Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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ydcl
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by ydcl »

I'm playing 1.7.13, with not debug mode. Don't be upset, is just a test
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Hulavuta
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Hulavuta »

I beat that level, the order I did it was that I killed the Overseer, and then freed the hatchlings, and then I killed the guards.

Also, I would like to say a word about the campaigns redesign.

This campaign was one of my early favorites, and I'm glad that it was re-uploaded to this giant new version. I like how you made it so that you actually have to "win" the first level. However, I don't really see how sending Theracar to the Jomalar tribe has to do anything with the story. (if it's mentioned later, then I haven't seen it yet.)

While there aren't extremely drastic changes, there are a few favorable changes. One problem in the code I think is that Malakar is renamable, in the first level or two.

Overall, thanks for taking over the campaign. I honestly think/hope that this campaign becomes mainline in 1.8

EDIT: Not related, but the campaign had unit data that I needed, and now that an up to date WML version of the campaign has been released, I can just use the units instead of having to convert the old 1.4 ones. Thanks for that.
F:tGJ, Saurian Campaign
The Southern Chains, a fanfic
“The difference between winners and champions is that champions are more consistent."
~Sierra
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Garrus
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Garrus »

Hi

This campaign is absolutely awesome!

First, what I really liked was: story. No mindless killing, no "walk there, kill this, the end". The story was as good as in Under the Burning Suns or Invasion from the Unknown, and the heroes all had a soul, they weren't just an empty shell.

Second, scenarios. First scenario against masses of humans looked very cool, and I liked the "a few heroes against hordes" concept of the scenario. Scenario with hatchlings was a little boring for me, but it ended fast. Then, the scenario in the mansion... that was fairly hard. I reloaded much, and then just rushed forward, took some spears and forced my way though before they could make an undestructible wall of units near the center column. Then, I remmember the puzzle scenario on water - that was interesting, but a little... frustrating. It's too luck based. Then, the River of Skulls scenario - it was perfect, it was hard, it was beatiful and I just didn't know where to send my units. ;) After about 6 reloads, I decided to recruit masses of units and send them in all directions - which proved to be a good idea. Dwarves didn't make a giant army, instead, they were blocked in small groups by few of my drakes and destroyed easily. I sent my bone dragon up to the humans with one fire breather and finished them in about fifth turn. Hehe. :twisted: Then, near the river of fire, I met nagas - they were nasty, but they didn't have ranged attacks and they couldn't defeat my bone dragon (god bless this unit!), so it wasn't that hard. And the betrayal of Theracar - easy, but very emotional. One dragon killing another dragon in one tribe - that's just wrong. With my experienced units, Theracar didn't have a chance - I won in eight turn, maybe even sooner.
Will play rest of the scenarios another time.

Third, lenght. Yeah, we all want it to last forever, but in truth, it would be boring - this campaign have just enough of the scenarios to keep the things interesting, but to let the user think about how great the story was and maybe even force him to play it again.

Fourth, quality. Words and senteces used in the game reflected the drakes nature (or so I think ;)) and along with good graphics, it just soothe the eye.

Anyway, here are my tactics for some of the missions on normal difficulty:

1. scenario - just make a lot of fire-breathers and send them on the horse riders. Don't worry about killed dragons, just defeat the leader - and be prepared with Theracar in the south, to send him out right after you kill the horse riders.

2. scenario - surround the enemy's units, this shouldn't be that hard - just make sure to free the hatchlings AFTER you kill the rider's chief - those spearmen guarding them can be quite nasty.

3. scenario - rush forward as fast as you can with as many units as you can - brake into the armory, take spears, and reinforce the units who, for the moment, were near the center column - do NOT let the enemy get through, because then it will be a prolonged fight in both hallways and you certainly don't have time on that.

4. scenario - lure the wolves, experience your units - you need them strong. Don't let the strong ones die. Hold off the elves (again, experiencing your units and protecting the strong/hurt) and stop the caravan.

5-10. scenario - just don't waste all your gold - keep recalling units and level up more of the recruited, but, don't waste units - heal the wounded, protect the near-leveled up

11. scenario - fun starts here... recall your best units, recruit masses of new units, and get 'em to all the directions - Bone Dragon up, to defeat the humans fast, most units south, another big group south-west, smaller one to the west (holding of purple dwarves, I think) and smaller one to the east - there are just some villages and a dwarf leader, if I remember. Try to capture most of the villages, you will need all the gold you can acquire, and don't forget to kill the dwarf leaders - if you defeat most of them, you have a one trouble less. Protect the weak, let them heal in those few villages. There some spaces where dwarves can't go, but your dragons can fly to - use them! Make sure not to lose all of your 3rd level master units - they are very good damage dealers to those masses of dwarves. Near the river of lava, unite again all your units - defeat the giant (very strong) spider - I used my favorite bone dragon and fire-breather's claws. Then, go straight into the lake - if you already met the nagas and defeated them from afar (which works for the best), just head straight west with Malacar.

These stragies might not work for you - I'm just sharing my experiences.

Anyway... keep up the good work! Wesnoth itself is superb game, but these user-made story lines and units... that's just awesome!

Under the Burning Suns, Invasion from the Unknown & Flight to Freedom are the best campaigns I ever played in Wesnoth - remember, battle and maps make the scenarios good... but story makes the whole campaign good!

With greetings from Czech Republic
Garrus Sar'Maerlen

P.S. Sorry for some english mistakes.
Legends live forever. In our memories.
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Nova
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Nova »

Garrus: good to hear from you, and I'm glad to hear you've enjoyed the campaign! It took a lot more time and work than I expected to get Flight to Freedom fixed up to where it is now, and a few kind words mean a lot to me. Knowing that people are having a good time playing the campaign makes my work worthwhile.

Thanks for sharing your tactics: I'll edit them into the tactics post above, so others can benefit from your strategies. The Manor and River of Skulls are, no question, among the most difficult.

I've had some messages about the second scenario -- the one with the Hatchlings -- and most people agree it's one of the weakest scenarios. I'm trying to think of ways to change it to make it more fun and exciting. Any suggestions you might have would be appreciated.


I'm also toying with the idea of allowing Kogw a second AMLA. In fact, I'm going to make a new post about that right now...
edit: No, I'm not. I guess I need someone's permission to create a poll, which is what I was going to do. I'll figure it out later.
"Never underestimate the power of the fish rush." "I don't think nagas are fish." "Fish Rush!"
---
Flight to Freedom: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... &start=690
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Hulavuta
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Hulavuta »

The Manor was pretty easy in my opinion.
F:tGJ, Saurian Campaign
The Southern Chains, a fanfic
“The difference between winners and champions is that champions are more consistent."
~Sierra
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Garrus
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Garrus »

Nova -> Well, if you want, I can give you my tactics for every mission and write you some ideas I think would make the game even better. Expect these in a few days, It'll take a while.

umm, when I'm thinking about it now... I hope doubleposts are not a bad thing here. Could just edit this post, don't know why I didn't.
Last edited by Garrus on March 6th, 2010, 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Legends live forever. In our memories.
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Garrus
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Garrus »

Tactics & tips for Flight to Freedom campaign on normal difficulty.

1. scenario - Survival
Spoiler:
2. scenario - Rebellion
Spoiler:
To this a little easy and boring scenario, I'd add some kind of units, probably those who should take turns with the Overseer on guard and were late, because there was a storm on the sea. They should start near the Malakar's starting position in about third or later turn, to make a player use tactics - to make him leave some units behind to protect Malakar. They wouldn't follow him into the manor, because they'd need to kill those drakes left behind.

3. scenario - The Manor
Spoiler:
4. scenario - Caravan
Spoiler:
I would add an orcish leader fighting with the humans and elves in the forest to the south, wanting the caravan for himself. You wouldn't need to fight him to the moment the caravan get's into his hands - then, you'd need to "free" the caravan he's holding near his camp - which wouldn't be too hard to conquer, because most of his units would be at the elf's capital.

5. scenario - Blue River
Spoiler:
6. scenario - Southern shore
Spoiler:
7. scenario - The Open Ocean
Spoiler:
This map is not Wesnoth like, it's not KISS like. It's the only thing which annoyed me through the campaign. If I were you, I'd 1) skipped the scenario, or 2) make it a classic hit & run scenario - have a castle, have your ships, have 2 or 3 enemies and water monsters - it would be much more interesting, I think. Just let us hire the ships, get another human ship leader there, an orc warrior with nagas... or maybe some mermen? And surely those monsters everywhere. That would be good... at least for me, I don't know about the other players.

8. scenario - Landfall
Spoiler:
9. scenario - The Drake Escape
Spoiler:
10. scenario - Underground
Spoiler:
11. scenario - River of skulls
Spoiler:
This is surely the best scenario - these are exactly the parts which make the game great.

12. scenario - Rockfall
Spoiler:
I'd add some more fire elementals. Maybe one more of those strongest.

13. scenario - Betrayal
Spoiler:
Some kind of Theracar's dying sentence would be appreciated, or in-battle conversations between Malakar, Theracar, Kogw and maybe some other random drakes. I don't know if it would actually be interesting or annoyable - hard to tell.

Will add other later. As you can see, I don't have much what I'd change - because the campaign is truly, really great. I bow to your work on this campaign - tis' truly a masterpiece and I hope it will make into the mainline campaign soon and maybe get a Czech translation - I myself like the english better, but some people from my country would prefer Czech language. :)
Legends live forever. In our memories.
Kristjan

Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Kristjan »

Garrus wrote:
7. scenario - The Open Ocean
Spoiler:
+1

Make it possible to avoid sea serpents on normal difficulty like kogw suggest, include one or two safe paths. Map should be about exploration, not glitching enemy ai.
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Nova
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Nova »

I've never been fully comfortable with that scenario. Fun Fact: it used to be about fighting orcs on the ocean, but gradually morphed into the form we know today.

When I took over the campaign, my first goal was to get everything running, my second was to polish what was already there. After reaching those goals, I went on the road, redirected my business focus, moved, fell in love :D, started writing a book, set aside writing a book, and generally filled my life with busy activity. I did other stuff, in other words, but haven't forgotten about Malakar.

My third and forth goals, which I hope to start in September, are to make the code more elegant and precise, and to implement more meaningful changes to the campaign. The Open Ocean is definitely going to get some serious facetime.

If this were a TV show, then my first action was to give everyone plastic surgery and make sure the cameras keep rolling. Now I'm looking at hiring new actors altogether.

Something about that metaphor makes me feel ill. Moving on.

---

Short form: Thanks for commenting. More substantial reworkings are on the way in a few months. All suggestions are useful.
"Never underestimate the power of the fish rush." "I don't think nagas are fish." "Fish Rush!"
---
Flight to Freedom: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... &start=690
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Kristjan

Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Kristjan »

Nova wrote:... The Open Ocean is definitely going to get some serious facetime ...
Meanwhile I declare this scenario unwinnable and highly recommend using cheatcode :n to skip it. If there is actually any solid strategy for normal difficulty without save/reload and high luck then I would like to know about it, preferably for Wesnoth version 1.8.3.
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Nova
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Nova »

Kristjan wrote:
Nova wrote:... The Open Ocean is definitely going to get some serious facetime ...
Meanwhile I declare this scenario unwinnable and highly recommend using cheatcode :n to skip it. If there is actually any solid strategy for normal difficulty without save/reload and high luck then I would like to know about it, preferably for Wesnoth version 1.8.3.

It's too luck-based as is, I'll give you that, but it's not unwinnable. In fact, you can win more often than not; which I admit is still a little flawed as a good player should almost always win a map they know and understand. Still, I feel comfortable saying over 50% is possible; enough that it's certainly not hopeless.

Curve just barely west of the first island with the Unforgiver and stop for nothing. One ally should try to lure as many enemies as possible away, the other should follow just behind you and soak up attacks. Really, the largest luck portion lies in how many turns that second ally can survive. The Unforgiver should be able to avoid meeting anything head-on with a minimum of moving back-and-forth, but the biggest danger is that when enemies fall into line directly behind you, they're faster than you are. The second ship stops them from advancing fully - at least for a few turns. By the time it sinks, you can have enough of a head-start that they can't catch up before the map is done.

You'd think that a second ship to act as a shield would be more valuable; but somehow it's never helped nearly as much as I'd expect. I suppose it's because the turn the ally ship goes down tends to be the turn that overwhelming force is brought to bear. If you've got, say, three serpents and a handful of fish that can reach your defense in one turn, they don't care if they're sinking one ship or five -- they'll sink 'em. Hopefully, by this time, you've got a good head start. So I prefer to have a decoy ship heading in the wrong direction. If it can get, say, two enemies to follow it in the wrong direction for a few turns, that's just as good as killing those enemies because they'll never make it back to the fight.

That said, if skipping it entirely increases your enjoyment of the campaign, then I guess you've got my blessing. There's no important speeches mid-map or anything you'd miss, really. And the point is, after all, enjoyment.

---

I think the direction I'm leaning in for the future is keeping the basic structure of the map, but making your second ally some kind of armored ship that can withstand a few more hits from the serpents -- although I'd have to think of a good story reason as to why you have one of those -- and letting the Unforgiver spawn a Glider every few turns. This might represent time needed to get suited up, or find where the weapons were kept on the boat, or something. Direct combat would still be best avoided, but not so immediately devastating. And it would reduce the randomness of a one-or-two-turn death of your shielding ship, which is currently too likely. To be effective, it needs to survive for at least three turns, and you don't honestly have much control over how long it lives. Or not enough, anyways.

I'll probably give the Unforgiver "skirmisher," too.


Although, once again, these changes are a few months off. Life... tasks me.
"Never underestimate the power of the fish rush." "I don't think nagas are fish." "Fish Rush!"
---
Flight to Freedom: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... &start=690
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Ankylosaur
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Ankylosaur »

Hey I'm playing Flight to Freedom for the first time and I think I've found a serious bug...

After I pass through Falling Rocks, and go on to "Betrayal" ... the other character... 'Therocater' or whatever his name is (the one who is trying to usurp me), he just isn't there in his castle. Its just my units and an empty map... after 30 turns I lose. Odd?

As a note, that character did die early on in the Campaign. The pirate told him to stay back and he would patch him up. Hadn't seen him again since... and I still don't.


Anyone else with this problem?

Thanks
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Nova
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Nova »

Wow. That's weird. No one's ever reported that before. You didn't skip any missions (cheat), did you? Theracar, dead or not, should reappear at the end of The Drake Escape (iirc) and stay alive after that. Could you please post your savegame, so I can see what might have gone wrong?

I haven't had much time lately for Flight to Freedom, but I'll make an exception here because that does sound like a serious bug.
"Never underestimate the power of the fish rush." "I don't think nagas are fish." "Fish Rush!"
---
Flight to Freedom: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... &start=690
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Ankylosaur
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Ankylosaur »

Hey, thanks for taking a look. Sorry it took so long to post this, I've been out in the desert. I'll be interested to know what you find. Let me know if you need anything else.

Thanks
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Ankylosaur
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Re: Flight to Freedom (drake campaign)

Post by Ankylosaur »

Ah, and I'll also include my save from Drake Escape.
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