Scenario Review: Liberty 1 - The Raid

[mal_shubertal]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.16.2 Fugitive (challenging)
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5. the fighting was not hard, but figuring out the wolves' AI took some effort.
(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?
I played this campaign a couple years ago, and I think that the dialogue has been significantly rewritten to represent the main characters' rural community being culturally distinct from faraway "big city" Wesnothians. This ends up with them sounding a bit like a parody of rural American Southerners. Living in Texas, I find this absolutely hilarious. They also display a provincial attitude of self reliance and almost paranoid distrust of the central government that will also be familiar to anyone living in the rural South. My one complaint is that this rewrite is not applied very consistently, so that a character's vocabulary and diction will sometimes be very different from one line to the next.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Figuring out just how to bait the wolves into engaging with your units rather than going straight to the town took some trial and error.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5. Pretty quick and easy scenario, gets you used to the flavor of the campaign and gives you a chance to grab some xp for your units. I also like the addition of the backpack item that harper can pick up. I think it's pretty funny to imagine him running around for the whole campaign wearing a backpack full of rocks.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Some hint early on that once you move a unit close enough to the town it will give you some free units would be helpful.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
A few times I played too defensively and the wolves got too far ahead of my slower troops in the first few turns. The scenario is short, though, so it's not too much trouble to reload a few times and try different strategies.

[JL42]

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

v. 1.16.10
Fugitive / Challenging

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

3

How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Mostly clear. I had some trouble figuring out what the point of the backpack icon was – ran a unit up there and it didn't do anything at all; ran a different kind of unit up there and it didn't do anything; this was kind of annoying so I just looked it up in the walkthrough and started over.

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

Not so great. This campaign used to be very strong in terms of narrative, but it seems to have been revised with a painfully bad "dialect" and what seems to me like a real lack of feeling for the story. I got the impression that the writer actively hates the characters and is trying to make them out as idiots. The speech patterns in the writing and also the overall character presentation just seem profoundly "off." Most of the new dialog doesn't come across as witty or fun, but rather just disdainful, mocking, and poorly put together.

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

It's a legitimate challenge here to keep the enemies from reaching the village and to avoid getting the footpads killed. Not too difficult, but enough to keep it interesting.

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

It would be around 6 if you didn't read the dialogue, but the writing changes really killed this one for me, so more like 2.

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

Fix/revert the writing, and add some kind of notice about the backpack.

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About the Overall Campaign:

The maps in this campaign are generally solid and well-done. I like the revisions to the last few scenarios; these are big changes but they seem like an improvement over the old maps. Challenging, interesting, and well-balanced.

But, ugh ... the writing! The "dialect" here feels horribly off and inconsistent. The characters sound like some kind of city-slicker's sarcastic, mocking fantasy of rural people. (A lot of it actually sounds to me more like caricatured Urban Black English, rather than rural speech patterns; but it's false and inconsistent regardless.) Makes it very hard to develop sympathy and identity for the heroes because they come across as goofy caricatures. It's really difficult to write dialect without these problems so I would suggest just not doing it.

In addition, Baldras now comes across mostly as a sad-sack, with no real integrity, ingenuity, agency, or legitimate grievance. It just reeks of the attitude that these people, the actual heroes, are inept and dumb. Also, I understand wanting to make the ending more optimistic, but this also really weakens and eviscerates the story. There are still some high points, like the Monty Python references, but I seem to remember liking this one much better in the past, with the story being its high point. Now it just feels like a bad joke making fun of rural folks; completely ruins the enjoyment.

The "points of interest" throughout the various scenarios are a good addition, but it would be better if they were flagged somehow. Either with a graphical label ("Harper's Spare Bag") or through dialogue ("I left my bag in the northwest; if I can make it up there to pick it up then I'll be able to throw more rocks!") These work well as tactical objectives – deciding if it's worth leaving the battle to go after them – but it was kind of annoying to have to struggle to figure out what they actually do and who needs to go there. Eventually I just looked at the walkthrough for that information, but to avoid pointless hassles it should be clarified in the game itself.

Overall I'd give this campaign 3 out of 5 stars; it would be a lot higher if it weren't for the painful writing. The maps themselves are generally good.

[Atreides]

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.16.10 "easy" but NO reloads plus non-fatal wounds, no turn limit and road bonus mods to make it a little less hard

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
The precise part of the village you had to prevent them from reaching was not specified in words although there is a signpost that implies and suggests that is the hex to defend however it is unknown whether it is actually symbolic or if several hexes in or near the village are the goblin objectives

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
[Played German translation version] Dialog was superbly written and translated. Story is a classic tale and quite absorbing. Pretty much the best writing I've seen in Wesnoth.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting caught out by the wolf riders not attacking me on turn 1 and instead arrowing for the village. My mistake in forgetting what I know of the WMLAI. Had to scramble hard to intercept them and if not for the village guard would have been up the creek without a paddle.

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

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Well a clearer indication of what hexes to defend in the village would be the only possible improvement.

Amended:
Also after reading the other reviews I learned that there was a backpack (which I now see on the replay) that I was too busy to notice. I am not sure I could have retrieved it anyways as I had no units to spare. Or if it only works for Harper him. This strikes me as unfair as only people who replay the campaign will probably get this item.
My suggestion is that at the end of the scenario Harper gets the backpack automatically if the player didn't or couldn't. At least he will have it for the rest of the campaign. In fact I will edit my save file to give it to him!

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Does not apply. Will not reload or restart even.