Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Feedback for the mainline campaign The Hammer of Thursagan.

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zaimoni
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by zaimoni »

Mythological wrote:(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Easy [Wesnoth 1.6.2]
Mythological wrote:(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7
Mythological wrote:(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Transparent once revealed.
Mythological wrote:(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Excellent.
Mythological wrote:(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Absolutely, positively, maintain 0% chance-to-kill on your own units and holding zone-of-control.

This scenario is severely subject to replay-knowledge optimizing:
* Being aggressive enough to get the conveniently placed gold in time for it to do any good.
** Edit: turn 6/7 on the most recent replay. Gold drain by this time was over -40/turn; it doesn't appear possible to maximize recruiting if it is not all acquired by turn 7.
* Having two white mages is really convenient.
* The lopsided length of the two passages (useful for controlling experience feeding).
* mere humans do not belong in the backdoor tunnel to the East lich.
* That the teleporter goes exactly where you need it to, would be really nice to know....
* The gate to the west lich should be opened only when ready. It would be nice to have a yes/no box, as opening this gate too early is a bit unnerving.

I also checked this map in a map editor -- the unwalkable chasm for ghosts to hit you across on the main path to the East lich is a very nice touch.

Edit: Completed replaying the whole campaign on Easy last night. Optimizing with the above out-of-character knowledge cut the reasonable turn count to complete this scenario from ~160 to ~130. (However, better feeding of kills earlier in the game caused my gold balance to be far worse : ~-4,400 this time, rather than ~2,400.)
Mythological wrote:(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10
Mythological wrote:(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I don't understand this scenario well enough to tweak it.
Mythological wrote:(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
Mythological 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?
Yes, the WML is clear and well-commented.
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appleide
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by appleide »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6
(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?
Very good.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
It wasn't challenging so much as grueling... It took 80 turns to chop the last masked dwarf, but another 100 turns to beat the undead. Half the campaign took place in this scenario.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10, until had to send troops to bottom of the map to fight the undead, then 4. The undead took a while to make their turns.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Split into 2 or 3 scenarios? the beginning of it was excellent.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
(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?
Haven't looked into it.
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cph
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by cph »

(1) Lord, 1.8.1
(2) 4
(3) Clear.
(4) Excellent.
(5) None, I save-loaded a couple of times to fix dumb moves but that's unsurprising in ~200 turns.
(6) 9 - great massive dungeon crawl fight, and I like the story element of clearing out the evil at the heart of the dwarven keep. The dialogue at the start is great. Only slight downsides are the slow patch in the middle of the level where you are trudging troops around and fighting a very slow fight to get to the SE lich. (But with hindsight I could have bottled him up with a couple of units and not bothered to beat him.)

(7) Given the length of the level it could have used a bit more dialogue - the two supporting liches could be explained a bit more, or the different areas given a more explained role.

The SE lich is a bit of a chore to get over to and to get back from; and the narrow opening to his area meant a rather slow fight with just one unit able to attack at a time. Opening his area up a bit more, or give teleport runes to save my the trudge back from him at least; or you could lose the SE lich entirely, as the level isn't short of length and has better fights!

There was no explanation of the door in the south after the fights with the dwarves until you get the key (which is ~30 turns later).

Angarthing's "I sense wrongness" was repeated every time a unit teleported using the runes - it should only be once.

The undead were perhaps a bit tame in their attacks, and I wonder if the AI's aggression factor should be increased. Frequently the AI would just shuffle around his revenants and spectres and not attack, presumably because my dwarf lords would mash them if they attacked. But not attacking at all means I was often under no real pressure, with few units injured each round and so could easily maintain a line - if he at least suicidally beat up my dwarf lords then I would have had to work harder to keep a good line in place.

(8) No.
KingsIndian
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by KingsIndian »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.6.5, Medium
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7. At first, it was difficult, but then I realised that it was easy if I just rotated my seven Dwarvish Lords and my Great Mage, having three fighting at any one time and the other five behind them being healed.
(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?
Pretty good, although I couldn't work out how to use the runes until I read this thread - after I'd beaten the scenario! However, I liked the prisoners.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
No major ones.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. The map is superb, and quite possibly the best I've ever played on. The unlimited time made for quite an epic scenario too: I took nearly 200 turns to finish it. However, so many chokepoint fights did get a bit repetitive in the end.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
A bit less Steelclad spam, and a bit more variety with the enemies. For example, perhaps flood a section of the map and put some Cuttle Fish, Water Serpents and/or Sea Serpents there.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Losing my only Gryphon Master or Great Mage (on several occasions).
(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
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Eleazar »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal. Wesnoth 1.8.1

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Maybe a 7. Took a lot of work to beat, but there were so many choke-points that i could control which units were endangered most of the time.

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

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It's pretty good, if a little stilted.
"I sense wrongness" does NOT need to be repeated for each unit.

The two litches, especially the one to the east have no explanation. Some dialog to explain where they fit would be welcome.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Maintaining proper caution over 100+ turns, especially without knowing how many enemies i'll have to fight.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
Definitely the most fun and original level in the campaign. Since the grand epicness of scale tends too much towards monotonous trudging, i give it a 7.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
* More variety of foes. You end up wading through 4 Castles of dwarves with pretty much the same limited recruitment. Then once you cross a certain point it's all undead (expect for the spider interlude). Mixing it up a little would also be nice.

:arrow: :arrow: * The 3 "doors" south of the southmost dwarf castle were never opened for me. Later checking the map editor, i see i explored the entire map, but never discovered anything to "unlock" it for me. Either the trigger event is too non-obvious or there's a WML bug. I had to march everybody to the teleporters in the north.

* The map doesn't make use of several of the cave terrains that would give it more variety, such as illuminated cave and chasm bridge

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?Since the units needed to last a long time i would reload whenever i carelessly lost an important unit. Untill i got reinforcements in the far north, most of the units were important, since i had just enough to fight on 2 fronts.
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monochromatic
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by monochromatic »

Mythological wrote:(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal 1.8.3
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9 - without planning beforehand, it's difficult to straight-out attack. Took out Karrag with the Mage with the Staff of Righteous Flame.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear, but difficult!
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Why doesn't Karrag say anything when you meet him? Seems anti-climatic.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Fighting endless hordes of Dwarves.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10 - a really great scenario.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
As is.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
In the beginning, just to time it a little differently.
(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?
Didn't check.
Overall, a cool campaign with a variety enemies. Short and sweet, it doesn't really have any major battles until the last. Check out my full review in my blog below! (sig)
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Moribund
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Moribund »

This level wasn't fun at all. It was a slog of shuffling around a couple units in front of a healer while waiting for enemies to cram themselves into choke points. What I like about Wesnoth is the strategy- and this level took no strategy at all, just patience.
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Maiklas3000 »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
hard; 1.8.3

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8. You can't really say it's a 10, because, since there is no turn limit, I think you could win by just hitting "next turn" after you have positive income. Then, once you have an infinite amount of gold, buy the max number of units per turn and spam the enemy to death. Although level 1, Mages can inflict a lot of damage on many of the undead.

(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?
Good. I agree with the comment a few posts up that Angarthing should only make the comment on the first occasion that a teleport thing is stepped on, or maybe he or the stepper could say something different on subsequent times like, "Hmm, another teleport rune."

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Patience. It takes a long time to slog through the tunnels and a long time to defeat swarms of level 2 and 3 enemies. It's hard not to try to rush and risk losing a critical unit. I got so impatient even in the first battle that I lost my white mage, which slowed me down for the rest of the campaign. (I still had a Mage of Light.)

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8. I like it. Very different from normal Wesnoth. It seems inspired by Angband or Hack or something.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
If the long tunnels would not have many slow hexes, it might make it less of a pain to navigate them. Or maybe make them 2-wide for much of the way. I was playing on a tablet pc, which I think is easier than a mouse for so much clicking, and even for me it was a pain.

I agree with the suggestion a few posts above to break it into multiple scenarios. It's called "The Underlevels", so why not have multiple levels? When you reach a particular door (or teleport rune), you go down a level, starting the next scenario. All the units you ended with should start the next scenario, and if you could maintain wounds, then great, otherwise maybe the level teleport heals you.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.

(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?
Very good. However, I never did figure out how to teleport, and I didn't see that documented either.

Looking back on the campaign, The Hammer of Thursagan gets my vote for best campaign in mainline campaigns up to this point. (I haven't played the campaigns lower in the list.) I can see that the guy who conceived this campaign is brilliant, and kudos also to those who helped with it. Is the author the same Eric S. Raymond whom I remember from the game Diplomacy decades ago? The only serious blemish in the campaign is The Siege of Kal Kartha, which seems almost broken.

If you should watch this replay, you should set your preferences to very high acceleration, or it will take forever.
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Thrash
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Thrash »

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

1.8.3, Medum, 452 starting gold

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

6, there were certainly some tough moments with little room for error, but mostly it was an exercise in patience.

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

Clear enough.

I second the statement someone else made earlier - it was totally unclear to me what a door was until I stumbled in front of one.

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

Good.

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

It's so tempting to move too quickly, I blundered into the SE lich room and got a bunch of units killed (and I admit I reloaded).

I tried playing it at first without reading the wiki - I gave up on that when I had to deal with the runes and I couldn't figure out WTF was going on.

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

9. Overall, I loved it. Not a 10 because of some long, long stretched of marching units around.

I agree with Maiklas, this was the most fun campaign so far.

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

Fast forward marching...

Make the doors more clearly doors.

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

I blundered into SE lich and ended up getting badly hurt. I admit I reloaded to coordinate attacks from two directions.

(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?

Very nicely commented.

Possible bug: When I played, Karrag didn't recruit, he just had the Draugs. From the WML, looks like he should have gotten an infusion of gold.
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turin
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by turin »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.9+svn

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
2. I had enough gold to recall 14 units, most of them level 3, and we completely destroyed all obstacles in our path, taking no casualties thanks to my two mages of light. I ran into trouble at the end when I ventured into Karrag's room with only five units and tried to take him on out of sheer boredom. That didn't work.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
The stated objective was clear -- kill Karrag. How the various parts of the cave functioned, however, was NOT. More on this in (4).

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Beginning dialogue was decent. Final dialogue with Karrag was good, though it would have been more plausible if it had not been a prelude to my wiping out his entire army of draugs with no casualties. The dialogue in the middle was CONFUSING AND UNINFORMATIVE. There is so much wrong with this scenario. First of all, what's the point of the 150 gold in the two side caverns? This is the last scenario. You've probably spent all your gold recalling high level units. You now have an income of -50 or something like that. 300 gold will get wiped out in 5 turns, long before you get to a keep, and it doesn't matter because you don't need the money anyway.

Second, I understand the point of splitting the tunnel into N and S branches, and you have to divide your army between them. But the southern branch finishes much quicker than the northern, and then has nothing to do. And there's no dialogue suggesting that the door icon in the cave wall might be important. So I began to get the feeling it was a dead end, and moved all of the units there up to the north end. But 15 turns later I learned that was a mistake because the magic book unlocks both teleporters AND doors! Wouldn't it be nice if I had known about that before? So I turn my men around and trek to the south side of the map, leaving the pointless free level one units in the north to be killed by the spiders (I have enough Dwarven Lords, Dragonguards, and Mages of Light to take anything out that could possibly threaten me), and waste more time exploring the southern cave complex, which has split into two branches. AGAIN.

I explore both for several turns before finally encountering undead in each. I then begin systematically annihilating them, taking advantage of the choke points and MoL healing so I don't lose any units, and splitting my forces roughly evenly because they seem of equal size and difficulty. But no, THIS time the leftmost one has a lichlord and Karrag in it and the rightmost one only has a lichlord. All easily disposed of, end of story, but it was really frustrating to not have any of units that I sent to the right available for the final fight against Karrag -- especially since there was no good way to know which branch was more important, because the dialogue didn't indicate anything. And the left side -- the Karrag side -- was actually easier to deal with at first, since there were revenants and deathblades not wraiths and shadows, so I sent a slightly better army that way.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not quitting out of boredom, and having to wait around twenty turns for my army to regroup and make its way around the map.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
2. It starts off OK, but after the thirtieth turn I was ready to have won already. It went on for 91. If you couldn't tell from the above, I do not consider this acceptable scenario design. A really poor way to end an otherwise decent campaign.

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

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No. Except for the time I charged Karrag with only five units. Out of boredom.
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pwhk
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by pwhk »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal, 1.9.0

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7. Lost a couple of units (and my gryphon rider). Fortunately I got 1 Mage of Light and 1 White Mage for this level.
In addition, I first unable to realize that thing looked like camp is a door, and left it alone without reaching it, almost missed the gold (Though, the gold are completely useless as I recalled so many units that I was in heavy debt - I have about 3800 debt by the end of scenario :lol2: )

(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?
Didn't notice the dialog carefully sorry.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Shadows and Wraiths coming out of nowhere.
Lots of Undead coming out.
Takes really long. (I took like 139 turns to complete)

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Can't think of one now.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Not really...
santosis
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by santosis »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium 1.8.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
6.5 - not really difficult, just required patience. Create bottlenecks, level healers, wait for the enemy.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Find and kill the rabbit.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Could have used more given the length of the scenario, even if it was "our princess is in another castle" as I killed the under-bosses. I do really like the witness dialogue- it almost immediately develops a distinctive dwarven culture.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not throwing my computer across the room when I discovered the long passage in the NE was a dead end. Boo.

I finished in round 170, with -2922 gold.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9 - The first two hours were really fun; it was nice to have a final scenario that let me use all my high level personnel. But I thought it got a bit tedious (although the orange opponent was fun and tricky, probably the biggest challenge).

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Mix up the final guards, none of them had a range attack. It made them too easy pickings.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Lost a white mage once, but I eventually just let people start dying. My final army was 17 level 3's (2 mages of light) and another white mage.
Yrth
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Yrth »

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.8.5

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4, just for the patience and long-time concentration, you have enough gold to recruit all your l3 units and a couple more (started with nearly 20 units, half of them l3), white mages and l3 units cannot be beaten in such close quarters

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Objective is clear, which way to go is not, I had a lot of running forth and back on short dwarven legs

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Patience and concentration, once I lost them and lost 2 of my 3 white mages in one turn, that made the rest of the scenario quite tedious

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6, an 8 if it would be shorter

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Make the scenarios shorter and and change the former scenario so that you don´t have so much gold to start with

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
None

(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?
...
dsa
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by dsa »

(1) What difficulty levels and what version of Wesnoth have you played the scenario on?
Hard, 1.8.5.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
3. I think my army wasn't even build up optimal (amongst other units I had only one White Mage and 6 Lords/Steelclads). Still I had no big problems. Because of the narrow caves, I could use the same strategy over and over: Moving Lords/Steelclads/Pathfinders to the front line and exchanging wounded units, to heal them with the White Mage. Even the Draugs at the end were no problem with this strategy.

(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?
Okay.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Having enough patience to stick to the defensive strategy and don't rush it.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3. When I think of the effort, which was likely put in this scenario, I feel kind of sorry to give such a rating, but I want to be honest.
The beginning was decent, but throughout the scenario I became more and more bored. It was too monotonous for me, to be successful with the same strategy over and over. In addition, I got annoyed of moving such a large army through this big map.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
A time limit could add at least some kind of challenge. To set a suitable time limit for the whole scenario would be probably quite difficult though. So maybe it could be split up in seperate smaller scenarios, where you can set a time limit for each one.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
No.
Jabie
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Re: Scenario Review: THoT 12 - The Underlevels

Post by Jabie »

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

Easy. 1.8.5

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

Initially 9, then when I worked out how to cycle units, 5.

Cycling units: Suppose you want unit A (next to a healer) and unit B (front line) to swap position. Move Unit A, move unit B into the space where Unit A was. Now move unit A again. This is so absolutely fundamental to successfully completing this scenario it should be a front page tip. Something like: Provided a unit has not attacked it does not have to complete it's movement all at once. You can move a unit, move another unit out of the way, then move the original unit into the space that the first unit occupied. Use this technique to swap units around, cycling your damaged front line troops away from the action and replacing them with fresh units.)

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

Objective was clear although the means of accomplishing it wasn't always so clear. Dulcatos could be used to act as a prompt in this capacity.

I would also suggest adding. THIS IS A LONG SCENARIO, WHICH MAY TAKE SEVERAL HOURS TO COMPLETE at the very start. Forewarned is forearmed.

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

Every time I used the teleport I got "I sense wrongness..." (Also, I'd suggest "I sense sinister magicks" or, if you can stand the cliche, "foul sorcery")

Dulcatos was woefully underused. In each new area, Dulcatos should be used for exposition. e.g.

Gallery: The Gallery of Heroes. A treasury of our finest cultural wealth - and maybe more besides. Be careful. Our opponents will have made preparations for our attack and will be heavily fortified.
Passageway: If I recall correctly, this passageway will lead to the Outer Keep. Storm the keep and we shall have a strong foothold on which to build our assault.
Southern Dwarves: Those doors are new. We must look elsewhere for the key.
Northern Dwarves 1: This is a mere barracks, our true enemy will be holed up further to the North West.
Northern Dwarves 2: On arrival: This must be where dissidents are taken. Only the strongest dwarven soldiers can be found here.
On defeating Dwarf Leader: Look! Runes of Transport. I had thought such magic had been forgotten.
Spider Cave: This passageway is not smoothly carved. I doubt our opponents ever used these tunnels. Be on your guard. We do not know what we will find in these caverns.

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

Length. Cycling issue not clear. (discussed above) If you are not fast in completing the Gallery (and with a bunch of high Level Troops you may want to take your time!) you can easily get overwhelmed by the Gallery ambushers, plus the Dwarves from the Outer Keep and the Northern and Southern Keeps. See changes for a way to keep this in check.

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

Once I sussed out cycling, 10.

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

Gold is almost useless. Maybe one room could have 150 gold and the other room could have an altar dedicated to the God of Mining. Praying at this Altar cancels out your debt. Hence, with a little clever timing, the player could pray at the altar (cancel debts), grab the gold (Gold = 150) and re-recruit. This would only work once, so wouldn't be abusable. (Adding Feldspar, God of Mining, also adds a little flavour, helping bring Wesnoth to life)

Put a neutral Village at 1,30. If the player does not have any white Mages, this will give them some limitted healing capabilities over and above their Loremaster, plus it gives a slight gold boost for those first few turns before gold becomes irrelevant.

The first Dwarf Lord. Portcullises should bar the way through to the North and South. A convenient Lever, just behind the first Dwarf Lord will raise both of them. This stops the player having to fight Dwarves from the central keep, North Keep and South Keep, keeping the game a little more contained.

The door at 38,42 to 40, 42 should be unlockable from the South. In the unliklely event that the player has not defeated the Southern Dwarves they should receive text: "I can hear voices. Are you sure you want to open these doors?"

Upon defeating the first Dwarf Lord, you should find the body of a human wizard. The first *human* that moves onto these hexes should receive Boots of the Underworld - a magical artifact that allows them to move at +2 Speed whilst underground. This helps keep your magi with you, rather than having to wait for your White Mage to keep up with you.

At 48,17 - that is just across the canyon in the windy Eastern passage - add a magical spear which gives Ranged Attacks at 9-3 (Magic). This weapon will only be accessible by the gryphon and should be a reward for having kept the damned thing alive for the whole Campaign!

Add a couple of Level zero bats to the windy Eastern passage, just to make it a little more interesting. This also provides a little cheap XP for those level 1 units you found in the cells.

At 49, 34 - There should be a secret door that leads to the Southern Dwarves lair. This makes it easier for players to reorganise their troops.

Remove the Chasm at 60,45. The player can't see it and getting attacked by a Wraith is very cheap!

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

Save / reloaded a lot til i fgured out cycling. After that, not a lot.
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