The Rise of Wesnoth 6 - Temple in the Deep

Feedback for the mainline campaign The Rise of Wesnoth.

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mihoshi
Posts: 52
Joined: February 16th, 2008, 10:18 pm

Post by mihoshi »

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

Medium 1.3.16

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

If you don't have shock troopers or leveled up outlwas, and white mages, and dwarf, your are doomed.
I'm yet to hear about how to beat it without some clayrvoyance skills. I had to play campaign from start beacause of that.

(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?
Decent.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Undead with 8-5 attacks, cave without roads and distant chokepoints, raising undead (making mass footpad cannon fodder tactics also not an option).
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
1 or 7, depending on whether you have outlaws.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Give some dwarves. May be, give The Dwarf in this mission, instead of two missions earlier.
Max
Posts: 1449
Joined: April 13th, 2008, 12:41 am

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by Max »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
medium, 1.4.1

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5

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

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
finding the right mix. had one shock trooper, dwarf (loyal pickup), both have impact weapons that do enough damage on undead. with mage and red mage as well. minimize troop so i get to next level with enough gold...

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
gold reward for early finishing is too low. currently it's 6 i think. but with my troop i earned 12 gold per level. usually the reward given is at least equal to the maximum gold you can get per level? once i figured that out i just waited the remaining ten turns for an additional 60 gold.

put another holy water in this level. that should allow players to succeed in this level that failed to pickup the dwarf and used the shock troopers to hold of the orks (at least that's what the dialogs back then suggested they are here for^^)
samjh
Posts: 0
Joined: May 7th, 2008, 12:51 am

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by samjh »

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

All levels 1.3.x
Easy 1.4.1

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

Hard! Score 8!

(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?

Neither interesting or boring. Clear enough dialogue and storyline.

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

Powerful undead! I tend to under-recruit in this scenario, and only have around 6 units left by the time I meet the Lich.

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

Score 3. Not too fun.

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

The undead are incredibly strong here. The Lich should recruit less powerful but more mixed assortment of units.
Jozrael
Posts: 1034
Joined: June 2nd, 2006, 1:39 pm
Location: NJ, USA.

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by Jozrael »

At hard settings I find the power sufficient for the lich, but I would agree that his forces should be more varied. My strategy largely consists of camping the two holes at the middle for most of the game while he sends them through one at a time. A shadow or 2 (skirmisher) would greatly add to the strategy required for this setup.
Rapturous
Posts: 19
Joined: January 10th, 2009, 12:05 pm

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by Rapturous »

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

1.4.7. Normal.

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

9. I found this excruciatingly difficult. The tentacle monsters were extremely easy, but the skeleton barrage was no fun at all. I didn't want to lose my high level lawful units down here, since I knew it was a one time deal, so I tried different tactics using chaotic units. I found that massing thugs was the best method, but still costly and difficult. I think the biggest problem was the Plague, which not only created zombies, but caused the higher level zombies to attack immediately after turning into zombies. How cruel! The strategy I ended up using after several losses was staying below the pool of water, abusing the evade rate on the mushrooms for my thugs, while my dwarf ran around with holy water killing the skeletons in one blow. Those dual-wielding skeletons were particularly brutal. This scenario bordered on not being fun at all due to its difficulty. Funny how the previous scenario was cake, and this one was exceedingly difficult.

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

Perfectly.

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

Some extra dialogue from the long-imprisoned lich would be nice. I mean, he's been locked away for a while, so he's probably pissed off and has a lot to rant about. Why not make him a little more interesting? In fact, I'm starting to notice a lot of missed opportunities for flavorful dialogue. BfW, while it has phenomenal gameplay and a pretty good plot, could become an epic tale if only a little more effort were put into characterization and dialogue. You have the plot, now turn those black and white characters into full color.

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

Everything detailed above. Originally, I tried abusing the chokepoint, and cycling thugs out as they got hit, replacing them with full ones, but then those full ones would get killed, and then I'd have a zombie spree on my hands with limited attacking points. I found that keeping close to the healing point, and abusing the low evade rate of the water was the best way to fight this. In fact, the mushrooms seemed placed next to the water for just that reason.

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

2. It became less about fun and strategy, and more about a tedius puzzle, similar to Fire Emblem.

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

Well, I think what I've talked about above gave you a good idea. How about more healing points? Or less level 2 skeletons? Also, I'd consider making an interesting tactic with the tentacles. How about they're a third, neutral party, and you can kill them early (a mistake), or leave them be, and let them attack the unaware skeletons as they come down to attack you? Could give you that added edge if you foresee them as potential "allies."
Joram
Posts: 366
Joined: September 2nd, 2008, 5:36 am

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by Joram »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Hard 1.6.0

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Came in with 339 gold

1- Just recall the Iron Maulers, a couple of lvl 2 mages, and a Highwayman, and this scenario was easy. Just fight in the bottle neck, with Burin on one side, Iron Maulers on the other, a white mage with each. No cannon fodder needed. Got it first try without any critical situations or unit losses.

(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?
Dialogue was minimal, but good. I have to wonder though, if the lich can’t break the seal, how come the woses could?

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

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3- Not much fun just bashing things in a bottleneck till they are all dead. This scenario was saved from being a 1 only by virtue of the fact that I upgraded 2 mages to lvl 3. That is always fun.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Open up the caves some more, with more villiages. As it is now, it is basically like waves of water breaking on a rock. If they kept coming for a few months, they’d start wearing it away. But as they only come for about 5 minutes, the effect on the rock is minimal.
The Fires of Pride 0.3, a heavily story based campaign.
On hold while I try and finish my book
shadowblack
Posts: 368
Joined: April 15th, 2010, 3:03 pm

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by shadowblack »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.8.4, Commander (Normal) with the Outlaws

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4 – those level 2s were SO annoying!

(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?
Fine

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not losing anyone to the Deathblades. I think I overrecruited, which might cause me problems later (like in the very next mission).

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4 – rather boring – just hold the choke points and fight 2-on-1. It’s boring and time-consuming, but it is the most efficient strategy.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Currently there are just two groups of enemies – the tentacles and the undead. How about dividing the undead into more groups , for example: two near the starting location (one on each side, a few more right before the choke points, and the main undead force after the choke points (but fewer in numbers than now).

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Just my desire to not lose any units combined with my bad luck.
You are a Dark Adept: You immerse yourself in the dark arts... potentially with great rewards...
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fenny
Posts: 39
Joined: August 19th, 2010, 2:22 pm

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by fenny »

1) 1.8.2 medium difficulty
2) 4
3) clear
4) ok
5) keep all levelled units alive
6) 3, it's a bit boring, just fight at the entrance and kill the lich
7) i don't know
8 ) no
bilu
Posts: 7
Joined: January 26th, 2010, 3:11 pm

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by bilu »

1. 1.8.4 hard w/outlaws.

2. 9 - first time through, 5 - second pass.

3. Clear.

4. Those messages about the inscriptions are overdoing it imho.

5. You really need to know in advance what is coming to succeed in this scenario b/c the natural tendencies when plating in caves are the wrong ones here. In caves normally you gravitate toward quick units like the outlaws and the lumbering HI, while here that's the wrong approach and you should avoid the outlaws in favor of the slow damage sinkers. The other problem is that the ai recruits one castle worth of units and then sits doing nothing but accumulating gold until you engage all the tentacles. If you use quick units to bypass the tentacles, like I did on my first try, you find yourself fighting around the lich's castle with it having interior lines, and lots of gold to recruit replacements, and it seems reluctant to pursue if you retreat. The amount of losses I suffered as a result was disgusting.

6. 2 - I agree with other posts that once you know what's coming it's rather boring, plus I don't like scenarios that you can't really play the first time through.

7. I'm not sure those are good ideas but a couple of possibilities are to change the ai behavior so its units start moving earlier, the other is to remove the shroud (but that's not thematically correct).

8. Loosing all my recalled units in the first try.
Thrash
Posts: 223
Joined: June 25th, 2010, 1:54 pm

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by Thrash »

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

1.8.3, Hard, 148 starting gold, w/Burin, w/o outlaws

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

6. Without Burin this would be damn hard. A MoL also helps a good amount since I have no outlaws.

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

Kill bad guy and get gem.

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

Fine.

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

Time - with the natural choke points I could have killed all the undead without a problem, but then I looked at the clock, so to speak, and went "yikes, I've got to hit the gas" . So that pushed me to taking some chances, using my mages to kill them faster than my fighters were.

I also gave the holy water to my lvl 1 spearman which was a mistake. I was hoping there would be more lvl 1 undead to boost his XP, but combat was really too gnarly for him to get involved much (though he did manage two kills, including the lich, and got leveled so it kinda worked out).

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

7. The tentacles are a nice touch. No drawn out hunt of the leader at the end. Nice compact scenario.

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

Have tentacles keep trickling in so they harass player from behind.
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Maiklas3000
Posts: 532
Joined: June 23rd, 2010, 10:43 am

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Lord (challenging/hardest); 1.9.3; 244 starting gold

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9

(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?
Very good.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
First problem was my roster. I thought I had done a great job of leveling troops, but for caves my roster sucked. I had no Mages of Light, only one quick unit (a Royal Guard), and only two leveled chaotics (a Bandit and a Trapper). Level 3 Burin gets cut to shreds by Bone Archers, just two and he's out of action (even though he is pierce resistant); add a couple of suiciding Death Blades first, and he's dead for sure, even though exposed to only two hexes.

Biggest problem was the walkthrough, where everyone said you could win with just Mages or with just Mages and Thugs. Hahahaha. No. Now your dead become Soulless (or WC on easy/medium). No can spam. It took a while for me to realize I needed to recall pretty much only leveled troops. In my winning game, I recruited just one level 1, a Mage, and he still got zombified towards the end. I have been updating all the walkthroughs for this campaign, and I will update this one too.

My other problem was that although I could grab the left choke point with Burin (who would then instantly die), my other troops were too slow to grab the right choke point. I then realized that the shoreline on the right makes for a reasonable defense line, though you need extra troops to rotate up while others heal. I simultaneously held the left choke point.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Soulless appear in walls. Fix this bug. Make them appear in the same hex where the unit died!

(8) Restarts?
Many losses, restarting from start each time.

(9) WML?
Need to comment RISE_UP_RISE_UP. It took me a while to even find the file where it is defined.

Once again, you need to add the recruit_ignore_bad_combat=yes line, because it's not recruiting skeletons and skeleton archers. (I didn't do that, though.)

(10) Replay?
Attached. I was really tired when I played and forgot to move my right side troops one turn. They somehow survived.
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line
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by line »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Lord (Challenging) 1.10.3
183 starting gold,
Finished turn 18/31

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8. I agree with most of what Maiklas said. I used the HI to walk up the right side. In earlier versions, I remember to have been able to cross the river. Now that didn’t seem to work out, so I defended the river shore instead of the choke point (one stupid move there, when I put Haldric in a position, where he could be attacked by two enemies).
In the east Burin was my main weapon, because I had not upgraded a thug yet. I rushed him to the choke point, but he can’t do it alone. He needs some support units. Basically, you need some chaotic units within one attack/one kill to upgrade. You can use the tentacles, to get your units there.
Iirc, in earlier versions the way from the chokepoints to the lich was quite longer and more undead floating towards it, what left the player with little time to win the scenario after prevailing there. I appreciate it was changed.

(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?
Occupying the choke points. The lich is also hard to kill, as he is still recruiting when you finally meet him. That’s why I made a silver mage, to better kill him.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9. Good fun. Even though it might take some restarts, to optimize the strategy.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Bug is still existent. Soulless appear in walls.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Some trial and error before finding out, to rush Burin to the chokepoint asap even without the white mage being able to follow.
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Maiklas3000
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) Level and version? hard, 1.11.15, 230 starting gold (200 is plenty), no Lady Outlaw.
(2) Difficult? 8 or 9. If you're not cautious, you die. If you are cautious, you run out of time.
(3) Objectives? Clear. Nitpick: objectives say "Fire Ruby," whereas the dialog says "Ruby of Fire."
(4) Dialog? Almost poetic.

(5) Challenges? My roster was terrible for this scenario: no outlaws and very few quick units. I failed to hold the chokepoints, so after some losses I decided to hold just the southeastern shoreline. That worked. I recalled a Knight who was 1 XP away from leveling. He singlehandedly held my eastern flank by sitting on the bridge (the only good terrain for him). Nobody messed with him. That left just 4 hexes along the shoreline to defend from swimming skeletons. Time was a factor though, so I still had a couple of losses due to time before I finally won.

My compliments to the AI. As I advanced northwards, I secured a chokepoint, and the enemy refused to step forward! So, I advanced, and then the AI used the chokepoint against me, stalling my advance for enough turns to cause me to lose. Outsmarted by Wesnoth AI, how humiliating!

(6) Fun? 10.
(7) Changes? Don't change anything. It's perfect! Soulless no longer appear in walls; thanks for the fix.
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Theron
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Joined: May 13th, 2008, 10:49 am

Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by Theron »

difficulty: HARD / wesnoth version: 1.11.15

Stats:
Scenario, starting gold (default+carryover),turns/max turns,recruits-recalls-advancements-losses-kills
6 100+98 17/31 1-9-2-1-34

Comments:
3 words: [you need units with] arcane, fire and impact [attacks].
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taptap
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Re: The Rise of Wesnoth: Temple of the Deep

Post by taptap »

Lord / Challenging. This could be a great scenario to level some units, if there were sufficient space for manoeuvres. So it is tanky units + mages, the units I tried to level did almost nothing.

The story though... you are fleeing from terrifying lich lords, who opened the gates to orcs and lost control, and you go round and wake up banned / petrified liches for extra fun.
I am a Saurian Skirmisher: I'm a real pest, especially at night.
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