Scenario Review: (UTBS) 9. Blood is Thicker than Water

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Scenario Review: (UTBS) 9. Blood is Thicker than Water

Post by Content Feedback »

1) What version and difficulty level did you play the scenario on? Please do not submit feedback from pre 1.4.
2) Do you think the difficulty is adequate to the level? If not describe the issue that made the scenario to easy/hard.
3) Was there any event that caused you to almost instantly lose, or made the scenario unplayable without reload?
4) Do you like the storyline and the dialogues? If not what part/character lags behind or what would you like changed?
5) Do you think the scenario was fun? Please write down some thoughts about gameplay, mood etc.
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SmokemJags
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Post by SmokemJags »

1. 102 challenging 112a normal
2. 4 in 102, 1 in 112a
3. clear enough
4. a few bugs, i dont like the golem's dialogue. lots of other pluses though, like the first time an elf unit enters the water. yummy salty water.
5. Operating a steamroller
6. 7, i like the multiple parts. even if u dont see them coming, there's enough time to address them all
7. made a list of bugs and such below
8. 385 gold, and I ended with -500 something.

Yea, I had too much fun recalling all of my level 3s and completely steamrolling the opposition. Only problem now is that I only have 100g in the battle for whatsit isle... might be tough.



In 102 I remember seeing the mermen in the cages, not empty cages.
The person who frees this (red circle) merman says 2 pieces of dialogue in a row that don't fit very well. Methinks a piece is missing, probably from the circled merman.
Oh, and having the golem get this dialogue... very weird. Though it makes sense, if it was a random elf or merman that would kinda suck when they convert... or a leader somehow converts.
I think it really belongs as elf dialogue though.
Actually though, since he dies in 112 now... the golem can change sides too, but I really don't see his dialogue being so eloquent.

If I were you, I'd make an event that spawns a few level 1 elves and gives them to you... some scouts that managed to get to the island before you and then have them convert. Or something, I just don't like these lines on the golem.

Also... stepping onto hex 52,17 triggers a single block of text out of Kaleh. Seems missplaced.
Pictures of these bugs attached:
Attachments
5217.jpg
5217.jpg (18.8 KiB) Viewed 18282 times
bizarre.jpg
bizarre.jpg (15.04 KiB) Viewed 18276 times
missingdialogue.jpg
missingdialogue.jpg (31.8 KiB) Viewed 18290 times
emptycage.jpg
emptycage.jpg (27.93 KiB) Viewed 18285 times
"A wise man speaks when he has something to say. A fool speaks when he has to say something."
Sly
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Post by Sly »

quartex wrote:(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.1.2a, Normal
quartex wrote:(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
7, I thought the elves vs elves fight would be harder so I over recruited and stormed the undeads afterward
quartex wrote:(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Fun but the adding of new objectives is a bit stressing :wink:
quartex wrote:(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Very good, many interesting dialogues, the more with the avatar
quartex wrote:(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Finding the last mermaid : I noticed the cave a turn too late :(
quartex wrote:(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
8
quartex wrote:(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
quartex wrote:(8) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
900
cordobatim
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Post by cordobatim »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
Easy, 1.0.2
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9... 6 after a restart (I wanted to see what would happen if I saved all the merpeople)
(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?
Great
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Lots of bottlenecks on the main island
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10... this is a good one
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
No suggestions
(8) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
1836
pjr

Re: Scenario Review: (UTBS) 9. Blood is Thicker than Water

Post by pjr »

quartex wrote:(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
1.1.2+svn
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9.
(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?
Mostly good. The dialog in this and later scenarios is a little less polished than in the earlier ones.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Holding off the undead while the rest of my army returned from fighting elves.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Like the previous scenario, this one falls into two halves that might be divided into two scenarios. The fight against the undead might be more interesting if it took place on a new map.
(8) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
1721
Ragwortshire
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Post by Ragwortshire »

( 1 ) 112a Challenging
( 2 ) 5. Compared to the last battle, this was a cakewalk. Of course gold may have had something to do with that.
( 3 ) Very clear.
( 4 ) Very good as always. There are a couple of bugs; Eloh came out and attacked me, so I got the meeting message (Kaleh's bit) after I killed her. And "lessen" should be "lesson". Also I liked the interlude dialog.
( 5 ) Finding the last merfolk (I didn't).
Staying away from shock troopers until they were outnumbered by hunters. They spent most of the battle slowed.
Knowing that the crabs were going to appear (by replaying from turn 16).
Regulating traffic flow back to the island after killing Tanstafaal :). Tanstafaal would have been more difficult if he hadn't been so keen to send all his men into shallow water to die. The undead did not have enough forces to present a threat, once my army got back.
Getting the scenario not to crash! Initially, killing either Tanstafaal or Eloh resulted in an instant crash. I was able to stop it by removing the "set_variable" tags in the relevant events and setting the variables manually afterwards.
( 6 ) 8. The terrain is nice and varied, and, well, I just really enjoyed the large amount of dialog.
( 7 ) If the bugs aren't fixed in SVN - they made the scenario close to unplayable. I imagine it doesn't occur every time, but the bugs that seem to plague this campaign are at their worst here.
Other than that, an alteration to the character of the elves battle might be useful. The small landing area doesn't exactly allow you to run past the defenders, and sitting in the water and slaughtering the entire elven army didn't seem to fit the storyline...
( 8 ) 322.
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow. (The Lake Isle of Inisfree - W.B. Yeats)
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tapik
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Unsaveable scenario

Post by tapik »

I'd like to know if the
[set_variable]
name=^Eeloh_dead
value=0
[/set_variable]

is mistake [read bug] or not. Especially CTRL+E at the beginning of the variable name makes it unsaveable (save is correct, but load fails) on Linux :-( If players cannot save the scenario, please, inform them ;-)
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quartex
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Re: Unsaveable scenario

Post by quartex »

tapik wrote:I'd like to know if the
[set_variable]
name=^Eeloh_dead
value=0
[/set_variable]

is mistake [read bug] or not. Especially CTRL+E at the beginning of the variable name makes it unsaveable (save is correct, but load fails) on Linux :-( If players cannot save the scenario, please, inform them ;-)
I should just be "name=eloh_dead". I checked the most recent code in the SVN repository, and that mistake isn't there. So just change your copy and it should be fine.
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Re: Unsaveable scenario

Post by tapik »

quartex wrote:
tapik wrote:I'd like to know if the
[set_variable]
name=^Eeloh_dead
value=0
[/set_variable]

is mistake [read bug] or not. Especially CTRL+E at the beginning of the variable name makes it unsaveable (save is correct, but load fails) on Linux :-( If players cannot save the scenario, please, inform them ;-)
I should just be "name=eloh_dead". I checked the most recent code in the SVN repository, and that mistake isn't there. So just change your copy and it should be fine.
It's still there in current SVN, it was in 1.1.5, 1.1.4, ... . Line 636. So remove the line and type it character by character ;-)
In hexa editor it shows the context as:
62 6C 65 5D 0A 09 6E 61 6D 65 3D 05 65 6C 6F 68 5F 64 65 61 64
b l e ] n a m e = ? e l o h _ d e a d
where the question mark points to character 05
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zookeeper
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Re: Unsaveable scenario

Post by zookeeper »

tapik wrote:[set_variable]
name=^Eeloh_dead
value=0
[/set_variable]
This bug was indeed there in most recent SVN, but I fixed it now. This isn't the first time there's a funny character in a variable name either causing saves to get corrupted, though, I wonder what causes them specifically in those places so often...
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Post by quartex »

My bad. Thanks zookeeper. The web SVN repository was just displaying it as "name=eloh_dead", somehow the '^E' character wasn't being displayed. I don't know how it crept in there.
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Empty case when trapped merfolk

Post by tapik »

Playing the 11_Island.cfg scenario, the merfolk trapped by the nagas wasn't shown, the only empty case is there.
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Re: Empty case when trapped merfolk

Post by quartex »

tapik wrote:Playing the 11_Island.cfg scenario, the merfolk trapped by the nagas wasn't shown, the only empty case is there.
Fixed. And next time comments about scenario 11 should go in the scenario 11 "Zocthanol Isle" topic.
Shakiko
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Post by Shakiko »

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
normal, 1.17


(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
Hard to tell - had to try the first part (capture the merfolk) thrice b/c too many of my units got slaughtered, but after that it was pretty easy with the usual losses


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


(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Well, Eloh being a charlatan wasn't that much of a surprise after her strange appearance in the last scenario, but I still liked it - just too bad the masked elf guy had to appear again... :wink:

I really liked the part at the beginning where Kaleh is overwhelmed seeing that much water - big thumbs up for thinking about such a small detail - it adds alot to the depths of the story.


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

1st part:
Not getting overwhelmed by the human troops - but I guess I'm not suppsed to get them in the forest but let them come to my desert (?)

The battle at the fort turned out to be the bloodbath I expected - even with help of the merfolk I lost 3 lv2 troops there (and luckily made 2 new ones)

The necromancers were a pain because he could get to the narrow brigde really fast (everyone of my army was stuck at the rebels base and walking back took forever) , so I could just attack with 1 guy at one time.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
I enjoyed it even it was pretty long - 7


(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
I'd try to lessen the walking through the fords.... but then you won't get to use those mermen...hmm... so I guess no changes =)


(8) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
approx. 400 (?)
Draciron
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Post by Draciron »

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
To beat the scenario itself is not difficult. To do so and still have enough gold to have a chacne in the next scenario is brutal. I've beaten this scenario repeatedly but the cost in troops or gold was always too high to have a chance the next scenario. I am figuring I need at least 250 gold and the toughest units I can generate to survive the next level. 2nd level troops are fodder with the next scenario. 1st level troops a waste of gold. So I'm going to call it a 10 because of the impact on the next scenario.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Very clear. The little land bridge out to the middle of nowhere was cute. I wasted a scout once who did nothing but follow that eternal bridge the whole scenario. By the time he got back the fighting was over.

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
The story line is both clear and very interesting. One of my favorite Wesnoth storylines.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
The stratigy I first took was to rush all my troops over to fight the rebels. That worked fine except I ran out of turns before I could rush them all way back over to the other side of the map.

So what I've adopted has been searching for the bare minium number of troops I can use to take out the rebels. Whoever I send there is not going to see much actiion against the undead lord. Even the fastest units generally arrive just in time to pick off a wounded enmey unit or watch the death of the Undead lord. If I send too many my advance force against the undead lord is wiped out. If I have too many troops there is not enough gold to support them all. So I wind up crippled in recalling troops for the next scenario. So I have to use the smallest force possible to knock out all three objectives in the shortest period of time. Typically I lose some 2nd level guys going at the waves of shock troopers and longbowmen they send against me in the first objective. The hero's, Captains and Rangers that the rebels send against me are brutal against my own troops and there's no way to bypass them. Got lucky once and saved a Ranger and a Captain. Cost me 2 Captains and a Ranger to do it though as well as some 1st level troops close to advancement. So it's trial and error plus luck as to how I can split my forces and be effective against all 3 targets.


(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
10, I love this scenario. My only complaint would be the need for more villages.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
More villages or more turns or put the Undead lord closer.

(8) How much gold did you have at the start of the scenario?
667
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