Sand in the Wind, Dunefolk campaign (4 scenarios, 1.16)

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MathBrush
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Sand in the Wind, Dunefolk campaign (4 scenarios, 1.16)

Post by MathBrush »

Today I'm uploading Sand in the Wind, a four-scenario Dunefolk campaign.

The description is "A new colony threatens the way of life for a group of Windriders. The young rider Musa must fight for the survival of his people."

The purpose of the campaign is to give a straightforward way to use the standard Dunefolk units.

On beginner, I was able to beat each level on the first try, although one of the levels (against elves in a forest setting) is a sort of tactical puzzle. On challenging, I could not quite beat the first scenario when I tried it.

This is version 0.1. The dialog is first-pass, and the difficulty levels may be all out of whack. I am interested in feedback on:
-bugs
-possible improvements to dialog (is a part corny? are you surprised there was no message at a certain point?)
-difficulty tuning (is one scenario much harder than the others?)

I hope you enjoy it! These dunefolk units are awesome, and the new names (which I've included in the add-on even for 1.13.10) make it much easier to imagine them.
Last edited by MathBrush on January 23rd, 2022, 10:51 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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MathBrush
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign

Post by MathBrush »

I just got it uploaded ( I did this thread first so I could link to it). I had trouble because I've been using different file paths for the dunefolk for 1.13.10 and 1.13.11, and the server icon wouldn't accept a conditional statement. So for not, I'm using a general that has nothing to do with the game (except as an enemy).
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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octalot
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign

Post by octalot »

Thanks, this is interesting (I'm playing on easy, because I haven't played with Dunefolk units before).

At the end of scenario 2, there's a line "Now *are* enemies are without number". :eng:
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Inky
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign

Post by Inky »

Just finished it, nice work! 8) The story writing was very good!

You may want to add in the thread title that the campaign's for Wesnoth 1.13 since most players use 1.12 now.

By the way for the music, I noticed 3 out of the 4 scenarios used the default Wesnoth battle theme. There are plenty of other cool battle tracks in the default playlist (like The City Falls, Siege of Laurelmor, and Casualties of War) so maybe consider changing it up a bit.

Possible typos:
Spoiler:
One place where it would be good to add some dialogue is when you defeat the enemy leaders in the final scenario, since that's an important event.
Replay summaries
(played on Challenging) I found all the scenarios to be pretty easy, so in general there could probably be less player gold or more enemy gold.

Scenario 1: Attacked during first dusk and wiped out most loyalists during the first night (despite bad luck).

Scenario 2 (214 starting gold): Stayed back during the night and then attacked at dawn. Spammed dune burners (naffats) which made very quick work of the undead. The ally's units actually got quite a few kills and one even leveled! I think the ally could have less gold, he is being way too useful for a Wesnoth ally :P
The necromancer mentions that the valley's full of bones, so maybe an idea would be to place some bones in the south and the necromancer could turn them into skeletons during the scenario.

Scenario 3 (208 starting gold): This one's very easy if you lure the elves onto the flatland in the center of the map. On my playthrough the enemy wasted a ton of money on druids which are very weak in combat, so removing them from the recruit list (or replacing with sorceresses?) could make it more challenging.

Scenario 4 (171 starting gold): Saved up gold until I could afford to recall all my level 2s, then covered the sands with the blood of foolish humans and dwarves! :twisted: Finished turn 23, so the 40 turn limit seems kind of long.
Thanks for a fun campaign and keep up the good work! :D
Attachments
SitW-Approaching_Storm_replay.gz
Scenario 4
(30.36 KiB) Downloaded 467 times
SitW-Desperate_Times_replay.gz
Scenario 3
(20.77 KiB) Downloaded 463 times
SitW-Fallen_Empire_replay.gz
Scenario 2
(27.04 KiB) Downloaded 464 times
SitW-A_New_Colony_replay.gz
Scenario 1, Wesnoth ver. 1.13.10
(14.85 KiB) Downloaded 425 times
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MathBrush
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign

Post by MathBrush »

Thank you for your feedback, octalot and Inky! It's nice getting feedback on both difficulties at once.

I'll fix all the typos you both mentioned.

I play around a lot of people, so I never use sound. I'll try out some of the tracks you mentioned, Inky! And I'll try making the scenarios more difficult in the way you described. The other suggestions are very helpful, and I enjoyed your final battle description!
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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MathBrush
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign (uses 1.13)

Post by MathBrush »

Oh no! Watching your replay, I actually increased the gold for the ally on hard instead of decreasing it. That’ll make a big difference in the next version. Thanks for sending these!
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Coffee
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign (uses 1.13)

Post by Coffee »

Seems like a decent small campaign. Here's some more replays for you. I had some time and finished it on hard mode.

Seemed a little easy, but am not sure how this would compare to other campaigns.

Here's my feedback:
- I would recommend to add in some lurking woses/rangers in the elf scenario. You could explain the use of the fire units like this with woses.
- If you can get level 2 units to come after level 1 units first wave this increases the difficulty IMO a lot.
- It is too easy to grab villages far away from AI and rack up income or get them to divert away from main force. Maybe you should suggest such a tactic though? I have attempted to demonstrate this in the replay of the first and last scenario.
- AI runs out of gold if it loses villages. Maybe make village income less for AI and give more income on hard or some more level 2 units mid-scenario?
- It was not obvious to me that in the second scenario you have to protect the allied leader in the middle. First time I played this I wanted him to die so I could take better recruit spot and needed to reload this scenario after I got this to happen (and then lost immediately).
Attachments
SitW-A New Colony replay.gz
(15.54 KiB) Downloaded 491 times
SitW-Fallen Empire replay.gz
(28.5 KiB) Downloaded 442 times
SitW-Desperate Times replay.gz
(20.15 KiB) Downloaded 444 times
SitW-Approaching Storm replay.gz
(31.61 KiB) Downloaded 469 times
Shiki
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign (uses 1.13)

Post by Shiki »

Coffee wrote: - I would recommend to add in some lurking woses/rangers in the elf scenario. You could explain the use of the fire units like this with woses.
You could place the units randomly and let an micro_AI control them, so the player won't know at which spots the ambushers are when restarting the level.
Spoiler:
Last edited by Shiki on February 17th, 2018, 4:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Try out the dark board theme.
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MathBrush
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign (uses 1.13)

Post by MathBrush »

Thank you, Coffee and shiki. I don't play on Hard very often, so it's difficult to come up with creative ways to increase difficulty (beyond big gold increases). These ideas are great, especially with code already ready. Thanks!
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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MathBrush
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Re: Sand in the Wind, a short Dunefolk campaign (uses 1.13)

Post by MathBrush »

I've updated the campaign to 0.2.1.

Changelog:
-Fixed typos
-Fixed gold issue for ally on hard in Scenario 2.
-Added death messages for leaders in Scenario 4.
-Made objectives of Scenario 2 more clear.
-Updated add-on icon.
Spoiler:
Thanks for all the feedback. In general, I won't clog up the forum with frequent update announcements, but I wanted to fix some big problems brought up by the great people who've been helping. Thanks again!
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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MathBrush
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Re: Sand in the Wind, Dunefolk campaign (4 scenarios, 1.12/1

Post by MathBrush »

I have now ported the campaign to 1.12. The changes required were removing the fancy new desert mountains from levels 1 and 4, and un-ruining the 'ruined adobe village', 'ruined elvish castle', 'ruined elvish keep', 'ruined encampment',and 'ruined encampment keep' from levels 3 and 4.

Otherwise, the campaign seems to run fine, and has the added benefit of importing in the new Dunefolk names from 1.13.11 to make the campaign more understandable.
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Sand in the Wind, Dunefolk campaign (4 scenarios, 1.12/1

Post by Shiki »

You can still use the new terrains in 1.13 ... using terrain masks!
And by applying them in a prestart event, wrapped around a version check.

Terrain Masks are like maps, except that you save only the terrain which you want to change. Like maps, they can be saved in the scenario file or as separate .mask file. The map editor has a functionality to create mask files.
Spoiler:
Try out the dark board theme.
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MathBrush
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Re: Sand in the Wind, Dunefolk campaign (4 scenarios, 1.12/1

Post by MathBrush »

Thank you, this is very helpful. I have been wondering what terrain masks were!
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Sand in the Wind, Dunefolk campaign (4 scenarios, 1.12/1

Post by Paulomat4 »

Hello MathBrush,

I tried your campaign today and I was very pleased by it. Short, fun and you get to know the Dunefolk units. Reminds me a bit of Oath of allegiance when it was first uploaded. Great Job.

One thing you might want to improve:
In the last scenario my hero apothecary died because I was careless. But I didn't lose or anything.

also:
-Added a wose/ranger ambush in the middle of scenario 3.
I didn't see this. I even recruited some Naffats in advance because I read about here. Is it depending on difficulty?

Keep up the good work!
Paulomat4
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MathBrush
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Re: Sand in the Wind, Dunefolk campaign (4 scenarios, 1.12/1

Post by MathBrush »

Thanks for your feedback! I'll add some dialog in the next version for the apothecary's death.

The ambush is only on Hard difficulty. If you think of any changes in difficulty that would help later on, let me know. Thanks again!
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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