"The Long March" in the South Guard Campaign

[hamburglar]

I am having trouble with the scenario "The Long March" in the South Guard campaign. I choose the bandits in the previous scenario. I can't stand these elvish ambushes, and I don't really know where to go. I basically have no clue what to do.

[zookeeper]

I am having trouble with the scenario "The Long March" in the South Guard campaign. I choose the bandits in the previous scenario. I can't stand these elvish ambushes, and I don't really know where to go. I basically have no clue what to do.

Probably best to use the debug mode to cheat your way through that scenario (search for the details on how to do that on the forum and you'll find them). It's currently in a rather unbalanced state as you've noticed, we'll try to get it fixed for the next release.

[hamburglar]

I am having trouble with the scenario "The Long March" in the South Guard campaign. I choose the bandits in the previous scenario. I can't stand these elvish ambushes, and I don't really know where to go. I basically have no clue what to do.

Probably best to use the debug mode to cheat your way through that scenario (search for the details on how to do that on the forum and you'll find them). It's currently in a rather unbalanced state as you've noticed, we'll try to get it fixed for the next release.

Okay, it must be a recently added scenario, I couldn't find it in the walkthrough wiki.

[vicza]

Okay, it must be a recently added scenario, I couldn't find it in the walkthrough wiki.

No, it was in 1.2 already, but it was much easer. Though, I didn't played it yet in 1.4, but in 1.2 there were no much problem winning it.

[Rhuvaen]

Here's the rebalanced scenario I committed for the next release. It fixes most of the issues with this scenario, although it might still be harder than the previous ones (which I haven't played in a while for comparison).

Please unpack this to data/campaigns/The_South_Guard/scenarios and data/campaigns/The_South_Guard/maps respectively.

[theruler]

GREAT!

the changes are gretaly appreciated.
Thank you!

Is there a changelog available?

these are the ones I found so far:

1- FORT! and thus the recall ability!

2- # We're not using an extra side for the ambusher elves
# - they will be on the undead side by default (so the undead
# don't trigger ambushes), then change to the active elven side
# and are being stoned to prevent any action
# note: this means that elves can trigger ambushes, which should
# be treated as if they "ran for reinforcements" - thus these elves
# switch to their side just as if the player had triggered the ambush
# (this is a better solution than undead triggering ambushes, and
# should occur less often)


3- # store the triggering unit to prevent dialogue when
# a non-player side triggers this

4- stoning removed.
sorry, but I do not know what "stoning" is...

[Rhuvaen]

Changelog? Ooh, my dev conscience was sleeping...

Here's what's changed:
1. a small encampment added for recruiting/recalling
2. (a lot) less random elven ambushers
3. more lower level ambushers at difficulties below hard
4. removed some fixed ambushers from the "valley" encounter which clashed with an existing event / ambushers
5. separated the elven and undead sides - they now fight each other

All the other stuff is trickery to enable no 5. I need to stone the ambushers to prevent them from getting slaughtered by the undead, then moved them over to the undead side to prevent the undead (who are the faction moving around the map) from triggering ambushes. That meant that now the elves were triggering their "own" ambushes. Which meant changing the ambush event to prevent the elves from firing off the dialogue - now if an elf "triggers an ambush" it will look like he ran for help (not entirely, but close enough - and it should happen much less often than with the undead).

[boa13]

Thanks a lot for these changes, the scenario sounds much more reasonable that what I got tonight.

(I remember it was not too hard in 1.2. I was surprised by the change in 1.4. )

[alexknibb]

Here's the rebalanced scenario I committed for the next release. It fixes most of the issues with this scenario, although it might still be harder than the previous ones (which I haven't played in a while for comparison).

Please unpack this to data/campaigns/The_South_Guard/scenarios and data/campaigns/The_South_Guard/maps respectively.

Hi there.

Just got this game, and have hit a brick wall on this mission. I'd like to download these, but can't see where to put these files. Do they apply to the Mac version of the game (I'm running OSX Leopard)? I'm a Mac newbie as well as a Wesnoth newbie, but I'm enjoying both immensely, so I'd love to be able to solve this scenario problem...

Thanks in advance.

Al.

[Anym]

I wasn't sure if comments on this scenario should go to this thread or to the one in the campaign feedback forum, so I decided to repeat some of my points from my post there here as well, just in case. Sorry if I shouldn't have.

First of all, thanks for the rebalancing and making this scenario actually playable. I found this version of the scenario to be much more doable than the original one, but it's still quite a bit more difficult than the scenarios immediately preceding and following it. In fact, I'd say it's still the hardest scenario in the whole campaign, at least on the Civilian (Beginner) level of difficulty that I played on. While I didn't find it too difficult and did find the rest of the campaign to be almost too easy at times at this level, I do think this scenario could need some more rebalancing to make it fit better into the difficulty curve of the overall campaign, again, from the perspective of a new player playing on Civilian (Beginner). Not sure if and how this applies to the other difficulty levels.

Also, not everything seems to work as intended. For example, I saw some undead on the green team which lead to the strange situation of undead fighting other undead. The triggers when Urza Alafas reaches row 28 and when Deoran reaches row 27, causing Urza Alafas to sprint ahead uncontrollably, didn't work to well either IMHO. The first time, I triggered it at exactly the same time as an ambush, however Urza Alafas gladly ignored the elves' ZoC and positioned himself far ahead of my troops and right next to an enemy so that I found it impossible to keep him alive, forcing me to reload.

One thing that I liked about the original version of the scenario was that it didn't allow recruiting and recalling, which I found very interesting and very fitting considering the nature of the scenario and was a bit saddened that this was changed. Of course, that's an additional level of difficulty and even with the toned down ambushes in the new version it would probably end up way too hard. However, as I think the enemies need to be toned down a bit more anyway, I think it would be cool if the keep was removed again and the scenario was properly balanced for not being able to recruit and recall. If that is out of the question and the recruiting and recalling is here to stay, then I'd at least suggest removing Poachers from the list of recruitable creatures because they weren't available for recruiting in the previous scenario, when the bandits joined you, either.

[Jozrael]

Without having even played this scenario it seems to me that adding 'side' tags to the WML would eliminate sides triggering events not meant for them <.<

[Simons Mith]

I too have to join in the chorus of complaint about this scenario. I've seen several bugs; Urza moving right next to a stoned elf; undead units attacking one another; and, not a bug, but I've lost count of the number of times a second level elvish marksman has taken Urza from unhurt to 0HP in a single turn. Very, very frustrating. And even when you're using prior knowledge to avoid the ambushes, all it takes is a mis-click and a unit (particularly a mounted unit) to follow a different route to the intended hex and you'll trigger the ambush anyway.

Also, if the elves are looking for someone, why are they sitting on their butts waiting for the fugitive to come to them? (When that's not going to happen because after like fifty play-throughs he knows all the ambush hexes he has to avoid.) Shouldn't they be like, actively SEARCHING for him?

http://www.catb.org/~esr/wesnoth/campai ... howto.html gives guidelines on mistakes to avoid. This scenario badly breaks the advice about not using 'landmines'.

It even finds a brand-new mistake to make that I haven't seen before; either I control Urza or I don't. To have him running into the middle of a fight I'd just used other UNWOUNDED units to trigger, after I'd positioned him where I wanted him (you know, on a VILLAGE, because he needed to HEAL) was very very irritating.

However, I am cool with the undead attacking one another; that seems entirely fitting behaviour for uncontrolled undead. Though I did get confused when I couldn't tell from the tactical map which side they were on. (I gather this is a side effect of the WML machinations discussed elsewhere.)

Suggestions; foreshadow a single set-piece ambush; use mostly scouts and rangers, but have them actively looking for the PCs; and once the characters have been found, the elves say 'Ha, we've found you! Now our warriors are going to hunt you down like dogs' or somesuch and THEN form a force (or perhaps two or three for a pincer movement) to hunt down and wipe out the characters. If the characters spot the scout first, perhaps they need to stop him reporting back to base somehow. Also consider making the undead into random wandering monsters that attack anything they meet.

I also found the monster recruiting patterns odd. Sometimes I saw shadows and wraiths vey quickly; other times slower-moving skeletons and ghouls would show up several turns later. As I'm always recruiting the same units, I don't understand why the undead recruitment behaviour was so variable.

[Edit: Further thought: Perhaps Urza's AI-controlled movement from point to point should only trigger at the end of a turn. Having it trigger in mid-turn (e.g. when crossing row xx) means there's a constant risk it will go off at an inconvenient time. If he only ad-libbed at the start (or end) of a turn his behaviour would be a bit more manageable.]

[zookeeper]

This scenario has been very much reworked in 1.5.6.