[Historical] Campaign-Rebirth of the North

[Taurus]

Ok, I didn't do any major changes but I ballanced "Showdown" a bit. Basically, the elves have more gold, the orcs have a less gold, and I tried giving the Dwarves some incentive to fight! I am still having trouble getting him to recruit but I am working on it. Anyone have any ideas?

[Mortsubite]

I have played "Showdown" 4 times this morning on Hard. I have a few observations about it that I would like to share. Please understand that I am not being critical of the campaign or the author- far from it! I love this campaign, and I hope it will be included in Wesnoth when it is commercially released.

Showdown problems:

1. Game is usually over by turn 7 or 8 because Hamil gets killed. He will NOT recruit, and gets himself trapped in a village surrounded by Warlords and Slurbows. You cannot do anything to save him as his nearest neighbors are the Drakes and the Elves, who have serious problems of their own.

2. This scenario is doomed from the start as it violates one of the cardinal rules of warfare- NEVER divide your forces in the face of a superior opponent. This is not a situation where you can "mask" a superior force to send a column into a flanking position- the orcs have no flank. The orcs are able to shift on interior lines and can outnumber each opponent at the point of contact. All 4 of the allies can be beaten in detail by shifting troops from one threatened spot to another.

3. The only way the Drakes survive past turn 6 is if Krash never recruits in his castle, but runs for the shelter of Tallin's line from turn 1. He must run alone, as any escort he recruits will be overtaken and killed. This way he reached Tallin's castle just as Tallin runs out of gold, and Krash can then recruit 4 or 5 rounds of drakes that become the right flank from the forest to the lake. He needs the support of a lot of troll whelps for night fighting, as the Drakes can do only one thing at night- die.

4. The Elves' best move is to recruit nothing but fighters at 14 gold each. Resist the urge to recruit level 2's- you will advance soon enough. Archers, magic users, healers, horses, all make no sense as they are too weak to face the endless ranks of level 2 and 3 Slayers, Slurbows, and Warlords. Ranged attacks only provoke poison or stronger ranged counterattacks and are pointless.

5. With 4 being said, the best move for the Elves is to do the same as the Drakes- have the Princess/Enchantress run for the cover of Tallin's lines from turn 1. She can recruit in his castle, thus becoming the left flank from the forest to the lower right corner. There is not much cover, but the elves fight better at night than the Drakes, and need less support and defensive cover to survive. It is also possible for her with her speed to recruit 1 round of fighters and send them to the left to provide some cover for Hamil. This will keep him alive for perhaps 1 or 2 extra turns, as elvish losses cannot be replaced.

6. Gold. I noticed something about the orcs. On turn 4, Pink Leader had -26 gold, with a cashflow of -56. If I am in this position, I cannot recruit at all. Interestingly, the Pink Leader in this situation can recruit 12 level 2 fighters- 9 Slayers and 3 Crossbowmen. It does not appear that reducing the gold to the orcs does very much.

7. Given 6, Tallin MUST MUST MUST be allowed to recover his stolen gold. How can he and his allies be expected to survive 150 turns when they run out of gold on turn 4? There are not enough villages on the entire map to allow Tallin to sustain his army and build up gold reserves.

8. The best I could do was put a large army in the field with Tallin holding the center, the Drakes on the right, and the Elves on the left. They are in position and holding their own when Hamil dies. Even if Hamil does recruit and can stay alive himself, my combined army will be slowly beaten down by attrition and defeated. I cannot fight for 100 turns against unlimited opponents with no reserves to call on.

My suggestions are to make Tallin's gold recoverable; allow Tallin to share gold with his allies; and either let Hamil recruit or get him off the field where he can't get killed and thus end the game.

[Taurus]

I have played "Showdown" 4 times this morning on Hard. I have a few observations about it that I would like to share. Please understand that I am not being critical of the campaign or the author- far from it! I love this campaign, and I hope it will be included in Wesnoth when it is commercially released.

Thanks again for your input Mortsubite. I am flattered that you think this is good enough to be included in the official release

Showdown problems:

1. Game is usually over by turn 7 or 8 because Hamil gets killed. He will NOT recruit, and gets himself trapped in a village surrounded by Warlords and Slurbows. You cannot do anything to save him as his nearest neighbors are the Drakes and the Elves, who have serious problems of their own.

Very true! I am trying to get that blasted dwarf to get his act together but so far nothing seems to be working. I am on the job though. What do you think about just letting the player controll hamel too? He has about 3000 gold (2000 I think on hard) and recruits thudergaurds and steelclads. I don't know why he is such a miser though!

2. This scenario is doomed from the start as it violates one of the cardinal rules of warfare- NEVER divide your forces in the face of a superior opponent. This is not a situation where you can "mask" a superior force to send a column into a flanking position- the orcs have no flank. The orcs are able to shift on interior lines and can outnumber each opponent at the point of contact. All 4 of the allies can be beaten in detail by shifting troops from one threatened spot to another.

Another very good point. The purpose of their surrounding him was to - technically anyway - surround them so that they would be cut off from reinforcments and Rakshas - being the slimy [censored] that he is - wouldn't be able to escape. But I guess they didn't count on him having 50 000 gold (no actually he doesen't have that much but...). Hmmm, maby some feild fortifacations (as you originally suggested) and unlimited turns to make it into a real seidge. And lots of villages around the starting bases so they can build up their armies.... hey, I am geting excited now!

6. Gold. I noticed something about the orcs. On turn 4, Pink Leader had -26 gold, with a cashflow of -56. If I am in this position, I cannot recruit at all. Interestingly, the Pink Leader in this situation can recruit 12 level 2 fighters- 9 Slayers and 3 Crossbowmen. It does not appear that reducing the gold to the orcs does very much.

Are you still playin on version 1.0.1? In that version they had 100 gold income per turn on top of around 3000 to start out with. Since then I cut it back and took the income away entirally.

My suggestions are to make Tallin's gold recoverable; allow Tallin to share gold with his allies; and either let Hamil recruit or get him off the field where he can't get killed and thus end the game.

Once again, thanks for your imput. I'll deffinatley try to make a winable version by tuesday.

[Taurus]

Alright, I am a man of my word. It is 11:56 tuesday night and I am finally done version 1.1. I actually added a new scenario, but if you want to play it you have to start "Eastern Flank" all over agian. Sorry about that, but I am sure you won't regret it.

Have fun!

[Taurus]

Some new portraits, a few bugfixes (gee, arn't they any end to those!), and a new music track for "Stolen Gold" and we have version 1.2. It will be on the server in a few minuits.

Have fun!

[Taurus]

Gee, it seems that every couple days I am posting a new version. Maby I should slow down and wait for all the changes to build up. Ahh well, I just get excited whenever I add a whole bunch of new things. This time I tweeked "Infested Caves" a bit, added some new images and fixed still more bugs.

Questions? Comments? Criticizems?

[Mortsubite]

I have replayed from Stolen Gold to the End 5 times now that the revised version has been posted- all on Hard. Here are my observations:
1. In Showdown,the modifications to the amount of gold now may be a bit too favorable to Tallin & Co. The longest it took me to kill all orc leaders was 14 turns, while the shortest was 12. Perhaps some balancing is needed to give a bit more to the orcs and a bit less (say 5000 to 8000 less) to Tallin.
2. In Showdown, the orcs have an interesting AI behavior- they all run to the top of the screen and surround the Drake keep in layers up to 8 fighters deep. This actually negates their strength as only 1 or 2 can attack, and the others simply stand there waiting. This enables a solid line to tie up 6 or 7 times their number.
3. The elves can afford to recruit all level 2 fighters and may attack the orc stronghold with remarkably few defenders to overcome. The defenders all ran away to surround the drakes, leaving Rakshas and the orc leaders open to attack.
4. To win, the humans need to capture to defensive works in front of them then stand their ground. The drakes will be penned up in the inner keep and just need to survive. You do not control the dwarves. You win with the elves who break through and slaughter the leaders with little or no opposition.

Suggestions: more gold for the orcs, less for Tallin, tweak the AI to prevent such a heavy massing around the drakes and keep more forces to hold the elves. Forces facing the humans and the dwarves seen about right.

[blackjack]

Some bugfix comments, and my thoughts:

1. The starting difficulties are Newbie, Easy, Normal and Hard. However, ingame they are lablled Easy, Normal, Hard and Impossible. This can be confusing, esp cos save-games will appear to be the "wrong" difficulty. Also makes it unclear which is the suggested difficulty.

I chose what I thought was Normal (ie Hard), and it turned out to be pretty hard (on v1.3)

2. Pursuit is very tough. The 10+ liches take too long to kill. I think that the last part when you try and kill Malifor is flawed - if your first kill is with a White Mage/ MoL, there is an error because victory is not triggered, nor is Malifor's reappearance. So you just wait for turns to end and then lose.

It could take an extra 20+ moves to kill Malifor again, esp if your troops have all moved over. I don't think it was possible in v1.3 to complete in 90 turns. Maybe someone else can do it. I don't know - having played since 0.5+ I consider myself somewhat a veteran. But 10+ liches is ridiculous.

3. First 4 scenarios look to be massive scale battles. Not my style, but it fulfills its design elements. Maybe a little less frustration might be good - but some enjoy that sort of thing. It's a design choice - there's no universal template.

4. The dialogue is a bit stilted. Again, that's really a design choice.

OK, just saw 1.4.1 up, maybe I can try stuff again on that.

[Taurus]

Some bugfix comments, and my thoughts:

Thanks Blackjack

1. The starting difficulties are Newbie, Easy, Normal and Hard. However, ingame they are lablled Easy, Normal, Hard and Impossible. This can be confusing, esp cos save-games will appear to be the "wrong" difficulty. Also makes it unclear which is the suggested difficulty.

I chose what I thought was Normal (ie Hard), and it turned out to be pretty hard (on v1.3)

Yeah, you are right, I originally intended to make the levels "Easy, Normal, Hard and Impossible" But after a while I thought, who want's to play something that is impossible. Better to make a newbie level instead. So I kinna patched it up. I'll have to fix that when I get a chance, thanks.

2. Pursuit is very tough. The 10+ liches take too long to kill. I think that the last part when you try and kill Malifor is flawed - if your first kill is with a White Mage/ MoL, there is an error because victory is not triggered, nor is Malifor's reappearance. So you just wait for turns to end and then lose.

Yeah, I know, "The Persuit" is next in line for a big overhaul. It'll be out soon, I would say within the next few weeks or so. I didn't know about the error though. Every time I killed him with a white mage, the victory scenario appeared, and I haven't changed any of the code since. Are you sure?

It could take an extra 20+ moves to kill Malifor again, esp if your troops have all moved over. I don't think it was possible in v1.3 to complete in 90 turns. Maybe someone else can do it. I don't know - having played since 0.5+ I consider myself somewhat a veteran. But 10+ liches is ridiculous.

Yeah, I agree with you. As I said, that scenario is in for a big overhaull.

3. First 4 scenarios look to be massive scale battles. Not my style, but it fulfills its design elements. Maybe a little less frustration might be good - but some enjoy that sort of thing. It's a design choice - there's no universal template.

Oh, I wouldn't call them "MASSIVE" scale battles, but yeah, they do tend to lean towards the larger armies. I didn't plan them to be that way but that's just the way they turned out. What's the frustration all about?

4. The dialogue is a bit stilted. Again, that's really a design choice.

Stilted? What do you mean? Have any examples?

[sipahi]

Taurus, I enjoyed level 1 and am working on level 2. I like the fact that this campaign is unique in that it teaches you to accept some losses of lower level units (I think most people like playing with fewer units that they fawn over like an RPG, but I like big battles!) in exchange for strategic positioning and more gold, as well as demonstrating how to make the best use of enemies fighting each other. Great graphics as well. Kudos. Can't wait to play the other levels, once I can get Level 2 to resolve itself (I'm playing Normal- which is labeled "Hard" in the game). Maybe I should give up my pride and play Easy for the first time in a Wesnoth campaign.

I still don't think Level 2 is well balanced, after having read all the comments and played twice to turn 50. I now realize that unless one makes an all-out mad dash to clear out the N and S troll chiefs, they bottle up the passages and it becomes nearly impossible to clear them out (especially the N one- passage too narrow). The second time the Orange trolls never showed up to cut down the undead, and the main keep got mobbed by the Grey, White and Purple undead armies all together!!

I think it would help if the total # of turns were increased, say doubled to 100 even, just to make sure that if the scenario doesn't play out between the factions as you plan it, one still has time to turn things around by brute force, which I think I could have done in the last game if I hadn't run out of turns.

But it's sure fun!

[Taurus]

Taurus, I enjoyed level 1 and am working on level 2. I like the fact that this campaign is unique in that it teaches you to accept some losses of lower level units (I think most people like playing with fewer units that they fawn over like an RPG, but I like big battles!) in exchange for strategic positioning and more gold, as well as demonstrating how to make the best use of enemies fighting each other. Great graphics as well. Kudos. Can't wait to play the other levels, once I can get Level 2 to resolve itself (I'm playing Normal- which is labeled "Hard" in the game). Maybe I should give up my pride and play Easy for the first time in a Wesnoth campaign.

I still don't think Level 2 is well balanced, after having read all the comments and played twice to turn 50. I now realize that unless one makes an all-out mad dash to clear out the N and S troll chiefs, they bottle up the passages and it becomes nearly impossible to clear them out (especially the N one- passage too narrow). The second time the Orange trolls never showed up to cut down the undead, and the main keep got mobbed by the Grey, White and Purple undead armies all together!!

I think it would help if the total # of turns were increased, say doubled to 100 even, just to make sure that if the scenario doesn't play out between the factions as you plan it, one still has time to turn things around by brute force, which I think I could have done in the last game if I hadn't run out of turns.

But it's sure fun!

Thanks for the imput sipahi. Glad to hear that you enjoyed it Sorry about the difficulty lables. At first I intended to put them as "Easy, Normal, Hard and Impossible" but after a while I realized that nobody want's to play something that is "impossible". Or maby there would be a few but there would be far more people who are "Newbies", so I changed the lables around, but now I got to go and re-write the whole marcos to fix this. It'll happen, but I just have to find the time.

About "infested caves" I think it is pretty much ok as it is, you just have to get the right stratagy. The thing is that if I add more turns then it will totally unballance the rest of the scenarios, in that you will have too much gold. I just beat it on Normal/Hard myself (I tried Hard/Impossbile but I couldn't quite do it). Here is what I did, instead of trying to controll the whole map, just recruit as many units as you can and moving all your units in one group, overpower one of the trolls (to the north or south). They have quite a few, villages which will get your gold back in the green within a few turns. Then ****spoilers**** you will find a door which will open up on the undead and let you attack them from the rear. Once you overpower the undead you should have enough villages to brute force your way thorugh pretty much anything. Good luck and let me know how you make out

[turin]

Since this is the only campaign that I've heard is of any merit that I've never played, I decided to play it. But I just couldn't bring myself to play a scenario where you could recruit only peasants. It seems like the first scenario is designed to just test your patience. So, my question is, does it get more interesting later on, or do you continue to only be able to recruit peasants?

[Taurus]

Since this is the only campaign that I've heard is of any merit that I've never played, I decided to play it. But I just couldn't bring myself to play a scenario where you could recruit only peasants. It seems like the first scenario is designed to just test your patience. So, my question is, does it get more interesting later on, or do you continue to only be able to recruit peasants?

Geez, don't be so hard on the poor little guyz. I acutally kinna like them. Did you know that during the day they actually do the same ammount of dammage as does an orcish grunt? (But at night, run for your life!) And I think the advancement oppertunities are pretty good too Anyhow, in answer to your question, yes, you are able to recruit different units later on - by the next scenario as a matter of fact. Tallin seems to share your opinion that an army made up strictly of peasants is doomed to defeat.

Thanks for trying out my campaign. I am honered that Turin, Lord of the East thinks my campaign has merit . I hope you like it. If you have any comments, suggestions or criticizms please let me know.

[claus]

The side change of Krash in Stolen Gold is done in a way which makes him lose all AMLA (campaign version 1.4.2).
I think you should unstore the variable (which is used to store him) instead of creating a new unit.
Code:
[unstore_unit]
variable=gettinghelp
find_vacant=yes
[/unstore_unit]
Of course you have to change his side and other things, but this can be done with code like this
[set_variable]
name=gettinghelp.side
value=7
[/set_variable]
[set_variable]
name=gettinghelp.x
value=3
[/set_variable]
[set_variable]
name=gettinghelp.y
value=15
[/set_variable]
[set_variable]
name=gettinghelp.canrecruit
value=1
[/set_variable]
somewhere between store and unstore.
Same for some Elves in later scenarios.

[sipahi]

Kudos again Taurus. I really enjoyed this campaign, and the character development is stellar. In the end, by the time the final showdown came around, I had probably my favorite character in all of the Wesnoth campaigns, a Dwarf Lord that I just had to rename Odin for obvious reasons!

With a certain special item from Pursuit and plenty of Exp racked up, this guy became nigh indestructible and could chop, smash and fry his way through anything. Too bad I can't recall him in other campaigns!

Odin
Dwarvish Lord
HP 139
strong, resilient
move 6
battle axe (blade)
17-3
hammer (impact)
20-2
hatchet (blade)
10-2
lightning (fire) magical
18-5