Gloria Victis

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Neuromancer
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Gloria Victis

Post by Neuromancer »

Image
Campaign concept
Mysterious Hazael travels the land in order to fulfill his strange deeds. In the first scenario there are 12 characters. Player gets to choose 8 units and they will be with him from the start to the end of the whole campaign.

Current status
In development.
Last edited by Neuromancer on September 27th, 2013, 12:12 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Neuromancer »

Lore
Elvish conflict and basic layout of the world
Dark elves from dark forest (on the west) fighted with the good elves from the forest on the right (called Everfall forest or something like that because it seems to be in autumn always). Good elves won but their civilization got destroyed. Now the dark elves are emerging again and someone need to smite them again. Also, in the mountains there is this dark drake cult. Humans are living mostly in the big town in the south. Against them there is this "terrorist group". Some humans are organised with Everfall forest elves (this clique is named-for-now The Alliance).
History of Imperial/Terrorist conflict and the founding of the Alliance
Note: Imperials, Terrorists, Alliance are makeshift names for factions. Humans living in the big southern city (let's name it Imperial city) are rather bad guys ruling with firm hand. They are collecting excessively high taxes from surrounding villages. One day, dwellers from one village decided not to pay those taxes. Response was cruel: Imperials came and burned the village to the ashes. Some guys survived and founded this terroristic group. Soon, they started to grow in ranks, as courageous people from surrounding villages came to their help in fighting the imperium. They are operating in the forests adjacent to the city, assaulting small imperial patrols. But they are too small to make direct assault on the city and because of that, they are becoming desperate, attacking even caravans going to/from imperial city. This is disrupting entire organisation: some members are disgusted, because in their eyes, whole ideals of the group are becoming nothing more then ideological cover for primitive robbing. They are leaving the group and seeking refuge in the vast eastern forests. There they meet remnants of the elves and befriend them. Humans are providing workforce in rebuilding the destroyed civilization and additional protection to the forests; Elves are teaching the humans the art of surviving in the forests and providing safe haven unharassed by imperials. The majority of the terrorist organisation still remains in the imperial forests, assaulting caravans and imperial patrols.
Dark magic and dark elves theme
The basic idea is "blood and soul". You can achieve your aims if you will sacrifice innocent soul(s) and spill some blood. The more powerful the incantation, the more "experienced" the soul has to be and more blood is required.
Neuromancer wrote:I was thinking about the "theme" of the dark elves, more specifically, their rituals. I think we can draw from this. So the elves worship dark bird gods, wearing bird masks when performing rituals. Some more links. Dark rituals can be made more creepy (is that needed?) in this way: There are victims used in the rituals (blood donors, so to say). But their blood is gathered while they are still alive. Sorcerer is draining it from nostrils and mouth, siphoning it to some jar or pot or where it is needed.
Woses
Forests are partially sentient organisms, they respond to the magic. As centuries pass, every magic (dark, or light, doesnt matter) released in forest is cumulating there. Elves (more specifically, druids /not as ingame unit/, these can be also human, if there are any which care enough for the nature and elves are willing to teach them) are aware of this and are "releasing" this "trapped" magic away via rituals. In forests where druids are not present, this magic just keeps cumulating and that leads to the "awakening" of the forest. When you are in this forest, you can feel you are not welcomed there. If the magic level is high enough, some of the trees may awaken. In that case, you dont want to be there. So the woses are plain evil, their highest priority is to protect the forests (that means they also hate elves, who are preventing them from appearing).
Forests around 7
Quman wrote:
Neuromancer wrote:Moreover, what kind of people live in forests around 7? Imperial influence is not very significant in these lands.
That would depend on how magical that area of the forest is. The sorts of people that would live in a mundane forest are a bit different from the sorts of people that would live in a forest where fairies are flitting around pulling pranks. Hmm... thinking about fairies also got me thinking about unicorns, which traditionally can only be seen by virgin maidens. I'm not sure if introducing something that's only visible to virgins would be a good idea, but it's something to think about.
Quman wrote:
Neuromancer wrote:Another lore idea: What about making some minor elvish faction which is based on japanese culture? They have japanese facial features and they tend to adapt their surroundings in the style of japanese gardens (other elves may see this as interferencing, even vandalism to the nature). Maybe this faction may be set in forests around 7 with unicorns and faires. Petal armor (described below) was probably made there.
I'm not sure about the facial features, again because of the art thing, but we may at least be able to create some palette swaps to make their hair and skin colors more Japanese. If I threw some honorifics into their speech and worked Japanese mythology into mission 7 we could probably pull off a Japanese feel without much in the way of art.
Characters
More info on characters in [url=http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=33210#p484331]this[/url] post.
Healer
Teresia - female white mage

Fighters
Garret - male spearman
Kara - female rogue
Aramis - male fencer

Archers
Hailey - female elf archer
Wellen - male poacher
Bane - male human archer

Spellcasters
Luciana - female mage
Yveen - female druid
Wendala - female dark adept

Scouts (for gameplay reasons no mounted units)
Pelduras - dwarvish scout
Brenton - footpad
Artifacts
Sanguine Phoenix
It is wooden statuette big roughly as a fist, depicting a bird. In some occasions (when using its powers, or some other special events) the bird is sheding bloody tears. I was thinking about Phoenix' origin; dark elves are worshipping dark bird gods, like raven or condor, but phoenix is symbol of rebirth. We can elaborate on that: good elves were (are even now?) worshipping birds like dove or swan. Phoenix is something like connection between dark and light birds -> it is fire bird, and fire, like energy can be used negatively and positively alike. Phoenix was formerly "neutral" artifact, but in some time later has been somehow corrupted with blood.
Yveen: Petal Armor
This armor was made by (elvish maiden name) from (some japanese/elvish flower names) petals. Maiden made the armor sewing the petals with stems from mentioned flowers. Next, she immersed it for night in solvent from resin, wax and honey to strenghten it and keep away from decay. The ritual of immersion was being held in some meadow on full moon night, faires helped with it and so on. She gave the armor to her lover, (elvish hero name). Hero died in some war or something like that. Armor gives +10% (+15% if Yveen wears it /Are the percentages good? Maybe lowering them down..?/) to pierce and blade damage resistances, maybe it provides even some protection from fire and cold.
Luciana
I think artifact for her could be something like this or some elegant crystal.
Wendala
Artifact looks somehow like this:
Image
Necklace cord is made from some kind of black leather. Scorpio has red gems as eyes, they are glowing in dark. The metal is probably more black than it is on picture. It can be only jewellery, but I was thinking about modification (When Wendala wears it?): the scorpion is kinda living and has wings. In special situations it distends its sting and wings and lets go of the cord, flies around.
Hazael
Staff of gammy horse (needs some better sounding name): Looks somelike this one, is decently ornamented, some parts of it may be made of metal, maybe some black gems are on it. One eye on horse head is deformed, scorched, somehow like this. The whole artifact emanates decency and cogency with a bit of sickness: just like Hazael himself.
Bonus: I was thinking about some kind of improved leadership or additional conversation options (owner of the staff is more persuasive). If Hazael acquires the staff, Wendalas variable will subtract by 1.
Achievements
Scenario achievements
There will be two achievements per scenario, one achieveable on Normal, second on Hard difficulty. Any ideas on them?

Scenario 1:
Normal -> Kill at least three units in the water or ford tiles
Hard ->

2:

3:

8: Epic Fail: Get your leader killed on Turn 1.

Last level: Power to the People: Level up a Peasant or Woodsman from 0 xp in a single attack.
Campaign achievements
Matchmaking
Complete the campaign with the women only
Complete the campaign with the men only
Kill x units in one turn (wml implementation?)

Kill all enemy leaders
Landlord: Capture more then X % villages in the whole game

Some achievement ideas from Zachron, The Great Rings.
Last edited by Neuromancer on August 18th, 2011, 5:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Neuromancer wrote:Does someone know whether somewhere there exists middle bar image? I only found edges in the RPG Sample Resources addon.
The attachment bar-sw-end.png is no longer available
The attachment bar-ne-end.png is no longer available
Edit: Im also looking for some GPL licensed tavern-friendly music and sprites usable in tavern/library enviroment.
The middle bar image is included in the RPG Sample Resources add-on. Maybe you should try the latest version.
bar.png
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Elvish_Hunter »

I tested your campaign. In the prologue, I discarded the Spearman, the Bowman, the Mage and the Footpad.
I played the first three scenarios, and haven't found any obvious bug; but in the world map, my terminal was filled by deprecation messages:

Code: Select all

error wml: empty side= and no [filter_side] is deprecated, use either side=1 or [filter_side]
So, I ran wmllint and wmlscope from trunk, to help you correcting these warnings (wmllint from 1.9.8 doesn't detect them); for now, they don't do anything, but in later versions the campaign may no longer work correctly. If you have any question, please ask.
Wmllint output:
Wmlscope output:
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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Boldek
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Boldek »

will this campaign be released on the 1.8 server?
Guys I never thought I'd come back to this forum after 8 years this is wild
Quman
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Quman »

This is in response to the discussion in the previous thread, so people that weren't part of that discussion can just skip it.
Old thread
Neuromancer wrote:10 is very conversation-intensive, there is need for long writing work in order to carry it out.
That could be an issue if I try to do all the writing at once, but if I can do the writing in manageable chunks I probably won't have trouble with it. I might not work quickly, but I think I can get the writing done.
Neuromancer wrote:Capture all the villages idea is not used.
Both 11 and 12 are large scenarios -> playthrough is tiring for the player in that case. If 11 is large, there needs to be one additional small scenario after it.
You might add a mission between 11 and 12 to use that idea. The local population could become aware of the invading elves, creating conflict among them. Perhaps the king wants to draft every able-bodied man to fight the invading force while the some of the lesser leaders want to retreat. The king has most of the villages and his AI is set to send units (probably mounted) to block the road the other leaders want to use to retreat. Neither side wants Hazael to kill the other side's leader, so if the player allies with the king they just have to hold all of the rebels' villages to prevent them from evacuating, and if Hazael sides with the rebels his objective is to clear the road long enough for the rebels to evacuate everybody that wants to leave. The rebels could have their base at the site Hazael wants to use for his ritual, and whichever leader Hazael sided with would allow him to use the site after he completed the mission.
Neuromancer wrote:The Cult -> Unless they find and equip their weapons, characters can use only punches and kicks or we can deploy "fight narration"
I don't think fight narration would really be appropriate for that mission, especially since it won't always be the same two people on the mission. Also, mages like Wendala would logically still be able to fight without their weapons, and my plan for the Kara/Garret pair is to have Kara escape capture thanks to Garret, then sneak in to rescue him, meaning she also wouldn't be affected by disarming. Personally, I suggest simply removing all physical attacks of any disarmed character, since punching would probably be completely ineffective against armored drakes.
Neuromancer wrote:Not all enemies fight to the death - it is more realistic (of course, it can be frustrating for the player when enemy leader flees right before his demise)
I'm not sure how much a bit of added realism would add to the campaign's enjoyment, but it probably wouldn't get too terribly frustrating as long as the leader didn't just teleport away without giving the player a chance to catch them. Also, I would definitely want there to be a scene to make sure the player understands that the leader is retreating, and isn't simply walking towards the edge of the map for no good reason.
Neuromancer wrote:Last level (named Finis Coronat Opus /The end crowns the work/?) -> every killed enemy will be reanimated by dark forces leader as walking corpse ("Death is only excuse for disobedience")?
I've got no problem with this as long as the playtesting doesn't reveal any balance issues and the player has a chance to learn about this mechanic before this mechanic has a chance to ruin things for the player (I wouldn't want a player to send a mercenary with low health to kill the enemy thinking there would be no enemies near enough to threaten the undefended unit on the enemy's turn, only to then learn that the enemy leader resurrects his fallen.) I would suggest having a small group of units attack the mercenaries right off the bat, while the main force is still fairly far away from the player. The enemy units that start near the player will quickly die and resurrect, showing off the mechanic without the risk of the player losing any of their own units because they weren't prepared for the mechanic.
Neuromancer wrote:Necklace cord is made from some kind of black leather. Scorpio has red gems as eyes, they are glowing in dark. The metal is probably more black than it is on picture. It can be only jewellery, but I was thinking about modification (When Wendala wears it?): the scorpion is kinda living and has wings. In special situations it distends its sting and wings and lets go of the cord, flies around.
What would be the actual gameplay effect?
Neuromancer wrote:Staff of gammy horse (probably needs some better sounding name) - artifact for Hazael
I definitely like the idea of the artifact. But you're right, the name should probably change. The word 'gammy' isn't used by Americans, so if nothing else we should probably use something that's recognizable in any of the major English dialects. Staff of the crippled horse? Staff of the tormented horse? Eh, we might come up with something later.
Neuromancer wrote:What about religion in our world? For example in Dragon Age 2 there is this good goddess, Andraste. Dwarves sometimes curse "Andrastes ass", lawful characters sometimes gasp "by Andraste!" when witnessing something in awe and so on. I think it nicely adds to the world immersion. Quman, are you willing to incorporate something like that into conversation? I can think out some religions and panthenon.
I've never played Dragon Age, but I know enough about it to know that Andraste was relevent to the plot, and wasn't just some generic deity whose name people used in their exclamations. I'm not sure if we'll really have time to delve too deep into the world's religion, so I can't be sure whether the pantheon would actually add depth to the world, or if their names would simply come off as fantasy swear words.
bobknows wrote:Instead of having the items in shops you can have them as drops from the enemy leaders and thus provide an incentive to complete as many campaigns as possible
The main reason we decided to do artifacts in the first place was so the player would have something to use their gold for. As such, I think the main method for gaining artifacts should be through spending money.
bobknows wrote:instead of making a custom sprite for each character(possible but costly) take a mainline sprite and just change a color or something, small but noticeable
I've actually messed around with this in gimp. I thought Kara looked good with burgundy hair, and it felt like the characters could have come out looking pretty decent with enough work, but it'd be kind of tedious to go through and modify every single image for every type of unit represented. Definitely doable, though.
Neuromancer wrote:We also have to motivate player to not separate the group. In other big scenarios (like the second one in UtBS) this was achieved by fatigue effect (player had to position his units right next to healer), but we cannot use it in there. I guess some Hazaels warning will have to suffice.
The idea that comes to my mind is having the characters stay together for safety. The wilderness could have deadly predators that Teresia can ward away with her magic. The predators would probably be related to the shadow ascendant (either something summoned by a shadow ascendant, or there could just be a small number of shadow ascendants on the map to begin with.) The AI would be set to give a high priority to the player's units, but would have an [avoid] tag to keep it from coming anywhere near Teresia. Hazael would say something right at the start of the mission to warn the mercenaries (and players) about the danger.
Sorry I didn't respond to any of that sooner, but I can sometimes spend hours on the forums when I come here, so I tend to stay away when I'm behind on my work.

I suppose since this is a new thread I should introduce myself to the people who weren't reading the old thread. I'm Quman and I'm in charge of characterization and dialogue in this campaign. I also contribute a few gameplay and story ideas and do a few other minor things, but writing is my main job.
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Neuromancer »

Lord-Knightmare, thanks for pointing that out.
Boldek, no, unless there is someone willing to port the maps and code to 1.8.
Quman
Quman wrote:
Neuromancer wrote:Necklace cord is made from some kind of black leather. Scorpio has red gems as eyes, they are glowing in dark. The metal is probably more black than it is on picture. It can be only jewellery, but I was thinking about modification (When Wendala wears it?): the scorpion is kinda living and has wings. In special situations it distends its sting and wings and lets go of the cord, flies around.
What would be the actual gameplay effect?
Dont have anything in mind yet.
Quman wrote:
Neuromancer wrote:What about religion in our world? For example in Dragon Age 2 there is this good goddess, Andraste. Dwarves sometimes curse "Andrastes ass", lawful characters sometimes gasp "by Andraste!" when witnessing something in awe and so on. I think it nicely adds to the world immersion. Quman, are you willing to incorporate something like that into conversation? I can think out some religions and panthenon.
I've never played Dragon Age, but I know enough about it to know that Andraste was relevent to the plot, and wasn't just some generic deity whose name people used in their exclamations. I'm not sure if we'll really have time to delve too deep into the world's religion, so I can't be sure whether the pantheon would actually add depth to the world, or if their names would simply come off as fantasy swear words.
It can be toiful to coming up and implementing panthenon (and thinking of it, some heroes /dead or alive/ for each faction), but I think the results will be great: immersive, stand-alone universe.
Im looking for some GPL licensed tavern-friendly music and sprites usable in tavern/library enviroment for the intro level. Also looking for GPL-licensed sound effects, mainly for characters death events.

We plan to implement corruption score and special character classes for Wendala, but cannot resolve upon it. Any suggestions about how Wendalas classes should be made? This was already said on the topic:
Neuromancer wrote:I have one thought, but Im afraid it is very messy to implement: To the start, lets give some variable to the Wendala, lets say 0. This variable represents her control over dark magic. As campaign progresses, player will execute some actions, which will add or subtract from this variable (for example: Player will recruit Yveen, thats +1; in scenario X player will kill some civilians, -2; and so on). The more variable is negative, the more is Wendala under influence of dark power and vice versa. This will affect her battle stats, and, more importantly, her behavior. For example in scenario Y party is passing some dead bodies. If Wendala is under -3, she will say something like "These are ideal for reanimation", if she is 1 or higher, she will mourn then. If her score is negative enough, she will automatically join censored at the end... and so on. So, for every occasion there has to be two or more comments available and game will choose appropriate one.
Quman wrote:
Neuromancer wrote:I suggest this for Wendala:
1. Remove Lich advancement.
2. Strip Dark Sorcerer and Necromancer of their sprites, descriptions, and names.
Now we have only flavorless advancements. There comes the variable: In situations when it will be appropriate (these can be cutscenes I mentioned earlier), her appearance (portrait and sprite), description, and name will be updated to match her attitude. This way when she will advance midbattle only her combat stats will be changed. I think no more than four "attitudes" are manageable. I also imagine the only thing that will be changed both when she advances and will be updated is power of her attacks (overally in xp advancement and marginally in update /like +2, or -1/). I suppose these marginal updates will make her slightly more powerful then Luciana if she will be uncorrupted.
As I said, I'm a bit iffy about mixing experience advancement with conditional advancement. I suppose Wendala is a special case, but the idea of giving her flavorless advancements still doesn't sit well with me.
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by figl569 »

I ve started playing and found that when I give to Hazael leadership it dont have any efect
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by bobknows »

Could that be because leadership only works on lower level units?
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Quman »

Actually, Hazael's level is completely irrelevant. There is a version of the leadership ability that only affects adjacent units that are below level 1, another version that only affects units below level 2, and another version that only affects units below level 3. When you select improved leadership Hazael's level increases by 1 (which doesn't matter) and he's supposed to be given the next version of the leadership skill.

I looked into it, and I think the problem is that all three versions of leadership have id=leadership, cumulative=no. Hazael isn't able to learn a new ability with the same id as the ability he already has. I don't know if there's any way to get rid of abilities a unit already has, but if there isn't I think the problem can be solved by simply creating custom leadership abilities instead of using the standard versions. I'll see if I can get that to work then send the working version to Neuromancer if I can.
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Neuromancer »

0.2.1 uploaded. Roster code and Hazaels leadership fixed. Campaign now has fully working shroud on the world map thanks to melinaths [store/set shroud] tags. Intro scenario is now happening indoors, but the scenery is not completed and will be further updated in future.

On the world map there is test shop - currently functionless. I tried to make it work, but got entangled in the code. It can be found in World_Map.cfg file and I think only a few new lines are needed to make it work.

Another issue -> How to center Gloria Vicits logo used in the story parts regardless of the screen resolution?
Currently there is this code in Intro.cfg

Code: Select all

[part]
	[image]
		file="icons/GloriaVictisLogoWhite.png"
		centered=yes
       x,y=1000,500
	[/image]
...
[/part]
and the image is approximately centered on the 1920x1080 screen. I have started topic, read wiki and still cannot make any sense out of it.
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Neuromancer »

There is draft for scenario 11 in which Hazael acquires the Sanguine Phoenix. I changed the concept a little, the scenario will be not so much about infiltrating the base, but rather about getting in proximity of it. Firstly, some overall ideas:
Player will choose at what time of day he will start the mission. Each part of the day is prolonged to six turns.
Player may sound the alarm. In that case heavy reinforcements will appear and the acquisition of the phoenix will become much harder.
Outposts: There are three elvish outposts in the area: 2, 9 and 10. From there the dark elves can easily spot Hazaels forces and sound the alarm. Dont know how exactly this spotting mechanic will work, I was thinking about defense bonus of the unit plus 30% as a chance of being unnoticed (for example Kara has 70% in forest, so she has 100% chance to remain unnoticed by outpost guards). In every outpost there is some useful information available to player, for example he will learn the route used by ranger patrol group (B). Additional information can be extracted from captured elves (I guess Hazael and Bane are most suited for interrogation).
The river is magicaly warded against intruders (Yveen /maybe even Luciana and Teresia/ can sense it). Player may hunt down some animal and use its scent glands to mask his presence when crossing the river. Another option is to use this gland trick against some tamed wolves patrolling the area (Yveen, Hailey, Wellen? can sense these wolves are used as dark elves scouts). In that case river ward could be "casually" cancelled by magic users.

1 - (Brenton, Luciana, elven twins): This part of the forest is kinda dry. Brenton will come up with the idea of setting it to fire to decoy away the elves from the main base. He will ask Luciana for help (she is the only one able to quickly set it aflame), of course elven twins will be strongly against it.
2 - outpost
3 - Desert. I created it for the variety of the terrain but really dont know why it should be there. Maybe it is site of meteor crash (explosion and radioactivity)?
4 - The Heart: There will be one book somewhere earlier in the game available for purchase about previous war with dark elves. Among other things there will be mentioned The Heart: for whatever reason, dark elves hold these places as sacred and no guards are present there. Elven twins probably know this too. Player can sneak someone there to steal the phoenix unnoticed.
5 - location of Sanguine Phoenix
6 - (Yveen, Teresia, Luciana, Bane?, Hailey?) Graveyard. This is somewhat tranquil area compared to the rest of the map. Cloaked figure is lcoated there: it is elvish maiden mourning the loss of her beloved in the previous war. She is not hostile, she will not even call for help if player decides to kill her. Player can have conversation about war, loss, insignificance, pointlessness of life and similar depressing stuff. Inspiration comes from this LotR scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjRDfD09a-U 0:47 to 1:15.
7, 8 - Elven villages. If the alarm is sounded, from there the reinforcements will come. Player has to avoid the villages if he wants to stay unnoticed. Moving some unit on the village will cause the alarm to go off.
9 - outpost
10 - (Pelduras) Outpost located in hills. Pelduras will immediately notice this outpost was build with hands inexperienced with stone and will hint at means of disabling it.
11 - Gloria Victis statue
12 - players starting location
13 - alternate starting location
A - road leading to the main evil HQs
B - (Kara, Hailey) ranger patrol. Player can learn about it in the disabled outposts, ambush them and disguise some units as members of this patrol, then infiltrate the base and steal the artifact.
grey areas - where no action is happening. Need some additional ideas.

Alternative ideas:
Player can start the mission from 12 and 13 simultaneously. If he wants to use 13, he will have to clear the caves leading there. Maybe we can use the capture all villages idea there, Im not very fond of Qumans draft/retreat idea.
Sniping: Player may use Hailey or some dwarvish dragonguard to disable an outpost guards. Snipers will probably require suitable (=higher) ground. Dwarf may need a spotter if sniping at night (although dwarves spend a great deal of time underground, they cannot spot objects at distance -> I imagine they have infrared vision and that is useful only in close distance) and of course sound of the shot will probably cause the alarm to go off.
Sound sources: I think we can use [sound_source] tag at great advantage. If the player will listen carefully, he may learn where to go without sounding the alarm.
Player wont initially know Phoenix' exact location. There can be blood trails which will guide him to the main base.

---

I discovered some great flavor texts used in Magic the Gathering cards:
"Lands Ravaged, cities in ruin, so many lives sacrificed, and yet there was no other word for it but victory." - leader of everfall elves describing the last war with dark elves
"Words are a waste of time. Destruction is a language everyone understands." - some drake?
"Which would you like first, the insult or the injury?" - maybe Brenton?
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darkbase.jpg
Quman
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Quman »

Sorry I haven't posted here in a while. I gave Neuromancer my excuse yesterday, so I won't bother here. Anyway, my response to the last post is in the spoiler tag.
Spoiler:
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Re: Gloria Victis

Post by Heindal »

I tested your campaign:

Playtesters, please answer these questions:

1. Did you chose Yveen?

Not in the first tryout - in the firsttryout I choose to leave the her sister back, than I had to decide to convince her ... why should I do so, as the magician can advance to annother white mage if necessary. The second time I took her, but the healing effect is not as good - however she comes in handy against those ghouls in your kind of necromancer board game (north).


2. Is the intro scenario too wordy?

I think so ... but on the other hand you should work out the story ...
When first playing I simply clicked through it, when I played it a second time I really cared about reading and I admire your work so far, as you give the characters a real face - and you offer a lot of options (but maybe there are to many decisions and I was just confused).

3. For how long did you play the campaign and why did you eventually stop?

Hm, I stopped to post here and because I reached the end. Well I played around an hour, well proably a little bit more writing this comment.

4. Additional game comments:

I choose to take the dwarfen passage. After (of course) killing the dwarves and moving my hero to the signpost I finally came out on the map, before the decision to take the dwarfen path. So I now decided to pay the toll (however those dwarven should be dead by then, or at least enraged). I landed in a map with zero descriptions but a lot of enemies (nagas and lizards), without the possibilty to hire anyone. There were also a bunch of helping elven. It was like the worldmap.

Annother thing about the worldmap. You should reduce the income of the hero (-2). On the other hand overtaking villages will lead in a mean gold minus. However this has no effect - as you start the next campaign with at least 100 Gold. However you can overwalk the first event by simply moving close to it and than kinda jump over the bridge.

A Final word, about this zombie boardgame thing. As there are a zillion zombies on that field, it takes a lot of time to get to your own round ... You can do nothing but to watch, thats annoying.

Buying the book did not work. If you like you can use the shop concept used in trapped, after all thats what sharing is about.

I think it is concept and I can give you the following advices:

Reconsider the number of mercs, 6 might be enough - but than you have to overwork the concept.
Reduce the unnecessary speaking in the first part, but on the other hand - when it concerns the story you should work that out.
You should make an option that allows to buy a whole team with one or two clicks (You could call that "quick hiring"). The other option would than be to choose unit by unit, as it is now. But at least this way, the players of your scenario can decide if they want to go through this.

So it is a good concept and you should work it out. Also you should try not to make it too complex.
I know that is getting hard, but I (now) know what I am talking about. So keep up the good work and good luck for the future of your campaign ...
The future belongs to those, who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Developer of: Trapped, Five Fates, Strange Legacy, Epical, UR Epic Era
Dungeonmasters of Wesnoth, Wild Peasants vs Devouring Corpses, Dwarf Dwarfson Dwarvenminer
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Neuromancer
Posts: 204
Joined: September 10th, 2010, 9:49 pm

Re: Gloria Victis

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Quman:
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