Tale of Thunedain [SP campaign 1.16] WIP

[SexyPringles]

Tale of Thunedain

a dwarvish campaign you should be able to download from 1.16 server... (sometime during this day)

After working on my first campaign I hit a wall and noticed how I took more than I could chew so I decided to work on my second campaign with a simple story and made it much shorter. Still, the campaign is very rough from the edges and needs some balancing work and more variety.

There is three difficulties but only normal is tested, I will work on the other difficulties in time. There most likely is some grammatical errors and
there is 7 scenarios in total, 1 talk only and epilogue.

Feedback is welcomed.

[Lord-Knightmare]

Okay, I have played and finished it.

Raid

• Decent Starting scenario.
• Nothing much to say
• Fine as is

West Flank

• AI of allied dwarf Hamel needs tweaking...like appreciating high defence value and what not
• What's the point of gryphon eggs? I did get them but did not see any effect of it for the rest of the campaign

Vanguard

• Quite challenging, I must say.

Legends

Normally, I dont say much on cutscenes, but it's rather weird in this campaign

• You mention that Thunedain wields the hammer of Thursagan
• BUT, the hammer and the sceptre were lost in the caverns of flame and both were moved around quite a fair bit. funny how just the hammer is found and not the sceptre.
• and the Hammer was found later by Karrag in the great depths north of Kal Kartha so, lore conflicts here.
• Also, since thunedain is being portrayed as some rune warrior, his dwarven fighters could have advanced to rune smiths but did not
• another lore conflict

Black Tusk

• the cave could use a time_area code
• Kind of funny how the scenario is intended to played full defensive as it's suicide to rush out
• the campaign takes place in 480 YW...and I see Al-tar (NR) and Knafa Telfar (HttT). Doesn't make sense for Al Tar to be alive here and as a warlord. NR takes place in 534...so 54 years...which means he has to be around 80 then...and that's way out of the orc's lifespan.
• can make a similar argument on Knafa Telfar

Last Stand

• I killed both Knafa Telfar and Al-tar...but they appear in HttT and NR respectively.
• I see assassins on my side arrived to dispatch black tusk but he was already killed by me 3 turns earlier, which made it pointless
• Thunedain's tale was supposed to be him facing hordes of orcs to the very end...but he kind of clobbered all of them here

Overall

• Quick and fun campaign
• Maps are well done..could use little refinements like some terrain palette variety
• kind of too easy on the highest difficulty
• needs some refinements in balancing
• No bugs found. which is a rare trait in starting addons.
• brief campaign so enemy variety doesn't factor in much

[SexyPringles]

Thanks for playing!

First off

What's the point of gryphon eggs? I did get them but did not see any effect of it for the rest of the campaign

It was only for the story purpose and it also was meant to serve as an explanation on how Black-Tusk was killed since in Northern Rebirth Rakshash says: " Pah! I would like to see those cowardly dwarves try their treachery on me as they did on the Black-Tusk!" and that's why Rakshash is always surrounded by bodyguards. Gryphon riders also seem to me the kind of units that could pull the assasination fast and efficiently. Also at the moment the ending doesn't change even if you don't pick the eggs so that will need some fixing.

You mention that Thunedain wields the hammer of Thursagan

Maybe I should have been more clear on that. Thunedain doesn't wield the hammer of Thursagan, he wields a hammer that was blessed with runes by Thursagan. But yes I myself was in conflict on the subject that should I give Thunedain a magic hammer made by Thursagan? Since after Thursagan died, every runemaster also died but did their runes disappear? Canon wasn't very clear on that but in the end I decided to make his hammer magical and keep the runes on.

Also, since thunedain is being portrayed as some rune warrior, his dwarven fighters could have advanced to rune smiths but did not

After Thursagans death, rune knowledge was lost in SoF and was found again in campaign ThoT. Tale of Thunedain takes place between them so thats why the dwarvish fighters can't advance to rune smiths.

the campaign takes place in 480 YW...and I see Al-tar (NR) and Knafa Telfar (HttT). Doesn't make sense for Al Tar to be alive here and as a warlord. NR takes place in 534...so 54 years...which means he has to be around 80 then...and that's way out of the orc's lifespan.

Yeah my intention was to have Al'Tar here so there is kind of explanation on how he became the lord of Dwarven Doors but I admit that I had no idea how long orcs live. As for Knafa Telfar I have the same argument. Welp, guess I'll change their names then

kind of too easy on the highest difficulty

Yeah I hear you will work on the balance of hard and easy difficulty. Thanks for the feedback!

[SexyPringles]

Tale of Thunedain version 1.1.0 is now on the servers.

Updates:

S1: slightly modified the terrain of S1 and decreased players gold
S2: Ally AI less suicidal, gave him more gold on hard difficulty and decreased player gold slightly
S3: AI has higher income on hard difficulty
S4: (Talk only) added linger_mode=no in [endlevel]
S5: [time_area] added to the cave part of the map
S6: Trolls appear a turn earlier, added more income to the enemy so you can't just kill them before Hamel retreats. Made enemies unkillable even if you reach them

Enemy AI is now more passive instead of charging right at the enemy in every scenario
Added Orcish Assassins and Slayers to the enemy recruit list on hard difficulty to make it more challenging/annoying
Gave AI a recruitment pattern, so there isn't a big lack of ranged enemy units

[WLFobe]

Don't bother with names changes. Since most Orcs have only one name (and rarely a nickname) there is probably more than one Al'Tar

[holypaladin]

Could Thunedain had Thursagan's hammer? As I remember it was Karrag who found it again after centuries where it fallen into lava