NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

[RECKLUSIAK]

Help, I have played the game and can't seem to win, the last battle, is it winnable? If it is, can someone please give tips. Note that I prefer to play with Elves alone.

[Sadaharu]

Elvish Dynasty is a strange campaign in which you never really get to build up a massive force.

So, here's what I usually do:

Spoiler:

You have four choke points and you can recruit and recall at all of them.

You just have to strike a mix of veteran units. Since the entire battle is about survival again, you needn't kill even a single one leader of the enemies', although I usually kill the ones at the top and bottom.

Counting from the bottom (south) upwards along the river:

The southernmost is the easiest. Go for quality units. If you have a hero or marksman (or higher, because all recalls cost the same) with the quick trait plus an outrider or two and a Shyde/druid you're set. Send a freshly-recruited fighter or archer in order to relieve them if necessary, but if you have Briony's unity magic those three can rush out and seize the village at <33,59>. The humans within range are either Lv.1 foot units that can be nullified by entangling or Lv1. horse units who can be peppered with arrows without fear of retaliation. Then you take the village at <37,59> and you can hold off the humans who will always have 40 def. at best. Attack the archers with your swords and the rest with your arrows.
Remember that even if the AI recruits soem horsemen they'll be stopped by the swampland around their spawning point.

Second-southernmost is the second-toughest. You'll be attacked at two different points so you need two different teams to man the walls. Zone-of-control is your friend: as long as your units stay on the wall they'll have a 60% defensive bonus while the humans will stand on the ford or on the riverbed itself so it'll be 40 or 20 defence at best for them. Here you'll need at least one healer for each team. Rangers are best here.
At <33,46> specifically there will always be a human who, if you play your cards right, will be the target of arrows or blades (whichever he can defend against the worse) in a 3-on-1 fight, so along the other, straighter stretch of wall that faces the ford at <32,42> you can just play the waiting game and just entangle all units. Two Druids standing side-by-side here will heal each other and entangle anyone the AI sends at you.

The third one is the toughest.
You'll be attacked on the first turn.
The outjutting hex at <36,21> is one that can be attacked by three enemies in a turn. And here your defensive bonus is nullified by not one but three mages who have 3× attacks that deal 11 damage each at day (and the battle starts at dawn!) and have a 70% chance to hit regardless of terrain, while, if you are forced to wade out and strike them down with warrior-line units the spearmen and archers will now be able to hit you. This one's tricky, so what I recommend is that you recall your very toughest units here. And, if you lose any units, it's likely that it'll be here.

The fourth one, finally, is comparatively lighter.
If you have a captain you'll send him here. This is a place that you can defend with fresh recruits alone, so a captain would be a boost (promote an intelligent warrior to one if you can!). A few shamans to immobilise everyone and archers and warriors to start taking them down.

In the northernmost and southernmost battles you can kill the leaders if you manage to stop the first waves.

Be careful with recruiting. You'll start with a lot of gold and a high income that will allow you to recruit/recall a few units later. I don't know what your available recalls will be so I cannot give you definite instructions, so the above is a rough guideline.

So don't bring all your units out on turn 1! At the northernmost ford the humans are too far away to even attack the walls, so just don't recruit until turn 2!

Remember that Shydes (and Sylphs if you have them) actually have a 40% defence on water and don't suffer a movement penalty; also, Kirielle returns after some time and all your units gain both ambush and nightstalk from her unity magic; that's when you can really start playing the ambush game.

Also remember that units fully heal upon promotion, so be sure to properly place them.
From Wesnoth 1.14 onwards the AI feels compelled to attack units if it can force them to promote so that's one attack you can goad it into wasting -and blocking up their entire column of attackers.

This specific battle is one in which the one that has to win before a time limit is the AI instead of you, so just turtle it and fight defensively. As long as you don't let them climb your walls you have a definite advantage.
And remember the day-night cycle: humans will lose at least a third of their attack damage by dusk and worse by night. When a spearman takes more damage from a Druid whom he attacks, you know he's in trouble.
Stall by day, entangle and ensnare as much as needed, defend the walls.

I could write more but it'd be repetitive.

DEFEND FLORIA!

[Konrad2]

Final scenario:
There are a lot of enemy units on the that are not supposed to move towards me, but on 1.16 they do just that. (The generals and the units protecting the towers.)

In general:
I'm sad that you removed the evil path.

[Sadaharu]

*peeks in after some time*

What's this about an evil path?

[Konrad2]

*peeks in after some time*

What's this about an evil path?

Spoiler:

Just liie in Ooze Mini Campaign, you had the option to turn everyone into Oozes for the last scenario.

[Sadaharu]

Oooohhh!

Spoiler:

for a second you made me think that maybe there was a special dark side ending to the Elven Dynasty campaign itself. Well.

[Luckylia]

Build massive elvish unit, and add one ulfserker each front—tgere are 4 front. Ulfbserker is very special, he can destroy the enemy artillery like chopping wood with frenzy attack. Wait for opportunity to attack (on night turn) then that is your chance to break through enemy since all empire troops is lawful (-25%). Assassinate enemy leader at north keep and south swamp keep at night since you have ambush trait on all terrain •∆•, thanks to Kirrilean magic after turn 5.

I can barely finish eliminate enemy at turn 23 with very good luck. My berserker rapidly hit the enemy general without miss at 40% with 8 hit in total.

But it seem there is no difference dialog/event even if you defeat enemy or just hold the line. It just same.

Hold enemy at river is pretty easy than kill the enemy leader since he had many body guard at his keep. Make sure sacrifices and recruit swordman elf because it cheap and impenetrable by all human attack.

[Sadaharu]

and add one ulfserker each front—tgere are 4 front.

Yes. The thing is that you need to accept the once-in-a-game opportunity to hire dwarvish warriors or else lose this possibility. Still, in this weekend's replay I've managed to get all three of Celadine the Shyde, Shevash the Snake and Kyrandi the Gryphon and the amount of units that are diverted to hunting them back into the swamps behind them *or* into the middle of the river around the deep water is amazing. Easily the best ‘gift’ is Kyrandi, even if it means losing out on some possible combat experience, which you'll get anyone in The Misty Swamp (you should finish that map with 4-6 druids).

Edit (7/7): this can also be done, a bit more sneakily, if you have any spare Shydes with the quick trait and Bryony's unity magic OR you can hold the southern island long enough for a rider-line unit to sneak across the water in the first night and then repeatedly reappear at the back of the human lines.

[Krzysztof-H]

I'm not sure if the author actually views the forums anymore. Nevertheless, I'm compelled to write, because I really enjoyed this game!

Note that I was playing with the Advanced Wesnoth Wars add-on. This means the results of all fights were deterministic, not RNG-based. Terrain bonuses instead reduced damage taken.

1: Bugs: I didn't detect any. However, a feature I'd like to see is automatic training, so that I keep repeating the same training each game year until I change it. I'd appreciate as well not having to exit the menu manually once I selected what I'm training. All of this would save a few clicks and avoid missing out on training. Also, perhaps the happiness meters could track above 100, just not include the excess in the final score. It'd be like people having a measure of extra trust after the player having done extraordinary things.

2: Difficulty levels: 'Easy' is indeed easy. I really like that it allowed me a lot of freedom. While a bit pointless, I like to snipe enemy leaders using just a few units, to reduce the amount of clicks. I was able to do just that I'll elaborate later.

3: Balance: I think it was very decent. What I really want to praise is the AI. For example, in year 5 boss fight, the AI-controlled elves first face the enemy in fortifications and never leave. But when the time is right, they sally out to distract them. I think they even took my villages sometimes when necessary. Absolutely awesome performance! What I dislike is that training is so limited. One can only get a few extra points. Perhaps if grueling training actually increased stats 5 times as fast as regular one, since it costs 5 times as much, a hero-centric build would be viable. But I find Bryony and even Kirielle far more useful then Aurelia.

4: Story: Overall, I liked it. The plot twists seemed very forced to me. Especially the whole arc about Aurelia, there was so little build-up. However, I love the personalities of the idealist and realist duo. Whose side are you on? I'm team Bryony And I like the design of elves overall, both their characters and graphics. How they're all for peace and quality, not quantity.

5: Randomization: I only played a bit before I started again, but on year 3 I got the same event as on year 2 previously. Perhaps just bad luck. Also, I got the tensions on the Human border event on year 9, so what happened next made it feel pointless.

6. WML: I never programmed in WML, so can't help here

7: Fun: Yes! I really enjoyed the choice between combat and diplomatic missions. If you know me, you might know I mostly went diplomatic to save clicks! While it can be watered down by the fact that you can get everything with money, or that you can lose out because of the thresholds, it still felt immersive. I enjoyed that preserving units has a real impact on the game, in harmony with the elves' nature.


Now to elaborate on my cheeky exploits:

Spoiler:

On the Swamp Defense mission (with Professor Mattison examining standing stones), I only recruited 6 fighters. I sent Bryony to snipe the Naga leader. After a lot of retries, I managed to lure the Saurian leader and defeat him. After I healed up, I sent Bryony after the Goblin leader. (disappointed tone) I had to stoop to using my other units to carve the path through dozens of goblin chaff. But, I managed to defeat the Goblin leader in the last turn!

On Coronation mission, I went for 3 early leader snipes. As a side note, I really love the special ability of Kirielle! That all my units got the ambush ability. Avoiding the initially recruited enemies, I used Hurlot to kill the North-West Goblin leader, Bryony to kill the North-East Drake leader, and Kirielle for the South-East Drake leader. I didn't manage to get the fourth one, but if I bothered to move units there, I'm sure it would be possible! The countless clicking is what really annoys me about the design of this game… Anyway. The change in tone also bothered me, from anxious to a satire. Made the whole achievement of this stage unappreciated, is my opinion. But at least the regular money from the villages was awesome! And on that topic, it's good one can skip cut-scenes.

On Finale mission, I used Celadine the Shyde, Bryony and Kyrandi (the gifted gryphon for high Kingdom happiness). First, I sneaked them at night and in the forest tiles. Then I managed to lure the enemy Marshal by occupying a tent with Celadine. That was his downfall, since other enemies that moved to his aid were too far away. Finished on turn 11. By the way, I LOVE the design of this mission! An actual river crossing defense with a map-long line of fortifications, and you can recruit and recall on any of them. That felt really good, especially given the fact that I saved about 500 gold for just such an emergency.

A shame it's so short. I got two events in a row where I got a gift for high Kingdom happiness. I wonder if normally there would be two more missions there. But whatever the case, an excellent add-on and an excellent video game!

[SpenceLack]

I'm not sure if the author actually views the forums anymore.

I do read the forums! I'm glad you liked the campaign! I am working on updating Elvish Dynasty RPG and Ooze Mini Campaign. The updated versions will hopefully be out in about two months, and they address most of the concerns that you listed.

The player will be able to automatically set training. There will be more backstory given for Aurelia. The difficulty, training, happiness, and gold systems will be revamped. The player will have more choices in the diplomacy missions. There will be some new levels.

One thing that will stay the same is that there will only be 10 years. So even though there will be 100+ possible scenarios, the player will only see about 10 of them in any particular play through. Basically, I wanted the player to be able to beat the campaign in a few hours, but for there to be a lot of replayability.

Congratulations on coming up with such creative solutions to some of those combat levels!

[Krzysztof-H]

Wow, that is fantastic news! (I got that impression, since your last post in this topic is from 11 years ago. Quite the comeback!) I'm looking forward to playing the remake. Thanks for all your work

[SpenceLack]

After a hiatus lasting many years I have returned and updated this campaign. Although I am the original creator, this campaign would not exist today if not for the many people who added to it or helped with maintenance over the years. So I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of those people. You guys rock!

Version 2.1 Changelog:

*Kirielle will now accompany the player for the whole campaign in combat missions. Her starting level has been reduced to 2. Like Bryony and Aurelia, she is part of the happiness system and can provide unity magic. Her death will result in defeat.

*All happiness levels now start at 15. All happiness manipulation has been standardized into minor increments of 5, moderate increments of 10, or major increments of 25. Promotion events now give happiness to the unit that got promoted, rather than kingdom happiness.

*Kingdom happiness checks and the related levels/rebellions/boons have been removed. This gameplay mechanic was rare enough that it didn’t need to exist, and when it did trigger it wasn’t particularly interesting or useful.

*The story has undergone a major re-write. In the original release there were a number of the loose ends. What happened to Aurelia’s missing mother, Queen Calliara? Who is this mysterious Radavek Nix guy that keeps popping up? And what was the secret mission Kirielle went on at the end of the campaign that caused her to be late for the final battle? All these loose plot threads and more have now been definitely answered.

*Gold is now predefined for every combat level, with the caveat that kingdom happiness now gives extra gold in every combat level.

*There is no longer any gold carryover. Gold is no longer used in the Sacred Glade or non-combat missions. One of the biggest problems with the previous versions of Elvish Dynasty was that it was impossible to balance gold usage in combat levels versus noncombat levels. A new ‘Sovereignty Point’ system will force the player to strike a balance between combat and noncombat missions. As a result, gold-related gameplay mechanics (war support costs and yearly tax revenue) have been removed.

*Now the player gains power by earning Sovereignty Points, which represent the combined political, military, and economic might of the Florian government. The player starts with 4 Sovereignty Points, and the only way to acquire more is by completing combat missions. Sovereignty Points can be spent during noncombat missions to give the kingdom boons, or to increase happiness levels in the Sacred Glade. Since the player will only get a limited amount of Sovereignty Points they need to spend them wisely. There is no limit to the number of Sovereignty Points that can be earned. The rate of Sovereignty Point acquisition is determined by the difficulty level. All non-combat level rewards have been revamped to accommodate this new system. In general, rewards are more lucrative but harder to acquire, and choices made will significantly impact the player experience.

*Self-training has been rebalanced.

*Fixed all known bugs. Some examples: A bug that could cause random yearly events to be repeated was fixed. A bug that would prevent promotion events from firing was fixed. A bug where Bryony got no xp for killing the river serpent in level 6a was fixed.

*Made the terrain more varied on many maps.

*Coronation: Because the Coronation is probably the most-played combat mission of the entire campaign, in order to keep it fresh the player can now choose to undertake the mission during Spring, Summer, Autumn, or Winter. The appearance of the Coronation and Coronation Epilogue will change, and there will be minor changes in gameplay depending on the choice made.

*The Ooze path has been reintroduced and finished; for the final battle the player will now get to choose to fight the Empire of Man (Elf path) or to devour Floria and ascend to godhood (Ooze path).

*The Epilogue has been expanded to include consequences for most of the player's actions.

*Many spelling and grammar errors have been fixed.

*Every combat and non-combat level was rebalanced. In some cases the changes were very minor. For example, in the “Artifact Merchants” level only a few numbers needed to be changed. Other revisions were more substantial. For example, the new “Jungle Lairs” features a new NPC, a more fleshed-out story with cutscenes, many map terrain changes, and a different approach to combat.

All new levels:

The 7 Sins of Aurelia: “Heritage” was a mandatory story level that occurred towards the end of the campaign. It dealt with the fate of Aurelia’s boyfriend, Sithras. “Heritage” was removed from the campaign, but the basic story premise is now covered in this new optional non-combat level. In terms of WML coding, this may be the most complex Wesnoth level ever created. The player must complete a series of (mostly) easy mini-games to reach the best ending.

Liturgical Dispute: When kingdom happiness checks were deleted, it meant that 5 levels associated with that gameplay mechanic also got deleted. This non-combat level combines the best plot points from those 5 deleted missions into a more coherent whole.

Treasure Hunt: This is a randomized non-combat mission that tests the player’s detective skills.

The Real McCoy: A combat level in which the player must use trickery to defeat dunefolk enemies.

Devour Floria, and Proteus: Two new levels associated with the endgame ooze path.

[orian34]

I checked the latest addon updates on a whim, and did not expect to see so many legendary ones from many years ago being just recently updated. Now I just have to play them again!

[orian34]

Alright, I managed to win in Legendary difficulty, having so little points each year was certainly difficult!
It kinda forced me to go into battle most of the time (I did 2 diplomacy years), but in exchange I had an extremely stacked army of level 3. Unity magic was fairly low, so beyond basic +1 damage, I was facing powered units for the final battle.

In the first year, the bard escort mission was really difficult due to the constant enemy spawns, no veterans and poison + turn limit. The hardest fight I had to face in this campaign, I had to restart it multiple times.

In the witch swamp battle to save the saurian, I saw a typo in the intro, it says "Bryony'y golden hair".

For the finale, I tried the ooze side first, but the lack of happiness made my units too slow and lower gold bonus, combined with around 18 units spawning each turn at some point, I gave up on turn 13 when I had 10 oozes left and 85 to get still. Maybe if I optimized better the start with a ton of ooze, I could do it, but I didn't want to.

My army was obviously much more suited for the large scale battle on four fronts at once. Managed to beat the king on a last turn bait clutch (rip my level 3 elven rider).


Anyway, was a blast to revisit the campaign, giving a shot in highest difficulty as well. Fun as always!

[SpenceLack]

Alright, I managed to win in Legendary difficulty

Thank you for the feedback; I did take it into account when I made my most recent update! That's very impressive that you were able to win on the hardest difficulty level! I am glad that you enjoyed the campaign!