3p MP Campaign - The Great Quest

[Coffee]

Hello.

The Great Quest is a 3p multiplayer campaign for Wesnoth 1.8 and 1.10 . I'm interested to see what others think of it.

Screenshots:

Spoiler:

Home scenario with castle area tuned to faction (drakes here):

Underground scenario with lit braziers:

Storm the coastal fort:

The campaign plays as a series of short-medium length clashes against AI over different types of terrain, whilst being versatile enough to account for selections of player factions and semi-random AI factions. You get to choose your factions and each scenario is intended to have a different type of feel to it (for example, mountain valley passage where you can get to the other side/defeat enemy leaders, besieging a castle, and travelling underground in passages lit by braziers on the sides in another scenario). The dwarvish scout also makes an appearance, as well as some other less frequently seen units later on (such as the chocobone).

The Great Quest takes some ideas from World Conquest such as spacing out the full recruit list over the campaign, allowing units to get items and bonuses such as heroes which can take over from your leader if he/she falls. However, I've made it so that only heroes can take the mantle of leader and you can set your "second in command" unit via a right click context menu. The items are quite different from World Conquest though and can be picked up from enemies that you defeat along you way. Each item is designed to do something for every unit (so attack items bestow an extra attack, drakes get fearless with the fire orb, etc.) so that this is fair. These differences (I think) make the game feel quite different.

I wanted to create a campaign that has a high level of randomness in match-ups for each scenario, placement of leaders, time-of-day, different equivalent difficulty paths to take (they come back to the same point though), to improve replayability. However, I also wanted to include a great deal of structure to each map so that each map feels unique to a point (each map has more than 1 variation) and fun and to avoid the need to create big levels and for the enemy to recruit millions of units on harder settings to make it hard (instead I opted for more levelled up units and shorter battles). I think I have achieved these things along with a fun (but simple) story line. Please let me know what you think of it (especially if you like it ).

[lindsay40k]

Myself and my regular gaming partners are enjoying this era very much, thanks for making it! Some feedback:

- replacing mass unit spam with levelled up units carrying items is definitely more enjoyable to go up against.

- exact same level set each time does make it feel somewhat formulaic, especially when losses of important heroes necessitate starting again from the beginning. Maybe each stage could have a selection of similar but distinct maps, chosen randomly?

- maybe items carried by friendly units could be dropped just as enemy unit held items are?

- perhaps more prisoners to rescue?

Looking forward to future revisions!

[Coffee]

Thanks for the feedback lindsay40k.

I will post a new version for Wesnoth 2.0 in a bit, which will maybe have say 2 distinct maps for each scenario (except start scenario) and introduce a bit of randomness in each map (say hills instead of flat/forest for a tile and change say 50 tiles in a map). I'll add one or two more prisoners throughout the campaign as well.

I'm now waiting to see what will happen with the Khalifate. I want to introduce them but I get the feeling that there will still be some changes to that faction (say the level 2 archer with dashes in it's name causes bugs in replays). I don't know if they will be part of default either.

[lindsay40k]

Another little bit of feedback; the underground level seems to always take us a very long time to finish, on account of the threat posed by the spawning Undead units in the icy bit. Even on Peasant difficulty, the player attacking that AI needs to take a very particular and gradual approach to avoid a massacre - an approach that tends to result in a late finish, and therefore a very tight budget for the next stage. On the subject of which; the snowy stage felt very difficult and unforgiving, with a number of powerful units coming forwards and little opportunity to have several units attack them at once or for players to send units to support one another. Perhaps this stage could benefit from more water tiles, and maybe the spawning Undead units could carry the snow ring item to make the players more able to deal with things.

Also, the snow ring has little use outside the snow map. Perhaps have it give the wielder a cold slowing attack?

[Coffee]

Thanks for the second bit of feedback lindsay40k.

I've uploaded a 1.9 version and updated the 1.8 version for a bit of balancing. I made there be some more heroes to rescue and tweaked some of the maps (they should play the same in both versions but will look slightly different due to different tile-sets).

Based on your feedback, I gave the cave level a turn or 2 more to finish and tweaked the map to try to encourage the AI to spread out a bit more in bottom-right undead and for the middle AI to send more units upwards.

The snow level has seen some tweaks to add extra snow hills and snow forest spots to defend from.

You should also notice a better randomness in AI leaders/hero choices for the first map. The RNG at the start used to choose always the same numbers, but now I am "seeding" it with the cost of an extra random leader which I remove from the map. This makes it much more random.

I'm planning for later versions to add alternate maps for each level and random changes to terrain for each map. This will probably come in some time later.

Thanks for playing The Great Quest.

[Coffee]

Just one more thing. The snow ring is mainly useful in the snow level, yes. However, it also increase cold resistance. This makes it good against adepts. I think that this makes it useful anywhere without needing to be modified (similar to fire orb and fire resistance).

[lindsay40k]

We're definitely getting more enjoyment out of the new version. A couple of points:

- In the first map, the right-hand enemy dies a lot more quickly. Its units tend to disperse more, and the two right-hand players tend to be able to team up well against it. This means that it tends to take a fair bit of deliberate stalling and blocking to play the long vertical Map 2.

- There's still a problem with the bottom-right of Map 3. It's something of a perfect storm: the Undead are generally regarded as the most damaging default faction; it's perpetually night on most tiles, meaning they do heavy damage; and the void tiles around bridges mean that Ghosts can make side attacks on columns of troops and endanger second-rank healers.

Perhaps switching the void and lava areas might help, so as to add more non-dark tiles that benefit Drakes. Or perhaps a treasure chest that gives the central player an item from a selection that are helpful against Undead; Fire/Arcane attacks, Illuminate, Flight (to zoom over the void to hit skellies in the flank), Slows, Healing Herbs and Snow Ring (especially considering the next map) come to mind.

[Coffee]

Thanks again for the feedback lindsay40k. It has been very valuable and I've updated both the 1.9 and 1.8 versions which should fix the problems you mention.

- In the first map, the right-hand enemy dies a lot more quickly. Its units tend to disperse more, and the two right-hand players tend to be able to team up well against it. This means that it tends to take a fair bit of deliberate stalling and blocking to play the long vertical Map 2.

I've moved the top-right player keeps in the first map up a bit and slightly edited the map and its settings to try and make it so that you are more likely to have both enemy leaders killed around the same time.

There's still a problem with the bottom-right of Map 3. It's something of a perfect storm: the Undead are generally regarded as the most damaging default faction; it's perpetually night on most tiles, meaning they do heavy damage; and the void tiles around bridges mean that Ghosts can make side attacks on columns of troops and endanger second-rank healers.

I made it so that there are more lit spots in key positions and moved one of the glowing braziers closer to the action. I also moved the bottom-left player one hex closer so they can help

One of the things I really wanted to do in this campaign is have it so that each faction has a difficult scenario or 2, where the terrain is bad or the match up is bad, etc. At the same time though, I also wanted to make sure that it is not too harsh at any point on any individual faction (hence the large number of flat tiles in cave and lit spots). Hopefully I have got it right now, for the cave map and the vertical 2nd map that were causing problems before.

As an extra point, I have fixed the experience modifier so that players who play with custom set modifiers can play through the campaign with their chosen xp modifier. Also I have changed the winged circlet to have less defense on mushroom grove.

I think I will probably leave this campaign as it is for a while and update it when the next version of Wesnoth is closer to being released.

[Coffee]

Just a quick update for an important change for anyone who may read this -- now each map will either have 2 ways to go (as before) or have an alternate map. So, 1st/6th, 3rd, 5th have alternate maps in both 1.8 and 1.9 versions. This should improve the replayability factor.

I also added a warning message of sorts for the cave map about the submerged units so they don't kill unsuspecting units for people who take the time to follow the story.

Like other times before I've thought that that's now it, I am thinking that it is complete -- although I'll probably add something else later on and of course check to make sure it keeps working with any changes to newer versions of Wesnoth.

[alpha1]

Hi Coffee,
first of all thanks for the great campaign! I think its really good for people, who are scared of the size and magnitude of the world conquest, yet dont want to play other, smaller survivals (also i must say it took plk2, tekelili and me about 16h to finish it ).
just few remarks:
1. In the underground lvl, when approaching UD keep from north i didnt get a notification about submerged skeletons (although it worked when the keep was approached from west)
2. Maybe it would be good to add another difficulty lvl, like "grand marshal" or something. We usually ended each mission with at least 4 reserve turns on the hardest difficulty and finished the last mission by the turn 13. I guess first map is difficult enough as it is, but depending on how well you took care of your high lvl units further missions can become somewhat easy.

[Coffee]

Thanks for playing alpha1.

About the remarks:

1. In the underground lvl, when approaching UD keep from north i didnt get a notification about submerged skeletons (although it worked when the keep was approached from west)

I increased the radius by 1 hex for the message to make this easier to see in one of the cave maps when approaching from the north.

2. Maybe it would be good to add another difficulty lvl, like "grand marshal" or something. We usually ended each mission with at least 4 reserve turns on the hardest difficulty and finished the last mission by the turn 13. I guess first map is difficult enough as it is, but depending on how well you took care of your high lvl units further missions can become somewhat easy.

When play-testing this campaign (mostly me and my brother) I have tested the first scenarios the most and only a little the last 3 scenarios, so I wasn't sure that I got the difficulty exactly right. I've done some tweaking of the turn limits, etc. to attempt to fix this. I have also added some extra guards at the back of the castle siege level on harder difficulties and removed the option for Silver Mage as enemy leader (to avoid it being lured out via teleport). These are only minor tweaks though.

I now have a "Grand Marshal" mode. Actually it is just "Marshal" renamed. This fits in with the Polish translation/internationalisation, which I have done for important messages/objectives and menus. I've used the in-built translations where possible so those who don't speak English can play this campaign more easily.

I can only say well played aplha1, to you and your friends, for finishing this campaign on hardest mode.

[tekelili]

I have tried several times with very good players your campaingn on new difficult mode Grand Marshal. We died always, but it is ok have a challenging mode. But I think all maps would work better adding 1 turn to time limit. Currently is very hard, but a turn of bad rng that stops your attack can become map impossible to beat. That turn would make it more reasonable, imo. And thanks for your work

[Coffee]

Thanks for playing tekelili.

I have tried several times with very good players your campaingn on new difficult mode Grand Marshal. We died always, but it is ok have a challenging mode. But I think all maps would work better adding 1 turn to time limit. Currently is very hard, but a turn of bad rng that stops your attack can become map impossible to beat.

According to the earlier post by alpha1, you finished this whole campaign with some turns remaining in each map? I have cut off a turn in a few maps but added it back for the last map. Getting the balance right for hardest mode is tough but I think I've got it right now. The trick was making the AI less prone to stupid mistakes with some factions/leaders that might make it too easy (pretty hard to achieve ). I think that is why the new Grand Marshal mode is much tougher

I made each map in the 1.9 version have at least 1 alternate version so that you don't always have to play exactly the same map. In the 1.8 version there are most of these alternate maps available.

I also spent a bit of time making the enemy outlaw side/dwarves a harder opponent (by making it less likely that it will be a gryphon/ogre spam).

Hopefully there are no more bugs or improvements to be made and this can be pretty much the last version to release. I will only release another version to fix bugs I think.

[Coffee]

Just a quick update to the 1.8 and 1.9 versions:

• Each map now has more than 1 variation
• The AI now takes into account the time of day when attacking (making it a more balanced campaign)
• No fish in cave scenario for elves
• Slightly better recruiting for AI
• A bit of minor map balancing and a few minor bugs have been fixed as well
• Now both versions are in sync with each-other

[BasiC]

how are the chosen maps decided?Say, for level 2 I have seen 2 maps, one thin and prolonged and a square one with a desert at the top right where only dragons can spawn.
What effects what map the game chooses?