Scenario Review: NR 2 - Infested Caves

[tapik]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Nightmare 1.8-beta5
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
11 due to (3)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Unclear. I've tried to kill all the enemies on the way, but I cannot do that in MANY attempts. Playing as Normal I've figured out that it is not necessary to kill them all.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario? The mage (IMHO required for finishing the scenario) belongs to the top ten funniest characters from all the wesnoth campaigns.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Time. I could handle the task, but the orange and black skeleton leaders still remain.
(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?
Yes - make it playable But be serious - skeletons easily overrun the trolls. In a few turns the brown trolls are eliminated, green and blue ones have to be stopped by player...
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Timeout
(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?
It's clear

[anubite]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Normal
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
12
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Clear, I was able to deduce that I needed to find the dwarves over fighting. I was a little unsure whether I would need to clear all the enemy leaders, or if I could just wait out the time limit after the dwarves, though.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
It was okay, but honestly, I can't recall much of it, considering how long I've spent with the grueling task of finishing this map.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?

On my first attempt, I thought I could fortify myself in my base and outlast my enemies until a path opened up. That strategy is IMPOSSIBLE. I choked off the trolls with 2-3 units rotating healing, but the skeletons came through the large opening after the trolls were quickly dispensed with. Within a few turns, I couldn't keep up. The whole map was covered with skeletons and my forces and gold were dwindling. I finished the previous mission with 1000 gold, and a few spearmen/archers (and a level 2 swordsman) so I had more than enough, so I thought, for handling any onslaught – but the skeletons were endless and I ran out of turns defending. For the way the scenario is currently set up, surviving for all 55 turns is a challenge! Let alone pushing into the enemy encampments. I could not beat either troll group and they replaced their trolls as fast as I could kill them.

On my second attempt, Tallin was cornered and killed around turn 40. I did a little bit better, but I lost half of my units from the previous campaign when I attempted to push into the middle from the onset. I barely held off the trolls as I had fewer units defending, and was overwhelmed from behind while the skeletons totaled the rest of my defense on Tallin.

On my third attempt, I cheated. I gave myself 1000 income and healed units through save editing, as necessary. I actually haven't beaten the scenario yet, but I found the dwarves and am in the process of finishing the leaders.

This map is simply impossible. The skeleton leaders have infinite gold, basically, and even if you send units to block off the entrances to their strongholds, you can't hold them off for long. The trolls too, have infinite gold (they must, for they only have a few villages), and trying to blitzkrieg them is impossible because of the 2-space channels you have to fight them in.

What's worse? None of the units available to the player are useful. The footpads can defend well enough, but they get worn down because the trolls just regenerate their health against them (unless they get both hits on the trolls, which is infrequent and offset by times where they miss both shots) and the skeletons have no trouble outnumbering them. The only other units worth using are the thugs, but even if you mass them with infinite gold, taking down the endless hordes of skeletons is a huge chore. There are tons of villages and mountains and forests for the skeletons to take refuge in while you try to kill them. You're also overstretched as you need to travel a huge distance from your base to reach the dwarves.

Even worse, the units you painstakingly leveled up in the first mission are useless. You're better off not summoning them. Archers/spearmen/swordsmen/pikemen are completely ineffective versus the trolls and the skeletons. Way to reward a player for managing his units effectively.

With the large income, the small pathways, the fact the cave gives trolls and skeletons +25% damage, the fact trolls regenerate health, the fact you're overstretched, the fact you're surrounded, the fact the skeletons are all on a team, the fact that none of your units are effective against trolls/skeletons besides thugs/footpads, the fact your leader is still likely a miserable peasant, the fact you have limited gold, the fact you need to push into the middle and get surrounded even more, make this map impossible even on the easiest difficulty. This type of map would be great for a "defend against hordes of enemies" since so much is pitted against the player, but pushing back is impossible, even with infinite gold to match your opponents.

If the next map is harder than this, then I don't know what to say. All I know is, I will have 5 level 3 units already and 6 level 2s.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
e^pii+1.
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Player has access to something with arcane or fire damage. Either that, or the player has an easier time dealing with the trolls above and below his base, fighting them and the skeletons is impossible. It's like playing as Germany during WW2.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Timeout, death of leader
(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

This map was so infuriating I registered just to review it.

[K3RT]

(1) Nightmare (Failed)
(2) 10
(3) Unclear
(4) No Dialog but the mage so nothing special
(5) Finding the Dwarves
(6) 1
(7) Tell me where the dwarves are
(8) Finding the Dwarves
(9) Find the Dwarves?

[Help] Can someone tell me where the dwarves are located, I am enraged. I've spent around 15 hours trying to complete this mission. Defending is very very easy, but finding the dwarves are the biggest problem. I've scoured the entire map except for the spot around dark green's base (skeletons).

-I've flanked white with tens of thugs and pushed toward the brown trolls and was able barely spot dark greens capital all while annihilating the green and blue trolls, but left my base to the horde of skeletons.
-I've defended the entrance with groups of footpads with success alternating between the injured and holding off hundreds of skeletons. I've destroyed the green and blue trolls and the brown trolls destroyed by the skeletons. I did not get very far through the hidden doors due to the skeletons insane income.
-I've sacrificed the northern fight and main room by pouring my entire army through the green trolls and annihilated the orange skeletons, but due to the lack of time I was unable to push out of the choke hold.
-I've rushed 50 footpads into the center room to scout and captured the brown's trolls base, but was quickly surrounded and skewered by skeletons from all sides.

*Anyways, if someone would tell me where to locate the dwarves, I would be very happy cause, I am not willing to rampage dark green just to find another mission failed.*

[elvish_sovereign]

Dark green? No way, you must mean black!
Well, if you searched everywhere but one spot, isn't it obvious where the dwarves are?
But seriously, do try to clear the caves. You'll lose a lot, but it's worth it.

[K3RT]

I don't know man from what the guys above are are saying (blacks the color not dark green) it doesnt sound like hes there. Is the dwarves just standing around or hidden inside the floor? I'm only asking because when i kill black and there is nothing there, I am going to freak out.

Main question:
-Is the dwarves really behind black?
-Is the dwarves visible?
-If not what is the radius of hexes I can touch to reveal them.

Comments:
Anyways its impossible to clear all bosses on NIGHTMARE. white gets 500 income, orange gets 450, brown 500, black 400, green/blue I don't know and white/orange has initial 10 income. I did stupid stuff in scenario 1 like spawn hundreds of woodsman and a piled many corpse in the open fields. And ya I know how much losses I will receive, I've been playing Infested caves for "15" hours. A good push will have me spawning 100 units and only 20% will be alive. I've stopped caring if my tier 2s get to tier 3 because sacrifices are needed.

[elvish_sovereign]

Hmm...the dwarves are located...starting from the main chamber, go southeast, east of the orange skeletons. Down that hall you will meet a black Death Knight, and if you kill him and continue down the hall, you'll see the dwarves eventually. Don't worry about losses..try to kill all the leaders as fast as you can because you will get a HUGE gold bouns due the early finish bonus. You want that gold for later scenarios. Here's a strategy:

Using waves of thugs, push through the halls blue and green trolls. Send a couple to the entrance of the main chamber to defend against the skeletons.When you push and kill the blue and green trolls, recruit footpads and thugs and rush into the main chamber at the same time as rushing the skeleton leaders. Before this you should have a steady stream fo thugs and the occasional footpad. By now the brown trolls and skeletons have beat each other up already. By rushing the main hall, you should be able to clean up the remaining skeletons and attack the trolls. Be prepared to take losses. Meanwhile your squads of thugs will distract the skeleton leaders and eventually kill them. After cleaning up the brown trolls you can send reinforcements to the skeleton leaders. All this while the dwarves will have been battling the black undead leader. He may or may not be dead by now. If not, send some units to help out and kill him.

[K3RT]

Uh that might work if the difficulty is not nightmare. In Nightmare it takes me about 10-15 turns to kill blue trolls with the mage and 20-25 turns to kill green trolls with an incredibly large force with a few footpads to defend the center. By the time I've successfully overtaken blue or green trolls, the brown trolls are dead and black/orange/white controls a good 70% of the income and can pump 6 skeletons a turn making it hard to kill any of the leaders by TURN 45.

There are some possible strategies I can do which is:

1)Block orange so brown can kill white, but in the end black will overwhelm his leader, but white would be crippled enough for me to kill. This plan has some problems like orange unleashing 50 skeletons the moment your defending forces die in the choke hold and he takes a ton of income making it impossible to kill his leader due to the river in the hidden path.

2)Block white, I haven't done this tactic

These are some other strategies I can do, but I won't be able to kill all leaders:

1)Rush middle with footpads to block skeletons then take mid and mass poachers and thugs to kill brown and move down to black as green and blue come to distract 40% of white and orange's forces.
I have done this tactic without the blocking and I ended up getting murdered from all sides, claimed troll city and died from skeletons.

2) Rush to block orange with footpads and some forces to prevent green and blue from swarming in from behind, but I rest against the side as brown,black, and white do battle, then I zoom in and steal browns capital and build fodder to feed white as I rush through the side, meet the dwarves and huddle in the corner as 45 turns comes to an end while the skeletons wait for my slaughter.
*I will probably do this tactic when I have the time to do so.

***If you guys have tips on how to meet the dwarves OR kill all leaders and meet the dwarves, let me know.***
=Requirements=
-Tier 1 leader spearman 33/34 exp
-Recallable units 30+ woodsman(probably worthless)
-Starting gold is around 350-450
-NIGHTMARE DIFFICULTY
-Let me know if I should grab the mage, but this requires 1 footpad to aquire, but for the mage to meet my main army I will require about 5-6 units to remove some pesky trolls.

[KingsIndian]

(1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
Medium, 1.8.0
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
10. After 4 attempts, I still can't beat it.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Crystal
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Pretty good - I enjoyed the lunatic mage. The secret doors were nice too.
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Preserving my units, getting through chokepoints quickly.
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
1. After spending two hours trying to beat the Death Knights and discovering that the dwarves were somewhere else entirely, I wanted to punch something. It at least gets one mark because doing the wrong thing was quite good fun - until I found out it was wrong. I don't think I can face having another go at it, which is a great pity; the map is very well designed, and if the rest of them are as good as this, I think I'll be missing out on an excellent campaign .
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Less chokepoint fights, som hint as to where the dwarves are.
(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
First time - I went straight into the main area and got swarmed by skeletons. Second time - was too slow with the trolls, and got a load of skeletons up my backside. Third time - same thing. Fourth time - see above.
(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?

[elvish_sovereign]

@KingsIndian

Hmm...the dwarves are located...starting from the main chamber, go southeast, east of the orange skeletons. Down that hall you will meet a black Death Knight, and if you kill him and continue down the hall, you'll see the dwarves eventually. Don't worry about losses..try to kill all the leaders as fast as you can because you will get a HUGE gold bouns due the early finish bonus. You want that gold for later scenarios. Here's a strategy:

Using waves of thugs, push through the halls blue and green trolls. Send a couple to the entrance of the main chamber to defend against the skeletons.When you push and kill the blue and green trolls, recruit footpads and thugs and rush into the main chamber at the same time as rushing the skeleton leaders. Before this you should have a steady stream fo thugs and the occasional footpad. By now the brown trolls and skeletons have beat each other up already. By rushing the main hall, you should be able to clean up the remaining skeletons and attack the trolls. Be prepared to take losses. Meanwhile your squads of thugs will distract the skeleton leaders and eventually kill them. After cleaning up the brown trolls you can send reinforcements to the skeleton leaders. All this while the dwarves will have been battling the black undead leader. He may or may not be dead by now. If not, send some units to help out and kill him.

[KingsIndian]

Thanks for the help, elvish_sovereign . I had another go at it this time, and managed to beat it. I think I was too cautious before; I didn't rush the main area soon enough, so there were too many skeletons when I did.

In light of this, I'll revise my "difficulty" rating to 9, and my "fun" rating to 6.

[Kanapka]

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Objectives were clear (kill all, spot dwarves), but at first I didn't know that killing enemy leaders wasn't necessary

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

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Meeting the time limit, holding bottlenecks (especially the orange skeleton bottleneck, due to lack of defensive terrain there).

My strategy was to secure all bottlenecks as quicky as possible and then release them one by one. Five - six poachers were able to hold the southern troll (green?), and the same amount was able to push the northern one (blue?). This was caused by the fact that in the northern corridor i could defend near some keep hexes where the corridor was 3 hexes wide, and i killed the trolls quicky, levelling some Trappers. Then the Trappers arrowed down the trolls, and when I got the mage, the blue leader was doomed. The southern troll was harder, I stopped him near a village in the southern corridor, and released the bottleneck later, when i was able to recruit additional poachers.

After getting 12 poachers for trolls I recruited pads until end of money, and rushed them into main chamber. I secured the skeleton bottlenecks, and ganged pads on trolls - after being attacked from all 6 adjacent hexes they die in 2-3 turns. I slipped two pads to steal brown income, and got more pads.

Black skeletons were hit badly by trolls, and after killing brown leader some outlaws and pads were able to finish the job and find the dwarves.

After clearing the brown trolls i attaked the white skeletons from the second entrance - there weren't enough skeles to hold both bottlenecks, and the white leader got killed.

Meanwhile the blue troll was also killed by trappers and Red Mage.

The orange skeleton was the hardest, because I stopped him from fighting anyone and he accumulated insane amount of troops. The dwarves weren't really a help here, because they blocked my way. I released the bottleneck, and the skeletons ran into the main chamber to get killed by my pads and outlaws. Then the dwarves came and blocked the bottleneck again. When I opened the secret passage some skeletons went that way and i managed to kill the last leader on the last turn.

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7 (interesting battle, but very long)

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
None (maybe some mushrooms at the orange bottleneck, I lost way to many troops holding it)

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

(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

[shadowblack]

1) What difficulty levels have you played the scenario on?
1.8.3, Spearman (Challenging), i.e. Normal difficulty

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
8 if you’re lucky; 10 if you’re not.

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Not very clear. I wasn’t sure what “clear the caves” means. I thought I had to kill all enemies, but it turned out killing the leaders is enough (as usual)

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Very good. I especially liked the crazy mage.

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Getting Tallin and Zlex leveled up – both were level 0 at start. Somehow I managed to get both of them to level 1 (I could get Tallin to level 2 instead, but chose not to).

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
7 if you’re lucky; 3 if you’re not – it is simply frustrating in that case

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Give some hint where to find the dwarves. And also… just see comments at end of post.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Yes, I restarted twice.

First time I didn’t know what to expect and used a poor strategy, leaving me in a bad situation.

Second time the skeletons got very lucky and destroyed the brown trolls really quickly, leaving white and orange free to attack me.

(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?
Clear and well-documented – as far as I can tell with my limited WML knowledge, anyway.


Too much in this scenario depends on luck – and not just your luck, but also that of the brown Troll:
First attempt – brown sent a troll south and blocked orange’s forces, but the skeleton archers quickly killed the troll. After that white and orange easily dispatched most, if not all, of brown’s forces and I watched as white skeleton archers killed the brow leader. After that there was nothing to distract white and orange and I ended up in a hopeless tactical situation
Second attempt – brown got destroyed before I even found him. Ouch!
Third attempt – brown sent a level 2 troll south and blocked orange’s forces. He survived several turns and killed a few skeletons. More importantly he greatly slowed down orange while the rest of brown's forces clashed with white (and black, I assume). In fact, this time he seemed to be winning (at least until I joined the fight)! With orange stuck in the south and brown and white destroying each other it was much easier to prepare for joining the party. By the time orange finally got past the troll I managed to kill most of green’s forces and also pushed back blue’s. Then it was easy to surprise orange from behind.

In short: Too much depends on how well brown will hold out against all the undead that are attacking him. If he gets destroyed quickly you end up in a very difficult situation even if you have 1000+ gold.

[tapik]

***If you guys have tips on how to meet the dwarves OR kill all leaders and meet the dwarves, let me know.***
=Requirements=
-Tier 1 leader spearman 33/34 exp
-Recallable units 30+ woodsman(probably worthless)
-Starting gold is around 350-450
-NIGHTMARE DIFFICULTY
-Let me know if I should grab the mage, but this requires 1 footpad to aquire, but for the mage to meet my main army I will require about 5-6 units to remove some pesky trolls.

My working strategy in nightmare: take the mage ASAP. Recruit two foodpads at the nearest hexes to the north-west tunnel and at least two ones at the south-east and bunch of thugs. In the second turn you can (but not necessery) recruits few thugs. The main point is to block blue trolls at the village 2,6 using foodpads (one as a reinforcement) and kill them using the foodpad and thugs. The other foodpads have to capture villages, send green trolls east to the skeletons and ideally fight with white skeletons to let brown trolls survive another one or two turns. All other your units move toward the blue trolls. If the green trolls follow you, you have to block them using another two foodpads.
Free the mage and kill with him the rest of blue trolls. At the blue base recruite thugs and kill the white skeletons. Green trolls and orange skeletons eliminate each other and you will have a free path to the south east to black skeletons. Kill them all and you go throught the base to meet dwarfs.

[Greep]

K3RT I'm having the same problem in 1.8.3 and I think the problem is that while it may have been possible to beat it with BONUS in 1.6 with as little as 350 gold, it is now nearly impossible without save/loading to even beat it WITHOUT BONUS at even 560 gold. Check out these replays as I've tried it with several different startegies and failed. In one case, the succesful run against brown, I might have won if I had sent less units to get cameron and started the fight against black sooner. But now you cannot beat this scenario without an all out brown rush because the a.i. has improved enough to allow all the villages to be taken, and for black to smash brown to bits. Besides some replays I also have the saved game in case someone wants to make an attempt without save/load. (Note: replays are lengthy, prolly best to watch at x8 speed.)

EDIT!!!!: WHOO! nevermind. Finally beat it. Without bonus, but ended up with over 500 gold carryover from stealing dwarvish towns :3 Will write review later. Replay submitted (In retrospect, the strategy used seemed pretty obvious )

[Bugeater]

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

(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
9

(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
Had no idea where the dwarves were at all

(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
Not a ton, at first I thought if I kept all my troops together the enemies would not attack us

(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
Not knowing what to do, not knowing which troops to use at first (used all thugs at first, and some archers)

(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
9. Best scenerio I have ever seen or played. Super impressed with this one, and I spent more time & energy and frustration, than any other.

(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?
Hard to complain about one. I might have added another mage in the bottom left, but its hard to improve this one.

(8) Was there any event that caused you to lose the game and forced you to reload or restart the scenario?
Uh... yea. At first I closed the chokeholes and went with the "stay at base" philosophy. Once I knew and went for mage ASAP, things were a lot easier and I broke through on the top left in around 14 turns.

(9) If you know a bit of the Wesnoth Markup Language
I don't, more interested in just playing & enjoying them. These are the scenarios that I live for and I hope this author makes another round of scenarios, as I'm only through this one and thinking this will be best campaign ever. Hope I'm not disappointed.