Winds of Fate

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SigurdFireDragon
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.1 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

name wrote: January 13th, 2019, 6:05 am A bit late to the party but here are replays of v0.9.0 if they are desired:

replays_0.9.0.zip
(22 Bytes) Downloaded 4 times
They seem to be missing from the .zip

name wrote: January 13th, 2019, 6:05 am One thing perhaps worth considering with regards to this, is to keep open and even hint at interesting possibilities for future drake campaigns and drake appearances in other mainline campaigns. That is, it may not be just as simple as galun's spiral path enclave establishing a sustainable isolationist colony while the expansion minded straight path drakes of morogor remain there out of weakness or fear from their recent defeat. But instead hint that this is only the beginning of drake arrivals to the great continent and drake pressure on the region will soon swell as time advances.
I don't really see Galun as isolationist, but he's certainly not as expansionist as the rest of the drakes. That means it could probably be characterized better in the campaign.
What do you mean by recent defeat? When Haldric came through or Kerath's defeat at Galun's hands?

name wrote: January 13th, 2019, 6:05 am Even the gliders are a bit slow on the consistently frozen terrain tiles. Do you think there should be small sporadic patches of non-frozen terrain to enhance movement somewhat?
Possibly.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.1 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by name »

SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 15th, 2019, 6:48 pm They seem to be missing from the .zip
Apologies. :oops:
replays_0.9.0.zip
(277.66 KiB) Downloaded 478 times
SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 15th, 2019, 6:48 pm I don't really see Galun as isolationist, but he's certainly not as expansionist as the rest of the drakes. That means it could probably be characterized better in the campaign.
I guess what gives me that impression is Reshan'lo's counsel of:

"On the flight here I have observed numerous armed long pigs south of the river, and in the forests and the mountains of this continent. They all reproduce faster than us drakes. If they attacked us in numbers, they would suffer losses, but our losses would hurt more. It would be as today, but worse."

Combined with the edicts 3 and 4:

"Avoidance of confrontation with well-organized speaking peoples"
"Use the long sleeps to cut food requirements"



These edicts are good measures to take in the short term since Galun's Flight has just arrived after a long and difficult journey. I think what makes them sound so isolationist and somewhat defeatist is they have no time limit for this timid strategy and it is not a part of a more ambitious long term plan for the settlement of the continent. Haldric similarly recognized that his people would be vulnerable over the short term after arrival on the Great Continent, but even then he spoke of the eventual great expansion of their new civilization over the vast plain that would become Wesnoth.

I am also a bit confused as to why a drake versus drake conflict is so feared by the followers of the spiral path, when drakes both fled to morogor from the distant west due to their defeat by lesser creatures and now again are threatened by such creatures. If they were driven to morogor instead by other drakes, and now again are being pushed off of morogor by population pressure from other drakes, that might better fit the malthusian narrative of the spiral path.

But as it is currently written, with them surrounded by such a significant external threat and common enemy as the fast reproducing races, it seems like their own population growth and internal conflict would be not the problem at all, probably the former would even be a necessity for their survival.

It is almost like the real lesson the backstory and campaign events are teaching is that drake arrogance and boldness has become too great of a weakness for them. That they need to temper this with some wisdom and even a bit of humility. Instead of preferring a head to head conflict, always consider indirect methods such as maneuver and even sometimes diplomacy (as per their forging an alliance with the Saurians).

Galdun might come to recognize this single mindedness caused them to lose in the distant west, then fight a zero sum game with each other over the declining Morogor, and now on the Great Continent could cause them to fall to premature conflict of their own making with the various natives there. Thus Galun chooses to take the more indirect and long term spiral path, but this makes him seem incompetent and cowardly to Kerath and thereby invites his attack. (Tangentially, it would be a great asset to the story development if Kerath appears in an earlier scenario before confrontation, best of all as an ally, to establish his character and perhaps subtly foreshadow the reasoning of his later attack on Galun).
SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 15th, 2019, 6:48 pm What do you mean by recent defeat? When Haldric came through or Kerath's defeat at Galun's hands?
I meant Kerath's defeat; of which is said:

"The Drakes lost in this struggle will take many years to be replaced."
[...]
"The Flight of Kerath was one of the largest flights in Morogor. With it gone, the remaining Flights will be likely to stay there. Also, it will be some time before Morogor holds another Contention to create a new Flight. For now, on this Great Continent, the pride and power of the Drakes is in your hands."


Which is worded in a somewhat conclusive and defeatist way (in terms of drake civilization in general, given that this is only one battle that has set them back so far). More compelling for anticipation of future campaigns would be the suggestion that this situation will not last long; many more drakes of the straight path will be arriving on the continent and will shape its future in a profound way.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.1 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Thanks for the replays, name.

It was informative to see 09-12 played without flares or flamehearts.
name wrote: January 16th, 2019, 7:31 am These edicts are good measures to take in the short term since Galun's Flight has just arrived after a long and difficult journey. I think what makes them sound so isolationist and somewhat defeatist is they have no time limit for this timid strategy and it is not a part of a more ambitious long term plan for the settlement of the continent. Haldric similarly recognized that his people would be vulnerable over the short term after arrival on the Great Continent, but even then he spoke of the eventual great expansion of their new civilization over the vast plain that would become Wesnoth.
It was my intention that Galun is moving to settle throughout the continent, just in a more balanced way than how straight path drakes would do it.
name wrote: January 13th, 2019, 6:05 am while the expansion minded straight path drakes of morogor remain there out of weakness or fear from their recent defeat.
name wrote: January 16th, 2019, 7:31 am I meant Kerath's defeat; of which is said:

"The Drakes lost in this struggle will take many years to be replaced."
[...]
"The Flight of Kerath was one of the largest flights in Morogor. With it gone, the remaining Flights will be likely to stay there. Also, it will be some time before Morogor holds another Contention to create a new Flight. For now, on this Great Continent, the pride and power of the Drakes is in your hands."

Which is worded in a somewhat conclusive and defeatist way (in terms of drake civilization in general, given that this is only one battle that has set them back so far).

The wording in the campaign seems to be unclear then. I was simply going for Kerath just wanted to take Galun's territory and be the first in the great continent. The other drakes on Morogor have no idea of Kerath's fate other than he left. Since a lot of space has opened up on Morogor due to the Flight of Kerath leaving, all the other drakes don't feel the pressure to leave at the moment on a risky trip.
name wrote: January 16th, 2019, 7:31 am More compelling for anticipation of future campaigns would be the suggestion that this situation will not last long; many more drakes of the straight path will be arriving on the continent and will shape its future in a profound way.
So yeah, this is just about exactly what was aiming for with the dialog as of 0.9.0. Any suggestions on making it clearer?

I've noted the rest your most recent post as well.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.1 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by name »

SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 19th, 2019, 4:55 pm It was informative to see 09-12 played without flares or flamehearts.
Yeah, I tend to avoid the leadership ability in general, mostly because it has no effect on units of the same level as the leader. It is a personal defect. :doh:
SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 19th, 2019, 4:55 pm It was my intention that Galun is moving to settle throughout the continent, just in a more balanced way than how straight path drakes would do it.
I definitely think that is the way to go with his character.
SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 19th, 2019, 4:55 pmThe wording in the campaign seems to be unclear then. I was simply going for Kerath just wanted to take Galun's territory and be the first in the great continent.
Having given this further thought, I think having Kerath appear as an ally that supports or even fights along side the player (Galun) specifically in the scenario "The Raid" would be really helpful. (Or alternatively, in "The Contention" but fighting against you). This would establish him as a character before he shows up in the final scenario and the dialogue between him and Galun would help set up his motivation for eventually attempting usurpation.

I might further suggest rewriting "The Raid" story text so that Verkon's role is replaced with Kerath. The story text would tell that (Aspirant) Galun approached the various Dominants with his proposal to capture and interrogate the commander of one of the passing ships to learn their destination and the way to reach it. Only Dominant Kerath listens and agrees to let Galun lead this quest with his full support. Afterwards, Kerath expects Galun to join his Flight to conquer the distant Great Continent, but instead Galun enters the Contention and rises to lead his own Flight with the same goal. To Galun this seems perfectly fair as there is an entire continent's worth of unclaimed territory and two Flights working together can faster subdue any inhabitants. But Kerath sees it as a betrayal (albeit one perfectly legal by the Ways of Morogor) and tells him to watch his back in the future.

Another character alteration that might be worth considering is to make Reshan'lo the recorder of the Galun's new Flight, rather than Kerath's recorder. This would allow Reshan'lo to be present during most scenarios to provide more dialogue opportunity debating the issue of the spiral path versus the straight path. This would allow easier and more gradual character development, with Galun starting out just as brash and deaf to such advice as any other Dominant and Vank possibly uneasy about the apparent weakness such a philosophy would signal to Galun's rivals. But eventually, through Reshan'lo's spoken wisdom and mistakes made during the scenarios, Galun and Vank would (one after the other) come to see the wisdom of the Spiral Path. Maybe the spy of Kerath could be rewritten to be not a spy in the first place, but an ordinary member of Flight Galun that became disgusted by the ultimate adoption of such "weakness" as the Spiral Path and defects to Flight Kerath, giving away the position of the former's Eyrie to the latter.
SigurdFireDragon wrote: January 19th, 2019, 4:55 pm So yeah, this is just about exactly what was aiming for with the dialog as of 0.9.0. Any suggestions on making it clearer?
Specifically, I think some semi-minor alterations to specific lines would help adjust the tone of the message in the right direction:

"Then I shall speak of what I have learned. The Drakes lost in this struggle will take many years to be replaced. On the flight here I have observed numerous armed long pigs south of the river, and in the forests and the mountains of this continent. They all reproduce faster than us drakes. If they attacked us in numbers, they would suffer losses, but with our present strength our losses would hurt more. It would be as today, but worse."

"The Flight of Kerath was one of the largest flights in Morogor. With it gone, the remaining Flights will be likely to stay there busy themselves with taking Kerath's former islands until the next Contention. Also, it will be some time before Morogor holds another Contention to create a new Flight. Then they will come, one Flight of bold young swarmlings after the next, drawn by the promise of such a vast unclaimed land. For now though, on this Great Continent, the pride and power of the Drakes is in your hands."

"To guide them in avoiding falling prey to more aggressive drakes or coming into destructive contact with the fast-breeding lesser races the mistakes of the old path, Galun proclaims the Edicts.
(1) Reaffirmation of respecting the territory of other drakes
(2) An end to slaveholding *Something about the relations with the Saurians (TBD after addition of Saurians to WoV)*
(3) Avoidance of confrontation with well-organized speaking peoples without the express command of the Dominant to do otherwise.
(4) Use the long sleeps to cut food requirements until the Great Continent has come under the direction of Dominants of the Spiral Path"
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Version 0.9.2 is up

Changes:
02 The Raid
Clarified objectives

03 The Contention
Additional victory option
Gribbel is now from the Flight of Kerath


09 Foothills
Totally new map. Underground cave action.
Some new dialog

10 Heart Mountains
Map tweaks
More colorful objective phrasing

11 Fire Meets Steel
Map adjustments for mobility

12 Confrontation
Map tweaks
Dialog display improvements
Dialog Tweak
Added last breath event for the spy

13 Epilogue
Story adjustments

Misc
Difficulty adjustments for S07-12
Story images for S06-12
Add a link to the forum thread in the campaign description
Add saurians as an easter egg
Spoiler:
Disabled Great Ocean journey map
Added proper Great Continent journey map (thanks zookeeper)
Dialog tweaks and adjustments
Some code cleanup

Replies:
name wrote: January 21st, 2019, 7:49 am Yeah, I tend to avoid the leadership ability in general, mostly because it has no effect on units of the same level as the leader.
Seems reasonable. While leadership can be useful, it's not best option in all cases. Depends a lot on level of leader, if leader is loyal, what you could field instead, etc.

I've implemented a few of the dialog suggestions. Some I haven't, as I need to give them more thought, and I want avoid changing the original story as much as reasonable.


What's Left To Do:
Hopefully minor story and dialog tweaks
07-12: Hopefully minor balance adjustments
11: Map changes to improve movement?
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.3 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Version 0.9.3 is up

Changes

11 Fire Meets Steel
Map changes to give the dwarves a better start and less snow to move through
Dwarf Lord now has bodyguards

Misc
Spy handling changed. If you play S11 on a previous version, and S12 with this version, a different spy will appear.
A lot of code cleanup in preparation of wrapping things up


All that's left now are minor dialog/story adjustments
and any balancing adjustments that may be needed.

Also, I may have the Saurians appearance be standard instead of an easter egg. Depends on feedback.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.4-RC1 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Version 0.9.4-RC1 is up

Changes:
S11 Fire Meets Steel
Avoid mentioning who the missing drake works for until his return.

S12 Confrontation
Removed the secondary keep

Misc:
Dialog and story tweaks/cleanup
Some code cleanup
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by SigurdFireDragon »

Version 0.9.5-RC2 is up

Changes
01 The Hunt
Fixed lynxes going in water and jittery animation

10 Heart Mountains
Improved some animal movement

Misc
Some behind the scenes cleanup
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Gweddeoran »

It would be good to have the Saurian's appearance as standard as they don't get much attention in mainline. BTW, are there going to be new Drake portraits for the campaign?
Also, what does RC2 mean?
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by josteph »

It means "Release Candidate 2". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_ ... _candidate and #3977 (the PR for merging this campaign to 1.15)
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by name »

gweddeoran wrote: March 22nd, 2019, 5:59 am It would be good to have the Saurian's appearance as standard as they don't get much attention in mainline.
That is a really good point, if I recall correctly, the player never gets to control saurian units in any existing mainline campaign. Add that to the fact there are only four drake units to recruit and it makes quite a lot of sense to add the two saurians units as proper recruitables at some point after the drakes reach the great continent.
josteph wrote: March 22nd, 2019, 11:33 am See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_ ... _candidate and #3977 (the PR for merging this campaign to 1.15)
Hmm, looks like some people are getting a bit stuck on the issue of drakes being predatory...
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: I want to add that a blue and orange morality system isn't really needed just to depict an alternate culture; usually it suggests a species with a very different thought process. In Wesnoth, perhaps wose or trolls could fit this definition, as well as fairies or djinn. I'm not saying drakes couldn't be like this, but as far as I know, they're normal flesh-and-blood creatures just like humans, elves, dwarves, or saurians, so it would be kind of strange for them to have such a different thought process.
Canonically, drakes have a magical component to them. From their race flavor text on the wiki:

"Drakes are inherently magical creatures, with a mysterious internal fire fueling their very lives. This can easily be witnessed when one of their kind perishes in combat; its internal fire is released, burning their remains in to ashes. Their internal fire is also their greatest weakness; it makes them extremely vulnerable to cold attacks. Despite their magical nature, drakes are incapable of channeling magic in a controlled manner. While the magic imbued within a drake's body enables it to spit fire and gives it life, they have no willful control over its functions of this magic."

But Orcs also appear to eat other sentient races and have no magical aspect to their being. That is not really relevant to the topic of diet. What is relevant is that the drakes (and quite possibly the orcs and several other sentient races) are obligate carnivores with high aggression levels. It seems perfectly reasonable that obligate carnivores, that must kill and eat meat to survive, will not evolve the same morality system that humans do.

For real life proof of this, note how Orcas with their brains twice the size of ours, eat similar species with large brains of their own. When they can, they even make attempts on Sperm Whales that have the largest brain of all animals, past or present. We see the same with Chimpanzees' predation on monkey's and even actual cannibalism of their own species.
Celtic_Minstrel wrote: It's more like members of a cannibalistic species deciding to stop eating their own kind. Sure, it's not strictly cannibalism in this case, but it's pretty close.
It is not cannibalism by any measure. Humans, dwarves, et al, are clearly primate mammals. Drakes are some class of reptiles or archosaurs or similarly distant vertebrate. To the extent we could even call them part of the animal kingdom due to the magic aspect which is undefined.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by gnombat »

name wrote: March 29th, 2019, 7:04 pm
gweddeoran wrote: March 22nd, 2019, 5:59 am It would be good to have the Saurian's appearance as standard as they don't get much attention in mainline.
That is a really good point, if I recall correctly, the player never gets to control saurian units in any existing mainline campaign.
In Son of the Black-Eye in later scenarios you get saurians.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

name wrote: March 29th, 2019, 7:04 pm But Orcs also appear to eat other sentient races and have no magical aspect to their being.
I've literally never seen anything to suggest that orcs eat other sentient races. Is it in mainline?
name wrote: March 29th, 2019, 7:04 pm That is not really relevant to the topic of diet. What is relevant is that the drakes (and quite possibly the orcs and several other sentient races) are obligate carnivores with high aggression levels. It seems perfectly reasonable that obligate carnivores, that must kill and eat meat to survive, will not evolve the same morality system that humans do.
Hmm, I can see kinda your point. However, there are plenty of non-sentient creatures around that they could kill and eat instead of humans, who are capable of speech and reasoning and, furthermore, are more capable of fighting back than most of the non-sentient prey. (I say most because there's obviously some, such as the tuskers, who are just as good as or better than humans in that one respect.) In other words, there are practical as well as moral reasons for them not to eat humans.

What makes this even worse is the implication that they take humans as slaves, which means they clearly know them to be sentient, so their hunting of humans can't be based on ignorance. Then supposedly they occasionally let some escape just so they can hunt them. Removing this detail might make the rest of it a little more palatable, though I still wouldn't be happy about it.
name wrote: March 29th, 2019, 7:04 pm It is not cannibalism by any measure. Humans, dwarves, et al, are clearly primate mammals. Drakes are some class of reptiles or archosaurs or similarly distant vertebrate. To the extent we could even call them part of the animal kingdom due to the magic aspect which is undefined.
According to the strict definition of the word, yes, it's not cannibalism. However, it's problematic for exactly the same reasons as cannibalism, so most arguments relating to cannibalism should still apply here.
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Re: Wings of Victory 0.9.5-RC2 (Drake Campaign for BfW 1.14)

Post by Celtic_Minstrel »

Hmm, I see. Honestly, that's really problematic as well in my opinion and I'd be interested in seeing those kinds of references removed. But that's off-topic for this thread.
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