Dusk of Dawn - Campaign

[GreenScarab]

Thank you for such quick feedback!

The new difficulty level "Normal" is not meant to be super hard, but a bit more demanding than "Easy". Considering that this is a campaign with the entire structure aimed at beginners, I think that if you could feel the change in difficulty in scenarios S1 and S3, then I think I managed to spice it up a bit. Maybe you have some idea you want to share, how to spice up a bit A Dream scenario?

It would be nice if the loyal Flame Guardian 'Spark' would be renamed to 'Flame' when leveling up, to reference the campaign difficulties.

Cool idea!

I think it would make more sense if the getting the tree branch item was the achievement for this scenario. It's near impossible to not get Refumee, and that doesn't make it a good achievement in my opinion.

I think you are right and getting this achievement is too easy.

(And it might be cool if the ending dialogue depended on whether or not you burned any trees. Being told to replace the burnt trees even though you didn't burn any is weird.)

Which dialogue specifically do you mean? This one? “After some more thought, the Wose Shaman said it would point the trolls in the right direction, but they were to first plant new trees in the place of the ones that vanished during the battle."

[GreenScarab]

Update 3.0.2 has been released!

- The secret achievement for finding Wild Saurian has been changed to finding Wose Branch.
- Now, when a loyal Fire Guardian named Spark levels to Fire Wraith then his name is changed to Flame.
- Typos written out in the post above by Konrad2.

Thank you for your help.

[Konrad2]

Maybe you have some idea you want to share, how to spice up a bit A Dream scenario?

Not really, maybe a higher agression? The Saplings were often unwilling to attack my Troll Hero.

(And it might be cool if the ending dialogue depended on whether or not you burned any trees. Being told to replace the burnt trees even though you didn't burn any is weird.)

Which dialogue specifically do you mean? This one? “After some more thought, the Wose Shaman said it would point the trolls in the right direction, but they were to first plant new trees in the place of the ones that vanished during the battle."

Yes, exactly. No trees were hurt during my battle.

[GreenScarab]

V3.0.3 has been released!

- If you don't destroy a single Wose in A Dream then there will be no dialogue about planting new trees.
- On Normal the Woses in A Dream are more aggressive than on Easy.

[Spannerbag]

Hi,
Small niggle: playing on Flame (Normal) difficulty and finished scenario 2 (A Dream) athen got an error:

error wml: [variable] name='wose_vanished' found with no comparison attribute

Looking in the logs I noted a few other reports, some repeated several times.
I hadn't played any other campaigns in this session so presume they all apply to DoD?

warning image: Replaced missing 'portraits/trolls/troll-hero-alt.png' with found 'portraits/trolls/troll-hero-alt.webp'.
warning image: Replaced missing 'portraits/trolls/whelp.png' with found 'portraits/trolls/whelp.webp'.

These occurred multiple times:

error audio: Could not load sound file 'fist-miss.ogg'.
error display: Tile at 16,9 isn't on the map, can't scroll to the tile.
error display: Tile at 16,7 isn't on the map, can't scroll to the tile.
error display: Tile at 16,11 isn't on the map, can't scroll to the tile.

And finally:

error wml: [variable] name='wose_vanished' found with no comparison attribute

Am enjoying the campaign so far, had to replay both scenarios a few times mainly due to not paying attention to turn count!

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[GreenScarab]

Hi Spannerbag!

Small niggle: playing on Flame (Normal) difficulty and finished scenario 2 (A Dream) athen got an error:

Thank you for your feedback. A while ago I released a quick update that fixed this bug.

When you complete the campaign, I would appreciate your overall thoughts on it.

[Spannerbag]

... I released a quick update that fixed this bug.

Have downloaded - but not yet (re)played - latest version.

When you complete the campaign, I would appreciate your overall thoughts on it.

OK, no problem. Bear in mind played DoD as a player rather than reviewer so my thoughts may be a bit random.

Note: people clever than me have already provided excellent feedback that I can't improve on, so I won't cover old ground.

Narrative/storyline
You have packed a lot into a small campaign and I think you need more space to allow things to build to a fitting climax.
Both the start (troll origin) and end (troll sadness) felt rushed and glossed over to me - and both could be the subject of entire campaigns.

A thought: if you give a conceptually definitive and unambiguous explanation of trollish origins in a mainline campaign you potentially inhibit scope of subsequent designers to create content that deals with trolls and their early days?
Of course if there is a plan to more clearly explain troll origins in canon/mainline fair enough.

Story text

The story narration changes style, sometimes being in first person, sometimes third and sometimes reporting what Ougl is thinking.
Nothing wrong at all with that, but IMHO it would add flavour if you gave the story text some context.
For example:

• First person text, e.g.
  Prologue/intro: Being Born
  The story I will tell you happened 16 years after we, humans, came to the Great Continent and what sadness we have brought to the trolls...
  Scenario 1: First Steps
  When, as I will call it, the Golden Flame Tribe entered the territory once belonging to the bearded race, some of the trolls began to behave quite unusually.
  Assuming these are based on extracts/quotes from the Book of Crelanu then rather than saying "I" give a caption and/or image indicating this comes from said tome?
• Ougl's thoughts
  Scenario 2: A Dream
  Soon Ougl understood that there was no further path ahead of them.
  Maybe have a story image that is an enlarged portrait of Ougl with the caption of "Ougl" (like message essentially) to emphasise we're inside his head. Alternatively if it doesn't disrupt narrative/gameplay flow you could have this messageed by Ougl before the action starts?
• Everything else can be left unchanged as it's generic narration.

None of the above is essential of course: the story as it is works.

Story text: Being Born

Temporal setting was a bit unclear to me.
The story says: The story I will tell you happened 16 years after we, humans, came to the Great Continent and what sadness we have brought to the trolls.... However my assumption was that:

• The actual events in Being Born occurred in the distant past.
• The 16 years after humans arrived time applies only to subsequent scenarios (i.e. from First Steps onwards).

Or have I completely misunderstood things (again)?

If not, maybe moving the last line of the story (the one quoted above) to the story of the next scenario would help?
You could instead replace the quoted line above with something referencing that legends of how trolls came to be abound: here is one version...
But then that's clunky! (I'm not much good at narration so what do I know?)

Scenarios/gameplay
There are 4 playable scenarios in only 3 of which the player can garner experience.
This feels a bit low to me given the fact that it's a beginner campaign and there isn't much scope for recovery from a bad start?

For me, I wasn't sure that nonverbal/intuitive trolls added to the campaign overall TBH.
It certainly added a unique flavour to the campaign however the charm cast by the wose to enable trolls to comprehend but not speak language felt like a jarring plot device and didn't really (for me) flow or fit well. But it did kinda complement the mystical feel of the campaign.
But then if this all comes from notes from a book then it may not be unvarnished truth anyway...?

I appreciate this campaign is almost ready and presumably you don't want to make significant changes, but FWIW I'd've liked to have had the trolls acquisition of language built-in to the campaign (incorporated into objectives). However it's way too late for this now, so I'll stop whingeing.

Scenario: First Steps

I suppose there isn't space in a short campaign, but I'd liked to have known a bit more about how/why the ash troll tribe and fire guardians fought against Ougl.

The scenario gameplay and structure is fine for beginners although on early playthroughs the few trolls I did advance in this scenario (mostly Ougl and loyals) were not shamans because fire attacks aren't that effective against fire guardians and wraiths.
Whereas in the last scenario I found shamans to be very useful.
Not sure if this is an issue or not.
Everything I thought of added complexity which isn't what you want IMHO in a beginner level campaign.
Certainly on subsequent playthroughs I advanced a lot more shamans as anti-lizard units for the last scenario!

BTW on my first playthrough I had a combination of:

• Freaky recruitment: every unit was quick (roughly 1.6% chance I think).
  Thought maybe this was forced in code to mitigate shroud but on turn 2 of second playthrough eventually managed to recruit a non-quick unit.
• Unbalanced RNG; fire guardians rarely missed with ranged however enemy trolls were moderately unlucky especially vs my suicidal fire ant.

Scenario: Secret

Good puzzle, not too difficult for beginners.
Just a thought: maybe for normal difficulty you could make the map slightly tougher or move the runes and/or golem to trickier positions?
(I'm assuming this is not the case: I've not played on easiest difficulty.)

Scenario: A Dream

Good scenario, encourages you to over-extend and units can easily get swarmed.
I half threw away, half sacrificed a couple of flame guardians while getting Refumee to the branch.
A bit more patience might have helped... but then the woses respawn every turn so maybe not...

Having 3 shamans and the golem really helped. I found fire guardians rather fragile for holding terrain.

Scenario: Fateful Day

Not a lot to add to previous posts except that I'm not a fan of teaser gold that's inaccessible.

The berserk mushroom effect was fun but I lost a couple of berserk trolls in fights I expected them to win comfortably.
IMHO despite their melee attack, berserk is not an unalloyed advantage to trolls because their game stats include a consideration of their regenerates ability, especially lower defense? So lack of opportunity to heal arguably hampers them more then most units?
Maybe nerf the berserk to fewer rounds?
Say 3 on Spark and 5 on Flame?
Mind you I'm probably biased because the first unit to stumble onto berserk was a shaman and they don't melee too well vs lizards... at least mine didn't.

However I'm nitpicking and these are minor concerns.
Overall the scenario plays very well and offered a decent challenge as a last battle!

Epilogue: A Beautiful World

Sadly I found this downbeat ending rather confused and rushed.
FWIW I would've had this a playable scenario where a spiritually crippled Ougl holds off the orcs for as long as possible allowing some of his kin to escape the corrupting influence of the orcs. Or, not all of the trolls were persuaded/coerced by the orcs and fought for freedom. Or something...

Perhaps their leader would be selected from player's recall list?
E.g. intelligent shaman preferred, then any shaman, then ditto L3 warrior then any other L2).

However like their kin who would serve the orcs these trolls have lost Ougl, their gifted leader and guide.
Both groups were diminished and from then on they never again could see the surface world as an untainted haven.
Instead it was where they became forever lost without guide or flame and almost without hope.
The bright sun now found no echo from the flames within. Darkess beckoned.

Sorry if this comes across as negative; I'm pointing out the parts I thought weakest, much of the scenario is excellent (such as your maps).
It may be intentional, but I'm not clear whether this campaign should be taken as established history (like Heir to the Throne) or a less reliable narrative garnered from a book (and maybe other sources)?

Overall an enjoyable campaign and for me anyway that's the most important consideration!

Hope my random witterings help but if not feel free to ignore.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[GreenScarab]

Update 3.0.6/3.0.7 !!!

Spoiler:

- Puzzle in the Secret scenario have now different rune arrangement and solution on Normal.
- Tweaked campaign description in the campaign selection menu so that it is easier to understand that Crelanu is the author of the main narration in the campaign.
- In the initial intro of S0 at the last line of text it is indicated that the one who tells the story to the player is Crelanu.
- Typos corrected in achievements thanks to the help of Lord-Knightmare.
- The turn limit in the S1 scenario has been increased a bit: Easy - 30 turns, Normal - 27 turns.

[GreenScarab]

Update 3.1.0

Spoiler:

- New unit: Troll Earth Shaker!

Update 3.1.1

Spoiler:

- In S1, the enemy Fire Guardian recruits Fire Wisp in addition to Fire Guardian
- In S1 brazier can be lit by Troll Shaman
- Icons for achievements: SMALL BUT CUNNING and SCORCHED EARTH have been changed
- The description of the Earth Shaker unit has been corrected
- Unit: Wild and Beast Saurian have their attack increased by 1
- In S3, the Naga side is more defensive and does not leave the water area
- In S3, the enemy Saurian leader, when defeated, flees through another path next to his castle
- At the beginning of S3 Refumee is automatically summoned