Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Feedback for the mainline campaign A Tale of Two Brothers.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

User avatar
tr0ll
Posts: 551
Joined: June 11th, 2006, 8:13 pm
Location: canada

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by tr0ll »

wesnoth 1.9.6 medium english
on turn 2 i saw this error in the log:

Code: Select all

20110612 15:28:47 error display: could not open image 'terrain/.png'
no complaints, it was well paced and reasonably challenging. would have been nice to see some dialogue when units investigate the evil workshop with runes and altar. i wasted footpads on fruitless investigations of the edges of the castle.q
User avatar
PorkSol
Posts: 56
Joined: August 23rd, 2011, 2:10 am

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by PorkSol »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?Hard, 1.9.8, no save load
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 2. But I used the passwords that were given out last chapter to get the guards to leave.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives? Fine.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? It was alright, but we didn't learn all that much about what was going on in this scenario, hopefully things will be cleared up in the final scenario.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? Breaking through the orcs. But it wasn't that challenging.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) 5. Nice map, but not very challenging.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun? Stronger enemy, more plot.
Attachments
AToTB-Guarded_Castle_replay.gz
1.9.8, hard, no save load
(20.9 KiB) Downloaded 1087 times
ipora
Posts: 6
Joined: October 11th, 2010, 5:09 am

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by ipora »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on? Wesnoth 1.10.0, on Knght (Challenging/hard)
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10) 4 with both passwords
(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? Good, I liked the stuff about passwords!
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario? In a first try I sent my horses to get villages, so they were to far when needed to kill the wounded first Orc wave.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10) A good 8.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
It was really strange for me that the horse could enter the castle and stay on good ground, I really thought this would play like a dungeon or cave for them.
Attachments
AToTB-Guarded_Castle_replay.gz
Guarded Castle Wesnoth 1.10.0 Hard replay
(19.35 KiB) Downloaded 808 times
jonaskoelker
Posts: 8
Joined: August 29th, 2006, 7:46 pm
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by jonaskoelker »

(1) Easy, 1.10 (debian 1:1.10.2-1)
(2) Difficulty: 5. Piercing versus skeletons is just no fun. Silly me didn't hire any impact infantry dudes :doh: that'd probably drop it to a 4.
(3) Objectives: fairly clear. In order to rescue Baran I knew I had to explore, which eventually sucked me into the ultimate objective.
(4) Dialog and storyline: was there much? Arvith talks a bit about engaging the enemy units... no problems, I guess, but no next great wesnothian novel either ;)
(5) Biggest challenge: pirceing + skeletons = no funzies. Poor access to healing inside the cavern means lots of back and forth, lots of attrition against the villain.
(6) Fun: Quite, though also a bit frustrating/challenging at times. I give it my usual 8/10.
(7) Changes: make the infantrymen more obvious :lol2:
Attachments
AToTB-Guarded_Castle_replay.gz
(21.29 KiB) Downloaded 784 times
Gerion
Posts: 49
Joined: March 28th, 2010, 11:01 am

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by Gerion »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.10.2, normal

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4. A little harder than the previous one

(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?
Clear and interesting enough. It actually was quite refreshing to see progress through brain instead of brawn, even for a short while. And enough lampshading for the next scenario, too...

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
killing the orcs at the entrance. I actually lost an unit (the only one in the whole campaign... one of the orcs had a lucky round)

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
5. Again, good, solid, with no good or bad surprises.

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

A little question, though. Is it the german translation or is the orcish Chieftain called "Tairach" in the english version, too? I only ask because Tairach is the orcish god of war in the german role playing game "the dark eye". Was that intentional?
User avatar
ivanovic
Lord of Translations
Posts: 1149
Joined: September 28th, 2004, 10:10 pm
Location: Germany

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by ivanovic »

Gerion wrote:A little question, though. Is it the german translation or is the orcish Chieftain called "Tairach" in the english version, too? I only ask because Tairach is the orcish god of war in the german role playing game "the dark eye". Was that intentional?
Yes. :twisted:
User avatar
Seldam
Posts: 24
Joined: December 21st, 2012, 4:27 pm
Location: Austria

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by Seldam »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
easy, 1.10.5;

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

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
It's okay. Maybe it could be a bit more than "Save Baran".

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialogue and storyline of the scenario?
I would give 4 points. It was okay.

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

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

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
A labyrinth to search Baran instead of fighting maybe?
Attachments
DGzB-Die_Festung_Seldam.gz
The replay.
(29.35 KiB) Downloaded 736 times
User avatar
D-Wade
Posts: 68
Joined: February 11th, 2013, 8:04 am

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by D-Wade »

(1) Hard 1.10.5
(2) 5, the orcs were tougher than the rest
(3) very clear
(4) 7
(5) getting rid of the orcs
(6) 8, nice change between flat land and cave
(7) -
DOA-Paperwork
Posts: 4
Joined: January 29th, 2014, 6:52 am

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by DOA-Paperwork »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Hard. Battle for Wesnoth 1.10.7

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7. Probably the toughest scenario of the four.

(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?
Decent. Perhaps something suggesting that the player explore the castle. I imagine that's about all that could catch a player off guard.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The villages outside of the castle turned the mission into a very risky mix of unit sacrifice and hit and run with the cavalry.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6. The inclusion of a mage character you have to keep alive from the first mission might help take the edge off this mission.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
A village in the middle of the castle, right above the two hallways but below the fort room.
Linthar
Posts: 77
Joined: September 14th, 2006, 12:16 am

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by Linthar »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Challenging 1.10.7

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

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
A little vague but I didn't have any trouble figuring out what to do.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The revelation that the necromancers goal was to capture Bjarn to save themselves from the orcs was interesting, but I'm puzzled as to what exactly Mordak's plan was. If his goal was to actually capture Bjarn, it seems that his actual sending out skeletons and zombies to kill cattle and people and frighten people doesn't exactly do much to actually advance his goals.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The initial set of orcs was slightly challenging with three level 2 orcs, but then the rest of the scenario was killing small numbers of level 1 undead. And the campaign was so absurdly generous with loyal units I was able to field a large army far in excess of what I actually ended up needing, and barely hurt my coffers.

Also I don't get what the point of the game actually asking you what password to give is. To me knowledge it is impossible to miss being given the password in the previous level so asking for the passwords seems to merely test whether you were paying any attention to the dialog, and possibly punish people who had to take a break between the second and third levels for some reason and didn't think to write them down. Also story wise it should be safe to assume that the characters would have actually memorized the rather important passwords, or written them down or something, so it would make perfect sense for them to give the password automatically.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
3. It has a slightly interesting start fighting the orcs, but then the rest of the scenario is fighting a pitifully small number of weak undead, and then spending a number of turns exploring an empty castle with nothing of interest to find other then your objective.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
There needs to be more resistance in the castle. Also the scenario should end once you kill the necromancer with you being brought to the cell in a cutscene. There is no point in the scenario continuing on when there are no more opponents to fight (I'm not sure if its possible to still lose at that point by running out of turns, but even if it is that doesn't really add anything to the scenario, other then the ability to lose in a situation where that should be impossible, because a time limit makes no sense at that point).
User avatar
GunChleoc
Translator
Posts: 506
Joined: September 28th, 2012, 7:35 am
Contact:

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by GunChleoc »

I assume that the strings Im talking about are in this scenario. It is impossible to make the following sound natural:

Code: Select all

The password is
$first_password_1|!
$first_password_2|!
$first_password_3|!
$first_password_4|!
Is it possible to change it to the following?

Code: Select all

The password is $first_password_1|!
The password is $first_password_2|!
The password is $first_password_3|!
The password is $first_password_4|!
In my translation, the placeholder would end up in the middle of the sentence, like this:

Code: Select all

'S e $first_password_1| a th' anns an fhacal-fhaire!
nikita1996
Posts: 49
Joined: July 18th, 2015, 8:07 am

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by nikita1996 »

1) Difficulty:Knight (challenging) v1.12.4
2) 1. I lost only one unit in this scenario.
3) Very clear.
4) The dialogue in this scenario is generally clear. But, the problem is, I didn't notice the password last scenario, so I had to try them one by one. I think the password in the last scenario should be showen in a special way. You should try your best to let player remember it.
5) The major challenge is, to remember the password :)
6) 5. It's fun to explore in the map with shround. It's fun to explore the cave. But there's not enough thing we can meet in the caves. Maybe we can make the cave more mysterious.
7) First, you should let players remember the password in some way. Second, make the cave more mysterious. Maybe, we can add some ambush enemies or friends. Also, we can add some teleporting gateways.
Attachments
AToTB-Guarded_Castle_replay.gz
(29.52 KiB) Downloaded 728 times
User avatar
Remellion
Posts: 51
Joined: December 25th, 2015, 3:18 pm

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by Remellion »

1. Played on Knight (Challenging), 1.12.5. Also numerous times before on 1.5, 1.6 and 1.8.

2. Difficulty depends on whether you choose to fight the extra sets of guards. If no, probably very easy. If yes like I did (both sets), 7/10 at least. The time limit is extremely tight, and the unit composition of the undead (read: number of ghouls) matters.

In fact, I restarted this scenario twice because of the time limit despite knowing what was coming. Both times were because I beat the initial guards and orcs, but my army was all at red HP between general retaliation damage and the ghouls' poison .

3. Objective: "Rescue Baran" is fairly vague. After defeating the dark sorcerer, moving Arvith to the cell door is OK with the 6 extra turns, even if he's somewhere remote.

4. Dialogue is still written well for the scenario, in terms of language. It's still not clear why the enemies would keep Baran alive for a while, or why necromancers would be afraid of orcs (or work with them, or go to the trouble of wreaking havoc in the countryside, or be in any position to offer a bargain to the elves in the previous scenario...) It seems like an attempt to spice up the otherwise formulaic "You. Enemy. Kill." setup, but there are some plot holes.

5. Challenges with the scenario? Fighting the 2 extra sets of guards really messes up the timing for the rest of the scenario. Instead of leisurely knocking down the orcs and marauding through the hallways picking off undead, the scenario becomes a mad rush. The army gets injured killing the guards, has to lure out the orcs while the first undead reach the entranceway, and makes a risky lunge towards the enemy keep. Specifically there are 2 problems:

- Lack of healing. No healing units (excepting the Paladin, if you have any) and 2 villages in the vicinity of the entryway is all you get. If there are more ghouls, it becomes very irritating to proceed down the hallways - and even without being poisoned your army would be wounded from fighting the other guards. There is simply no time to stop and heal - level-ups are the best source of sustainability here.

- Map design. Chokepoints in the castle can impede progress a great deal, delaying your army long enough to lose on time. Related to the previous point, sending any unit to heal in the villages outside means they cannot return to the frontlines within the time limit either, meaning a half-dead army has to press the undead (I felt pressured and took some dangerous risks especially near turns 10-14.) Without the extra guards to fight, the hallways just become boring flat ground to march through.

Giving the right passwords to avoid the initial guards removes all the difficulty. Story-wise, it would make much more sense to just remove the password prompting and proceed with the scenario sans guards. Gameplay-wise, the prompts pretty much amount to a difficulty selection: Would you like an easy time, or a very challenging time? And if you don't remember the passwords (e.g. play the campaign over a couple days), the default seems to be "very challenging."

6. Fun? Fun is not really to be had here for me. Without extra guards, a 2 or 3 because of the amount of ground to cover and lack of enemies. With extra guards, the same because of the tight turn limit.

7. Changes I would like would be to remove the password selection (maybe one group of guards could return after a few turns upon realising they had been tricked, to make it more interesting), and to basically rework the map - smaller castle, and a few more villages outside.
Attachments
HdDF-Château_gardé_revoir_la_partie.gz
(36.45 KiB) Downloaded 649 times
SigurdFireDragon
Developer
Posts: 546
Joined: January 12th, 2011, 2:18 am
Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

1. Played on Knight (Challenging) with 173 gold , 1.12.5. Also once before on easy in 1.10

2. Difficulty - 4. I used the passwords and continued my trend of luring enemies out with the occasional sacrifice.

3. Objective - Clear enough

4. Dialogue - Seemed ok again

5. Challenge - Was tight on time at the end of the scenario like the previous two. Ended up sacrificing one of my loyal horseman. Figuring out how to finish off the Dark Sorcerer with part of my army out of commission from damage & poison. I lucked out a little bit.

6. Fun - 7. It's an enjoyable little castle exploration map.

7. Changes - I'd like to see the rune glyphs in the upper right hand corner of the castle provide healing. In this play-though, I sent a poisoned knight there thinking they'd provide healing. I've seen the glyphs used to denote healing spaces in other campaigns. (UtBS, I think) I'd be helpful to counter poison for a unit or two.
Attachments
AToTB-Guarded_Castle_replay.gz
(32.61 KiB) Downloaded 651 times
Co-Author of Winds of Fate
My Add-ons: Random Campaign, Custom Campaign, Ultimate Random Maps, Era of Legends, Gui Debug Tools
Erfworld: The comic that lead me to find Wesnoth.
Caladbolg
Posts: 198
Joined: January 1st, 2016, 4:40 pm
Location: Hopelessly trapped within the Submachine

Re: Scenario 3: Guarded Castle

Post by Caladbolg »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.12.5., Challenging.

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
4. I gave the correct passwords so I wouldn't have to deal with the guards. I don't know how difficult it'd be if I hadn't done that.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Slightly unclear (where is Baran?). But it's not that much of an issue as the castle isn't huge. However, I thought killing the enemy leader would end the scenario (I know it doesn't say that, but it seems logical that it would). It'd be better if the victory condition was just to defeat the enemy leader. Having to go back to Baran's cell seems unneceasary.

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Lack of vilages inside the castle.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
6. Castle exploration makes it slightly more interesting than the previous ones.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Give some options for healing. Even just one village in the castle would do. Or make those runes act as healing spots. Maybe make the castle a bit more elaborate.

Strategy: Recalled some units and then recruited footpads. A knight and a disposable footpad are used to lure out the orcs. The first two are surrounded mostly by footpads and taken down. The next three all get instantly killed by knights. As it is still day, knights also manage to wipe out a few skeletons and an adept. On 7th turn, the central part of the castle is taken. On 9th, I found Baran and lured out the enemy leader with a knight. On 10th, I left a low-hp, soon-to-advance footpad exposed to attack, thinking that I'd manage to kill the leader which would end the scenario. I killed the leader but it didn't end the scenario so I thought that footpad is done for. Luckily, he managed to evade 3 hits and survived 8) In a way, the fact that the scenario didn't end was actually helpful as it gave me time to move a few more units and to find the gold. Ended on 11th.

Stats: 232 start gold, 11/30 turns, 128 end gold, 8/8 villages, 13 units, 10 income, 5 recruits (footpads), 7 recalls, 2 advancements (footpad -> outlaw, horseman-> knight; both loyal), 1 loss (footpad), 16 kills, +10% dmg dealt, -10% dmg received
Attachments
AToTB-Guarded_Castle_replay.gz
(28.19 KiB) Downloaded 678 times
Post Reply