Scenario 6: The Siege of Elensefar

Feedback for the mainline campaign Heir to the Throne.

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how786
Posts: 4
Joined: September 9th, 2006, 8:32 pm

Post by how786 »

1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Pretty darn challenging, at first. This was the hardest scenario so far!
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Fair
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Realizing that I had to move North fast! And, that I need a LOT of mages for the undead.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8/10
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Unsure
How786
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zerodrone
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Post by zerodrone »

I found taking the center isle to be very easy, but fighting through the narrow corridor to take out the Undead was frustratingly difficult.

I'm also confused as to what the point of killing the necromancer in the scenario before is, if he's just going to come back and need killing again in this scenario?
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Xandria
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Post by Xandria »

It's a different necromancer, mister.
Muff-Malal and some other Muff. Hm. I would not show my face on a battlefield if my name was Muff-Something or Muff-Somethingelse.
The fight against human stupidity is endless, but we must never give it up.
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peet
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Post by peet »

Yes, it's Muff Janaal - he may have some relation to Muff Malaal from the peninsula but it's not the same guy.

You would have had it easier with the undead had you taken the sea route to the Isle of the Damned. You get a white mage with a kickass melee attack (he has a magic sword) and you also can recruit thugs and footpads there, which are great for fighting undead. Of course, you don't get to level up your existing recall list, but that's the price you pay for getting marooned.

Peet
talkitron
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Post by talkitron »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

Medium and now hard in 1.1.12

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

5, was killed once and replayed with a less dangerous strategy. But I am more experienced player.

My strategy involved grabbing the castles at the south entrance, holding off the attacks during nightime, and then advancing from both the south and east. I had several wounded troops, but was able to pull them out and heal.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Kill everyone: easy

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Fine, I like the thieves

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

Taking the city from the orcs is harder than blasting away the level 1 skeletons. I had a lot of firepower (mermaid princess, two level 1 mages including Elrian, white mage from last scenario with sword, a knight that leveled to a Paladin, and a lvl 2 merman fighter with the trident) that allowed me to mop up the undead.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)

9, one of the best

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

None. It's frustrating for new players, but a good challenge
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Mist
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Post by Mist »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium 1.3.1

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?

Crystal. Kill everyone else.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?

Thieves bit was very good.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting past the bottleneck at the cave entrance, killing undead boss in one go in hth combat as his ranged damage was ridicoulosly high.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8 for the city siege, 3 for moping up the cave.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make some deep water around the city to make it harder to get inside thieves and give the possibility of other route more appeal. Wider entrance to the caves would be nice.
uath
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Joined: March 22nd, 2007, 12:45 am

Post by uath »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It was great.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
I thought the undead reached the city a little too quickly.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Can't think of anything.
ryukun
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Joined: April 11th, 2007, 9:55 pm

Re: Scenario Review: The Siege of Elensefar

Post by ryukun »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9. I am a newbie and this was my first campaign after the tutorial. This scenario was surprisingly hard.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It's interesting. I liked it.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
I could win only in my third try. First I realised that I have inadequate second level units, especially mages. In my second try I started the campain over again and that time it went good but it was surprising for me that it took a very long time to beat the undead leader, so I run out of turns. In my third try I won fairly easily. The keys to the victory for me were:
i. Have second level units in the beginning (knights and mages).
ii. Use your cavalries to kill the Orc leader very early (you can in the 4th turn).
iii. Don't hesitate to advance in the daytime with protected mages, never leave the city's control to the skeletons.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10. I like hard challanges. :)

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I wouldn't make any changes.
bombastinator
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Joined: May 11th, 2007, 3:39 am

seige of elensefar questionnaire

Post by bombastinator »

First of all WOOOT! for an open source project doing real organized usability testing! You rock! Every open source project needs this!

(if you need additional help with it BTW I suggest you look for underutilized sociology degrees. There are a lot of them and one of the things they are taught to do is this stuff)



Player type: new player
game experience: medium. I have played strategy wargames before. both computerized and tabletop

difficulty rating: Normal

game difficulty 3 (I think I got lucky though. explanation below)

scenario objectives: quite clear. I have yet to find one that is particularly difficult though. "Pearls" was a little nebulous at first, if only because I've always been lousy with compass directions. This is something that is going to be highly subjective I suspect.

story line: average for story lines, but I have never found them terribly engaging where they are done with pop up boxes. One finds oneself looking in anticipation a the map and wishing the box would stop trying to impede one's view of the map. Maybe if you did them up in one corner ala Civ III. also the feeling of exasperation seems to be enhanced by the suddenness with which they pop. they sort of jump out at you. Perhaps some quick fades would lessen this.

Challenges: This one was really kind of cake, but it was because what I did was build a bunch of knights and immediately rush the gate. As luck would have it the "king" counter was out of his castle and in range. I dropped a couple knights on him and killed him on like turn 3. (that runup really helped, they were doing 42s iirc) the rest was just mop up after that. I think I finished by like turn 12.

fun: 8-9 I have to admit I was inordinately pleased with myself on spanking the thing, so i'm probably a bit biased here, but the city center could have been really interesting to attack.

Changes: Hrmm.. I think the king counter probably needs to stay out of charge range of the gate. If I had lancers instead of quick knights it would have been even uglier.
Wen Yang
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Joined: May 4th, 2007, 3:22 pm

Re: Scenario Review: The Siege of Elensefar

Post by Wen Yang »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium, 1.2.4

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6. What I did was to recall three keeps full of units, around 10 of them are leveled (My level 3 Triton w/ Storm trident included), and immediately moved to ZoC the heck out of the river bank, forcing the orcs to attack me from the water, and have 3 units ready to attack anything going by the bridge. Holding the bank at night, followed by a forward rush at dawn did the trick for me, the Undead just started moving into the city by then, and was easily routed once day comes (Said Triton frying some of them that are still on the bridge while being practically invincible also helps). The last part was a bit annoying thanks to the narrow cave entrances, but once his fodder-skeleton thins out, the boss was easy to take out.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Pretty clear if you ask me, decently interesting.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Weathering the orc's nighttime assault and getting into the necromancer's cave.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7. Pretty good fun, I wouldn't mind a larger cave entrance though, or as someone mentioned earlier, a river closer to your keep for the mermen you might recruit/recall.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Look above. ^_^
The first technique is the last. The beginner and the master behaves in the same way. Knowledge is a full circle. - Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings.
cph
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Location: London, UK

Post by cph »

1) Easy, medium on 1.2.4; medium on 1.3.6
2) 6
3) Clear
4) Good - having a choice of how to use the thieves was neat.
5) Careful positioning during the first night - the L2 orc units can kill several units during the night, so make sure they are fodder.

Taking over the city on day 2 and finishing off the orc commander quickly without losing the thieves or other units to the incoming undead.

6) 9 - interesting layout, and the switch from fighting orcs to undead makes things interesting & creates time pressure.
7) On 1.2.4, storming the undead cave was a bit tedious, but it has been made more accessible in the current version.
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irrevenant
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Post by irrevenant »

I just noticed an issue with this scenario.

By recruiting a bunch of horsemen I had hit the orcs and captured a couple of villages in Elensefar by mid-afternoon.

Come nightfall, thieves come creeping out of the forest offering to get you into the city (not necessary, thanks) or to come to your aid after you've taken a village in the city proper (done already). At the very least, the dialogue needs to allow for the fact that you may already have captured a village or two in Elensefar.
nemorian355
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Joined: February 1st, 2008, 5:44 pm

Post by nemorian355 »

Dave wrote:
(1) What difficulty levels 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?

1: Easy (just as a run through), and medium.
2: 7 this was the first time I was defeated in this campaign. :x
3: Outright.
4: very clear, slightly interesting.
5: The undead, luckily I had a Paladin by then. :D
6: 9
7: You should a monster pop out when you get onto a random village[/i][/b]
ClimbingEast
Posts: 9
Joined: February 6th, 2008, 7:10 pm

Post by ClimbingEast »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Un - [censored] - Possible, with a capital [censored]. Theres no other way for me to describe a scenario that I've played through countless hours now, dozens of times, with 3 fresh campaign resets. Absolutely UFP.
Take the undead out of the cave, make it a marsh, or a plateau. Tone down the undead. Tone down the orcs. Anything. Unless I'm missing a page here, this scenario is meant to deprive the player of any leveled units (s)he may have developed, so as to make subsequent scenarios impossible as well.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Exceptionally clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Also very clear.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
If I take time to organize my frontline, then by the time I reach the initial bridge to the city the undead hoardes are already entering as well, and dusk is upon us, meaning, not only do they have an insane numbers advantage on top of the orc level 2 troops, but they have a rediculous damage bonus as well.

Waiting for next day doesn't work, as the undead catch up and the player has to fight off two armies, on top of the massive income of the orcs.

Keeping a positive income while simultaneously fielding an adequately sized army to avoid being swarmed and flanked. Surviving, even in situations with 70% cover to an enemies 30-40% and leadership on majority of friendly units.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10, the first time you play it.
It quickly reduces to Zero, then the negatives when you realize that the only way to beat it is to sacrafice all of your level 3, and the majority of your level 2 units in a mad suicide rush for the city, and then the cave, while keeping flanking assassins off your VIP and trying to reclaim the recaptured cities so you still have an income and can fund more fodder units for the final push. Ultimately, you realize its futile, and you need to reload autosave repeatedly until the Random Number Generator tells you you win. (: Scenario needs major major major tweaking, unless theres some trick to it that doesn't involve abusing the AI, or using the thieves.


(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
-Tone down the orcs and the undead's income
-Reduce effectiveness of enemy starting position fortifications
-Remove the skeleton spawning script at the cave entrance
-Increase game length by ~25%.
-Add alternative victory conditions, or let campaign continue on failure
-Slow down skeleon spawn rate, or put some rough terrain between them and the city.
_________________
Last edited by ClimbingEast on February 11th, 2008, 7:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
TGM: Orb
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Joined: February 10th, 2008, 5:44 pm

Post by TGM: Orb »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Challenging
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5, albeit that's partly because of a lucky first-time positioning thing that caused the orcs to all move far enough away that I could get right into the city before fighting them on about turn 5 or so. If that hadn't happened, it could have been up to a 7, probably.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Very clear, not particularly interesting for me, but it is not explained why the Undead want to destroy you/the elves.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Amount of damage that those level 2 orcs can do, otherwise, not much.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7. A good scenario, with a couple of interesting moments and conundra.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I wouldn't do many (if any) alterations to this one. Perhaps allow that necromancer to get a dark adept or two for variety and inside-cave unpleasantry.
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