Legend of Wesmere (1.20) - New Mainline Candidate!

[Mechanical]

This is a feedback thread for a new version of the Legend of Wesmere campaign, which was made by me and dwarftough for 1.20 release.

You can get the campaign from 1.19 add-ons server.

Key features:
— The storyline has been improved: the campaign is now more closely tied to the game's lore, and all character arcs are resolved.
— Several new missions, including an epic finale that stands out!
— 8 achievements;
— A properly functioning two-player MP mod;
— New animated units — Wesfolk and trolls.
— A global map update, especially in the campaign's later chapters.

[ZIM]

Hello, I want to report a bug, in the Battle of the Book, Aquagar failed to spawn. I guess this is because his custom unit is not yet defined, since I can't find a unit called "Wesfolk Necromancer" in the wesfolks.cfg. As for the campaign itself, so far so good. I like the new scenarios, but for the Elves Last Stand, I feel like Olurf takes way too long to show up, at least in lower difficulties, he shows up when I'm close to winning the scenario. Maybe adjust his appearance based on difficulty?

[dwarftough]

Hello, I want to report a bug, in the Battle of the Book, Aquagar failed to spawn. I guess this is because his custom unit is not yet defined, since I can't find a unit called "Wesfolk Necromancer" in the wesfolks.cfg.

Thank you for your bug report, 1.0.1 hotfix version uploaded to the 1.19 add-on server.

As for the campaign itself, so far so good. I like the new scenarios, but for the Elves Last Stand, I feel like Olurf takes way too long to show up, at least in lower difficulties, he shows up when I'm close to winning the scenario. Maybe adjust his appearance based on difficulty?

Glad you like it so far! Regarding Olurf, could you please provide replays? We'd like to see how it plays out to make an informed decision, especially on lower difficulties (we test on the hardest. But any replays of any difficulty welcome anyway!)

[ZIM]

Glad you like it so far! Regarding Olurf, could you please provide replays? We'd like to see how it plays out to make an informed decision, especially on lower difficulties (we test on the hardest. But any replays of any difficulty welcome anyway!)

Sorry, I don't think my replay would be really informative. As I use savescumming in my playthrough. On second thought, maybe a player that plays more carefully wouldn't achieve victory as fast as I did. But, I can give a general overview of my strategy. At first, I spend 2 turns recruiting and then huddling in the central elven keep, as I figured that what regular player would try. But waiting for the enemies to swarm me kinda took too long, so I changed my strategy, I rush most of my units to the north and focuses on fighting the trolls in the forest while they're still trying to cross the rivers. In the lowest difficulty, it's quite easy to defend from the attacks and rotate. And I let the allies handle the orcs while stationing a few of my units in the elven keep. When they started losing, I then rush back some of my units to help defend the elven keep. Doing that allows me to win in 16 turns, hence my suggestion to make Olurf arrived earlier.

On a side note, i noticed the allies are doing a weird job at defending the keep. They keep moving back and forth between the west and the north edges, while sending a group of four, more or less, units outside, which then gets slaughtered. Maybe it would be better to give them units with guardian ai stationed at the keep from the beginning and reduces their gold to compensate? I feel that also would make the impression of a last stand more stronger.

[ZIM]

Ok, so I managed to reach the last scenario, and I have to say, the way the scenario handles the defection is so weird. Like why defect this late? Half of my units that defected just fought against Landar in the previous scenario. And why use a method like store unit? It feels so arbitrarily, like almost all of my sharpshooter and avengers get picked, leaving me with only few strong ranged unit left. In my opinion, you should use a fixed amount and pick evenly from each advancement line. And maybe if it's possible, also prioritise units that are more less often get fielded.

Another complaint I had, the AI for the ally in Northern Battle scenario also sucks, majority of them went for the elvish rider enemies, leaving Uradredia defenceless from the west. Maybe don't use grouping=defensive and just use a high caution value for them?

[redbeard2]

I’m playing Last Stand of the Elves right now, I would second there should be some limit that they stay in the Kalian, it would make a huge difference against the naga. Maybe allow for a command option to tell them to sally forth and eliminate that restriction, but as it stands they!stupidly rush out and provide little more than a short lived speed bump for trolls and naga as opposed to being truly helpful (maybe that’s the point)

[redbeard2]

A few comments so far:

When you meet Ceodil, Landar remarks that the enemy is invading Wesmere. Is that somehow not apparent from the assault on the Kalian? It's a shade unclear where Erlornas was defeated and captured, it's implied he left Wesmere forest against Brurbar (kidnapped is a pretty strange way of expressing that) but at this point Landar shouldn't be making a big deal about Wesmere being invaded (like duh captain obvious).

on Last Stand of the Elves Eradion died and I didn't lose, which is good because I struggled to keep the Naga away from the Kalian. I might vote to be allowed to control those elves (as in the old version) so they don't suicide into the enemy, or program them to not leave the Kalian and remain entirely on the defensive. But maybe the intent is for them to be mostly useless...

In Bounty Hunters, you might as well not even have initial castles and keeps, it seems to me. Maybe there's a way to play it with a sizable initial army, but just sprinting to the castle by the water seemed to be the main viable option for me. Basically did that and recalled my flying magic users, anything else would've been extremely bloody.

In Cliffs of Thoria, I wonder if the Drakes should replace one of the factions there. It seems to be exactly the same as before, but given we show the drakes in Winds of Fate taking over that general area (which is before this), shouldn't we run into drakes in some fashion? Given some of them burned down Wesmere and ate some elves it'd be interesting to see Cleodil trying to be pacifistic/diplomatic with them (or conversely see a wrathful side of her).

Speaking of Winds of Fate, we saw the elves of Wesmere summon those insane energy swirls against the drakes, who were a far lesser threat than Brurbar in my opinion. Any chance those make an appearance? Could be fun as some sort of hard-to-get easter egg.

[dwarftough]

Landar remarks that the enemy is invading Wesmere. Is that somehow not apparent from the assault on the Kalian? It's a shade unclear where Erlornas was defeated and captured, it's implied he left Wesmere forest against Brurbar (kidnapped is a pretty strange way of expressing that) but at this point Landar shouldn't be making a big deal about Wesmere being invaded (like duh captain obvious

Landar remarks specifically about the saurians invading Wesmere. Erlornas was defeated by the orcs and while retreating was ambushed and captured by the saurians. Whether the orcs and the saurians were acting in accord or alliance is never mentioned and is not evident for the protagonists, that's why his remark

[redbeard2]

I had always assumed they were coordinating, that the Saurians were opportunists or it was coincidence always seemed strange to me, I guess if Landar sees them as separate attackers his remark makes more sense then

[dwarftough]

I had always assumed they were coordinating, that the Saurians were opportunists or it was coincidence always seemed strange to me, I guess if Landar sees them as separate attackers his remark makes more sense then

It's certainly not excluded by the current turn of events (even if the focus on the saurian's cooperation with the orcs disappeared), but the remark was particular about the saurians, right, that they dare attack Wesmere by themselves.

[dwarftough]

Legend of Wesmere (1.20) - New Mainline Candidate! v 1.0.2 has been uploaded to the 1.19 add-on server.

This is a small bugfix release: now deaths of Galtrid and Eradion always mean defeat (as they are intended to be)

[Argesilao2]

Hi!

Just finished to play this campaign, version 1.0.1, Lord - challenging difficulty, BfW 1.19.18, as singleplayer, operating system Windows 11

Definitely an improvement over the original version, which was already pretty good; excellently balanced in terms of difficulty, at least with intermediate difficulty.

I encountered a little issue in scenario Battle for the Book, but it doesn't affect the game.
In all villages occupied by Crelanu's side, four purple flags flash, as seen in the screenshot below.

Screenshot.png (138.81 KiB) Viewed 164 times

The problem no longer occurs when the village is occupied by another side.

Thank you for your work.

[redbeard2]

Just finished the campaign, I appreciate changes and think they are prettymuch all for the better. Some of my feedback has already been posted, I have a few other thoughts...

Spoiler:

Olurf says that Crenalu helped them before but would only help "for a price". When we finally met Crenalu I rather expected a greedy or somewhat mercenary Crenalu, but he was still rather sage-like. Sure, he foisted the burden of the book on the Elves, but I feel that for Olurf to be mentioning a price, he means money. Maybe Crenalu needed money to build his castle in the mountains when he helped the dwarves? I guess it just gave me a different expectation of what he'd be like. If Crenalu isn't a money grubbing mage (which would be kind of fascinating, Olurf's statement seems out of place

Now that I think of it, in the new Deceiver's Gambit, Delfador doesn't get the book from the elves, so Kalenz keeps it?

The Chief Must DIe-given the patrols don't move as they had in the previous version, it was laughably easy, I guess if Landar isn't a sharpshooter it could be harder, but as it was, just kill the southern assassin guard, kill Brurbar, and get out, you'd have to really mess up to make it very challenging. When the extra units came out, I did zero for difficulty, I just got past them effortlessly. I don't mind an easy level, but seemed like it was almost cinematic.

At the end of Breaking the Siege, when Landar says Dwarves have no place at Elven Halls, seems odd that Kalenz doesn't rebuke him at all or reassuring Olurf.

Elvish Assassis: Landar asks for the Book of Crenalu, I feel that his desiring it has something deepr going on (the Lich acting within him), I feel this could be an interesting point that maybe could be expanded somehow. He's not magical, so officially he hasn't got anything to do with it.

Kalenz says "Now we're gonna kill each other for the orcs to enjoy!-gonna is very informal speech and not typical of the elves. I would very much imagine it would be "Now we will kill each other..."

The Turmoil-I feel this one is going to always going to need some replays/multiple attemps, just given the nature of the ambushes. I feel that Eradion coming back to your side so quickly doesn't really seem believable. Maybe the idea is he wasn't so dedicated, but it just doesn't flow well. Maybe he should somehow agree to help Kalenz through ambushes for a blood debt of being spared, and only joins you after seeing Landar raving in the next scenario, a bit more delay to switch sides might be more believable.

I feel Northern Battle was significantly harder than End of War, mainly due to how useless the white faction was, and time limits. If White wasn't just such a burden needing saving you could take your time to eliminate the southern rebels, not lose all those villages, and you wouldn't get hampered by constant enemy reinforcements. I had to make a near hail-mary to snipe Landar, with magic users.

End of the War: A great finale, the music choice might be ramped up, the music seemed the routine, normal level, something more epic should be in store. In the discussion of the Dwarves' help causing political problems. Given the new nature of the Farie troops that struck me as a big deal, maybe have the elves agonize about killing near angelic beings. No Landar-sympathizing woses though? Frankly trees might be readily persuadable that dwarves and humans threaten the forest and join Landar...if boats are ever implemented it'd be fun to have naval battles in the lake around the Kalian.

I figured Landar would post himself in the North Tower, given that seems to be the seat of Elvish power, it did put him a bit further away from harm, I suppose. It might be interesting to have some map changes in the Kalian showing Landar's tyranny, maybe some dead bodies of the old leadership thrown off the tower walls or extra fortifications maybe...

Speaking of which, if we're getting help from the Dwarves for attacking Olurf, Wesnoth itself might lend a bit of a hand, they'd be furious at Landar for nearly killing the king in Scepter of Fire...that would of course be a rather major change, of course...

I feel having Erlornas there will be more impactful if An Orcish Encounter ever gets resurrected

Overall was excellent, I loved the changes done, good work