Carved in Stone 0.8.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.13]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Carved in Stone v0.5.0 [SP Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Kwandulin »

I've uploaded Carved in Stone v0.5.0 to the add-on servers. The campaign is not finished (12 scenarios).

This version contains a major overhaul.
The most striking new feature is the implementation of unique hero units each with their own AMLA path.

I am looking forward to hearing from you (especially regarding the hero units and the scenario changes)!
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.3.0 [SP Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by nuorc »

marecki wrote:in The March the AI-controlled reinforcements do not engage the enemy, they literally do not move at all, except for gryphons.
I believe the reinforcements are just for back-up. When the Gryphons were in range, they attacked. Just suspected the dwarves would do the same.
In The Dead Admonish ... I find it kind of funny that losing units in this particular scenario is actually recommended, as it is the only way to get ghosts, which are a solid counter to many enemies
I found that out, too. As I needed several tries for this scenario anyway, I was 'lucky' enough to get a nice number of ghosts.
I have a cunning plan.
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Kwandulin »

Just to clarify and avoid confusion: in Carved in Stone v0.5.0 the scenario The Dead admonish has been replaced by a different scenario and The March does not feature help of gryphon riders anymore, mainly because the reasons mentioned already.

Amassing ghosts and later shadows / nightgaunts would torpedo the whole idea of the campaign (raw, dwarvish battlepower). The scenario I put in instead of The Dead admonish features some limited units that can be of a great use, though (hint: I removed the recruitable Dwarvish Brewer).

I've also changed The March a lot. Now you do not get help from the gryphon riders anymore (it was unpredictable). Instead, you now get some special units at the beginning of the scenario, so that you can plan your turns.

Version 0.5 feels very different from version 0.3. You might want to check it out!
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Paulomat4 »

Hey, just playing through your campaign again because it's just awesome!
Im in scenario 2 now and noticed a small bug. I didn't get the heart of the wose.
So, because i'm such a kind person, I solved it for you :P
In the last_breath event of the wose replace

Code: Select all

		[object]
			name= _ "Heart of the Wose"
			image=icons/heal-jade-3.png
			description= _ "The Heart of the Wose grants +8 regeneration"
			duration=forever
			[filter]
				id=second_unit
			[/filter]
			[effect]
				 apply_to=new_ability
				 [abilities]
					{ABILITY_REGENERATES}
				 [/abilities]
			[/effect]
		[/object]
with

Code: Select all

		[object]
			name= _ "Heart of the Wose"
			image=icons/heal-jade-3.png
			description= _ "The Heart of the Wose grants +8 regeneration"
			duration=forever
			[filter]
				id=$second_unit.id
			[/filter]
			[effect]
				 apply_to=new_ability
				 [abilities]
					{ABILITY_REGENERATES}
				 [/abilities]
			[/effect]
		[/object]
kind regards
Paulomat4
;)
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Kwandulin »

Thanks a lot, Paulomat4!
I'll fix it soon.

edit: fix'd
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Paulomat4 »

hey,
I was so captured that I even finished the campaign yesterday evening! :D That needs to be rewarded, so here's a full review of your campaign!

Story
The new Ending feels better than before, but the ancient-lich idea is kind of overused too. I guess that you've been searching for an alternate ultimately-powerful foe. In this case the new idea is better but still not so good. I can't really come up with good ideas but here are a few that you could consider:

- I feel like because of the change from the god of dwarves and trolls to an ancient lich you've kinda lost the connection between the trolls leading all those orcs instead of orcish chieftains. While the idea of gods is more or less banned from (mainline-)wesnoth how about some troll shaman that wants to complete some ritual in the special energy source under spellkeep? Now that shaman (or maybe even a group, like three?) becomes really powerful absorbing the magical force that is contained there or something. You could even imagine him (or them) being able to create stone elementals or something. Just an idea.

- Maybe you could also go into the direction of some almighty demon (we have Uria, Zhangor, Yarae, etc...) that is prisoned under spellkeep. I don't really know the lore from "ATS" and "IFTU" anymore, but I seem to remember that there was one big demon per race or something? Like one for the elves, one for the dwarves, etc... sry shadwomaster if I'm bullsh*tting here, really need to play your campaigns again!
Although that idea is similar to that of one dwarvish god.

Really, those are just ideas, and feel free to continue with jevyan's older brother if you want. I'll play your campaign anyway :D

Bugs
1. the dwarvish headhunter has some problems with his amla. The first one he takes is okay, but the second one reduces his stats eventually. So Taking a second amla isn't beneficial, except if you want to change the unit type. Either you could make it so that the player is only able to take one advancement (like they are separate units) or you would need to fix the attack stats changing.

2. The Icesaints portraits:
-the first dwarvish Icesaint that joins your team (the one with the yeti) has a missing portrait. The portrait shows "image not found"
-the other two have no portraits at all, while they all have one in the first scenario where you meet them.
suggestion: one of the three has the portrait from moremirmu (the white mage from Httt) which has a sword. The Icesaints do not have a sword though, so I suggest replacing that with another portrait.

3. not really a bug
-the description of the teuton is talking about dwarvish teutons while the unit itself is clearly human.
Also I suggest giving him at least one more move because he's always hanging back. He is faster than the normal dwarf, but the normal dwarf has a much better movetype that is a lot more suited for the different terrains you're facing.
Another thing is that he is pretty weak in comparison with your other heroes at the moment you get him. I suggest him having taken at least one damage and one hitpoints amla. But I might just not have given him enough love.

4. not really a bug either
- the description of the bloodlust and bloodfrenzy abilities is missing. I didn't knew what they do before reading that in the unit files. Please add a description, or if you want I can help you with that.

Balancing
first of all, I was playing on medium.

scenario 1: story

scenario 2: feels fine

scenario 3: That one was a lot more difficult for me. from the time limit, as well as from the amount of gold. Especially if you do the wose-sidequest. I suggest giving at least a bunch more turns, or increasing the gold amount.

scenario 4: the yetis gave me a bit of a problem, but nothing that I couldn't solve. It's okay as it is.

scenario 5: took me two tries to realize I have to use only gryphons. Once the initial battle between the mermen and the naga was won, the rest was cake. I got 4 lvl 2 gryphons out of that scenario :D

scenario 6: Gryphons can be used to kill the saurian leader within a few turns, and from then on its xp-farming and slowly walking to the end of the tunnel. I was kind of missing the challenge here.

scenario 7: before the changements you made it was a challenge. Now it was much too easy. The stone guardians are overpowered! +15 hitpoints and loyal? that does not only unbalance this scenario, but also the rest of the campaign.
2 suggestions:
1. let them cost something from the beginning on. That would also give you the opportunity to introduce them. example dialogue:

Code: Select all

		[message]
			speaker=Skjol
			message= _ "Look, the legendary Stone warriors are guarding the place! Andurin you can awaken them with your runes but beware, their service will cost you something"
		[/message]
Then you can give the player the opportunity to use them or not.

or

2. Let them cost something when you take them into the next scenario. something along these lines:

Code: Select all

		[message]
			speaker=Stonewarrior xy
			message= _ "Andurin! We can feel that your hammer is guided by the mountain herself! We will follow you, but our services will cost you something!"
		[/message]
then you would have to store all of them and modify their traits.

The scenario might also have been too easy because my andurin was now lvl 4 and after stepping on the rune he had an attack of 31-3 magical. Then, an entire orcish squad suicided on him and he still had 60/90 hitpoints. :lol:
here's the save, it was around turn 13 I believe.
CiS-The_March_Aufzeichnung_abspielen.gz
(70.93 KiB) Downloaded 387 times
scenario 8: I was a bit disappointed because there was no hidden item, but I guess thats fine. I'm just becoming too used to it.

scenario 9: That one was a nice challenge! I made it on the first try, but was near losing my precious thunderlords sooo often.

scenario 10: story

scenario 11: It was funny until I won against every enemy, then it was just waiting until andurin had made his visit to every rune. The time limit is fine, but because you have to run around for a few turns in the end it got a little tight. Either change the way to open the tomb or give the player a few more turns.

scenario 12: Kind of easy. I just send every unit to the back of the room, next to kwandulin and send andurin down. He beat the crap out of all these skeletons, although he probably wouldn't have survived much longer.




All in all a wonderful campaign! I just wrote every minor thing that came to my mind, so don't feel bad about that big wall of text.

Thanks for reading!
Paulomat4 ;)
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Kwandulin »

Thanks a lot for your effort, Paulomat4, I appreciate it very much!

While I am very content with the current scenarios (gameplay-wise), you are certainly right that I didn't find an adequate ending yet. I like your idea with the troll shamans. Maybe they are an equivalent to the three dwarvish icesaints? Sounds interesting to me, though I fear, that this path would be rather boring gameplay-wise, as you would be fighting trolls in most of the campaign then . . . (and there is only a very limited amount of troll units). I'll think about your suggestions, though. Thanks!
Personally, I do not like the demon lore at all, so you won't see that being implemented in this campaign.

Regarding the dwarvish headhunter: Yes, this behaviour is intentional. In v.0.3.0 the you could accumulate all the AMLAs (without changing the image of the headhunter), now you can just switch the variation of the headhunter (and get a visual feedback. 'Oh damn, this is my dwarvish flamethrower'). Apparently the current behaviour is not the best choice. I'm looking forward to hear other opinions on that. I may revert that.

Regarding the icesaints: Durmenthrain missing his portrait is definetely not intentional. I'll fix that until the next version. In the near future, I want to make a total of three different variations of icesaints, so you can distinguish the three icesaints. They will get a unique unit sprite and one of them will have a sword then (They'll also each get one unique AMLA path and share the other two paths).

Regarding the teuton: Ughh, I missed to change the unit name and I guess there are several units with missing or false descriptions.Your suggestions sound good to me! Thanks!

And thanks a lot for your suggestions regarding the balancing, I especially like your first idea with the stone guardians!

EDIT: I just watched your replay. Really impressive and offensive turns! Now I understand why you rate the stone guards as overpowered
I see you did not use your heroes that much (except Grim that old orc-basher and Andurin). Do you think the heroes are insignificant? Do you like the heroes? When I played The March my group of heroes was already really experienced (my army wasn't),yet they had problems to block every entrance of the fortification (and that's why i needed some tough stone guardians).
Mhhh, yes, turn 13 is really strange I guess. I'll put some more ranged units in the orcish squads (or put the rune far away).
Last edited by Kwandulin on March 26th, 2015, 3:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Paulomat4 »

and there is only a very limited amount of troll units
As i said they might get the Power to summon elementals (fire elementals would be possible as well, as shamans have fire magic), but that might as well be extended to summoning undead. Its just the old ancient overpowered lich plot that bothers me a bit.

Regarding the sharpshooter, the problem is that when the player wants a sharpshooter, he wants a shapshooter and not a a flamethrower just because the unit levelled in the middle of a scenario.

Different icesaints is a good idea, i like that. No use in having the same hero unit thrice.

Now imagine the player having 3 or 4 stone guardian thanes. You'll never have to worry about enemy damage again.

I didn't use the teuton too much because he was always running behind the others and never really faced to many enemies. And at a certain point he was just too weak to use him really. The hero guardian i leveled later in the scenario where you have to flee from the ghosts. He got two or three upgrades then.

As you can probably see my army wasn't too advanced too in the march scenario, but i used it to advance a few units
The rune itself seems to be too powerful. Adding 30 damage in one turn? Overpowered in my opinion. I' d rather see some kind of sword or spear that improves the guardian hero or the teuton.
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by ahmannar »

I share the same opinion of Paulomat4 regarding the sharpshooters. With the current system it´s a waste giving experience to their level 2 form on them because the unit won´t get stronger(just a diferent kind), it takes longer than leveling another level 1 to level 2 to get the same result and, in the end, less good recalls if you do it instead of just recruiting new ones. Considering we have a good number of special units that already consume lots of xp, there´s currently no incentive to play with the new dwarish unit, at least for me i stopped recruiting/recalling them once i discovered this behaviour.
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Kwandulin »

Thanks for your feedback. I considered your suggestions and reverted to the former mechanics, while also adding a new feature. This will be included in the next version.

The dwarvish scoundrel now advances to the dwarvish smuggler. The dwarvish smuggler only needs a small amount of experience to advance and he is able to accumulate all his 4 or 5 advancements (like nightstalk ability, a stronger ranged attack, fire bolts and a weak melee attack with a 3x backstab). The order of the advancement does not play a role; so the smuggler is a very flexible unit. If the smuggler collected all of his upgrades he will advance to the dwarvish headhunter the next time he has enough xp for a level up. The headhunter keeps all the former advancements and even improves them making him a fragile but fatal unit with many usecases.

I've also updated the scoundrel and smuggler sprite (most notably the crossbow and quiver, which is taken from the amazing Elvish Rider sprite) and I am very content with them now. The headhunter still needs visual tuning, though.
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Paulomat4 »

I feel like the smuggler and the scoundrel might need a little bit more difference. They may be too similar to be really able do distinguish them on the battlefield.
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.5.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12.0]

Post by Andrettin »

Just downloaded this campaign and am about to try it out - one little comment about the campaign's write-up, though:

"orcish attacks were lead against dwarvish settlements" is grammatically incorrect; it should be "orcish attacks were led against dwarvish settlements"

EDIT: In the intro to the first mission:
1. "huge territories of the central planes" should be "huge territories of the central plains"
2. I think that "A strong network of trade relations" would fit better than "A strong net of trade relations".
3. I would change "steadied" to "consolidated" - I think the latter sounds better in this instance.
4. I think that "Unbounded hate" would be better than "Unbound hate".
5. "Without regard of their very own lifes" seems incorrect to me - I would change it to "Without regard to their very own lives" (the plural of "life" is "lives")
6. "Dozends" should be spelled "Dozens" instead.
7. I would change "One attack was followed by the other" to "One attack was followed by another"

EDIT2: In the dialogue of the first mission:
1. "would't be" should be "wouldn't be" instead.
2. At one point Grim says "dwarven wife", which to my knowledge is against Wesnoth's naming conventions - BoW uses "dwarvish" instead of "dwarven" as the adjective pertaining to dwarves, except in the single case of the Dwarven Doors.
3. "Moment, do you smell that?" would work better as "One moment, do you smell that?" in my opinion.
4. "times of highest dangers" should be "times of the highest danger" instead.
5. "its as though they were in much haste" should be "it's as though they were in much haste" ("its" is only used as a possessive, while "it's" is the correct contraction of "it is").
6. I would change "Skjol, my most loyal thane will accompany you" to "Skjol, my most loyal thane, will accompany you".
7. Where it is written "Magnicient!" it should be "Magnificent!" instead.

EDIT3: In the dialogues of the second scenario:
1. Where Qrim says "That is MY realm!", I think that it should be "This is MY realm!" instead.
2. In accordance to the Battle for Wesnoth convention I mentioned earlier, perhaps it would be better to change "dwarvenpack" to "dwarvishpack"?
3. "Let none of them alive!" should instead be "Leave none of them alive!" OR "Let none of them live!".
4. When Grim says "Teach them a lesson, yer say?" it should instead be "Teach them a lesson, ye say?". Ye = you, while yer = your/you're
5. "that allow them" should instead be "that allows them".
6. Grim says "Do you think, the lousy rat has been hired by orcs?". I think that it would be better if written like this: "Do you think that the lousy rat has been hired by the orcs?".
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.6.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Kwandulin »

I uploaded v.0.6.0.

I've polished the hero units (after maximizing their 3 skills their unlock a fourth one) and added several animations to them (mostly Grim, Skjol, Onarr). I also fixed the mentioned spelling mistakes and continued / altered the storyline (now 15 scenarios) a bit. Also added some more decision-making stuff (especially scenario 7) and made some scenarios harder (especially scenario 6).
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.6.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by sreesreearul »

Hi,

Very interesting campaign. The kind of one which I prefer, a small band of amazingly powerful yet diverse heroes out for a legendary battle against a terrible foe.

Here is a very randomized and badly written feedback, hope it's comprehensible. I may post/send a detailed feedback once I find enough time.

There are quite a few typos here and there, I'll list them out once I get time (slightly pressed now). Compared to initial scenarios the later ones are lacking in story and detail. The last two scenarios need further explanation I suppose (I guess you will be doing it next time, going through the forum thread I could see how much revision has taken place).

All your custom made units are brilliant. The unique AMLA for each hero is impressive.
Spoiler:


Bloodfrenzy and Bloodlust lacks description. Sharpen doesn't seem to work
Spoiler:
PS: I played in medium.
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.6.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Kwandulin »

Thanks for playing and your feedback!

Heroic is similar to the {AMLA_DEFAULT}: it grants the hero +5 hitpoints per advance. You can have an unlimited amount of this advancement.
I've also thought about removing the recruit/recall option, so that you just have your group of heroes (similar to Baldur's Gate I/II); but I've decided against it, as there are probably people that prefer leveling their armies instead of the few heroes. Disallowing the recall/recruit option would lead to a dead end for those players after Spellkeep. And you most certainly need some canon-fodder units to prevent your heroes from getting smashed to red dwarven-mush.

I noted the Rock'n'Troll bugs, thanks!

Yes, the descriptions are still missing; I don't really enjoy writing stuff like this, so filling that in will probably take a lot of time.
I assume your Guldarmaadh got the weapon special 'sharpen'; it works fine here (gaining +1 damage per kill); it has the wrong ability description, though. I'll fix it.
And yes: Grim gains one attack (and a move) after a kill, if he has the bloodlust (bloodfrenzy) ability! But imo his rather few hitpoints limit his frenzy, especially if he is facing some L2,L3,L4 trolls.

Other than that I hope you enjoyed the campaign and thanks again for your feedback!
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