Cities of the Frontier - now for BfW 1.11

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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xbriannova
Posts: 237
Joined: August 2nd, 2009, 2:51 am

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by xbriannova »

Hmm yes... I'm thinking ramparts could level up like regular units (representing fortification that is upgraded due to constant and expected attacks), and we could have worker units that 'heal' them, or you know, they could have limited 'regenerative capability, such as say 2-4 a turn, and 4-6 if they're not under attack like normal units.

Also, I haven't been going on with my best game so far to illustrate how far you could build your colony, but I might continue it for the sake of exploration and esci... Yeah. Thing is, it gets boring when you become far too successful. There should be something set for this other than increasing hostility that's going to be thwarted easily with ease anyway. Here's a few ideas:

1) What do countries do with their colonies? Exploit them! Make use of them! Why not make events such that the king would ask for certain things from the colony? Anything from gold to units to certain missions, such as say protecting a certain unit that arrived in your colony (that is a princess, prince or something), receiving dignitaries and anything under the sun really.

2) Also, disasters like flooding, nature's wrath (totally likely in a fantasy world), some magically induced eclipse bringing about madness and more undeads than usual, drought...

3) Rebellion. Unhappiness. Some of the colonists may not be very happy with your leadership for some reason, and decided to fight a civil war with you. Some of your units may turn hostile, which would suck but yeah. To reduce the suckiness, just have units spawn in and around your colony.
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UMC Campaign Guardian Order.
Main Campaign Thread: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26895
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Desertos
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Joined: February 23rd, 2012, 6:12 pm

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by Desertos »

To 2)

something like "the Blood Moon rise!"
Zombies appear everywhere on the Map and want your dead!
PainfulAC
Posts: 14
Joined: May 21st, 2010, 1:14 am

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by PainfulAC »

I played easy mode twice on this, and thought it was a ton of fun!

I just wanted to say that you should keep up the good work, and thanks for putting so much effort into this mod.

(Also, I hate Sea Serpents :evil: )
AfterDawn
Posts: 50
Joined: February 3rd, 2012, 6:51 pm

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by AfterDawn »

In cities of the frontier, I'm a strong believer that nature is your friend... just don't get too close.
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xbriannova
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Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by xbriannova »

Yes... That's another technique that I used. Let nature spawn its wolves and sea serpents and stuff, and they can actually protect you. You can do the same with multiple factions- The elves and bandits would attack the orcs, say. Don't rush one faction when there are multiple ones. Instead, form an impressive battle line to discourage them from attacking you, forcing them to switch targets to the often weaker other factions.

Also... Is this abandoned?
Current Projects:

UMC Campaign Guardian Order.
Main Campaign Thread: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26895
Art Thread: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 28&start=0
Daravel
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Location: England

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by Daravel »

xbriannova wrote: Also... Is this abandoned?
It's only been 11 days since esci last posted :)
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xbriannova
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Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by xbriannova »

Oh? Time seems to fly on my side that I thought loads of time had passed :D My mistake haha :D
Current Projects:

UMC Campaign Guardian Order.
Main Campaign Thread: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26895
Art Thread: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 28&start=0
AfterDawn
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Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by AfterDawn »

yeah funny, I also got the feeling like he hasn't posted in a while.
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xbriannova
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Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by xbriannova »

Well that's the part I'm worried about, seeing that developers would normally post quite frequently... But then again, like what Daravel said it's only been 2 weeks, so it's not exactly time to worry yet. It's quite successfully made thus far, and he's got one thing on mainline, so I doubt he's giving up.
Current Projects:

UMC Campaign Guardian Order.
Main Campaign Thread: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26895
Art Thread: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 28&start=0
esci
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Joined: September 4th, 2006, 12:07 am

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by esci »

I'm still here, and still motivated to work on this campaign. I just haven't had quite as much time to put into Wesnoth in the last week or two.
Original creator of the campaign Descent Into Darkness
Currently working on Cities of the Frontier
jkekoni
Posts: 7
Joined: December 7th, 2011, 3:10 pm

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by jkekoni »

I noticed that sometimes it is not possible to build anything on destroyed structure.
Some farms under construction are halted when winter starts, but some continue.

Magic items take time to find but are too often cursed. I do not pick them.

On easy it appears to be easier to get 1000gp before winter than survive winter. (on easy)

Help:
When the help talks about need for roads, it may not be possible to build any. Info should be given earlier.
Daravel
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Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by Daravel »

I've just replayed the campaign for the first time since the first version you released.

I 'won' the campaign around turn 25 of the first autumn, I was on around 36 gold income and I was buying 2 units a turn to prevent me winning (as I wanted to try winter).

I was playing on normal difficulty and for the most part found it really easy, but then other parts would present just the right challenge. Like the first time I played I only used bowmen and spearmen (no cavalry, mages or heavy infantry). I had a massive focus on building villages and by the the time I stopped playing (2nd summer I think) I had 32 villages. I had around 17 when I could have won. For the most part I recruited peasants then levelled them up to keep my income down, in the situations where I needed units quickly I recruited bowmen and spearmen (I also recruited some to prevent me from winning).

I would say that the closest I came to losing was the first wave of attacks where I was attacked my 4 enemy teams at the same time, but once they were repelled I didn't fear for my survival. I will admit, I re-ran a few turns, mostly to save a high level or loyal unit where I had made a stupid move - but I honestly think their deaths would have made little difference as I could have recruited 4 or 5 new level 1's and just levelled up a new one. Because I was trying to maintain 0 upkeep I had less units so that resulted in reloading turns - but that could have been avoided.

The reason I say that 80% of the game is too easy is because there is either no one attacking for 5-10 turns (winter especially), then a good number of the attacks are wiping out each other or getting wiped out by the wild animals - or the attacks are a singular enemy. The un-dead provided the hardest challenge (without fire or impact) but they switched to a majority of walking corpses near the end and that made it easier.

I was able to keep my city fairly small as well and the avenues of attack are fairly consistent so I could keep a flimsy border of troops then move other troops to hot spots when needed. The winter was a problem as I had the central bit of my base covered in farms so it took a while to move around, I started to combar this by making a ring road for my base (I haven't tested this in my second winter yet).

The campaign is seriously good fun, I loved designing my little base and when it got tense, it was indeed tense. I just feel that the pressure could be maintained at that high level for longer.

I have some slightly contradictory thoughts:
- The game feels a little too slow, this is both building and enemies. if I want to build on a forested, hills hex it takes 6 turns to take that lot down then a futher 2 (miniumum) to build something. After my first winter I recruited a third worker just to get things done quicker. This would of course make things a little too easy - but I think if you had enemies attacking quicker it would balance it out.
- The items are nice. the arcane bow really helped me against the undead. You have to be a little lucky in what spawns near you as the wild animals inhibit exploration a fair bit (a specialised scout unit perhaps - that can pick up and pass on items?).
- The change in seasons is a brilliant idea, I think this could be expanded upon to put in more circumstance changing events. My strategy is to go for all out defence, I send out peasants to scout for fun more than anything else. I didn't really see any Orcs, so I had no reason to go and destroy their base - even when they did come I didn't feel much need to move off my defensive hexes. Possible ideas: The Orcs begin building a siege weapon that can destroy fortifications and take 50% hp from unit on that hex from a range of 2-3 hexes, you can go out and destroy it while it is being built. Tunnels built from nearby forests can appear in the middle of your city. Wayward travellers can be found, protected and join your city.
- Building defences takes a while - I guess this is similar to my above point. My strategy was: Once I had built all the villages in a given direction that I wanted to I built 3-4 encampments between the trees (along the attack routes). I then cleared trees in front of those (to make the enemy fight in the open ground). I never got around to upgrading the encampments though.

I'm attaching some replays and screenshots:
- Spring (1): I didn't attach the replay due to the 5 attachment limit, but you can see the screenshot.
- Summer (1): First wave of undead, immediately followed by Elves. Went from 25 units to 14 (mostly peasants) as my upkeep went from 9 to 11 (11 villages though). Gave me the level 2's to support the peasants. Finished on +28 income and 317 gold.
- Autumn (1): turn 20: 630 gold, + 34 income and peasants die in droves :) I finish with 902 and 30 income with 33 units
I just wanted to illustrate how quickly you can build up. Over the winter my income dropped to -10 as I had over recruited to keep my money down, the spring saw about +8 income and I began my extensive road and encampment network. I'll post a screenshot for my base after the first spring, summer and autumn and then one of my base for turn 29 of my second summer (where I am now).

I hope this illustrates the playstyle I used and shows what I mean about the rapid growth strategy being so effective. I'm going to double post and attach my current save game which is turn 29 of the second summer. The state of my city is pretty much what I wanted to achieve and is the kind of effect I'd like to be approaching sooner in the game (certainly before a realistic win point)

Overall I love the campaign :)
Attachments
Second shot of first autumn
Second shot of first autumn
First shot of city on turn 36 of first autumn
First shot of city on turn 36 of first autumn
City on turn 36 of first summer
City on turn 36 of first summer
City on turn 36 of first spring
City on turn 36 of first spring
CotF-Summer_of_Dreams_replay.gz
(82.5 KiB) Downloaded 332 times
Daravel
Posts: 310
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Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by Daravel »

Sorry for double post. Attachment limits.

spring and autumn replay and current save file.

Edit: Is it possible to keep playing after winning? That would be a nice option.
Attachments
CotF-Summer_of_Dreams_Turn_29.gz
Current save file
(169.65 KiB) Downloaded 422 times
CotF-Autumn_of_Gold_replay.gz
Autumn replay
(101.57 KiB) Downloaded 415 times
CotF-A_New_Beginning_replay.gz
Spring replay
(64.11 KiB) Downloaded 361 times
AfterDawn
Posts: 50
Joined: February 3rd, 2012, 6:51 pm

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by AfterDawn »

I found with just a little luck its not all too difficult to acquire 1000 gold before the first winter. last time i played I only made 14 villages and killed one orc leader. undead are a real pain to kill (wraiths and what not) so I think they are a really nice feature. magic items also pretty nice (except for the regen ring).
I don't know if it would be wise or not to worry about balancing at this point because i personally would prefer to see more content. I don't know if this is already a rejected consideration but I suppose you could raise gold necessary to win for every level of difficulty.
Though i really believe you can worry about making this monstrously difficult later.
Ghash
Posts: 3
Joined: June 1st, 2012, 7:13 am

Re: Cities of the Frontier (aka sim-Wesnoth)

Post by Ghash »

Great game, loved it, well thought out especially the seasons.

Just a couple suggestions for expanding the game:

Raiding Partys
Could you make it so you can invade other maps, for example travel to a sign post and transport your troops through to launch an attack on a troll, undead or elvish village.
Perhaps even on other settlements like your own where you can either choose to raid them or ally and if allied you could send for help if under a larger attack and send help too.

Such a raid could lessen the attacks brought on by the village you destroyed and earn you money or special items but repeated attacks on the same village could also result in a much larger army attacking you in revenge.

When on a raid you would only have the troops that you sent and wouldn't be able to recruit any on that map so you would need to decide when to retreat, also help could come to the village you are raiding from other villages not on the map if one of the villagers escapes

Your view of the raiding party could be brought on after you end your turn in your main map, so that it is in the same turn and have the same season effect

Different maps could be entered from the north, north-east, east, south-east, etc... and each new map could have the same options greatly expanding the game.

Other Idea's
Perhaps after reaching 1000 gold you could buy for that price a new young commander who can conquer and settle other maps where you can start a new village.

Or if playing only on the one map you can take him up to a corner and start a new village (perhaps expanding the map a little when the new commander is bought giving over your command of the main city to the AI and paying a 10 or 20 percent tax on your income and perhaps a levy of every fifth soldier you produce.

The AI could be set to maintaining and remaking anything that gets destroyed, perhaps building walls around their city.

You could also choose to rebel and not pay your tax or perhaps additionally have a minimum tax that if your not careful you are unable to pay which leads to the Lord sending a small amount of troops to punish you the amount of troops would increase each season that you haven't paid your tax.

If you attack the city then you would be at all out war.

Drought could be randomized for some summers as well as flooding in the spring.
Could have the normal spring melt flood which is the same and then an additional random flood which also destroys your farms or causes them to be non-producing

hope sum of these idea's are doable, perhaps you could have the basic CotF and larger file with the addons.
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