GCI/Playtesting/The Sceptre of Fire/Difficult

I played the Sceptre of Fire campaign, on Difficult. The dialogs were interesting and I really liked the story.

1 A Bargain Is Struck This scenario is not very hard, I would rate it 6/10. The scenario objectives were very clear, but killing the elvish leader was way easier than bringing the gold to the castle. It was fun to do, 7/10. I had to retry this scenario 2 times, because of a wrong approach.

2 Closing The Gates This level was a bit hard, but once you find out that you can let the trolls and the elves fight each other, it becomes a lot easier. 8/10 The objectives were clear, and it was a fun scenario to play, 9/10. I did find some problems, though. When one of my dwarfs stepped on the southernmost glyph, there was a conversation like this: "But what about this entrance? The elves can come through it just as easily as the main gate, and it cannot be closed!" "I think it an be sealed up somehow... Yes, look, activating that glyph seems to have closed up the gap." (With that sentence the gap is still open) "My glyph is on." Maybe the order can be changed, putting "My glyph is on." to the start?

3 Searching for the Runecrafter I found this scenario very hard. This was because of all the attacks by ogres, woses and wolves. 10/10 I was lucky enough to find Thursagons house almost immediately, so the objectives were pretty clear for me. I had to retry this scenario a lot, as it was hard, but I really enjoyed playing it. 10/10

4 Gathering Materials This scenario was very good, it was hard (9/10), and it required strategy. It was a fun level to play. 10/10. My main problem in completing it was the combination of the time limit with strong enemies. There was a big difference between the randomly generated maps, so some maps were a lot easier than the others, but I do not think that it should be changed.

5 Hills of the Shorbear Clan Completing this scenario was hard (10/10). Killing the leader was not very hard, but killing all elves inside the cave was very difficult. It took me quite some tries to complete this level, but it was fun anyway. (9/10)

6 Towards the Caves This one was easier (7/10), but I liked it (8/10). The objectives were clear, although not very hard. Maybe this scenario should be made a bit harder, by moving around the elf camps a bit.

7 Outriding the Outriders This scenario was not very hard (5/10), but the change in gameplay was nice. It was fun (8/10), but it should be a bit harder. Maybe give the riders stronger attacks? Or the citizens less HP?

8 The Dragon This scenario was insanely hard (10/10). Exactly what I expected from a campaign of difficult. The dwarves with berseker killed me every time, and that was pretty bothersome. I had fun with it (10/10), but there were some problems with it. I found that, when moving 1 tile further to the elves than possible in the first turn (through debug mode), there is a dialog in which Thursagon (?) wonders why there are dwarves that help the elves, but I couldn't find a way to show it while playing the game without debug commands. Furthermore, if you manage to attack the dragon, for example by making Krawg fly, the dragon won't fit correctly in the window.

9 Caverns of Flame I liked this scenario a lot (10/10), but it was not extremely hard (7/10). There was a problem with it, though. There are some cases, in which some of the elves will spawn inside the cave walls. Apart from that, there was one other flaw, although it may not be specific to this level. The shadow of a Gryphon can be on the walls of the cave, which looks rather strange.