So, I've recently been doing a playthrough of every campaign on hard, but with the twist of not being able to go above no upkeep, or 20/25 supply, if it was one of those missions where you can't build stuff. Funnily enough, this has so far been the only campaign in my run that I've never played before, but I've played a few other modified base campaigns
(and have seen SevenBlood's remakes from Jayborino's channel), and I think they're pretty great. And since this seems to be by far the most popular and well received modified base campaign, I've decided to give it a go.
Normally, I start off reviews by talking about the story (and potentially, the music). But here, the story is just the original one with more Easter eggs and world building, so I'll instead talk about the general design of the gameplay:
- The Scourge of Lordaeron - Enhanced's gameplay is focused around one thing, and one thing only: feature creep. This term has received a pretty negative reputation, similarly to power creep. I personally think both of these are fine, as they make games more fun, with the downside that they'll be much harder to balance. But your game will become pretty dumb if you do both of them at once, which is a fate that this campaign has luckily managed to avoid.
- If any of you are actually unfamiliar with what "feature creep" is, it's basically when a lot of (potentially unnecessary) new things get added to the game that will really overcomplicate it for people who are trying to learn it, even if they were really knowledgeable about the game before the feature creep happened. It's basically what Wake of Gods did for Heroes of Might and Magic 3, or what's happening to mobas like DotA and League. But feature creep done right can result in a game getting a lot more depth, which will lead to you having more fun, and feeling more compelled to play.
- The reason why I believe that this campaign is feature crept, is because it basically took the original one, which has about medium tier complexity, and added a bunch of new ideas on top of everything that was already in place. And it had so many new ideas that I'm not sure if I could even recall all of them right now (the number of available units was more than doubled btw, going from the original 9, all the way to 20).
- So how was feature creep done here? Was it good? Well, I'd say it's about as decent as it can get. The goal of the campaign was to give something fun even for people that know all the ins and outs of the maps, the Easter eggs, and the human tech tree. And not to act as a "fix" or "replacement" for the original, so I think it succeeded in that regard. If you're someone who likes min-maxing, the campaign could also potentially cure that habit, as you'll realize that the best way to play is to just pick a few units and mechanics that you like and mostly go with the flow, while thinking of all the new secrets as just neat bonuses that aren't really required (that, or it'll drive you absolutely crazy xd).
Now, let's talk about all of the new additions, and how I felt about them:
- This campaign is absolutely littered with secrets. So much so that you're basically guaranteed to miss a bunch on your first run. And what's funny is that none of the original camps and Easter eggs are removed, which makes it even harder to find the new ones. I'm not really the type of guy that is really into the idea of looking for hidden goods 24/7 (To the Bitter End is one of my favorite campaigns specifically because there are no Easter eggs), but if you are, then this campaign will satisfy you quite well, as every map will have at least 2 (but usually a lot more) secrets that weren't present in the original. And thankfully, there are hints towards the major secrets that you can see on the loading screens, which I really appreciate.
- One thing that I definitely don't agree with is the 300 max supply. I get that the idea was to allow players to live out the fantasy of having a giant army, rather than the usual medium sized group, but let's be honest, even thinking about the idea trying to control a 300 supply army is already giving me a headache, and the enemy bases aren't even balanced around the player having three times larger army than in the original, so I'd probably cut the max supply to 150 (or at least 200).
- The 3 different states are a pretty interesting addition, and they're great for the same reason a very similar mechanic, the Leadership Boni from Arkain are great. It gives the players a neat choice, where they can identify their playstyles and goals, and then pick the upgrade that aligns with said playstyles and goals the most. Do you want walls, gates and a ton of brute force? Go red. Do you want sustain, durability and safety? Go greed. Do you want mana, utility and powerful spellcasting? Then go blue. I've personally found the red the most fun, as having those walls and gates felt awesome, but I can see the fun of the other 2 as well.
- Most of the units had a clear purpose and weakness, just like it was intended. The majority of them were really fun, and while it was overwhelming to try and use them all, it was also very satisfying when I was successful. Lieutenants, assassins, battle mages, villagers, pack horses, footmen, clerics, war horses, architects, conjurors, bishops, royal guards and alliance commanders are all really well designed units that I enjoyed using.
- The two units that I really didn't have strong feelings about were the enchanters and cavaliers. My main problem with these two is that they just didn't have anything that made it feel like they were worth adding to the game. The only unique thing about enchanters is their mana filling, but I really don't think we needed a whole new unit just for that. And cavaliers are basically just knights with different stat numbers, unless you go for the green state and upgrade them. I think I'd replace enchanters with a building or a wagon, and cavaliers with some kind of big, slow but very durable melee unit, who would fit the "tanky tank that just tanks it out" niche.
- And the two features that I didn't have strong feelings about were the garrisons and the spellbooks on casters. They both felt very redundant, especially because they kind of make it harder for the units affected to do their jobs (footmen are supposed to be out there and tank, while casters like the priest, the sorceress or the battle mage need their limited mana for more important spells), so you're just better off not using these.
- The unit picking from the altars, and the items from blacksmiths are farms are something I'm a bit torn about. I honestly wouldn't feel sad if they were removed, as they felt quite inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but they aren't completely worthless, and some people might like them.
- Speaking of items, I enjoyed the item management much more than in the original. Having units that can actually use items is a godsent, and there were several new items with a lot of interesting effects and mechanics, with most of the interesting items being well hidden secrets. For a campaign that isn't really about heroes and items (unlike Road of Destiny, for instance), it sure did well in that department.
- And lastly, Falric being a strong demi hero that keeps his items between chapters is awesome. I've got nothing more to say here, that guy is just the best.
The maps and the tech trees weren't the only things that received change. We've also got some new heroes, and changes on the old ones:
- Arthas was a perfect choice to have as the main hero of the original, since it was the first campaign that people played, so giving them the most simple and forgiving hero in the game was an obvious choice. And the neat thing about the Arthas here, is that he still has everything that was important to his identity, but a lot of his problems were fixed too. He now has some actual offense, Resurrection became a bit better, Divine Shield became a lot worse (rightfully so), his attributes actually matter, and Holy Light isn't the only spell that you can consistently spam within fights. I do love good Paladin modifications.
- Jaina is basically the same, except that she has a spellbook, so you can now do more things with her than just summoning water elementals and channeling Blizzard. I really liked Arthas' and Falric's mounts, since they both had upsides and downsides, and it was pretty hard to pick the appropriate form for the right situation. However, with Jaina, you can pretty much leave her permanently unmounted, as you don't really gain many benefits for mounting her. I guess it gives her survivability and mobility, but that only helps if she's frequently in danger, which doesn't really happen if aren't messing up really badly.
- Weirdly enough, Muradin didn't get changes other than some minor number buffs on his ult (but that could even be me remembering Avatar's numbers wrong). I didn't really have any problems with his gameplay in the original, so I'm complaining, it's just kind of surprising to see that the campaign didn't really do anything extra with him (both story and gameplay wise), after everything I've seen with Jaina and Arthas.
- Tirion and Uther serve as optional heroes that are playable in one map, and because they're also paladins, they share most of their kits with Arthas. Thankfully, they each had a different W, which prevented them from feeling like boring copies, and it even shifted their power budgets quite decently. Plus it's really on theme that Uther got Divine Shield and Cure to show his defensive approach, and that he's a traditionalist Paladin, while Arthas gets the ability to destroy people by hitting them really hard.
Before I head into the chapters, I'd like to go over a few things that I would be happy to see fixed. But don't forget that I've played this on version 1.29, which was not the intended one for the campaign, so some bugs might be happening due to that:
- There were a lot of hotkey overlaps with many different abilities. I won't try to list them all (though I'd be willing to do it if the creators would ask me), but the one that annoyed me the most was the overlap with the enchanter's Transfer Mana and Abate Magic abilities (both having 't' as their hotkey, with Abate Magic taking priority).
- Crates apparently take 0 damage from footmen with bows. This could be intentional, since they can't hit buildings, but I'm reporting it just in case.
- The description of the Food Supplies item does not mention the actual value of the health and mana regeneration that it provides. The Weapon Supplies item also doesn't mention the value of the attack speed buff.
- Falric's Mount War Horse ability mentions the fact that he can't cast Defend in mounted form, but it doesn't mention that he also can't cast Defensive Order.
- The descriptions of the damage and armor upgrades from the blacksmith (like Black Gunpowder) don't include the new units that will be affected by said upgrades.
- I've had this weird empty hotbar with Jaina once. I really don't remember how I got it, but I know that having the Ardent Tome is probably a requirement for this bug to happen (and this hotbar is either from her spellbook, or from the Ardent Tome itself).
- Selecting mountaineers in the altar will remove your ability to train the first unit from the barracks (aka the footman/veteran). The name of the upgrade is also "Research Siege Choice - Mountaineers", while the description says that "Footmen are replaced by dwarven Mountaineers". This makes no sense when you consider that the other footman replacement was the veteran, while the other siege choices were the two mortar team replacements. And the description is also completely untrue, as your footmen won't change when you research this upgrade.
- I don't mean to be a grammar nazi, buuuuuut:
- And there's a mistake in this description as well (I'd rather not replace my mortar teams with ironfoe cannons, thank you):
- The portrait of the alliance commander turns completely black while they're saying one of their voice lines.
- There is some weird interaction between Abolish Magic and the buff from the Ardent Tome. For some reason, if you turn Abolish Magic on autocast, and then turn the buff on as well, it will automatically turn off the autocast from Abolish Magic. Turning it back on should allow you to have both on at the same time, though.
- Ironwrought cannons can attack air units, but they'll deal 0 damage even if the air unit is standing completely still. For some reason, they also have 2 different damage values, like gargoyles.
- I've said this a bunch of times, but I'm not a huge fan of the default difficulty selection. It just works in a very weird and inconsistent way. One thing that I've noticed is that it increases the difficulty to hard if you start up a map right from the previous one, without going back into the menu. Interludes can also apparently dump up the difficulty, so I've ended up playing CH3, CH6 and CH7 on hard, while I completed the others on normal (I know I could have dumped those too, but I decided not to, because it's my very first playthrough). Though the campaign definitely succeeds at making the difficulty selection feel impactful, even more so than Blizzard did.
- I have a few questions about some mechanics that I'm guessing are not bugs or problems, just things that I've failed to understand: How does the cooldown with the footman weapon switching work? (It felt kind of random, and I was surprised that they even had a cooldown to begin with.) The description of the Mana Signet item says that "If the wearer is not a Hero the item grants an additional 2 mana regeneration per second armor". That means that you gain 2 mana regen per 2 armor (so if you'd have 10 armor, the item would give you a bonus of 10 mana per second, but if you'd have 9, then item item would give 8), with buffs like Inner Fire or Defensive Order being included, right? Why do walls and gates have the ability to attack from a range of 700? And lastly, who is that Rurky guy that apparently has rats and racoons as his apprentices?
- And I know that this is a bit off topic, but I really loved some of the random jokes that were added. This one from the Defend upgrade description actually made me chuckle quite a bit, and I really liked the rat names, but pretty much all of them were great.
And now, without further ado, let's get into my thoughts regarding the modified chapters:
CHAPTER 1 - The campaign wastes no time when it comes to showing the player the kind of new things that it offers. The new path on the Gerald quest is quite interesting, and it honestly makes me feel a little bad for always completing it in the original for the tome. But I really like the new quest, because not only does it do a great job at showing you how people can sometimes pretend that they're helpless to manipulate you
(which is something that the original Warcraft 3 storyline was missing), but it's also something that you can easily miss if you aren't paying attention, though the reward is more than worth it, and you should absolutely take it over the original one. I actually managed to find both the hidden murloc, and the racoon, so I was pretty satisfied with this map.
CHAPTER 2 - Let's be completely honest, giving the player potential access to both the Alterac camp and the Stromreaver necrolyte is a bit of an overkill in the map that is originally designed to be the first non tutorial macro map that people get to play. But I think it's fine, since neither of them are that easy to recruit. At first, I couldn't figure out what the deal with the necrolyte was, and even when I came back to check it with cheat codes, it was still an absolute hassle to get him to switch sides, so I think I'd change him to switch when a Blackrock orc enters his vision range (I'm like 95% sure that it doesn't work that way right now). There was also a bit of a bug with the name of the Blademaster and the description of the shield item, though the latter was fixed in the following mission.
CHAPTER 3 - I think most secrets in this campaign are quite good, but my overall favorite has to be the Firelord here. I don't think there's a single other campaign that uses the idea of giving a summoned unit an extra passive ability, which does absolutely nothing, other than oneshot a well hidden enemy "boss". It's pretty dumb, which is exactly why it's my favorite Easter egg from the entire campaign, and the "Highly useful." from the description makes it even better
. Other than that, I think it's neat how all the new units, buildings and general features have been incorporated into the map. I also liked the changes on the villages themselves. Adding guards to the first village, and adding villagers to the priest area is a nice touch that makes things a bit more immersive. This was one of the few levels I've played on hard, and while it generally wasn't too bad, the late game was actually somewhat intense, which was definitely a pleasant surprise.
CHAPTER 4 - This one didn't really get as many drastic changes as some other maps. There are apparently some guards in Andorhall, which kind of surprised me, since I thought that the village was supposed to be completely decimated with no survivors. There were also some enemies hidden within forests, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.
(Though I am curious about what's the deal with Maim here, and why he's titled "Black Tooth Dreamer". Was he canonically sitting in Lordaeron by himself, and dreaming about his clan that I assume is destroyed? I'm a bit clueless about this.) The Medivh secret was one that kind of confused me, but I guess it was for foreshadowing, nothing more. The Kel'thuzad fight was an absolute joke in the original, and while this version didn't turn it into a Malfurion's Quest tier boss fight, it definitely became a much more interesting and challenging one. His giant AoE nuke is absolutely terrifying, and I imagine it's even scarier in hard.
CHAPTER 5 - Ok, I'm glad to know that I wasn't the only one who felt disappointed about the lack of extra heroes in the original campaign, and about how little screentime Jaina actually got
(they straight up yoink her out of your control even before you get even one map where you can try her ult... and she's literally the only playable hero in all of Blizzard's campaigns whose ult is completely inaccessible). One thing that surprised me a bit is that the outer villages
(the ones the caravan was travelling to) actually had no guards whatsoever, because this campaign has been quite consistent when it came to adding guards to all the villages, but I suppose these ones were exceptions for gameplay reasons. I didn't actually know that Tirion was the lord of Mardenholde
(which is misspelled as "Merdenholde" in the description btw), so that's a neat new information. Oh, and for some reason, the Barrage upgrade is available despite the fact that you don't have access to siege engines, or even a castles.
CHAPTER 6 - The Culling. Designer Dave's masterpiece. The "This entire city must be purged." map. This is probably the most iconic map out of all the Warcraft 3 campaigns, and the creators of the Enhanced version have actually managed to make it even more interesting and dark, which is insanely impressive. I'm honestly kind of thankful that the interlude with the Medivh has caused this map to get bumped into hard difficulty, because the hard version of this map is something that you absolutely have to experience. The original map was actually quite simple with its gameplay, but this new version adds a lot more depth, and opens up a lot of different strategies for players to try. Do you want to rush the sidequest, so the guards stall Mal'ganis while you get upgrades? Do you want to rush the cure path do get a powerful lategame at the cost of a hellish early game? Do you want to just run in and obliterate everything in your path? Or do you want to play out the map in a completely different way? Choice is the thing that keeps RTS games (or heck, basically all games) so fun, and this map gives you a plethora of choices, especially when you include everything that you get from your tech tree. There were a few things that caught me off guard, like how curing zombies does nothing but make them invulnerable, or how some of the guards don't switch after you've cured enough (I suppose Mal'ganis brainwashed those specific ones, but didn't bother with the rest? I know that some guards were kept hostile for gameplay reasons, but it's still weird). And there's no way that Arthas going evil is literally the only way Azeroth could be saved. Though that did make me reevaluate the lore of Warcraft a bit. But overall, this was a really awesome version of The Culling map, and is my favorite map from the entire Enhanced campaign. Sorry, Dissention.
CHAPTER 7 - This map doesn't really have one specific new thing that is extremely notable, but it instead has many little changes that add up to an interesting experience. The secrets are pretty funny (I never thought I would get to kill
snobolds, or travel around by going inside sea turtles
) and nicely placed. The Mal'ganis one shouldn't be funny, but I did find it funny due to how Arthas has absolutely no reaction to it. I didn't really like the design of the sidequest in the original, due to the purple base launching no attacks whatsoever on the ally base, while having an absolute joke of a defense that you can instantly rush down and obliterate. So I'm happy there's a bit more weight to the quest here, at least in hard difficulty. The ships were a neat addition, though I'd probably change how The Hand of Wrynn works. (Maybe make it have a spell that calls forth allied units as reinforcements that could either defend your base, or attack the enemy's? At least, that would be my idea.) As for issues, I've only encountered two minor ones. The first one is that veterans aren't available before the player completes the sidequest (there's no indication that they shouldn't be, especially since ballistae are available). And the second is that two items in the shop stay on cooldown forever, and therefore, are completely inaccessible.
But other than that, this map is a perfect representation of how a map from an Enhanced campaign should look like. As it feels exactly like the original, except that it's
enhanced.
CHAPTER 8 - Funnily enough, this is my favorite map out of the original Scourge of Lordaeron, but it felt like the weakest one out of the Enhanced maps. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad map at all, it just didn't have a new addition that made me go "Wow, this is awesome, and it elevates the map way above the original!", while the others all did. This partly happened because this mission is already very creative and unique, and it didn't really have a single weak point, like most of the other maps from the original campaign. I do admit that the frost wyrm boss was a good addition that was very well designed, but I'm not sure how to feel about everything else. The 3 mercenary camps selling the exact same units is something I straight up disagree with, as it removed a huge strategic layer from the map, and the fact that every camp offered something different was one of the reasons why I liked this mission so much. The tome secret inside the base is a really clever one, but I really don't think that the invulnerable trees are necessary. The player having to spot the tome, and then having figure out the idea to get to them by making a path through the trees via mortar teams should be more than enough of a requirement
(it's just a single tome of knowledge after all). I've never had problems with the design of the original tower path, but this new one is fine too. Though when I looked through the map with the vision cheat, I ended up noticing that they start off as spirit towers, but get upgraded during the cinematic. (I'd like to know what the reason behind that is. It just seems very unnecessary from the outside perspective.) Oh, and is there a way to get to these furblogs, or do they exist just to troll nosy players like me?
They drop a bunch of tomes of knowledge btw, so I'd be pretty interested to hear how they could be accessed.
CHAPTER 9 - Okay, first of all, why did the creators add an extra base if it can just be eliminated by destroying a book with 50 health? I don't see the point of having something like this, unless the player gets some kind of reward for not destroying the tome, which I suspect is not the case (but if it is, then some hints should absolutely be added). There was also a bug in the intro cinematic, as it would kind of stop after Arthas tells Falric to defend the base, which forces the player to skip the cinematic, else they would be stuck there for who knows how long. I've also managed to get my knights stuck on the Frostmourne micro section (I don't exactly remember how I did it, but I think I had them dismounted before I equipped the blade).
Now, weird bugs and base destroying tomes aside, were there any great new changes on the map? Surprisingly, there wasn't really a lot, outside of some balance changes, and Arthas' neat new spell. And this may sound weird, but I actually think that's a good thing. For how much this campaign loves to shower you with weird new secrets and map changes, it's nice to just have one big final battle where the full human tech tree gets to fight against the full undead tech tree. Final maps generally don't have very complicated designs. They usually have one extra twist to spice things up (think of the infernals from "By Demons be Driven" or the obelisks from "A Symphony of Frost and Flame"), and the original version has already had that twist in place (the Frostmourne micro section). And I genuinely really love the fact that the creator has actually recognized how the map fulfills its purpose perfectly as it is, and how it really didn't need anything that helps to spice it up like most of the other ones.
CHAPTER 10 - Honestly, I didn't expect an extra map where the play could get to try out the undead tech tree. It's quite neat that there's a map like that, even if it feels like just a modified melee map (I don't know which exact one it is, but it felt
a lot like one). Now, I could sit down and talk about my opinions regarding every change in the undead tech tree, but this review is already long enough as it is, so I'd rather just skip that (though if someone wants it, I could make a separate comment about it). Though I do have to mention that the tech trees of both the player and the enemy felt different than the ones you would see throughout the rest of the campaign. Some units and mechanics were randomly removed, and some were randomly added. The humans also didn't utilize most of their available options, but they did utilize these 2 units that were completely unavailable throughout the entire campaign for some reason. (Yeah, I possessed a worker. And yup, they apparently have arcane vaults too.)
The other noteworthy weird problems are the following: 3 of the tavern heroes (Tinker, Alchemist and Firelord) aren't available. The Anti-magic Shell of the lich guard doesn't specify its duration on heroes (it just says "Lasts 20 seconds or longer if cast on Heroes"). And one of the bandit camps is so close to the human base that they immediately start fighting right when the map loads up.
Aaaaaaand that's it for my review of The Scourge of Lordaeron - Enhanced! I honestly didn't expect to have so many thoughts on a campaign that I not only played for the first time, but is also just a modified version of a base campaign. But I think it goes to show just how creative the creator of the campaign was, since he managed to give us so much while keeping the layout of the maps and the story almost completely unchanged. But I honestly think that it was a smart call to put this new tech tree into a base campaign, as it allows the players to experiment and have fun with it without having to worry about unfamiliar maps and a story (albeit
there were some story and map changes, but you can ignore those if you so desire). For me, this was a 9/10 campaign (that could be a 10/10 if things like the hotkey overlaps would be fixed), and I'd recommend it to anyone who liked the original version and to anyone who wants to play something with a lot of new exciting tools that he's never seen/used before.
Thank you all for reading, and thanks to the mapmaker who worked so hard to deliver us the entire fantasy of what the human Alliance is supposed to be! I wish you all a great day and night!
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