[Historical] Scenario Review: EI 4c - Mal-Ravanal's Capital

Feedback for the mainline campaign Eastern Invasion.

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Loci
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Re: Scenario Review: EI 4c - Mal-Ravanal's Capital

Post by Loci »

taptap wrote:The logic behind a challenge path, that "needs reward", thus effectively makes the rest of the campaign easier, escapes me.
Rewarding the player for completing challenges is the essence of a game. While you might find the victory screen sufficient motivation for an optional scenario, many players expect more. When faced with an optional scenario that doesn't further their objectives, players just skip it. Your example, TRoW, demonstrates this clearly; quoting from the walkthrough:
The swamp scenario is relatively easy, while The Midlands could cost you some leveled units or even prove impossible to beat if you are low on gold. Also, the swamp gives you a free loyal White Mage, so it's a no brainer, unless you want more of a challenge.
Also, a loyal paladin may unbalance the campaign difficulty a little, but it pales in comparison to the feast-or-famine gold reward system.
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Inky
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Re: Scenario Review: EI 4c - Mal-Ravanal's Capital

Post by Inky »

(1) Level and version? Hard, 1.12.4, 100 gold (min)
(2) Difficult? (1-10) 10 (to save all the knights)
(3) Objectives? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Fine.
(5) Challenges? Saving the knights and killing an undead leader before the banebows catch up to you.
(6) Fun? (1-10) 10 - I absolutely love this scenario, and it's one of my favorite Wesnoth scenarios. It's basically like a puzzle level.
(7) Changes? Maybe move the Revenants a couple hexes closer. Currently, you must have planned in advance and leveled shocktroopers/mages with the quick trait, which makes a turn of difference for reaching some of the revenants, which is a huge deal. Without any quick units I doubt it is even possible to free all the knights.

Also, I do not think there should be an early finish bonus here, since the other scenarios which lead to the next one have short turn limits and therefore won't give much carryover. Getting 5 knights and a loyal paladin is enough reward.

(8) Restarts? Several (3-4) from scenario start. This is a scenario that takes experimentation for what works and what doesn't. Although it takes me several disastrous
attempts to come up with my strategy, I believe the strategy I finally use is pretty reliable. It helps me a lot that Dacyn and Gweddry reached level 3 last scenario - while not essential to the strategy it greatly reduces reliance on luck.

Strategy: I go for the Northwest leader because many of the knights are already in the northwest, and my units will also be in the northwest to free those knights. So I recruit a (sacrificial) heavy infantryman on the left whose job is to try and lure some units from the northern undead southward. The other recruits are a shocktrooper in the SE hex(quick), red mage (quick) in the NE hex, a white mage and another red mage (nonquick).

The white mage and the quick shocktrooper go to free the southernmost knight on turn 3 and then get out of there ASAP (I get lucky and the mage gets full hits, so I pull the shocktrooper back). Gweddry (who is level 3 and has the arcane amulet, letting him kill a revenant in 1-2 turns) attacks the revenant above on turn 3, killing it on turn 4. Dacyn + the quick red mage get the northeast knight + paladin, then circle around to help the other red mage with the two northwestern ones.

Sent all the freed knights northwest - if you put a knight in the leader's range he will always dash out (onto 30% def terrain) and this gives you a sure kill next turn. The sacrificial HI (sacrifice it only after you free all the knights!) has died for a good cause and lured most of the northern level 1 undead southward so I only have to kill a few corpses to reach the leader.

I manage to save all the knights but I lose my experienced quick/fearless shocktrooper in the process. I get slightly lucky on the last turn and my white mage narrowly avoids death.
Finished turn 8/26.
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Konrad2
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Re: Scenario Review: EI 4c - Mal-Ravanal's Capital

Post by Konrad2 »

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

Hard, 1.14.5

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

8, it's really intense.

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

Very clear.

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

7, those poor Knights.

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

Saving some Knights without being overrun or losing a unit.

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

10, I love the challenge. :D

(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?

Multiple, I lost Dacyn once, and I ran into some strategical deadlocks before figuring out how to deal with the longer night.
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octalot
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Re: Scenario Review: EI 4c - Mal-Ravanal's Capital

Post by octalot »

Konrad2 wrote: February 8th, 2019, 12:53 pm (8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?

Multiple, I lost Dacyn once, and I ran into some strategical deadlocks before figuring out how to deal with the longer night.
Woah, at the start of turn 12, you were on +14% inflicted, -18% taken, and surviving because of the AI's unwillingness to suicide troops on your leader.

There's exactly one ^Uf terrain on this map, and I am so not going to playtest the balance after changing it to Sm^Tf. :oops: :lol:
Xindage
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Re: Scenario Review: EI 4c - Mal-Ravanal's Capital

Post by Xindage »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.15.7, Normal (Normal - Swordsman)
240 gold

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

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Rescuing the knights and surviving against the purple army.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3 (It's more of a challenge it's not meant to be fun i suppose)

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I have no idea without turning the scenario not a challenge anymore

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I lost the count of how much restarts I did, I once tried to rush against purple to see if I was able to kill him, until I decided to just rescue what i can and flee.

(9) About the replay.
Use my holy dragoon to rescue what I can, while it I split my army around and focused to kill blue as fast as possible to wont lose the dragoon.
Purple somehow turned passive against my shock troopers after I killed the archers. (Afraid ghouls?)
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mal_shubertal
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Re: Scenario Review: EI 4c - Mal-Ravanal's Capital

Post by mal_shubertal »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.16.6 Royal Guard (Challenging)
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
11 to save all the knights, 2 to just escape, 6-8 to at least save the paladin, depending on where he spawns
(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?
I like that we learn some of the backstory between Ravanal and Dacyn, and that Gweddry again shows some backbone, even if he's being kinda dumb by trying to kill this obviously unkillable lich. My one point of confusion is that Ravanal says "These humans have dared foolishly to come this far into my land. Crush them!". But 1- He's a human, or was pretty recently, and 2- all of his dark sorcerers are humans too. So it seems like it would be better for him to call them 'Wesnothians' or just say "these fools have dared to come this far....".
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
saving all the knights (gave up), and then just saving the paladin and as many knights as possible, without losing too many leveled units.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. An interesting puzzle, for sure.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I agree with some of the past commenters that there should be a lower or nonexistent early finish bonus for this scenario. The way it's designed encourages you to finish quite quickly whether you save the knights or not, and coming into the next scenario with BOTH a huge amount of gold AND a bunch of new mounted units makes it too comically easy.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I restarted a LOT as I tried different ways to save all the knights, and then it still took me a couple tries to get it right once I decided to just grab the paladin and whoever else I could while simultaneously pressing the northwest leader.
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borad
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Re: Scenario Review: EI 4c - Mal-Ravanal's Capital

Post by borad »

Context for all these specific suggested solutions, something I only realised after watching a replay: at least in the current version, the Paladin location is randomised.

If he shows up in one of the two mid-south locations (which happens most of the time?), then yeah, suicide mission.

On my quick succession of loads the next most common was most-eastern-north, and quite plausible to rescue (but have a second squad concurrently killing NW or SW because the level ending is what saves that rescue squad).

I just got the due south location, and that’s insanely easy/safe to rescue. If all you wanted was the loyal paladin you could just take one turn of summons to there and then progress onwards to the SW for a rapid finish and lots of gold.

EDIT: finished turn 6 having rescued the paladin + the 3 northern knights, and no deaths (the SW leader thankfully charged out of his keep to die at least one turn early). Sent a castle-worth to the north (mostly quick mages, plus one distracting Cavalryman who did his job masterfully and somehow didn’t die) to shoot down the revenants. Second turn of summons was two mages south for the quick rescue plus big-hitters to clean up everyone else down there.
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