Campaign: A Few Logs

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Turuk
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Turuk »

Thanks Paulomat4. It should be fixed now, I had a quotation mark floating around, wrecking havoc. He was recruiting the periods to join him, and it all would have been downhill from there.

If anyone plays this, any and all feedback is welcome. This had more work done to it then just porting it in order to make it playable/enjoyable, but it still may be unbalanced or need more changes.
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Paulomat4 »

I corrected the error myself. ;)
It's quite fun, but some of the maps could use a bit of work.
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Turuk »

Paulomat4 wrote:I corrected the error myself. ;)
It's quite fun, but some of the maps could use a bit of work.
Do you have any suggestions on what can be done to improve them? I fixed a few glaring errors where images would look better than trying to create entrances with cave walls and a few odds and end, but I didn't change his overall design.
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Paulomat4 »

the maps are too regular. like you sometimes have big patches of the same terrain. It looks like as if the maps were created with the 7-hexes-at-once-brush.
I'd add a more little detail, go after the maps with the one hex brush.
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by SkullCrusher01 »

Hey Cope,
i am up to final battle, i have 4 men 2 footpad and archer and the king an unarmed explorer.
i am unsure what to do i have tried striking the orcish and the elves, i tried finding the dwarfish and running and hiding but nothing worked
can u plz help me out
Skul
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rmj
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by rmj »

On 1.11.6 I had add .map for every scenario to get the campaign to run. That is, map_data="{~add-ons/A_Few_Logs/maps/01_Sacred_Land}" changed to map_data="{~add-ons/A_Few_Logs/maps/01_Sacred_Land.map}"

I agree with Paulomat that your maps need some work to make them look more interesting.

Scenario: the Village.
The flowers are hard to see.
The hex one must reach to get the uncle to join the battle does not correspond to the village.

Scenario: the Prison
Spoiler:
Not very important, but I think it would be better if any unit of side 1 could release a prisoner. Also, each time one comes into range of a prisoner, the message appears that an enemy has been spotted. The prisoners should be on a side with the same team name.

Final Scenario.
I find I am in the same situation as Skullcrusher--I have no idea how to proceed (except that I looked at the code and know what I should accomplish, but still have not figured out how. Your objectives should give some clue on how to proceed.
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Turuk »

Paulomat4 wrote:the maps are too regular. like you sometimes have big patches of the same terrain. It looks like as if the maps were created with the 7-hexes-at-once-brush.
I'd add a more little detail, go after the maps with the one hex brush.
Those are the original maps made by Cope, I had so far done little to update/change them at all, though Bumbadadabum took a stab at creating a bit more variety.

Old:
Spoiler:
New:
Spoiler:
SkullCrusher01 wrote: Hey Cope,
i am up to final battle, i have 4 men 2 footpad and archer and the king an unarmed explorer.
i am unsure what to do i have tried striking the orcish and the elves, i tried finding the dwarfish and running and hiding but nothing worked
can u plz help me out
Skul
Spoiler:
rmj wrote:On 1.11.6 I had add .map for every scenario to get the campaign to run. That is, map_data="{~add-ons/A_Few_Logs/maps/01_Sacred_Land}" changed to map_data="{~add-ons/A_Few_Logs/maps/01_Sacred_Land.map}"

I agree with Paulomat that your maps need some work to make them look more interesting.
The .map tag has been updated and added to the version on the add-on server, and yes, the maps do need to be updated. Again, I took this over to ensure it was not lost from 1.10 to 1.11/1.12, and so I have not made updates to the maps designed by Cope. I will take any and all suggestions, comments, and input, but preferably more specific than they need to look more interesting. Anyone is welcome to take a stab at reworking them as well.
rmj wrote:Scenario: the Village.
The flowers are hard to see.
The hex one must reach to get the uncle to join the battle does not correspond to the village.
Noted, a better image for the flowers or better terrain background will be used for them. The hex will also be changed in the next update.
rmj wrote:Scenario: the Prison
Spoiler:
I would suggest that when the goblin is first released, he should say that he knows a hidden way out of the prison.
The goblin does say
Spoiler:
rmj wrote:Final Scenario.
I find I am in the same situation as Skullcrusher--I have no idea how to proceed (except that I looked at the code and know what I should accomplish, but still have not figured out how. Your objectives should give some clue on how to proceed.
Spoiler:
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Cope »

Hello,

I have missed the communication going on this forum for a while. I had it set to send me an email when there was a new post here, but this seem to be inactivated, maybe because I has not been that active on the forum.
Anyway, Thanks Turuk for replying the players when I did not. Thanks also for developing the campaign and make it work in 1.11.
I agree about the maps. The new map for the castle scenario looks very nice.
About the flowers in the village scenario. It is intentionally that it should be a bit hard to find them. But perhaps it is to hard. It is difficult to know how to make it not too hard and not too easy when you make the scenario.
Yes, the final scenario is quiet hard.
Spoiler:
/Cope
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Elvish_Hunter »

So, I played this campaign on 1.11.7, Hard difficult.
Sacred Land: I got this stderr error:

Code: Select all

error config: Multiple [unit_type]s with id=Unarmed Scout encountered
Apart from that, it was a quite simple scenario, where I had to stay on the mountains for 9 or 10 turns, while the enemy threw its units at me. Then I advanced.
I ended the scenario on turn 23, with two Steelclads, two Fighters about to level, a Thuunderer with 1/3 experience and my leader to level 2 and half experience for the next level-up.

Heavy Load: at the scenario start, I immediately moved towards SE. Yep, I decided to completely ignore the Orcs. Here I found the Goblins.
After I took over their castle, I recruited two Thunderers and a Fighter, and organized a counterattack here against the Orcs.
During the defense, I managed to level up some units, including my leader. At turn 18, I started moving my leader to the exit.
I ended the scenario on turn 20 with one Lord, four Steelclads, two Thunderguards and two Thunderers, one of which is about to level.
It's interesting to note that the messages said at the start are misleading: one Dwarf says that the mine is at East, so in my first attempt I went East. Imagine my surprise when I found that the mine is at South East... :annoyed: That message should be corrected, and adding some signpost will be useful.

The Cave: it's quite strange starting a scenario with 66 gold. Usually the starting gold defined in the WML is multiple of 5. Oh well.
I recalled my Dwarvish Lord, a Steelclad and a Thunderguard. Protip: recall only Healthy units, because there are few villages - and those few self-destroy. Seriously, it's not like I had much choice...
So, I tried going West. And found the Orcs. Reload and go East.
After a lot of turns of wandering, I reached the pool at 28,45. Here I used my three units as a wall, while my leader crossed it.
Then, around turn 65, I found the railroads at 22,23 and started following them. I managed to exit at turn 69.
That scenario was a bit boring. You should hint at the start that one should recall only Healthy units; also, harder levels definitely need more gold and, in general, there should be some interesting events, like finding some items, some loyal units, some explosive runes (bonus points if you got the reference... :lol: ).

Another Forest: again this error:

Code: Select all

config: Multiple [unit_type]s with id=Unarmed Scout encountered
I started recalling on turn 2. Why? Because, with the 5 gold income, I could recall 4 units instead of 3.
So, one Lord, one Steelclad about to level, one Dragonguard and a Thunderguard.
It was hard entering the abandoned castle. I was surrounded by the Elves, and I don't know how I managed to not lose any unit.
At turn 17 I wiped most of the Elves and the two Skeletons, so I used the villages to recover HP.
After wandering a bit, I found the Elvish castle and won at turn 32, with a lucky shot from my Thunderguard.

Camp: not much to say here. The only bit of improvement that I could suggest is merging it with the next scenario - either by using [replace_map] to set up the map after this intro, or converting it to a series of story screens.

Prison: you should really add some gate images to close the prison cells. I have some code for that purpose in Children of Dragons, if you want to borrow it.
Also, the help messages should be fired with a sighted event.
Please remove this line from the Unarmed Goblin Spearman unit:
ellipse="misc/ellipse-nozoc"
as it causes these errors (due to the automatic assignment of nozoc ellipses):

Code: Select all

error display: could not open image 'misc/ellipse-nozoc-nozoc-top.png'
error display: could not open image 'misc/ellipse-nozoc-nozoc-bottom.png'
error display: could not open image 'misc/ellipse-nozoc-nozoc-selected-top.png'
error display: could not open image 'misc/ellipse-nozoc-nozoc-selected-bottom.png'
One of the Goblin guards game me this error:

Code: Select all

error display: could not open image 'attacks/knife.png'
Also, if a unit must not die, like Trishcka, you should add the IS_HERO macro (or use the MAKE_HERO macro).
The collapsable wall near 24,1 should be marked with a pile of debris or something else, so the player won't wander around wondering where to go. I had to use the debug console to find the exit.
I managed to exit around turn 75/80.

The Village:
Moving at 40,14 I got a Trapper. This location isn't marked in any way in the game, and I discovered it while inspecting the WML code of that scenario. :annoyed:
In the final dialog, Torgrimfur talks to Jurtu. But it's possible that the player already lost Jurtu, so that dialog won't make any sense. You need to add the appropriate [endlevel] tag to lose it after Jurtu's death.
You may also want to replace the flower patch with a more visible image.
It was a quite simple scenario, but beating it costed me almost my whole army. I ended it on turn 14, with only Torgrimfur, Bouiachas, Myona and Jurtu (leveled as Spearman) surviving. Yes, I lost even my Footpad.

Final Battle:
After the initial dialogue (and after reading this topic) I realized that my only chance was rushing straight due South. So I did.
At turn 4, I met a Wolf Rider, that strangely didn't attack Torgrimfur. Oh well.
AT turn 7, I lost my Bowman... and my Footpads found an ongoing battle between Orcs and Elves, and I was straight in the middle. WHAT DO I DO NOW? :augh:
Here there is a nice screenshot of how both enemies surrounded Torgrimfur.
Thou will die a heroic death, and we will never forget thee.
Thou will die a heroic death, and we will never forget thee.
Restart. This time, I decided to head South-East. But the result is still the same:
ye can't escape, fool!
ye can't escape, fool!
So (with my units already lost) I went back one turn and steered North a bit. This time, I managed to reach the mountains on the eastern border of the map, with the Orcs still on hot pursuit.
At turn 16 (with a bit of help from the :debug :shroud commands) I managed to find the Saurian Oracle. And killed it on the next turn.
After that, I could only keep moving to avoid killing Torgrimfur. I finished (well, my allies finished...) the scenario on turn 30. I must admit that the ending was rather anti-climatic: just a simple message with the credits and nothing else.
In conclusion, that scenario was really hard - mainly because I didn't have much strategic choices, and was too much luck based. Maybe to rebalance it a bit it will be useful giving Torgrimfur some objects, like one that gives him one more move, and one or two healing potions that can be used with the right-click menu. Or maybe the best option is to scrap this scenario and remake it from scratch - I'm not sure. :hmm:

Overall considerations: all scenarios lack the gold carryover notice (it'll be nice to know that I won't carry any gold) and could use a more varied music playlist. All the maps have large patches of the same terrains and have a very 1.0.2/1.2.8-ish feeling. The last two scenarios seem to be quite unbalanced and too hard - even for Hard difficult. It was a nice and short campaign, with large margins of improvement, but as it is currently it doesn't yet stand out in the crowd.

EDIT: as per Turuk's request on IRC, here there is my replay on 1.11.7+git of The Final Battle.
AFL-The_Final_Battle_replay.gz
(65.68 KiB) Downloaded 371 times
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Turuk »

A new version has been published to the add-on server to address the below.

Elvish_Hunter wrote:Apart from that, it was a quite simple scenario, where I had to stay on the mountains for 9 or 10 turns, while the enemy threw its units at me. Then I advanced.
I ended the scenario on turn 23, with two Steelclads, two Fighters about to level, a Thuunderer with 1/3 experience and my leader to level 2 and half experience for the next level-up.


This scenario has now been made slightly harder, with better balancing on the hard level.

Elvish_Hunter wrote:Heavy Load: at the scenario start, I immediately moved towards SE. Yep, I decided to completely ignore the Orcs. Here I found the Goblins.
After I took over their castle, I recruited two Thunderers and a Fighter, and organized a counterattack here against the Orcs.
During the defense, I managed to level up some units, including my leader. At turn 18, I started moving my leader to the exit.
I ended the scenario on turn 20 with one Lord, four Steelclads, two Thunderguards and two Thunderers, one of which is about to level.
It's interesting to note that the messages said at the start are misleading: one Dwarf says that the mine is at East, so in my first attempt I went East. Imagine my surprise when I found that the mine is at South East... That message should be corrected, and adding some signpost will be useful.


I have replaced the old map design of the cave with the abandoned mine image to make it more clear, and it's been moved further up to be actually due east of the player's starting position. I haven't fiddled with the difficulty at all yet, I may make it harder on my next playthrough.

Elvish_Hunter wrote:The Cave: it's quite strange starting a scenario with 66 gold. Usually the starting gold defined in the WML is multiple of 5. Oh well.
I recalled my Dwarvish Lord, a Steelclad and a Thunderguard. Protip: recall only Healthy units, because there are few villages - and those few self-destroy. Seriously, it's not like I had much choice...
So, I tried going West. And found the Orcs. Reload and go East.
After a lot of turns of wandering, I reached the pool at 28,45. Here I used my three units as a wall, while my leader crossed it.
Then, around turn 65, I found the railroads at 22,23 and started following them. I managed to exit at turn 69.
That scenario was a bit boring. You should hint at the start that one should recall only Healthy units; also, harder levels definitely need more gold and, in general, there should be some interesting events, like finding some items, some loyal units, some explosive runes (bonus points if you got the reference... ).


The starting gold was fixed, that is an oddity. :P

Torgrimfur does say at the start of the scenario "The orcs are coming through the western tunnel, quickly now to the east!" which is supposed to cue the player to not go to the west...

This whole scenario/map needs a makeover, I would like the cave to be shorter and give it a bit more edge-of-your-seat running from the orcs feel instead of slogging through a cave. The battle in the water with the tentacles and the serpent while fleeing the orcs could add tension as well.

Elvish_Hunter wrote:I started recalling on turn 2. Why? Because, with the 5 gold income, I could recall 4 units instead of 3.
So, one Lord, one Steelclad about to level, one Dragonguard and a Thunderguard.
It was hard entering the abandoned castle. I was surrounded by the Elves, and I don't know how I managed to not lose any unit.
At turn 17 I wiped most of the Elves and the two Skeletons, so I used the villages to recover HP.
After wandering a bit, I found the Elvish castle and won at turn 32, with a lucky shot from my Thunderguard.


There's a huge jump in income from medium to hard on this scenario for the enemy AI, so I've toned it down a bit to make it more manageable. The player should be able to reach the castle before the elves start coming on too heavy.

Elvish_Hunter wrote:Camp: not much to say here. The only bit of improvement that I could suggest is merging it with the next scenario - either by using [replace_map] to set up the map after this intro, or converting it to a series of story screens.


A good point, I will change the map when I do the map makeovers so that the area where Torgrimfur is captured is actually just outside the prison.

Elvish_Hunter wrote:Prison: you should really add some gate images to close the prison cells. I have some code for that purpose in Children of Dragons, if you want to borrow it.
Also, the help messages should be fired with a sighted event.
Please remove this line from the Unarmed Goblin Spearman unit:
ellipse="misc/ellipse-nozoc"
as it causes these errors (due to the automatic assignment of nozoc ellipses):

  • The gates now have images to show where they are, and are impassable until the player unlocks the cells.
  • The messages have beed updated.
  • Line removed.
  • Trishcka is now a hero.
  • As to the exit, the dialogue by Trischka upon reaching the top passage notes "It should be easy from here on out. Left, right, right, left. As simple as that, and we are free!" If you follow those directions for what branch to choose from then on out, you end up in the dead end tunnel. Rubble has been added to make it clearer to move him to that spot.
  • An image has been added to the knife attack in order for it to show up properly to the player.

Elvish_Hunter wrote:The Village:
Moving at 40,14 I got a Trapper. This location isn't marked in any way in the game, and I discovered it while inspecting the WML code of that scenario.
In the final dialog, Torgrimfur talks to Jurtu. But it's possible that the player already lost Jurtu, so that dialog won't make any sense. You need to add the appropriate [endlevel] tag to lose it after Jurtu's death.
You may also want to replace the flower patch with a more visible image.
It was a quite simple scenario, but beating it costed me almost my whole army. I ended it on turn 14, with only Torgrimfur, Bouiachas, Myona and Jurtu (leveled as Spearman) surviving. Yes, I lost even my Footpad.

  • The village was supposed to be moved to the new coordinates where the Trapper spawned, instead of staying in the mountain. It has been fixed.
  • Jurtu is now a hero to avoid that (Can't let the village leader die, now can we?).
  • The enemy AI has pretty much no gold and only minor income on Hard, enough to let him recruit a few units in addition to those that are fed to him through events. This can be dialed back if need be, but is really irrelevant with the current state of the last scenario... :augh:

Elvish_Hunter wrote:Final Battle:
Or maybe the best option is to scrap this scenario and remake it from scratch - I'm not sure.


A resounding yes. The basic premise and map will survive, but the concept needs to be redone to make it even remotely possible. The alliance with the elves will come sooner in order to facilitate the player actually having a chance of making it to the orcs with reinforcements.

The notice on gold not being carried over has been added to all of the scenarios.
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Cope »

Hello

Thanks Elvish hunter for many good comments and ideas. Thanks Turuk for developing.
About the last scenario I admit it perhaps is too hard. The way I use to beat it is running east with T, arrive to the mountains where he moves quicker than the orcs and continuing behind the orc-keeps down to the saurian. But now I have made the map myself so it is easier for me....
Perhaps one way to make it easier is to hint the player that this way can be taken in the beginning. Perhaps also take away the shroud so that actually the player can see where the saurian oracle is.
The idea behind the scenario is that it should be a must to kill the saurian oracle. And Torgrimfur have this information and can determine how it goes with the battle by putting him down. He has to move in a battlefield where both sides want to kill him, which of course is very difficult.

/Cope
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by perseo »

You should turn off victory when enemies defeated in the cave scenario. I killed the two orcish leaders thanks to my recalls and y started the next scenario "another forest" with 1200 gold.
See ya!
Please hint me what's the correct amount of gold, It doesn't make sense for me to continue the campaign right now.
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what a beautiful day!- he said- for visiting a red herring
and getting hoarse."
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Turuk »

perseo wrote:You should turn off victory when enemies defeated in the cave scenario. I killed the two orcish leaders thanks to my recalls and y started the next scenario "another forest" with 1200 gold.
See ya!
Please hint me what's the correct amount of gold, It doesn't make sense for me to continue the campaign right now.
Thank you for that perseo, I've changed this and it will be pushed in the next update. I had 110 gold at the start of Another Forest.

What does anyone think of the story/dialogue?
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by perseo »

Well, at least the version I'm playing (the one in 1.10 addon server) is written in kinda broken english, and some polishing in the dialogues would be welcome, I'm sure, to make them more fluid (I'm now thinking at the first confrontation with the elves, it seemed quite awkward to me).
I'm in an inspirational block with my own campaing, may I have a try with this? I mean, perhaps the english is going to remain broken (not native speaker, as you can see) but I think I can do some work with the dialogues.
See ya!
"I was pulling a barrow, when I saw a stalking horse
what a beautiful day!- he said- for visiting a red herring
and getting hoarse."
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Re: Campaign: A Few Logs

Post by Turuk »

Ah okay, I have made changes/updates to the version on the 1.11 server only.

I can upload a new copy to the 1.10 server if you want to try that?
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