Re: Swamplings - v1.1.7 - for 1.8 and 1.9

[Wendek]

I think I didn't get myself understood about the traits.
I don't mean losing the traits once they level up, I'm fairly sure this would be extremely hard or even impossible to do. (but then again I know nothing about Wesnoth's engine). I mean that some of the recruited lvl 0s should also be able to spawn with regular traits, maybe with less chance or so. What I meant is that in the current situation, the player is going to rely too much on either a huge army of lvl 0s (which is extremely annoying to use, to be honest, especially when half of them have like 3 movement points), either his rare "good" units. In either case, I don't think it brings much to the game.
On big maps, to be honest I can't even imagine myself having to move an army of 20-25 lvl 0s two hexes per turn because they can't really move in swamps so they clutter on the main path. Especially, I don't really like the propsect of having to do this for several scenarios, losing in the meantime most of the said army.

Actually, what about another, new trait ? A trait that could be "stronger" -the term is bad because we have "strong" already but I can't come with something better right now- for instance. It would pretty much serve the purpose of having no trait at all. Goblins with this trait wouldn't have any disadvantage, without having the "improving" traits that they probably shouldn't be able to get. (yes, this contradicts my previous point somewhat, but nevermind ). Basically, they would be goblins but stronger than most of their kind, yet inferior to "real" units because this trait is still less useful than, say, "quick" or "resilient".

It's your campaign of course, you do what you want. But moving a huge army so slowly, with it being made of 3-2 damage units... could get frustrating. Thankfully the scenarios so far have been different, but I know most campaign writers tend to make bigger and bigger battles as the end approaches. And having to recruit say 30+ goblins in the last scenario ? I sure hope I won't have to do that.

[boru]

Once you get a bit further along, you'll see the campaign has other units that are faster and are not hampered by the goblin spearman traits. Additionally, there are very few maps that could be called "big." It's a relative term, but I only consider one of the 16 maps to be "big." Also, most are not swamps, so I don't think you'll be troubled by the movement issue.

Traits that cancel out the default traits? I think I'll pass on that suggestion, thanks.

There are bigger battles ahead, also smaller battles, unlikely allies and other assorted surprises, so stick with it. You won't need 30 goblin spearmen to win the final scenario.

[tr0ll]

Traits that cancel out the default traits? I think I'll pass on that suggestion, thanks.

In case that isnt clear to non-english natives, "i'll pass" is an idiom for "no". I dont think it means he will pass that suggestion on to developers for implementation. See also FPIs 25 and 29.

[boru]

Traits that cancel out the default traits? I think I'll pass on that suggestion, thanks.

In case that isnt clear to non-english natives, "i'll pass" is an idiom for "no". I dont think it means he will pass that suggestion on to developers for implementation. See also FPIs 25 and 29.

Correct, tr0ll, and sorry for the lack of clarity there. "I'll pass on that" means, "thank you very much but this idea does not meet my current needs."

(I'm happy to hear any ideas for my campaign, even frequently suggested ones.)

[Wendek]

Quick feedback : is it normal that the Saurian Leader's AI is so suicidal in the scenario after the one against Cat ?
Here's a screenshot : http://i56.tinypic.com/2s00j8y.jpg
It probably had a very high chance to kill my poor Nosferatu, but still I find it weird that it jumped on me like that at the third turn. Didn't kill it because I needed experience, heh.
Also, he did around the same later in the scenario, which got him killed easily that time.

I'm playing on Easy, if that's relevant.

[boru]

Interesting. The only change I made to the saurian ai for Thunderstruck is, I made the native wolves, rats and bats less of a target than the goblins, so if a saurian had the choice of either attacking a wild thing or one of your army, they would attack your army.

The saurian leader does not have the "passive leader" ai (which is often added). Therefore he will leave his keep and attack nearby targets if the ai tells him he has a chance. I guess the opportunity of killing a dread bat was irresistible to him.

[Atz]

The AI is often careless with its leader. It's probably because most scenarios have it consider your units far more valuable than its own. In general, that is, not just in this campaign.

[Wendek]

So I finished this. Very nice campaign for sure. A couple remarks :

Spoiler:

In the last scenario, I never made use of the Orcs. Of course I'm playing easy so it wouldn't have been the case in another difficulty, but what I mean is that by the time they arrived, Philips was "dead" and so was the Archduke's army. I really like those settings where people ally for a good reason, but here it was a bit cancelled by the fact my allies never got to attack, hehe. And if there's an event triggering when the orcish leader attacks/kill someone, then I missed it, heh.
So, you could either make them arrive sooner, which might make the scenario too easy (I had quite a bit of veterans and since this looked like a final battel, I recalled them all, but this probably wasn't the case for everyone), or give Philips some more gold so that he can't die so fast. Not for the Archduke though, as more cavalry could hurt a lot.
You could as well reduce slightly the merfolk's gold to achieve the same kind of goal, although I appreciate the fact that I had a useful ally. In a lot of campaigns, allies don't do much, and having the merfolks in this mission is definitely a good thing.
Just a few suggestions. Not being too patient myself, it didn't bother me to finish that scenario easily, but for people who put more emphasis on tactics than me, it might seem weird. Then again those people probably don't play Easy.

Spoiler:

This is just a minor issue, but it would be good to know that Knights will have advancement later. Obviously you can't disclose that there will be Dire Wolves, as this would be a pure spoiler. But what I mean is, since I'm the kind of people who likes high-level units (here again, some people would probably disagree as everyone has his playstyle), I leveled most of my riders into the pillager line while I would probably have gotten a few more Knights if I had known, and I would have gotten them earlier. Especially, I gave all the important characters the pillager line, whereas flavor-wise Eeep should probably have been a Knight.
As I said this is minor and not gamebreaking in any way. Still... what about a "placeholder" lvl 3 unit ? Something like "Goblin Chevalier", that would have around the same stats as the Knight (I doubt a lot of people would even get them, but they'd work towards it instead of giving experience to other kind of units) and would then transform into Direwolf Riders ? I understand that this could look a bit awkward flavor-wise though, as at that time there's supposed to be only one Dire Wolf.
There might also be another option I don't see, but anyway in the end it's your campaign, not mine.

Oh, also something else : why does the Moonbeam lose his hatchet-throwing attack when he levels up ? Sure the bolas have the priceless slow, but sometimes having a ranged attack that actually deals damage can prove very useful. Such as against a unit that poisons in melee, heh ? I'm not a fan of the RiPLIB philosophy most of the time, but here I think it could be nice.

Overall a campaign I liked very much : having a goblins-centered campaign is kewl, I like the characters (though I don't really get why Misris isn't considered as important as the others... poor girl, looks like she's only here because every campaign needs a female character somewhere) and gameplay-wise it's easily one of the campaigns I liked the most. Although it doesn't have the strongest storyline I've seen, it isn't very far away and said storyline is still really solid.
Also I like the fact it's placed in a very old age. It's nice to discover stuff instead of having everything in the world already known, heh.

I'll play your next campaign, if you ever make one. =)

[boru]

Orcs in the Full Circle scenario are more useful if you play on regular or challenging. There is a bit of dialog when/if the orc leader dies but nothing else. I might have the orcs show up a bit earlier in easy games, we'll see.

As for the Goblin Knights vs Pillagers, I'm hoping the variety of units will increase replay value. I could argue that Eeep is just as flavorful as a pillager, since Clammie told him to take apart a merman's net and figure out how it works. So it could go either way, as the player decides. I don't really understand how a placeholder unit that most people won't be able to get to, would improve the campaign.

I've revised the Moonbeam unit so it will retain its hatchet.

The problem with Misris was mainly, too many characters. In the later scenarios you have to keep alive Clammie, Eeep, Kennison and Skandix. Adding a fifth to that list would be a drag on gameplay, therefore Misris becomes a disposable character sometime after Thunderstruck. She has some dialog but she doesn't really effect the story line.

I'm not really sure I'll ever do another campaign. Maintaining this one is really difficult for me, since my wml skills are subpar. I have a lot of other ideas for stories but for me, the fun part is the writing, and the coding is like root canal. I appreciate your comments though.

[Wendek]

I don't really understand how a placeholder unit that most people won't be able to get to, would improve the campaign.

Crudely said, it's the difference between having a purple exp bar -aka, this unit won't go further so the "intelligent" trait is wasted for instance, and for an important character, it means he'll have less hps so he'll be harder to keep alive in tough missions- and a blue one that says "Hey there's something afterwards".
But then again, it's just a minor thingy.

As for wml... it's exactly why I never made a BfW campaign while I have ideas for one. :p I know myself too well, sadly.

[tr0ll]

I'm not really sure I'll ever do another campaign. Maintaining this one is really difficult for me, since my wml skills are subpar. I have a lot of other ideas for stories but for me, the fun part is the writing, and the coding is like root canal. I appreciate your comments though.

Could be time to solicit an apprentice maintainer who likes WML It is good to have code review and plan for continuity, regardless, given that the game engine keeps changing. I for one would love to see your campaign authoring style applied to new work, and it is important that you be happy with your role in the BfW project! (Er,, to head off any funny ideas, no i am not volunteering )

[boru]

Could be time to solicit an apprentice maintainer who likes WML

Yes, I agree about the "maintainer" part of that. But "apprentice" implies that I'd be able to teach him something, when what I need is someone with the proficiency to maintain a complex project with thousands of lines of wml. They would need to be able to commit to Swamplings for a minimum of six months, dropping the project in September to pick it up again "one of these days" is not gonna be acceptable.

I for one would love to see your campaign authoring style applied to new work, and it is important that you be happy with your role in the BfW project! (Er,, to head off any funny ideas, no i am not volunteering )

It would be a blast to write something new for Wesnoth, but for now I am focusing all my Wesnoth time on Swamplings. I don't expect that to change any time soon.

[perseo]

I don't know if it is now reported but after the scenario of the dwarves and the thundersticks... When you recall units you can recall 2 "eeps" and 2 "kennison" I solved it easily, I licenciate one of each but maybe is a little wml that you must corret. Great campaign otherwise, I'm really enjoying it.

[boru]

I don't know if it is now reported but after the scenario of the dwarves and the thundersticks... When you recall units you can recall 2 "eeps" and 2 "kennison" I solved it easily, I licenciate one of each but maybe is a little wml that you must corret. Great campaign otherwise, I'm really enjoying it.

Hi Perseo,
People have reported that bug to me, but I've never been able to reproduce it ... can you tell me if you are running version 1.8 or 1.9?

Also, if you have a saved game file with this bug, please post it on this thread!

[perseo]

I'm playing it on ubuntu 1.8 and the event might be happen cause of the changing of recalling list for the leaders (to eep in previous scenario). I discharge the units and know they don't appear in the save file, sorry. Why don't you try to kill this units in thunderstrook scenario. Other question: Who did the story drawings of the city, the gate, the waterfall, and the moon? And how? Whi what kind of drawing material?