14. The Drowned Plains

[Content Feedback]

(1) What difficulty levels and game versions have you played the scenario on?
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario? (1-10)
(3) How clear did you find the scenario objectives?
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline of the scenario?
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario?
(6) How fun do you think the scenario is? (1-10)
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the scenario to make it more fun?

[JoeGeneric]

1) normal
2) 6
3) very clear
4) dialogue was very good
5) the map is large and the terrain is complex and hard to move over
6) 7
7) I would slightly shrink the map because it is too large to get everywhere quickly, this could be balanced by cutting time limit by a turn or two

[Vendrick]

(1) Invasion, 1.18
(2) 4
(3) Clear
(4) Good character beats and the small dialogue variations with the Undead leaders are a nice touch.
(6) 4
(7) The strengths of the scenario are the writing: the character work, the imagery and atmosphere. I don't think there's even any bad design decisions; it just doesn't cohere into something that's much fun to play.

The bulk of the scenario is shuffling a a pile of units between the Undead keeps while being annoyed by ambushing Undead and your villages get poached by ghosts and random(?) Undead from the swamp.
The worst part of the scenario is when you queue up the moves for your forces to move between keeps and some random Undead strolls across their routes and causes everyone to deviate from their intended paths.

I reckon the most likely way to loose the scenario is through spending too long securing the initial villages and then being forced to take risks or outright loose due to time. It takes quite a while for the player's units to travel to all 3 keeps in succession.
The scenario is so long that having to replay it to correct early mistakes would be miserable.

The AI for the sides with leaders is cowardly enough during the day that they can outright flee into the swamp and leave their leader sitting on the keep.
This also means that 2/3 Undead leaders can be slain on their keeps.

Hahid's crass sales pitch is fun but the elixir really isn't worth 30 gold in this scenario.
Beserk on Owaec is obviously extremely powerful offensively in combination with Shock but:
1) Owaec is essential
2) The scenario's difficulty is low, with wide terrain
3) The experience from kills is better used elsewhere
4) Starting gold (130 on Invasion) is very tight because it has to accomodate a force substantial enough to start killing the Undead leaders, capture villages and some fresh recruits to level

This is a rushed and bad replay in general, but the odd early moves and not doing anything on Turn 3 is to avoid Hahid crashing the replay because of a bugged dialogue event.