Cavanagh The Conqueror

[TheEmptyLord]

This is the tale of Cavanagh Orc-Foundling, who was blessed by the gods to conquer and unite all of the Great Continent. Orcs and elves, gods and men, queens and sorcerers populate this epic tale of revenge and redemption. 7/- scenarios completed.

Author: TheEmptyLord(Programming/Editing), Scott Free(Storyline)


Any suggestions or help would be great. The Campaign is on the Add-onn Server but I'll put it on here too for the time being.

[vicente]

I would like to try it, but I want to know which version of Wesnoth it would work on.

[rmj]

Normal level.

Cavanaugh:
He is human but has the portrait of an orc.
At level 2 his crossbow animation has a blank in it
At level 3 (Conqueror) he is invisible

Firebomber animation has a blank.

Scenario 1, 2:
These are quite easy to win. At Scenario 3 I saw that I should have played these contrary to normal play; it is better not to win quickly, but to extend the play as long as possible to gain XP.
Scenario 3: too difficult for normal level
Scenario 4: very easy.

Scenario 5:
Moving a unit onto the center house of the bottom village brought forth a lot of troops. Now that I know this I will take only the outside villages (although it's perhaps better just to forget about village taking). And it seems wrong that a village I was just in should have an enemy unit appear.
Quite dissappointing to see an Orcish leader get killed by a lancer on turn 2, even though he was on his keep surrounded by units.

Scenario 6:
After the dialog is over a map with units shows up. I thought there was an error because the units wouldn't move. Perhaps make the dialog show up over this map.

Scenario 7:
Has an error. In your recruitment list you have "Bowmen, Longbowmen, Duelists"; this should be "Bowman, Longbowman, Duelist."

[TheEmptyLord]

Thanks for the comments and criticism, I really need it Sometimes its hard to tell if a scenario is too easy or hard based on my own experience and so I left things a little rough to get other people's opinion. I'll go in and make some changes today.

@ Scene 1/2: Originally I made scenarios 1/2 harder, but it was a fine line between too easy and impossible which all the high levels around your leader. I'll lower turns and ally gold and see how things balance out.

@ Scene 3: I thought it might be a bit too difficult due to the fact that player 1's troops have terrible mobility in the mountains and dwarves, of course, find it very easy. Would you say the best solution is less mountains, more gold, more turns, or less dwarf gold/units? I think I might be able to take out some mountains but my main problems there is that it ruins the looks of the map and the idea behind the scenario, even if it is the easier fix. I'll make some small changes but I'm open to suggestions.


@ Scene 4: Originally I made this one a bit too hard, maybe I went too far when I tried to make it simpler. The original ambush is meant to make it decent difficult to to get a firm footing before the troops come out, and the collapsing bridge created a bit of a standoff. Perhaps I need more villages on the enemy's side, or just give him more income so it become a bad idea to wait him out or take the long way around. What way do you think would be the best improvement?

@ Scene 5: This is surrounded by human lands so I wanted some sort of peasant ambushes if you focused on staying around and capturing villages, however I might have gone a little too far, especially on the lower left ones. I did want the battle to be strong and rather violent against your orcish allies, lending the need for a swift victory (hence the reason you have so many allies) but if you think it's really a problem I'm certainly open to change.

@ Scene 6: Eventually the storyline will have colorful pictures, but even so, I wanted some parts of the storyline to be more realistic, with more back and forth dialouge with the actual units. I suppose it does look somewhat like a regular scenario, but I don't wan to just convert it into Story.

@ Scene 7: Thanks, somehow must have missed that 0.o I copied most of the unit lists from my outline and then changed from there so a few things slipped by.


Thanks again for all your comments, the campaign is still in its early stages, but I hope it will be able to turn out much more balanced and workable as time goes on.

Ps. About the portraits and animations, they are in works. The one creating the portraits and storyline pictures hasn't finished them yet, and I'm the one working on the animations. I'm a terrible artist, so I am just doing the best I can with frankenpacks and rudimentary skills ;p I still fix those blanks though, thanks for catching them.

[TheEmptyLord]

I would like to try it, but I want to know which version of Wesnoth it would work on.

1.9.9 is what I created it in. I'll work to make it compatible with any other version that become stable.

[rmj]

Scenario1:

The object of this scenario, perhaps, should not be solely to reach the temple, but also to gain experience for units. If so, then the player needs to be advised of this. One possibility is to give Cavanagh a couple of loyal units at the beginning and he could give them a pep talk.

Give Cavanagh a weak crossbow to start with so he can gain experience with less risk. Given the opportunity to kill off a deathblade who is down to a single point, the possibility exists that the deathblade will get in three or four hits killing Cavanagh or leaving him ready to be killed by any enemy unit.
Still, gaining experience would be difficult because units have no source of healing. Taking one or two hits and they have to sit out for many turns. So perhaps the object should just be to get to the temple.

Use [avoid] so the allies don't stop on the target?


There is a significant difference in the possible number of turns for dwarves to reach target. This is
due, in part, to how many Thunderers are recruited. These units may quickly eliminate an enemy unit standing between them and the temple. Perhaps limited contemporaneous recruits of these units should be used.


The dwarves are targeted to 17,26 but do not land on that spot when they have the chance to. They prefer to attack. This is probably because you gave no value for target given. If a high value is given, however, the units may get to the temple much more quickly.
Give higher value to dwarves to kill skeletons, than humans? I only say this because the dwarves' intent was to destroy the undead.

Scenario 2:
If one or both of the guardians had been killed in scenario 1, they will reappear in scenario 2.
Perhaps the units on Cavanagh's side should be placed back on the map (fully healed) at the beginning so they can gain more experience, although winning this scenario is already easy (unless killed on turn 1).

Scenario 3:
The difficulty arises, as you are aware, from the terrain; the dwarves are almost always at an
advantage. One cannot wait for the dwarves to come to you in the open area at the bottom because there are far too few turns for this strategy. Also, it is difficult to strengthen weakened units because there are few villages.
Perhaps one or two small valleys with a couple of nearby villages would suffice to turn the tables. Or maybe a stream that one could lure the dwarves into. But likely more is needed: reduce dwarven income or provide a couple more level 2 units. I played this with the dwarven income reduced (I changed the WML) and I also had two level 2 units from the first two scenarios. I still lost.
The turn limit should be increased by at least four if not ten.


The story I find it does not flow, but jumps from one thing to something else. More scenarios could help this.

I would suggest:
Don't start with the story of the twins. Save that for the three mistresses to reveal to Cavanagh.
Although the brothers are twins does not mean co-rule. The eldest would still have the throne. But this vitiates the reason for attempting to kill Cavanagh. Perhaps a seeress revealed to Aram or the King the dire consequences of a war between the two brothers. Ironically, attempting to kill Cavanagh then led to this.

Cavanagh is raised by orcs, but orcs are absent for the first few scenarios. This is an example of lack of flow in the story. Also bullying by the orcs because of his humaness would be expected, so you use his discovery of the firebomb to create his esteem among the orcs, but it seems far-fetched that a kid under sixteen years of age would be able to do so.
I suggest adding a simple scenario before your scenario 1 that would handle these concerns, namely a battle alongside the orcs where a fourteen year-old Cavanagh does something heroic. There are numerous possibilities; perhaps animations at the beginning shows him saving a Shaman from certain death, followed by the attempt with a few low level orcs to lead the Shaman to
safety while a large battle between AI orcs and whomever wages (kill off Cavanagh's fellow units after victory so they are not available in the next scenario).

[TheEmptyLord]

It had been quite a while since I last worked on CtC, but I haven't abandoned it. Had a lot of things going on at the beginning of last year and sort of disappeared from wesnoth for a while. Anyhow, I'm back now and I've been tweaking CtC a bit.

Recent Changes:

1) Scenario 1: Ally now avoids the temple and attempts to protect it.
2) Scenario 1: Dwarves now value the temple higher
3) Scenario 1: Limited Contemporaneous Recruits of Dwarvish thunderers to 3
4) Scenario 3: Added 4 to max turns on this scenario. 2 loyal peasants are obtained when you capture a armoury now. Changed the map slightly to allow for more tactics. Mainly created streams in the mountains that can be used to lure the Dwarves.
5) Added a Prelude scenario in which Cavanagh is given command of a few orcs and attempts to rescue an orcish shaman from the enemy while a large battle wages. After the battle the shaman teaches him how to make firebombs and his fame starts.


Any reviews or criticism would be greatly appreciated.
Specifically I have concerns about:

1) Prelude: Is it too long? Is it boring? I added it not just to fit in the storyline, and not just because I didn't want a story only scenario, but because I wanted to give the player a chance to gain Cavanagh some experience and a few good units to recall. I don't know that I accomplished this though. Let me know if you think it would be better to make it a story scenario.

2) Scenario 3: Dwarfholt. Is it too easy now? Should I buff the AI's gold a little?

3) Anything you can think of regarding the balancing of ai/player cash. Specifically I'm not sure about the prelude, Scenario 3, and Scenario 7: The siege of Weldyn.


Thanks again!

Edit: And huge thanks to rmj for checking out my campaign back then and giving me all that great advice. It has helped a lot

[Raliven]

I've always enjoyed this campaign so I'm glad to hear you're still working on it.

As for the loyal peasants you gain when taking an armory, what's the reasoning in the story for this? It seems kind of odd story wise.

[TheEmptyLord]

They are/were slaves/forced labor. Ruffians, hermits, etc which the dwarves put to work. I added a small dialogue when they appear that should clear it up for players. I added them partially because I felt that it would be nice to give the player the option to level a few unique units to supplement his army earlier on. Let me know if you don't think they fit in the campaign or add an imbalance.

I've always enjoyed this campaign so I'm glad to hear you're still working on it.

Thanks!

[marvalis]

playing scenario 1 right now, and the purple ally just keeps suiciding his leader.

[TheEmptyLord]

Just made quite a few major changes to the prelude as well as adding Scenario 9. I'm really starting to dislike the prelude quite a bit :\ I may eventually turn it into a cutscene instead. For now I lowered the direwolf rider side's leader agression. Thanks for checking it out I will be updating and balancing this campaign quite a lot in the next few days. Any insight is a great help. (replaying the full thing a few times right now)

[Chief_Chasso]

Started playing this campaign the other day...

First, (just a nit-picky thing) your campaign icon has the gold wreath on it as if you've already completed the campaign. I thought there was something wrong, but then I notice this is actually part of the icon. Just a bit confusing at first glance, that's all.

I'm having difficulty getting past 00_Prelude. I know you mentioned you might rework this scenario. The scenario as a whole is good, if you can be patient enough to wait out the AI battles. But I think the problem is that it's too hard.

Here are two recommendations that I think would help balance this scenario:
Reduce the enemies' coffers (both starting gold and income). Too many enemy units makes it extremely difficult to get to the caged shaman (let alone return). Even with your allies, you are over matched. I quickly tested this with 100 less starting gold and 10 less income for both elvish enemies. This seemed to help greatly (much more enjoyable scenario anyway, IMO).

Remove the Woses and Elder Woses from side 5's recruit list. But keep all the guardian Woses that are placed throughout the map. This would cut down on having too many powerful trees smashing you to peices.

And lastly, why does the orc shaman have to return to the keep at the bottom of the map in order to win? Can't he just move to the other side of the river to safety? I'm just saying if you got the shaman back to the southside of the river you can basically consider that victory.

I hope you don't mind, but I tested this out with the above changes. I found out that it's possible for you and your allies to kill both enemy leaders and flood the map with allied units causing the bottom orc leader to fill his keep and just stand there preventing you from getting the shaman in his keep. Maybe the shaman can just move to a sign post on the orc side of the river to win?

These are just some ideas to consider before you completely scrap the prelude. I think it would be better as opposed to a cut scene. More interactive I guess, especially after the story parts. Plus you can get some experienced units.

[TheEmptyLord]

Thanks for the input!

I have been a bit busy lately and haven't made any major changes yet, but I have been messing around with the prelude scenario and have come to the decision that I either need to remove it or make it into more of an interactive story rather than a challenging scenario. Your comments fit right in line with the latter, so I'll likely implement most of them and play around with the scenario sometime this week. After that I'll have a chance to start flushing out the later part of the campaign and perhaps try a few more full play-throughs of the campaign to ensure that it is still balanced.

First, (just a nit-picky thing) your campaign icon has the gold wreath on it as if you've already completed the campaign. I thought there was something wrong, but then I notice this is actually part of the icon. Just a bit confusing at first glance, that's all.

Tbh I started creating the campaign (and made the icon) before the wreath was used to symbolize a completed campaign, and I never got around to removing it. I'll add it to my list of needed changes and start thinking about a better icon.

Thanks again, an update for the campaign should either be out this weekend or next, depending on when I find the time.

[TheEmptyLord]

Uploaded version 0.1.6

Changes:
1) Removed the gold wreath from the icon
2) Minor changes to story (for continuity and grammar)
3) The prelude scenario is now substantially easier and is intended as an introduction to the story and perhaps an interactive cutscene. Various changes include adding a signpost and using it as the target location of the rescued shaman, lowering of the elvish gold and lowering of the orcish income, and removing woses from the west Elf's recruit list.

[Chief_Chasso]

Well, tried out 0.1.6...

1) Removed the gold wreath from the icon

3) The prelude scenario is now substantially easier and is intended as an introduction to the story and perhaps an interactive cutscene. Various changes include adding a signpost and using it as the target location of the rescued shaman, lowering of the elvish gold and lowering of the orcish income, and removing woses from the west Elf's recruit list.

Thanks for making these changes. I think the Prelude scenario is much better now (it was pretty good before, but now it's even better ).

I'm playing the other scenarios now. Thanks for the upload.