[Historical] Son of the Black Eye Updated!

[Taurus]

The orcish leader line is in mainline nowadays - in the standard data/units - so you shouldn't need to include these custom .cfg's for Kapoue or other orcish leaders.

The main reason why I inculded Kapou'e sepperatly was because I wanted to add a portrait for Kapou'e without having to type in "Image=Kapoue.jpg" every message. Besides, I was getting fed up with the paths to the units being constantly changed. Anyhow, I really appreciate vonHalenbach bringing him up to speed for me.

I'm about to download this and give it a whirl. Always wanted a Orc campaign.
Taurus, do you still want problems/suggestions/misc thoughts or are you past that stage?

Do I still want problems/suggestions/misc thoughts? Heck yeah! The more imput I get on it the better. Although I have got all the scenarios compleate, it still takes a while, and whole lot of feedback to get it tweeked perfectly.

And in the same train of thought, thans for the feedback Sgt. Groovy. As for the "Keep in the corner" syndrome, I never thought of it before but I can see exactally where you are comming from. Is there a thread discussing this topic somewhere, because I am sure this problem isn't unique to this campaign.

About To the Harbor of Tirgiz, and Desert of Death, does anybody have any suggestions on involving them in the plot? I myself didn't originally write those sceanarios, but my impression was that they were pretty much just little incidents that they ran into along the way.

About the death animations on Clash of armies, I aggree. I will remove them.

On Civil War, perhaps I should give the enemies a bit more gold. I didn't mind it myself when I played it since I didn't start out with that much gold and I mostly skirmished around and moved in and knocked off the leaders when the time was right. You also can't linger too long since Kapou'e has to be at the signpost by the end of the turns.

The main idea behind the big map on The Coward was to give the player an oppetunity to build his gold up again, since as you said, Civil War kind of drains you. I wanted it to be different form other scenarios in the sense that the key lies in capturing villages, building up a good economy and army and then moving in for the kill. In most of the other scenarios you start with a big block of gold, and just charge and finish off the enemy leader. But I aggree that having a few larger features would make the map more intersting. I'll touch it up.

Once again, thanks for the imput Sgt. Groovy.

[zookeeper]

The orcish leader line is in mainline nowadays - in the standard data/units - so you shouldn't need to include these custom .cfg's for Kapoue or other orcish leaders.

The main reason why I inculded Kapou'e sepperatly was because I wanted to add a portrait for Kapou'e without having to type in "Image=Kapoue.jpg" every message.

You don't need to do that. The single unit profile= key does exactly what you need.

[Taurus]

You don't need to do that. The single unit profile= key does exactly what you need.

..... oh! Where were you six months ago? Anyhow, I think I will leave it as it is for now. Thanks to vonHalenbach the units are up to speed now so it is ok for the near future. But at least I know how to do it now...

[zookeeper]

..... oh! Where were you six months ago?

Well, I usually don't follow these era/campaign threads at all, so...if you have at some point created a new thread about that, then I should have spotted that.

[Sgt. Groovy]

About To the Harbor of Tirgiz, and Desert of Death, does anybody have any suggestions on involving them in the plot? I myself didn't originally write those sceanarios, but my impression was that they were pretty much just little incidents that they ran into along the way.

They feel more like "let's squeeze in some undead/desert". I'm not sure both of them are needed, but you don't need to throw either of them away. Rather, make the player choose between the two, telling beforehand what's up ahead. When players get to choose the way, they will have a better sense of being on the move.

The main idea behind the big map on The Coward was to give the player an oppetunity to build his gold up again, since as you said, Civil War kind of drains you. I wanted it to be different form other scenarios in the sense that the key lies in capturing villages, building up a good economy and army and then moving in for the kill.

I don't think it works this way, because the enemy is also building his economy and recruiting an army. The only reasonable strategy is to recruit a strong and fast strike force right away and send it to attack the enemy keep. Even then he has lot of income by the time my units get there. I have now tried it four times on easy, and every time the enemy keep is pumping out several second level units per turn by the time I get there. Similar income wouldn't help me any, since it would take about 15 rounds to get my recruits to the enemy keep.

At least on easy, there is a huge jump in difficulty between Civil War and The Coward. To balance, I would suggest at least following adjustements:

i) Increase the minimum starting gold (since the player is not very likely to come out of Civil War with lot of gold)

ii) Decrease the amount of villages around enemy keep, so that his units have to get farther before his income rises.

iii) Maybe remove some of the second level units from enemy's recruit list.

As a more profound change, I would suggest adding another enemy, whose keep would be somewhere in the middle of the map. It should be dwarf, elf, human or some other faction who would be an enemy to both sides. It would add a big new startegic element to the scenario: player would have a choice either to attack the second enemy, to get his keep and start recruiting much closer to the main enemy, or leave him alone so that he would distract the main enemy.

There could alternatively be one or two empty keeps on the map (castle ruins for example), smaller than player's starting keep, but closer to the enemy. Taking over one of these would make attacking the enemy keep easier.

[Taurus]

I don't think it works this way, because the enemy is also building his economy and recruiting an army. The only reasonable strategy is to recruit a strong and fast strike force right away and send it to attack the enemy keep. Even then he has lot of income by the time my units get there. I have now tried it four times on easy, and every time the enemy keep is pumping out several second level units per turn by the time I get there. Similar income wouldn't help me any, since it would take about 15 rounds to get my recruits to the enemy keep.

At least on easy, there is a huge jump in difficulty between Civil War and The Coward. To balance, I would suggest at least following adjustements:

i) Increase the minimum starting gold (since the player is not very likely to come out of Civil War with lot of gold)

ii) Decrease the amount of villages around enemy keep, so that his units have to get farther before his income rises.

iii) Maybe remove some of the second level units from enemy's recruit list.

As a more profound change, I would suggest adding another enemy, whose keep would be somewhere in the middle of the map. It should be dwarf, elf, human or some other faction who would be an enemy to both sides. It would add a big new startegic element to the scenario: player would have a choice either to attack the second enemy, to get his keep and start recruiting much closer to the main enemy, or leave him alone so that he would distract the main enemy.

There could alternatively be one or two empty keeps on the map (castle ruins for example), smaller than player's starting keep, but closer to the enemy. Taking over one of these would make attacking the enemy keep easier.

I myself played it on medium and beat it the first time without any difficulty. As I mentioned before, the key is to acuqire a greater economic advantage. The number of turns is relitivly high so you have time to do some legwork. First of all you have to recruit a bunch of scouts, four or five, and send them out to grab as many villages as you can. If they come in contact with the enemy, skirmish around, hold ground if they are weeker, but don't take any chances. As this is going on, and the gold is pouring in, recall your army of hardended vetrins, intermingled in with a few level 1 units. For me, it came to a point where our villages were about 50 - 50, and we had both built up a large force, of about equal power in the centre of the map. I then crushed his force and marched on to his keep and knocked him off. When it was clear that I had enough units to finish off the job I stopped recruiting and let the gold build up for the next scenario. I finished in just the right ammount of time. If you are having difficulty passing this one then let me know, and I'll post a replay so you can see how it's done.

I myself am quite happy with this scenario. It is different from Giving some back, the Dwarvish Stand, and Back home in the sense that it's not the typical "Mass huge army quickly and charge". This one requires a bit more style, giving variety to the campaign. Of course though, if I am the only one who thinks this, and the rest of the world disagrees with me, then I will change it. As it is, I am already planning on taking up your suggestion of adding some larger features in the map.

[Sgt. Groovy]

Yes, I would be interested in seeing a replay, because now I'm not sure we're playing on the same map. The shortest route between the keeps is 84 hexes, so for average units, with speed 5-6 hexes/turn, it's going to take 12-15 rounds to make the trip, without any enemies to slow them down. Factor in a dozen or so enemies en route either to circle around or fight off, the time will be closer to 20-25 rounds. It means that the army that will be used to kill the enemy leader, will have to be recruited and ready to march before round 10. I have now played the scenario 6 times, and the problem for me is that I can't get together enough gold early enough to recruit strong enough army that could make it to the enemy keep in time.

I took a peek in your code, and I think your balancing is a bit off:

Code: Select all

	{TURNS 40 37 35}

        ...

	[side]
	type=Orcish Leader
	description=Kapou'e
	user_description= _ "Kapou'e"
	side=1
	canrecruit=1
	controller=human
	recruit= Wolf Rider, Orcish Grunt, Troll Whelp, Orcish Archer, Saurian Skirmisher
	team_name=Kapoue
	gold=100
	{BLACK_FLAG}
	[/side]

	[side]
	type=Orcish Warlord
	description=Orga
	user_description= _ "Orga"
	side=2
	canrecruit=1
	recruit=Goblin Knight, Orcish Warrior, Orcish Crossbowman, Wolf Rider, Orcish Grunt, Orcish Archer
	{GOLD 150 175 200}
	{INCOME 5 10 15}

The differences between the difficulty levels are now marginal. Between easy and medium, the difference is that in medium the enemy can recruit one more Goblin Knight in the beginning, and then recruit one more unit every 3rd-4th round. When the total number of units gets into dozens pretty soon, and he recruits 2-5 units every turn anyway, these differences are relatively small. If you think medium is now ok, you should make easy easier and hard harder. I would suggest you testplay all the difficulty levels yourself (and several times so you can exclude the effect of chance) so you can assess that the differences are big enough (or at least, all the levels should be tested by the same person).

For the easy level, I would still suggest that you increase the player's minimum starting gold to 150 (at least), and take the Goblin Knight out of the enemy's recruit list. One can also ask, what's the point of having high basic income in a scenario where the purpose is to undermine the enemy's economy? Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

[Warhangel]

In Giving_Some_Back.cfg we see:
"next_scenario=Blasted_Elves"
But there is no Blasted_Elves.cfg in userdata\data\campaigns\Son_Of_The_Black_Eye\

[Oreb]

I played, with no errors in the game, and The Coward gave me around 500 gold for the next turn. And Civil War was a real annoyance. Having to both have a large army, and have Ka'poue mobile taking over every enemy keep as he makes his was to the signpost.

I like the Coward as it is, but I do agree it could be made alot easier. But this isn't one of those easy campaigns.

[zookeeper]

If at all possible, please fix the binary paths.

Also, please don't include the custom units outside the #ifdef, there shouldn't be any reason to do that.

EDIT: While you're at it, you could fix the TC of the campaign icon on the server (maybe the same image is also used in the campaign menu).

[Taurus]

Ok, Sgt. Groovy, here is the replay:

http://macbeth.150m.com/The_Coward_replay_-_Taurus

Also, I took up you suggestion and made easier a bit easier, and hard slightly harder.

In Giving_Some_Back.cfg we see:
"next_scenario=Blasted_Elves"
But there is no Blasted_Elves.cfg in userdata\data\campaigns\Son_Of_The_Black_Eye\

Yeah, I know. I was planning on having that as the next scenario, but things didn't quite turn out that way. The campaign still works though, it's just that the id of "The Dwarvish Stand" is "Blasted_Elves". I put it this way so I wouldn't break people's savegames if they were trying to play through as the scenarios came out.

About the Binary Path, I am having a bit of trouble with that. Anyhow, I'll have it fixed before long and upload it as soon as I can.

[energyman76c]

Hi,

I have a severe problem with 'civil war'.

All enemies are dead. Kapoe is on the post - and the scenario does not end.

Kapoe reached the signpost before the last leader was dead and waited there. But moving him away and back again does not change anything.

If this came up already, I am sorry. But searching in a single thread really sucks ...

[Taurus]

Hi,

I have a severe problem with 'civil war'.

All enemies are dead. Kapoe is on the post - and the scenario does not end.

Kapoe reached the signpost before the last leader was dead and waited there. But moving him away and back again does not change anything.

If this came up already, I am sorry. But searching in a single thread really sucks ...

Sorry about that and thanks for pointing that out. I got it fixed and it will be up in the next release.

[Warhangel]

In Giving_Some_Back.cfg we see:
"next_scenario=Blasted_Elves"
But there is no Blasted_Elves.cfg in userdata\data\campaigns\Son_Of_The_Black_Eye\

Yeah, I know. I was planning on having that as the next scenario, but things didn't quite turn out that way. The campaign still works though, it's just that the id of "The Dwarvish Stand" is "Blasted_Elves". I put it this way so I wouldn't break people's savegames if they were trying to play through as the scenarios came out.

Ok.
I have understood.
Thanks.

[Taurus]

Version 1.2 is being uploaded on the server right now. I felt that I accumalated enough tweeks and bug fixes to justify a realease. Thanks again to vonHalenbach for updating the units. I also changed the map around a bit on the Coward and increased the turns slightly thanks to the imput from Sgt. Groovy