The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Mountain_King
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by Mountain_King »

Hi, it's me again. ;) I just got a new computer, which means a lot of files moving around and stuff. As I had made quite a bit of progress in TDH translation, I didn't want it to get lost in the switcheroo. So I sent the .po file to torangan, and am also attaching it here so it can get in faster. :)
Best Regards,
Mountain_King
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by AI »

Committed.
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by AI »

Version 0.7.1a is now on the 1.10 add-on server. It can also be found on sourceforge and on the web interface

The campaign is still 11 scenarios long (scenario 11 still isn't very polished yet) and numerous translations have again been updated, including a new translation: Irish Gaelic. It should now work properly for the 1.10.x series.
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by Mountain_King »

Aw dang! I just realized I had a translation update for this sitting on my computer for the past two months. :doh: I'll attach it for you here anyway, as it provides corrections to some incorrect strings and adds a few others.

Best Regards,
M_K
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here's the .po file after the fact.
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by AI »

The update is now on wescamp and in TDH.
Jabie
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by Jabie »

I thought I'd play this one as it was once official (according to the walkthrough), but isn't any more. Here are my notes / suggestions..

Overall, I enjoyed what I played very much. There's a good variety of scenarios with some interesting tweaks. Specific changes I'd suggest...

Inside the Tower. Use staircase hexes at 21,35 and 22,18 to make it clear that this is the entrance to the next level of the tower. Also the tower is very bare. Where are the bookcases, candles dripping wax over skulls, stuffed alligators and all the other paraphenalia associated with wizards? It didn't feel like I was in a sorceror's tower.

I suggest instead of villages (which there were none) you have a few "energy glyphs" which purely provide the healing function of villages. Not too many, maybe one per floor.

Crelanu's Book. I got an error message about a deprecated WML variable. The book was missing (I guess that the sprite was meant to be at the centre of the grove.)

You need an alternate victory path: defeat both leaders with some dialogue along the lines of "Aah, the odour of fresh corpses. The air grows chill with the dreams of the dead. Lies in your charnel beds and dream well, you brave warriors who gave your lives in fruitless warfare. Dream of glorious warfare and victorious battle, for when this way I pass next, I promise battles without end. But for now I shall seize the Book of Crelanu and be away."

Also, this scenario was great fun. The AI never really stood a chance, but that's OK - it's nice once in a while to have a scenario where the player steamrollers the opposition. As the AI never stands a chance, you might as well change all the fort hexes to swamp forts. This is more of a cosmetic detail really, but it'd really help with the atmosphere.

Confrontation. What a boring map! Put a few trees on those plains. Have a river run out of the mountains (it doesn't even have to anywhere close to the battefield, it can be in the West, but it'd just make the map look a little more interesting. Put a signpost at the T-Junction with some place names on it and a couple of foothills runing near the edge of the road somewhere.

The Tomato Surprise was relatively obvious, but I played this one straight - and lost most of my high level troops as a consequence. I could have made it a lot easier on myself and sent my leader to the pass after I'd summoned my fourth retinue of troops.

Also when the paladins do appear, mark the map in some fashion so it's clear where the player should go. There are two roads which lead into the mountains, not to mention one which leads off the side of the road. It could be quite easy for a player to choose the wrong exit in error.

The Undergorund Pool. 1 x 1 corridors don't make for particular good tactical maneuvering, but I still found myself enjoying this one immensely. You need to open out the start a little more. Remove 10,17, Change 9,19 to a third Keep hex. Move the guard from 10,18 to 10,17. Put the village currently at 8,17 to 9,16.

The Underground River. The closeout dialogue mentions that the Naga's have a magical artifact but I managed to kill thier leader and I didn't see one! Where's my treasure? (In seriousness though, it would be pretty cool to get some kind of treasure from killing the Naga Leader. Perhaps a ring of water affinity which gave you +10% resistance to cold attacks.
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by AI »

Jabie wrote:Inside the Tower. Use staircase hexes at 21,35 and 22,18 to make it clear that this is the entrance to the next level of the tower. Also the tower is very bare. Where are the bookcases, candles dripping wax over skulls, stuffed alligators and all the other paraphenalia associated with wizards? It didn't feel like I was in a sorceror's tower.

I suggest instead of villages (which there were none) you have a few "energy glyphs" which purely provide the healing function of villages. Not too many, maybe one per floor.
Do we have staircases now? I haven't seen them lately.
I'll look into sprucing up the maps and adding some method of healing. I haven't touched the first 8 scenarios much since I took over.
Jabie wrote:Crelanu's Book. I got an error message about a deprecated WML variable. The book was missing (I guess that the sprite was meant to be at the centre of the grove.)

You need an alternate victory path: defeat both leaders with some dialogue along the lines of "Aah, the odour of fresh corpses. The air grows chill with the dreams of the dead. Lies in your charnel beds and dream well, you brave warriors who gave your lives in fruitless warfare. Dream of glorious warfare and victorious battle, for when this way I pass next, I promise battles without end. But for now I shall seize the Book of Crelanu and be away."

Also, this scenario was great fun. The AI never really stood a chance, but that's OK - it's nice once in a while to have a scenario where the player steamrollers the opposition. As the AI never stands a chance, you might as well change all the fort hexes to swamp forts. This is more of a cosmetic detail really, but it'd really help with the atmosphere.
Error has been fixed and castle has been replaced with ruined swamp castle.
The goal of the scenario is to get the book. I can place an icon at the book's location, but the start of the scenario rather explicitly says that gwiti doesn't know where it is exactly. Maybe I should have it be revealed later on in some way.
Jabie wrote:Confrontation. What a boring map! Put a few trees on those plains. Have a river run out of the mountains (it doesn't even have to anywhere close to the battefield, it can be in the West, but it'd just make the map look a little more interesting. Put a signpost at the T-Junction with some place names on it and a couple of foothills runing near the edge of the road somewhere.

The Tomato Surprise was relatively obvious, but I played this one straight - and lost most of my high level troops as a consequence. I could have made it a lot easier on myself and sent my leader to the pass after I'd summoned my fourth retinue of troops.

Also when the paladins do appear, mark the map in some fashion so it's clear where the player should go. There are two roads which lead into the mountains, not to mention one which leads off the side of the road. It could be quite easy for a player to choose the wrong exit in error.
True, this scenario really needs an overhaul.
Jabie wrote:The Undergorund Pool. 1 x 1 corridors don't make for particular good tactical maneuvering, but I still found myself enjoying this one immensely. You need to open out the start a little more. Remove 10,17, Change 9,19 to a third Keep hex. Move the guard from 10,18 to 10,17. Put the village currently at 8,17 to 9,16.
I've tried that, but it basically made the first few dwarves into a relatively large attacking force. Some more maneuvering room would be good though.
Jabie wrote:The Underground River. The closeout dialogue mentions that the Naga's have a magical artifact but I managed to kill thier leader and I didn't see one! Where's my treasure? (In seriousness though, it would be pretty cool to get some kind of treasure from killing the Naga Leader. Perhaps a ring of water affinity which gave you +10% resistance to cold attacks.
Playing on easy or are you just that awesome? I'll see if I can't add something extra there.
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by Jabie »

AI wrote:Playing on easy or are you just that awesome? I'll see if I can't add something extra there.
I was playing on Easy but I doubt it would have been harder on the other levels. Drain attacks and 1 x 1 corridors allow you to block pretty much indefinitely. But I'm glad more awesome nature is so readily apparent. :whistle: It's almost up there with my notorious modesty. :lol2:
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by AI »

There's a big difference between blocking and advancing when your opponent has enough gold to spam troops indefinitely.
BadAxe
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by BadAxe »

Hi,

About the exit condition for scenario 9 Underground River.

The goal is to get over the chasm and kill all dwarfs. According to
my newbie understanding of the WML the following must happen to trigger victory:
  • Gwiti and Tanar must move to the right side of the chasm.
  • There is no enemy on the right side of the chasm.
  • Some enemy is killed.
I my game Tanar got a bit left behind. And all dwarfs was killed
before he stepped over the chasm. And victory was not triggered when
he finally managed his way there.

Maybe a moveto event could be added to handle this case. I mean
something like the following.

[event]
name=moveto
first_time_only=no
[filter]
side=1
[/filter]
# Insert the [if] from the die event here.
# (Or maybe make a macro to avoid duplication.)
[/event]
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by AI »

Fixed in r14486.
tribes45
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by tribes45 »

Okay, on "Inside-the-tower" the the blue bottle says "For skeletal units only" at 16,46 when I go to pick it up with my Demlitch
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by AI »

Right, well, it's a permanent enchantment for your melee attack. Are you sure you want that on your lich?
I'll see if I can come up with a better text.
Chrysophylax
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by Chrysophylax »

Bump bumpity bump bump!

Has this progressed any further? I can't see it on the server (I'm using 1.8.6). I was considering volunteering to update TDH (then I found this thread - it looks good so far), so if you want contributions or are to bored or overworked to finish it, I'd be happy to help out. (Bizarrely, I actually enjoy proofreading.)
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Re: The Dark Hordes rise from the dead....again

Post by AI »

1.8.6 is outdated. TDH is available for 1.10, and will be available for 1.11 'soonish'.
The 1.10 version should be the most recent one, so if you want to proofread or comment on anything, you can go ahead with that one.
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