Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

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Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by Content Feedback »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth 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?
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by Maiklas3000 »

Edit: Revised for "Difficult" and added more strategy tips.
Edit2: Revised for 1.9.2.

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Challenging and Difficult; 1.9.0 and 1.9.2

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9 on Challenging, 9.5 on Difficult. The change to 1.9.2 made it only a tiny bit easier. (In 1.9.2, the undead spawned from villages do not move the first turn.)

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

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
I first played on Difficult and couldn't win, then I beat it after a few attempts on Challenging, then returned to beat it on Difficult. (No save-reloads.) Even on "challenging", it's difficult. Losing any village is a disaster, because of all the Soulless that spawn and attack on the same turn. Between that and your own units turning into Walking Corpses, the situation can very quickly spiral out of control.

Strategy tips:

Your basic strategy should be to take and hold as many villages as possible, both to prevent the Soulless spawning and to boost your income. I give the enemy only the three villages closest to his keep (not counting the two in the mounains, which I can't do anything about), and even then, I send two Citizens immediately to the two villages west of his keep, just to slow him down. If you don't let many villages fall into enemy hands, eventually your income will be overwhelming.

Focus on losing none of the villages north of the eastern river. On Difficult, this is a challenge, but quite possible. To accomplish this, it is necessary that you got a Quick Citizen in the east on the scenario start, so that you can protect the villages there from the Skeleton that starts near there. Keep that area free of Soulless and Walking Corpses, so that you can concentrate your Citizens there and suicide attack them versus Skeletons. Send a weaker Hunter-equipped force south to take the villages there and clean up any Soulless / Walking Corpses in the area. Let the Soulless/WC mermen advance a bit in between your two main forces, so that your baby king can dart out from the keep to get an easy kill or two. Keep your Citizens safe from becoming WC's, which often means sitting them on villages, but you can think of other ways.

A key to success is understanding how the Bats work. They will (always?) forego capturing a village in favor of making an attack. So, if there is a friendly or unowned village within range of a Bat, you have to make sure the Bat has someone to attack. Citizens make good bat bait.

Towards the end, your income will be quite large, so it's better to milk XP than go for an early finish. You can swarm the enemy keep with Citizens and take your time to end it. On difficult, I was able to give the final killing blow of the Dark Sorcerer to my leader, leveling him in the process.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I hate when units that spawn out of a village move and attack on the same turn, and doubly so here, where it doesn't make sense. Shouldn't it take some time? Anyway, this "feature" makes the scenario difficult and fickle. [Edit: This is fixed for 1.9.2. I am happy with the fix.]

It's too important that the eastern Citizen at start is Quick. I suggest forcing him to be Quick. Alternatively, you could back up the Skeleton. [Edit: This is also fixed for 1.9.2.]

Making these two changes would make the scenario easier, which I think is desirable.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I lost a few times, restarting from the start each time. Mostly it was the Priestess getting killed that did it.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
Very well done. It even includes substantial strategy tips.

* * *
I usually attach a replay, but both are coming up corrupt. [Edit: 1.9.2 replays are also coming up corrupt. It probably has to do with the first spawning of Walking Corpses / Soulless.]
Last edited by Maiklas3000 on November 15th, 2010, 1:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
sw_emigre
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by sw_emigre »

Development Team wrote:(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on? Challenging, 1.9.0
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)

2, though I needed to restart (explained below).

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

1

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

Average, though I think there needs to be a dialogue the first time the enemy takes a village, with one of our side saying, Oh my gosh, they are finding undead in every village they take!" or something to that effect.

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

As the first post stated, the fact that the enemy takes a village and the new undead attack the same turn seems a bit unfair.

WALKTHROUGH: I did much the opposite of the first poster. Recruited a castle of 3 initiates and 4 citizens, then next round a fighter, a hunter, and two citizens. I basically went straight ahead, only detouring to take one eastern village. Attack at day/dusk, pull back in the night, and then reattack at dawn. I think I finished by turn 10, while most of the lich's forces were north, east, and west village-grabbing. The terrain doesn't favour the enemy getting villages, too many mountains slow him down. Not much levelling or experience, but you don't get much fighting with level 0's anyway. Kai is now level 1, and I have a brawler for my efforts. 256 gold bonus should help in the next round, I assume.

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

3. Gets you warmed up.

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

No immediate attack when new undead arrive when enemy takes a village, though once I knew it was coming there was no problem.

Honestly, when I played it, the enemy spent too much time going for villages, and most of its forces were nowhere near the castle when I attacked it, so it wasn't either too difficult or interesting. Maybe have more income for the enemy, or less village-grabbing on its part.


(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

First playthrough, I was completely unprepared for the eemy taking a village and then having new units to attack me with. As it turns out, I may have been able to fight through it, but I had the game on accelerated speed, and things happened so fast, all of the sudden there were FOUR new undead...two from a village, and two of my citizens. I had no idea what happened, and replayed at slower speed just to figure it out!

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?

n/a
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alda
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by alda »

Heh after a little break, I see there's 1.9 and then, why not try the new campaign a little bit :P ? So here it goes :

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
difficult, v1.9.0


(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9


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


(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
well, I didn't really pay attention, its the average quality of what you find on wesnoth campaigns (which is quite low :P)


(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Finding the good strategy to beat it. I tried several times to do it by sending my citizens to control every village and then kill all the undeads but it always failed, because I couldnt keep the villages near the enemy and there were to many enemy units to fight eventually. Then I tried to rush all my units to the enemy leader, not dealing with the villages behind me and it worked. The fact that many enemy units didn't defend their leader and just wandered to take villages helped a lot here.


(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6, a good scenario overall.


(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
As already said, the fact that units spawned from the village can already move and attack is makes things more difficult and is a bit counterintuitive imo.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Not having the good strategy.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by beetlenaut »

Maiklas3000 wrote:It's too important that the eastern Citizen at start is Quick. I suggest forcing him to be Quick.
Actually, I'd noticed the same thing. I decided to set all the citizens' traits instead of letting them be randomly assigned. It is more fair that way.
sw_emigre wrote:I think there needs to be a dialogue the first time the enemy takes a village, with one of our side saying, Oh my gosh, they are finding undead in every village they take!" or something to that effect.
Done.
alda wrote:As already said, the fact that units spawned from the village can already move and attack is makes things more difficult and is a bit counterintuitive imo.
Strangely, nobody had ever complained about this before. But, due to popular demand, they now need to wait a turn before moving or attacking.

All these changes should be in 1.9.1.
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Auntie
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by Auntie »

Content Feedback wrote:(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
first "normal" then "easy" on Wesnoth 1.9.3
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
clear
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
clear
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Difficulty to make evolve citizens (see item 7).
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
Will be fun when possible to finish it.
;-)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make the zombie units "true" chaotic i.e. +25% at night (what they already are) AND -25% during the day (presently, they are 0%, that means for mermen undead who have 60 and 70% defence in the sea that they are nearly invulnerable).
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Too many losses.
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
n/a
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by Pewskeepski »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.9.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Great, It was nice to here a familiar name (Mal Ravanal)

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Mal-Kevek's army grows quickly at the beginning. And you can't allow even the weakest enemy (Not even a bat) to capture a village, Other wise you'll find yourself having to quickly send 3-4 mermen to stop them.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8, I usually find the first scenarios relatively calm and easy, Not this one :)

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

Maybe when you capture a village living merfolk could come out. (Not if Mal-Kevek already caught it of course) Nothing to powerful, Just a couple citizens.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
The WML is excellent :D (But I always thought that necromancer's would put 'Mal' in front of there name when they became a lich :hmm:)
Last edited by Pewskeepski on January 4th, 2011, 6:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by beetlenaut »

Auntie wrote:Make the zombie units "true" chaotic i.e. +25% at night (what they already are) AND -25% during the day
Pewskeepski wrote:Maybe when you capture a village living merfolk could come out. (Not if Mal-Kevek already caught it of course) Nothing to powerful, Just a couple citizens.
Yeah, zombies all got the "fearless" trait since I balanced the scenario. People will expect it from now on, so I don't want to change it back. I will have to rebalance the scenario. (Grumble, grumble) Pewskeepski's suggestion might be the best way to do that. I'll work on it, but I don't know if it will be done by 1.9.4.

Edit: I did get it done before 1.9.4. I ended up just decreasing the total number of zombies by about 15%. (I also set the pattern of zombies per village instead of leaving it random, so the difficulty is much less tied to the RNG.)
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dsa
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by dsa »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Difficult, 1.9.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8, at first I tried a defensive approach, but wasn't able to defend enough villages and finally was overrun by masses of undead. That's why I switched to an direct-assault-strategy, which worked, because the enemy concentrated mainly on occupying villages.

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

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Free units for the enemy, when he occupies a village or kills one of my units with a Soulless.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9, the best first scenario I've played so far.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It's good as it as.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Several restarts to find the right strategy.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by Ceres »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Easy,1.9.4
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Unmistakable.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Nice.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The necromancer ran away.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
...
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Went two turns back twice to change unit placements.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Normal, 1.9.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5. Lost a few units, could have lessed losses if I paid better attention, though was never concered about losing except when I saw the enemy leader make a run for a mountain village after I got him next to dead. Might have lucked out in killing him.

(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?
I found both the dialogue and storyline to be very clear and interesting.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
A few minor ones, mostly from a sub optimal intial deployment.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9, enjoyed the new perspective of fighting with merfolk forces.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Can't think of any, seems well enough.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
At a glance it seems well commented and clear. I feel I could understand the code easily if the need arose.
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cph
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by cph »

(1) Hard, 1.9.6
(2) 6.
(3) Clear.
(4) Good.
(5) L0 leader. At first I tried to stop the enemy taking villages, but that required overstretching my forces. Really it's better to worry about avoiding having any casualties, since the L0 undead mermen are bad enough without gifting the enemy any more.

And I had almost forgotten how annoying bats are. Almost.

(6) 8. It's a spread out battle with different enemy types and you have an unusual mixture of troops.
(7) -
(8) I lost my leader once.
podbelski
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by podbelski »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.9.8, top difficulty, reloaded once

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
probably "9", especially if you get unlucky early on. I went the village-securing route, which was surprisingly hard, I finished on my 4th attempt and even then reloaded once b/c of losing my loyal priestess.

Once I overwhelmed the undead the rest was pretty easy. Finished around 16th turn.

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
don't carry about it unless I can't understand what's going on

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
stopping the early on enemy advance. Had a few "close" spots, when I could be in big trouble with less luck.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
it's fun for sure

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
probably it's still a bit too tough for a 1st map of an "intermediate" campaign. Can't say what could be done about this.

PLS investigate and do something regarding the corrupt reloads! I see everyone have this problem, and the next scenario is bugged this way too. I load the replay, the dialogue goes on, and once it finishes the game quits to Windows. Nothing suspicious in stderr file.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
on this final attempt, I reloaded once b/c of losing my loyal priestess (careless placement). Other fails were either due to the same reason, or b/c the enemy broken through my flanks.
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by beetlenaut »

Playing the campaign on the hardest difficulty makes it more like an expert-level campaign than an intermediate one. That's on purpose. The corrupt replays are not caused by the scenario files. It's an engine problem. Only about one out of 20 replays actually works, and it's always been this way as far as I know. The developers just don't find it an interesting problem to work on I guess.
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podbelski
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Re: Scenario Review: DW 1 - Invasion!

Post by podbelski »

wow, it's the first time I'm leaving a feedback and the maintainer instantly replies to it :) thanks
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