9. Castle in the Ice

[Content Feedback]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

[Xindage]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.18.0 - Incursion - Biased RNG
622 Starting Gold.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8 - Restarted 5 times...
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Ok I think, something seemed off I cant kinda point where/why.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Good
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Everything, see 8.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Maybe take damage from snow per even turns or something like this, the pressure is way too high.
(8) Replay/Other notes.
Ok, I cant waste Gold, but i need another healer, while critters steal my houses and by last environmental damage, i know that this exist to pressure the player but after my 4th reset, i just decided to take what was nearby and rush to the castle, keeping all my units clustered to out-heal the enviroment.
I could not even check what happens if I kill the yet (this thing is brutal).

[Vendrick]

(1) Invasion, 1.18
(2) 6
(3) Clear
(4) The writing's still good. (It's nice that Wesnoth Drakes now have an established voice now.)
(5) The cold attrition makes any prolonged fighting dangerous and severely restricts unit positioning.
(6) 7
(7)
The gold attrition design is a novel concept and challenge for mainline, I'm pretty fond of it both narratively and mechanically.

The unit "flicker" that occurs when the cold damage is applied is slightly janky.

The wide open map, and scattered villages and gold piles suggest the player should explore or capture them, but I don't think either of them are worth it. They seem like trap options, since the cold prevents units from operating independently and surviving and the wildlife will steal unguarded villages.


Hahid's elixir (Dunefolk) gives Dacyn 100% Cold and Fire resistance. This makes Dacyn immune to the cold damage attrition and reduces damage from the Drake's ranged attack to 1. Paying 10 gold to give it to Dacyn rather than Hahid makes sense because Hahid has +4 regeneration and Dacyn will be using ranged attacks against Drakes.
The heroes can proceed straight through with Dacyn obliterating Drakes, while Grug (loyal Ogre), a quick White Mage and a Knight position themselves to kill the Yeti. It's pretty expensive - 40 gold plus upkeep and a slower advance on the main objective but the item from killing the Yeti is quite powerful.
I believe any ogre can pacify the wild ogres, but only Grug can recruit them. They're important as fodder in cause the Yeti gets good RNG.
The Yeti has a territorial AI - it won't pursue and attack units outside of a small area. The knight/paladin is positioned so the Yeti will attack and damage itself for significant retaliation damage and ignore the White Mage. Once the Yeti is damaged enough, I lure the Yeti off the mountain with a dying ogre so my paladin can get the item it drops when slain.
(The Knight/Paladin can't pick up the Plague staff again if dropped because its "unholy" and I want to keep a Chaotic Paladin, but most other units can drop the staff to switch alignments in a pinch.)
Other good options for the Yetiburger include loyal units and probably Owaec. Equally, the Yeti could be killed relying on the the Sentinel Shield and the Mage of Light's 60% defence, but it would take longer.
The Yeti can only rest heal, so there's some room for attrition before the cold becomes too dangerous.

Starting gold: 529
Ending gold, having killed the Yeti: 500

[sine_nomine]

Invasion, 1.18.0
I'm not fond of this type of map but it's better than fighting gryphons and trolls. The subplot about the orcish empire is a good way to justify fighting drakes instead.
After scouting out the map I decided to take the path through the center, kill the eastern drake, then send a few units down across the river. I also recruited a flying corpse to grab some gold. The ogres sacrificed themselves with the sentinel shield so I could kill the yeti. Then I sat around until dacyn ran low on HP, because I was getting free money every turn (only one gold though) and the drakes weren't pursuing me.
I don't feel like replaying this scenario but I think it's possible to get a lot more carryover gold. Rather than leaving dacyn and terraent near the exit I could move them to the ogre area and have dacyn sit on a village and protect him with the sentinel shield. Allow most non-loyal units to die and spam end turn until the cold gets too strong. The yetiburger unit can walk across the map and reach the exit on his own. Ideally more villages could be held for additional carryover. If you recruit a couple flying corpses you might be able to grab villages and retreat when wolves get near. The drake in the northwest keep only seems to care about one village so that one can be ignored if you don't want to bother killing him. The increasing cold damage is a creative way to put the scenario on a timer but I don't think it should reward players for taking longer.
One possibility is to give the player a base income of 0, 0 gold per village, and 2 support per village in this scenario and the next.

[Dalas120]

> One possibility is to give the player a base income of 0, 0 gold per village, and 2 support per village in this scenario and the next.

I'd rather not change core settings, but perhaps the ideal change here is to:
1) decrease the initial cold damage but scale cold damage up faster, and
2) after X turns, allow the drakes to pursue the player anywhere on the map.

Does that sound like it'd fix the problem?

[sine_nomine]

I don't think it's a big problem to begin with and I don't want to screw over the people playing the scenario normally, so it's probably fine to leave things as they are. Rather than a gamebreaking exploit I just think it's odd to gain gold in this scenario.

[fredbobsmith2]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on? Invasion (Difficult) 1.18.4
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 5
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives? Clear, though perhaps add suggestions to try to get more gold
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? Very good, I'm surprised Owaec doesn't complain more about spending 40+ turns walking around in the snow though
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? From the replays here and elsewhere it seems most players send most of their troops down the middle to the drake leader, but I do this entirely differently. After picking up the gold on the west shore, near the beginning, I send all my units down the path to the yeti, recalling one white mage on the way. Because Dacyn only moves 1 frozen hex this makes this process very slow, but I think it's the safer way to fight the yeti with more troops, while not keeping your 2 healers together to mitigate the cold damage. I collect the ogres on the way, they often get killed fighting the yeti but I managed to only lose one this time. Once the troops get the the yeti the ogres take turns holding the sentinel shield so that the mages can safely attack the yeti without getting counterattacked. Grug eats the item to become a super tank, then everyone heads north and slowly creeps along the south bank of the river. On lower difficulties I used the north bank, but going on the south bank delays the drake appearance the longest, allowing you to safely cross the river with most of your units before fighting them. After that my troops just fight off whatever drakes appear and push into the castle.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 3, slow going with Dacyn the way I play it
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? Less snow maybe