Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Feedback for the mainline campaign An Orcish Incursion.

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SigurdFireDragon
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Lord (Normal) 1.12.5 (played before on 1.8 or 1.10

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario?
4

(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?
It's engaging. I still think well of it.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
At this point for me, it's avoiding being careless

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is?
5

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
None.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I tried on hard, got crushed by slightly questionable moves and extremely bad luck. I took it as a sign to play on medium. :P
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AOI-Defend_the_Forest_replay.gz
1.12.5 Normal
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Aldarisvet
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by Aldarisvet »

Just funny playing only shamans to shydes strategy.
First scenario was most challenging for surviving with shamans, I had to restart it to find better defend line placement. After this all went smoothly, 2.5 hours for the whole campaign.
Super-easy stress relief campaign. No plotline, no tactics, just a feeling that you can smash enemies within 6-9 turns for most scenarios in hardest difficulty. Also a scenario with trolls took more time with some reloads to remove and regroup more carefully, trolls can easely kill druids at night.
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Remellion
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by Remellion »

This will be a double set of reviews - An Orcish Incursion (AOI) is a campaign that's simple enough to have fun with, so a normal replay and a shaman replay for each.

1. Played on High Lord (Challenging), 1.12.1 English / 1.12.5 French shamans. Not my first playthrough for either by a long stretch, but my first shaman-only playthrough of anything. I was quite delighted with the results.

2. Difficulty? On challenging, it should indeed be challenging, as it was. Probably between 5 or 6 for both runs for me, since careful play is needed to utilise the forest and overcome the numerical+ToD advantages - although it's hard to say whether shamans-only makes it easier! On the one hand there's their fragility, on the other there's the perpetual slowing and good defence.

3. The objective was clear as day. A simple one-on-one battle.

4. Dialogue is clear. Can't judge the French, but the English is good and in-character.

5. Challenges: The scenario on hardest difficulty poses a straightforward problem: the orcs have a 1.5x gold advantage which translates to also around 1.5x unit advantage. The time of day also means the first contact probably occurs at dusk or first watch (the AI won't initiate in the afternoon.) On the plus side, the terrain couldn't be better for the elves. The overall idea is to leverage on the terrain advantage as hard as possible, being efficient with unit placement and keeping retaliation and orcs' turn damage to a minimum.

Generic run: I chose not to recruit archers on the grounds that they were squishy. Survivability is needed for the initial onslaught, so fighters and shamans, the usual elvish combo. I kind of abused the AI a little at the start. Erlonas's run north could've been suicidal, but the AI didn't choose to attack on turn 3 when Erlonas was on the village at (13,7), nor on turn 5 (13,13) which had a nonzero chance of killing Erlonas. The effect was to lure the AI's units away to the north so that they didn't all flank and crash down on my level 1 units at night. I also got quite lucky during the first few turns. After the first night things were controllable, although some greediness later on led to an experienced fighter dying. Finished with one of each fighter and shaman advancement.

Shamans-only: Entered this one much more trepidatiously. Starting gold gives exactly 7 shaman recruits (2+5), and Erlornas is the only beefy unit with decent melee. The idea I had was just to hold tight until dawn. Got a little unlucky to begin with - no dextrous shamans, and lost one for nothing on turn 5 (bad idea to try and hold that hex). That said, some pretty lucky dodging the next dawn saw the tide turn. Erlonas was responsible for orc killing while the shamans just kept everything slowed and leeching xp; first sorceress came turn 11, and the orcs finally ran out of steam. The sorceress advancement was prioritised here for the faerie fire damage, since there were already +4 heals everywhere; intelligent sorceresses are good (sylphs!) while quick druids are always nice.

6. Fun? Regular run was a fun and simple straight-up battle, a 7 if I'd give a number. Shamans-only is automatically a 10.

7. Suggestions - Nothing really. This campaign should be the first one beginners play (on easy or normal) for the first scenario. A vanilla 1-on-1 battle, with a simple unit mix. Although that could get a little repetitive over the 7 scenarios, I find each one feels different enough to make an interesting introductory campaign.
Attachments
UIO-Défendre_la_forêt_revoir_la_partie.gz
Shamans-only, 1.12.5 hardest
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AOI-Defend_the_Forest_replay.gz
Generic run, 1.12.1 hardest
(17.58 KiB) Downloaded 738 times
nikita1996
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by nikita1996 »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.12.6 Hard

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
About 4. The enemy is much stronger than my troops. It's impossible to kill all the enemy troops. To kill the king, I had to reach the king with one or two of my strongest units while my main troop is struggling with the enemy troops. However, the AI is easy to be cheated and turns are enough -- it only took 11 turns for me to kill the king and there are 24 turns totally.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear: to kill the enemy king.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Just so-so. A usual human vs AI battle. Nothing unusual.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The main challenge is how to let my two strongest units get rid of the enemy main troops and reach the king. To face this problem, I tried my best to surround the main troops and cover the two strongest units.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4. A usual battle.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Add something strange, for e.g., add some ambush enemies, let the king move away from the castle, or use XP mod.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
nikita1996
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by nikita1996 »

This is my game replay.
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Konrad2
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by Konrad2 »

I really like the art for the prescenario text.

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.14.0 Hard
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
5
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very much.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Positive chacks both.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Making it through the night.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6
(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?
Stupid decisions of mine in unit placement (restart the turn).
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AOI-Defend the Forest replay.gz
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Hestelvar
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by Hestelvar »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Fighter (Easy)
1.14.3
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3. Easy (4. When playing shaman line only)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear. Kill the orc leader without getting killed.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline of the scenario?
It seemed deliberately vague about how the orcs have suddenly become such a threat. I found the elves unsympathetic which is good only if that is deliberate.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
None, except complacency.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4. Taking into account that it is the opening scenario of a novice campaign. Otherwise it was disappointingly substandard. (6. Shaman line only. This is my first time trying a campaign using only the shamans - it’s an interesting challenge.)
(7) What, if any, are the changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
The addition of a loyal unit at the beginning? By giving Erlornas a sidekick of some kind their dialogue might garner some empathy for this distinctly bloodthirsty elf.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
None.
Remarks:
I don’t expect the grandeur of a full length campaign, however to newcomers fresh from part 2 of the tutorial I think this is unpleasantly simplistic.
Attachments
AOI-Defend the Forest replay.bz2
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AOI-Defend the Forest Shaman only replay.bz2
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LordWolfDan
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by LordWolfDan »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?

- Easy, 1.14.5.

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

- 3

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

- Standard - defeat the orcish warrior, nothing special

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

- Pretty interesting to see an elvish protagonist who is capable to fend himself off against orcish invaders openly. I give that one thumb up

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

- There were none

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

- 5

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

- Honestly I see no point in so

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

- Nope
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by Tom_Of_Wesnoth »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.14.7 on High Lord/Challenging.
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3. This is a very easy introduction to the campaign. The enemy leader doesn't recruit a particularly large amount of units, and the terrain is very favourable to the player, which results in a very leisurely push through the first wave of enemies. Of the ten villages on the map, six of them are clearly the player's to take, with one contested and three that fall to the enemy. This gives the player a decisive income advantage, but I didn't find myself heading back to my keep to recruit more. The healing is useful, though.

I won the scenario with no losses and thirteen kills, finishing early with a fair amount of gold in the bank. I only advanced one unit, a Fighter, but I had four units within a single kill of levelling up, which made the next scenario significantly easier.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal clear.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The dialogue and story slides are clear and well-written, but not particularly interesting. 'Orcs have arrived, now lead this random Elf to defeat the Orcs'. It's probably the least interesting of the mainline campaign starts.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The only real difficulty was choosing when to engage, with the enemy coming into range across Afternoon and - predominantly - Dusk, whereas the ideal time to strike is Dawn.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5. It's a pretty standard battle without anything interesting going on to spice it up, and the storyline is flat.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
The scenario should be made a bit more difficult, I think - move one of the player's villages to the enemy, and give him more income, perhaps? I know it's a 'Rookie' campaign, but having played from The South Guard and A Tale of Two Brothers very recently, this scenario is easier than most in either of those campaigns.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
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Atreides
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Re: Scenario 1: Defend the Forest

Post by Atreides »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3

(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 and quite amusing. The dialogue/narration is very well done. Caveat: I'm playing it in German so perhaps the translation is better than the original for all I know.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Paying attention to the hints and tips and actually following them, I tend to be headstrong and like to do what *I* want. :)

(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?
Can't think of any. At 9 there's not much wrong... Oh wait, since I am playing the now UMC version under 1.16.2 it may be that the current AI recruits too intelligently. The dialogue about the Orcs hardly having any bows was a bit absurd when the AI recruited 3 archers right off the bat! Those were in fact the hardest part as I almost lost 2 elf archers in woods fighting just 1 orc archer (at night) who got some great die rolls. A recruit limit of 1 orc archer would make sense here.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Nope, it was pleasant and straightforward.
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