The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Sadaharu
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Sadaharu »

I don't know what you mean by a side being persisted… but there was no way I was going to let that undead thing ekep its bony mitts on my weapon of mass destruction. My hitherto defensive tree-walker said hi to him.

Typo patrol!
Spoiler:
Now to try and get Ardalandwen to unleash her arcane fire.

Edit: I'm loving the spear-butt attacks. :)
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Celtic_Minstrel
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Sadaharu wrote: August 7th, 2018, 4:07 am I don't know what you mean by a side being persisted… but there was no way I was going to let that undead thing ekep its bony mitts on my weapon of mass destruction. My hitherto defensive tree-walker said hi to him.
Graktar, Malcorn, and Kaden Kreuz are all supposed to have any surviving units available to recall each time they show up again. That was unfortunately broken at some point.

As for your spelling/grammar suggestions, yeah, that should be a comma. I have no idea how it became a stop. And I believe that is actually a valid use of "nor", if a little unusual. Since it's Graktar speaking though, I may change it; if it were the elves I'd probably leave it as is. Anyway I'll make sure to deal with the grammar issues for the next version.
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Can-ned_Food
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Can-ned_Food »

Surely, I am not the only one who would like the vernacular to include the words ‘nor’ and ‘xor’, et al., used exactly as the logicians do.

Honk iff you love formal logic.

Anyway, your use of “nor” does seem to correspond with how I'd expect. Much like you would see “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night”.
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Can-ned_Food wrote: August 7th, 2018, 5:28 am Surely, I am not the only one who would like the vernacular to include the words ‘nor’ and ‘xor’, et al., used exactly as the logicians do.
That would be pretty confusing, I think. NOR is "all false", NAND is "not all true", so NOR is kinda like an AND while NAND is kinda like an OR.
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gwen42
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by gwen42 »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: August 7th, 2018, 3:43 am Okay, so it looks like this is a bug that I noticed a few days ago whereby AI sides are not being persisted. Fortunately, I do have a fix, so I can put up a version 2.0.1 soon. Unfortunately, I think you'd need to go all the way back to scenario 4 (the second cave scenario) to take advantage of this fix. You could also dodge the bug in the current version by going back to that scenario and making sure to kill the undead leader before taking out the orc leader (as doing so gives you a different, working version of the final scenario).

I could probably add a second fix to respawn Malcorn in the final scenario if he's somehow missing, though. That would allow you to just restart the last scenario and play through it. I'll try to look into that tomorrow night so I can get it out as soon as possible, but in the worst case it may not be available until the next weekend. Also, if you could post your start-of-scenario save here as well (in case you don't know, that's the one called "BCoA-Reclaiming the Citadel.gz" without a turn number), that would help me to test this hypothetical new fix faster.

I also noticed another unrelated bug in your replay with Aphrophila's ellipse, which is fortunately pretty easy to fix, so that'll be corrected too. Thanks for the report!
I'm glad it helped you catch a bug. Here's the beginning of the scenario:
BCoA-Reclaiming the Citadel.gz
(48.19 KiB) Downloaded 360 times
Hmmm... I did not see Malcorn in the caves, but I did find and kill his lieutenant... sergeant... that Draug Malcorn had in the corner. Maybe there was a bug way back there, which I didn't know about, in which case, here's the beginning of that one, too, just in case:
BCoA-Descent into the Chasm.gz
(46.16 KiB) Downloaded 305 times
I knew that seemed a little too easy, even for easy level...
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Sadaharu
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Sadaharu »

Can-ned_Food wrote:Surely, I am not the only one who would like the vernacular to include the words ‘nor’ and ‘xor’, et al., used exactly as the logicians do.
If you want or and xor just learn Finnish and learn how to distinguish between tai and vai. ;)

‘No orc or goblin’ and ‘neither orcs nor goblins’ are both fine from a prescriptivist point of view.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote:Graktar, Malcorn, and Kaden Kreuz are all supposed to have any surviving units available to recall each time they show up again. That was unfortunately broken at some point.
From what I've seen in other people's signatures, a few thousand hours of work should give you a temporary solution.
Spoiler:
EDIT: have the dagger and fire (Elvish Mage) units been removed, or have I just been having incredibly bad luck when recruiting Initiates?
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Konrad2 »

The dagger one still exists for sure.

Scenario 1
Amuwen (elvish teacher with death flags) has the 'loyal' icon, but she demands upkeep.
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

They have not been removed, no. Also for the record, ice initiates can also upgrade to Elvish Mage.
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Konrad2 »

Spoiler:
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Can-ned_Food »

That could be a style thing. I would say that it should be consistent with other such messages: “Cured”, “Slowed”. I would also say that the exclamation should probably be kept because it is such a drastic ability; same as with charming an enemy to fight with you.
Bear in mind that I last played through this when it was known as Besieged Druids, so I don't know if Ariandela now has that Ring of Domination thing like she did.

When she did, all those messages were done with lowercase: “released!” “dominated!”
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

I think I did it lowercase because other similar effects were all lowercase too? Like slowed and cured but also stunned and such. At least, I think they were all lowercase; I don't have a copy of 1.10 handy to go check it.
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Sadaharu
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Sadaharu »

Apparently I was ‘only’ having terrible luck when recruiting my Initiates in the earlier scenarios. I went to the chasm scenario, recruited about two dozen new Initiates and got two treewalkers, two ice initiates, two fire initiates, eight dagger-girls and the rest were normal, except for one light initiate (future priestess). There were lots of Lv. 2 and 3 units so I paired them off with Enchantresses and got them promoted quickly Yay.

So I've just ended the campaign (after defeating some pesky orcs on the way, because they insisted on being offended that I got to their victim first, the poor bloodthirsty things).
Comments, typos, etc. which I made as I played and might be spoilery or pedantic or generally obstruct reading the thread:
Spoiler:
I think I'll have to replay it again just to see how many different types of upgrades I can get from initiates.

So, it was an enjoyable campaign:
-Pleasing variety on Elvish Initiate/Shaman units.
-Standard-type story but (even with the tense confusion and the occasional typo) well pulled off -also, most if not all stories conform to clichés one way or another
-The scenarios can be challenging enough, especially if I play it on hard and don't hit the jackpot of initiates with dexterous-intelligent-agile which meant I had three overpowered Sylphs by the third scenario
-The lack of strong fighter units means a different plan from the usual ‘place Champions, Rangers and non-Elvish allies along the edge of a forest and get healers behind them’ that passes for strategy among Elvish player-generals.

I'm glad that it's to be continued, I hope you can pull off making the sequel… will the units from this campaign be carried over to the continuation campaign as happens in many other serials, or will we have to recruit anew?

*gives creator a thumbsup*
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Sadaharu wrote: August 10th, 2018, 2:15 am I think it's been mentioned a couple pages ago, but the description for Ariandela's ring is inaccurate. When she's level 3 I'm dominating Lv. 1 and Lv. 2 units.
I don't recall it being mentioned before; however I spotted it on my own, so it's already fixed locally.
Sadaharu wrote: August 10th, 2018, 2:15 am minor: mosquitos poison Kaden Kreuz and keep making frogs come out of the nests in the swamp scenario
Ooh, I should make the mosquitoes avoid the nests, for sure. Poisoning KK is correct though; he's a necromancer, not a lich, so he's poisonable.
Sadaharu wrote: August 10th, 2018, 2:15 am Where does the trapdoor lead to? Looks like a loose end.
It leads to that lone tree near the elvish keep. This is revealed if you step on said tree, giving you an opportunity to open the trapdoor.
Sadaharu wrote: August 10th, 2018, 2:15 am The nightaunt Terror of the Knight falls, fading out with a high keening until it has become totally transparent; and then, quite suddenly, the sound was abruptly cut off,
At the same time, Kaden Kreuz lets out a gasp of pain. It seems that maintaining hold over such a powerful creature has taken a toll on him.

>Again, tense confusion. And take the K off night! :)
That K was an intentional stealth pun, actually.
Sadaharu wrote: August 10th, 2018, 2:15 am story: why does it take three days to get into the lair?
It's a deep hole and a difficult climb.
Sadaharu wrote: August 10th, 2018, 2:15 am Why do i get this much gold from going into the lair? If I got less gold it might be a better incentive for me to let the orcs get to Kaden Kreuz first.
Seems like a good idea...
‘Though the relief at a job well done made the journey seem easier some_how, it did not improve the time.
>bad style
Please clarify?
Sadaharu wrote: August 10th, 2018, 2:15 am I'm glad that it's to be continued, I hope you can pull off making the sequel… will the units from this campaign be carried over to the continuation campaign as happens in many other serials, or will we have to recruit anew?
You'll recruit new ones. The sequel won't have the initiate unit, instead you recruit shamans (which upgrade to druid, sorceress, or treewalker) or adepts (which upgrade to mage or zealot). There are AMLAs too though, which replicate most if not all of the diversity of the initiates. Most of the significant characters will probably reappear as well.
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Can-ned_Food
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Can-ned_Food »

Celtic_Minstrel wrote: August 11th, 2018, 12:37 am
Sadaharu wrote: August 10th, 2018, 2:15 am Where does the trapdoor lead to? Looks like a loose end.
It leads to that lone tree near the elvish keep. This is revealed if you step on said tree, giving you an opportunity to open the trapdoor.
When I design interactive environments and puzzles, I always try to help the user distinguish between a disabled thing and an invalid one. My favorite example is a torch stanchion: if one of twenty is the operator for a secret door, then the user needs a message which indicates that the other nineteen are not simply inert decoration if they were to attempt a ‘pull’ or such action.

Perhaps a message if you land on the trapdoor but are unable to use it?

Code: Select all

### _"This door is locked from the other side."
### _"You need to open the door on the far end of this tunnel from the outside."
Bleh; something like that.
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Re: The Black Cross of Aleron (formerly Besieged Druids)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Sure, that sounds like a good idea.
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