Mutiny in 1626

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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markm
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Mutiny in 1626

Post by markm »

This campaign is set on one of the planets (E29) mentioned in my Between the Worlds bundle, but I made it a separate campaign this time rather than try to bundle yet another campaign into the bundle.

I borrowed from the Internet Memes Era to make Riflemen and Cavalry, but even having weakened the cavalry by removing the kickback special I still find myself wondering why cavalry are cheaper than infantry. Hmm. I have added Alpine Troops, Marines, Sharpshooters and Snipers and also have Musketeers although they are pretty much obsolete on this particular planet among these specific nations at the date of this campaign.

These units are also in the Galactic Era add-on, but the campaign does not require the era, it simply has its own copies of what it needs from the era.

There are now about seven scenarios and the heroes have aquired a number of the enemy's technologies. Unfortunately however the enemy is not only more technologically advanced but also is huge. Probably the world E29 is going to end up belonging to the enemy (the E in E29 is for Enemy, Evil, or Egyptian, so we knew from the outset it was regarded as their world in the larger scheme of things). What will happen to our heroes then is what we hope to learn, though there remains an outside chance that E is not, afterall the appropriate letter code to use for that world...

Figured it hopefully will be worthwhile to create a thread as i would definitely like help "balancing" (controlled unbalance really, as there is intended to be a progression of improving units with increasing technology) the units... maybe even leading to a "Freeciv Era" for multiplayer so even multiplayer tactical battles can eventually take place...

-MarkM- ("knotwork"; Digitalis Data Services.)
Last edited by markm on August 2nd, 2010, 11:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Frigeridio
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by Frigeridio »

markm wrote:This campaign is set on one of the planets (E29) mentioned in my Between the Worlds bundle, but I made it a separate campaign this time rather than try to bundle yet another campaign into the bundle.

I borrowed from the Internet Memes Era to make Riflemen and Cavalry, but even having weakened the cavalry by removing the kickback special I still find myself wondering why cavalry are cheaper than infantry. Hmm. I need to add Alpine Troops and Marines, and already have Musketeers although they are pretty much obsolete on this particular planet among these specific nations at the date of this campaign.

Figured it hopefully will be worthwhile to create a thread as i would definitely like help "balancing" (controlled unbalance really, as their is intended to be a progression of improving units with increasing technology) the units... maybe even leading to a "Freeciv Era" for multiplayer so even multiplayer tactical battles can eventually take place...

-MarkM- ("knotwork"; Digitalis Data Services.)
Hi, I played the 1st scenario of version 0.0.7 (only riflemen and cavalry), which had a quite unique flavor gameplay wise. thumbs up.

But:
Part One - Story Annotations
1. it seems a bit illogical, that the technologically superior nation is overrun/invaded by a bunch of clubbers.
2. the reference to E29, Egypt and Britain is completely senseless at the best, not to say plainly confusing.
(1+2) you might want to rethink your background story :hmm:

Part Two - Gameplay Annotations
3. While the first part is very interesting, where you have to hold back a far superior number of enemys, after you outlasted the first 14-18 turns the game turns into a mob up of what enemys remain.
4. Time is generally rather tight (I finished on turn 29/30 normal difficulty), what is not a bad thing; but with some bad luck at choke points or enemy leaders on 70% defense terrain, it might get too tight.
5. I suggest you give some more turns (5 on normal should be enough), but have an event triggered by the first unit crossing the bridge which brings in some reinforcements to the northern enemy leader. If you like the mage might warn the player about this, as soon as you get beyond a certain point (for example the open space in front of the enemy leader right on the southern end of the bridge): "Be aware that the enemy has a garrison on the other side of the bridge/river/Fjord. So our troups have to be careful once they cross the bridge!"
6. In order for players to not have to replay the 1st scenario, when you update your campaign adding the next scenario, you should insert a placeholder for the second scenario, so you can continue from your old save game.

That's it for now
Once there was "l'ultimo cruco", but he got lost in a forum crash...
May his posts rest in peace.
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markm
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by markm »

Wow, you completed it on NORMAL in version 0.0.7?!?! Wow! Maybe HARD is going to be more your speed... I have added so many helps to help me to start seeing NORMAL as possible that NORMAL is probably getting way too easy for you!

As to invaders of lower tech, apparently it was not apparent to you that what you are seeing is "rife corruption"... The nearest Egyptians are in Southhampton! :)

(The worldmap tiles are probably about 100 to 200 kilometers or miles across...)

Also, 0.0.16 reveals by a hint in its objectives that it is probably a "historical" holonovel / holobarracks-program programmed by the character Crissy, familiar to Time Cadets (see the Between the Worlds portmanteau... ;))

-MarkM- ("knotwork"; Digitalis Data Services.)

P.S. thanks for playing, and for the feedback!
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Max
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by Max »

i really enjoyed this scenario. failed epically the first time on normal^^ it's much easier if you focus on eliminating the thugs and ignore the footpads...
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markm
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by markm »

I agree. Basically cowboys, and hence riflemen/cavalry, are a do-damage faction. At cost of not doing ideal levelling I instead aimed to do the most chance to do the most damaging hit. Thus yes thugs before footpads. You'll get the footpads when they attack you or when no thugs in reach.

I do not know why the A.I. chooses not to recruit thieves. It has had that option all along and I have never yet seen it exercise it. I suppose that is part of why La Tess's friend / kid she had been a nanny to (needs younger portraiture!) came along: I figured if it won't use them I will.

Also, in failing epically did you happen to trigger some/any "anti epic failure failsafes" ? ;)

(I have been down a lot of epic failure timelines... :))

-MarkM-
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Max
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by Max »

markm wrote:Also, in failing epically did you happen to trigger some/any "anti epic failure failsafes" ? ;)
no - i gave up when i noticed it was a lost cause (maybe i could still have won, but lost 2 loyal units...)
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markm
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by markm »

Max2008 wrote:(maybe i could still have won, but lost 2 loyal units...)
Ouch! As Time Cadets hopefully learn in holobarracks, Crissy's philosophy tends to be "you are all my heroes!", so on any mission that has even the remotest relation to Crissy it is probably wise to try to treat loyals as if they are heroes. (Some are even role-tagged as demi-hero, with an eye to who might be a worthwhile person to recruit into a galactic league of space-time heroes... :) Plus the more people she knows that you lose the less likely a leadership candidate she is likely to think you to be...)

Part of the mission of the Institute of Chronodynamics is to find timelines in which neither heroes nor loyals die. Maybe ultimately ones in which no-one dies. (Cue Gandalf's speech on who deserves to die...)

(Maybe we should call them Galactic Loyalists or Spacetime Loyalists? ;))

-MarkM-
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slamajama09
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by slamajama09 »

I like the idea of this campaign and I believe it can have some potential but don't you think that you should work on one campaign at a time? I saw that you have four campaigns on the server and it will be hard to keep up with the updates if you keep starting a new campaign before you finish the previous one
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markm
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by markm »

It is kind of the opposite... It is hard to know what will happen within X lightyears of a force that can travel Y lightyears per year without checking what that force has been up to the last Z years or so...

There is a built in suspense element there too... cliffhangers galore as we start casting about for potential allies whenever our heroes find themselves backed into corners / up against outrageously o'ermatching foes...

-MarkM-

Edit: but in the most recent one I have started looking into side switching, which could turn out to allow moving around more within a single campaign... The "meanwhile, back on wherever" approach...
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slamajama09
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by slamajama09 »

I don't quite understand what you mean in your first comment.... but as to your last one, check out the coding for the Trinity user campaign because I know the beginning of that campaign switches between three different sides that have nothing to do with each other and their paths become more entwined throughout the campaign
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markm
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by markm »

These campaigns are not intended to occur in an arbitrary non-persistent world invented and manipulated purely for the purpose of causing a particular campaign to proceed in a particular way.

On the contrary, I am trying to prototype a persistent world type of setup. The Freeciv "turns" are one year, which would probably, once game time is running smoothly and continuously, run at about one game year per month of the player's native / home time[line].

So even when running full speed, it is reasonable to expect that any development involving a Freeciv-scale "move" would take about a month of our time to take place.

Thus if each scenario summarised one Freeciv turn we could expect to see one new scenario each month of our time.

The real goal here is not static single-player campaigns but, rather, the mythical "Huge Roleplaying Game" that has been mentioned perenially on these forums.

Because the goal is to have actual moves in an actual game determine what happens, rather than moves being simply irrelevant if they don't match what some author arbitrarily decided they would like to write about, I don't actually know what potential allies will or will not be near enough to E29 by 1626 to be able to get involved in the "Mutiny in 1626" campaign. Can the Martians get there in time? Or is the Fool's Journ science-fiction periodical actually just science fiction not an organ of an interstellar intelligence agency? One could ask the same of "The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne" I suppose, but who is Captain Bligh gonna call, Hollywood or the Martians? Hmm...

-MarkM-
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slamajama09
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by slamajama09 »

Now I get it. You've got me even more interested now when you say it'll be like a role playing game. Just so I understand correctly, each of those little "campaigns" on the server is actually part of an enormous campaign?
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markm
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by markm »

Well, at least as much so as all "mainline" campaigns form one huge campaign... one "consistent" history...

(Which, by the way, supposedly includes Earth; Freeciv's "Starship Academy", a Sun Tsu wonder for air units, is used as the "explanation" of Britain's victory in the Battle of Britain... Or put another way, the Battle of Britain is used as "validation" of the concept of a Sun Tsu for air units...)

-MarkM-
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Musashi01
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by Musashi01 »

While playing Mi1626 Southampton-Salv, difficulty level:medium, turn 19/21 on version 1.8.2 for mac, I got the following error:

Unknown unit type: Sharpshooter while scoring units

Condition 'enemy_info' failed at /Users/ben/projects/wesnoth-1.8/MacOSX/../src/ai/default/ai.cpp:1348 in function 'get_combact_score_vs'

Was unable to complete the campaign, enjoyable on the whole...
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markm
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Re: Mutiny in 1626

Post by markm »

Arg. After a very convoluted search/debug I think I might have found the problem. About to upload a fix now...

I kept looking at the units progression/tree, problem was actually simply your opponent's recruits list.

Hopefully the 0/1/94 I just uploaded has fixed it so you can re-start the Southampton scenario by proceeding from save of end of the Hunting scenario. (Or, unzip your Southampton save and change occurences of Sharpshooter to Rifle Sharpshooter in opponent's recruits lists.)

-MarkM-
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