NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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SpenceLack
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NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by SpenceLack »

Elvish Dynasty is a highly randomized fantasy kingdom simulator for Wesnoth. It's available for download on the dev (1.7) server.

The premise is that you're an elvish princess and you have to rule your kingdom. How you rule it is up to you...You can be an evil tyrant or a kind-hearted philanthropist...Each path has benefits and drawbacks. Unlike most Wesnoth campaigns where violence is the only solution to your problems in this campaign you can choose a course of diplomacy...although there are plenty of opportunities for combat if you prefer that.

Features:
*Highly randomized gameplay means you never play the same game twice (levels are randomized).
*A new "unity" magic system allows you to bolster your whole army in various ways...but enemies will also use unity magic against you, leading to new dimensions of gameplay.
*Alternatively, the player may want to invest in training their monarch up to be a powerhouse, but this can only be done at the expense of your unity magic capabilities.
*Non-conventional gameplay such as naval battles, settlement building, and problem-solving through roleplaying situations.

The campaign is complete except for the final Evil path (to be added later). Depending on the choices you make it'll take anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes from start to finish.

Known issue: IF the player's unity magic is active AND they choose to undo a recall AND they leave that unit on the recall roster it MIGHT slightly mess up the stats for that unit. Obviously, this is a pretty rare bug, but I've been trying to quash it for two months now without success. Since it's so rare and it has been the only thing holding up the campaign's release I've decided to just go ahead and release it.

I would appreciate feedback! Tell me how I can make this better!

1: Bugs! Tell me if you find them! Spelling errors too.

2: Difficulty levels. Did they seem about right? My idea of 'normal' difficulty is that a veteran Wesnoth player should be able to play through the campaign without dying provided they didn't make any careless mistakes. Note that the Coronation (Year 5) and Empire invasion (Year 10) are "boss" levels so they're supposed to be a little more challenging than regular levels.

3: Balance! Which levels were too easy and too hard and why? Did you feel you had enough gold? Did you think there a good balance between the rewards for the combat levels vs. the noncombat levels? How did you feel that happiness, unity magic, and self-training were implemented? Were the tutorials helpful or confusing?

4: Story. Did you understand the plot? Especially at the beginning I was worried that I was throwing too much information at players and they would grow disinterested. Did you feel the characters had a unique personality and goals or were they just faceless mooks to you? At the epilogue I was thinking of doing a "Your Legacy" bit which would list all the player's accomplishments over the ten years of their rule. However, doing so would mean tracking an additional 10 variables over the campaign, and tracking more variables means more lag (for lower-end machines at least). So should I implement this or just leave the epilogue as-is?

5: Randomization. Every game should be a completely different experience. Did it work? Did it make things too easy or too hard?

6. WML. I am not a proficient coder. I'm sure I made a lot of things much harder and messier than they needed to be. Any advice on improving the campaign's WML would be appreciated.

7: Fun. Most important of all, was it fun to play?

Thank you!

If you find a bug please post a message on the forum or send me a PM telling me what caused it so I can fix it.
Blarumyrran
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Blarumyrran »

Nice! The funniest campaign I've played, beats the Sherlock Holmes one even; the scenarios are also interesting (but too easy on Goddess level - in no point in the defend-yer-docks-against-pirates level, I felt like I could possibly lose - and I didn't even use up half the whirlpools! I did lose one 10g-ship though out of mismanagement, which lost me 2 public Happiness; is it meant to be so that you should only try to avoid losses, and defeat isn't even meant to be feasible?).

I'm halfway in it, just stumbled on a bug and thought I'd report it, attached. Happens after ending the turn after "speaking" with one of the ships. Also, if the turns run out, that counts as Defeat; but it seemed to me like a rational interpretation of "stop the ships", you should mention that turns running out is bad. It's not even under the defeat conditions.

Also, is increasing buying Happiness (pun intended?) the only place to use gold?

EDIT: another bug; on 5th turn coronation, Kirelle's death isn't listed as defeat condition but it is.
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zookeeper
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by zookeeper »

Blarumyrran wrote:I'm halfway in it, just stumbled on a bug and thought I'd report it, attached. Happens after ending the turn after "speaking" with one of the ships.
That's easy to fix, too: it's caused by the ai turn events, which attempt to store and unstore the ship of that side even if it's already gone. I already fixed it locally so I could get past that point, quick-fixed scenario file attached.
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6aED.cfg
(21.12 KiB) Downloaded 782 times
SpenceLack
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by SpenceLack »

Thank you for the feedback!

I posted v0.9.1 which should fix the AI turn bug in scenario 6a ("Bryony's Big Adventure"). Thank you for the help with that zookeeper!

I also updated the Coronation scenario objectives so that Kirielle's death is shown as a defeat condition.

As for using gold...buying happiness is the only consistent use for gold in the Sacred Glade. Of course if you're doing self-training you're paying in happiness, which might necessitate buying happiness in the long term, since the levels which grant Aurelia happiness are not guaranteed with the exception of the Coronation. In some of the diplomacy levels you'll have the option of spending gold on various things, but those levels are randomized so you can't count on getting them.

As for the naval defense level...I am a horrible Wesnoth player. I have lost that level, on Tourist difficulty level no less! Maybe I should increase the difficulty levels more than I already have...Certainly it is in your best interest to have a forward defense away from your fort though...the pirates will destroy your villages if they get the chance, which will cost you kingdom happiness, healing, and income.
Blarumyrran
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Blarumyrran »

Bug again; comes at the start of the 5. turn of Finale, attached.

EDIT: Restarted the scenario, this time without the bug.

And the difficulty does vary a lot - the Coronation was very hard.

Bryony's big adventure - very, very easy, but it wasn't meant to be difficult I guess
Vaan kingdom civil war - very easy
Coastal Defence - easy
Four vs Forty - easy
Jungle lairs - medium (at first I thought, whoa this looks really tough, but on second try I just sent 8 Scouts to seal all the lairs at roughly the same time, right in the beginning; by natural selection only the shipwreck's cuttlefishes, a couple of ghosts, two ogres, two wolves and a skeletal dragon ever reached me - but the cuttlefishes were quite a pain; of course the 8 dead scouts brought -16 public Happiness)
Coronation - very hard

And I really like the references all over the campaign!
SpenceLack
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by SpenceLack »

Ack! The finale bug is I believe triggered by improperly unstoring Kirielle when she shows up on turn 5.

Unfortunately the finale scenario file is 64 Kb, and I can only upload an attachment of 50Kb to the forum. But I've uploaded a new version (0.9.2) to the campaign server ...if you want to download that then replace the EDTier2Finale.cfg with the one from the download that should fix the problem as long as you restart the scenario from the beginning (so the pregame will load).

I'm also going to look at the difficulty levels as you suggested. The Goddess difficulty level is supposed to be very challenging; like the equivalent of Northern Rebirth on the Hard difficulty level. The fact you've found it mostly easy so far means I'm definitely going to look at ramping up the difficulty in a new version.

Thank you very much for the feedback!!!

I uploaded 0.9.3 to the dev server. Changelog:

*Fixes a bug which prevented Celadine from having correct stats under some circumstances in the Finale.
*Added the possibility of traitors in the Finale, depending on the player's choices.
*I noticed that Elvish Archers that lost the ambush ability after the Coronation didn't get it back if they were later promoted to Rangers. That should be fixed now.
*Completely took away the drake's unity magic in the Armageddon (Volcano) scenario.
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Iris
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Iris »

When asking for information about Floria in the Sacred Glade, Kirielle says at some point:
“The non-humans are not usually good stewards of their lands, you see. The humans and orcs overhunt, overfish, overfarm, overlog, and overgraze their livestock.”
It sounds like that should be "non-elves", rather than "non-humans".
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
SpenceLack
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by SpenceLack »

shadowmaster wrote: It sounds like that should be "non-elves", rather than "non-humans".
Oops! That is correct! I will fix that in the next update.
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Ken_Oh
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Ken_Oh »

Congrats again on another great campaign, SpenceLack.

I played on easy, got to the coronation scenario but couldn't get out of it without cheating. By the time I hit the next battle, I encountered a Sea Serpent and a bunch of Ghouls in a scenario that has no villages. That wouldn't have been a huge problem but I didn't have any units that could cure (not even my ledaer). I'll try again at some point and remember to level more characters (I'm generally bad at this).

Just one suggestion. Maybe you could make an "Are you sure?" prompt for if you end the first year without setting training. On my first game I didn't go to the training section on year 3 because I thought you only choose 1 option (Training, Happiness or the affairs elf) every year.
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Kelben
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Kelben »

Very nice job indeed :)
I have a few questions:
- Is the game finished once you get to the coronation scenario?
- To get to this scenario, is it a matter of time or is it a matter of population happiness (once you reach 100 then you get coronated)?
-WAR- Wesnoth Allied Rebels
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Ken_Oh
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Ken_Oh »

The coronation scenario always happens on year 5.

A bit of feedback: I just tried the naval scenario where you have to fight the pirates and I found it to be absolutely impossible. I tried it a few times and couldn't find out how not to get completely destroyed by turn 14.

EDIT: I'd also like to see anyone's replay if they can win Four vs Forty scenario. My first attempt had me killing 14 of them, and my second one had me with 29 kills.
Blarumyrran
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Blarumyrran »

@Ken_Oh, maybe Spencelack made them harder? Here's replays from when I played them,
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Ken_Oh
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Ken_Oh »

Blarumyrran wrote:@Ken_Oh, maybe Spencelack made them harder? Here's replays from when I played them,
Haha, thanks. I didn't know you could recruit in the naval scenario, so that's what my problem was.

I see the way to beat the other scenario now too. What you did was going to be my 3rd attempt if I ever try it.
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Kelben
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by Kelben »

Okay, I get answers to my questions yesterday.

I am facing a particuliar trouble:
- All my elvish fighters disappear systematically from my recall list.

Thanks to update. :)
-WAR- Wesnoth Allied Rebels
SpenceLack
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Re: NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

Post by SpenceLack »

Oh shoot! It happens right after the Coronation, correct?

I'll make an update ASAP. Thank you for the info!

Uploaded 0.9.4 to the dev server, which should fix the problem.

I attached the updated Coronation epilogue scenario if you want to replace it manually.

I'm still working on an update to the difficulty levels but that's going to take longer. I'm also going to add a little speech about self-training in the initial year 1 briefing, and talk a little about the ships you can recruit in the naval defense scenario per KenOh's suggestions.
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EDTier1Coronation_Epilogue.cfg
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Last edited by SpenceLack on May 5th, 2010, 12:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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