A New Order.

[Anonymissimus]

BTW, is it possible to use directly the images from data/campaigns? I mean, without distributing them within a campaign?

That's theoretically possible, but it's a bad practice. On Linux, when installing Wesnoth from the package manager (at least on Debian-based distros), the user can choose what campaigns should be installed. At this point, you may end up with missing stuff, or even with the campaign not starting at all.

Actually, can be done quit cleanly since #ifhave is available (for sp addons).
In TEG I use the masked dwarves (and their images) from THoT. If that campaign isn't installed, there's a message at scenario start about this. I also need to load some dummy units in this case. But if it's only graphics, the worst you can get is the stderr message and a missing image, so the message about that this or that mainline stuff needs to be installed is shown in any case.
Maintaining unit cfgs is a pain so I like to reduce maintenance load at all costs.

[szopen]

Changelog for 1.2.2 (szopen)
* removed USE_L3_OUTLAWS and version in _main.cfg, thanks Elvish Hunter
* Tweaking interrogation events in some scenarios ("die" into "last breath",
"kill" some units which wre declared as killed in the "last breath" event etc.
* New dialogue with Kyobaine
* removing redundant images to reduce campaign size
* bunch of typos corrected ("except" instead of "expect", "anyything", "grat you")
* first description of Akladian race in units/_main.cfg
* Making some string uniforms, so to make the translators' task a bit easier (e.g.
sometimes one sentence was spoken in two different places, and it seems only
one was corrected, as a result two different translatable strings were created.
Fixed).
* Polish translation updated

I have already updated Russian translation, I will in few hours put it on server. By reading WesCamp, I am quite confused; it used to be for the campaign maintainer to get the most recent translations in binary format (.mo) and distribute them with campaign. WesCamp states that "if you add translate=yes, everything will be done automatically". Does it mean I should _not_ add .mo files I have generated myself? Then, how to prevent some translations to appear, if they are outdated?

Changelog for 1.2.2a (szopen)
* Changed the version number
* Just kidding russian and italian translation updated, also sent to WesCamp
* added comments for strings to make translations easier

Changelog for 1.2.2b
* Updated German and Hungarian translation.

With Hungarian translation I have a problem, since I know only dozen or so Hungarian words; So i couldn't really check whether all fuzzy strings were indeed "fuzzy".

I will now update French and Czech translations. It's a lot of work (about two-three hours per translation), but it's quite easy: you just check whether fuzzy string is ok, remove #, fuzzy comment etc. I mean, easy for me, because I know which strings were just corrected, and which were completely rewritten; so I can easily decide whether some translated strings may be accepted or not.

[szopen]

Changelog for 1.2.2c (szopen)
* Updated catalonian, czech, danish (dansk?), french, spanish, swedish,
turkish, polish translation, corrected all others since I spotted some errors
in way fuzzy strings were merged
* gettextized some missing strings..
* some more comments for translators.. but do those comments really work?

I've checked the Catalonian and Russian translations and they seem to work. For the others, while for Russian I am quite sure I made no mistakes, in Turkish I could make them a lot -- in Turkish I was removing "fuzzy" when I was almost sure, the original string changes were only typos, or were not important to the story (And I learned few Turkish way in the process. He, he, he)

[szopen]

Changelog for 1.2.3
* Khalifate units images and definitions removed from add-on
* graeme.png portrait removed, since it was really awful.
* updated version numbers in bunch of places (seriously, this is to make it easier
for savegame analysis etc)
* removed two unused macros (NOTIMPLEMENTED and NOTFINISHED)
* updated Polish translation

I've checked that everything should work ok -- I removed everything from my laptop, downloaded the campaign and evrything installs and works just fine -- including the dependencies from Khalifa faction.

EDIT:
WUAHAHA Finally I got wmlxgettext to get the po: comments when "make"'ing the clone of the git repository... Now only I have to uderstand, why this make produces 1133 errors...
Anyway, I will produce a 1.2.3a version soon, if everything will be ok. The version is different with two typos and corrections to comments.

yes, I was experimenting with different placing of the comments, adding spaces etc and it was driving me slowly insane..

[szopen]

Release 1.2.4 is on add-on server.

Changelog for 1.2.4
* Rob Roe may disappear, as he was supposed to be in the initial campaign design
(not fully tested, but it should work).
* more comments for translators
* updated Polish translation again..
* New image for scenario 24th
* removed farmer_girl2.png, since it was not used anywhere

Changelog for 1.2.4a
* slight changes to story_barnon.png (making akladians a little bit darker)
* removed Gwidle's portrait; replaced by Maddock from Liberty
* updated Polish translation.. AGAIN. It should work correctly now (previously several strings were not trasnlated)

[szopen]

CHANGELOG for 1.2.4b
* updated Russian and Polish translation slightly, updated French translation,
some typos corrected

[pyrophorus]

Hi !
ANO is definitely a great campaign !

Had a little problem with version 1.2.2b. Not in the campaign itself but when opening the map editor:

It's a little thing: the editor opens anyway.
Friendly,

[Evander]

Finished this campaign.

I will rate it somewhere between Bad Moon Rising and Grnk the MIghty

Definitely one of the best campaigns around, lets give it 9/10.

So what I liked:
+ Storyline
+ multiple loyal units
+ interrogations
+ travel maps
+ battles
+ party banter!

What I disliked:
- some battles, like the Oracle seems pretty difficult - enemies reach the keep at turn 8
- alkadians as a factions are imbalanced
- missing unit descriptions
- placeholder pictures
- storyline sometimes gets a little bit nonsensical

To elaborate:
I can see a lot of decent, hard work done on this campaign. The story line is actually pretty good, apart from few moments (like ending, but at least it is better then ME3 ending), important characters are unique and different.
On some occasions interrogating enemy leaders is comical, but it is a very nice idea to drive the story line forward and helps to complete the picture.

I found battles to be pretty interesting, pretty demanding, and sometimes taking a lot of save-load (I have a feeling of dejavu... )
but they are challenging in the right way - you want to protect your loyal units and level them up, while feeding enemies with cannon fodder. It is I think what BfW is all about.
I like that there are no "kill 50 enemies" scenarios where you are swarmed by a sea of hi lvl units. Enemy leaders seem to have little gold, which helps balance akladians in some way.

Travel maps are very nice - to be honest, I wonder that if developers of ANO teamed up with BMR maker and Grnk the Mighty maker - we would get the most awesome campaign ever?

Loyal units are of course welcome - and listening to elves chat was such an amazing thing - finally the elves are bad-ass fighters as they should be.
Also, elven shaman unit wins the prize with her dialogue lines

A downside to having multiple loyal units (btw, not a single loyal cavalry unit?) is that I was tempted to spend all my gold on bringing loyalists in to battle, rather then to recruit some cannon fodder.
Trying to make them last against akladians gave me a lot of WTF moments.

And of course akladians. Faction with no ranged unit apart from the wonderman. Resistances of a tribesmen are many times better than those of royal guard. While defence is poor, the damage akladians do is totally unacceptable - 8-8 hits?
I found that akladians as a faction are probably the worst part of the campaign, as I was loosing my elven avengers placed on river banks and in forest to akladian sturmknight who attacked them from water. Even the khaliphate faction was more balanced than akladians.

Placeholder (made in paint?) images are somewhat of a pain, but after I chose to ignore them they were not that much of an issue. Lack of descriptions for units however is a different story.

And sometimes the storyline takes a twists that are difficult to explain. Like the ending, where newly founded king who just slain hundreds of akladian lords and orcs and undead, but three wackos force him to accept cruel fate for his close family member.
But still, there was no starchild and multicoloured explosions, so ending is pretty acceptable

All in all, for all it's shortcomings A New Order is a campaign well worth playing - balancing RPG elements with battles that require to actually plan ahead, and all this served with a story line worth playing through.

[szopen]

What I disliked:
- some battles, like the Oracle seems pretty difficult - enemies reach the keep at turn 8

Yes, this is by design. I tried it hard so enemy will reach it no later and no earlier. I wanted to have one scenario, when player is really forced to act quickly. I have changed from the previous versions, since some players were complaining it is too easy, and indeed it was, with so many 3rd level loyal units playel usually has at his disposal at thi spoint.

- alkadians as a factions are imbalanced

- missing unit descriptions

Really? Which one? Have I messed something up? I was making unit descriptions for all Akladians...

- placeholder pictures

You mean the portraits, or do some images for storyline also felt like placeholders? I will commission three more portraits for Akladians, so I hope this will mitigate a problem somewhat.

On some occasions interrogating enemy leaders is comical, but it is a very nice idea to drive the story line forward and helps to complete the picture.

On some occasions it is intended to be comical. So, which one? I'd hate if the parts I wanted to be humorous weren't, and those who were supposed to be deadly serious, were funny.

I have a feeling of dejavu... )

So, dejavu macros work? Hehehe. I wasn't sure, though I tested them a lot But a lot of things worked till now only for me

Travel maps are very nice - to be honest, I wonder that if developers of ANO teamed up with BMR maker and Grnk the Mighty maker - we would get the most awesome campaign ever?

Usually, when three great designers (hehehe) meet to make the greatest campaign ever, the results are chaotic and poor

Also, elven shaman unit wins the prize with her dialogue lines

Hehe BTW Her lines appear only if you level her up in time These part was not corrected by SIgil, so I hope my Polinglish does not show much in that. Have you find out the woman teaching healing, BTW?

Trying to make them last against akladians gave me a lot of WTF moments.

Yes. Intended. The campaign was intended to force player to always choose some cannon fodder, as live shields for his loyal units. I am not sure though about the results -- the Akladians were balanced for Wesnoth 0.9.8 or soemthing. That's six years ago. I tried to rebalance them with this new port, but it's really messy part and not as entertaining as one may think The intention was to have guys extremely vulnerable to some kind of weapons only (magic, fire, etc) and extremely resistant to all traditional weapons, while at the same time who would be able to be fully or almost fully healed within one turn.

And of course akladians. Faction with no ranged unit apart from the wonderman

Intentional, this won't be changed.

. Resistances of a tribesmen are many times better than those of royal guard. While defence is poor, the damage akladians do is totally unacceptable - 8-8 hits?

OTOH, you can take 3rd level Akladian unit with a bit of luck and proper units. Usually Elvish Sylphs and White Mages burn them easily.

But then, my intention was to force different gameplay style, and not to frustrate the players. I have to think how to change their stats, without changing much their design. Also, rebalancing whole campaign would be terrible thing.

Spoiler:

And sometimes the storyline takes a twists that are difficult to explain. Like the ending, where newly founded king who just slain hundreds of akladian lords and orcs and undead, but three wackos force him to accept cruel fate for his close family member.

Everyone hates Lorin. Wesnothians are sure she is the one, who betrayed Freetown location.

Akladians are pretty fundamentalists, and they need to make a line, which won't be crossed. My intention was that Akladians are pretty insecure at that point, and that's reinforces their strictness about Lorin violating their customs. The fact that Gawen slain orcs etc does not matter much for them. They want to show him, they will be independent, and they won't be his slaves; he can't do anything he wants. ANd if if he would not abide, they would abandon him.

They are Akladians. Look the way they treat their own God (e.g. when Lorin threatens God that she won't make any sacrifices to him) -- they do not respect the God. They accept that he is more powerful than them, that's all.

What about other twists? I tried hard to make everything be explainable by back stories, the character background etc. E.g. When Lorin's disappears at one point, there is a reason for it, though there is no chance for player to find out why (but I think it should be guessable...)

What about the music? The most the the campaign size is the music. Seems to me that almost 3/4 of players who reported to me until now wre playing with speakers off; Makes it pretty pointless to have almost 40-50MB of music none listens to.

[Evander]

What I disliked:
- some battles, like the Oracle seems pretty difficult - enemies reach the keep at turn 8

Yes, this is by design. I tried it hard so enemy will reach it no later and no earlier. I wanted to have one scenario, when player is really forced to act quickly. I have changed from the previous versions, since some players were complaining it is too easy, and indeed it was, with so many 3rd level loyal units playel usually has at his disposal at thi spoint.

then perhaps my units were just too slow at that map

Really? Which one? Have I messed something up? I was making unit descriptions for all Akladians...

*khalifate faction has a lot of description missing... but I assume it has nothing to do with you
*akadians have very hi resistances and very high damage, which I found pretty disturbing. they clearly stand apart from the rest of BfW units, in not-so-good way.
What I am saying here, that perhaps they could be slightly weaker (less damage/resistance) but more numerous.

You mean the portraits, or do some images for storyline also felt like placeholders? I will commission three more portraits for Akladians, so I hope this will mitigate a problem somewhat.

portraits

On some occasions it is intended to be comical. So, which one? I'd hate if the parts I wanted to be humorous weren't, and those who were supposed to be deadly serious, were funny.

I can't give you specific details, but sometimes it feels like the enemy who draws his last breath can hold the air long enough to give you long and elaborate answers

So, dejavu macros work? Hehehe. I wasn't sure, though I tested them a lot But a lot of things worked till now only for me

It worked for me with John Fastfood on some post-oracle map, and only this map can't quite remember... it had a river in the middle

Usually, when three great designers (hehehe) meet to make the greatest campaign ever, the results are chaotic and poor

well... if there would be one leading person and if the others would follow... well, I am just dreaming....

Also, elven shaman unit wins the prize with her dialogue lines

Hehe BTW Her lines appear only if you level her up in time These part was not corrected by SIgil, so I hope my Polinglish does not show much in that. Have you find out the woman teaching healing, BTW?

Since she is the only shaman you have (flying+healing) any reasonable person would prefer to level her up asap. As for the woman, I don't think I did.

Yes. Intended. The campaign was intended to force player to always choose some cannon fodder, as live shields for his loyal units. I am not sure though about the results -- the Akladians were balanced for Wesnoth 0.9.8 or soemthing. That's six years ago. I tried to rebalance them with this new port, but it's really messy part and not as entertaining as one may think The intention was to have guys extremely vulnerable to some kind of weapons only (magic, fire, etc) and extremely resistant to all traditional weapons, while at the same time who would be able to be fully or almost fully healed within one turn.

. Resistances of a tribesmen are many times better than those of royal guard. While defence is poor, the damage akladians do is totally unacceptable - 8-8 hits?

OTOH, you can take 3rd level Akladian unit with a bit of luck and proper units. Usually Elvish Sylphs and White Mages burn them easily.
But then, my intention was to force different gameplay style, and not to frustrate the players. I have to think how to change their stats, without changing much their design. Also, rebalancing whole campaign would be terrible thing.

That's just my opinion on that faction. Keep in mind that:
* fire = khalifate fire archers
* cold = ?
and that would be it.
Which means that you have almost no units that can cut through them, unless you train a lot of 3lvl khalifate archers.
Mages are available later on.

I know that balancing things is pretty annoying and difficult. I worked in gamedev industry and had to do that sometimes.
Perhaps the overall idea here that can work is to simply cut down their power a little but increase numbers - so that TOTAL strength would remain similar.

Akladians are pretty fundamentalists, and they need to make a line, which won't be crossed. My intention was that Akladians are pretty insecure at that point, and that's reinforces their strictness about Lorin violating their customs. The fact that Gawen slain orcs etc does not matter much for them. They want to show him, they will be independent, and they won't be his slaves; he can't do anything he wants. ANd if if he would not abide, they would abandon him.

A lot of their leaders are already dead. If the rivers have to run red with blood of those who oppose a king, who just kicked the asses of almost everyone, so be it

They are Akladians. Look the way they treat their own God (e.g. when Lorin threatens God that she won't make any sacrifices to him) -- they do not respect the God. They accept that he is more powerful than them, that's all.

"Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon them"

For me it seems that akladians are at their weakest at the game ending. Makes no sense to let them loose and submit to their demands, but rather to have sons of their lords swear fealty to a new king on the heads of their fathers. literally.

What about other twists? I tried hard to make everything be explainable by back stories, the character background etc. E.g. When Lorin's disappears at one point, there is a reason for it, though there is no chance for player to find out why (but I think it should be guessable...)[/spoiler]

I didn't mean that twists are wrong. Actually I like plots that can surprise me

What about the music? The most the the campaign size is the music. Seems to me that almost 3/4 of players who reported to me until now wre playing with speakers off; Makes it pretty pointless to have almost 40-50MB of music none listens to.

I had my speakers lowered because I was watching scientific movies on YT. but I heard the music and noticed that it is different.
It fits well, and actually I would love to hear it in other campaigns as well (not necessarily yours, I am just not certain if other campaign makers can use it).

actually, some moments remind me of Chrono Trigger, the other Heroes of Might & Magic 3. Sometimes maybe is just too intrusive (fast, dynamic music versus people who try to focus on a battle with a lot of WTF moments is not the best idea )
But - personally I prefer combination of celtic music like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8LTs8MBRrM and dark/apocalyptic ambient http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8gw1CSl0UY(also moruz, Newson from this group).


edit:
quoting spoiler tags produces bizarre results.

[AxalaraFlame]

Report. A new order is completed in 1.10.2 version. A few problems are spotted.
This should be one bug:
I activated debug mode to kill all leaders. This guy escaped...then...l won...not only this scenberio, but the whole campaign. It finishes.

[AxalaraFlame]

sorry for posting again...l dunno how to upload two pictures at a time, but now, u can see something l have seen few months before and now.
Here is this bug:

[szopen]

I activated debug mode to kill all leaders. This guy escaped...then...l won...not only this scenberio, but the whole campaign. It finishes.

You are not supposed to kill all leaders. In fact, I have strived hard to make it impossible. I don't know whether I will correct this, since right now without activatin Debug mode this really should not happen.

[szopen]

...Oracle...
then perhaps my units were just too slow at that map

Actually, they shouldn't be. It's just you must to act a bit insanely in that scenario.

*akadians have very hi resistances and very high damage, which I found pretty disturbing. they clearly stand apart from the rest of BfW units, in not-so-good way.
What I am saying here, that perhaps they could be slightly weaker (less damage/resistance) but more numerous.

But wouldn't that make them more similar to other factions? I am thinking about maybe trimming down their HP, and leaving rest untouched. I am not sure about this -- I would have to play once more through the whole campaign and see whether this works.

portraits

akladianlord5-rescaled.png (178.52 KiB) Viewed 5307 times

I can't give you specific details, but sometimes it feels like the enemy who draws his last breath can hold the air long enough to give you long and elaborate answers

I see what you mean.

It worked for me with John Fastfood on some post-oracle map, and only this map can't quite remember... it had a river in the middle

They should also work in Battle of Barnon, if player keeps reloading after losing his units.

Since she is the only shaman you have (flying+healing) any reasonable person would prefer to level her up asap. As for the woman, I don't think I did.

The woman is well hidden. I decided that there MUST be one bonus which can be discovered only by accident, by a handful of players

Resistances of a tribesmen are many times better than those of royal guard. While defence is poor, the damage akladians do is totally unacceptable - 8-8 hits?

8-8? Fastfoot has 8-6, Darknite 11-5... You mean after AMLA?

Mages are available later on.

Let me quote one player:

I think they are quite balanced actually - they are soooooo hard to kill and can do crazy melee damage; they would be nearly invincible if they did have a proper ranged attack (thank goodness they don't). This being the case, it was huge fun when you finally get the mages to incinerate them (no wonder they hated mages so much - haha!);

Perhaps the overall idea here that can work is to simply cut down their power a little but increase numbers - so that TOTAL strength would remain similar.

That's one idea. When I will have time to balance a campaign, I will use it as one of alternatives.

Spoiler:

A lot of their leaders are already dead. If the rivers have to run red with blood of those who oppose a king, who just kicked the asses of almost everyone, so be it

1. From four kingdoms, two are goners, and most of Akladians would suppor gawen.
2. From Vakladia, there are still a lot of Akladians. Part of them would support Gawen, part won't.
3. Guilcorta is untouched. You say Gawen should give them a pretext to disobey, and go on with civil war. Do you say this would suit Gawen and his advisors?
Sure, Gawen COULD refuse and give pretext to lords to disobey. Some would support him some wouldn't. He most likely would prevail, as Wesnothians wouldn't really care (killing Lorin is just a bonus to them). But that would mean another round of war. So, would Gawen and others really want to do it?

[szopen]

BTW, have anyone had problems with units not appearing?