Scenario 15: Mountain Pass

Feedback for the mainline campaign Secrets of the Ancients.

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doofus-01
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Re: Scenario 15: Mountain Pass

Post by doofus-01 »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Middle difficulty, 1.15.6
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10
(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?
Was OK, I guess.
(4) What were the major challenges you faced?
Not getting buried in gryphons.
(5) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3
(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?
I couldn't figure this one out, and the above replays don't load without OOS.
- Recruit/recall only ghosts/wraiths/spectres, you can almost reach the forest area before getting slaughtered. The ghosts have nice mobility and can box the gryphons in for a turn, but they get torn down like wet toilet paper.
- Recruit/recall anyone else to take point ahead of the loyal units, and you move too slow, you just get swamped.
A fire hose of gryphons... I'd be interested in seeing a successful 1.15 replay.
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octalot
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Re: Scenario 15: Mountain Pass

Post by octalot »

Please would you post your start-of-scenario save?

Looking at the WML, the difficulty on medium looks pretty similar to the difficulty on hard, and a player on medium won't have gained as much XP from the previous scenarios. The comment about starting gold also makes me assume the starting gold should be higher:

Code: Select all

    {TURNS 30 30 30}

    [side]
        {SIDE_1_BOTH}
        # This assumes plenty of gold from the previous scenario.
        {GOLD 150 100 50}
    [/side]

    [side]
        side=2
        user_team_name= _ "Gryphons"
        {GOLD 160 180 200}
        {INCOME 20 30 30}
    [/side]

    [side]
        side=3
        user_team_name= _ "Gryphons"
        {GOLD 160 180 200}
        {INCOME 20 30 30}
    [/side]
A WML error: the translation hint about "consumption" should be on the line above the start of the string
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doofus-01
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Re: Scenario 15: Mountain Pass

Post by doofus-01 »

octalot wrote: November 23rd, 2020, 7:53 am Please would you post your start-of-scenario save?

Looking at the WML, the difficulty on medium looks pretty similar to the difficulty on hard, and a player on medium won't have gained as much XP from the previous scenarios. The comment about starting gold also makes me assume the starting gold should be higher:
Attached. 100 gold would certainly not be enough, I had about 260. I think the problem is actually the enemy income - they get two more gryphons per turn, and I can't kill them that fast. And since I've got to move my slow leader to the top of the map, I can't try to buy my way through it.

Two more thoughts, while I'm posting:
1. The chocobones are not helpful in this scenario, not sure if they were intended to be. By the time I find them, I'm in no position to even think about recruiting anything. If they are intended to be helpful in this scenario, they could be much further south - not necessarily on the path, but just somewhere not covered in feathers.
2. What are those castles the birds are occupying? This map could use a touch-up, which could also address moving the chocobones if there's an aesthetic issue with that.

Thanks.
Attachments
SotA-Mountain Pass.gz
(25.53 KiB) Downloaded 271 times
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beetlenaut
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Re: Scenario 15: Mountain Pass

Post by beetlenaut »

Getting through it on 1.14 is not easy, but I did it three or four times on the hardest difficulty level during testing. It takes a real mix of strong units including corpses. You should turn every gryphon you can. I haven't played this on 1.15 though, and it could be different. If I have a chance, I'll give your save file a try.

The chocobones are actually intended to be useful on the next scenario. They aren't much use here and the free one might not last long, but their appearance means that you didn't find them the first time they were available.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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doofus-01
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Re: Scenario 15: Mountain Pass

Post by doofus-01 »

I got through it, replay attached. It seems the zombie Lua menu isn't replay safe, but I think I recruited wolf-riders every time. This was spaced over a few days, so I forgot what I was doing a couple times, almost lost my lizard. If the AI leader to the north hadn't come out to attack, I wouldn't have made it.
beetlenaut wrote: November 26th, 2020, 2:23 am You should turn every gryphon you can.
That is a much better plan than the ghost stuff. It still seems very RNG dependent though, there just isn't much buffer. The gryphons can rip almost anyone apart and have great movement, so defense is very tenuous. Feeding every kill to zombies also seems like a waste of XP, but that is probably accounted for in the campaign. In any case, this is much, much harder than the previous scenarios.
Attachments
SotA-Mountain Pass replay 20201129-161641.gz
(54.15 KiB) Downloaded 273 times
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Apparos_Vaklas
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Re: Scenario 15: Mountain Pass

Post by Apparos_Vaklas »

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

Diabolic (Difficult) and Version 1.14.16

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

8

(3) What did you think about the dialog and story?

Solid dialogue.

(4) What were the major challenges you faced?

Not knowing how much to spend on recruiting since this wasn't a standard battle scenario and fog of war didn't allow me to see how many gryphons there would be. I also underestimated the gryphons a bit and lost quite a few spectres/wraiths on my first attempt. Both of these problems were solved when I restarted the scenario and played it again.

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

6

(6) What suggestions do you have to make it more fun?

I can't think of anything.
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