Updated Story of the Wose

[Tet]

I had a weird error. It was in the catacomb. There seems to be a floor material which is not valid anymore. I might have played the previous version. I can not open the maps in the editor due to that error (catacombs and tunnel)

EDIT The new version plaved the 2 scenarios. The collapsing wall was not animated. There where just units dying/disapearing. I had to use this to kill the orcs. Only the WML gave me the idea what was going on.

[joshudson]

Tet, I think I got that fixed now. Somewhere a long the lines, the behavior of [modify_terrain] got changed and I didn't catch it.

[Robert]

Wow. I just finished this campaign using 1.6.4 on the Normal setting. It's good, though the ending is a bit anticlimactic. I frantically beat my way through the tunnel, only to find a small dialogue at the other side.

Speaking of the tunnel, I found it frustratingly difficult. I did manage to get through by restarting and reloading a few times, and by playing very conservatively, and by having some luck. That Troll King thing at the end could - with a bit of luck - take out any one of my units in a single turn. Still, a very creative campaign.

[Elvish_Hunter]

Wow. I just finished this campaign using 1.6.4 on the Normal setting. It's good, though the ending is a bit anticlimactic. I frantically beat my way through the tunnel, only to find a small dialogue at the other side.

I personally consider this mainline, as well as Dead Water and IftU. It's just my opinion, though.

Speaking of the tunnel, I found it frustratingly difficult. I did manage to get through by restarting and reloading a few times, and by playing very conservatively, and by having some luck. That Troll King thing at the end could - with a bit of luck - take out any one of my units in a single turn.

The only good thing to do is send woses ahead. Both woses and trolls deal impact damage, but woses have impact resistance and trolls not. There are some choke points where you can attack with more woses against less trolls, you need only to stay here and rotate wounded woses until the troll waves are finished. Your woses may also level up in doing this. No need to hurry, there isn't turn limit. The Troll King must be slowed by your Wose Shaman, if you still have it, and attacked by your mages protected by woses.
I also found two bugs: the Wose Shaman isn't showed. Only when using melee attack, a "Men at Work" sign is showed. And the Green Mage line mixes melee and ranged attacks, for example when attacked with melee will be used the ranged animation with melee stats.
joshudson, do you want my replay and savegame?

[joshudson]

Version 0.7.1 released at http://sourceforge.net/projects/wesnoth ... Wose/0.7.1

[Xudo]

Good work. I get much(many?) fun when play it. I have idea and some alpha code to make tonnel scene more dynamical.
Before piece of ground will fall down, it make some sign to player "Danger here". It can be image of shadow or something else. Each turn on each column of tiles appears "shadow", x=number of column, y=random. this coordinates must be saved in array. Next turn place and kill unit on saved coordinates. And define new shadows.
With this code, tonnel will fill not like "loading of something". I think random falling of pieces of cave will be more realistic.
NOTE: Defining of coordinates can be cycle, but original tonnel not so straight.

Code: Select all

#define TERRAIN X Y TER
 [terrain]
  x,y={X},{Y}
  terrain={TER}
 [/terrain]
#enddef
#define ITEM X Y PATH
[item]
 x,y={X},{Y}
 image=  #some image, what look like shadow of something
[/item]
#enddef

Code: Select all

[event]
 name=turn 1
  {RANDOM 4..6}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone1.x  1}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone1.y $random}
  {ITEM $falling_stone1.x $falling_stone1.y " "}
  {RANDOM 3..6}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone2.x  2}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone2.y $random}
  {ITEM $falling_stone2.x $falling_stone2.y " "}
  {RANDOM 4..6}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone3.x  3}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone3.y $random}
  {ITEM $falling_stone3.x $falling_stone3.y " "}
  {RANDOM 4,5}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone4.x  4}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone4.y $random}
  {ITEM $falling_stone4.x $falling_stone4.y " "}
  {RANDOM 4..6}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone5.x  5}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone5.y $random}
  {ITEM $falling_stone5.x $falling_stone5.y " "}
  {RANDOM 4,5}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone6.x  6}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone6.y $random}
  {ITEM $falling_stone6.x $falling_stone6.y " "}
  {RANDOM 4..6}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone7.x  7}
  {VARIABLE falling_stone7.y $random}
  {ITEM $falling_stone7.x $falling_stone7.y " "}
[/event]
[event]
 name=turn 2
 {VARIABLE temp 1}
 [while]
  [variable]
   name=temp
   less_than=7
  [/variable]
  [do]
   {TERRAIN $falling_stone[$temp].x $falling_stone[$temp].y Xu}
   [kill]
    x,y=$falling_stone[$temp].x,$falling_stone[$temp].y
   [/kill]
  [/do]
 [/while]
[/event]
#repeat something like this to fill tonnel

[joshudson]

Interesting idea xudojnik.

Unfortunately that is not a tunnel but a magic portal that is unphasing (as stated by Lich Lord Lenvan).

Maybe I can adapt some shadow-like indicator of impending doom anyway.

[joshudson]

Uploaded 0.7.2 which is mainly bugfixes for 0.7.1

Particularly:
* Auto-recall picks most-leveled units of that type again
* Lich Lord Lenvan's units advance again
* Wood mage animation timings are now reasonable.

[revenant]

I downloaded version 0.7.2, and while the story was good I did find some things that could use some fixing or improvement.

1.When I got to the scenario entitled 'Catacomb' I got a message that said ''unknown unit type''.

2.In the file for 'Catacomb' I found lots of unnecessary event tags.

3.Who are the humans attacking the forest. (Is this before or after the Rise of Wesnoth?)

I don't know if you want to deal with these things or not, your decision.

[joshudson]

revenant,

1: try again on Cacacomb with 1.8

2: No, there's really lots of events in Catacomb

3: This is definitely before Rise of Wesnoth

[Dan-the-Terrible]

I just completed the Story of the Wose campaign on normal, using version 1.6.5. I have some comments.

I found no fatal bugs, I was able to complete the campaign with no technical problems.

I did notice a couple of minor graphic glitches. The wood mage gets 3 attacks at range, but the animation looks like it is only attacking once. In the early battles, I wondered if the wood mages were even getting three attacks. The damage numbers rise normally when the mage hits; I finally had a wood mage hit three times in succession and verify it was getting 3 attacks. Also, the wose shaman seemed to have the ambush transparency displaying in all terrain, not just forest. The other woses seemed to only look transparent in forest, the only terrain ambush is supposed to apply to. I suspect this is only a graphics glitch, but I suppose it is possible the shaman was getting the actual benefits of ambush invisibility in all terrain; I don't know of a good way to test this.

The wose traits do not seem to be working properly. I right clicked on all my woses and examined their stats. I had Pine, Elm, Redwood, Oak and Willow woses, but they all had identical resistances and hit points. I found that the Willow woses did only seem to pay 1 movement point moving through shallow water, but the right-click stat sheet says their move cost is 2 in shallow water. I thought perhaps this was only a problem with the stat sheet not displaying properly, but then I took a close look at the hit points and could find no hit point distinctions. It was my understanding from reading other forum threads that the different wose traits are supposed to have minor effects on hit points and resistances.

It seemed odd that the starting fencer, Tinry, was not loyal. The dialog seems to indicate he is a friend of Londerleona, or at least she is willing to accept his advice. Perhaps in a future revision Tinry could be given the loyal trait.

The final battle scenario, The Tunnel, was astonishingly difficult. I lost count of how many times I had to save and reload. I have a hard time imagining how anyone could complete it on the hard level.

The second scenario, The High Plain, seemed rather the reverse. After examining the drakes' attack types and resistances it was abundantly clear the wood mages were virtually purpose designed to kill drakes. Half a dozen wood mages backed up by Tinry with his healing potion made short work of them. This scenario seemed a bit pointless, it didn't really feel like it moved the story forward. It was somewhat interesting fighting drakes, which are unusual in campaigns, but they felt like they were there solely for the rarity factor. Perhaps the story could be reworked with a suggestion they started a forest fire or something that would make them feel like more legitimate opponents of the wood mages.

The other scenarios seemed well balanced, tough without being frustrating.

The orc arrival event in The Trees Move could use better foreshadowing. When I first played The Oldwood, I noticed the unusual temple and moved a unit there, only to get the comment about the Ruby of Fire. I suppose this refers to an event on the same map in another campaign, but if so it isn't a campaign scenario I have played. The comment seemed rather facetious, why a put an odd bit of terrain in a map only to insult the player when he investigates? Then in The Trees Move, I moved a character to the temple again, and no event or dialog triggered at all. From that point on, I ignored the temple. But then, turn 14 comes along and a group of orcs appear around the temple, supposedly arriving through a magic gate. I found my units way out of position to deal with the orc threat and had to resort to loading a save from several turns back to prepare properly. I felt annoyed that I had in fact made an effort to scout the temple, on two different occasions, but recieved no information or other reward for my efforts. I think there is a bit of dialog where Londerleona says something like "I hear something" but this warning is so vague it gave me no clue I needed to gaurd against an invasion in my rear from the temple site. Furthermore, the actual battle with the orcs seemed anticlimactic, compared to the two larger human armies you have to defeat the orc force is pretty small.

I would recomend a triggerable event be added to The Trees Move so that if the player actually moves a unit to the temple, he gets some warning about the impending opening of the gate. Something along the lines of: "You feel a sense of dark foreboding in this place, as if something evil is about to happen." I would also increase the number and/or level of the orc units that appear.

I am considering writing a walkthrough for this campaign similar to the walkthroughs available for most of the mainline campaigns. But I don't know where I would post it if I did. The walkthrough part of the wiki only seems set up for mainline campaigns.

[revenant]

revenant, No, there's really lots of events in Catacomb

There were only event tags, no WML in the event tags; like [event][/event]

[joshudson]

Dan-the-terrible, would you mind posting your replay of Tunnel? I'll bet that normal difficulty has a balance problem that I'm unable to detect.

[Dan-the-Terrible]

Dan-the-terrible, would you mind posting your replay of Tunnel? I'll bet that normal difficulty has a balance problem that I'm unable to detect.

Being pretty noobish, I am may not be posting this correctly, but I'll try.

[joshudson]

I did notice a couple of minor graphic glitches. The wood mage gets 3 attacks at range, but the animation looks like it is only attacking once. In the early battles, I wondered if the wood mages were even getting three attacks. The damage numbers rise normally when the mage hits; I finally had a wood mage hit three times in succession and verify it was getting 3 attacks. Also, the wose shaman seemed to have the ambush transparency displaying in all terrain, not just forest. The other woses seemed to only look transparent in forest, the only terrain ambush is supposed to apply to. I suspect this is only a graphics glitch, but I suppose it is possible the shaman was getting the actual benefits of ambush invisibility in all terrain; I don't know of a good way to test this.

The wood mage has no animation frames at all. I corrected all of the other graphics glitches you noted in the current version which is for wesnoth 1.8.

The wose traits do not seem to be working properly. I right clicked on all my woses and examined their stats. I had Pine, Elm, Redwood, Oak and Willow woses, but they all had identical resistances and hit points. I found that the Willow woses did only seem to pay 1 movement point moving through shallow water, but the right-click stat sheet says their move cost is 2 in shallow water.

Exactly. The stats sheet doesn't seem to know about the resistance and movement modifiers. There are no hp changes related to the traits.

The final battle scenario, The Tunnel, was astonishingly difficult. I lost count of how many times I had to save and reload. I have a hard time imagining how anyone could complete it on the hard level.

Well from examining your replay it seems you failed to level your leader and sacrificed your leveled woses to stop the orcs leaving you woefully lacking in power for the rest of the cave. Healing potion or not, two duelists and a fencer are going to have lots of trouble getting through all those trolls.

The second scenario, The High Plain, seemed rather the reverse. After examining the drakes' attack types and resistances it was abundantly clear the wood mages were virtually purpose designed to kill drakes. Half a dozen wood mages backed up by Tinry with his healing potion made short work of them.

Clever. I never thought of that.

This scenario seemed a bit pointless, it didn't really feel like it moved the story forward. It was somewhat interesting fighting drakes, which are unusual in campaigns, but they felt like they were there solely for the rarity factor.

You're right, it's for the rarity factor. I found the campaign a bit boring with half of it on the same map.

The orc arrival event in The Trees Move could use better foreshadowing. When I first played The Oldwood, I noticed the unusual temple and moved a unit there, only to get the comment about the Ruby of Fire. I suppose this refers to an event on the same map in another campaign, but if so it isn't a campaign scenario I have played. The comment seemed rather facetious, why a put an odd bit of terrain in a map only to insult the player when he investigates? Then in The Trees Move, I moved a character to the temple again, and no event or dialog triggered at all. From that point on, I ignored the temple. But then, turn 14 comes along and a group of orcs appear around the temple, supposedly arriving through a magic gate. I found my units way out of position to deal with the orc threat and had to resort to loading a save from several turns back to prepare properly. I felt annoyed that I had in fact made an effort to scout the temple, on two different occasions, but recieved no information or other reward for my efforts. I think there is a bit of dialog where Londerleona says something like "I hear something" but this warning is so vague it gave me no clue I needed to gaurd against an invasion in my rear from the temple site. Furthermore, the actual battle with the orcs seemed anticlimactic, compared to the two larger human armies you have to defeat the orc force is pretty small.

I would recomend a triggerable event be added to The Trees Move so that if the player actually moves a unit to the temple, he gets some warning about the impending opening of the gate. Something along the lines of: "You feel a sense of dark foreboding in this place, as if something evil is about to happen." I would also increase the number and/or level of the orc units that appear.

I'll have to consider the matter. In writing this campaign I assumed the player was familiar with the Rise of Wesnoth.

Thank you for the well thought-out feedback.