After the Storm 0.10.18.1 [Wesnoth 1.14.x & 1.15.12+]

[Astoria]

In AtS3 Outpost of Hell Bardyl packs up his bags and leaves when there are more pillars than bombs (stating that he can't blow up the pillars now). But killing all the enemy leaders is an alternative victory condition so bombs v pillars is irrelevant. The player shouldn't be defeated until end of turns. (0.9.4, hard)

You can't defeat all enemy leaders without blowing up the pillars.

[Iris]

In AtS3 Outpost of Hell Bardyl packs up his bags and leaves when there are more pillars than bombs (stating that he can't blow up the pillars now). But killing all the enemy leaders is an alternative victory condition so bombs v pillars is irrelevant. The player shouldn't be defeated until end of turns. (0.9.4, hard)

Yeah, my mistake. The objectives display is wrong and it should read “Bonus objective” instead of “Alternative objective” — it will be fixed in version 0.9.6.

[taptap]

In "Beyond her smile" (not only there, but for the first time for average units) you manipulate to-hit-chances a lot. Not only does this make the player paranoid - is the RNG working? - I wonder whether this leaks to fights against your units. At least I had a footpad right at start taken out with 4 hits out of 4 standing on 70% by the two units initially closest to your keep while Elynia wasn't hit at all standing on 50%, this looked suspiciously like the initial fights of the allied demons who never hit their enemies once and always got hit and the last actions of Elynia in episode 2 where she obviously hit with every attack. I didn't keep track of other units, but after a few turns everything was normal again.

Of course knowing that you do things like this made me wonder whether it was all chance that my faeries in episode 2 were all resilient, while at the start of episode 3 they were all intelligent. (I love resilient / quick, you know ) Wonder how the faeries would do with a bit more variety in traits, with only 3 traits you end up with 3 combinations only - you could certainly put strong, dexterous or fearless to good use with them.

Ok, I am going to rescue Raelthyn now.

[Iris]

Version 0.9.6 is out!

Some people in the audience (where ‘audience’ refers to an infinitesimal amount of people as usual) might have heard of a certain revamp taking place a little while ago in the multiplayer Era of Chaos add-on. In fact, this effort was originally started by artisticdude for AtS; he did the basic Demon units (Demon, Demon Grunt, Demon Warrior, Demon Zephyr), which received some touch-ups from me, and then I proceeded to redraw their cousins from scratch in record time. The differences compared to the old baseframes might seem jarring at first, but I can confirm that the original oversized sprites used in IftU and AtS all these years were merely an oversight and not something I actually did on purpose.

This release mostly revolves around graphic updates for the aforementioned unit type groups, compatibility fixes and improvements for the upcoming Wesnoth 1.11.6 (whenever it’s ready), and a catastrophic bug in Episode III scenario 6 (Divergence). Additionally, a unit type was renamed, breaking non-start-of-scenario saved games for the only scenario in which it appears; some unit type descriptions for the in-game help were rewritten, expanded upon, or added for the first time (“FIXME” never counted as a description), and a few unimportant inconsistencies were solved. Not listed in the changelog are a few minor dialogue additions to the last segment of Episode III scenario 10 (Blood).

For those who can afford the 7.32 MiB download, I strongly advise upgrading now instead of continuing to use older versions. Aside from the aforementioned renaming and the scenario it affects, nothing will break. Also note that this is the last version that will accept old saved games from version 0.9.3 and earlier. The faerie race renaming support code will be gone in version 0.9.7.

Special thanks to vultraz, 8680, and artisticdude for their help.

The complete changelog for this version follows:

Code: Select all

Version 0.9.6:
--------------
* General:
  * The workaround for the [move_unit_fake]/[move_unit] interaction with
    [lock_view] is now used only for Wesnoth 1.11.0 through 1.11.5 since a
    superior solution is now built into version 1.11.6.

* Graphics:
  * New or updated unit graphics: Argan, Elyssa (E1/E2), Demon, Demon Zephyr, 
    Demon Grunt, Demon Warrior, Demon Messenger, Demoness Spelldancer, Demon
    Stormtide, Demoness Hellbent Tide, Demoness Slashing Gale, Angel of Blood,
    Errant Executor, Gatekeeper.
  * Eliminate various missing image warnings caused by changes to the handling
    of custom unit ellipses for ZoC-less (e.g. L0) units in Wesnoth 1.11.6 and
    later.
  * Fixed issues with invisible L0/stunned unit ellipses on Wesnoth 1.11.6 and
    later.

* Scenarios:
  * E2S4 - Shifting Allegiances:
    * Fixed Tara's loyal icon overlay ending up assigned to a Rock Golem.
  * E3S4.1 - Outpost of Hell:
    * Mark "Defeat all enemy leaders" as an optional bonus objective as opposed
      to alternative.
  * E3S6 - Divergence:
    * Fix a severe gold management issue.

* Units:
  * New unit type descriptions:
    * Demon, Demon Zephyr, Demon Grunt, Demon Warrior
    * Demoness Messenger
    * Elvish Civilian
    * Elvish Hunter, Elvish Trapper, Elvish Prowler
    * Elvish Wayfarer
    * Dusk Faerie, Night Nymph, Nightshade Fire
    * Sylvan Warden
    * Civilian, Messenger
    * Animated Rock, Rock Golem.
  * Renamed Demon Spelldancer to Demoness Spelldancer (UI name only).
  * Renamed Demon Messenger to Demoness Messenger (UI name only).
  * Replaced Demon Lord unit type with the Errant Executor.

[Iris]

In "Beyond her smile" (not only there, but for the first time for average units) you manipulate to-hit-chances a lot. Not only does this make the player paranoid - is the RNG working? - I wonder whether this leaks to fights against your units.

Excluding specific character-versus-character situations, as far as I remember, there is only one place two places where CTHs are rigged in favor of the player for the absolutely mind-boggling span of... one turn.

Wesnoth doesn’t allow directly manipulating the RNG state, so everything else follows its normal course, including trait generation. The faeries race definition simply doesn’t include any traits other than quick, intelligent, and resilient. Strong and dextrous would make their attacks significantly powerful against units with negative resistances against fire damage, such as undead (-20%) and Shaxthals (-10%)... so I don’t really want to go there.

Although, I have considered fearless in multiple occasions and I never seem to remember why I don’t follow up on it.

[taptap]

In "Beyond her smile" (not only there, but for the first time for average units) you manipulate to-hit-chances a lot. Not only does this make the player paranoid - is the RNG working? - I wonder whether this leaks to fights against your units.

Excluding specific character-versus-character situations, as far as I remember, there is only one place two places where CTHs are rigged in favor of the player for the absolutely mind-boggling span of... one turn.

Come on, at the start of the episode 3 (beyond her smile) the allied demons obviously never hit, but are hit with every strike. That isn't in favour of the player. While I would fancy trying to keep a demon alive, I wouldn't have commented on it had it not coincided with the quite possible but rare occurrence of 4/4 hits against 70% defence (it was the second turn, probably before the allied demons were completely killed). In other scenarios I very much like similar effects, as it makes it possible to play without saveloads.

[Iris]

Come on, at the start of the episode 3 (beyond her smile) the allied demons obviously never hit, but are hit with every strike. That isn't in favour of the player.

Of course it isn’t, and I didn’t refer to that particular situation in my previous post.

EDIT: Removed what I had said here since apparently you already knew it. Not sure what you meant above then, but I have actually had to explain to other players multiple times before why those units are forced to die during the first couple of turns, hence the bogus assumption on my part, sorry. As for my previous post, I was focusing on your postulated suspicion of CTHs for player units being manipulated in other ways outside of character-versus-character confrontations and brought it into the broader context of the whole campaign.

[taptap]

Come on, at the start of the episode 3 (beyond her smile) the allied demons obviously never hit, but are hit with every strike. That isn't in favour of the player.

Of course it isn’t, and I didn’t refer to that particular situation in my previous post.

EDIT: Removed what I had said here since apparently you already knew it. Not sure what you meant above then, but I have actually had to explain to other players multiple times before why those units are forced to die during the first couple of turns, hence the bogus assumption on my part, sorry. As for my previous post, I was focusing on your postulated suspicion of CTHs for player units being manipulated in other ways outside of character-versus-character confrontations and brought it into the broader context of the whole campaign.

I referred to the scenario in particular, I noticed the CTH manipulation for the allied demons destined for death. And I had a rare occurrence of being hit straight 4/4 on 70% right after that in one of the first attacks in turn 2 (after watching the allied demons die in turn 1) with my unit failing to retaliate as well (against 1 or 2 HP enemies) that is why I asked, but on retrying the scenario I couldn't reproduce it and indeed just got lucky there, poor footpad. I wrote the paranoia part half-jokingly as I am usually not questioning the "biased" RNG as some people regularly do on the forum, but the coincidence made me ask whether you forgot to turn off the effect in time.

Btw. everything feels much more balanced now than the last time I tried AtS. And good decision on wiping out the recall list for episode 2 and 3, you should have done this in IftU as well. I will write more once I finish episode 3.

And yes, strong or dexterous would be very powerful with the amount of attacks both dryad and forest spirit have, but so would be fearless at least in the underground scenarios.

[Ranger]

I noticed that Galas's aquired ambush ability do not allow him to hide in mushroom grooves. Is it a bug or a feature?

[Iris]

I’d say it’s neither. That AMLA actually grants him the ambush ability just as it is defined in mainline for other units (such as the Elvish Ranger and Avenger) by the ABILITY_AMBUSH macro from data/core/macros/abilities.cfg without any modifications. Its description in the in-game help specifically says that units with the ability can hide in forests, and it does not mention mushroom groves at all.

[Ranger]

I’d say it’s neither. That AMLA actually grants him the ambush ability just as it is defined in mainline for other units (such as the Elvish Ranger and Avenger) by the ABILITY_AMBUSH macro from data/core/macros/abilities.cfg without any modifications. Its description in the in-game help specifically says that units with the ability can hide in forests, and it does not mention mushroom groves at all.

Well as I already know not every in-game description should be taken literally. Its that after i saw LadyofLight hiding in both the forests and mushroms I thought it is general proprety of all units with ambush ability.

[Ranger]

In the scenario "The Voyage Home" in II part of campaign when Elynia guide her forces through the desert they are attacked by soul of dead. But I wonder why they dont harras orcs too?

ERRANT SOULS

Y U NO ATTACK ORCS TOO?

Edit:

I see. its just feels weird. Guess I'll have to live with it.

[Iris]

In the scenario "The Voyage Home" in II part of campaign when Elynia guide her forces through the desert they are attacked by soul of dead. But I wonder why they dont harras orcs too?

Because then the AI would have the potential of stealing precious XP from the player.

I don’t know, my initial testing of this scenario was less entertaining that way.

[Iris]

Updated the thread’s OP with a lovingly handcrafted banner, and updated the supported Wesnoth releases list adding 1.11.6 (development) and 1.10.7 (stable), which were released yesterday and will be announced whenever Ivanovic decides it’s time to unveil them, hopefully once the Mac OS X builds become available in a SF.net mirror near you.

Attentive readers might remember that AtS version 0.9.6 included fixes for compatibility with Wesnoth 1.11.6. As far as I know, no more fixes are required, which is good, for I do not expect any more AtS releases for a while. That said, if you do encounter trouble playing AtS on 1.11.6 I would certainly love to hear of it so I can fast-track the next bugfix release.

Also, I recently got word of a problem affecting recall lists late in Episode III on Wesnoth 1.10.x, but my attempts to reproduce it proved futile. I haven’t heard back from the player in question yet, but if you do know something about this issue, I would greatly appreciate additional information (e.g. one or more relevant start-of-scenario saves after E3S6 Divergence).


In a related note, Wesnoth 1.10.7 fixes bug #18793 [Gna.org], which I originally reported around the time AtS Episode I was nearing completion. The fix has been around in 1.11.x for a while, but 1.10.7 is the first version of the current stable series to incorporate it. Although AtS was not developed with the corrected scrolling behavior in mind, I performed some extensive cutscene testing on 1.11.x to ensure that the fix was good before even committing it. So yeah, this is one of the various ways in which IftU and AtS have contributed to mainline development over the years without necessarily being part of mainline, in case it may interest anyone in the audience.

Also, Coffee committed a fix to Wesnoth’s development branch yesterday which addresses the magical colorshifting Shaxthals issue that occurs whenever certain surface Shaxthals are hit while playing their defense animations. This bug only ever affected Wesnoth 1.11.2 and later. The fix is not in 1.11.6, but it will eventually land in production with version 1.11.7.

[Iris]

Version 0.9.7 is out.

*clears throat*

As far as I know, no more fixes are required, which is good, for I do not expect any more AtS releases for a while.

I do not expect any more AtS releases for a while.

LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES

NEVER doing this again.

The complete changelog for this version follows:

Code: Select all

Version 0.9.7:
--------------
* Scenarios:
  * E3S10 - Blood:
    * Fixed an oversight in the implementation of the [hidden_unit] WML action
      that could cause an event to destroy the player units forever by
      clobbering them with enemy units at the start of the second stage.

* Units:
  * Removed compatibility code introduced in version 0.9.4 to handle the
    'fairy'->'faerie' race id transition done in that same release. Saved games
    from 0.9.3 and older versions may not be used from now on.