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

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by mattsc »

Just from memory (I will confirm this later), this sounds like it is supposed to be.
Spoiler:
Thanks again for the feed-back.
Last edited by mattsc on December 8th, 2010, 10:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by mattsc »

So, yes, I confirmed that that is how I set up the story to play out. I think that Vaddan should not get a special speech if he is killed only half a turn after he joins. Or anytime in Scenario 2. He has not "earned" that sort of respect yet.

However, you are right that that caused the problem you encountered. I thought I had checked that this worked, obviously I had not. Thank you very much for not only finding the problem, but also identifying the cause of it for me !!

I just uploaded v1.0.2 which has this problem fixed. Unfortunately, you probably need to go back to S2 if you want to be able to play S6 (or S7, depending on which path you choose). However, if you send me your save file from the beginning of S6/7, I should be able to insert Vaddan there for you. Or at the beginning of S4, if you want to see how the dialogue is supposed to go.

Thanks much,
mattsc
Sneezy
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by Sneezy »

Hi Mattsc-- thanks for making the fix. Glad to help. I'll probably back up and re-play the whole thing, since I kind of bumbled around in S3 and was scrambling right at the end. I'm in the middle of another (kind of long) campaign at the moment, so it'll be a while before I can get back to it.
(By the way, did Vaddan return in Scenario 4? If he is killed in S2 or S3, he is supposed to reappear about half-way through the opening dialog in S4 ....
He only sort-of returned; that's what tipped me off that there was a problem. He wasn't on the map, but the other characters were talking to him, and about him, but he wasn't saying anything (because he wasn't there!). And I was offered the choice of who to follow, etc. So he was sort-of there, but not in any useful sense. Thanks again for your work on this.
--sneezy
Tet
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by Tet »

Great campaign. really recommandable. About this Vaddan outlaw: Just make him hero straight away. Or sack the Vaddan branch if he dies completely. Than you should give a hint early. But Vaddan is playing in the sand before dinner. So he is important right?

I like your surprise attacks and appearing reinforcements. Keeps it much more exciting than just giving the evils more gold. It really makes it like: How am I supposed to fight that? And than you get a reinforcement too. Really nice.

I am in the last scenario, but I have to restart, because I did not recrute all level 3 units. The funny staff is used on defence sometimes and than it is usually doing a kill. Can you fix that? Like never on defence?

I had to play most scenarios with minimum gold. Am I doing things wrong? I still have a huge list of mighty elves and an orc soverign.

However when Vaddan turned leader I just gave a level3 druid and got most of the new level 1 slaughtered. Maybe be more specific in the amount of units to give. I expected a run scenario not a fight through level 3 trolls, outlaws and a few undead. It is not really possible to go back to give more units later after 2 scenarios have been played. However the Vaddan team made a lot of level 2s in the second Vaddan scenario. So it is not a problem gameplay wise. I just do not like to waste units like the AI.
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This is "must-play" campaign! Don´t read the thread, unless you need help. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31895
mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by mattsc »

Hi Tet,

Thank you for the comments !! I tried to make the scenarios somewhat varied with a couple surprises along the way, but nothing that suddenly make things impossible.

Warning, another set of long rambling replies ahead... :) (and I'll put the whole thing between spoiler tags, just in case)
Spoiler:
Again, thanks much for the comments. If you have any more, please let me know.
mattsc
Tet
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by Tet »

I played on normal. The last szenario was introduced more than properly. It is common rule to recruit everything for the last. I was just daring.

If you mange all the Vaddan options correct it will be even better. I just left him alive. Boring.

The hints about the northern run slaughter: The hints where there, but there was on top Vaddan saying: little resistance up north. So if you believe in Vaddan you go north and hope for a cake walk. A few fighters include the 2 level3 heros if you ignore the word additional. Moreover the troops are directly reducing the gold for the burning forrest thing. I think it would be better to allow separate choosing in a inbetween szenario, where the troops are not a loss to the current budget. Or just say very strict to sent at least 3 experienced troops with the 2 heros. A lvl3 ranger is a higly defensive unit, if you would have him;)

About the magic stick. Galuldur got it with me. You can give a wapon the flag: never on defense. You can change that later too. Look into the wapon "shield". I believe it is used there. Might be in some add on era. Basically there is a rating which you can use to prevent the best wapon to be chosen automatically. Both have an other range wapon. That will be the default defence option than. Should be no big deal for your programming skill. I believe even I could handle by copying code.

Again you play extremly well with what is called here tomato surprise to make the campaign exciting. It is working very well and is totally recommendable. It would make repeated play a lesser challenge, but there is a higher difficult grade.

You do not really have additional branches. It is keep Vaddan and go north. You are just catchng players who loose Vaddan and go south. So that would be avoided if doing a replay.

However this campaign did change the way for me how to see a so called tomato surprise. If this would be the fact with the important fellows, you could make it into mainline with this well balanced, dense story campaign (Of course only my humble opinion).
My Temple Project: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=29800
This is "must-play" campaign! Don´t read the thread, unless you need help. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31895
mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by mattsc »

Thanks a lot for the kind words! Given that this is my first ever campaign, I had no real idea what other players would think of it, so it's great to hear that.

About the tomato surprises, as I have said earlier in this thread, I originally wrote this campaign just for myself and didn't even know whether I would make it public. So I set it up in a way that I personally like, which includes lots of surprises and some unexpected turns of events. For that same reason I am not generally opposed to tomato surprises. Having said that though, I think that strictly speaking there is only one big tomato surprise in the campaign (the choice you can make in S2, which is as I said up there intentionally meant to be more difficult one way - but definitely still playable) and maybe a couple minor ones. The other surprises, as I see them, are just surprises without the tomato. But then, I probably have that wrong and honestly I don't really mind if they are tomatoes, as long as the game play is enjoyable. And I am very happy to hear that you think so.

Now, given the two choices you are faced with in S4, those are specifically not meant to turn into surprises, tomato or otherwise. I meant the "not much resistance" as compared to what you are facing in the given scenario, and tell the player to take ~3 +/-1 units along with the two heroes, but I see how this can be interpreted differently (especially missing the word 'additional' is very easy, as you point out). I will change the dialog to make that clearer. I do want this to happen in S4 though - for some reason I find it particularly appealing (probably because of some sadistic tendency :)) to have to divert resources to another purpose while facing this huge enemy army.

Also, of the three possible branches one can take here (1 along the northern route, 2 along the southern), I have played all of them many times to make them as equal in difficulty as possible. So that is specifically not meant as a tomato surprise. I personally prefer to take the long way through S6 (southern route), but that's because I like the story that way, not because it's easier or harder. Everything you encounter when taking the southern route, you also get in the northern route, just combined into one scenario instead of in two.

Actually, one more thing on this (sorry, I can never keep it short!), there was a huge potential for a tomato surprise in the last scenario (not the thing with the staff, but the enemies faced), which would have been really unfair. I took this one away by having another ally show up and warning the player specifically of not making that mistake. I'd be interested to know whether that was clear enough.

Magic stick: thanks, I will do something along those lines. I already take it away, but only for one turn, if the first use in that scenario is for defense, so it shouldn't be a problem to adapt that (although it sounds like I am doing that more complicatedly than necessary).

So, thank you very much again! Great comments. I probably won't have time to make those changes until the end of next week. I'll post an update then.


PS: I have started to think about another campaign, the story of Galuldur's main enemy, that I want to approach somewhat unconventionally also, but I really don't have a clear picture of that yet...
Tet
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by Tet »

Mentioning Supergobo. With me he disappeared without any comment. He got smacked by my elvish ally. Some lines would be great. (Where is he? he disappeared without a trace. or so). Keep in mind that this theme is allready in the swampling campaign. On top, I had to finish a lizard sidekick of Supergobo later, as Supergobo attacked very active. Maybe just finish after the two main bosses are toasted.

About tomato surp. For me that is just vocabulary. Somebody defined Tomato Surp.: Any surprise, which makes you play differently, when you know it. This makes campaigns inherent more boring short term, but keeps them more exciting for replay. S2 was not really a big surprise, as it was anounced proberly. Go north for easy and south for hard or so. So if there is a differentiation or if there is a negative connotation other than that: My deepest apologies for using that word.
My Temple Project: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=29800
This is "must-play" campaign! Don´t read the thread, unless you need help. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31895
mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by mattsc »

Oh, no, no apology necessary at all. Sorry if my reply sounded defensive, it wasn't meant to be. The tomato thing is just linguistics, IMHO, and it sounds like you agree. I was just trying to describe how I look at it, the main thing being that it should be fun - and fun is clearly a very subjective thing. Also, I think I have said this previously, I am not opposed to making changes to the way how things are set up. I have the campaign I wanted to write (the original version), if somebody told me that this was indeed mainline material if I only change this or that (it probably needs a couple other things in addition to the potential elimination of red fruit), or if the change would simply increase the enjoyment lots of people got out of it, I'd see what I can do. So I very much appreciate any comment that I get, both supporting and critical ones.

Btw, I just saw your signature. I'm slow, apparently. Thank you for the glowing advertisement!

As for Supergobo. Uh, I never thought of giving him some sort of parting speech. Now that you mention it, it's absolutely obvious that he should have one. Duh! Thanks. And being done when is is killed makes sense too, even if the lizard is still around... Hmm.
mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by mattsc »

I unexpectedly had some time to work on this today, so I made 3 of the 4 changes we discussed and loaded v1.0.3 to the add-on server (the fix of the Vaddan-dies-in-S2 branch was already done in v1.0.2). I also changed the zip file attached to the first message in this thread. The one change I did not make was ending the last scenario when Supergobo dies while another leader is still alive. I am 50/50 on this and left it the way it is (mostly out of laziness; for now).

Tet, I attached the changelog that comes with the download below between spoiler brackets. Could you have a look and see if I addressed your concerns with that. I think I did, but I might have forgotten something...

Also, does anybody know if 1.8 campaigns are compatible with 1.9? I know 1.6 -> 1.8 was not, but when I loaded Galuldur in 1.9, there was no error message and I played the first half scenario without problems. I'd like to make it available in 1.9 also, but won't do so until I know for sure that it works. I think there are some differences (colour vs. color etc.), so I'll play through all the options once first, I guess.

Thanks again!!
Spoiler:
Tet
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by Tet »

About the lizard: You could make him come out of the swaps or make him defend supergobo. Going after him takes a couple of rounds to no avail. Currently he is just hiding in his swamp castle behind lots of swamp.
My Temple Project: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=29800
This is "must-play" campaign! Don´t read the thread, unless you need help. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31895
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Alarantalara
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by Alarantalara »

mattsc wrote: Also, does anybody know if 1.8 campaigns are compatible with 1.9? I know 1.6 -> 1.8 was not, but when I loaded Galuldur in 1.9, there was no error message and I played the first half scenario without problems. I'd like to make it available in 1.9 also, but won't do so until I know for sure that it works. I think there are some differences (colour vs. color etc.), so I'll play through all the options once first, I guess.
Right now, the answer is usually yes. Most of the changes made so far are new features (terrain, new tags, etc.), not modifications to old ones. The color tags are renamed, some terrain macros no longer work, and some Lua has changed as well, but everything else works right now as I recall.

This will increasingly not be the case however. Eventually the 1.8 flower terrain will be dropped, and a bunch of macros have been deprecated as of 1.9.3, so they will go too. So the answer is for now yes, but you must be prepared to make changes as 1.9 evolves. For instance, the deprecated macros (some of which you use) will be removed entirely in 1.9.6.

Edit: This thread contains one person's list of changes for WML. The only other tag renaming appears to be removeitem->remove_item.
mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by mattsc »

About the lizard: You could make him come out of the swaps or make him defend supergobo. Going after him takes a couple of rounds to no avail. Currently he is just hiding in his swamp castle behind lots of swamp.
I like the idea of making him defend SG. I think I should be able to use the [protect_unit] tag for that, although I have to try whether this draws out the lizard leader or just the underlings. I have previously played with such extremes as leader_aggression=1.0 and leader_caution=0.0 and never been able to draw the enemy leaders out that way until all their units are gone. I never quite understood why. I'll play with that some more.
mattsc
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by mattsc »

Thanks much, Alarantalara (and bigkahuna for the other thread, which I had not seen yet)! After posting my question, I spent some time on this last night and had found the list of deprecated macros (very nice of 1.9.3 to warn of impeding deprecation in debug mode) and a couple other things, but not all of that. I've replaced the macros by now and am working on other changes and more testing. I should be able to upload Galuldur for 1.9 by the end of the week. Thanks everybody for your help.

PS: One additional change that did not break anything but caused a strange effect in one of my scenarios is that divisions are now floating point.
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Re: New campaign: Galuldur's First Journey (1.8)

Post by Elvish_Hunter »

mattsc wrote:PS: One additional change that did not break anything but caused a strange effect in one of my scenarios is that divisions are now floating point.
Well, one solution to this problem is to round the result of such division. You can do this using one of the following macros, at your choice:

Code: Select all

{VARIABLE_OP VAR round ceil}
{VARIABLE_OP VAR round floor}
where VAR is your variable name; ceil is used to round up and floor is used to round down.
Current maintainer of these add-ons, all on 1.16:
The Sojournings of Grog, Children of Dragons, A Rough Life, Wesnoth Lua Pack, The White Troll (co-author)
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