Campaign - Where Angels Fear to Tread - Scenario 4 Uploaded

[BlackOpsElf]

I played the first level, got the poacher near the village in the snow, which made a wraith appear, which killed the poacher, making me lose. There was nothing that I could do about it, since my other units were a few turns away, it was night (I think) and there was no warning.

I was trying to go for "maybe I shouldn't investigate a snowy area alone when there isn't snow anywhere else." Also, since the conditions for defeat are "death of any Brother," and I gave the scenario so many turns, I was counting on people not splitting up. In order to reinforce that, I'm going to add in a comment when Lucas is recruited, which will have Mance say that since the forest has been dangerous of late, the party should not split up unless it is necessary. Hope the unexpected death didn't turn you off of the campaign. The choice to not allow anyone to die during the first mission has more to do with my feeling that any character development I add later on will be wasted if someone dies right after they are introduced. It does add a little bit of a challenge, but there are so few enemies in the first scenario, I think it is doable.

[Mortsubite]

Very well done. I will be looking eagerly for the next installment of scenarios.

I played the first 3 without loss of a Brotherhood member. I didn't recruit until scene 3, when I brought in 2 thieves, 2 footpads, and 2 thugs. I lost one thug, but promoted both footpads and both thieves, and all the Brotherhood members went up at least a level.

Would it be possible if the last battle in scene 3 is between Djarum and the General that perhaps Djarum could spare the General if he joins the Rebels? Ifhe does, maybe recruiting could then be blocked.

I seen to have a load of gold- over 800 pieces. Is this what you intended?

Keep going- this is one of the best storylines in Wesnoth.

[BlackOpsElf]

Very well done. I will be looking eagerly for the next installment of scenarios.

I played the first 3 without loss of a Brotherhood member. I didn't recruit until scene 3, when I brought in 2 thieves, 2 footpads, and 2 thugs. I lost one thug, but promoted both footpads and both thieves, and all the Brotherhood members went up at least a level.

Would it be possible if the last battle in scene 3 is between Djarum and the General that perhaps Djarum could spare the General if he joins the Rebels? Ifhe does, maybe recruiting could then be blocked.

I seen to have a load of gold- over 800 pieces. Is this what you intended?

Keep going- this is one of the best storylines in Wesnoth.

Thanks for the positive comments!

In terms of the excess of gold, I did not intend for anyone to be able to recruit such vast armies. I have taken temporary steps to prevent such massive quantities of gold. This leads me to my next Changelog:

Version 0.1.6 Changelog:

-Changed all the "bonus=yes" to "bonus=no", as the player controls 7 loyal units, and doesn't quite need a large quantity of gold, especially since the turn limit is way too high at the moment. (The turn limit is added to the list of things that need tuning.)

-The Spectre now has a smaller radius, letting the player move closer to the snow-covered house without waking the spirit. As the main challenge of the first scenario is keeping your seven characters alive, I felt that an additional warning concerning the Spectre is unnecessary, as it is out of character, and as I feel that snow in the middle of the forest is it's own warning sign.

-New icon at the campaign selection screen, as I found that the picture of the ranger was too generic for the purposes of my campaign. The icon is now the "shooting star" melee attack sprite from the God Hand Spellsword. If people don't like this new icon, or felt the old one was better, let me know.


The cutscene chapter "Forest Fires" will be finished early this week (along with, hopefully, more Lucas, Xianthi, and Shelli development.) Look for scenario four late this week.

[Ewan]

More positive feedback.

I managed to fail the first scenario on try 1 by not going to the troll hut until it was too late... or so I thought: he would not have had time to gt to the glade, so I quit. When I replayed, I realised that as long as he had been *found* and *any* brotherhood member had made it, I'd have been OK - o well. [And yes, I saw the 'hut to the north' comment, but assumed it was the abandoned hut to the east of the village.]

It was a little odd to have already taken over the 'monster' hut and have to go revisit it after being warned by the villagers .

Otherwise, though, very cool

[BlackOpsElf]

It was a little odd to have already taken over the 'monster' hut and have to go revisit it after being warned by the villagers .

Otherwise, though, very cool

He was hiding.

[Xandria]

I must voice my criticism of this campaign here, sadly.

The first level was fairly interesting, but the second level already shows little in the terms of entertainment: while the demons may look cute, having to fight in a corridor one square wide is totally dependent on luck, and does not leave much in the terms of strategy.

Also, the elvish sorceress is not able to heal, despite ordinary sorceresses being able to do so.

[Dawgas]

Xandria, I believe that you are confusing the Sorceress with the Druid.

And one tile caves are a bother, but then again, Rogue Mages kill everything, so just get them and not worry about a thing.

[BlackOpsElf]

I must voice my criticism of this campaign here, sadly.

The first level was fairly interesting, but the second level already shows little in the terms of entertainment: while the demons may look cute, having to fight in a corridor one square wide is totally dependent on luck, and does not leave much in the terms of strategy.

Also, the elvish sorceress is not able to heal, despite ordinary sorceresses being able to do so.

The Elvish Sorceress is one of the two possible advancements from the Elvish Shaman: the Elvish Druid gains greater healing ability over the Shaman, while the Sorceress loses the Shaman's healing ability, gaining greater offensive capability. I chose the Elvish Sorceress for a few reasons. First, very few people pick the Sorceress over the Druid. If a Rebel player wants ranged magic damage, they usually take a Mage, which is capable of dealing more damage in its level 1 form than the Sorceress can in its level 1 form. Additionally, the Sorceress deals ranged cold damage, and if you have tried out Rogue Mages, you know how awesome that is against demons. Finally, when Shelli's character development is fleshed out, her relationship with Sarlac (the leader of the Eastern mage coven, who will be at least mentioned in the forth scenario, and will appear in the sixth) is facilitated by their shared magical proficiencies. Finally, the Outlaws do not come with a healer in their default unit pack (or even in the L3 one.) I see no reason to add a healer, whose battlefield role is to help others, to the Brotherhood, many of whom were rejected by their original societies for selfish or criminal deeds.

In terms of strategy in the second scenario, the single-file choke-point is somewhat intentional. Keep in mind that while your forces have to take the narrow tunnel, the Infernomancers have flying units, who can attack you from the abyss. There are several options here. You can wait at your citadel for the enemy forces to come to you. Eventually, they will run out of resources, while you will have the defensive advantage. You can push through with a melee-damage tank rotation, which alternates between Lodark and another high-HP, high-damage unit as the first unit in the line. You can recruit a band of throwaway Rogue Mages, and marvel at how many of them actually survive their encounters. You can use either Bungor or Lodark as the front unit the entire time in the tunnel, and then use the Winter Gale Ring you get when one of them dies to deal a lot of damage to the Infernomancers. I have found that strategic placement of units, and unit rotation, is key in the "storm the tunnels" approach, as there is a long enough tunnel that you have room to rotate units until you get one at the front who has good cave defense. In short, you may not have too many noticably different options for that particular part of the map, but chokepoints are tough, and you have the income and the time to storm the tunnel with disposable or durable units.

Thank you for the comments, and I hope you will give the rest of the campaign a chance. Not everything is balanced yet (including the maps) and some scenarios may need to be restarted in order to ensure victory. Hopefully, the third scenario has enough going on that you can be flexible with your tactics.

[Magus]

Actually, the narrow halls give the flying demons an advantage, so you have to maintain two fronts, I've found the concept interesting, and the scenario was entertaining enough, though a bit easy. (upping the amount of gold and disabling recruits would make it more of a challenge)

You should never fully judge a campaign until you have played 3-5 scenarios, the first 3 are usually used to build up the mood more then to challenge the player. Its still a work in progress

You should also note, that the sorceress is much more useful in campaigns, as she is one of the few units that can reach level 4
so personly, I don't mind her being a sorceress instead of a druid
(if you can get her to level 4, she is by far the most powerful of the brotherhood units, I mean, flying, 6 movement, 70% evasion in forests, 11-5 Magical ranged, 6-4 Slow Ranged, what more can you want?)

[BlackOpsElf]

The dialogue subchapter between chapter 3 and 4 should be up at some point tonight. I've been doing a lot of research on ways to do things with WML, and have refined the plot for chapters 4-6. It should be noted that I've extended the length of the campaign a bit, so 6 will not be the end. Just as a heads up, chapter 4 is a battle for the Eastern fringe of the forest, while chapter 5 will be a battle between various forces on a modified version of the first scenario's map. These two scenarios highlight the sheer power of the Infernomancers, and 5 marks the return of the Saurians, the God Hands, and that troublesome spirit from the first scenario (who I've added an interesting death event to, in order to enable his return later.) So, there will be a lot of things happening, and I'm trying to do some things that I haven't seen in Wesnoth before, hence the WML research.

I'm liking where this is going, and extending the length of the campaign will allow me to do some things I hadn't originally planned for.

[BlackOpsElf]

0.2.0 released!
Changelog:
-Chapter 3b: Forest Fires added. This chapter is a cutscene/interlude chapter, in preparation for chapter 4, The Skies Cry Blood.
-Brotherhood major characters are not allowed to change their names now
-there is now a dialogue when Frostfinger dies
-all Brotherhood major characters now have the {IS_HERO} tag
-a few new maps loaded and tweaked, including 3b: Forest Fires, 4: The Skies Cry Blood, and 5: And The Ground Shakes in Sorrow.

Hope you like this latest plot development, and that there are no glaring errors.

[BlackOpsElf]

I'm going to start balancing certain elements of the campaign soon, and creating greater differentiation between the difficulty levels; are there any elements of the campaign that seem too hard or too easy in comparison to the others?

[tsr]

I'm going to start balancing certain elements of the campaign soon, and creating greater differentiation between the difficulty levels; are there any elements of the campaign that seem too hard or too easy in comparison to the others?

I redownloaded the campaign yesterday, and played it on easy. I admit I tried for the no recruit path, but I had to replay scenario two because of the turn limit.

Maybe not a real question for balancing, but I can't hurt to make easy, easier, can it?

/tsr

[BlackOpsElf]

I'm going to start balancing certain elements of the campaign soon, and creating greater differentiation between the difficulty levels; are there any elements of the campaign that seem too hard or too easy in comparison to the others?

I redownloaded the campaign yesterday, and played it on easy. I admit I tried for the no recruit path, but I had to replay scenario two because of the turn limit.

Maybe not a real question for balancing, but I can't hurt to make easy, easier, can it?

/tsr

I'll increase the turn limit. I had lowered the turn limit because people were ending early and getting huge bonuses, but I forgot to raise the limit when I turned bonus to off.

[BlackOpsElf]

The next chapter will be out next week.

I should point out that this campaign has a "no orc" policy. I got tired of every Wesnoth campaign I played using orcs as random villains.

There will, however, be more God Hand, Infernomancer, and Saurian forces in the next few scenarios (although the Saurians are more of an annoyance than anything.)