The Sceptre of Fire

[turin]

The idea is NOT to make the spearmen survive for as long as possible. They are almost assuredly dead in one turn. You want to place them so that the outriders that attack them will not, after killing them, be able to catch up to you in time. They are a diversion.

Also, I've finished scenario 8, the dragon, and I think its ready to be released. Its a tad different from most other scenarios (you'll see how), and until you realize that you are meant to lose at least one second or third level unit, it is very frustrating. So I'll release it to the server sometime tomorrow.

[turin]

Sceptre of Fire 0.6 released

The main change is the new scenario, The Dragon, but I have also made some balancing for OtO and HotSC, and many dialogue revisions. I'll probably do some more soon, so it is not so "talky".

[Ave]

The dwarves could say something VERY nasty if i bring empty caravans there.
Since the game is already lost when i do that, they could simply turn against me

Talking across the screen is ugly.
Why couldn't the human and dwarf meet in the center, then at the end of their conversation go back to their respective starting point.
It is just a little more scripting

[turin]

The dwarves could say something VERY nasty if i bring empty caravans there.
Since the game is already lost when i do that, they could simply turn against me

Well, the game isn't lost when you do that, necessarily. If you put a caravan there, unload it, then move the caravan back to the hex, it would suck if you lost immediately.

Talking across the screen is ugly.
Why couldn't the human and dwarf meet in the center, then at the end of their conversation go back to their respective starting point.
It is just a little more scripting

I'll consider it. But I don't mind the talking across the screen all that much.

[Ave]

Umm you are right, i thought the caravans will be removed

Btw, 12 rounds seems to be a bit narrow to close the gates.
Probably i brought in the wrong forces, i dunno.
The elves tend to sneak in in the upper side so i cannot reach those glyphs without meeting outriders.

More problems: Dwarvish Guardsmen is not a valid unit (should be Dwarvish Guardsman), this caused me to not be able to recruit miners in the 'gathering materials' scenario.

[edit]
Ok, the problem is that my recruit list got 'poisoned' with Dwarvish Guardsmen somewhere earlier. Grep for this, it is present in the dragon level too.

After i fixed my savegame, i noticed that i don't have to bring 2 coals to the HQ. It seems my miner did not correcly unload its coal. So when it stayed in the HQ, it unloaded another coal.
Running out of time, probably this saved my butt, btw

Baglur died at the closing of the gates (gates closed on him, LOL).
This problem did not bother me until the Shorbear Caves.

12 rounds is way too short for Towards the Caves.
The yellow elves spawn too fast to run past them with Elonin. I don't think this is doable without serious cheating.

[Ave]

in wolf unit the attack image filename has a typo in it.
'netural' --> 'neutral'

Btw, made Elonin escape without serious cheating
Still, probably 14 rounds in easy mode wouldn't be too unbalanced.

[turin]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how making the turn limit longer will help. If you don't get there by turn 10, how are you ever going to get there?

[Ave]

When i first played, i missed the exit only by 1-2 movements.

a small team of dwarves sit in the mountains drawing away the yellows
A brave griffon did the same with those pesky riders.

I was a bit surprised when all the dwarves suddenly vanished
Probably they shouldn't vanish, DOH!

Anyway, the second time, i made it quite fast with Alonin, i guess that was the 'supposed way'

[turin]

My strategy with Alanin is to send him down through the ice, down the western side of the river, then cross it near the bottom. It avoids the eastern elves nicely.

Having the dwarves dissappear is kind of an inside joke between me and Dacyn. I'll change it if its too unbalancing, but I don't think it is... a dialogue hint might be nice, though.

[js138]

The idea is NOT to make the spearmen survive for as long as possible. They are almost assuredly dead in one turn. You want to place them so that the outriders that attack them will not, after killing them, be able to catch up to you in time. They are a diversion.

Yes they may be dead in one turn, but if they are killed by two outriders instead of three, it makes a big difference. The fifth and sixth outrider then catch up with Alanin pretty quickly.

Clearly I don't expect them to survive very long, but having one each turn survive damaged is pretty much ideal as it can then (hopefully) move into the village which generated it and be hard to kill and in the way for a second turn.

Sadly replays don't seem to save without error, or I could examples of what can go wrong.

And my solution is mildly peverse, but I suspect repeatable with average luck.

[turin]

I've never seen one of them killed by only 2 outriders. I didn't even know it was possible.

[js138]

I'm surprised. 6 hits (42 hp) will do for even a resilient quick spearman and 6/8 hits isn't that far up the proability curve even at 50%. At 40% it's going to happen a little more again. I did have it happen to me once at 60% (but fortunately a very late turn where it didn't matter).

The first two turns appear critical. After that it's a cakewalk.

[saskganesh]

The idea is NOT to make the spearmen survive for as long as possible. They are almost assuredly dead in one turn. You want to place them so that the outriders that attack them will not, after killing them, be able to catch up to you in time. They are a diversion.

after your pep talk about spearmen placement, i finally managed to outrun them. i was shocked. so i did it the scenario again; same result. then a third try: failed. then did it again; made it. so 3 out of 4 times. it does take a little bit of luck, the spearmen cant die on the first attack, but if you get enough space between self and the outriders, some of the elves seem to lose interest in the pursuit.

well, i'll be.

[turin]

It is kind of a cakewalk after the first 2-3 turns. I don't know how to fix that, though. Maybe I should make new outriders appear every turn.

Glad you figured out how to make it; it does take a bit of luck, but not too much, IMHO. 3/4 seems decent.

[Rothrorn]

Hi

This campaign seems completely broken for me. If I try to load a saved game it it exits due to a missing unit and if I try to start from scratch it exits due to an unknown scenario. This is a shame because I had really enjoyed it so far (Hills of the Shoebaer Clan) and its good to have a decent campaign based on dwarves at last.

I think I've got the latest version and am using 0.9.3 with a mac (10.4.1).