Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isle

Feedback for the mainline campaign Under the Burning Suns.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

shadowblack
Posts: 368
Joined: April 15th, 2010, 3:03 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by shadowblack »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on? Please do not submit feedback from pre 1.4.
1.8.4, Desert Sentinel (Challenging)

2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level? If not describe the issue that made the scenario to easy/hard.
Again depends on what units you will recall at start, but seems to be just fine.

3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly loose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?
No, nothing.

4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?
Very good.

5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.
It was fine. Having to find and capture a keep seemed like a nice challenge at first, but I was a bit disappointed that there was really no fighting at all before reaching the Saurian leader. And once I had the keep the mission turned into another “kill-em-all and avoid losses”.

Being able to recruit Mermen would have been nice IF I had any gold to spare for them. But with min starting gold I just recalled my 4 Stars and some level 2s (some of which leveled up later) and proceeded to kill everyone in my path.

I never got to the NW part of the sea so I never saw the captured merman or the sea serpent (I know about them only because I read the wiki and looked at the scenario code). Maybe give some hint that there’s something to find in the NW corner? The way it is now I saw no reason to go there and once I was done with the western Nagas I sent all my mermen east to deal with the other nagas.


6) Do you think the scenario's WML is clear and commented well enough? If not which part would you like to see improved?
Seems well-documented.
You are a Dark Adept: You immerse yourself in the dark arts... potentially with great rewards...
User avatar
Pewskeepski
Posts: 378
Joined: November 17th, 2010, 6:24 pm
Location: An icy dungeon beneath Antarctica

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by Pewskeepski »

(1) Difficulty, version? 1.9.4 (228 gold)
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 9: Holy crap, it took me forever to beat this :augh:
(3) How clear? Very
(4) Dialog? Great
(5) Challenges? Bats because they pop out of nowwhere, and it's really hard to know whether or not they can get you. Naga because they have good weapons, and them being neutral makes it worse. The fact that I have recruitment_ignore_bad_combat and movement set too "no" by default made the orcs and undead recruit army's of level 2's. At about turn 30 I decided to set it back to normal to see what would happen and what do you know? They only recruited level 3's :???:
(6) How fun? (1-10) 5: Good scenario, but hard. Maybe it'd be easier if I played with recruitment_ignore_bad_combat and movement set to "yes" by default.
(7) Changes? Ditch the bats ^_^
(8) Reloads or restarts? A ton of restarts. And, I'll admit it, I saved the game at the end so I could kill the orcish sovereign in one turn. (You'll know it when you see the replay)
(9) WML? Well commented
(10) Replay? Attached
(11) Map? Heh heh, it's a fish :P
Attachments
UtBS-The_Battle_for_Zoctha..._replay.gz
(83.81 KiB) Downloaded 853 times
"Everything is better with penguins."
Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
User avatar
Maiklas3000
Posts: 532
Joined: June 23rd, 2010, 10:43 am

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by Maiklas3000 »

1) Version and difficulty? 1.9.7, nightmare
2) Appropriately difficult? Yes, a nightmare.
3) Reloads? Just normal losses due to critical deaths or time, restarted from start. I almost won the first time, with my Mermen knocking out the northeast leader, but my main army had bypassed the undead leader, and the back-n-forth caused by the changing objectives cost too many turns.
4) Storyline and the dialogues? Good. However, you wrote "than" in place of "then."
5) Fun, gameplay, mood, etc.? The mood is very dark and spooky, appropriately so. I don't like that there are two types of bats. One type are normal bats. The other bats are bats that teleport away at dawn and are, for all practical purposes, immortal. (So, you should kill the Blood Bats named "Blood Bat" and ignore the ones named "Nocturnal Pest".) Another big problem is that the "nocturnal" bats come in the afternoon, not at dusk. More generally, if you want to see how to handle nocturnal bats, see "The Mage" in the Dead Water campaign. I suggest creating a bat cave and just stealing that code, because it's really cool. I also don't like the triggering of the Saurians. I'd prefer if they were there to start with. The teleporting keys are somewhat annoying, both in terms of their teleporting and in the surprise need to have keys in the first place.

* * *

Replay attached. My plan was to thrust north, but not too quickly, and knock out the undead leader to the north, while doing an end around (to the north) with the Mermen to attack the northeast leader, with the help of two horse units detached from my main army. Things did not go to plan. The Mermen ran into stiff resistance to the north (a Spectre on top of a level 3 Naga recruit), losing their Priestess as well as a couple others. That pretty much put the Mermen out of action for the rest of the scenario. Fortunately, the main army was easily able to take out both leaders. Meanwhile, a four unit detachment from my main army sat just north of the southwest bay, picking off the Naga as they clambered into the forest.
Attachments
UtBS-The_Battle_for_Zoctha..._replay.gz
(96.57 KiB) Downloaded 814 times
podbelski
Posts: 151
Joined: June 7th, 2011, 8:35 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by podbelski »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on? Please do not submit feedback from pre 1.4.
1.9.6, top difficulty, minimum starting gold, a couple of reloads

2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level? If not describe the issue that made the scenario to easy/hard.
"9", probably adequate

2 losses, 60 kills, finished in turn 25/36

3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly loose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?
a couple of bad placements and unlucky outcome, did not want to restart b/c was a bit bored by the campaign

4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?
I don't care, but looks good as always

5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.
Just moderately fun.

First, I had a minimum gold b/c didn't kill all the rebels in the prev map, the biggest outcome of that was finishing in negative gold. So on this map I did not have extra recalls. Great I had all my loyal mermen alive, they crushed western nagas easily and made a journey to shut down the orc.

The biggest challenge is passing through the forest to kill the undead leader, it is very tough with limited units I had. They get crippled too fast, two Stars were not able to heal enough injury... so I had to luck out undead leader assasination by reloading, was a very close spot (I went the western path around the fissure). Once I've done it, the rest was trivial. Can't say I've enjoyed much by this confrontation, I've seen it all before, so that's why I say "tired of the campaign". On the plus side, it's the last tough map, and the beginning of it and the mermen battles were more fun.

I don't like the way bats are implemented as well, biggest annoyance is them appearing in the afternoon.

Also, a chest with gold does not make any sense as is, cause I'm way more down in money than it gives. Even if you make it contain more, the first moment I can use the money is after taking the undead's keep, but at that point I won't need more troops.
Attachments
UtBS-The_Battle_for_Zoctha..._replay.gz
(68.54 KiB) Downloaded 787 times
Jabie
Posts: 107
Joined: December 2nd, 2010, 12:50 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by Jabie »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on? Please do not submit feedback from pre 1.4.

Easiest difficulty level.

2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level?

8. It's the last overland major battle so it should be a challenge.

3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly loose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?

The Wraiths at the start were a little tough. It might be nice to limit the recruiting power of the undead leader to Ghosts until you capture the first keep. I restarted when Grog got surrounded by these things before I had a chance to recruit up my army.

4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?

Nym says "your sorry arse" at one point. This sounded a little too modern to my ears. I recommend "your sorry hide" instead. This makes more sense as the Quenoth would have been used to tanning animals in the wastes.

5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.

I enjoyed it.
WanderingHero
Posts: 169
Joined: May 30th, 2011, 2:03 pm
Location: Uk, London

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by WanderingHero »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on? Please do not submit feedback from pre 1.4.
1.9 Normal
2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level? If not describe the issue that made the scenario to easy/hard.
Too easy, i easily overwhelmed the orcs and undead with my veterans. Getting to the base was annoying, and I lost once when i held back, not realising that I could just go hog wild with spending on this scenario, but once I did I spammed vets and overwhelmed the ai. I'm puzzled you would make the trolls and dwarf scenario so maddeningly hard, but make the last 2 scenarios so easy.
3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly loose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?
Sudden attacks while getting to the base. Not realising that spending lots of money was a good idea.
4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?
Was ok I guess
5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.
It was too easy but still somewhat fun. I think the map is too big though, since the scenario kind of becomes a mindless hack fest. The surprise bats were pretty annoying and some kind of warning a few turns earlier would have been nice.
User avatar
flammstrudel
Posts: 74
Joined: April 13th, 2013, 9:08 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by flammstrudel »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on?
1.10.2 medium

2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level? If not describe the issue that made the scenario to easy/hard.
It's adequate. 9/10

3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly loose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?
Killing the saurians was kind of annoying. They are very weak, but you have to be fast. If you get a couple of bad rolls you can't even start to recruit before your small army is torn apart by swarms of bats and spectres.

4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?
It was okay.

5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.
10/10 I enjoyed it. I didn't want to lose any units, so I jumped back to turn 1 quite a few times until I succeeded. In hindsight this was kind of unnecessary – even heavy losses wouldn't have hurt my chances for the boss fight. My strategy: camp jungle entrance (without losing injured units to bats), swing around the map with the mermans and kill the naga and orc chieftains (coulnd't kill the eastern Naga – it just pumped out too many units), and finally: move in for the kill. I liked the spooky atmosphere and the map design. The treasure in the ship wreck was pretty pointless though. By the time you get there you are going to be so deeply in debt that it doesn't really matter anymore.
User avatar
Maiklas3000
Posts: 532
Joined: June 23rd, 2010, 10:43 am

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by Maiklas3000 »

) Version, difficulty, gold? 1.11.15, nightmare, 406 starting gold (minimum is 200.)
2) Appropriately difficult? Yes, extremely difficult, which is appropriate since this is the second to last battle. I pity those who come into this scenario without carryover gold.
3) Reloads? I lost many times, restarting from start each time. Then I lost due to time and about one hex of distance, so I save reloaded to fix that.
4) Dialog? Good.
5) Fun? Okay, definately a spooky mood, excessive bats detract from fun.

I call again for those damn daytime bats to be removed. Just remove all bats from the recruitment list. From the player's perspective, it doesn't make sense that those bats hang around at daytime when the other bats all disappear, especially when they're the same species of bats. The nocturnal bats are quite enough of a pain. I found that I had to hedgehog (except by day) and go very slowly. It might be a little more fair if at dusk the bats appeared but did not move or attack. They could appear in the middle of those chasms (if you enlarge them), if you want them to be protected while they rally at dusk. Some real bats flock just outside cave entrances at dusk and then charge off en masse (to thwart predators, of course.)

The treasure ship would be much more of interest if it were much closer to the player's starting area. Then the player would have a chance to get the gold before having finished recruiting. It would be a gamble, if it's in the general area of the Naga.

In the replay, I had learned to be extremely cautious from previous losses, so you'll see hedgehogs all over the place. I waited at the fortress hexes at the two jungle entrances until the assault wave broke. Meanwhile, my Mermen did an "end-around" to the north and then east to the orc leader, like was my plan in my previous review. I put my leader at the second jungle entrance, which is harder to defend than the other entrance, and the enemy largely ignored the first chokepoint in favor of going after my leader, so I made a minor mistake there. I also sent a force due east for the eastern Naga leader, but that force was wiped out, except for a lone Druid who hid out in a southern village for the rest of the scenario. (Actually, you're not going to get any use out of L2's in the peculiar final scenario, so no need to protect them.)
Attachments
UtBS-The_Battle_for_Zoctha..._replay.gz
(112.49 KiB) Downloaded 693 times
nikita1996
Posts: 49
Joined: July 18th, 2015, 8:07 am

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by nikita1996 »

1) v1.12.4 difficulty: Desert Sentinel (Challenging)
2) I think it's too hard. In fact, this is the most difficult scenario in this campaign. I failed 3 times and played completely again from the beginning 3 times.I spent about 6 hours on this scenario.
3) I didn't instantly lose, but completely lost for three times. The main problem is, you should balance the number of elves and mermen. Usually, the troops on the land should kill the saurians and undead king. The mermen should kill the naga and orc king. If you have too many land troops (elves), you'll have no enough turns to kill the orcish king. If you have too many mermen, things may be much more terrible because Kaleh may be killed. It's a problem that how to balance the number of the land troops and the navy. Finally, I recurited and recalled 11 elves and 7 mermen. It only took 27 turns to reach the centre of the mountain. I got the second key (iron key) in the 25th turn.
4) The story's good.
5) It's not so fun because it's really too difficult. I think, if you cancel the shround, it will be much easier. If the player knows the map in the beginning, he/she'll know how many elves and mermen the player should recurit and where they should go.
Attachments
UtBS-The_Battle_for_Zoctha..._replay.gz
(78.45 KiB) Downloaded 823 times
User avatar
Inky
Forum Moderator
Posts: 527
Joined: September 22nd, 2014, 1:02 am
Location: USA

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by Inky »

1) Level, version, gold? 1.12.5 nightmare, 265 starting gold. In retrospect, not enough!! I couldn't even recall all my level 3s. Strongly recommend having 300+ gold at the very least.
2) Adequately difficult? 10/10, I barely won. Most difficult scenario in the campaign for sure.
3) Reloads? No restarts/reloads (Eloh be praised!!)
4) Dialog? -
5) Fun? I hate bats! But I loved the challenge, and the tension to survive the nights and make it to the leaders in time.

Nights were a mess, with bats mercilessly ganging up on my wounded units. I am really, really glad I had a bunch of sharpshooters to help take out those bats (they were essential for dislodging orcish slayers from the forest too, and for taking down the level 3 orcs). My 3 desert stars were invaluable too. Did not bother with avengers / champions; in fact, I never leveled a single champion throughout the entire campaign! I find prowlers to be far superior because they can survive high level ranged units ganging up on them.

Since I lost 2 mermen last scenario and didn't have the cash to recruit more, my tiny mermen force was almost annihilated by the nagas but, miraculously, regrouped and
even managed to kill the western naga leader! By that time it was too late for them to circle east to the orc though, so my land force had to split up and take the orc
out. Barely finished in time. This was a great scenario with tension from start to finish.
Attachments
UtBS-The_Battle_for_Zoctha..._replay.gz
(93.05 KiB) Downloaded 742 times
thebends43201
Posts: 6
Joined: April 25th, 2015, 5:36 am

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by thebends43201 »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on? Please do not submit feedback from pre 1.4.

1.12.2. Hardest setting.

2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level? If not describe the issue that made the scenario to easy/hard.

Started with 265 gold, and two restart, as I think you have to kill the saurian leader right away, or else you'll never make it. Other than that, I think it's appropriately hard. I lost a bunch of guys which ofc I hate, but it's the last real battle, so sacrifices had to be made. (Sharpshooter, 2 mermen, Champion, couple others...it was a real bloodbath.)

SPOILER ALERT: For people who are stuck, what I recommend is only recruiting 1-2 mermen, and the rest shoul be level 3 recalls. I had 4 Stars to recall, and that makes for a potent force. Couple avengers, 2 sharpshooters, one level 2 sentinel. Added one spearman to go with the free mermen. What worked for me is to not go too far right away. I manned the 3 castle spots just above the keep, and held there until the end of the long night. Made a similar wall in the East, holding the coast and the one castle square next to the jungle, and the mermen basically chilled out near the coast, trying not to die. As long as you can weather the first long night, you can start to move through the jungle. It's a slow slog, but you'll get there. As to the nagas, I've played this scenario 2x, the first time I didn't even bother to kill the NW naga, as I needed my mermen to help vs orcs and undead. He'll send 1-2 a turn at you, but they're disorganized. This time around, they did kill him. Both naga leaders will leave their keep to pick off a weak merman, so a couple more sacrifices took care of that.

3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly loose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?

First go, I didn't kill the Oracle for 2 turns, and by then, level 3 Wraiths were decimating my guys. Grog and Nym each bit it once.

4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?
Fine.
5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.
It starts slow, first few moves are a waste. Variety of opponents is interesting.
User avatar
UnwiseOwl
Posts: 510
Joined: April 9th, 2010, 4:58 am

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isl

Post by UnwiseOwl »

1) Version? 1.13.7, Challenging (new elves)

2) Adequately difficult? Yes, this one was pretty tough. An appropriate end to the campaign. Though maybe one of the enemy leaders could get an influx of gold when you kill the other.

3) Reloads? I got my mermen slaughtered by that sea monster and restarted there.

4) Dialog? Talking about the keys when you've defeated one of the enemy leaders and thus have one already is weird, it might need an alternate script.
If units are already adjacent to the door when you get the keys it should just open immediately.

5) Fun? This might not have been fun if it wasn't for the diversity of Nagae, but as it was, that really made chasing them down all over the map more interesting than just the usual nagaspam.
Attachments
UtBS-The_Battle_for_Zocthanol_Isle_replay.gz
(79.19 KiB) Downloaded 657 times
Maintainer of the Imperial Era and the campaigns Dreams of Urduk, Epic of Vaniyera, Up from Slavery, Fall of Silvium, Alfhelm the Wise and Gali's Contract.
But perhaps 'maintainer' is too strong a word.
Thrash
Posts: 223
Joined: June 25th, 2010, 1:54 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isle

Post by Thrash »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on? Please do not submit feedback from pre 1.4.

1.12.6, Challenging (medium)

2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level? If not describe the issue that made the scenario to easy/hard.

Good tough fight, no breathers. Wolves running from nowhere and bats were real challenges.

3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly loose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?

No.

4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?

Yes, all good.

5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.

Really good. Exciting from beginning to end. The only thing that was a little lacking was the small amount of gold in the shipwreck that was meaningless (it didn't even get me to zero).

The time pressure was about right. I could have finished a little earlier but when my mermen, which circled clockwise as a group, came across the NE orc, I took time to go kill the eastern Naga instead of letting him pick off my wounded from behind.
Attachments
UtBS-The_Battle_for_Zoct..._replay.gz
(105.48 KiB) Downloaded 641 times
LordWolfDan
Posts: 216
Joined: September 30th, 2018, 7:31 am

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isle

Post by LordWolfDan »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on? Please do not submit feedback from pre 1.4.

- 1.14.5, Normal

2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level? If not describe the issue that made the scenario to easy/hard.

- It could be hard if you spread away your troops because of advanced enemy soldiers

3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly loose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?

- Actually no

4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?

- I like it. As in the intro says, how no enemy stood there when they arrived was pretty much eerie. It took me a while to understand how to enter the citadel

5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.

- I guess it was, though not as fun as the previous 2-3
Konrad2
Forum Moderator
Posts: 3333
Joined: November 24th, 2010, 6:30 pm

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 11. The Battle for Zocthanol Isle

Post by Konrad2 »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on?

1.14.7, Champion (Nightmare)

2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level?

I don't think so, because now is the last scenario and if you are playing on hard, it's likely that you have amassed some veterans you can unleash now without paying attention to your income. That's what I did and so I met basically no serious resistance in this scenario.

3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly lose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?

No. (But I played it before, so...)

4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues?

I like them.

5) Do you think the scenario was fun?

Yes.
Attachments
UtBS-The Battle for Zocthanol Isle replay.gz
(86.11 KiB) Downloaded 543 times
Post Reply