The South Guard Nightmare

[beetlenaut]

I added a nightmare difficulty level to The South Guard! (Sadly, I couldn't come up with a pun for a name like for Nightmare to the Throne.) It is on the add-on server now. I'm not aiming for this difficulty level to be added to the mainline campaign, though I wouldn't object. It's just that this campaign is boringly easy for people who have some experience.

The difficulty is intended to be close to other mainline campaigns that have a Nightmare mode. That makes it a large jump from Normal, which is the hardest difficulty level in the mainline campaign. This made it a little hard to adjust without changing it a lot, so let me know how difficult you think it is.

I did make one change to the way it plays: In scenarios 3 and 4, a hero has to move to a target. If there are no enemies left at all, there is no reason to make the player manually step through the rest of the turns needed to do this. So, if every enemy unit is dead, the hero is moved to the target automatically. Everything else should work just as before on lower difficulty levels, but I didn't playtest them, so it's possible that I introduced a bug. Let me know if you find one.

[HenryY2020]

Tried this campaign. Scenario 1 is so hard that I don't have the resources to clear scenario 2 at all.

TLDR: You turned a beginner-friendly campaign into an impossible one.

[beetlenaut]

You turned a beginner-friendly campaign into an impossible one.

It's definitely not impossible. I played through each branch of the whole campaign twice. I agree that it's really hard, but that is the point.

It took me quite a few tries to get through scenario 1 the first time myself. And you are right that just barely scraping by is not going to cut it. You do need to finish up with several level-2 units (which should definitely include a Netcaster). You might have to play scenario 1 a few more times. You tend to finish better each time you win.

[HenryY2020]

Thanks for the replay. I manage to get past scenario 2 after replaying scenario 1. My scenario 1's replay not as impressive as yours, though. Besides, do you think writing a walkthrough for this campaign is a good idea?

[beetlenaut]

I manage to get past scenario 2 after replaying scenario 1.

Great! I think scenario 2 is harder than scenario 1--at least until you capture the keep. After you do that, it gets easier to defend.

Besides, do you think writing a walkthrough for this campaign is a good idea?

There is a long and detailed walkthrough already. I'm not sure what the best way is to put in additional notes for nightmare. It's not appropriate to add them to the mainline walkthrough when this one is an add-on.

[HenryY2020]

I'm not suggesting adding them to the mainline walkthrough. I suggest you put the additional notes here instead.

[beetlenaut]

Yeah, okay. I have too many other obligations at the moment though, so I can't do it now. It would take a while to go through all my replays. I'll consider doing it the next time I don't have a project.

[HenryY2020]

Finally cleared the campaign. I chose the elf path and it was so hard that most of my loyal units died.