Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

[max_torch]

I'm only in the second scenario and I just want to point out that the stone spirit makes the same sound when it hits an enemy and when it misses. Kinda odd that both hit and miss would have the same sound no?

[AI]

The wescamp script (which extracts the translatable strings from your campaign, as you've set translatable to true in your PBL file), gives the following output:

Code: Select all

[WARNING 2014-04-11 13:00:21,024]
init-build-sys.sh in add-on PantherLord:
utf8 "\xC9" does not map to Unicode at /home/ai/bin/wmlxgettext line 68, <FILE> line 295.
Malformed UTF-8 character (fatal) at /home/ai/bin/wmlxgettext line 90, <FILE> line 295.
wmlxgettext failed!

That means you've encoded your files in something other than UTF-8. I've taken a look and found that you've used ISO-8859 for these two files:
PantherLord/scenarios/0_Intro.cfg
PantherLord/scenarios/1_EarningTheTitle.cfg

I also saw that some of your scenarios use the textdomains wesnoth-Neurti or wesnoth-Daklo instead of wesnoth-PantherLord. That's fine if such add-ons exist and have the strings, but given that these are scenarios, that's probably not the case. Anything not in the textdomain wesnoth-PantherLord will *not* be extracted.

[Inky]

I recently completed this campaign (v.1.0.2 on Wesnoth 1.10.4, Medium difficulty).

It got quite difficult in the second half! In particular the scenarios Into the Deepwood, Establishing a claim, Raid and the final scenario took me several tries. (On the other hand the scenario Forward Position was way too easy). At first I thought the final scenario was impossible but I managed to beat it playing very defensively and saving gold for the first ~8 turns, recruiting lots a level 1 units and leveling them. Although it was doable I found it a little tedious (just my personal preference though; I don't like huge battles).

In the scenario Raid I felt like I was being punished for killing the Imperialist leader quickly - if you kill him before you get rid of most of his army (which is very possible since he rushes out at you) it makes the rest of the scenario extremely difficult. If the second leader appeared on a certain turn number it may help to reduce the reliance on this one event.

Also there is a minor bug where some units begin a scenario with the 15% def reduction from Hex. (This happened to me in the second to last and last scenarios.)
And there's a typo in the intro to the final scenario ("My forward scouts reported that the enemy had changed direction and was coming back to tward us").

In general this was great and strategic campaign. I liked the challenge, and the amusing dialogue (from those crazy priests) and the awesome panther spirit. I also really loved how you get to pick the extra units for your army- it really adds to the unit variety and I think it would be cool if more campaigns had something like this.
Thanks for all your work on this campaign! -Inky

[Velensk]

Glad you liked it.

The bug you mentioned with hex should be fixed in the 1.12 version.

[salamis]

Panther Lord is an expert level campaign (or at the least it gave me a lot of trouble testing it) for the Era of Four Moons. Currently complete at twelve combat scenarios long though I am considering adding a couple more (the plot allows plenty of room for them).

This thread is for feedback, comments, and bug reports, however if you have any questions on how to beat any of the levels I will try to answer them and/or provide replays here. I have beaten the campaign on normal difficulty without save loading or debugging but many scenarios took many tries. I have not tested the other two difficulties and am not especially interested in feedback on them but I will note that I don't want it to be easy even on the easiest difficulty, and I'm fine with the harder difficulty being essentially impossible (though I do not believe it is).

On the fourth scenario you will have the option of hiring mercenaries to add to your recruit list or give you units from outside it. As this will affect you throughout the rest of the campaign I will provide a list of the things I hired when I beat normal difficulty in a spoiler (so those who want to live daring are not forced to read it but those who don't want to risk having to replay half of the campaign can check)

Spoiler:

Group:Reason
Lost Battalion: Lawful, can hold open ground,gives access to a level 4 leader
The Coven: Healing.
The Sea Dragon: To provide a loyal and powerful water unit.
The Yard: To provide an archer not reliant on backstab and more lawful power.
The Sea Rats: Unlike the canoe goes up to level 3 and are more durable in general.

One thing I would desire to accomplish with the new scenarios (if I add them) would be to create situations where more of the other mercenaries are more useful as I feel that the nature of the later scenarios tends to make most of them impractical.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, released for 1.9.7, not available on the stable branch.

I was replaying this campaign and it looks like you removed my favorite scenario! What happened to the scenario where you hide in the woods and ambush imperial convoys??? That was a really creative and entertaining fight.

[taptap]

I was replaying this campaign and it looks like you removed my favorite scenario! What happened to the scenario where you hide in the woods and ambush imperial convoys??? That was a really creative and entertaining fight.

Wrong campaign? It is in Salt Wars as far as I recall.

[Aldarisvet]

Hi Velensk. I have a present for you today, this 5 replays of your campaign in the hardest difficulty.
At the moment I have no time to comment, just want to say this campaign is really tactically great and somehow returned my faith in Wesnoth.

[Aldarisvet]

More 3 scenarios passed on hard.
After reading a spoiler I had increasing fear that I would need sail units badly, but I neednt them at all still. From the other side I just cannot afford myself recruiting them because I was always in the condition of badly deficit of money.
Unfortunately the gameplay becoming reminding mainline more and more. Or at least I am forced to use AI stupidity because AI have much more money, especially at Vanguard scenario. I just took best frontline position and w8 AI making suiciding attacks.
The Ferry scenario appeared easy despite a fear I would need some sail units, I get some pleasure smashing the enemy, using all that slow/hex/poison/leadership my guys have. Killing ships took some time however. Seems I had to lure them into the ground earlier than I did.
The most funny thing that was happened: reinforcement units started to hunt my leader, he was accidentally alone apart from others while healing, but at moments when he was covered in jungle under the ambush, AI was just staying and doing nothing with all his units, including just arrived reincforcement. So I even moved leader back to the open ground so they would start moving to him.

[Aldarisvet]

Damned hellish Deepwood scenario!
Uuuuuu!!!!
I replayed Ferry finishing it on 22 turns, not using that leader ambush bug and killed more enemies and had 2 Merchant Lords at the end and 1 Spirit Wielder and Siskite was alredy level5.
Still I had only 213 gold after that. But as I designed, I was able to kill the closest enemy leader in 5 turns in Deepwood pushing all my army stright front losing only 2 malices and then I retreated. This scenario is obviously about recruiting Malices of the God and not recalling other veteran units except leaders and Spirit Wielders (the only my Serpent was also very useful). Under Marchant Lords leaderships Malices tears apart that Dark Woses (20-2 at night). But after there are too much of Deseased Spirits coming. Under leadership Malices attacks them too 20-2 at night while them attacking 5-8 but since it have swarm effect, that Deseased retaliate much weaker if they wounded. Still that motherfreakers have 80HP and too much of them are coming.
I had no upgraded Malice to recall at all, was all time waited when I would able to use them, but nope, I had no chance, they were too expensive and useless vs Imperialists having arcane resisitance. But even expensive level1 Malices which costs 22 gold rocks here, I just need more money.
I think I made a mistake at Ferry, neglecting taking villages on the isle. I will replay the Ferry one more time, with more gold I think I can cope with that swarm freackers.

[Aldarisvet]

Ok, I did it with Deepwood and further.
Playing this campaign much more reminds me of work than having a fun
I had to replay The Ferry several times before I was able to find a proper tactics to get enough money. I failed 2-3 attempts with recruiting Malices at this scenario, using them with Merchant Lord together to save money (because they are level 1 with cheaper support) with recruiting one Canoe to take villages in the isle but I got not needed effect, because evemy naval units tend to kill that canoe and also I was not able to progress fast enough with my army. At least I found a proper strategy - I recalled 1 boatmen that was close to level2 (I got it in the very beginning at Cave of the Spirits and never used naval units later) and also recruited 2 more canoes. Together them 3 were able to hold the isle with that 3 villages, with that recalled got level2 soon. And same time I just recalled best units on the left of my money (without Malices) and killed the enemy and that ships from the land. So I got more than 300 gold for the Deepwood. So almost no need in naval units in this campaign, no need to replay it from the beginning (actually I barely passed Guild Law with the money I had using very original way and cannot imagine how I can afford recruiting that ship and naval units, no desire to replay it at all).
Deepwood also demanded some attempts because you have to both control villages and kill the enemy. I am very satisfied how I smashed the enemy, especially that lvl3 swarming Diseased motherflickers. The main idea is in using Malices with Merchant Lord leadership and also I recruited 3 Vipers to cover Malices, just because they have hight defence rate. This scenario is really interesting (better to say it is a nightmare) because in quite late stage of the game you are forced to recruit lvl1 units (well, Malices had no use earlier). And I got even 372 gold for the next scenario!
Next scenario, Establishing a Claim was easy. As in all scenarios when you have an ally, the main idea is to take his villages. I found not much interesting in that scenario, the only thing you must be really careful against berserkers, but thats all. So I got 471 gold at the next scenario.
Then New Era. Wow that was funny what I did. After two attempts to hold the center I understood that up-right enemy is the weakest of them and moreover, he tend to fight with me at the center. The center is seems as some kind of a trap. The scenario looked as really hard. So the decision I made was funny, I just recalled 4 strongest units, 2 loyal stone golems and 2 Spirit Wielders to defend my 4 villages and for 10 turns I was doing almost nothing, letting enemies to fight each other and saving (even getting more) money. Despite I have so small army enemy units was afraid to confront my strong units and prefered to kill themselves in the center. Then I finally fully recruited and killed them all losing 0 units in this scenario. I finished 25/33 and even despite I controlled all the map/villages I got only 283 for gold for the next scenario. Well, I went deep into minus when I recruited my army, even with all the gold I had and I saved. Even after they massacred themselves it was needed a huge army to tame them all.
Well, now I see that Refugee scenario, I am really exchausted today passing both New Era and Establishing a Claim. The enemy have 500 and 600 vs my 283. Oh, again it would be a massacre. However I think that I have too many Vengence and Wrathes of the Gods so I dont think it woud be great problem. I've defeated highlanders before already, it is a pleasure to smash them with panthers.

PL-The_Ferry_повтор.gz

(52.63 KiB) Downloaded 376 times

PL-Into_the_Deepwood_replay.gz

(77.24 KiB) Downloaded 357 times

PL-Establishing_a_Claim._replay.gz

(73.55 KiB) Downloaded 358 times

PL-New_Era_replay.gz

(93.21 KiB) Downloaded 323 times

[taptap]

Well, playing lower difficulty is perfectly possible. I believe you had a lot of luck in Establishing a Claim. It was the hardest in the campaign for me and others reporting here. Though my tools were rather different (I picked the imperialist mercenaries, and the ship, the 3 shamans and the turtle guys).

[Aldarisvet]

I believe you had a lot of luck in Establishing a Claim. It was the hardest in the campaign for me and others reporting here.

Well, I indeed got a luck in one turn.
In one turn several berserkers chain-attacked two of my guards and both guards survived and alma-level-upped. That was really funny.
However, when you have an ally with 800 gold it does not look so hard, at least I have that feeling.
I passed that scenario from the first attempt even not tried to invent something special.
Guards and stone golems are good to cover your army from berserkers. Berserkers is the only problem in that scenario but there are not so much of them actually. Stone golems are invalueable tool in this game, without them I would not be able to pass the campaign for sure.
I think that would I replay that scenario, I would recruit several tribesmans as a defensive meat against berserkers for the additional protection. And instead of sending Reh'Doc for capturing villages, I better would use some another panther for it, Reh'Doc can be great covering against berserkers too in the jungle.

[taptap]

I believe you had a lot of luck in Establishing a Claim. It was the hardest in the campaign for me and others reporting here.

However, when you have an ally with 800 gold it does not look so hard, at least I have that feeling.

Maybe there have been changes in the meantime. Has been some time. You finished earlier in the deepwood as well, think leadership from merchant lord had some advantages over what I did.

[Aldarisvet]

Maybe there have been changes in the meantime. Has been some time. You finished earlier in the deepwood as well, think leadership from merchant lord had some advantages over what I did.

Well, you could have level4 Legatus instead. However, as I see, his movement cost at the forest is 3 so in the jungle he is almost useless as leader. Oh, and as I see, lvl3 Primus even have 5 turns so woudnt you get that lvl4 Legatus in time, you leader would be able to move in the forest only one square per turn, a total crap. Also my Merchant Lord is quick, 7 MP, so he is quite a mobile leader.

[taptap]

Maybe there have been changes in the meantime. Has been some time. You finished earlier in the deepwood as well, think leadership from merchant lord had some advantages over what I did.

Well, you could have level4 Legatus instead. However, as I see, his movement cost at the forest is 3 so in the jungle he is almost useless as leader. Oh, and as I see, lvl3 Primus even have 5 turns so woudnt you get that lvl4 Legatus in time, you leader would be able to move in the forest only one square per turn, a total crap. Also my Merchant Lord is quick, 7 MP, so he is quite a mobile leader.

Yes, this and there used to be a bug where imperialists only got 30% defence in forested plains (minimum instead of maximum).