Secrets of the Ancients (Undead Campaign)

[Turuk]

The campaign won't load.

GodlyDragon had the same issue further up the thread. Your version of Wesnoth does not have that macro but it is in the current version, so the best solution is to update your game or to remove the reference to that macro.

[Adamant14]

Thank you for the answer, and sorry for not reading the thread.
My intention was to let the campaign author know about that (seems that he already knew).

[Turuk]

Thank you for the answer, and sorry for not reading the thread.
My intention was to let the campaign author know about that (seems that he already knew).

No worries, I know you had good intentions. Now you are free to play and provide feedback!

[Lord-Knightmare]

Hello! It's feedback time!
Normal Difficulty (since I am not that good with Undead)
Slipping Away
Nice level; no suggestions on improvement other than adding some more variety to spawns.
Dark Business
You should specify that the player can use each gravestone only once.
Bandits
Nice challenge. Loss two skeletons, but got a Bone Shooter and Revenant.
Becalmed
The Sailors sucked, but they were good XP. A turn limit should be included here.
Blackwater
I cannot pass this level. The loyalists are too strong. Perhaps tampering with the time of day might make it completable:

Code: Select all

{DAWN}
{DUSK}
{FIRST_WATCH}
{FIRST_WATCH}
{MIDNIGHT}
{MIDNIGHT}
{SECOND_WATCH}
{SECOND_WATCH}

[beetlenaut]

It's a well-written one as well too.

Well written indeed, it was like I was reading from a novel.

Oh good! That was the idea. I wanted to have a better story than the average Wesnoth campaign.

-Difficulty could be ramped up a bit.

I guess you're right. I nudged up the difficulty of both of the first two scenarios, but only on "Difficult".

Slipping Away:Nice level; no suggestions on improvement other than adding some more variety to spawns.
Dark Business:You should specify that the player can use each gravestone only once.
Becalmed:The Sailors sucked, but they were good XP. A turn limit should be included here.
Blackwater: I cannot pass this level. The loyalists are too strong. Perhaps tampering with the time of day might make it completable:

Slipping Away: The trouble was finding units that weren't too strong. I don't know what else I would use.
Dark Business: It was obvious enough in my head! OK, done.
Becalmed: The turn limit would have to be really high for you to have a chance at positive gold, and on Difficult there isn't even the one village. I don't see how it would be an improvement.
Blackwater: I don't want to make the schedule that non-standard, but I modified the scenario. You get a fair bit more gold, and side 2 has a tighter limit on level-2 units and magi. See how it goes.

I'm awfully busy at the moment in real life, so thank you guys (mostly Turuk) for holding down the fort in this thread!

[Turuk]

Dark Business: It was obvious enough in my head! OK, done.

It made sense to me too that each grave would only have one body (as is normal), but I can see how some people could think that any grave could just be used to recruit endlessly as if the leader was treating them like keep tiles.

I'm awfully busy at the moment in real life, so thank you guys (mostly Turuk) for holding down the fort in this thread!

Bah, what's the point of a community if we're not here to support each other? I have certainly had those busy periods myself.

We will all continue to provide feedback, and everything will certainly keep until you can get around to it.

[Adamant14]

I cannot pass this level. The loyalists are too strong.

Me too.
I played on difficulty NORMAL, and the campaign seems fine balanced - until Blackwater.
The loyalists are way too strong.

But that is my only complaint, I really like this campaign.
Good job, thank you.

[Paulomat4]

Hey, I've just played through on normal. That is real quality wrk, congrats. I wish to continue as soon as possible. Blackwater port was difficult at first, but I came through at the third try. Lost my two Dread Bats though

[Adamant14]

Blackwater port was difficult at first, but I came through at the third try.

Do you have a replay for me?

[Velensk]

You can have mine. I got real sloppy near the end, and by all rights should have had to start but by that time I'd already gotten a commanding position.

As for my feedback on the campaign thus far:
-Overall: I'm not overly concerned about the storyline which is good because it doesn't really agree with me (IMO the most fair thing about life is that everyone dies). I find myself ticking of the enemies faced and wondering how you'll slip the rest in which is interesting from a gameplay standpoint but makes little sense as a story. The gameplay however, is very well designed on all fronts. I played on the highest difficulty level and didn't find it especially challenging but it was comfortable in a way that makes me say that it doesn't need to be harder.

Scenario 1: This one gave me the most trouble of any of them, much due to poor luck (bats getting mauled by wolves, WC missing their strikes delaying my zombie horde. It took me 3 tries but I enjoyed it.

Scenario 2: Beat it on my first try in part due to incredibly good luck. Not much to say.

Scenario 3: I liked this one. Nice strait forward bash against a much larger army designed to counter yours but pretty easy if you know bat tricks.

Scenario 4: This one was boring. I simply rushed across the deck and finished on turn 3. I'm not sure how you'd make it more interesting but it almost felt like a cutscene.

Scenario 5: This one was awesome. Enjoyed it a lot. Took two tries.

Scenario 6: The wolves weren't any problem but having a zillion bats show up when you have a squishy leader in the middle of the cave was annoying. Managed to survive and beat it on my first try.

Suggestions:
-I think it would be neat if your skeletal captain leveled up. He's already a cool piece but it's annoying to have to try to keep experience from him and a level 3 leader would be nice.
-It would be nice if scenario 4 was made a little more interesting, maybe you could have the members of the crew come back to the deck on turn 3 or something just to add some tension (if you do so improve the captains hp so he can't just be blasted to death).

[beetlenaut]

I find myself ticking of the enemies faced and wondering how you'll slip the rest in which is interesting from a gameplay standpoint but makes little sense as a story.

I think it does fit in with the story, but you can judge for yourself at the end.

Scenario 4: This one was boring. I simply rushed across the deck and finished on turn 3. I'm not sure how you'd make it more interesting but it almost felt like a cutscene.

When I initially tested, I found rushing too dangerous, but now I have managed it myself. It's not supposed to work though, so I will make some changes to fix it.

a level 3 leader would be nice.

You have access to level-3 leaders, but a loyal one might be too much of a good thing.

pretty easy if you know bat tricks.

I did use bats in this scenario, but I still wouldn't call it easy. I'm not sure I know those bat tricks.

[Velensk]

I'm not saying that you're stretching to get them in, just that it's not very immersive to be wondering how I'm going to end up facing drakes or how you'll squeeze saurians in as we're playing.

Did you alter skeletons so they can level into death knights then? Otherwise, undead has no leadership at all.

As for the bat tricks, the terrain is set up in such a way that you can get outlaw troops to go running all over the place chasing bats so the rest trickle in in managable numbers for you to farm xp and/or build your corpse army until you have enough forces to send out your leader and push for the kill.

[Limabean]

Great first chapter, and very polished too! I just finished it on the highest difficulty.

Scenario 1: Took me two tries because at first I didn't realize that zombie reinforcements were essential. I lost the zombie bat early on and didn't think much of it. The rats at the keep were a bit of a surprise that finished that already failing attempt. My second try I made sure to feed as many kills as possible to the zombie bat. I leveled it to a soulless and built an army in the process. I didn't bother going to the keep and instead went straight for the end goal. Good challenge and plenty of fun. My only advice is to add a little dialogue hinting at the rats in the castle (unless I just missed it?)

Scenario 2: Unique gameplay + solid challenge + fun to play = . No suggestions. This was probably my favorite of the bunch.

Scenario 3: Pretty straightforward fight. Clubs take down skeles pretty fast, but you can spread them out using bats. Still took me 2 tries, but on the second attempt I leveled a couple skeletons and things fell into place.

Scenario 4: Best looking ship deck I've seen in wesnoth. Pretty boring gameplay though. There really is no alternative to just bashing your way straight across the ship. If you make the sailors tougher, it would just be frustrating. I think you should come up with some way to expand the battlefield and add more terrain elements. You could have the ship run into a shallow reef and add winding paths of shallows with villages to fight over. You could have different decks of ship available as separate parts of the map and accessible via trapdoors. It would even be more interesting if you just made the deck bigger so there is room for units to spread out.

Scenario 5: This was tough. I had to cower on the ship, holding them off at the bridges during the day and desperately killing everything at night. Eventually I had 2 revenants, 2 bone shooters, 2 dread bats, and a couple skeles. I probably wouldn't have made it if I hadn't then gotten lucky and leveled a death knight. That was just enough to push them off the beaches during one of the nights and survive the retaliation. I don't really have any suggestions. It's probably fine as is.

Scenario 6: The wolf riders were basically easy xp for all my veterans from the previous scenario. Pillagers could hurt, but if I was careful they only came 1 or 2 at a time, which was manageable. They barely even slowed me down getting to the cave. The bats were also not much of a challenge. If you want to make it harder, more pillagers would certainly do the job. I might have started taking painful losses if they were more concentrated.

And nice cliffhanger. I'm looking forward to chapter 2.

[beetlenaut]

It's now impossible to rush on scenario 4. The enemy starts out with a keep full of units, and Ardonna is moved back one hex. (version 0.3.2)

There really is no alternative to just bashing your way straight across the ship.

I didn't think that was a bad thing really. It's still a challenge with the lack of healing. Also, you can use the water with bats and skeletons.

Still, adding a lower deck is a decent idea. It will take some more artwork, so it won't happen soon, but maybe I will add that when I release the full version of the campaign. I'll see how it looks. Making the upper deck bigger is out of the question though. It took me weeks to draw and was complicated to code, so I'm not going to redo it.

it's not very immersive to be wondering how I'm going to end up facing drakes or how you'll squeeze saurians in

That's a weird problem. I'll pm you a list if it would make you happier! And yeah, there are death knights. It's a standard campaign option, but maybe it hasn't existed for very long.

[Velensk]

It must have happened since I got back. Earlier your revenants could only become Draug.

EDIT: don't worry about the list. Me sitting there wondering it isn't a big problem (in fact it's fun in it's own way) it's just distracting.