14 - Human Alliance

Feedback for the mainline single-player campaign Legend of Wesmere.

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Caladbolg
Posts: 198
Joined: January 1st, 2016, 4:40 pm
Location: Hopelessly trapped within the Submachine

Re: V1.9/1.10 - 14 - Human Alliance

Post by Caladbolg »

I'll start by commenting on the story-only scenarios: Revelations has very good dialog. The only weird thing is that the potion is made from the eyes of a lich but I suppose that the 'fresh' ones may still have their eyes intact. As for News from the Front:
-Kalenz, Landar and Olurf revert to lower level units for no apparent reason (mentioned before)
-I am not really sure what's the point of Landar's disappearance as it doesn't seem to affect the plot
-how does Landar forget his potion? It's literaly the only thing he had to bring

Human Alliance
(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.12.5, medium.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8.5 to beat all enemies. I even had plenty of time left over but dealing with enemies on three fronts and their huge income was really difficult. I don't know about just survival but likely around 6.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear. Well, I did think that killing all leaders will finish the scenario but that's a fault on my part, the objectives are clear.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It's mostly good. The only minor thing is that the dialog "I see foul orcs to be ridden down!" is still triggered at the end of the scenario even if you've killed all enemies.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Properly dividing Kalenz's troops. Keeping high level units out of harm's way. Dealing with trolls (that front was insane).

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9. It was very enjoyable. Having enemies share gold is good because defeating one means that the remaining ones will have more gold for themselves. I don't even mind the fact that a large southern and eastern parts of the map are mostly unused because they can be used for fleeing if you're low on gold. All in all, this is a great scenario.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Maybe slightly beef up the western orc, Aldar can easily handle him by himself as is. You could remove some of those enemy castles that aren't used (purely for the sake of aesthetics). Oh, and Aldar's stats show orcs among his 'losses' (mentioned before).

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No, but I did restart/reload.
-On 5th turn I realized that trolls are going to be the biggest issue but the majority of my army was on the western front so I had to move a significant portion back to the east. I restarted the scenario to save myself the hassle.
-When I was about to finish the last enemy leader, I expected the scenario to end so I didn't care about properly positioning my low-hp units (kids, read the objectives!). When I killed him and the scenario didn't end I realized my mistake so I reloaded that turn.

Strategy: Dwarves will face trolls. Cleodil will recall high level shamans and a few woses and also go for the trolls (arcane attacks, healing and slowing are the key there). Kalenz and Landar recall high level fighters and archers to deal with NW orcs. Galtrid and others also recall high levels and go for the NW orcs, with a few recruits staying behind to fend off the W orcs arriving from the S. Aldar will recruit a few white mages as a core and surround them with high level units, going west to deal with the orcs. Later he pumps out cavaliers to go N and help with trolls but they didn't manage to arrive fast enough to make a difference.

All in all, aggressive play to push back the enemies and reach their castles, clogging up their recruit spaces and then killing the leaders. Later I tried to capture villages for a good carryover but it was below the next scenario's minimum so it didn't count.
Turn by turn:
Stats:
-Kalenz: 653 start gold, 77 end gold, 69/69 villages, 42 units, 69 income, 9 recruits, 24 recalls, 9 advancements, 8 losses, 47 kills, dmg dealt 0%, dmg received +2%
-Aldar: 500 start gold, 7 end gold, 0 villages, 20 units, -45 income, 20 recruits, 0 recalls, 0 advancements, 2 losses, 17 kills, dmg dealt +1%, dmg received 0% (by my calculations at least; as mentioned, his stats are messed and include orcs under 'recruited' and 'lost units' and elves under 'killed units')
-Galtrid: 400 start gold, -375 end gold, 0 villages, 19 units, -24 income, 11 recruits, 9 recalls, 6 advancements, 5 losses, 18 kills, dmg dealt -1%, dmg received +1%

Tl;dr: troll leader and west leader killed on turn 7, NW leader killed on turn 9. All in all, pretty even luck (as expected from large battles). No higher level units lost. Village grabbing was unnecessary as the carryover would need to be >200 (?) to count. Though if I had sent some scouts south earlier, I think I could've managed it but I don't feel like replaying just for that. I think the replay's good, especially the part where sylphs assassinate the troll leader ^_^
Attachments
LoW-Human_Alliance_replay.gz
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devavrata
Posts: 119
Joined: August 30th, 2012, 8:59 pm

Re: V1.9/1.10 - 14 - Human Alliance

Post by devavrata »

No form for this scenario, so I copied the one for scenario 9 and changed the name and number:

Content Feedback wrote:The Legend of Wesmere, scenario 14 - Human Alliance:
(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Battle for Wesnoth 1.8.3, Easy/Medium, Battle for Wesnoth 1.10.7 Hard.
Content Feedback wrote:(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9
Content Feedback wrote:(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear
Content Feedback wrote:(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Clear, interesting the part about the ruby of fire.
Content Feedback wrote:(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
What about the onslaught of orcs? Just when you cope with the initial orcs and trolls, you get more trolls... and then, at turn 12 you get three new orcish leaders with more than 700 gold each! They keep throwing orcs at you. And you can't just flee to the other end of the map and make a stand - the human ally is in the center of the map and needs help. You need to send help on time or else you'll be facing a series of endless reloads to avoid having him killed by the orcs, like it happened to me on medium.
Content Feedback wrote:(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8
Content Feedback wrote:(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It's okay as it is.
Content Feedback wrote:(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
I am familiar with scenarios that say the protagonist has to flee, the enemy is overwhelming... and then you can defeat the overwhelming enemy. Not so with this scenario, this is really overwhelming on hard. At first I was playing aggresive and venturing into the plains, where both elves and dwarves get a bad defensive bonus... but the third wave of orcs was really too much. Soon there were too many orcs and I started losing units big time. So, I learnt the lesson: play defensive all the time, stick to favourable terrain.

Recruit first the dwarves, make sure you have enough to defeat the trolls. Use the rest of the money on elves - you might have few at the start, but you're going to get your finest units back about turn 6. The strategy goes like these: attack the trolls with the dwarves (the terrain is good for them), and the orcs with the elves - but only the ones in the forest (northwest corner). Attack the first keep, you should be finishing the orcs when the second wave comes, attack the second keep then, again you should be finishing them when the third wave comes, and then attack the third keep. What to do after cleaning the north? To help the human ally, of course; failing to help the ally will result on losing the scenario if the human leader gets killed. For the dwarves, after killing the orcs, rush them to the central castle and keep them making a stand there. Avoid fighting with the dwarves on the plains - dwarves suck on plains. For the elves, send them to the south edge of the forest, at the border of the plain, and wait there for incoming orcs to fight them taking advantage of the terrain (elves fighting on forest, orcs fighting on plains). The orcs will come, dividing their forces between the elves at the forests edge and the human ally, and that will suffice to improve his chances to survive. If you care for your elves wisely, your starting elves will suffice to kill the third successive orcish keeps in the northwest, so when you get the elvish reinforcements from turn 6 you can send all of them to the task of guarding the south edge of the forest and killing all of the incoming orcs.

Something on AI: AI on this game is still far away from comparing to DeepBlue or Watson, but in scenarios like this it might just pass as proficient - as long as the battle happens in plains. Both the orcs and the ally make a show of launching everything they have at the other... that is, until I cleaned the north and deployed the elves on the edge of the forest. The AI seemed confused then - some orcs would run east towards the the central castle, some other orcs would run north towards the elves in the edge of the forest... and some orcs would alternate between the two options, like they were hesitating who to attack. This provided me with precious time, specially slowing the onslaught of the third orcish wave and allowing my elves to kill the orcs in small groups rather than in big groups.

My style of playing could be described as "level 3-hoarding", which means I deliberately avoid recalling level-3 units and recall/recruit level-2 and level-1 units instead - all looking forward to develop a big force of level-3 units for the final battle. It pays off because in so many campaigns you arrive to a huge final battle (Heir to the Throne, Northern Rebirth, etc.). However, Legend of Wesmere is a campaign with several big-sized "final battles"! Elves' Last Stand was one, and Human Alliance is yet other - and the campaign is still not finished. Have to say, this campaign haves you play this same hoarding strategy by depriving you of your finest units after scenario Elves' Last Stand and then giving them back to you back by turn 6 of this scenario... really on time for a big challenge. Well played. However, a note must me made here: the return of your best troops raises your turn costs in a way that gets you to finish on deep negative gold.
Content Feedback wrote:(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
-
SanDonk
Posts: 32
Joined: June 26th, 2017, 8:58 pm

Re: V1.9/1.10 - 14 - Human Alliance

Post by SanDonk »

1) Easy
2) 10+ even on easy
3) Clear
4) Fine
5) Prevent from killing the stupid ally who is surronding 3lvls and is not capable of using them in useful way.
6) Without using debug 0, with maybe 9.
7) Definitely help the ally leader to be able to defend himself without your aid. Defending 4 of your leaders against 6 times more enemies is difficult enough.
8) I actually roloaded cca 15 times and regrouped when my leaders were killed due to my mistake. However I had to use debug and make the ally leader a green colour enemy, while he was downed to 1 unit - to prevent him from getting killed (last 3 turns) and defend the waves of enemies from both sides.

I very much appreciate the terrain - the forests around the water. They were my main tactical tools.
Seto
Posts: 7
Joined: May 15th, 2013, 12:23 pm

Re: V1.9/1.10 - 14 - Human Alliance

Post by Seto »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.12.5.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Let's say 8. I remember it used to be incredibly difficult, so I'm happy that it's been watered down. As it stands, it's reasonably challenging, and you can also play with self-imposed challenges (like, actually kill all enemy leaders).

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear, but losing Galtrid is not specified as a losing condition (although it is a losing condition).

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The issue of how exactly to divide my forces. I played it several times and tried different distributions. Red elves with the trolls, humans with the southern orcs, purples elves with the northern orcs. Then on subsequent replays, the first keep of human recruits went to the trolls, so did one third of the red elves (Cleodil's Woses). The rest of the humans + one third of the purple elves went to the southern orcs. The two remaining thirds of red elves and purple elves went to the northern orcs. From replay to replay, I made slight tweaks to that general model. So yeah, that kind of experimenting.
The purpose of all that planning was to minimize forces sent to the NW and SW while still winning there, in order to send maximal forces to deal with the trolls, whom I found to be by far the most difficult front. So yeah, you could say the trolls were my major challenge - not so much holding them back as pursuing the offensive into their side.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. It's pretty great as far as large-scale battles go: there's holding positions, there's attacking... I'm also having a lot more fun now that you control all sides, because I feel like it's really mine, and I won't lose because of ally shenanigans. That being said, it's a pitched battle with a lot of units, and replaying it several times in a row gets tedious at times. It's a good thing that it takes place between smaller battles.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
No opinion.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Yes, several times.
- As mentioned above, I got Galtrid killed and was surprised to lose. He should be listed as a key unit in the objectives.
- Actually, my greatest enemy was myself and my own ambition. Having come in with a nice recall list and gold, I found out that I was able to eradicate the SW and NW enemies around turn 9 or 10. So I realized that it was possible to win the scenario by crushing the enemy forces instead of simply waiting it out, and I went all out against the trolls.Several times. I really wanted to win before the turn limit and see what happened. I hit a brick wall with those damn trolls. And, feeling victory within my grasp, I was very offensive and lost a lot of good units. So on my third or fourth replay, I decided that it wasn't worth it and that I'd just contain the trolls, using primarily humans and Galtrid's elves to preserve my own. Once I did manage to calm down and play defensively, holding out until turn 22 was doable enough.
Hestelvar
Posts: 36
Joined: July 29th, 2016, 7:41 pm

Re: 14 - Human Alliance

Post by Hestelvar »

(1) What difficulty level and version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
1.14.5
Solider (Easy)
Starting Gold 749
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline of the scenario?
Very good. “We must defeat them in detail...” sounds more appreciate for orcs-though I still think it is too modern. The orcish war horn is a nice touch.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Biting off more than a could chew. The high enemy base income makes defeating all leaders virtually impossible-as it should be.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7+. Very good. Challenging, intriguing and original, as you have the freedom to try different strategies to meet the objectives.
(7) What, if any, are the changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I’d prefer the human side to be AI controlled. The southern orc is easily defeated, thereafter moving the human units becomes tedious.
Make the orcs prioritise the humans force as is their stated intention - “Maybe we can beat the humans before the elves can intervene. Overrun city and castle!” Instead the south orc sent most of his force north ignoring the advancing humans.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Several. At night against lots of level 2 trolls. Tough.
(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language - do you think that the WML of this scenario is clear and well commented? If not which part would you like to be documented better?
N/a
Remarks:
I ignored the objectives and treated this as an early showdown, recalling almost everything to gain experience. Possibly a mistake?
Attachments
LoW-Human Alliance replay.bz2
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JoelPera
Posts: 26
Joined: June 9th, 2015, 7:29 am

Re: 14 - Human Alliance

Post by JoelPera »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.14.14.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Not so clear, it says just survive but the multiple empty camps and the dialogue saying "we mustn't let the north side enemies meet the south" or something led me to believe more reinforcements of enemies would arrive.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Confusing per (3) but story-wise an interesting battle with almost everyone pitching in to fight.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Despite being on hard, it was quite easy to vanquish the orc sides on the northeast and southeast. The empty camps confused me. Either way, at less than half way through the campaign they were out. However (with a big emphasis), the Troll side was a pain. This was my main gripe in this scenario.

To elaborate, once they were the only enemies left, it was basically an exercise of patience with all my elves, dwarves and humans battling scores of regenerating trolls and their endless income. It wasn't hard in the good way, it felt like a pointless chore since we would eventually win given our numbers. An unneeded test of patience. Those 12 turns must have taken me about ~4 hrs and at the last turn, I was like "Finally!" Also each of those turns, I had to mind my important units from getting killed in this large scale multi-sided battle (main units, loyal ones etc). It would probably take me ten more turns to actually slay that Troll leader given the pace of battle.

I had slain so many lvl3 troll units it was quite amusing, I had the biggest kill count I'd ever done so far, attaching screenshot. Roughly total 60 lvl3 and lvl2 trolls I had killed.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4. Mainly due to it being anti-climatic after I defeated the first two sides. It felt like a chore fighting the troll side of 10+ turns.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I think it's great that it no longer is like how it was before as I remember where we couldn't control the human ally. I remember I used to lose thanks to their irresponsible behaviour.

But yea, I found what I explained in in (5) as the main area which could be improve. Maybe reducing the turns required to survive by half and making the other two sides stronger (recruit more lvl3 units). Maybe even make the Troll side weaker. It might then actually feel like a "Hold the line" battle.

Idk if I missed something but those empty camps just confused me, why were they even there? As a precaution, I had sent a leader unit to one at the top and bottom and recruited more units incase only to find that it was unnecessary. They then took forever to move to fight the troll side at the other extreme opposite end. My gold reached negative. I thought enemy reinforcements would come and settle there.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Thankfully, no. I don't think I'd have to patience to restart this scenario.

EDIT: Attached replay after noticing everyone does here. You can then see what I described. :)
Attachments
LoW-Human Alliance replay.gz
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wesnot-wesmere-kills.png
Last edited by JoelPera on November 6th, 2020, 5:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Konrad2
Forum Moderator
Posts: 3333
Joined: November 24th, 2010, 6:30 pm

Re: 14 - Human Alliance

Post by Konrad2 »

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

1.15.3, High Lord (Challenging)

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

7, it's huge.

(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?

Interesting enough.

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

Holding back the trolls without horrible losses.

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

4

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

-

Scenario stats:
Spoiler:
Attachments
LoW-Human Alliance replay.gz
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Zrevnur
Posts: 117
Joined: January 11th, 2020, 12:04 pm

Re: 14 - Human Alliance

Post by Zrevnur »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Wesnoth 1.14.11, High Lord (Challenging), no reloading during campaign, played the scenario at least twice
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Surviving & Fighting: Maybe 5 in comparison with the rest of the campaign.
It may be possible to make it much easier yet hiding in some corner or something.
Its probably possible to kill all enemy leaders - I didnt try though.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
It says plus-40%-carryover scheme but it uses the 80%-or-nothing-carryover scheme - at least according to the window at the end.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Dont remember and Wesnoth somehow crashed in replay.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Lots of units.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
4
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
There are too many units. While its somewhat interesting/fun in early turns it just becomes a chore later on. Maybe giving a bonus for killing all leaders would give incentive to make the later turns more interesting.
--
Similar to Elves Last Stand I dislike the gold mechanics. Its optimum to only have one side own the villages and let all other sides go into the red. Except that sides are not equal. But in order to understand which side is best served by gold hording for future scenarios I have to know these. This is significantly worse than the usual situation - which is IMO already bad in that knowing future scenarios gives too much of an advantage.
And if the humans dont show up again (dont remember) then any gold collected for blue is lost?
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
Attachments
LoW-Human Alliance replay.gz
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