The Rise of Wesnoth 17a - The Dragon

[LordWolfDan]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?

- 1.14.5, Easy

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

- 6

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

- Pretty clear, though I didn't expect the dragon to pop up from the doors in the mountain

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

- It's good, though I wish there was more of the dragon lines

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

- Being flanked by these saurians. Did I say how much I hate saurians?

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

- 6

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

- Make it that once you beat all the saurians, dragon shows up

[Konrad2]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on? 

1.14.5, Hard

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 

6

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives? 

Clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? 

Good.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? 

Not falling into my normal pattern of advancing into enemy lines. The terrain closer to the Saurians is heavily in their favour and very bad for land troops, so stading my ground at first was a better idea.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 

6

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

-

[markd81]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.14.9, hard

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
At first it was very hard. I had little gold and to little pikemen. I redid the previous scenario, then the Troll hole and by having more money and two soon to be leveled up pikemen it was fairly easy.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It was ok.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
After having enough gold not much.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
Pretty funny especially the huge dragon.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Not much really.

[Remellion]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.15.14, Commander (Challenging) (i.e. medium); blind playthrough.
I did the elvish quests in the order CABD (Trolls > dragon > beach > undead).
302 starting gold here.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9/10. The saurians are numerous and rather annoying to slowly beat back. And I was not expecting the dragon to pop out before reaching (what I assume is) its lair in the cave on the mountain. That's a really scary boss fight.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
I think the bonus objective can just be "Defeat all enemy leaders" - no need to repeat the bit about the dragon.
It could also be clarified that we can kill the dragon first, then the saurian leaders.
And it could be clarified whether we win or lose if we kill the dragon and stay on, but fail to kill the saurians before turns run out.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Good dialogue and timing. Yes, it could be worse, we could indeed be back in that troll hole.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Reacting to the dragon suddenly popping out in the middle was alarming. I was lucky enough to have a strong position and good units to deal with it nearby. That aside, reaching the saurian leaders in time with minimal risk. It's nice that the leaders don't always aggressively come out to attack.

By way of strategy, my answer to saurians (as with a lot of things) was footpads. Lots of footpads and outlaws. They dodge well, move well enough in bad terrain, have retaliation at both ranges, and deal impact which saurians are weak to. Support them with white mages and they do pretty alright.

For the dragon, what I had on the field was a mage of light for the illumination, and Burin, Sir Ruddry, and Haldric for the muscle in melee (clearly the safer range). There were two turns of panic as I had to quickly retreat from the east saurian leader and dragon, regrouping to kill the dragon at night (the dragon can more or less kill one unit per turn, so quick is good.) Lady Jessene finished off the dragon, so... Jessene the Dragonbane it is then.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10/10. It's not everyday you see and slay a fire dragon. And the setting for the fight is well constructed.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Clarify the objectives slightly.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.

[Konrad2]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

1.16.1, Lord (Difficult)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

4, I have a full army of lvl 3s + decent carry over, while the saurians can only throw lvl 2 and below at me.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Clear.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Baiting the Dragon porperly.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

6

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

-

Scenario stats:

Spoiler:

[LienRag]

1) 1.16.5 Intermediate

(2) 7 - It's quite easy once you understand that you can wait for the first wave on the plains where Saurians have bad defenses, quite difficult otherwise.

(3) Quite clear but it's not obvious how to find the Dragon

(4) Quite good.

(5) At first, confronting the saurians in the swamp.
The Dragon is both powerful and quick, so there's no real way to protect important units if you don't know where it will appear.

(6) 7 - Randomness in confronting the dragon isn't fun

(7) Warn the player about the dragon's speed, so that s/he knows to protect/screen the important units.
Maybe give more gold but less turns so it's imperative to go into the swamps early ?

[Traumflug]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

Version 1.18.4, Biased RNG (experimental), difficulty Lord (Difficult) ( = hard)

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

11

Saurians are hard enough to deal with. Then the Dragon appearing while being totally unprepared, moving faster than anything without horse and being almost immune to a number of attacks was a bit beyond funny.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Very clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Very clear.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Dealing with the Dragon, obviously. On the first try, he caught me totally unprepared and killed the unit which happened to be the closest on the next turn. With the Dragon's 8 MP almost no unit can run away fast enough.

Only after rolling back several turns and approaching the area with a larger group I could deal with the Dragon. I think the trick is to run away from the swamps, but also leaving a Great (Red) Mage a bit behind. Then he'll attack this Mage, which he can't kill. When that happened, one can move in with Burin the Lost, Great Mages and Paladins to deal with him.

Aside from the Dragon, Saurians had a strong tendency to the East. Meanwhile I could waltz in on the West almost undisturbed. Maybe because Saurians go for the stronger forces. In the East I had to retreat a bit during the night, which worked out only on the third attempt. Quite challenging, still fun.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

7

That Dragon in its current form is a bit over the top.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

Draw the Dragon initially, while sleeping already. Greyed out, like the Lich in scenario Fallen Lich Point. This should raise awareness of it quite a bit.

Also awake him only when approaching the area. Him waking up just because it's turn 15 doesn't match well with storytelling ("Who dared to wake me up?" while there's nobody nearby who could have woken him up). This also makes it more likely one has some units nearby for dealing with him.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

As described above. Also the occasional turn restart, because my first plan of movements didn't work out.

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[fredbobsmith2]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on? Lord (Difficult) 1.18.5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 7, need the right strategy
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives? Clear
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? Good but could have more
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? Proper recruitment, I'd previously attempted this with more L1 units, but I think it's better treated like a finale scenario, where more L3s are used.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 7, not a fan of swamps and saurians, plus the bats flying everywhere stealing villages
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? Less bats

I recalled nearly 3 keeps of a mix of veterans, splitting them into an east and a west team. The west team had Jessene, Burin, 2 healers, an archmage, and ~5 frontliners (swordsman, trapper, halb, jav, mauler). The east team had Haldric, Ruddry + a knight, 2 healers, an archmage, and ~5 frontliners (jav, halb, bandit, 2 maulers), plus a silver mage in support. Notably, the teams should not be split evenly, as most of the enemies will go towards Haldric's team. Even with my uneven split, Haldric's team ended up a bit bogged down, and I should probably have sent the swordsman with him. Each team forms a short line just outside the closest enemy leader's attack range, using forest tiles and ranged units to limit enemy flanking attempts (they overwhelmingly prefer to attack maulers/horses over javelineers/trappers, even if it's from a flat hex). The west team finished before the second dawn, lured out the leader, and killed him, then did the same with the southwest leader. The east team took until around turn 9 to clear up most of its enemies, getting to the southeast leader on turn 12. Around the same time, the west team triggered the dragon, got its gold, and killed it, sacrificing a javelineer in the process.
Previously I'd tried this relying alot more on L1 units to match the enemy L1s and L0s, thinking this would save on upkeep costs. However, comparing to the strategy used this time, with only L2 and L3 units, I found that using weaker units actually costs alot more, because the much slower finish leads to a smaller finish bonus. The slowness is mainly because a group of L1s needs to maintain a strict line to safely advance, or they will be picked apart easily by the saurians, even in the day, while L2s can advance more safely and simply threaten high retaliation damage.
I prepared 2 halbs for this scenario, thinking the dragon would target them after retaliation, but the halb got lucky and the jav was killed instead.

I replayed this because I accidentally deleted the replay, tweaking my strategy to use a royal guard instead of the knight, once again stretching my gold to recall 17 units, and putting even more emphasis on the east team, while the west team became more of an assassination team. Finished on a similar turn with similar carryover, but it was much more comfortable.

Results:
1 RG (8 total), 1 highwayman (5 total)
2 great mages, 1 MoL
1 ranger (2 total)

Replay:
1 near-advance swordsman, 1 highwayman
1 great mage, 1 arch mage near-advance
1 ranger