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Parrhesia and Integrity's Guide to Surviving Wesnoth


Parrhesia
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a fun fact: it at least used to be that if you knocked off a minor lord you could recruit from his camp

 

i swept the map.

 

anyway hey guys i figured it's been a while since i did a proper update and that's a shame so i'm here with a half an update as an olive branch

 

Interlude: A Hopeless Attempt

Spoiler

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The Ford is a reasonably nice map. It starts with a holy heckload of text,

 

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and I mean one (1) metric buttload of text, before launching us in.

 

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The map is very straightforward. We start southeast, have to cross to the north at the only crossable place in the river. There are orcs in the northwest. There are humans in the southwest.

 

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Li'sar starts surrounded by six loyal royal guards. So I says to myself, what if we can actually drop her? We have 24 turns, after all.

 

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Time to recruit and get to work.

 

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Li'sar recruits chiefly tier 2s, but she doesn't have a massive gold reserve. We can chew her down and make it to the top, barely.

 

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We make a fuckin' mess of the initial engagement, but nobody dies.

 

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Naturally, a bunch of water beasts attack from the dead west!

 

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Not relying so much on lawful units lets us turn the tide in the dark, even if Haldiel nearly bites it.

 

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The rout is quick and awful. The plan is good. It's like turn five, and I can absolutely lure the royal guards one by one into killzones.

 

Then everything goes completely awry.

 

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The serpent attacks the royal guard, provoking an event! The first enemy to attack a loyal royal guard

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is surrounded by five new full health loyal royal guards instantly.

 

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At this point, I frown at the past turns of strategizing, screenshotting, and ignoring the orcs, and realize that the plan is no longer feasible. You know what, though? The guards spawned to the north. I can maintain my honor. I can kill Li'sar, maybe even suicide a knight or two in, and still get out.

 

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Lure southwest out of position...

 

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Lose a sharpshooter and a marksman, ouch. This may not be worth keeping.

 

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With one extra kill, Specter Actual has a direct line. I could take an extra turn to set up, but at this point I figure fuck it. YEEEEE

 

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EEeeeet?

 

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hahahahahaha fuck you game

 

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I reload and do it again just to see what happens.

 

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That's it.

 

No, really, that's all. No comment by Konrad. No response from blue. Nothing. But you know what?

 

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I showed I was better than you, Ford of Abed or whatever the hell. I'm better.

 

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11 hours ago, Integrity said:

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Li'sar starts surrounded by six loyal royal guards. So I says to myself, what if we can actually drop her? We have 24 turns, after all.

Oh no, what are you about to do?

11 hours ago, Integrity said:

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Not relying so much on lawful units lets us turn the tide in the dark, even if Haldiel nearly bites it.

But if he dies, The South Guard never happens!

Would this mean the already screwy timeline just snaps?

11 hours ago, Integrity said:

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is surrounded by five new full health loyal royal guards instantly.

See, I expected something like this when I played.

The cuttlefish may have fought them instead.

11 hours ago, Integrity said:

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That's it.

 

No, really, that's all. No comment by Konrad. No response from blue. Nothing. But you know what?

Bravo.

It may not have mattered, but bravo anyway. Why didn't they fix this instead of making Malin Keshar even more whiny?

11 hours ago, Integrity said:

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I showed I was better than you, Ford of Abed or whatever the hell. I'm better.

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2 hours ago, Dayni said:

But if he dies, The South Guard never happens!

Oh yeah, good catch. I vaguely knew it, but forgot to bring it up now that We The Thread knows who Haldiel is, so reminder for the others;

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(AFAIK Leonard doesn't appear anywhere. If he did it might be in Eastern Invasion, I guess?)

LEGEND OF WESMERE 13: I swear I walked faster than this over snow the one time I saw it

Spoiler

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I've been everywhere, man, I've been everywhere...

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I like a lot how the rough northern elves are in doughty Nordic wear. I don't like, by contrast, this guy's eyes.

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Note the white flag on that village. We're seeing a new team colour debut! Wesnoth's team colours are decent, on the whole; the green's pretty weak, sadly. I just wish you got to see more of them in the campaigns, and especially not only be red all the time.

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Easy as. We have a phat 343 gold to our name, too. There's three enemies, and three forts, in the N, NW and SW.

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This terrain is terrible for dwarves; Simclon will stump over to the NW base at approximately the heat death of the universe.

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Anyone I'm stuck with that has five movement is going west. Anyone else I have with five movement is not getting recruited.

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We could technically hire another archer and two more recalls, but I figure we're already going into this map with more than we're meant to.

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Brutal, unrelenting slog that this bitch of a map is, it takes five turns to see any activity.

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The good thing about snow is that even slayers only have 40% evade. Olurf doesn't get the memo, missing. Every. One.

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So, it comes down to this.

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There we go.

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I don't really need experience. I do really need to not be poisoned, so. Berserk winds up not being relevant at all; he hits all four, the slayer hits both.

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Anyone getting flashbacks to Descent? Just me? Right...

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We wind up spotting the leader, eventually.

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Weirdly enough, the strategy of sending like 2-3 units at us at a time isn't paying dividends in the west. We don't have a healer here, so meleeing assassins to death is the first priority... I say, in this picture of an archer shooting one, but, whatever.

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This sure is a death frame. They kind of twirl as they die.

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I like how it's a fog of war map that's going to take forever, and we're making a loss, and it turns out there were, like, no enemies to recruit for. Next level might be more famine than feast - we're still losing 8 a turn. And, remember, I could've made at least three more recruits!

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Imagine if I didn't have three shydes.

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Why are there even still tier 0 goblins on this map?

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Hup, well, here's green.

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Tira's just sort of hanging out alone, southwest of the big forest. He starts working on picking the weak, old gazelles at the back of the herd.

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Marshal already seems out of dave.

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Marshal... responds to my love by yeeting west, and immediately getting his fort jacked by a wolf.

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I didn't realise this was an option. I'm going to be using this option. This map fucking sucks; it's turn 11. Reminder that last map, we killed like 200 guys in 10 turns. Which was on the other scale of bad! Two wrongs do not make a right.

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The camera pans left to. Um. More fog.

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This EP is mildly a disaster. I now have to mount a nighttime rescue effort of this moronic marshal with... three shydes and an outrider.

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We probably do enough to save him. And the shydes, if they feel like using that 70% evade. I ask him to move between Huraldur and Quethea, the generic shyde. Huh. I just realised that my three shydes are one main, Cleo (who got her 'tier' '4' killing some goblin earlier), one homie and one generic.

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h- hi

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matleckiefuckingfightmecunt.mp4

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I'm pretty good about not giving in to confirmation bias, but my weakness tends to concern 70%, given that it's the highest / lowest point of evade you regularly see (80% hit isn't unknown - for instance, topically, orcs on flat snow). Anyway the point is Laril almost gets killed by a goblin. Then does get killed by a wolf rider and I reload, but. Almost gets killed, by a goblin. Happily the stupid marshal obeys my directive, at least.

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If you've noticed the crater in the SW where once there was a captain, you aren't alone. Captains have outlived their pretty small window of usefulness, though, given that we can pretty easily field 80% T2+s on any given map.

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Uhhh okay Kalenz

Well, the orc doesn't get a chance to reply, but happily -

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Tameril can fly! I have never controlled a sylph before. The elfwank is ... relatively restrained. Don't ask me what's up with those hats.

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ohhh godddd

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aaaaa she makes it out with one health. Still trapped, but. Fuck.

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Except tier 0s don't have a ZoC. The sylphs yeet out and bully that grunt to the south - probably not actually the right move. What I don't notice, because - A) look at this trainwreck of white dots, I can't focus on fucking anything, B) because purple doesn't get like, more purple as you get closer to promotion, is that Laril was precisely 1 XP off 'tier' '4' and thus another full heal. Ah, well. She still appreciates it.

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Mission accomplished! Better still, I have another sylph.

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Tried luring in a direwolf last turn; didn't work, maybe because Tira was on a village. So I try moving him onto flat ground. Weirdly, they don't go for that, either. Probably because it's day, but that's exactly when I want to fight them!

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Spoilers, Olurf and Simclon are not gonna make it up in time to be of any use, so they may as well nab these villages. We control half the map right now, and are turning a slight profit.

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The optimal approach to this map probably involves training fewer guys and gunning a leader - probably ideally Cleodil - to the centre. But Cleo can only train shamans - lol - scouts - lmao - and woses - terrible against orcs. So. Even so, if, idk, one fewer wave at the start, and then reinforce now? Whatever. Easy to say that with actual map knowledge! In any case, the boss kill at this stage is probably going to be executed by the shydes, sylphs and outriders.

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I literally gave this wolf a random 1-HP poisoned archer to eat and he'd rather fail to eat an archer he needs three (admittedly easy) shots to kill instead.

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Go West

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The marshal celebrates his return to his homeland by almost failing to kill a goblin, then getting shot in the face three times.

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This random shitbag assassin is trying to win the economy. Well, I guess this captain can devote his life to trying to undo that.

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This direwolf gets to pick between which of three squishy targets he gets to half-kill before being surrounded and turned into souvlaki.

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Can YOU spot Vong the goblin knight? I didn't!!!

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Uh oh.

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*In extremely Ogre Battle voice* Encounter.

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The direwolf chose Selya.

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Related note: they run out of direwolves.

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Simclon chooses the worst time to Simclon. Can't see why? Let's zoom out a bit.

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oh

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Naeras Prime destroys his arch-rival. We're now making a suave 30 gold a turn.

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shank, which sets up for the-

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YEAH

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Hey, a little complete grunt family over here. We seriously need to finish this map, like, now, though. Not so much for the money, just the fucking eye-strain. The snow-forest is seriously agonising to stare at for an hour.

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'use the dagger' the game whines
'13 damage is more than 12 health, 3 times is more than 1' the game moans
fuck you

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Ugh, finally. If you're playing along at home, kids, have some sylphs BEFORE this point.

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What troops?

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That was an utterly one-sided annihilation. Very, very slowly.

 

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18 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

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I like a lot how the rough northern elves are in doughty Nordic wear. I don't like, by contrast, this guy's eyes.

John Lithgelf is displeased with your insult of his eyes.

20 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

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So, it comes down to this.

Now that looks like it hurt.

23 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

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This sure is a death frame. They kind of twirl as they die.

The orcish Black Swan hopefuls are really committing to the bit.

25 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

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Tameril can fly! I have never controlled a sylph before. The elfwank is ... relatively restrained. Don't ask me what's up with those hats.

50 arcane, 30 impact that can slow and their touch attack I guess.

Don't fuck with sylphs seems to be a fitting response.

28 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

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'use the dagger' the game whines
'13 damage is more than 12 health, 3 times is more than 1' the game moans
fuck you

Simclon says "Fuck you you dagger-twirling twit!"

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LEGEND OF WESMERE 14: The Incident

Spoiler

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Linking invisibility to turning evil is such a stupid and transparent excuse for a) the lord demotion and b) this.

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You remember how you spilled out that you loved someone by just casually inserting and stumbling over the word 'beloved' in a random sentence?

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Kalenz Does Not Give a shit.

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Except that he just drops in 'beloved' casually. This is extremely an Author Reveal that makes absolutely no sense in context - are they fucking, or not?

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I love the dwarfs, don't get me wrong, but why are they still here? We hired them for one job, which they did.

... And where the FUCK are Olurf's guys from his second intro???

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I'm sure this will go fine.

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oh

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a) well, I guess they just fucking yeet off-stage
b) our map directions were so convoluted we just ... gave up ...

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Can Landar not deliver this line... himself?

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Uh, okay. So both subfactions have left us.

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The Saurian Treasury in Winter Seasonal mode. Thrilling!

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Unusually subtle, for this preamble. I think he needs a literal red right hand, and to be smirking, and like, photorealistic blood coming out of his eyes.

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Alright, captain PoliSci, calm down.

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No gold carryover. Also, we can't make - well, the game just says 'shamans', but also no woses, or dwarfs.

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Okay. So. Execution is clumsy, but this is actually good. We move Huraldur onto a village - the villages we have to destroy - and he's like... uhhh... this is extremely a war crime... It's a nice bit of characterisation for the loyal units, even if it's literally just that they're a little less murderous than most. Certainly, than Landar. But, Christ, Landar is off the deep end from 'being kind of a cunt' with no real intermediate step. He murdered some dwarfs ffs!

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This flanker has a line for some reason. Then the village explodes - like the orc slayer was doing to OUR villages in the Ka'lian. Ham-fisted irony!!

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As before, there's a base in the northeast. He can only find the funds for a keep and a half, though. We're going to deal with the south first, because time isn't really an issue. 35 turns is easily gonna be enough.

This is when I realise a bug's happened.

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This village is still standing. Now, I started turn 2 with some pre-ordained moves, two guys to move into villages. The second didn't play. And, you know... out of curiosity I reload turn 1 and move a guy into the turn, like, not with a pre-planned move. It explodes. So, I guess it's just bugged to not be able to like. Explode back to back villages.

Maybe it'd be okay. Maybe the flag's just 'enemy has no villages'. But I don't want to take that chance, do I?

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Er.
I undo the move! I try again with Tira. Tira destroys the village. I... is the game...
There's branching possibilities here.
1A) Anduilas IS BUGGED - and should destroy villages as normal.
1B) Anduilas IS BUGGED - and should destroy villages as normal. The fact that he can't would make the mission unwinnable.
2A) Anduilas IS A PACIFIST, working as intended, like his lines suggest. I can still win after having him take a village.
2B) Anduilas IS A PACIFIST, working as intended, like his lines suggest. But if he actually takes a village, the map's unwinnable.

I'm charitable. I genuinely think it's 2A. If I got some confirmation it was, in fact, 2A, that's a really legitimately good thing! But I'm not gonna bank the entire fucking game on that when the game gives me no feedback on if I'm subsequently wasting the next half-hour of my life. So, I start from scratch.

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They get first blood, actually, killing off two fighters. In this file I frontloaded with tier 1s, because I was able to calculate I'd still be able to make the promoted guys later. Issue is with this map you're haemorrhaging funds, since you can't actually... take villages.

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Utility > experience. A strong guy would've made this kill with one hit; the now ironically named Efficiency Thubriser, though intelligent, did not.


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Though Anduilas makes it out alive - and, indeed, promotes - I seriously beefed the early turns of this. It's hard to not think of speed as important, but on this map, it really isn't! At all. Especially on a map where they can so easily get around and through you. Between the skirmishing, the lack of villages, money or time being a factor, this is a weird map.

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I reset to the start of turn 3 and go for a more defensive approach. Tira is annihilating villages. A couple scouts are heading north to try and nab a few there, too.

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This time, we get first blood. Note green in the north.

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Nennir Stress Relief does not get to enjoy his kill for long. There's still a general massacre of fighters.

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Fener Passive Aggression, I think, dies the way he would've wanted - burning saurian children alive, instead of facing on their combatants.

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A long time ago, Nema Coulthirst narrowly avoided dying in the north here. Not so narrowly as Raeler Eyes Emoji, who was one javelin from death, but still. She survives on a hit point - one earned from resilience. After this turn is over, they've killed seven guys to our six. To be fair, we've killed three tier 3s, they've killed six fighters.

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We've got a lot more meat to throw at this, though. Hi, mass fighter production, it's been a while.

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For Huraldur, the most logical escape vector is actually forward.

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These two chucklefucks continue racking up the bodycount.

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Nema has a coin-flip of killing this flanker and promoting, or getting killed. Hey, she lives.

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Still, this is getting seriously ugly. We've gone from 55-1 last map to this.

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After sweeping aside the misnomer Efficiency, pretty much the entire EP is just trying to kill Spyglass. They manage it, eventually.

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We make a hero of this guy in the process of avenging him, at least. The handy thing about avengers is that he fucked up basically everyone on his way down.

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This guy, too, who moves to free Raeler. And another fighter around him, too. The fact that an intelligent fighter promotes in two T2 kills is fucking useful. Even in the short-term, don't underestimate intelligent.

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And this guy will become sharpshooter number seven if he survives an attack! That's a big, big if. One that could become a big, big F.

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It's the latter.

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Press F also for Raeler Eyes Emoji, the conspicuous empty hex. He was meant to just pick up random villages in the Ka'lian, which is how he survived the Ka'lian with shitty traits. He nearly died in the north of this map at T2 to ambushers skirmishing through his underlings, and then, like 10 maps later, he did.

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But the map's over already. After eight brutal turns, they're down to four guys left.

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These scouts are done with their swathe of devastation. At least, in the far north. They'll probably pick up all the ones in the middle, too.

As people start to move forward, I test Kalenz. He doesn't destroy villages either, so, yeah, it's almost definitely a conscious thing. But how hard would it have been to amend the objective to 'seize or destroy all villages'? I'm still not risking it. For clarity - you can't destroy your own villages after they've been seized.

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The swathe of devastation now includes three more villages. That's seven, between these two guys, who have not fought a combatant, ever.

I lowkey hate them.

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Too little, too late, homeslice.

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Anduilas nails all five shots and kills the leader. Well.

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To his north, the scout destroys yet another village. You know, I already called the other guy War Crimes. This guy, Forbearance, uh... well, that was an ironic fucking nickname, turns out. There's no villages left.

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Christ. It really is the day for thematic deaths.

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This guy is literally called Hgyr. He's also dead.

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Guys. Hear me out. I think maybe the game's trying to hint that Landar's evil.

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Our debt is, frankly, hilarious.

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Hear me out here; that might be the best map in Legend. Because it doesn't... feel good, or satisfying, but in a way that fits thematically. You can't even heal anyone, unless you are allowed to take villages with Kalenz/Anduilas/probably also Arkildur (which you probably are, which is a cool mechanic I wish had been made clearer). It's just a bloodbath. You weather the initial storm, and then abruptly you win the battle of attrition.

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Time to get chewed out by the nerd police.

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El'lsomithir got re-promoted!

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Like certain orange fascists, Kalenz's strategy is to appeal solely to his base, gaining a 100% approval rating among that group. Unfortunately, his base demographic is 'guard captains'.

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Is... is he talking to us? Who he thinks are weak? Or to the council, who he's always hated?

Ah, well. I'm sure it's fine.

 

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   Yeah, it seems to be very much intended that Kalenz and Anduilas won't destroy any villages.

Quote

[event]
        name=moveto
        first_time_only=no
        [filter]
            [filter_location]
                terrain=*^V*
            [/filter_location]
            side=1
            [not]
                id=Kalenz
            [/not]
            [not]
                role=Anduilas
            [/not]
        [/filter]
        [sound]
            name=hiss-die.wav
        [/sound]
        #TODO need a delay here?
        [sound]
            name=torch.ogg
        [/sound]
        [delay]
            time=200
        [/delay]
        [sound]
            name=wose-die.ogg
        [/sound]
        [terrain]
            x=$x1
            y=$y1
            terrain=Dd^Dr
            layer=overlay
        [/terrain]
        [redraw][/redraw]
        {VICTORY_CONDITIONAL}
    [/event]

As for whether all villages really need to be destroyed, I'm afraid I can't quite decipher this.

Quote

#define VICTORY_CONDITIONAL
    [if]
        [not]
            [have_unit]
                side=2
                [or]
                    side=3
                [/or]
            [/have_unit]
        [/not]
        [not]
            [have_location]
                terrain=*^V*
            [/have_location]
        [/not]
        [then]
            [endlevel]
                result=victory
                bonus=no
                save=no
                carryover_percentage=0
            [/endlevel]
        [/then]
    [/if]
#enddef

 

Edited by BrightBow
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It looks like that's 'the win condition is satisfied if blue and green Do Not Control Villages'. That would make sense, and add a nice dimension to the map in that, hey, you WANT to have Kalenz and Anduilas pacifist-mode villages, because that's your only way to heal!

But yeah, not something I could risk in the circumstances. Still, it's just a communication issue. Reinforces, IMO, that this is the best map of the campaign.

Actually, wait, no. It stops caring about side after 'do they have units'. So... it looks like it's just 'are there villages at all?' Nevermind, I guess.

Edited by Parrhesia
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yeah, this is correct - team 1 is red, teams 2 and 3 are blue and green, which are the two saurian factions. the check is only that all villages are not owned by either blue or green - whether they're burned down or controlled by red is irrelevant to the check. it's very deliberately and cleverly made, and not telegraphed particularly well.

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17 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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Linking invisibility to turning evil is such a stupid and transparent excuse for a) the lord demotion and b) this.

Well, it is a plot contrivance for the potion to make one turn maybe evil.

I don't really have another comment here.

17 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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You remember how you spilled out that you loved someone by just casually inserting and stumbling over the word 'beloved' in a random sentence?

No.

I've not been that awkward.

17 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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Except that he just drops in 'beloved' casually. This is extremely an Author Reveal that makes absolutely no sense in context - are they fucking, or not?

Maybe this is the hamfisted way of saying they'd already started going out of-screen, or at least have confessed by this point ut recent battles mean they haven't gone out yet.

I mean, because of how these scenes are presented it could be right after they have though for all we know.

17 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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Alright, captain PoliSci, calm down.

What's with the Lantern Chin of child slaughter here?

(Also couldn't not giggle at this response)

17 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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Okay. So. Execution is clumsy, but this is actually good. We move Huraldur onto a village - the villages we have to destroy - and he's like... uhhh... this is extremely a war crime... It's a nice bit of characterisation for the loyal units, even if it's literally just that they're a little less murderous than most. Certainly, than Landar. But, Christ, Landar is off the deep end from 'being kind of a cunt' with no real intermediate step. He murdered some dwarfs ffs!

It's at least an interesting concept for the map.

He didn't just kill the saurimen, but the sauriwomen and the saurichildren too

17 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

73eef1ba49fb7f23112fc400ed4fe375.png
Hear me out here; that might be the best map in Legend. Because it doesn't... feel good, or satisfying, but in a way that fits thematically. You can't even heal anyone, unless you are allowed to take villages with Kalenz/Anduilas/probably also Arkildur (which you probably are, which is a cool mechanic I wish had been made clearer). It's just a bloodbath. You weather the initial storm, and then abruptly you win the battle of attrition.

It's an interesting condition, one which allows you to make the call of how to approach that.

Even if deathball makes the most sense. I have to wonder how negative income should be handled in this game, it's not limiting enough as is. :P

17 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

f8f1c4cabba09b8476558b7277d27783.png
Is... is he talking to us? Who he thinks are weak? Or to the council, who he's always hated?

Honestly likely to himself as he hears the council.

Edited by Dayni
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I just find it strange that they felt Lander needed some plot convenience in order to go off the deep end. Far better people then him have surrendered to a desire for vengeance after seeing their houses burned down and their countrymen murdered.

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interlude pt. 2 : this is how the ford of abed looks if you do it right i thought it was a total slog and i was fuckin wrong

Spoiler

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Recruitment looks way different, for one.

 

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Two waves, one of mer and one of men. The mer will escort Konrad, the men will hold the rear.

 

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Battle in the south begins like last time, with Kalenz dodging nothing.

 

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This is why the Ford is annoying. It's just walking Konrad two steps at a time over a ~15 hex river.

 

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We get a second trident warrior.

 

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The fun thing is fighting an entirely land-based force with pure mermen means we're allowed to just yeet out anyone anytime.

 

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Haldiel nearly dies again, which I think is poetic. Ogres are some shit.

 

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A merman fighter does die in the north, press F for our legion of disposable loyal merman fighters.

 

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The southern sweep continues and, hell, finishes.

 

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The northern push is down to nothing at all.

 

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Fun fact: deep water (the darker) is 50% for merfolk and 60% for sea creatures, and shallow water (the lighter) is the opposite. So luring them to fight in the shallows double-benefits us.

 

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Our first tridenteer promotes off this. Parrhesia says he already covered Triton, so let's cover the other:

 

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Hoplites are just huge. They have 20-30% resistances to just about everything, and the dwarven ability to double that on the defensive. Their only attack is a 15x2 pierce, but that doesn't really matter if you have a plot 14x2 magical trident for 2-range.

 

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Plus, he makes for a really nice looking anchor.

 

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The cuttlefish.... run away.

 

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Then-

wh

the chapter ends the second konrad is on land.

 

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That was my first move of the round. There's so much experience to grab.

 

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The other tridenteer promotes to Hoplite as well.

 

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We blow up some nerds.

 

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Delfador goes for a final kill.

 

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Fair play, kid.

 

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Let's try that again.

 

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f

 

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The good news is that the Ford of Babez next chapter is far more exciting.

update I misread 'abed' as 'abez' and now the joke doesn't work f

Edited by Parrhesia
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6 hours ago, Integrity said:

kBeHBr4W_o.png

Two waves, one of mer and one of men. The mer will escort Konrad, the men will hold the rear.

I may have used more men as the back line on the river.

With everyone in the river there wasn't much of a threat.

6 hours ago, Integrity said:

yZiytl9T_o.png

Haldiel nearly dies again, which I think is poetic. Ogres are some shit.

*All Star intensifies

6 hours ago, Integrity said:

w2QQteYA_o.png

A merman fighter does die in the north, press F for our legion of disposable loyal merman fighters.

F

6 hours ago, Integrity said:

3rmlBGgL_o.png

The cuttlefish.... run away.

And this cuttlefist went "woop woop woop woop woop woop" all the way home.

(That place has to be his house, right?

6 hours ago, Integrity said:

Delfador goes for a final kill.

 

i84ujok6_o.png

Fair play, kid.

Delfadidn'twannamurderapoorsoldier.

One 70% hit.... jeez.

Two 70% hits missed. Not as bad, but yeah this can screw him over.

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Whoever build that house may have known that Cuttlefish can't move on land but they probably didn't know that houses count as their own terrain type.

Funnily enough Cuttlefish can move across Castle tiles too.

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LEGEND OF WESMERE 15: The Other Incident

Spoiler

6eef8b90378a5d4523688df6d84376f5.jpg
710b5841f28d57e3efdba3e19c6ee35d.png
They Fucked

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hmm

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I wish Kalenz got a post-retirement sprite, where he's just like. Totally gone to seed. Maybe not Neville Southall levels of gone to seed, but maybe Matt le Tissier levels. And he's just kinda unshaven, he's wearing a stained singlet, kind of got a gut...

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035ef2735afc479281cbeec07b3a3527.jpg
... hm.

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Not positive why the image is doing That, but.

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Alright, then. It's fine. We trained the entire fucking elven army, let's rally the boys and cross a fucking Rubicon.

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At first, it looks like we're about to have two buffer forces come to our aid...

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No.

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I mean, we're hardly in a position to fight them.

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They skirmish a little.

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But the exit's like... right... there...

Obviously, this is too short to be an update.

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0684d2561b14cea7b09f27ec4c41a5ef.jpg
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Well, that's... odd.

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Well, straightforward enough. Crintil from last map is a little to the north, Landar in the west.

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Oh, cute. He recalled one of my archers.

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... wait. They all have EXP bars.

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You mother fuckers--

DISCLOSURE TIME I knew this was coming. I aaaaabsolutely knew this was coming. And you know, I think it's a cool ... it's not a twist, because it doesn't really change the nature of anything that came beforehand, but it's a cool thing, in any case. Yeah, these are just Kalenz' and Landar's goons. Of course their loyalties are split! For that matter, I didn't know you got any back at all.

I've never actually played this far, though. No further than Ka'Lian II, in fact. So I didn't know how it was going to play out - no dwarfs, for one. And when one of my guys rocked up on the northside, and there were no familiar faces (that I noticed) in map 1? When I saw we still had the war criminal scout on our recall list? (Related, I guess we found out what all recruited scouts count as, for subfaction.) When it implied our army was with the North? And when I didn't see Crintil recruit anyone new? I honestly thought they'd bitched out of what I think is a cool touch that makes this unique. And this is absolutely a recoverable situation. You still get all Cleodil's guys, you can still recruit.

I think Ike would probably find it an infuriating dick-punch, but I handle attrition well.

Postscript: we can recall Galenor from last mission, too. He's not a homie, but, fuck it, 2 extra gold for an intelligent/quick scout is worth it.

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You know, given the way we've treated fighters all campaign, I'm kind of amazed guys are still signing up.

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I wonder if blue - not to come across all One Nation, but why aren't they white? - can only recall tier 1s.

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More quislings. Cenas joined us last map, Foran's an original, and was one of the guys left at the base during the midgame.

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Tree is a pretty good answer to elf. Elves are devoid of fire damage, and rely heavily on pierce.

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Experience hasn't been a concern for a while; now it is.

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They make a breach, through two fighters; foolishly, Crintil then rushes into it.

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I hope we get the dwarfs back for the finale. I never actually got to recall either of Olurf's berserkers.

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Hahaha. My front envelops you.

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Sic semper dog-cunt. Crintil goes down without a line.

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The new-fledged marksman barely makes it.

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Blue moves fairly transparently into a battle line. Hey, look who he found?

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Landar seems to be done stealing our guys, for now. He picks out another couple guys from last map and, I believe, a Ka'Lian veteran.

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You know, if Smoky Tree becomes the new Simclon, I won't mind.

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Ancient Woses. They're woses, but better. They also have the best flavour text in the entire game.

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It's going great until I just kind of assume an archer will hit twice or that the hero won't hit all three. Very unlikely? Yeah. But a stupid risk, anyway.

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Rilokea makes contact as the rest of the quislings roll up the east. Landar's done recruiting.

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We don't negotiate. Beatbox Rethas dodges Arkildur and tree, but I tire of him, and hurl a sylph to delete him.

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Rilokea, Sparks Fly and Clint Nifilor get destroyed.

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The difference between an outrider and a scout. I like how you can see they're built on the same animation frames.

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Seriously, the northern formation's just weird. But at least we have another powerful friend.

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tree

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Underwater gets thrown under the hooves of Galenor's horse. Ma-marian the fighter soon follows suit.

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I get the sense they're programmed just to follow the treeline at all costs. Pretty sensible, honestly. It'd kind of suck if all your veterans brainlessly slammed into the southern plains, and the sheer power of 60/70% vs. 40% evade makes sense to build around. Just, this... axiomatically?

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Instagram tires of life.

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Even so, they're In.

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Misc notes: my formation moving forward is based on pretty much just leaving as many people in healing range as possible. One thing that annoys me about my luck this map is I didn't roll many intelligent level 1s - and one of the ones I did get was the one I threw away failing to shoot a dying hero. Slow is indispensable for feeding kills.

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Goodnight, Instagram. You served well.

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Legolorand Stylish, Cenas Backhand-

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- and the obscure, archaic Australian idiom follow suit. Ironic Soreladion gets the kill on him.

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Good thing I had so fucking many sharpshooters. Hebris-ael wins the award for 'guy least likely to be recalled'.

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Take my archers. Please. *laugh track*

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Ironic and Tsunami go down.

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Another quisling advances, a survivor from the Yeti Zone, but Landar sits at home.

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I call this piece: "a bitch is gonna get punched by a tree."

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Unfortunately, it was inspired by Matisse.

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I feed Livor to Galenos. Beyond that, though... perhaps I can spare the rest. If I just-

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You mother fucker.

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There's so much blood on our hands, but it doesn't stop here. We don't let this slip now. Next time, we are going to motherfucking kill Landar.

 

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So the AI is actually recalling here? That is kinda nasty. Veteran units have very high costs when recruited but if "recalled" it's just 20 gold from the dimmest goblin to the mightiest lv4 Grand Mage.

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Yeah, best as I can tell it just takes all your infantry units and gives each one a coin-flip of whether or not they defect. Not sure why the AI bothers recalling random fighters with little experience at 20 instead of recruiting at 14, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were set to recall whenever possible in the Files.

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2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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They Fucked

I mean,  it's something we'd been expecting.

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

You mother fuckers--

DISCLOSURE TIME I knew this was coming. I aaaaabsolutely knew this was coming. And you know, I think it's a cool ... it's not a twist, because it doesn't really change the nature of anything that came beforehand, but it's a cool thing, in any case. Yeah, these are just Kalenz' and Landar's goons. Of course their loyalties are split! For that matter, I didn't know you got any back at all.

I've never actually played this far, though. No further than Ka'Lian II, in fact. So I didn't know how it was going to play out - no dwarfs, for one. And when one of my guys rocked up on the northside, and there were no familiar faces (that I noticed) in map 1? When I saw we still had the war criminal scout on our recall list? (Related, I guess we found out what all recruited scouts count as, for subfaction.) When it implied our army was with the North? And when I didn't see Crintil recruit anyone new? I honestly thought they'd bitched out of what I think is a cool touch that makes this unique. And this is absolutely a recoverable situation. You still get all Cleodil's guys, you can still recruit.

I think Ike would probably find it an infuriating dick-punch, but I handle attrition well.

Wait, if there's a chapter beyond killing Landar will the goons not work with Kalenz again?

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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Ancient Woses. They're woses, but better. They also have the best flavour text in the entire game.

Wait, why do Woses do that?

I mean, how does that work?

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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There's so much blood on our hands, but it doesn't stop here. We don't let this slip now. Next time, we are going to motherfucking kill Landar.

With what's happened to the men, you'd hope that's the case.

IS there any plausible way of taking out the commanders with less blood spilt? (Also, this does mean keeping your full recall list is the way to go)

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LEGEND OF WESMERE 16: It's Over!!

Spoiler

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This... is the worst map preamble we've seen yet. 'It is said that Landar's revolt was so shit it imploded in the first serious clash' does not exactly paint this as... you know, anything other than a desperately sad final coda. This is the big crux moment of the campaign! This is your own guys turning against you! But I have to build this hype myself??

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Not that it's a bad thing, necessarily, to have a last desperate clearly doomed stand by the enemy. That can be powerful, narratively. But imagine this.

There's no Evil Lich Potion. Kalenz was promoted into a lord by the council and trained in magic by Cleo. Landar, meanwhile, had done more than just gripe vaguely about the situation - instead of just disagreeing with whoever spoke, he constantly and consistently advocated for more bloodshed. If he loudly pushed for the saurians to be exterminated, but Kalenz told him to fucking chill; if he wanted to finish the job and destroy the rest of the orcs when the sovereign was down. He voices this opinion to the council; he is shot down. The council thanks Kalenz, rejects Landar.

Landar goes to the saurians, alone, and destroys the joint; Kalenz arrives too late to stop his old friend, and has a proper 'what have you DONE' moment. At this final rejection, Landar snaps, and with his troops at his back, says that 'out of respect for the warrior Kalenz used to be' he's going to let him go. Once. The loyal troops desert Landar and leave with Kalenz.

Landar in the background fucks shit up. Kalenz escapes from retirement. Kalenz hauls himself out of retirement, stops him beating down the north in a map that actually sees you have to race to save the northern elves. Instead of a nobody like Crintil, or Landar fleeing, you face Eradion - Galtrid's marshal, someone you have controlled, another person you assumed would take your side.

You reach the Ka'lian, where Landar now holds court. He's butchered the council, and Galtrid, who you actually care about - but now you, along with the return of Olurf's dwarfs (they have a vested interest in destroying this government, instead of just being hired to do one job, lingering for 10 maps and abruptly vanishing) and the northern elves, have to retake the Ka'lian from him. It's a bloody fight, but you wear him down - with an actual excuse for a huge map. And then, after that, he flees here and you know you have to do this alone. This is your final showdown against a desperate broken man. Now it has stakes, because Landar was actually a legitimate threat, and now it has pathos, because this isn't an evil Shadow Landar, this is still your friend - just, one who made some bad calls, instead of drinking an evil potion, randomly killing some dwarfs and leaving.

This is just a basically unedited stream of consciousness. Absolutely it needs tightening. But at least it's something, and all it needed was some rewrites, some easy excuses not taken, and one more map that is literally just another use of the Ka'lian.

Remember how Landar left because he 'forgot' his invisibility philtre? Remember how that lead nowhere? Like Olurf's initial guards? Where the fuck is Olurf NOW? God, this entire campaign is such wasted potential.

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Fuck it. Let's just DO this.

Our recall list is bolstered by... some of our guys. I don't know if there's a system that splits who stays loyal and who doesn't, honestly. I don't make any new recruits; I just recall, though I don't rename any of the guys the North elves brought with them. To be honest, the entire point of naming every single unit was... I mean, it's probably obvious to you all by now, right?

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By the way, you can hit Dismiss to destroy people forever. Bye, Veliel!

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Tae-Tae is joined by Frangi Pani. If you were wondering which part is the elf name, it's the Pani. Frangipani are my favourite flowers. Those two, if you've forgotten, were veterans from the first map, our first (surviving) T3s, the ones we left at home for the midgame. Virulent Strain Lennal's here too.

The inconsistency in colours kind of shits me. Why does Galtrid shift from green to purple? Why do the North Elves shift from white to blue? Why does Landar shift from green to blue? And the answer for the last two is; because that's just how the colours are ordered. But why do they only sometimes change that?

IMO, the player should actually change team colour after the incident. Landar's the only one of the two with red in his outfit, after all, and he's commanding your army. It'd really reinforce that he's the powerful establishment figure here, with the army you built.

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More Quislings.

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We briskly take command of most of the map's economy.

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Also loyal: Spring Time Fefennya, Wild Cat Vebrikea, Jack Knife, Queni Woman Respecter, Big Tree, Dapper Tree, 'Blaze It' Venil-er, Gliirebim Sparkle, Canel Drinkwater, Hebris-ael Gatsby, Unulad-ael, Ohio, Swaggy Lemin.

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More filthy, filthy traitors. I do honestly think it's really good and cool that your guys betray you. Wesnoth is the perfect type of game for it. Your guys matter to you... but not enough that taking half of them away to pit against you is legitimately crippling.

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Thanks to ambush, I present what is known in 'the Business' as a fucking obvious trap.

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Good decision, Tae-Tae.

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This? Shit like this is good! This and the Saurian treasury arguments have been the peak of the campaign. Steampunk, a random probably-Ka'lian archer, already killed a Quisling hero last map; now he promotes to ranger. Sethad destroys the guy on the bridge, who gets no song; then he stands there.

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They made a lot of rangers, and I think have already slipped one into the eastern trees. I'm going to take the northern knot of T1 infantry, and the wose, east, to try and cut them off.

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I was right! Hilariously, the ranger gets ambushed by the wose, and is too shocked to even bother loosing off a clip. Predictably, though, bridge hero Sethad dies.

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Good attack vector.

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Uh.

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Man. He survived literally the entire campaign, only to get hit by eight out of eight 60%s.

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F for. This guy. Not a Quisling, but F regardless. Then we pick off the captain.

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No songs for Virulent Strain. Nema might look a sitting duck in the water, but a nice thing about rangers / avengers is they're a little better in bad terrain - 40% evade on sand, 30% in water and swamp.

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We have to take the bridge, and I'm willing to sacrifice Galenor for it.

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Cleo slows, Anduilas sets up the kill, and Spiders Nethad - another archer who killed a hero when fighting for the northern elves (why isn't their captain here?) - kills her to take over as resident water ranger.

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Frangi Pani clings to life.

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It's a brutal EP. The Unstoppable Niradim takes a kill; Huraldur should, by all rights, be dead; they slip another guy into the forest.

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That's a mistake.

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Pani goes down; Niradim is Stopped. I'm pretty sure we got Too Easy Ripima last map; she's now a sharpshooter.

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Much better.

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The south gets pushed back.

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On EP, they fail to land a kill, despite three potential targets.

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The Iron Revael promotes. Sure, if he'd missed, he'd probably have died, but the action economy's a bitch.

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The south holds... but suddenly the sylph, Gimmick, is gonna need to make some 70%s.

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I roll down the east with terrible force.

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I took this screenshot to gloat about the ambush, and about the hero whiffing all his shots. Then the ranger hits all three 30% sword attacks to destroy Gimmick the sylph. Swings and roundabouts, eh?

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But what else can they muster? This is the last of their forces.

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Steampunk died as he lived; speaking. Quonnal is the final Quisling.

(Forgive the obviously different first line; I accidentally clicked through it at first, and had to save the Turn 11 start, then go back to Turn 10 and replay it so that Quonnal killed him again. Hence him being... isolated, in the water.)

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Revael destroys him.

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There can be only one, and he just wasted his turn running into Shaq Dekea and skipping.

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It's resoundingly obvious what we have to do. After we pin him the second turn, he doesn't even bother fighting back.

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Cleodil has no pre-combat line with him. Amazingly, neither does Kalenz, who then misses all four sword swipes. But that's fine. I didn't want Kalenz to get the kill anyway.

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Anduilas, Landar's homie from the very first mission, but the first guy to balk at following his orders, gets the honours. Honestly, he has more personality than Kalenz.

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Seriously, is this just a drugs metaphor?

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So. Uh. That's why he yeeted out to go grab his heroin? Because why the fuck wasn't he invisible when he came back? I guess maybe he was following us while invisible the entire time. Hence him being 'gone' for fucking weeks. But that still doesn't make any sense. To 'make sure' you could kill the chief, you took a temporary hit of the dank lich kush that had obviously worn out by the time you...

Ugh. This is so stupid.

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AQUAGARRRRR

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Wait, you already--

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I-

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you know-

you

really can't make this shit up.

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So that was. Um. The map, I guess.

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And nobody, like... protested?

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Yeet.

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Kalenz is like, the most Old Testament: Judges minor character. He comes to save one crisis and then retires and lives for a hundred years and dies before the next.

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Well, if you'd wondered how long elves live, there you go.

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lmfao holy fuck ~the curse of aquagar~ is somehow fucking relevant

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(it's HTTH)

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fucking AQUAGAR lmfaooo

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So, yeah. That fucking happened. We promoted more guys than we lost. Hilariously, our losses included 38 elven fighters from red, almost half. Galtrid's losses were even more fighter-based. Note the ratio of recruits:losses - if I recruited you, you probably died! But at least you died with a name.

So. There is a lot to unpack here.

Here's a challenge for you: describe Kalenz's personality. I can't! I fucking can't. He's defined by... by... fuck, I don't know. You can't say he opposes war crimes because he still has his forces commit them, he just feels uneasy about them personally. He wants to kill... orcs... I guess? Fuck, who even knows. I boot up Secrets of the Ancients, the most recent campaign, out of curiosity - by the time it even got into gameplay, it had really strongly established the protagonist's personality, and now I'm really fucking envious I passed it on to Ike and did Dark Descent! But even Mal Keshar had a personality, even if it was being a whiny windbag. Deoran is young, impetuous, and eager to make a name for himself, with sidekicks consisting of an arrogant elf, a grizzled, law-abiding veteran, a wise sage and a criminal who was in way over his head and wanted out, for a price. There wasn't more than that, and there didn't need to be, in a campaign half this length. The fucking first marine to die in the Doom film has more personality, and he only lasts like 15 minutes! Kalenz has no personality. Fucking AQUAGAR has more personality. I'm not even joking! He's a shouty, blustering wizard looking for eternal life. I literally did not realise you could put as many words on paper without even accidentally finding a personality. Landar is a non-entity beyond being contrarian and a bitch, Cleo is vaguely wise, I guess.

The central theme of Wesmere was wasted potential - see Landar's betrayal, above. But, you know, you do have to give it credit for trying, at least. Because it did try. It failed, or things fell flat, a lot. But there was some good, here. The betrayal at all, I think- I still think it was good. Even with really, really shitty execution the campaign was still better for it. Ka'lian 1 is one of most memorable maps in the series, and at least Ka'lian 2 is satisfying, even if it's a little... early.

I'm still mad that the dwarfs just vanish off-stage. You get Olurf in map 8, and really, map 11 is the last time you see the subfaction; 12 is stealth, 13 is snow where you sure as fuck aren't training more dwarfs, and then they're just gone. And that's annoying because of how it affects how you use them in map 11; you can't just hurl everything at the northeast, what could be a seriously climactic moment for them, because you assume they'll be there for the next five maps. You could argue Olurf was only there as a mercenary to handle the orcs, specifically, but you're still fighting orcs in map 13, and they're still there. Where's the indication things will change? It's a minor thing, but it bothers me a lot.

Game design: look at those numbers. Look at those fucking numbers! Let's summarise the maps;
1) Flight of the Valon. HTTH 1 but good.
2) Dwarf border. Good! A good mission, if a little too restrictive.
3) Ka'lian 1. Good! Good mission. A bit of a slog, a bit early for a slog, a bit late to still only have two unit types. But. You know. I'm down with Wesmere to this point.
4) Kill saurians 1. Fine! Obvious filler, but serving as a much-needed breather.
5) Kill saurians 2. Fine! In fact, good.
6) Olurf Return. Bit of a slog. Tells you to save his dwarfs; his dwarfs are totally irrelevant.
7) Ka'lian 2. Way too close to Ka'lian 1 for a map that's pretty much the same but uglier. Could have been cut and put later, against Landar. Bugged ending 1.
8) Saurian bounty hunters which you aren't meant to kill. Cuttlefish Village. Bugged ending 2.
9) Bad filler chapter. The one with yetis.
10) THE CURSE OF AQUAGAR. Remember how the entire east was pointless? How is the theme of Legend that half the maps needed to be fucking Solomoned in half?
11) Human alliance. The entire south half of the map should not have existed; the humans just rolled the orcs and didn't contribute to anything else. The north was... a difficult slog, but in part because I went for the triple crown. Bugged ending 3.
12) A hilariously badly-made stealth map. But it was fun! It evens out.
13) Save the north elves. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so slow. Arguably the worst map.
14) Saurian Treasury massacre. The last good map; arguably the best map.
15) Like... you just run to the exit and escape in three turns...
16) The Incident. North elves mostly superfluous. Pretty mediocre map but at least there was the intrigue of seeing who betrayed us.
17) This. It was... fine. A bloodbath, but that's fine, it was the last map. Bugged ending 4.
5 GOOD MAPS - 1, 2, 3, 5, 14
7 AVERAGE MAPS - 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 16, 17
5 BAD MAPS - 9, 10, 11, 13, 15

Looks okay, right? But note how four of the five good maps were the first five maps. There were no good maps between the two saurian treasuries. Wesmere fucking outstayed its welcome. And I'm generous! Ike hated the first seven maps. They were usually just... too big. Often too long. We saw three of them twice; of these, Ka'lian 2 was just too similar and too soon, and the north of 16 was basically pointless.

For all that, I'd stop short of saying Wesmere is a bad campaign. It stacks up credit in the bank early on, and it tries to do things. I'd much rather a campaign try and fail spectacularly than not try at all.

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Yet again, I'm breaking my intended sequence, because I need a campaign that's short and sweet and I have no fucking familiarity with it.

 

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8 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

There's no Evil Lich Potion. Kalenz was promoted into a lord by the council and trained in magic by Cleo. Landar, meanwhile, had done more than just gripe vaguely about the situation - instead of just disagreeing with whoever spoke, he constantly and consistently advocated for more bloodshed. If he loudly pushed for the saurians to be exterminated, but Kalenz told him to fucking chill; if he wanted to finish the job and destroy the rest of the orcs when the sovereign was down. He voices this opinion to the council; he is shot down. The council thanks Kalenz, rejects Landar.

Landar goes to the saurians, alone, and destroys the joint; Kalenz arrives too late to stop his old friend, and has a proper 'what have you DONE' moment. At this final rejection, Landar snaps, and with his troops at his back, says that 'out of respect for the warrior Kalenz used to be' he's going to let him go. Once. The loyal troops desert Landar and leave with Kalenz.

Landar in the background fucks shit up. Kalenz escapes from retirement. Kalenz hauls himself out of retirement, stops him beating down the north in a map that actually sees you have to race to save the northern elves. Instead of a nobody like Crintil, or Landar fleeing, you face Eradion - Galtrid's marshal, someone you have controlled, another person you assumed would take your side.

You reach the Ka'lian, where Landar now holds court. He's butchered the council, and Galtrid, who you actually care about - but now you, along with the return of Olurf's dwarfs (they have a vested interest in destroying this government, instead of just being hired to do one job, lingering for 10 maps and abruptly vanishing) and the northern elves, have to retake the Ka'lian from him. It's a bloody fight, but you wear him down - with an actual excuse for a huge map. And then, after that, he flees here and you know you have to do this alone. This is your final showdown against a desperate broken man. Now it has stakes, because Landar was actually a legitimate threat, and now it has pathos, because this isn't an evil Shadow Landar, this is still your friend - just, one who made some bad calls, instead of drinking an evil potion, randomly killing some dwarfs and leaving.

This is just a basically unedited stream of consciousness. Absolutely it needs tightening. But at least it's something, and all it needed was some rewrites, some easy excuses not taken, and one more map that is literally just another use of the Ka'lian.

Remember how Landar left because he 'forgot' his invisibility philtre? Remember how that lead nowhere? Like Olurf's initial guards? Where the fuck is Olurf NOW? God, this entire campaign is such wasted potential.

I'd be on board overall. Maybe the details would differ if I thought on it, but it would mean Landar at least didn't have the phial as an excuse (where I kind of feel like he might have regardless)

8 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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More filthy, filthy traitors. I do honestly think it's really good and cool that your guys betray you. Wesnoth is the perfect type of game for it. Your guys matter to you... but not enough that taking half of them away to pit against you is legitimately crippling.

.....Unless the way it's decided leads to you having T1s against all the OP enemy units.

I assume it doesn't do that.

8 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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This? Shit like this is good! This and the Saurian treasury arguments have been the peak of the campaign. Steampunk, a random probably-Ka'lian archer, already killed a Quisling hero last map; now he promotes to ranger. Sethad destroys the guy on the bridge, who gets no song; then he stands there.

I really want to see their story more than this entire campaign.

8 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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Man. He survived literally the entire campaign, only to get hit by eight out of eight 60%s.

F for Arkildur. The time turner finally broke. :P

8 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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Anduilas, Landar's homie from the very first mission, but the first guy to balk at following his orders, gets the honours. Honestly, he has more personality than Kalenz.

That's a pretty funny end to it honestly.

8 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

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you know-

you

really can't make this shit up.

Wait, did the game just break again?

8 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Here's a challenge for you: describe Kalenz's personality. I can't! I fucking can't. He's defined by... by... fuck, I don't know. You can't say he opposes war crimes because he still has his forces commit them, he just feels uneasy about them personally. He wants to kill... orcs... I guess? Fuck, who even knows. I boot up Secrets of the Ancients, the most recent campaign, out of curiosity - by the time it even got into gameplay, it had really strongly established the protagonist's personality, and now I'm really fucking envious I passed it on to Ike and did Dark Descent! But even Mal Keshar had a personality, even if it was being a whiny windbag. Deoran is young, impetuous, and eager to make a name for himself, with sidekicks consisting of an arrogant elf, a grizzled, law-abiding veteran, a wise sage and a criminal who was in way over his head and wanted out, for a price. There wasn't more than that, and there didn't need to be, in a campaign half this length. The fucking first marine to die in the Doom film has more personality, and he only lasts like 15 minutes! Kalenz has no personality. Fucking AQUAGAR has more personality. I'm not even joking! He's a shouty, blustering wizard looking for eternal life. I literally did not realise you could put as many words on paper without even accidentally finding a personality. Landar is a non-entity beyond being contrarian and a bitch, Cleo is vaguely wise, I guess.

He's just a bland, noble elf.

Give me Elrond already.

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Well, that backlog fucking eroded fast.

DEAD WATER 1: I thought there was a L4D2 campaign called Dead Water, but apparently there isn't

Spoiler

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Dead Water; the second most recent campaign added. As in, in the like, nine or ten years I've played Wesnoth, I can only remember two being added. I feel like there's scope for more, really. Anyway, the first chapter is called; 'Invasion!' Imaginative, right?

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Meet Krellis, who has a special class devoted to being worthless!

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Meet Cylanna, who is I guess a Jagen!

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Meet Gwabbo, whose name is Gwabbo.

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Well, not YOURS, mate. You've got two sources of impact damage.

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Alright. Hrm. Don't like that. Is that all campaign? I'm gonna assume so, until further notice. We start with 110 gold, that's not really enough for more than three of each type anyway. Fuck training citizens, though. We start with enough as-is.

(editor's note: that image of mark hamill accusing me of being wrong on every count)

Mm. At least... that's what I'm thinking at first. But the nature of the merman recruit pool? Well, we'll get into that in a moment.

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Objectives are easy as. Go southeast, kill this cunt.

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Cylanna is our friend. From memory, initiate promotions are like many other mage lines; they have a dedicated healer and a dedicated DPS. Priestesses are healers. Their art is lovely.

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Krellis is not yet our friend. In fact, he's lightly fucking terrible. Promoting him to tier 1 is our highest priority.

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Citizens are I guess, reluctantly, our grist. Note they can promote into brawlers; they're campaign-only, like citizens themselves. Citizens are appallingly bad at everything and the more that die, the merrier.

As for the rest of our forces, merman fighters and hunters are hopelessly reliant on pierce. But I'll still train two each. Initiates are our best bet - 8x2 ranged magical damage is a little terrible, but it's impact damage. Citizens offer impact damage, too, but realistically they're gonna shred themselves on skeletons. Gwabbo is a fucking godsend; he slows, he's got huge impact damage, and in a really nice touch, he's loyal/fearless. Fearless isn't in the usual pool of merman traits, so this does a really good job of having him stand out. It'd be great if campaigns did this more often - if, say, the loyal mage from HTTT was dextrous instead of strong or resilient, whichever.

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He summons new pokemon! Variants. Alola Forms, at least.

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Well, already the campaign name makes sense.

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Aqua-zombies have art I Really Don't Like (TM) in the best way. Unsurprisingly, your man recruits a ton of them. Helpfully, this lessens the need for impact damage to reign supreme! Their advantage over regular meat zombies is they're good in water and have 20% cold resist. That said, their good movement in water is... still only four tiles. And they're worse over flat land, too.

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My recruitment is unexceptional.

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The first flashpoint is predictable, on the southeast coast.

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We take four pretty easy kills.

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Ah, and already Wesmere experience has dulled my senses to the reality of the earlygame of a more sane campaign. We're weak, and we don't have anyone disposable. Not even the tadpoles. Can't risk them becoming zombies, after all. They encircle, but don't actually entrap Cylanna - no ZoC on tier 0s, remember? - and, well. It's night now. It's time to run.

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But you know me. I don't have a dial lower than 'fighting retreat'.

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Some civilian bites the dust. Nobody important.

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The southwest is about to be home to an incident. Can two civilians defend all this? No. I had my initial complement largely file around the edges of the map picking up whatever villages they could.

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Skeleton archers are kind of a bitch to deal with. Initiates can't really safely shoot at them, certainly not productively, at night. So I just have my citizens beat them to death. If he'd missed, I'd have Krellis take the kill. As it stands... I could have him pull back, spit out like five more tadpoles, but uh. I think we have enough.

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He barely makes it. What a trooper!

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Krellis nudges a mostly dead skeleton to death.

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Njaroa promotes! And. And. That's. Disappointing!

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Spot what's wrong with this image.

 

 

 

If you didn't, neither did Ike, so don't feel too bad.

It's not that this is a bad tier 1. In the context of a campaign against undead, they're better than fighters (6x3 pierce, -2 HP). It's that there's no tier 2. Stun is unique to brawlers, as far as I'm aware, and makes an enemy lose their ZoC. But not even being able to get to tier 2 is... brutal.

I want impact damage, but I'd rather get it through netcasters. Accordingly, Njoroa becomes a hunter. Unintelligent citizens who fluke into a promotion get to be brawlers, not an intelligent guy on map-fucking-one.

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They thud damply into the line.

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wevenge.mp4 is achieved in the east. Experience kinda doesn't matter on citizens unless they're gonna promote. A tier 0 is never worth 20 gold. I could have two citizens, (potentially) a fighter, or... one citizen about to become a fighter.

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We mop up, and Krellis gets another kill.

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So do the swamp plebs.

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Yeah, we've reached the victory lap phase.

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Primary objective all but complete; Krellis is 1 XP away from promotion. It'll almost certainly get him leadership. A) he's a fucking king, B) the tier 0 flavour implies it with 'nobody cares what he says'. That will in turn hugely boost our brawlers. Gotta play those percentages!

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And out comes the leader.

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A ghost yeets out.

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Well! That was... actually a good map? Pretty evenly poised, you have limited resources, but enough to get the job done, your homie Jagens are literally the perfect classes, and the addition of a tier 0 reliance gives the mermen juuust enough meat as a faction to lean on.

 

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On 5/4/2019 at 5:27 AM, Parrhesia said:

I think Ike would probably find it an infuriating dick-punch, but I handle attrition well.

to be fair, landar would recall all precisely nine of my units and then it would just be a match on even terms, except i'm smarter and have like four max tier wosen

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