Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.14)

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
AxalaraFlame
Posts: 690
Joined: December 4th, 2011, 1:07 pm
Location: Pasadina, Caltech

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8, 1.9, 1.10)

Post by AxalaraFlame »

Not sure. There are some lossing characters issues on my add-on server. I guess it is a wesnoth bug, not exactly sure what it is. Do you have a link towards add-on downloading sites?
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8, 1.9, 1.10)

Post by mattsc »

Uh. I just use whatever Wesnoth wants to use as the default. add-ons.wesnoth.org in my case. But if you're really having trouble, here it is attached as a .gz file (the 1.9/1.10 version).
Attachments
Galuldur-1.9.gz
(701.66 KiB) Downloaded 349 times
User avatar
Chief_Chasso
Posts: 132
Joined: December 15th, 2012, 2:36 am

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8, 1.9, 1.10)

Post by Chief_Chasso »

Hi mattsc, I just wanted to say I was really impressed with this campaign. Job well done. I've tried a half dozen or so other umc's, but this one is my favorite so far (it's the only one I've completed straight through thus far). Actually, a friend recommended Galuldur to me to try. Overall, I thought the difficulty was perfect (I played on medium)- challenging, but not frustratingly hard. I also liked the brisk flow of dialogue and plot, which I also found to be humorous at times. There are a lot of great parts (too many to list), so I just thought I'd share my most memorable part and part that gave me the most difficulty.

Most memorable part: Scenario 9 "Interlude"
Spoiler:


Most difficult part: Scenario 3 "Eldryanic Swamps"
Spoiler:
Again, I just wanted to say this was an excellent campaign. Really nice job.
SP Campaign: Rally For Roanic
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8, 1.9, 1.10)

Post by mattsc »

Hey Chief_Chasso: Thanks much, great to hear that you liked it!
Chief_Chasso wrote:There are a lot of great parts (too many to list), so I just thought I'd share my most memorable part and part that gave me the most difficulty.

Cool, thanks. As for those thoughts:
Chief_Chasso wrote:Most memorable part: Scenario 9 "Interlude"
...
This was really a great way to let the player know the last scenario is next.

Glad you appreciated that. When I wrote that, I wasn't sure how it would come across, but so far nobody has complained about it, at least not openly. :) I like it too (obviously, or I wouldn't have put it in), but I can't take full credit for that. I stole the idea from one of the old-style RPGs. If I told you which one, I'd give away how old I am though. :lol2:
Chief_Chasso wrote:Most difficult part: Scenario 3 "Eldryanic Swamps"
Interesting, I usually think of the next one (Altwald) as the hardest, although there's probably not much of a difference. The trick in the swamps is to play extremely defensively through the initial enemy waves, and then switch to offensive mode once they don't have quite as much of an advantage any more. Anyways, glad that you enjoyed it! Thanks again for the feedback.
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey -- now on 1.12 ser

Post by mattsc »

Galuldur's First Journey is now available on the 1.12 add-ons server.

Besides the obvious (porting of the code to Wesnoth 1.12), the main changes were made in order to make the story and, to some extent, the mechanics consistent with the events of Grnk the Mighty. However, even though there are many things that I would do differently these days, I tried to keep these changes minimal and stay with the original character and difficulty of the campaign. Only one scenario (S6 Southern Route) was changed significantly, but that does not affect the difficulty of the campaign by much; if at all.
Complete changelog for Galuldur v1.2.0 (caution: contains spoilers):

Code: Select all

----- 1.2.0, 17 May 2015 (port to Wesnoth 1.12) -----

- Ported the campaign to Wesnoth 1.12
- Adjustments to the code and the story for a variety of reasons:
  - Consistency with Grnk
  - Update dialogs, objectives, animations, unit movements, scenario setup, code
    etc. to be more to my liking and consistent with what I am doing these days.
  - Bug fixes (mostly minor)
  - However, no serious rebalancing or story changes were done, except for S6
    Southern Route (see below)
- Some other player visible changes (potentially) worth mentioning:
  - Added disclaimer that campaign does not follow Wesnoth canon
  - Renamed Altwald -> Ultwildir
  - Time of day now carries over directly from scenario to scenario (most
    scenarios)
  - S1: Added a message that the wolves are in west
  - S5: make troll ambushes weaker, to make them less of a tomato surprise
  - S6: completely rework the scenario, to avoid it being a null scenario
  -> S7: adapt to changes in S6 (e.g. make undead appear in all cases, less
    gold dropped by Norfindil, etc.)
  - S7: Added Gertburt's tomb
  - S8: Give Aher-Tot some starting units to prevent quick leader assassination
  - S9: Renamed Frank and Arthur to Fred and Ron ;-)
  - S10: Renamed Saher-Tot to The Master
  - S10: Gave the Chief some starting units
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey -- now on 1.12 ser

Post by mattsc »

I just uploaded Galuldur's First Journey v1.2.1 to the 1.12 add-ons server. It's a minor update, consisting of a few mostly cosmetic changes that I've been wanting to do but hadn't had time for before.
Galuldur's First Journey v1.2.1 Changelog

Code: Select all

----- 1.2.1, 2 June 2015 (minor update with mostly cosmetic changes) -----

- S5 Journey Back: give Galuldur automatic ownership of villages he owned in S4
- S10 Final Battle:
  - Change appearance of portals
  - Add message first time a player-controlled unit steps on a portal
- [adjust_facing] tag: tweak behavior to give more naturally looking results
- Use last_breath vs. die events more appropriately
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by mattsc »

Galuldur's First Journey v1.2.2 is now available on the Wesnoth 1.12 and 1.13 add-ons servers. The main changes are simply to make Galuldur work on both 1.12 and 1.13. The rest is all very minor and/or internal clean-up.
Galuldur's First Journey v1.2.2 Changelog

Code: Select all

----- 1.2.2, 28 March 2017 (port to Wesnoth 1.13) -----

- Ported the campaign to Wesnoth 1.13
  - Majority of changes simply to make everything work in both 1.12 and 1.13
  - Tested on 1.13.7
- Some minor wording changes
- A few changes to AI aspects, with negligible effect on gameplay
- A few internal changes and clean-up that were not needed for the porting
User avatar
Poison
Posts: 171
Joined: August 13th, 2017, 4:54 pm

Re: Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by Poison »

Hi, just a question (didn't find many comments about this); is this campaign supposed to be balanced on hard? Because right now Eldryanic Swamps seems unbeatable to me, no matter what I do, I lose in a war of attrition. Also it seems (very) unlikely to beat the clock :( I'm attaching one of my best efforts and the initial save (running really lucky), honestly I don't know what else to do there - I was defending NE with literally 1 unit alone. I have 12 units (and no way to get more) and before my loss I've killed 44 and there were 20 left! I mean surely the terrain advantage can't compensate for such a difference (especially given the fact that the AI spams units that ignore terrain defense making it useless)? Village stealing doesn't seem like an option too, there's no way to outmaneuver skirmishers or assasins who are everywhere on this map and to make things worse, saurians have pierce damage against your scouts :( For the same reason, leader assasination to make things quicker also doesn't seem like an option. If anyone has an idea or advice I'm all ears. My suggestion for this map is to put more villages near your keep (at least 2; I mean I had 4 units in the end and still -3 income!!! ), make at least one orcish side unable to recruit assasins and reduce the saurians villages a little (in the end the saurian leader had +15 income allowing him to spawn a skirmisher every turn; even one less village will make this one saurian every two turns which could be crucial) or partially redesign the map to allow village stealing somewhere somehow.
Galuldur-Eldryanic_Swamps.gz
(7.83 KiB) Downloaded 213 times
Galuldur-Eldryanic_Swamps_replay_no_way_Poison.gz
(41.86 KiB) Downloaded 191 times
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by mattsc »

Poison wrote:Hi, just a question (didn't find many comments about this); is this campaign supposed to be balanced on hard?
Hi Poison, to answer your question, yes, the campaign is supposed to be balanced on hard. Back when I created it (that was for Wesnoth 1.8, I think), I did test and balance it on both medium and hard. And I do not remember making other than cosmetic changes since then. But of course, there could have been some smallish changes that add up and affect balance, and if I remember correctly Eldryanic Swamps is the hardest scenario of the campaign.

Having said that, I did replay the entire campaign on medium when I ported it to 1.13 and your starting gold (183) seems low compared to what I had (268). Obviously you won't have as much on hard, but this difference seems too large. As for leveled units, we have about the same number, but I have very different unit types: 2 marksmen, 1 hero, 1 sorceress, 1 druid. In general, I play Galuldur mostly without scouts. Having two captains and a rider as three of your four leveled recalls might not be the best unit composition for this scenario on hard difficulty (and personally I wouldn't choose that very often in general, but I make no claim that that's a general rule, just not what I do).*

As for this scenario, I think you do need at least one healer, and you do have a shaman that is one kill from leveling, so that would probably work (you don't use it though in your replay). Other than that, you need to sit back and play very defensively for a while and then find the right moment to charge and eliminate the orcs before time is up. It is intentional that it's supposed to be a bit tricky to figure out how to do that and work with limited resources (gold/units/villages). I don't really want to change that aspect of the scenario. I'm not sure though whether that is possible with your starting gold and units.

So ... I'll try to replay Galuldur on hard sometime and make sure that I did not inadvertently made this scenario impossible. I have lots of other things going on right now though, so it might take a week or two, even for just the first three scenarios. If it is indeed too hard now, I'll make some changes. In any case, thanks for playing and the feedback (and sorry for the long-winded reply!).


*Disclaimer:
Spoiler:
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by mattsc »

Hi Poison,

I'm stuck on Fred at the moment and am taking a little creative break, so I finally got around to starting a play-through of Galuldur on hard. I've done the first 3 scenarios now, and I found Eldryanic Swamps "comfortably doable". I mean, it's not easy by any means, but it is meant to be quite difficult. It is definitely not 'nightmare' level, there are much harder scenarios out there, both in mainline and UMC. So, I am sorry, but given that there are two easier difficulties available, I don't see a need to make the 'hard' difficulty easier.

If you want to see how I did this, I've attached the replays of the first three scenarios (Wesnoth 1.13). I was playing pretty carefully at times, but overall it was pretty comfortable and, at times, even careless play. I would certainly play the middle part of Eldryanic Swamps (around Turns 15-20) somewhat differently if I played it again now and, for example, avoid that completely unnecessary loss of two Elvish Heroes on the same turn.

I'll continue playing the next scenarios over the next couple weeks and can post the replays too, if you're interested.

In any case, thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!


EDIT: Just had a quick and dirty check of S4-Ultwildir. That one seems indeed a bit tight on hard. It's still doable, but I think I might make that one a little easier on hard.
Attachments
Galuldur-Eldryanic_Swamps_replay.gz
(46.43 KiB) Downloaded 218 times
Galuldur-High_Plains_replay.gz
(30 KiB) Downloaded 274 times
Galuldur-Decampment_replay.gz
(18.5 KiB) Downloaded 265 times
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by mattsc »

Hello again: So ... I agree that S4-Ultwildir was harder than it needed to be. While it was doable, it wasn't really fun any more IMO.

I've made these adjustments to the balance (not uploaded to the add-ons server yet, but should be easy enough to change locally). With that, one still has to pay some attention, but it is now possible to "just play" it rather than having to be super careful with every single move.

My replay from after those changes were made is attached. I'm not super happy with how I played some of that, but it's certainly good enough.
Attachments
Galuldur-Ultwildir_replay.gz
(47.89 KiB) Downloaded 292 times
User avatar
Sudipta
Posts: 217
Joined: June 10th, 2015, 6:37 pm
Location: Meditating under a waterfall, Heartfangs, Wesnoth

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by Sudipta »

Hi, I see this campaign has not received much feedback for a few years. I played Galuldur’s first journey on BfW 1.13.11 on Hard.The campaign was fine until the last two scenarios when everything went to hell. Here’s my feedback.
Scenario 1 – Simple scenario, three way fight between elves, orcs and wolves. Turn 18/20
Scenario 2 – Nice map. Took the secret route.
Scenario 3 – Standard fight Turn 27/35
Scenario 4 – Difficult fight. Allies managed to kill the trolls. Around 90 forest tiles burnt. Turn 21
Scenario 5 – Almost ran out of time In this one. I Had to recall some veterans to kill all the enemies. Turn29/30
Scenario 6 – I was taken aback by the plot twist. But, there’s way too many enemy ambushes. Almost ran out of turns. Got less than 10 carryover gold. Turn 27/28
Scenario 7 – This one seems plain impossible. I had 200 starting gold while the enemy had 500. Plus they got 200 gold extra during turn 7 and then some time afterwards another enemy leader shows up with 300 gold. What’s worse, they have 1 mp through forests. By the time Galuldur shows up, Vaddan’s side is dead or dying. Two turns leader a bunch of high level undead with 300 gold show up as well, as if there was a lack of enemies. :P I used debug mode to kill them :D
Final Scenario – There’s a lua error that says unit does not exist id = Vaddan. There’s no starting keep either. I guess using debug broke the scenario *sigh* A pity.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Playing Wesnoth since 2010, still there is so much left to play
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by mattsc »

Hi Sudipta, thanks for taking the time to post your feedback, that's much appreciated. I played through Galuldur on hard back when I created it (a long time ago!), so it's definitely not impossible. However, as you can see from my post just before yours in this thread, I am not opposed to making it easier now if my opinion on it changed. So, I guess I need to continue playing on hard past scenario 4 and see what I think about the rest these days. :P

You should be able to kill a lot of the enemies in the second-to-last scenario in debug mode, but I think at least the leaders need to be killed in normal combat. Don't quite remember, it's been too long.

As for this:
Sudipta wrote: March 11th, 2018, 6:15 pm I was taken aback by the plot twist. But, there’s way too many enemy ambushes.
Yeah, if I wrote the campaign these days, I'd probably change how the ambushes work a bit. As for the plot twist, sorry, that's part of the story. If things like that bother you, you shouldn't play my other campaign (Grnk), it's much "worse" in that respect. ;)

Thanks again.
User avatar
Sudipta
Posts: 217
Joined: June 10th, 2015, 6:37 pm
Location: Meditating under a waterfall, Heartfangs, Wesnoth

Re: Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by Sudipta »

No No, i enjoyed the plot twist. I meant i had not foreseen it. I loved t interlude part too. Really clever of u.
As for your previous post, that was 3 months ago. :P u haven't made any progress in 3 months lol. And u made the campaign more than 7 years ago.. much has changed in 7 years no ? i really think u should complete the campaign soon and see for yourself how unbalanced it is esp. towards the end. First off, some of the scenarios need to have larger turn limits. I played pretty fast and still barely made it in a couple cases. S4 Uthlindir (forgive me if spelling is wrong) is on a whole other difficulty compared to the first 3, but i liked the challenge. But the one where i lost, i'm pretty sure that's unwinnable. Tell u what, u show me a replay where u beat it without cheating and ill withdraw my words :D
i'll maybe give the last 2 scenarios another try when u rebalance them. Ciao
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Playing Wesnoth since 2010, still there is so much left to play
mattsc
Inactive Developer
Posts: 1217
Joined: October 13th, 2010, 6:14 pm

Re: SP campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.12 & 1.13)

Post by mattsc »

Ah, I misunderstood the part about the plot twist. Good then. :)

But you seem to have mistunderstood something too. The campaign is finished. It was finished when I uploaded it the first time 7 years ago. Everything I have done since then were some tweaks, as well as adjustments to changes for new Wesnoth releases. And yes, while a lot has changed in Wesnoth, things that affect playability and balance of Galuldur remain pretty much unchanged. That's why I did not play past scenario 4 three months ago (which is the scenario somebody else had commented on), because I didn't consider it necessary (and because I am busy with other things). That scenario is meant as the mid-campaign hard battle, so it is supposed to be more difficult than the three before. But it was still winnable (in fact, you proved that, since I have not yet uploaded a version with the changes), it was just harder than I (now) think it needs to be.

So, at some point, I'll play through the remaining scenarios on hard and see if I changed my mind on how hard they should be. While Galuldur may not have changed a lot in 7 years, I might have. ;) Actually, I mean that in all seriousness, what I consider "hard enough" has changed. Don't hold your breath though, I have very little time for Wesnoth these days and I have much bigger fires to put out ... :(

Anyways, thanks again and I am glad you enjoyed it up to the last two scenarios!
Post Reply