[Scenario] Sepulchre of Elran [1.16/1.18]

[Lord-Knightmare]

The scenario is called Sepulchre of Elran, where you play as a customised Rebels faction.

Difficulty:
Hard/Nightmare

Dependencies:
War of Legends MP Era
minimum v1.2.7.41

Wesnoth version
Latest completion on 1.18.0 So that should work.

First Post

Feedback
I plan on making weekly updates for this one as the scenario is still in development. I plan to add better AI parameters as well as Micro AIs.

Is this related to HoI1 and its sequels by any chance?
Yes, it is related, but not directly. There are some elements in the story which are from HoI's story plot, but they are insignificant. Hence, you can play it without having to play HoI first.

[Konrad2]

Why do you need to kill the bat leader to win the scenario?

[Lord-Knightmare]

Why do you need to kill the bat leader to win the scenario?

It's one of:

• The Bat leader really early, killed either by the player or side 6.
• I was too lazy to implement the enemy_leaders_killed_counter variable.
• Just killing the Lich-commander and the Elven Forefather leader seemed too easy.

[Konrad2]

Are you still too lazy?

[Lord-Knightmare]

Are you still too lazy?

yes

[gloccusv]

If you want to have the enemies defeated event trigger whilst the bat leader is still alive, you could try setting the bats' defeat condition to always.

I know that the scenario is supposed to be hard, but I don't believe the hardest difficulty is even feasible, given the turn limit. I tested it by using the FORCE_CHANCE_TO_HIT macro to make all my side's attacks connect and all my enemies' miss, but it still took me 35 turns (out of 40) to finish. I would be the first to admit that I'm not a very good tactician, but if my immortal, never-missing army was that close to the time limit, I don't see how anyone could finish using the real chances to hit.

Apart from the time limit, though, I think the three difficulty levels are pretty well balanced.

[Lord-Knightmare]

I know that the scenario is supposed to be hard, but I don't believe the hardest difficulty is even feasible, given the turn limit. I tested it by using the FORCE_CHANCE_TO_HIT macro to make all my side's attacks connect and all my enemies' miss, but it still took me 35 turns (out of 40) to finish. I would be the first to admit that I'm not a very good tactician, but if my immortal, never-missing army was that close to the time limit, I don't see how anyone could finish using the real chances to hit.

Well, this is why I keep a forum thread....So that a player can play the hardest difficulty and provide feedback about it since I never even touched it myself. Hence, I will be adjusting the turn-limits in the next release.

If you want to have the enemies defeated event trigger whilst the bat leader is still alive, you could try setting the bats' defeat condition to always.

I will remove the annoying bats and place generic ones at the start. It's just 6-7 bats...so, won't make a difference.

[sergey]

Hi Lord-Knightmare. This scenario looks interesting. I am playing on Normal, my Wesnoth version is 1.14.7. The time limit is too low for me. I will use debug mode and post how much turns it took. Also the add-on is linked to a non-existent forum thread viewtopic.php?t=44191

[sergey]

It took 78 turn for me to finish this scenario on Normal. First of all I had to investigate the map, and only after that I choose a route. Also I had to reload a lot of times because of the shroud that covered enemy units. Sometimes my units ended their movement exposed to an enemy. Sometimes enemies attacked from the shroud. Anyway it was fun, I liked the atmosphere in this scenario.

[Konrad2]

Both your and the bats leader has to die for you to lose. So you can lose your leader but keep playing while protecting the bats. (1.15.2) (Apparently my lose conditions are that another team wins?)

On hard (40 turns) I defeated the orange, green, black, and brown leaders and entered the burial chamber on turn 37. I also spent 20 turns in the first part of the map. So I conclude that I can't beat this scenario on hard.
Also, do I have to beat all enemy leaders?

And I am not sure according to what rules I can recruit Elvish Druids and Acolytes. Random turns?

EDIT:
You gave the wrong topic number in the addon.

[Lord-Knightmare]

Both your and the bats leader has to die for you to lose.

Fixed.

On hard (40 turns) I defeated the orange, green, black, and brown leaders and entered the burial chamber on turn 37. I also spent 20 turns in the first part of the map. So I conclude that I can't beat this scenario on hard.
Also, do I have to beat all enemy leaders?

Ouch. Incremented the Turn Limit on all difficulties.

And I am not sure according to what rules I can recruit Elvish Druids and Acolytes. Random turns?

code

Only 2 druids can be present on your side at any turn. I think this was the case for Normal. For hard, it's 1. As for the Acolytes, a similar rule is followed.

Also, do I have to beat all enemy leaders?

Spoilers

The only leader that causes the headache is Side 4. With the new update, it shouldn't be a problem.

[white_haired_uncle]

I played on easy (1.15.2) and got trounced in the beginning, with revenants and those stupid rider things coming out of the dark and killing a couple of my units every turn. I don't think there's much I could have done differently, I can't kill the first leader without getting close to him, which puts my units in range for a quick death.

So I cheated and killed off a bunch of the ambushers and from there on the difficulty was harder than most scenarios on easy, but at least reasonable once I got some units levelled up. As part of said cheating I turned off the shroud. I'm pretty sure that with the shroud on I never would have finished in the turn limit -- I needed pretty much every turn with no time to scout.

I would suggest replacing the revenants with level 1 skeletons on easy, and either lose the riders or move them farther away so that the player has a better chance of taking out the first enemy leader before encountering them. Maybe allow recruiting an enchantress or two as it's pretty tough to level up a shaman against lots of level two enemies.

[Lord-Knightmare]

Hi, white_haired_uncle!

I played on easy (1.15.2) and got trounced in the beginning, with revenants and those stupid rider things coming out of the dark and killing a couple of my units every turn. I don't think there's much I could have done differently, I can't kill the first leader without getting close to him, which puts my units in range for a quick death

I would suggest replacing the revenants with level 1 skeletons on easy, and either lose the riders or move them farther away so that the player has a better chance of taking out the first enemy leader before encountering them. Maybe allow recruiting an enchantress or two as it's pretty tough to level up a shaman against lots of level two enemies.

My Reply to you

I adjusted the entire recruit list for undead-based combat. I gave sorceress as a recruit, but they turned the difficulty outside down with ease. I finished my playthrough in a very short time (~turn 36) but it's not fair for the players since I was the designer and knew what to expect and when. I re-adjusted the map and enemy placements.

General Note

Also, for feedback, I noticed that the micro AI for escort failed in this scenario

[revolting_peasant]

There's a bug with this scenario, running on Wesnoth 1.15.3; see attached screenshot. It's "attempt to compare nil with number".

I stat seeing this on turn 2 or 3, and then occasionally later on, though I can't quite pinpoint under what conditions.

[mattsc]

There's a bug with this scenario, running on Wesnoth 1.15.3; see attached screenshot.

This was actually a mainline bug in new code that keeps AI units from marching in single file. It is fixed now. As this is a change in Lua code, you could just apply the fix to your copy of 1.15.3, no compiling required. It will be fixed for everybody in 1.15.4.

Lord-Knightmare: if you can tell me how to reproduce the problem with the escort Micro AI, I can have a look at that too.