The Firestorm Saga: Released For Playtesting

[WarVoid]

Ok, i'm a BIG Civ2 fan and a BIG WarCraft2 fan.

Seeing as we don't have an RTS forum for this sort of thing i'll post it here.

The Firestorm Saga is a campaign series add-on for W2 consisting of a manual, map and ten levels (puds).

It is set in the fictional south lands of Azeroth, not part of the original W2 game.

In it you lead the last survivor of the Burning Blade on a quest to save your people, build a new nation and bring final peace to Azeroth. But first you will have to contend with the armies of Agrabah and the Red Ridge Clan. The road ahead will not be easily tread...

If anyone is interested in beta testing this for please post your e-mail address here or send it to me privately.

Thank you.

[Shadowstrike]

I may not be the greatest Warcraft II player, but this sounds interesting. I give it a try (probably won't get too far though )
dark_templar_25@hotmail.com

[WarVoid]

Thanx alot

I just sent the file.

[Leonidas]

I'm a big WC2 fan as well.

I'll test it: westbeach@altavista.com

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[Shadowstrike]

Still struggling through the first scenario. A couple observations:

-the lettering on the readme is partially obliterated on the right edge. Making each line shorter would be helpful.

-it take a considerable amount of time to destroy all of the walls. Aditionally, you have to manually tell the peons to attack the walls to destroy them (don't think you can change this though)

-the narrow areas iside the prision pretty much doom the catapult if you allow the humans to melee it.

-nice map! This feature is probably the most useful for getting into the Warcraft II atmosphere. Imight be mistaken, but isn't the Tower of Medivh somewhere in the mountain chain seperating the swamp areas of the Horde and Azeroth?

-a great effort. Now, back to getting out of the Tower...
[This message has been edited by Shadowstrike (edited July 18, 2000).]

[WarVoid]

quote: -the lettering on the readme is partially obliterated on the right edge. Making each line shorter would be helpful.

I'll have to fix that thanx for telling me. You can view the readme in notepad by opening the file readme.dox. The storyline is crucial to gameplay and understanding your opponents and who the heroes represent.

quote: -it take a considerable amount of time to destroy all of the walls. Aditionally, you have to manually tell the peons to attack the walls to destroy them (don't think you can change this though)

Can't fix the peon thing. The idea is that this is a jail. You must break out.
Hint: Build your city inside the prison before breaking away the outer walls.

quote: -the narrow areas iside the prision pretty much doom the catapult if you allow the humans to melee it.

Uh, can you explain this? Rescue your units first, then move them out of the way and destroy the walls.

quote: -nice map! This feature is probably the most useful for getting into the Warcraft II atmosphere. Imight be mistaken, but isn't the Tower of Medivh somewhere in the mountain chain seperating the swamp areas of the Horde and Azeroth?

Thanx. Medivh is where it's supposed to be. Right on the Red Ridge Mountains. This map is of the south lands, not part of the original game. In the W1 manual. Where the map ends in the south... This one starts in the north.

quote: -a great effort. Now, back to getting out of the Tower...

Thanx.
Just wait till you get to level ten.
[This message has been edited by WarVoid (edited July 18, 2000).]

[WarVoid]

And I just e-mailed it to you Leonidas.
Thanx.

[Leonidas]

At this point in the campaign I'm out of the prison. Here are my first initial thoughts:

1) This campaign has had some real thought put into it. The readme text is very helpful with the story line. Well done.

2) The little overview map in the zip file was nice. It reminded me of Age of Empires.

3) Breaking down all the prison walls was a bit tedious, but once done, I felt a real sense of accomplishment.

4) It is nicely paced. It reminds me of what I liked about Warcraft: You have time to build; breaking out into the unknown; surprises thrown your way. I'm looking forward to finishing this campaign.


Suggestions:

1) Once I broke out of prison all units (including peasants) made a mad rush for me. Every human alliance unit was obliterated easily. I don't know if there is a way to keep the peasants from rushing my units or not (they were after my gold mine). It might have been better to keep all peasants at work in the village, with a few military units and guard towers nearby to protect them. This would make the breakout and advance on the village a bit tougher (although at this point I don't know what surprises still await me ).


Overall, very good so far. No problems of any sort. I'll keep you posted as I go...

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[WarVoid]

Good point. I had the same problem with the campaign when I playtested it myself. But I have tried various methods to try and stop those peaseants from doing the mad rush thing, but to no avail.

If I give them more forest and a bigger mine to harvest they get way too much supply and build a massive army that cannot be defeated.

The only possible thing I can try is to let the humans start with only one peasant instead of four... That might prevent them from building so many so fast...

Thanx for testing.
Level 1 is hard, just wait till level 10.

[Leonidas]

Finished Level 1:

1) Overall, very good. A nice scenario to ease into the campaign.

2) I ran into a couple of unexpected surprises! I thought those skeletons and bat thing in the enclosure were on my side! What a rude awakening when they attacked me Nice one WarVoid.

3) Another surprise when that bat thingy in the bottom right-hand corner attacked my peons - wasn't expecting that one.

4) Defeated all Alliance forces fairly easily (I built a zeppelin and scouted the whole map).


Suggestions:

1) To keep the peasants from rushing the Horde when they first break out of prison, I would suggest giving the gold mine at the bottom right-hand corner of the map to the Alliance. This will keep the peasants busy. As the horde, I found taking that second gold mine gave me way too much gold for this scenario. Just the one gold mine in the prison should be more than enough to do the job.

2) In the small village at the bottom, I would place at least two or three more guard towers, plus at least a few more military units or a couple of those bat things.


Overall an excellent job

Now it's time for level two...

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[Leonidas]

Level 2:

WarVoid - you are an evil scenario designer (hehe). I lost every unit I had I suffered a humiliating defeat. The Human Alliance actually tracked me down, encircled me, and utterly massacred me... Well done

I still haven't gotten over the shock. I thought I was a pretty good player. It's rare that I lose, especially against the computer. Your first level led me into a false sense of accomplishment.

I like the way you have it set up - you never know who is friend or foe - you have to watch out in every direction. Very well done. I want to play this level again. I am now a man on a mission...

I sure hope there's a gold mine somewhere that I can use...

Well, back to the battle...

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[WarVoid]

Glad to know i'm doing my job.

[Leonidas]

Finished Level 2:

1) Won the scenario. The key to victory is to attack the Human Alliance settlement as soon as possible. Otherwise they will build a huge army and it's massacre time. Once the settlement was destroyed, the scenario was a piece of cake. Well done. I might suggest placing two guard towers in the settlement (one at each end) to at least slow down this quick attack. But very well done


Finished level 3:

1) This level was the easiest one to finish so far. It felt a lot like the second level. I finished off the Human Alliance without even needing the troops in the enclosure in the middle at the bottom. I really took my time getting to the Alliance settlement but I didn't meet much opposition. Perhaps putting in a few more peasants and a couple of guard towers will prevent this quick and easy victory. Place one guard tower at every crossing point, and place two guard towers in the Alliance settlement. I lost only one unit.

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
[This message has been edited by Leonidas (edited July 21, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Leonidas (edited July 22, 2000).]

[Leonidas]

Level 4:

1) This scenario was unplayable from the very beginning. There was no town hall and there were no resources to build one.

2) I re-started this scenario and manually placed in maximum resources to see how it would play out. Very well done. I wouldn't change anything in the scenario except either putting in the town hall or providing sufficient resources to build one. I won this scenario, but it was a tough fight. I barely hung on when the computer landed troops and practically wiped me out. That was a close one

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[WarVoid]

Great comments/work. Thanx.
I'm jotting all this stuff down to fix for version 2. Of which you'll have to be in the credits now.

[Leonidas]

Level 5:

1) This is the toughest scenario yet. I love it! Just when I thought I was going to walk all over the computer, I got counter-attacked by it. And the attacks NEVER stopped coming. I was literally wiped out and destroyed I played at least 2 hours before these massive counter-attacks began! I had tons of gold (at first I thought it was too much. Yeah right. However, I had to use it all in defending my main city).

2) DON'T CHANGE A THING IN THIS SCENARIO. It is perfect! I actually thought I was going to clean up in this scenario - I controlled the entire bottom half of the map (128x128) and had used 3 gold mines and after 2 hours I had 50,000 gold in reserve as well as 100 fully up-graded units. And I got creamed. The computer AI destroyed every building and military unit I had, and it forced me to use up my entire reserve of gold in a futile attempt at defending my city.

3) I will go back and play this one later. In the meantime I'll move on to level 6.

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[Leonidas]

Finished Level 6:

1) This scenario was well done. After experiencing Level 5, I decided to send a dozen dragons to the north and obliterate the horde's peons and other units/buildings (hehe). They never stood a chance

2) However, I found the Human Alliance seemed to quickly run out of gold so defeating them was fairly easy. I would suggest increasing the amount of gold for the Human Alliance by 10 or 20 thousand at each of their gold mines. Also, the gold mine in the middle (the one surrounded by forest) should be reduced to maybe just 40,000 gold. Otherwise, I have way too much gold.

3) I noticed that the peasants seem to get stuck near the gold mine in the Alliance settlement directly north of my forces. Perhaps a bit more spacing around the mine will allow the peasants to mine it completely. Well done


Finished Level 7:

1) This one was a bit too easy. My suggestion is have the Alliance occupy BOTH islands with their own settlements and gold mines, etc. Do not give the horde any starting buildings of any kind. Instead, leave the back half of both islands vacant with gold mines. This way, when the horde departs in transports they will have to land on the empty half of one of the islands and build up its settlements. Leave enough forest/mountains to at least separate the Alliance from the horde for a while to give it time to build up its forces. Also, allow the Alliance to build a navy - I encountered only one destroyer during the entire scenario. If changed in this way, I believe this scenario will be a very good one to play.


Finished Level 8:

1) Very good overall. I especially liked the swarms of daemons attacking my ships. That was a very nice touch

2) But I found the scenario a bit too easy.

My suggestions:

a) Keep the small center isle with the horde the way it is. Very well done.

b) Give all the land at the bottom to the horde, and do not give it to the Alliance. I simply did not need, nor did I use these forces at all.

c) Build up the land at the bottom for the horde in the same way you did for the center island: with walls, guard towers, lots of daemons, skeletons, and at least a couple of Death Knights (fully up-graded). You could remove all of the forests in this land area and add some really creepy (and hellish) stuff - after all, it is the land of the dead

d) Plus, keep the Runestone on the center island, but move the Dark Portal to the land at the bottom. This way, the player is forced to attack both places.

If changed in this way - this scenario should present an interesting and significant challenge.

Overall, very well done. Now it's on to level 9...

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[WarVoid]

Hmmmmmm
I'll definately fix level 6 the way you said.

As for 7 & 8. I'll add some new twists that'll make it ALOT harder for you.

[Leonidas]

Finished Level 9:

1) I really enjoyed this scenario. It gave me some time to build up my forces while presenting me with some very tough defenses to breach and destroy. For some reason, I liked this one the best.

2) However, there was one small problem: there was no town hall or any starting resources with which to build one. I re-started this scenario using "lowest" resources and was able to play it through just fine. Except make sure the player has enough oil, otherwise he won't be able to build transports to invade the enemy land. Other than this, it is an excellent scenario. There is no need to change anything else I found the Death Knights to be particularly troublesome - they acted as though there was a human directing their actions. What a pest they were


Finished Level 10:

1) This scenario was very well done, except perhaps I found that I had too much gold and too many troops.


Suggestions:

a) I would suggest getting rid of one of the player's gold mines, and reducing the player's total forces to just 100. Also, one of the scout flyers could not be activated as it was over the forest and simply wouldn't respond.

b) I would remove two transports (I didn't use them at all), and I would remove 1 destroyer.

c) Finally, add a few more enemy troops and dragons.


Overall, WarVoid this is an excellent campaign. Once some of the scenarios have been fixed, this will be a challenging campaign for anyone to enjoy Thanks for letting me playtest it.

[This message has been edited by Leonidas (edited July 24, 2000).]

[WarVoid]

Thanx for playtesting. I really appreciate it.

I'll send you version 2 soon.

[Shadowstrike]

How do you play this so fast? I'm still getting massacred on level 1! I must really suck at playing Warcraft II

[Leonidas]

WarVoid:

I'll be looking forward to it

Shadowstrike:

At first, knock down all the inner prison walls. But don't destroy ANY of the outer prison walls. These will protect you. Then, build up your forces with the gold mine and trees. Stay put! Build houses (lots of them), so you can add more troops to what you already have.

Then build a couple more catapaults. And build a flying scout and SCOUT the entire map. Also build a few more Death Knights.

Once you have a large force of Grunts/Ogres/Axethrowers break down only a very small section of the wall and wait there while the Alliance rushes you. They should all be easily destroyed.

Then advance to the small enclosure in the middle and take out the skeletons and deamon.

Then advance and destroy the small Alliance village to the east. Get your peons to cut timber. Watch out for the deamon at the extreme bottom right of the map. Place some axethrowers here, or build a couple of guard towers.

Next line up your grunts/ogres in a line facing the alliance in the west. Behind this line place your axethrowers. Give them all the STAND GROUND command. Behind these guys, place your Death Knights. Now send a Death Knight from behind your line and issue the Whirlwind spell at the alliance, then run back behind your lines. The alliance will send some troops against you, but your grunts/ogres/axethrowers will take care of them. Keep repeating the above. When no more alliance troops rush you, send in the catapaults and destroy the last guard towers. When these are gone send in your troops and destroy the alliance settlement. You should win this scenario now. Good hunting

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
[This message has been edited by Leonidas (edited July 24, 2000).]

[WarVoid]

Aha

So you've figured out the strategy behind scenario 1.

I'm emailing both of you version 2 now.

Leonidas, the map editor would'nt let me add any more enemy units on level 10. So I replaced some of the Grunts with Dragons. I also removed quite a few of the allied units.

All the others have been updated properly. Including the manual and i've included a Civ2 map that details the terrain which I could'nt draw on the gif map.

[Leonidas]

WarVoid:

I went back to re-play Level 5. I think we have a problem with it. As you know I was beaten badly the first time. So I decided to try again. Within one minute of starting I was gang rushed by knights/archers. They wiped out half my forces.

Then for the first hour I was rushed by the Alliance every 2 minutes by gryphons, knights, archers, catapaults, and mages. It was non-stop. I used every trick in the book.

I had a reserve of 70,000 gold - spent it all defending my settlement. Well, I lost again.

So I re-started the level and enabled the cheat "ON SCREEN" to have a look at the Alliance settlement. Well, at the beginning of the game the Alliance is already at the castle stage, with two barracks, mage building, a dozen guard towers and many knights.

But that isn't the worst of it. The Alliance has a gold mine that contains 250,000 gold! And a short distance away there is another gold mine with 250,000 gold!

No wonder I was killing 4-5 Alliance troops for every one I lost! They just out-spent me and won through attrition. This scenario is virtually unwinnable as it stands now.

The only solution would be to send dragons/sappers to blow up both gold mines, but then the Alliance wouldn't have much gold to fight me with.

Suggestions:

1) Decrease Alliance gold in both gold mines from 250,000 to 150,000.

2) Increase the Horde gold mine (the one that starts in the Horde settlement) to 150,000.

That still gives the Alliance 150,000 more gold to start than the Horde.

Personally, I think reducing the gold amounts is probably the easiest and best way to solve the problem.

All the other tribes on the map have reasonable/modest amounts of gold. It's just the Alliance that has such an overwhelming amount.

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
[This message has been edited by Leonidas (edited July 24, 2000).]

[Leonidas]

WarVoid:

The version 2 zip file you sent me is corrupted. I cannot open it. If possible, maybe change Level 5 as per my previous message above, and then send me another zip of the campaign Thanks.

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[WarVoid]

Darn

I'll work on it.

[WarVoid]

Ok, I sent the new file. Did it work?

Shadowstrike, would you like to playtest ver. 2 also?

[Leonidas]

No - the zip file is corrupted again. I just can't open it. I have no idea what's wrong. I'm wondering, do you have a website from which I can download version 2?

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Go tell the Spartans, passerby:
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

[Par4]

Ah geez I thought this was an RPG!!! I still play MP WC2 send it to

gamma_par4@hotmail.com

I could use some SP action

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King Par4!!

There is no spoon
-The Matrix
Let's kick it up a notch!!
-Emeril Lagasse
Fresh Soy makes Tofu so silky
-Ming Tsai
[This message has been edited by Par4 (edited July 26, 2000).]

[Shadowstrike]

I finally finished Level 1. The trick was not to break out of the outer prision walls. A couple thoughts:

- Good one WarVoid. The scenario's sceemingly hard, but was suprisingly easy.
- The Horde has way too much gold. I was able to build a large force of Dragons, Orge-Magi and Catapults.
- I don't know what you're refering to, but the mad rush never occured to me.
- I never got attacked. Maybe due the outer prision walls? It would be nicer with the usual Warcraft II raids.
-The skeltons in the middle destroyed a good part of my attack force. Nice one WarVoid.
-Adding a few more Alliance towers in the outer prision walls would be helpful. Take out the Catapult in the Jail. Then, make the player build their own Catapult to take out the towers. With one Catapult given to the player, the towers are useless except to take out the occasional passing unit.
-Overall, it was fun and not too long. Now to mission II...

P.S. Yes, I'll playtest v. 2 From what Leonidas said, I don't think I'll be able all the missions.

[This message has been edited by Shadowstrike (edited July 26, 2000).]