Invasion from the Unknown (legacy version)

Review and rate user-made single and multiplayer campaigns and scenarios.

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Iris
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Iris »

Scottar wrote:But it was mentioned in one of them as a game
Assuming you meant IftU or AtS, no, it was not.
Invasion from the Unknown’s initial warning wrote:Although not strictly required, players are advised to become familiar with the stories, characters, and historical events presented in Descent into Darkness and Under the Burning Suns before playing this campaign.
After the Storm’s initial warning wrote:Although not strictly required, players are advised to become familiar with the stories, characters, and historical events presented in Descent into Darkness, Under the Burning Suns, and especially Invasion from the Unknown before playing this campaign.
Nowhere it says “To Lands Unknown”. And if you want to provide feedback on TLU, this is not the topic for it.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
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Scottar
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Scottar »

shadowmaster wrote:
Scottar wrote:But it was mentioned in one of them as a game
Assuming you meant IftU or AtS, no, it was not.
Invasion from the Unknown’s initial warning wrote:Although not strictly required, players are advised to become familiar with the stories, characters, and historical events presented in Descent into Darkness and Under the Burning Suns before playing this campaign.
After the Storm’s initial warning wrote:Although not strictly required, players are advised to become familiar with the stories, characters, and historical events presented in Descent into Darkness, Under the Burning Suns, and especially Invasion from the Unknown before playing this campaign.
Nowhere it says “To Lands Unknown”. And if you want to provide feedback on TLU, this is not the topic for it.
Your right, I stand corrected. I confused TLU's similarity of the Abyss to Chaos of the other 3 campaigns, but not the same,.... right. :doh:
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Kymille
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Kymille »

I see taptap mentioned it last month, but just in case it was forgotten, Galas does not get the improvements promised for the dwarvish armor at the beginning of part II.

Also, I saw in the code for the scenario in Part I where you go across the desert that there is dialog about an Elvish spirit, but no such guy appeared. Not sure if I missed a trigger of some sort, but I suspect something is wrong.
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taptap
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by taptap »

Thanks for the update. Will take the old save files and start the second part of the campaign again.

I had some compatibility problems until I deinstalled Settlers of Light (or Ageless Era) with the Aragwaithi sprites. Also, which is probably not due to some other compatibility problem the Elvish Trapper has an "image not found" text blinking in the defense animation (and the witch in the healing animation).
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xhh2a
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by xhh2a »

(1) What difficulty levels and game (& campaign) versions have you played the scenario/campaign on?
Campaign 1.90.7, game 1.11.1, difficulty Medium
(2) How difficult did you find the scenario/campaign? (1-10)
4
The difficulty of the campaign was similar to a U shape. Had some difficulty at start before I realized Elfish Trappers were almost a requirement in that level as they had the ability to slow. It got quite easy in the middle. The start of the second half was quite boring with the large map due to me having recallable units from part 1 which was wiping the floor with the enemies. I understand it can't be too hard since one could start there without recallable units, but it would be nice if there was a bit more challenge somehow. End of the game got quite hard.

The main reason why the middle of the game was easy for me was due to having gold reserves of 1200-1600 on average between levels (basically gained by purposely stealing villages from allies and avoiding ending maps early), even with the multiple gold wipes. The hardest levels were where I had no ability to recall or recruit (fixed gold at 0) since some of the power ups you can find in earlier levels (berserk, drain) I assigned to my advanced units that aren't in the core hero party.
(3) How clear did you find the scenario/campaign objectives?
Very clear EXCEPT for early finish bonus.

Some levels where it said no early finish bonus, I got more gold per unplayed turn at the end than I was getting from villages a turn even when I had every village. On other levels were it said there "was" an early finish bonus, my gold/turn finished early amount was less than the amount I was earning from villages each turn.
(4) How clear and interesting did you find the dialog and storyline?
Very well done!
(5) What were your major challenges in meeting the objectives of the scenario/campaign?
Sometimes forgetting which units could and could not cross impassable areas and not finishing on time.
Turn limits/shroud/dead ends. Almost didn't finish the crossing the desert (part 1 at the beginning) level due to turn limits and sending units south before hitting the dead end.

Overall I think the turn limits are rather generous on Medium for some maps assuming the player has played it before and knows where to go, balanced if not.
(6) How fun do you think the campaign is? (1-10)
7
(7) What, if any, are changes you would have made to the campaign to make it more fun?
Maps feel a bit too large and repetitive in the second half, it is not fun to slog through the same enemies over and over and over again in the caves. More gold wipes might make the middle maps more challenging, perhaps mention for the power ups that it might be a good idea to assign them to the starting heroes since some scenarios you only have access to them.

In addition that last few levels are all in dark places with the same types of enemies which makes some of my leveled up units for lawful races or races not good versus those enemies unusable and a clutter in my recall list. Maybe a way to have more Light Mages or something so I'm not always choosing to recall the same units.

There was a bug where my Elfish Hero unit which I gave both the Berserker and Drain potions to lost his Berserker trait on his melee attack after a few scenarios.
(8) Any grammatical mistakes in dialogue/story text?
Not really, there is an error with the description for Sorceress unit where the description alternates genders.
Electra
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Electra »

Shadowmaster,
I have been playing Invasion from the Unknown and really enjoy the game. I was able to reach Invasion from the Unknown part 2 campaign "Welcome to my Lair." However, a recent problem has come up with the Aragwaithi warlocks and sorcerers. In the Invasion from the Unknown part 2 campaign "Arrival of the Battlaion" I am unable to recruit.

If I try to play the next campaign "Dawn of the Great War", I am unable to do so because I receive this error message: Error while playing the game: game_error: unknown unit type: Aragwaith Warlock

If I try to play the campaign I was on "Welcome to my Lair", I am unable to do so because I receive the error message: Error while playing the game: game_error: unknown unit type: Aragwaith Sorcerer

I tried removing the campaign and redownloading it from addons, but still had problems.

I have a speculation why this isn't working:
- When I clicked on my Aragwaithi Strongbow in "Arrival of the Battlaion" and looked under the Aragwaithi race:
- the wizard was level 2. It advanced from a witch (not a warlock). It advanced to a sorceress (not a sorcerer).
- As a result, I was unable to recruit in "Arrival of the Battlaion" because of the witch/warlock discrepancy.

Could you fix it please?
Electra
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Electra »

Espreon,
I have been playing Invasion from the Unknown and really enjoy the game. I was able to reach Invasion from the Unknown part 2 campaign "Welcome to my Lair." However, a recent problem has come up with the Aragwaithi warlocks and sorcerers. In the Invasion from the Unknown part 2 campaign "Arrival of the Battlaion" I am unable to recruit.

If I try to play the next campaign "Dawn of the Great War", I am unable to do so because I receive this error message: Error while playing the game: game_error: unknown unit type: Aragwaith Warlock

If I try to play the campaign I was on "Welcome to my Lair", I am unable to do so because I receive the error message: Error while playing the game: game_error: unknown unit type: Aragwaith Sorcerer

I tried removing the campaign and redownloading it from addons, but still had problems.

I have a speculation why this isn't working:
- When I clicked on my Aragwaithi Strongbow in "Arrival of the Battlaion" and looked under the Aragwaithi race:
- the wizard was level 2. It advanced from a witch (not a warlock). It advanced to a sorceress (not a sorcerer).
- As a result, I was unable to recruit in "Arrival of the Battlaion" because of the witch/warlock discrepancy.

Could you fix it please?
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taptap
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by taptap »

@Electra: Did you try to remove Ageless Era and / or Settlers of Light.
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Astoria
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Astoria »

taptap wrote:@Electra: Did you try to remove Ageless Era and / or Settlers of Light.
This shouldn't affect IftU at all (Except graphically). Also, I'm fairly sure the error has been fixed (it had to do with some changes to Aragwaithi id's not being implemented in the scenarios).
Formerly known as the creator of Era of Chaos and maintainer of The Aragwaithi and the Era of Myths.
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Ranger
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Ranger »

:eng: Allow me to quote a part of the description of Chaos Magus: "...As demonic essence touches chaotic mages, they gain the sharpness of mind and way of thinking more resembling demons than human beings. Trapped between humanity and demonity, they seek no turning back, but aspire to ultimately rid themselves of all mortal bounds, including their vulnerable souls. Yet, this mutation process has some important side effects on them as they turn into demons; their resistance to arcane attacks is gradually reduced to equal that of the true demons."
As we can see here the author's idea was that chaos mages percieve human nature as a weakness and thus trying to get rid of it. It reminds me of dark cultists and how they are fighting against another basic human weakness: mortality. And of how they end up as undead creatures, considered abominations by other people. Striking similarity, da? :wink: Well, I 've been trying to look more into how the chaos mages are enhanced by this demonic essence. After all, getting rid of a soul is not like cutting nailtips? I suggest that under those masks, worn by high rang priests, they are no longer resemble normal human beigns. Like a ghostly white faces with interwined black veins under, yellow eyes with cat-like pupils.. that sort of thing. While this would seem to be a work for a portrait artist, I immagine that these changes would also affect their physical condition and thus in-game statistics.
For now I could suggest gradually change their resistances lowering arcane and raising resistance to physical damage and also giving them at 3lvl a healing ability (regeneration) like that of Chaos Warlord to better refelect the level of augmentation and their importance for the Empire.
P.S. On the side note: I would like to compliment those who worked on this campaign. You trully did a wonderful work. Personally, I consider this campaign worthy to be included into the mainline list.
Calling a spear a spoon and then saying "our spoons are different, WINR," is kind of unsatisfying, isn't it?
ElComandante
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by ElComandante »

Playing IftU E1 v1.90.7.1 on Wesnoth 1.11.6.

So far I like the campaign. A minor annoyance is the number of all the new unit types, I'd welcome a few new unit types *less*. I'm right now on scenario #9 "The Library" and I still have to consult the help file to list all the new units: chaos invaders, bowmen, invokers, raiders, hounds, headhunters, droids, imps, fire faeries, warrior spirits, verlissh, demons... and all of their respective advancement trees - that's A LOT! I admire the effort of creating all those units, but the campaign would've been just as fun with only half of those thrown in. It is still an original and fun campaign, but it'd be nice not to have this what-the-heck-is-that feeling all the time :).

Anyway, the reason I wanted to post here is a story-related comment: having played UtBS quite recently and having helped Trolls and not Dwarves, the story is not being (sort of as it really depends on player choice) consistent with the mainline campaign by having Dwarves keep saying how grateful they are to Quenoth for their help. Heck, I didn't help them, I helped slay them! :) Perhaps a lighter reference to Quenoth would serve the story better - e.g. "there is a record of their passage and how they helped dwarves by flooding the caves to destroy the trolls".
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Iris
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Iris »

Unfortunately, neither of those points are going to change (not even in the rewrite). The first is a conscious design choice on my part both in IftU and AtS, and the second is actually a key plot point in both campaigns.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
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doofus-01
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by doofus-01 »

ElComandante wrote:...

So far I like the campaign. A minor annoyance is the number of all the new unit types, I'd welcome a few new unit types *less*. I'm right now on scenario #9 "The Library" and I still have to consult the help file to list all the new units: chaos invaders, bowmen, invokers, raiders, hounds, headhunters, droids, imps, fire faeries, warrior spirits, verlissh, demons... and all of their respective advancement trees - that's A LOT! I admire the effort of creating all those units, but the campaign would've been just as fun with only half of those thrown in. It is still an original and fun campaign, but it'd be nice not to have this what-the-heck-is-that feeling all the time :).

...
Just wanted to say that I like the "what-the-heck-is-that feeling". Can't please everyone...
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Blarumyrran
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Blarumyrran »

when i tried to play iftu - i didnt make it very far - this was definitely one of my main turn offs D:

i think the biggest part of it is the resistances. resistances are the kind of thing that you do not memorize completely probably - but you develop an intuition for roughly what they are for any unit. so introduction of new resistance sets should go gradually because it's not something you read and memorize, it's something you develop intuition for because in the game overall there are far too many resistance sets to memorize.

and then suddenly blam iftu just pushes in like 20 different new resistance sets in like the first or second scenario?
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown

Post by Kingslayer »

Blarumyrran wrote:when i tried to play iftu - i didnt make it very far - this was definitely one of my main turn offs D:

i think the biggest part of it is the resistances. resistances are the kind of thing that you do not memorize completely probably - but you develop an intuition for roughly what they are for any unit. so introduction of new resistance sets should go gradually because it's not something you read and memorize, it's something you develop intuition for because in the game overall there are far too many resistance sets to memorize.

and then suddenly blam iftu just pushes in like 20 different new resistance sets in like the first or second scenario?

Well, it's not like you can't check by a simple hover-over. I don't even know my default era resistances, and frequently check those as well.
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