the Mari sprite from the first revision, though I like the idea of her only having one arm.

- The large red arrows telling you were to move at the start could be a bit smaller and less distracting.

- I like how the hints aren’t crammed into white, ugly and hard to read text in the top-right like the of TSG revsion and Battle Training.

- I like the text when recruiting your first units.

- The transition from basic tutorial to battlefield was very cool and surprising!

- This map is of much higher quality than the original, and I like the use of elevated terrain.

- Some of the text in the original TSG on the properties of each unit when attacked/recruited could be preserved.

- Some flavour text when your first unit dies could be interesting.

- Overall much better than the original first scenario!

Scenario 2

- I see the big map of Kerlath and its surroundings has been updated! Maybe I shoudl update the encyclopedia should a bit as well, to add Southport and remove Southwood? I like these changes to the map overall.

- Again, the scenario maps are much better than the original!

- The ending was compelling and interesting,and I find this a pretty interesting scenario,

Scenario 3

- I like the map again! I think all of the maps are a drastic improvement over the old ones.

- I like the dialogue here (and in the campaign overall.) Its very well written.

- I slightly prefer the old revised scenario for reasons I don’t quite understand, but that’s just my personal preference.

- As context, I chose Sir Gerrick to accompany me in this scenario.

Scenario 4

- I like the rain in this scenario. I remember very similar rain in Palms Amid Blue Dunes, are the images copied from there?

- I love the music choice for the initial cutscene!

- I agree with the devs here, the little cliffs are extremely cool!

- Maybe there should be an achievement for defeating one/more than one of the leaders here?

- An undead dying sound when all the undead die would be cool.

- A great and beautiful scenario overall!

Scenario 5

- An exciting scenario! Its overall very good, so I don’t have as much feedback.

- I did like the eystalks here. I would personally re-add them.

- I personally really liked the cave scenario you got with elves in the original. I chose bandits here.

Scenario 6

- Cool story art!

- Is the story text in a different colour? It is a little hard to read against the background.

- I think Southport might be a little too close to the Black Forest. Unless the Black Forest is no longer a generally haunted place and is instead anormal forest which once happenned to have a lich in this revision? I personally preffer the idea of the Black Forest as a haunted and mysterious world which the characters are encountering, filled with unknown evil.

- A surprisingly easy and yet very exciting scenario!

Scenario 7


- I like the snow, though I do find it a bit too bright and glittery, which makes it sligthly distracting. Inwonder if the player should have an option to disable weather graphics? It might also cause issues for people with photosensitivity (I’m not photosensitive though, so I’m not quite sure about this)?

- This is a way better scenario than either the original! I found it much more interesting. However, I do feel it was slightly underwhelming as a last scenario. Maybe the turn limit could be slightly lengthened? Keep in mind I am not a new player so lengthening the turn limit might be too hard for a new player, but I’m not sure.

- A pretty interesting and worthwhile ending IMO! I like the hint to TDG in the credits.

Overall, this was great, and much better than Battle Training (BT). I personally think a new player will find it much more interesting to immeadiately enter the story rather than play around with Delfador. Integrating the tutorial into the larger storyline makes it feel more interesting to play, introduces new players to Wesnoth as a game about story and lore as well as strategy and tactics, and is overall much more entertaining and enjoyable.

Also, BT fails at explaining many crucial yet slightly more advanced mechanics, and does little in terms of teaching general tips on how to use mechanics. Having a separate campaign for a short scenario is also kind of pointless IMHO. I had a lot more fun playing this TSG Revision than BT. The old tutorial is made to be played once, and then forgotten about. The TSG Revision offers much greater replayibility and enjoyment. I was initally quite sceptical that a tutorial’s quality would decrease when itegrated jnto a storyline for Wensoth, but I have to say the exceution was excellent and far better than what I would have imagined. If BT is kept however, it would certainly needs to be revised.

[Numero]

Hey I just played trough the campaign on Normal and made notes during, I want to write it all up, so it can be a bit longer. I will talk about everything I found noteworthy so it can seem nitpicky, but I only want to provide critcism. I could be pointing out stuff that is done on other difficulty levels or that I just didn't see, I apologize for that. The scenarios are numbered in order 1 - 7 not necessarly the same as you did.

First how I come into it: Not played TDG, not played the revised Version of TSG, but read what others were saying and I played the mainline TSG and like it. But I am also very much in favor of having an actual tutorial campaign.

I want to talk about bugs I found, Gamplay and story keeping in mind this is as a tutorial for new players.

Spoiler:

Overall

I do like the reruiting and leading animation of deoran.

The leadership of deoran is not explained, but I agree that It would be a bit overwhelming, yet it could confuse the player why his damage always changes. Maybe at some point say, without pointing out all details, that for any unit the player can look at the right sight and check most things like movement and damage, let the player explore that at his own will, but nudge him there.

Gameplay

It is a bigger thing in all of wesnoth and would be hard to program, but at some point during the campaign the player will have a lot of luck or a be very unlucky when many attacks in a row miss, ideally at that point a hint shows up talking about randomness in wesnoth in general

It seems strange to me to change the enemy ai behavior (like only attack during good daytime) in a tutorial campaign, I feel like it is not as common in other campaigns so it might give the wrong impression maybe I can see it for elves, but to me undeads would not care and just always push

When choosing difficulty it says it changes the amount of enemys and xp, as for as I can tell the xp is not changed, I don't know if you plan to, but I'd say it is a bad idea, because new players will learn like, that is how many kills I need to get a stronger unit, and that would give false expectations for other campaigns

I get you should definitly not overwhelm the player with hints, but I think when talking about terrain, a note about cliffs beein only aesthetic would make sense.

Since it is for new players probably the most important thing is having contingency hints in case the player messes up, I cannot tell how many of those you have implemented I have found a at least a few

It is a question in every campaign, but do you intend for the player to use their leader of leave him in the keep, because it seems like something to advice the player on

I feel like the amount of names are overwhelming for new players: Prince Anard, Gerrick, Mari, Minister XY, Haldric, Deoran, utzi brothers, King Garards, Ethiliel, Mebrin, Jevyan maybe remove some of them at least. It may also be unpopular but you could merge Minister and Gerrick

Story

I gotta be honest I don't know if I understood the story 100% it feels a bit like many different ideas put together

the world feels smaller and unnatural because you see the same family in almost every scenario

Bugs

Scenario 1

Gameplay

I am not sure if achievments are really necessary for a new player having a new box displayed could be confusing

The hint about time of day would ideally display the same time that it is currently, maybe even an arrow to the side.

Story

I could be wrong, but isn't south guard supposed to be moved after EI, which makes it unrealistic for Deoran to never have seen an undead

Bugs

Scenario 2

Gameplay

The veteran text for recalling seems a bit strange, accounting for if you don't have a veteran apparently. Maybe at the end of the first scenario give the player a spearman with some xp, that was a prisoner, he says smth like "Thanks you, I am blabla! They had me..." and in the next scenario say, "Blabla is a experienced spearman recall him by pressing alt+r and choosing 'blabla'.

I feel like explaining ZoC with an exception is strange, escpcially because the player has probably encounterd it in Scenario 1 already.

I also think for a new player despite the new image the windmill could still look like a village, could be frustrating if they move there and it is not one.

I got the message about defense encampments when I was attacking the leader, I get you planned it for beginners, but could you not use a enterhex or attack event instead of a static turn

Story

because mari leaves at the beginning of the scenario and returns in the end making the world feel like a very small place.

I can't help but compare with the current TSG and there the enemy leader is Scenario 2 is much more venguful for his brother, and it is more shocking when he uses undead, I get that the next brother has gotten that, but this one lacks character.

I like the little motivational speech from deoran at daylight, makes him feel like a inspiring leader.

Bugs

-

Scenario 3 story only

Gameplay

I don't know for sure, but the controls for making a choice may be a point of friction for new players. You could add a simple 'For the Southguard! (use arrow keys to choose and enter to confirm)' or ' Let's fight the undead (use arrow keys to choose and enter to confirm)' somewhere earlier, would also make the player feel more like Deoran

I chose mari

Story

I don't know if I just missed it, but where does the valley come from, was it like torture? I don't mind personally but I don't know if it fits in a fantasy game. Do the characters know of the valley (do they know the map we see in between the scenarios) they seem to hear of it the first time. But also why would he give you the valley? Is it a trap? the brother seems to show up rather randomly, why would he not give the location of his master? If you just need a reason to go there let the minister do some magic mambo jumbo and say he feels dark energy at the elven place.

There is some bribe talked about that has no bearing on the story, it is porbably to tie different campaigns together, which I would like myself, but it seems not done well here, for example deoran does not react to hearing of bribes, does he not care?, does he know? he seems honorable and green enough to be outraged. But having one line of dialogue just akwardly in there makes it seem strange

Maybe it is explained somewhere else, but why would the brother of the king need to spend a lot of bribes to send a few soldiers here, wording this a bit differnt would do wonders

It's strange that you never get to know who was in charge, you don't need to tell a name, but at least note that there was someone there or say there was no one, but not mentioning it fells weired,

Bugs

I don't know if I goofed up or something, but during the cutscene I had a ship choosen und all the hexes were like greyed out.

Scenario 4 valley

Gameplay

I do like the raineffect, but how do new players know it does not effect gameplay?

very nitpicky, but the idea of shooting arrows at a cage with someone inside and having a 100% chance to hit the cage and not the person is funny

After you free her, the brother shows up and starts recruiting, but it makes a major difference when he starts recruiting, like if the attack wave hits during day or night. I see he attacks during night, but I talked about that in overview

I can't say for sure but I think I prefer the valley version of the current TSG, maybe because the changing enemy types and your own units larger rooster. Maybe that is also depending on difficulty

Story

The story progression seems a bit unnatural, probably because of the last scenario, what exactly do they want here? Do they look for elves, do they not expect undead? were they just casually looking because the bandit said so?

what is this valley called, it says valley of tears in the top left, the elves say Valley of elrath and the map valley of something else

I had a lot of notes for the illusion but thats probably pointless I actually really liked the idea of the illusion, but assume someone would come during normal time, the talk of the illusions would be kind of strange

I do like the line with humans bringing necromancy, but the wording is a bit unnatural

I'm not sure about adding a timeframe it can lead the question like... but? How? Why? When?

They talk about plundered farms and villages but lacks impact because we don't see them. Also later it says Westin is destroyed and that also is not seen

I like mari's talk about undead makes it seem like she has her own larger story with undead

I don't entirly get the scale of this village, is it like a special community? is it the southernmost outpost of the Awoods? or just some village?

In the end deoran basically says it is a stupid idea but I will be the heric fool and do it?

Bugs

I get the pictures are transperent on purpose and I like it, but the line from the wesnoth dialogue box behind looks bad

at the start of the victory event the brother was not in his keep, probably bug later in westin same issue

Scenaro 5 choice

Gameplay

I chose humans

maybe difficulty but this doesn't seem at all like a major battle, you could give everyone more gold. And the player finds gold from the sidebosses he kills, just to make the lich seem dangerous, and have a larger battle

undeads have the same issue of when you find them making a big difference

It seems to be a choice, but it is rather annoying when my ally is useless and doesn't move his units, why bro not moving?

also a bit of a unhappy surprise when he gets stronger units, but I guess it's fine (You'll see why I mention it in the replay)

Story

Did I miss this in RoW but the direct contacts between elves and Jevyan were rather minimal, right?

How to they know how many brothers there are, were they like infamous before, did the one brother talk?

I don't get the story. It may be the point that the human doesn't want to tell the truth. But I am gonna assume for sure that the elf did not in fact ask common bandits to kidnap him from his seemingly peacful community. So the alternative is the bandits took the elf and tortured him like in the current version. Which makes the bandit a liar while facing imminent death (just in my interpration).

the never meant to cause suffering sounds unnatural

As far as I can see it is never mentioned that iron is harmful to elves, could be confusing for new players

Text that he should go down is strange, why have it. I see it's because I picked human, but why have him say it at all

Bugs

I has the bug again that mari was gone at the beginning of the turn shortly

Scenario 6 long march

Gameplay

I think you should have a dialogue box when one made it accross

Maybe it's just part of the scenario, but especially for new players it is difficult to say when you should move, because you have almost no idea how strong the enemy actually is

relating to the timefram issue from before, I personally am not a fan of the cross placement on the map, it makes the world seem very small

Story

This is probably my biggest issue, why were the elves totally chill and didn't even notice their valley being attacked and one of them being imprisoned, but they are ultra hardcore hating on you, why does it matter just now and not before??

I think it's funny that the guy just dips

I is probably good for a turorial to fight many different enemys, but for the story it makes no sense why they are attacking you and not the undead before, like he is important enough to start a war with the humans, but not enought to look for him?

Bugs

Scenrio 7 vengance

Gameplay

Story

the background story with the prince still seems out of place and needs to be better integrated

the Afalas caracter seems a bit caroonish I personally would not have minded if he just stayed a bad guy only out for himself, but I don't know how you would have resolved the story

after victory, the westin needs rebuilding was out of the blue for me, did not get that vibe

Bugs

epilogue

Gameplay

Story

I really like the after credit scene, had like marvel post-credit vibes

Bugs

Wow this has taken so much longer than I expected. I really hope despite my many points you see that I want to have a good beginner TSG, that is integrated into a larger story. And I really like what you have done so far. Also my mother tongue is german, so my browser does not help me with spelling. I'm sorry.

[Gothyoba]

I think you make a good point on gold there. The gold I had for each scenario was consistently relatively low. The scenarios are well-balanced around this, but I feel like in some scenarios, such as scenario 5, I would have preferred more gold with a stronger enemy to balance for it.

The axhivemwnts probably should not be removed, but it kight be worth it to add something to explain what an achievement is and how notnto get stuck with a box in frint of you. I know a lot of people playing will already have a general idea of an achivement and that clicking on the screen might do something, but a good tutorial should probably be designed with someone who has little to no cotnext surrounding these mechanics as possible. So it might be worth it to say what an ahcievement is beforehand.

As for the rain/snow, I feel that could be explained with some flavour text after a few turns by the main characters.

My biggest problem with the overall storyline is how much lesss mysterious some things feel to me personally. This is not universal to all parts of the story. I like the mystery around the Vale of Tears, for exmaple. However, I personally limed the surprise of the bandits suddenly recruiting undead in scenario 2, so I would personally change the recruits form the first scenario to ruffians/bandits. As Immentioned above, I also think the Black Froest has been made less oerilous and mysterious, which I think is less exciting than the last one. These are realtively minor however, and could prbably be fixed with some dialogue changes/additions.

[Konrad2]

Choice in the fog seems to be a bit too trivial on easy. Even if you have no veterans, you'll still have one lvl 2 unit at least (the officer) and one Elvish Shyde. If you side with the outlaws, you'll also gain a lvl 2 bandit as an ally.
I made a friend play the scenario and they killed like 7 units, 3 of them being walking corpses, and nearly every other enemy being on their own.

(They also pointed out that the brazers in Pebbles in the Flood' are not explained, and that they thought it doesn't have any effect in gameplay.)

[Gothyoba]

Choice in the fog seems to be a bit too trivial on easy. Even if you have no veterans, you'll still have one lvl 2 unit at least (the officer) and one Elvish Shyde. If you side with the outlaws, you'll also gain a lvl 2 bandit as an ally.
I made a friend play the scenario and they killed like 7 units, 3 of them being walking corpses, and nearly every other enemy being on their own.

(They also pointed out that the brazers in Pebbles in the Flood' are not explained, and that they thought it doesn't have any effect in gameplay.)

I agree. This used to be a very hard scenario compared to the rest that could keep new players stuck. I don’t think it should be that hard, given that it’s a tutorial campaign, but I feel it could be made a lot harder while still keeping it within acceptable levels for a tutorial.

[Dalas120]

Thanks to Gothyoba, Numero, and Konrad2 for your feedback! Responding point by point would take up a lot of space, but know that I've read every suggestion and will be implementing many.

(and thank you Gothyoba for updating the encyclopedia)

Regarding "Choice in the Fog", I can certainly turn up the difficulty. Konrad2, could you attach your friend's replays (ideally for all scenarios, if they're new to Wesnoth) so I can take a look and see where best in the scenario to add more challenge?

Also, Gothyoba, you mentioned "dialogue changes/additions" to help make the Black Forest feel more mysterious - do you have any specific suggestions, so I can get an idea of the tone you're going for?

[Gothyoba]

The sotry text and initial dialogue from the old scenario 5 is a good example. It mentions a sense of forboding around the place, establishes that the forest is rarely travelled to, and talks about elvish monuments becoming rarer and rarer as they drew closer tomthe river, a river beyond which nobody would willingly go. I woiuld also suggest some dialogue to create a sense of unease in the characters in the long march. I am not very good at dialogue, so I fear specific suggestions will nto aid my point very well here. I can give those examples of text that fits in iwht a more mysterious and dangerous view of the Balck Forest. Moving Southport further away from the forest would also help establish that the forest is dangerous and people wouldn’t go near it.

[octalot]

Comments on S1 (with tutorial on) :

Instead of "the golden crown in Deoran's upper-left-hand corner", I suggest "the golden crown above Deoran's HP bar".

The undo hint only appears once, and its first appearance might be at a time when the player doesn't need to undo (they still have enough moves to reach where they're expected to go).

On turn 3, if you move to the keep, recruit 3 soldiers, and then move to a village to heal, then the undo hint appears. That's confusing, healing is a better choice than staying on the keep.

Making Urza Mathin quick greatly increases the radius in which he's dangerous, and it makes the player's own choices less interesting. For example, it prevents the idea of attacking with a quick spearman, expecting to take a lot of damage during the enemy turn, and then running the spearman out of range to heal. Would be less of a worry the player had more units for ZoC, assuming ZoC was explained.

Having less enemies but only needing 50% XP makes the player's XP management skill have a lot more influence, and I think it's wrong for a beginner campaign. Deoran's L2 is a huge change, giving leadership, a crossbow against enemies with no ranged attack, and enough max hp to almost certainly survive the enemy turn if Urza plus a bandit attack at night.

The AI is retreating bandits back to Urza's castle, which while sensible is also not fun - to attack anything, you have to be ready for losing potentially 44 hp during the enemy turn, even during the day.

Urza's "the sun begins to set" is said a turn too late, the player has already made their moves at dusk.

[Gothyoba]

I agree with octalot’s comments here. It can be confusing to have the undo button hint for anew player when entering a village because that would generally be a good idea and the warning might discourage a new player from doing so, or confuse them about how villages work and when to use them.

I am very excited to see this coming to mainline as well as the lore changes coming with it!

[Dalas120]

The sotry text and initial dialogue from the old scenario 5 is a good example.

I'll take a look at this, thanks. I'd originally removed this because I was worried the campaign was too wordy, but I can definitely add it back in.

Instead of "the golden crown in Deoran's upper-left-hand corner", I suggest "the golden crown above Deoran's HP bar".

Will do.

The undo hint only appears once, and its first appearance might be at a time when the player doesn't need to undo (they still have enough moves to reach where they're expected to go).

On turn 3, if you move to the keep, recruit 3 soldiers, and then move to a village to heal, then the undo hint appears. That's confusing, healing is a better choice than staying on the keep.

I agree with octalot’s comments here. It can be confusing to have the undo button hint for anew player when entering a village because that would generally be a good idea and the warning might discourage a new player from doing so, or confuse them about how villages work and when to use them.

I'll take a look at this, thanks.

Making Urza Mathin quick greatly increases the radius in which he's dangerous, and it makes the player's own choices less interesting.

Ok, I'll swap out quick with a different trait.

Having less enemies but only needing 50% XP makes the player's XP management skill have a lot more influence, and I think it's wrong for a beginner campaign.

I feel the opposite. With very high XP costs, the only way to level a unit is by carefully feeding them XP. With low XP costs, it's easy for a beginner to level units without needing to be very skilled at feeding XP.

The AI is retreating bandits back to Urza's castle, which while sensible is also not fun

There's a couple reasons I have the AI retreat during the day in this campaign. First, even though retreating doesn't necessarily make the AI stronger, I do think it makes the appear AI more intelligent (thus giving a better impression of Wesnoth).

Second, and more importantly, I hope the AI can serve as a tutorial element. By seeing the AI attack/retreat during favorable/unfavorable ToD, the player gets the idea that they should respect ToD as well.

Urza's "the sun begins to set" is said a turn too late, the player has already made their moves at dusk.

Will fix, thanks.

[octalot]

Using a cavalryman as the main hero means that the player won't understand the numbers on screen until they understand resistances. For a game that depends a lot on numbers, the tutorial ought to introduce things in an order that a player can understand them - otherwise there's a risk that they'll just think "well, all the reviews that said it was too focused on RNG were right".

A cavalryman also brings in WINR, as it's a unit which obviously ought to be able to split into two creatures, but has a single shared HP bar.

If the first campaign needs to either be the tutorial, or at least use the same units as the tutorial, maybe the first campaign needs to be elves?

The overlap between the elves' fighter and archer lines makes them forgiving to players who haven't chosen ones that exploit the enemy side's weaknesses. Those lines don't get abilities or weapon specials until L2, and of the specials that they get at L2, two are immediately useful in a way that's obvious to the player (leadership, marksman), leaving only one that might not seem useful (ambush).

The shaman line doesn't fit that, but we've already got a hint written (in Tutorial S02, on recruiting the second shaman) to steer the player away from recruiting a third one too soon. The slows ability will miss often enough that the player clearly has to be ready for it to miss, yet its tactics and the formations needed to use it along with healing leads the player on to ZoC and keeping injured troops covered by ZoC.

Undead, and thus plague, are integral to TSG's story, but TSGRR S02's use of plague, along with shouting it out at the start of S02 can be interpreted as "letting your recruits get killed doesn't seem that bad, so we've thrown a mechanic into the tutorial to make you see it as bad now, even if we won't explain it until later". It feels like misinformation to put it early in a tutorial.

There's a couple reasons I have the AI retreat during the day in this campaign. First, even though retreating doesn't necessarily make the AI stronger, I do think it makes the appear AI more intelligent (thus giving a better impression of Wesnoth).

Second, and more importantly, I hope the AI can serve as a tutorial element. By seeing the AI attack/retreat during favorable/unfavorable ToD, the player gets the idea that they should respect ToD as well.

When playing S01, it feels more like the enemy is retreating because they're outnumbered rather than because of the ToD. More importantly, it's not fun to play against.

If a player knows games well enough to judge the quality of AI, they're probably going to assume "deliberately weak AI for the tutorial", rather than "this game's AI is too weak".

With very high XP costs, the only way to level a unit is by carefully feeding them XP. With low XP costs, it's easy for a beginner to level units without needing to be very skilled at feeding XP.

There aren't enough enemy units on easy, even with the low XP costs; and that combines with Deoran's L1 and L2 being too big a leap. Getting that L2 in S01 makes a big difference, but the XP for the Quintain will probably go to another unit, at which point getting that L2 before facing the boss means getting one of the two or three remaining kills.

Maybe put some troops with XP on the recall list, and show off recalling in the first scenario? Instead of scaling XP, Deoran and those recalls can have an XP boost. However, we also need the player to know that they can recruit an unlimited number of troops - so the number of recalls needs to be at most (number of castle hexes for first turn recruitment - 2).

[ForestDragon]

If the first campaign needs to either be the tutorial, or at least use the same units as the tutorial, maybe the first campaign needs to be elves?

The overlap between the elves' fighter and archer lines makes them forgiving to players who haven't chosen ones that exploit the enemy side's weaknesses. Those lines don't get abilities or weapon specials until L2, and of the specials that they get at L2, two are immediately useful in a way that's obvious to the player (leadership, marksman), leaving only one that might not seem useful (ambush).

Good point, that was one of the big strengths of the old tutorial.