by solsword » February 12th, 2009, 1:47 pm
Just finished the second mission and failed the 3rd. In the second mission, I was basically forced into turtling in the lodestone chamber for the entire mission. This worked out well, and I ended the mission with several level 3 units after whittling away the enemy forces slowly over the course of many turns. Some saveloading was also involved ;(. Basically, I couldn't find a way to break out of the lodestone chamber with enemies swarming around the entrance. Any forward progress beyond the fort tiles would put my units at a disadvantage, allowing them to be attacked by more enemy units (of which there were plenty) and putting them at slightly lower defense. Forced to turtle, I was able to do so (barely) by saveloading at critical moments to force levelups. Once I had a bunch of level-3 units and my opponents were mostly dead, I broke out, killed the remaining enemies, and headed for the exit (Although I probably could have taken out Lokka if I had wanted to spend a bunch more turns on it). Still, having a time limit would have made the map pretty impossible (It took me 55 turns, but given my strategy, that time could vary widely).Basically, I'd say that the enemy that you have to kill should recruit far fewer units, to the point where breaking out is feasible in under 10 turns (before the reinforcements arrive), so that the map plays like it feels it's supposed to.
Comments on the third scenario:
Armed with a plethora of level 3 units, I recalled a Runemaster, a Dragonguard, a Sentinel, and a Lord to accompany my Runemaster and Monitor heroes (That was from default starting gold, as I'd played the previous scenario in the red...). I proceeded to shrug off and destroy the ice bears I encountered without TOO much difficulty, although at one point my Monitor took a few hits and was doing poorly. I spend 2 or 3 turns near the top of the map dallying around, but other than that, I was moving Gali at full speed continuously. I made contact with the elves around turn 25, and got Gali near enough to the entrance for the guards to pop out on turn 30, at which point I lost on time. Given that the player isn't supposed to have a bunch of level 3 units, this map seems like it needs more turns (and maybe fewer bears?). As a side note, the bear image was missing from the campaign (I copied the image from Alfhelm the Wise's campaign, creating images/monsters as a directory in the process), and several times the Monitor commented on the snow but the map didn't change, giving an error about maps without headers being unsupported. The first couple of times it worked, though.
I like what I've seen of the campaign so far, even if it is a bit difficult. I'm playing on Normal mode, but I find myself saveloading quite a bit to survive. Of course, all of the Imperial Era campaigns seem much more difficult than the standard campaigns to me, but I'm not sure whether that's the campaigns or the era's unit balance.
Keep up the excellent work.
I will certainly post actual feedback here eventually.
