Campaign: Tale of a Mage

[Gambit]

nah dont screw around with the save file. just debug create a yeti.

[WYRMY]

playing on hard:

First Try:
I like the idea, but on hard it was slightly too hard. Because there were no variety of units, it was hard to have good strategy, and the magical magic puff nullified any good defense a village or castle might give. I only just won by dodging 3 guys around about 6 enemies and assasinating the leader, with dillon on 6 hp

The catacombs:

I found with this scenario, there was about 5 turns of no fighting (looking for trapdoor), then 10 or so turns of fighting hordes of ghosts, and then cave-slogging for the rest. I think there should be more variety in the caves for faster movement, such as some dirt path.

[Sneezy]

I just finished playing, difficulty=MEDIUM, using BfW ver 1.4, campaign ver. 0.2.7, OS is win2k svc pack 4. I thought it might be useful to jot down some impressions, observations, and suggestions.

*** MILD SPOILERS AHEAD ***
The story is pretty good, although dillon seems kind of dense sometimes.
Some maps are way too "regular" (i.e., square chambers, 90-degree roads) to give an impression of realism, or to be visually interesting. Current ones are okay for roughing out the storyline, but several of them now need some artistic tweaking.

( E.g., Townsquare isn't an enticing map; neither is Adventure; the chamber where dillon hands over the Icestone is way too regular and could be creepier; the map of the cave where dillon frees the prisoners could be more irregular and "cave-like." )

I like the idea of having rooms (at the school, at Konrad's castle) where some of the dialogue takes place. Nice touch. But I'd place the characters better in those rooms, so that they can be seen when the dialogue boxes appear. Those boxes often obscure the people.

The first couple of scenarios didn't hold my attention as well as some of the later ones did. I see now that the death of Olaf was a key element in the first scenario. Give some thought to re-working that one so that it's more clear that the village is trying to protect Olaf, that the attacking forces are intent on killing him, that he was the goal, and that the attackers will do whatever they must to succeed.

It would have helped pull me into the story if I were thinking: I wonder why that kid's father is/was so important? The dialogue at present implies that the raid is all just some random plundering exercise:
"Ha, ha, you know what to do, men! Plunder the village!"

What I'm suggesting is:
"Ha, ha, you know what to do, men! Plunder the village! And be sure to bring me the head of that old man."
Then maybe something more when Olaf is killed:
Dillon: "Father!"
Lylla: "Olaf!"
Karin: "I warned him. Now the scored is settled."

I didn't see much point to the Adventure scenario -- it's really tricky to fight the thugs, so it seemed better to run. ANd once you've run several turns-worth, you've proven that you can run, and that you made the right choice. Maybe make that map not so tall.

I enjoyed the scenario with Lord Gilder's army. It was nice to have some good troops to choose among, and defeating the enemy force took some thought and a bit of care, but wasn't terribly tough. The difficulty was just about right for the first real battle in the story.

The scenario with the two teams of students jousting on a field is immune from my comments about "too regular, too square" earlier on.
Square-ness was okay there, and it was an interesting little problem.

The dungeon slogging wasn't much fun. The battle against ghosts was okay, and it was nice getting a white-mage to help with the healing, but the units were so weak that I didn't want to spread out to explore more quickly; I was worried that the source of those ghosts was going to spew out more. Might help to have someone say, "The cavern seems quiet now... I don't hear any more telltale noises of those ghosts." Something to suggest that you might be able to split up and explore more rapidly.

The battle between Slinian and Dillon over the Icestone was the toughest problem I faced. First time through it, the enemy force was mostly ghosts, which was really tough. We were overwhelmed. Second time through, it was more a mix of ghosts and WC, and I could use the injured mages against the WC. Even so, you can be done in by one or two unlucky outcomes (90% chance of a kill turning into a whiff; argh!), or by a small mistake in positioning a unit. I had to re-load twice to deal with those situations.

In Old Enemies, the behavior of the headmaster's troops was aggravating. They mostly guarded the northern (!?!?) side of the clump of children, leaving my force to defend the kids with little help. Once the all-out melee began, the teachers cherry-picked injured units, and generally got in the way. The horsemen, on the other hand, did a heck of a job.

The Prince was a very interesting problem. I had read a couple of posts that mentioned a quick strike against the enemy bosses. Sure enough, if you go slow, this thing turns into a bloody slugfest, and is fairly tough to win. But if you hold a couple of troops ready to strike, you can zip in and decapitate a force before it really gets going. This scenario pushed me to break with my usual "take-your-time, harvest-some-XP, but finish early enough to get a good bonus" approach. The assassinate-the-boss technique is now one of my regular ideas to consider.

Investigation, Shadow From the Past, etc., proceeded okay, and I was able to figure them out without too much trouble.

Escape was not so satisfying; Arand out-recruited us, so his troops got in front, dominated the action, and left dillon's troops to slog around the northern passageway and fight for a choke point. Not much chance to harvest XP there. In the southeast, dillon's troops stand around waiting for Arand's guys to get killed or move out of the way. No problem completing the scenario, but not much chance to improve the troops. Arand's guys got most of this level's XP. Although when we rushed the boss, dillon's guys leaped into the front and surrounded the boss, to keep Arand's guys from getting him.

Old Friends was a nice, conventional battle out in the open, and felt great after being so constricted in the cave.

A Daring Rescue was actually fairly straightforward. I had (evidently) done a fair job of choosing and improving Lord Gilder's force. (some wht-mages, swordsmen, and something like 4 royal guards) So he mopped up the NW corner with no trouble, and even muscled in on the fighting down in the SW corner.
It took me a while to realize that that was the same force from the end of scenario 3; that's a nice touch. Since konrad's troops had been chewed up pretty badly by the orcs, the king really did need reinforcements at t04. It seemed very natural, and just in the nick of time.

Some typos, spelling, etc:

ADVENTURE:
Lhyron says: "Good! Who knows what will have happened to our village by now.
We must make hast!"
Probably should be: ".... We must make haste!"

REGRETS:
Dillon: "Dead...my nieghbors...my friends...we're too late."
Probably should be "... neighbors..."

Eorn's line doesn't sound like a battle-hardened soldier:
Eorn: "Oh dear, the kid's taking this really badly."
Maybe better would be: "Hmmm...the kid's taking this really badly."

There are a couple of places where this appears:
narrator: "... In an act of vengence, he plunges the dagger into Karin's heart."
Probably should be "...vengeance..."

I suspect that the following line is meant to be a question:
Dillon: "Karin belonged to this village."
Probably should be: "Karin belonged to this village?"
Or maybe even: "Karin belonged to this village?!?"


CATACOMBS
Elendil: "This is not the exit. This must be south. The enterance is north...."
Probably should be: "... entrance ..."

Elendil: "THE ICESTONE!!? .... the results could be disasterous! ..."
Probably should be: "... disastrous ..."

This story can obviously go in a lot of directions. I look forward to playing it again when you've gotten a few more scenarios together.
Congratulations. Keep working on it.

[SkeleRanger]

Thanks a lot for your input, especially the corrections in dialogue. That's my weak point. I'll see if I can work your suggestions into the campaign. Thanks again.

[A Guy]

Also, I'd recommend using a variation of normal floor terrain that uses a cave wall alias, and make the table parts items, so tables aren't floating above a hole.

[SkeleRanger]

Also, I'd recommend using a variation of normal floor terrain that uses a cave wall alias, and make the table parts items, so tables aren't floating above a hole.

I know but I don't know how to make new terrain.

[Anonymissimus]

playing on hard:
First Try:
I like the idea, but on hard it was slightly too hard. Because there were no variety of units, it was hard to have good strategy, and the magical magic puff nullified any good defense a village or castle might give. I only just won by dodging 3 guys around about 6 enemies and assasinating the leader, with dillon on 6 hp

I don't agree. (hard, BfW 1.4.2, campaign 0.2.7)
I won without critical situations, I owned all or nearly all villages in the end, all of Slinian's troops were defeated, without time pressure.
The main strategy here is to make as much "first strikes" as possible, that means, lure the enemy into your movement range without him being able to attack on his turn, and then attack with your complete waiting army. Don't fear to sacrifice villages to achieve this. You will own them again in one or two turns, and we know the defense bonus is useless.

A weird thing (bug?) is that Lhyron doesn't carry over his experience to the following scenarios, but as for Dillon, it is the scenario where you should start to level him up. That means, it's the scenario where the campaign finally actually "starts". I suggest to include a hint in the objectives of "Townsquare": "Don't try to level up Dillon or Lhyron before the beginning of the 5th scenario "First try", where they become magi, because otherwise their experience gained so far will be lost."

On "The icestone" there's the same problem like I've mentioned in my previous post, the thing with the lev 2 ghosts. I'm not allowed to sacrifice any unit, although the objectives say it'd be ok if Slinian or Jamarn died. And only Dillon's icestone is effective against the 3 fire monsters.

"Old enemies": I think I won on turn 25 or so...you can lower the turn limit to 35 or even less. This will decrease the problem that you still grant way too much gold even on hard. I'm sure I would have had problems with only the minimum gold in the next scenario, though.

"A shadow from the past": The only real challenge in the campaign, because Dillon cannot recruit or recall any troops. On easy, you have three ogres and I managed to get the elvish shaman before the main part of the battle started. On hard, only one ogre and Dillon himself are the only units that are at least a bit effective against those undeads, and there's no healer available. Dillon should be at least level 3 (Mystical mage) when starting that scenario. I needed to restart once for a better strategy, and to rotate the few troops a long time between villages in the back and the fight at the front until I could attack the enemy leaders. There's no time limit on this scenario, if you set it, I suggest maybe 60.


After all, when comparing this to the difficulty of other campaigns, it is still way to easy on hard, and way too much gold, and no critical situations. The hardcore players will complain. On hard, I usually need to restart much more than just once on other campaigns...

I like this campaing, the story is great. Wanna see more of the "help protect the crown"-stuff .

[SkeleRanger]

A weird thing (bug?) is that Lhyron doesn't carry over his experience to the following scenarios, but as for Dillon, it is the scenario where you should start to level him up.

Sorry. I think I've fixed it.

it is still way to easy on hard, and way too much gold, and no critical situations. The hardcore players will complain. On hard, I usually need to restart much more than just once on other campaigns...

Sorry it isn't balanced yet. Trying to fix it. I've lowered the gold count a bunch.

More scenarios soon.

[SkeleRanger]

Alright new upload. I've only added two scenarios(1 completely dialogue) but I've bumped the version number way up to 0.5 just to show the campaigns more than halfway finished.

[A Guy]

I would recommend unpoisoning the units that Lord Gilder brings with him.

EDIT:In the scenario First Try, you can set the controller of the third and fourth sides to null instead of AI, so they don't move at all.

[A Guy]

Few things.

Anduin - should be Alduin.
Elensafar - should be Elensefar.

[SkeleRanger]

Few things.

Anduin - should be Alduin.
Elensafar - should be Elensefar.

Did they change Alduin's name? Cause I could've sworn it used to be Anduin.

Oh well, yeah I'll fix that.

[Anonymissimus]

in HttT from BfW 1.2.8 it's Anduin, in HttT from BfW 1.4.2 it's Alduin
I've seen both versions several times...

[jani]

ee version 0.5.1 aint working when im trying to start it a error comes and then unknown scenario townsquare. ive tried it whit versions 1.4 1.4.2 and 1.5.5
could someone give link where i could donwload version which works?

[SkeleRanger]

I haven't released anything for the 1.5.x branch yet. I tried to once, but there are some bugs with the new AI so I'm just sticking with 1.4 for now.