Too many campaingns have you fighting orcs/undead.

[Dugi]

They are diurnal, but they are so chaotic that they fight better at night. I guess.
So the snake-like race would be probably chaotic too, snakes are generally considered evil (and therefore chaotic), although they are quite cute.

Good idea for an add-on, a snake-like race.

[Korben]

why do unorganized soldiers fight better when there is only little light?

[Dugi]

I'd say that when you attack at night, you are ambushing the enemy and he does not have enough time to prepare the position, so you don't have to care too much about the strategy, all you need is to swarm the enemy camp as fast as possible - the soldiers you need are individuals, chaotic (and also, night hides all mischief, so making people obey any kind of law under these circumstances is impossible).
If you are attacking during the day, you can see into a greater distance, and prepare the strategy for battle better; the enemy is prepared for combat and the battle has to have a well-prepared strategy, where team play is required - the soldiers you need are team players, lawful.
Therefore, the chaotic units favour nocturnal combat, while the lawful units prefer fighting during the day, and are more experienced at fighting at that time of day.

[taptap]

Nagas are supposed to be a somewhat snake like race.

[quantumfleet]

I'd say that when you attack at night, you are ambushing the enemy and he does not have enough time to prepare the position, so you don't have to care too much about the strategy, all you need is to swarm the enemy camp as fast as possible - the soldiers you need are individuals, chaotic (and also, night hides all mischief, so making people obey any kind of law under these circumstances is impossible).
If you are attacking during the day, you can see into a greater distance, and prepare the strategy for battle better; the enemy is prepared for combat and the battle has to have a well-prepared strategy, where team play is required - the soldiers you need are team players, lawful.
Therefore, the chaotic units favour nocturnal combat, while the lawful units prefer fighting during the day, and are more experienced at fighting at that time of day.

My initial reasoning amounted to "screw it, lawful=day time, chaotic=night time." I like yours much better
Although, what does this mean for neutral (and luminal) units?

[Dugi]

Neutral units are something between chaotic and lawful. They have some level of organisation, but also a decent individuality, and therefore are quite decent both at nocturnal ambushing and at fighting like the generals suggest.

Liminal means something like belonging to a threshold. In most cases, it is something that is a half-human, half-monster, such as centaur. In this case, it however means, that they belong to the threshold between day and night, to the twilight. Maybe also on a specific threshold between order and chaos, that they prefer to ambush at night, but still have the advantages of organisation of their attacks during the daytime. Therefore, they prefer fighting at daybreak and nightfall.

EDIT: Forgot to tell: The difference I see between neutral and liminal units is that the neutral ones can adopt both strategies easily, but excel in neither, while the liminal units are experts at combining these two strategies.

[Kenpachi]

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=27009 this is the best attempt I've seen for variation with who you're fighting.

[Wesbane]

I agree. Why don't we have a campaign yet for fighting the sea orcs?
Or better yet, how about sea orc pirates and their robotic undead ninja allies? Now that would be an original campaign.

Also, instead of elves the heroes will be Castle Elves.

No, that's a common mistake. That authors of campaign do not focus on concept, but simply are burring their work under weight of adding custom content. Failing miserably to get their projects to the end.
They even do not notice that most of what they need is already supported by features offered by game. Like custom units. Its really not needed to make them look different. It is just enough to change their statistics a little. This can be done even in the fly. Like for example changing type of dealing damage to another. Of course in that case you need to warn players that this units are not ordinary ones.
Personally I really do not mind playing loyalist fighting orcs all the time as long as protagonists and antagonists do this for various reasons. Unfortunately most of campaigns falls into turning loyalist into drakes and orcs into humans. Although you still play the same story about righteous loyalists fighting these foul undead.
That's why I can not stand all those campaign about drakes. Their image there is like new faction portraits simply neuter. Such potential wasted.

I think Descent into Darkness demonstrates that the Undead are not "mindless carcasses bent only on destroying all living things" quite effectively.

Agreed. On side way it is one of most awesome wesnoth stories ever. Told using very few words yet achieving incredible depth. And only one that allows player to play as twisted and immature character. Which makes him a perfect tool for Darken Volk. As a mental child with necromantic powers he can be easily manipulated by Dark Sorcerer and his own minions. That's why Darken is not interested in development of personality of his apprentice on his own doom. And most fascinating we can finally witness personality decomposition of player character. In the end it is actually reduced to felling that pushed him on dark path of necromancy at beginning. That is hate to orcs. But now its nearly mindless, irrational feeling extended on all living beings for their ungratefulness and imaginary betrayals.

That doesn't mean that I can't imagine good undead, but I don't think DiD succeeds here.

Do we need make everyone a loyalist?

Also in case of undead, they provide plotpoints that other races don't. For example, you can have an evil human as an enemy in one scenario and let him return as undead later (as seen in DM). Imagine, say, a dwarf turning into an elf

True. How about good human player character returning later as really dead and evil one washing away everything on his path like a flood.

Out of subject:

Well, they look similar to trees, so perhaps they are capable of photosynthesis

Good point. Although remember WINR.

[Telchin]

Telchin wrote:
That doesn't mean that I can't imagine good undead, but I don't think DiD succeeds here.
Wesbane wrote:
Do we need make everyone a loyalist?

I'm not sure if I understand your question. Spoiler for DiD and SoF:

Spoiler:

My contention with DiD is that Malin ultimately fails in all he does. He doesn't defeat the orcs, instead he is pushed by them to a cave and becomes a raid boss for foolish heroes . All other protagonists of mainline campaigns succeed in their goals (the goal usually is to be on the other side of raid boss killing than Malin). The dwarves from SoF die, but they still made the scepter and protected it from the elves, so their sacrifice is meaningful. On the other hand, Malin is abandoned by everybody and left to be killed by randomly generated adventurers who don't even know his name. Therefore the ending of the campaign felt to me less "You can use black magic for good deeds." and more like "If you use black magic, you will end horribly, no matter your intentions".

[Wesbane]

[...] Malin ultimately fails in all he does. He doesn't defeat the orcs, instead he is pushed by them to a cave and becomes a raid boss for foolish heroes. [...]

There is really no need to describe same glorious story with just protagonists and enemies changed.

Regarding DiD:

Well, yes if we take into account his initial goals he fails. However his intentions weren't good at all. He learn necromancy because he hated orcs and all in all would like to be admired for his skills. Which is also why this is a great story. It describes an epic failure.
But not orcs cause him to retreat to caves. Who is his most trusted advisor?
So, although main character do not accomplish his goals, undead do. And their goal is undeniably good. Maybe not for living but after all they are not from this world so if it fits for them its fine. Anyway Malin have managed to kill more orcs than any other leader on Irdya.

[Telchin]

There is really no need to describe same glorious story with just protagonists and enemies changed.

This is true. However, all other mainline campaigns ends on positive note. Some protagonists get less rewarded or commit harsher sacrifices than other, but DiD is both the most depressing and also only undead-centric mainline campaign, so I was disapointed that everybody else get happy (or at least bittersweet) ending, but undead end badly even in their own campaign.

However his intentions weren't good at all.

I agree that racial hatred and revenge aren't saintly goals. On the other hand, even the supposedly pure good protagonists (e.g. Konrad) don't treat Orcs any better (which is reason for this thread). If Malin was painted as evil from the start then I probably wouldn't have problem with his ending. However, the campaign tries to make the player sympathise with him (he has dead father, he is misunderstood by everyone else), so I felt sort of betrayed by the ending. But this may be just me, as I don't like downer endings in general.

Anyway Malin have managed to kill more orcs than any other leader on Irdya.

Well, this may depend on how many iterations of Endless Night you win Yes, I know that there might be an UMC that features further adventures of Malin, but I haven't played it yet.

[The_Other]

there might be an UMC that features further adventures of Malin, but I haven't played it yet

He pops up in Invasion from the Unknown, which I found fairly odd since I played it right after completing DiD (which in my case ended with Malin and every one of his minions getting zapped by multiple Red and White Mages!)

[TheGreatRings]

His role in Invasion from the Unknown is a big part of why I despise that campaign. Its been a while since I played it and I don't think I ever finished it, so maybe I'm mistaken, but as I recall it basically took the story of Malin's corruption and death as a result of his vengeful nature and wrecked it by having him survive and become one of the good guys.

Also, I doubt what Wesbane said about Malin killing the most orcs. I think that would probably be either Tallin or Kalenz. Both fought major wars against the orcs. Tallin basically destroyed their dominance in the north, and Kalenz had a long life, much of it spent in battle against orcs.

[Iris]

there might be an UMC that features further adventures of Malin, but I haven't played it yet

He pops up in Invasion from the Unknown, which I found fairly odd [...]

Alternate ‘ending’ interpretation. As simple as that.

It helps that the scenario in question is an endless loop and we never get to hear a lot of what Malin has to think about the events (and his ultimate demise if you want). Or at least that was the case back in 1.3.x, about five years ago.

If it helps, approach IftU as if it were a very poorly-written fanfic with terrible, flat OCs. In fact, it ought to actually be the case since it was my first serious attempt at writing a story for a game and I just so chose to work within the framework provided by Wesnoth, and the UtBS timeline, defying all possible logic in the process.

[Joram]

A little late to the discussion, but my $0.02 is that fighting orcs and undead a lot isn't too big a deal. Worse is when you have a scenario fighting elves/dwarves who are just "Don't step on my land! Because you walked too far to the left, I'm going to kill you now!". It's pointless carnage.

I think that rather than try and diminish orc/undead evil roles, it would be better to try and boost up their good sides. In The Hammer of Thursagen, there's a 'good' orc that you meet in one scenario. I think having orcs as characters more often (even if they're not the campaign protagonists) would help quite a bit. In fact, I'm going to have an orc character in my elvish campaign (and they'll totally get along with each other )