Red Winter (Loyalist Campaign)

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Jeffers0n
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Re: Red Winter

Post by Jeffers0n »

I just began playing this campaign, but I lost when an allied shock trooper died. intended?
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter

Post by Sire »

@ Jeffers0n

Definitely not. I thought I wrote the defeat event to trigger only when the refugees die (upon looking at the code, it is just type=Peasant, not unit_type=Peasant)

A hotfix has been deployed, Version 0.0.3a. Please download that to fix this problem.
Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
WanderingHero
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Re: Red Winter

Post by WanderingHero »

I think you might have too many soldiers on both sides spread across to many sides on too big a map
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter

Post by Sire »

There hasn't been any updates for a while, has there? Well, I still really don't have any real updates to show, but I've prepared a piece that may be interesting to those who are following the campaign.

For the time being, I will be taking a break from working on Red Winter. When I will be working on it again and how much I progress remains fairly unpredictable, so I really can't say. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the read!
Spoiler:
Attachments
Sire's Materials.zip
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Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter

Post by Sire »

I fear that I have no longer have the time or the will to continue this campaign.

As such, I am abandoning this project. However, the glory of Wesnoth allows others to carry the torch if they decide to do so. All of my notes and concepts are attached to this post and in the Abandoned Campaigns thread. The scenario code can simply be obtained from downloading the campaign from the official Wesnoth servers.

No credit or permission is required, although it will be appreciated if credit is given.

With nothing more to say, good luck and continue enjoying Wesnoth!
Attachments
Sire Dev Notes.zip
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Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP]

Post by Sire »

So, I saw this abandoned campaign lying around somewhere...

I have resumed work on Red Winter and have released a new update that can be found on the official add-ons sever for 1.10 and 1.11. The first scenario is still the only one available for play, but in terms of progress I'm further along than I was previously. Only one map remains to be created and the rest of the scenarios just requires the code to make them work.

For those who do not know what Red Winter is, it is a campaign about Asheviere invading the Estmark Hills after its inhabitants refuse to submit to her rule. It has a focus on large battles, leveled units, and a heavy emphasis on characters and story.

New Release Features:
- Custom Music from the UMC Books!
- *Character Name Revamp
- Rebalanced Baron and Commander units
- Event Revision

* I am aware that the place names such as Winterfell and Northshire has been popularized elsewhere, but I have grown attached to these names for this setting. Unless there is a good suggestion to replace them, please do not bring up this matter. Thank you.

Remember that this campaign is in a work in progress, so imbalances and bugs are expected. I hope you enjoy the first scenario of Red Winter, and if you have any feedback, leave it here! Until the next update, have a good one.
Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
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zookeeper
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP - Needs Testers]

Post by zookeeper »

The tomato surprises definitely need to be worked on, they got me really really really close to just quitting:

1) First, I had sent an Outlaw to check out if there's anything interesting at the Shadow Spire. One turn before I got there, enemies suddenly spawn and he gets surrounded by 3 Draugs. Then, the Skeletons which spawn around the map immediately get to attack, wiping out 1-2 of my wounded units. I was supremely annoyed but didn't quit because my losses were pretty small in the grand scheme of things.

2) However, a few turns after the elves and bandits spawn in the northeast, I'm just about to take part of the eastern riverbank defense force north to deal with them... when a pile of orcs spawn around them and immediately kill one unit and basically trap the remainder of my units in the area in a way which makes it impossible to save them.

As for the story, by the time I finished the scenario I had already forgotten everything the intro established about what's really happening, except that Asheviere's troops are attacking. The scenario takes so long to complete that it'd likely be better to deliver and develop Mycen's plans and intentions gradually to keep them fresh in the player's mind.

Miscellaneous bugs:

- Played on easiest difficulty, the turn limit was 35 but I won at turn 31.
- Mycen toasted to himself; the message filters have multiple id= keys one after the other, whereas you can never have the same key repeated several times inside a tag. Those should rather use a comma-separated list, as in id=Mycen,Tudok,Syris,etc,etc.
- warning unit: Unknown attribute 'can_recruit' discarded.
- Invalid WML found: [end_level] not supported
- The undead collapsed in a burst of light without further explanation.

Names/words not explained:

- What's a Vanriry?
- What's Avalon?
- Who's Elyra? I mean, sure, it's explained who she is/was, but without any context, those two mentions out of nowhere which don't relate to anything so far are rather confusing.
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP - Needs Testers]

Post by Sire »

zookeeper wrote:Useful Feedback!
Ah yes, the Tomato surprises term. I forgotten what they were called, and must learn more off of TV Tropes! *opens and then closes tab* However, I did give warning to them in regards to the storyline. The warning for the Elves had Rhade send a messenger and the Orcs were alluded to by Syris at the introduction. Perhaps I should make the inferences more obvious, although the Elves arrive on the Player's turn and can be dealt with while the Orcs were meant to arrive and act immediately. Coming from the world of Fire Emblem, I am used to the enemy spawning on their turn and acting immediately. Although, once again, I will add a reminder to the player before the events occur.

I will admit, I did poorly with regards to the Shadow Spire and the arrival of the Necromancer was not foretold whatsoever. In the next release I will add some text in regards to the Necromancers arrival, the skeleton spawns, and the Shadow Spire itself. After testing the scenario several times and working on this large a scale it is easy to forget some of the smaller things, especially when working on this campaign alone.

As for the story pacing, it is essentially just Asheviere attacking and the barony is fighting a losing battle. The first scenario is the sterotypical "last stand" with other events thrown in for good measure. Side plots currently include the Necromancer and the plight of the Elves, but so far it is just the people trying to survive the onslaught.

For the miscellaneous...
- Turn Counter: I made it 35 in the fear of once the limit was reached the map would automatically end in defeat for the player. I'll put it down to 31 and see if I can get it working.
- Mycen Toast, can_recruit, end_level: Thanks for pointing out my coding errors! They has been fixed.
- Unexplained Undead Collapse: This had been remedied in the upcoming release. I also found it odd they just fell without explanation.
- Vanriry: This is the case of the "Find and Replace" function of Notepad+. Vanrir's previous name was Victor, and the replace function did its job a bit too well. :D
- Avalon: This was the name of the city that Mycen was going to flee to, however the name itself is subject to change. The end of scenario was hastily put together when I last worked on it a year ago, so I'll need to look into this further.
- Elyra is essentially the Field Marshall (Main Commander) of Asheviere's forces that are invading the Estmarks. She was not personally present during the "Last Stand", leaving her generals Covos and Rhade to the task. However, as always, I did a poor job at explaining this as no explanation was present. It shall be fixed!

Things to Fix:
- Bandit and Elf Spawn Warning (Allied Scout warns of arrival)
- Orc Arrival Reminder, Warn of Immediate Action (Syris or Mycen reminds the player and warns of their "spawn action")
- Shadow Spire, Necromancer Arrival, and Skeleton Spawn explanation and warnings.
- Turn Counter, Coding Errors, Unexplained Stuffs, Ending
- Elyra Explanation

* * *

With the critique out of the way, was there anything positive about the scenario? Did the UMC Music tracks make the scenario any better and were they any memorable characters or moments in the first scenario?

Perhaps more importantly, how was the difficulty, because on Normal I feel that it was a bit too easy and didn't feel like it was a "last stand". (I still controlled my half of the map and if I continued playing past Turn 25, it was impossible to lose unless I got reckless with my leaders. However, keep in mind that I managed to keep my two White Mages and the Council alive, had scenario foresight, and previously had 7 units worth [7 Lvl 1, 1 Lvl 2] of reinforcements right before the Elves and Bandits. I removed these allied reinforcements in the current release.)
Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
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zookeeper
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP - Needs Testers]

Post by zookeeper »

Sire wrote:With the critique out of the way, was there anything positive about the scenario? Did the UMC Music tracks make the scenario any better and were they any memorable characters or moments in the first scenario?
Well, I usually don't like massive battles and big maps, but for some reason I kept playing so there must be something appealing about it. I liked all the UMC tracks, it was nice to have something different. The writing and characters seemed for the most part pretty good, but I didn't really get to know them in the span of one scenario especially when they don't stand out as much amidst the hordes of other loyal units. When more scenarios are added, I think it might be a good idea to space out the introduction of some characters slightly, or to at least spread out some more banter throughout the first scenario so you don't forget who's who.
Sire wrote:Perhaps more importantly, how was the difficulty, because on Normal I feel that it was a bit too easy and didn't feel like it was a "last stand". (I still controlled my half of the map and if I continued playing past Turn 25, it was impossible to lose unless I got reckless with my leaders. However, keep in mind that I managed to keep my two White Mages and the Council alive, had scenario foresight, and previously had 7 units worth [7 Lvl 1, 1 Lvl 2] of reinforcements right before the Elves and Bandits. I removed these allied reinforcements in the current release.)
I played on the easiest difficulty, and managed to push almost to striking range of the southwest leader, until I decided to retreat instead for the last 10 turns or so, for a large part due to the dragon and kills spawning WC's which made a mess of my attack. In the east I held the north side of the river (standing on the fords) easily up until the orcs showed up, and didn't have problems with holding the banks of the smaller river for most of the time, although I did end up running from there as well.

I never felt like I could just barely hold the enemies back because I had so much space to retreat to, but they were pumping out new recruits so fast that I never got the chance to actually mount a proper counterattack either.
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP - Needs Testers]

Post by Sire »

Changelog 0.0.5:
Spoiler:
Play Test Notes:
Spoiler:
Red Winter has been updated to version 0.0.5 for both the 1.10.x and the latest developmental versions. The second scenario has also been released but is nowhere near finished, so play with it at your own risk.

The main focus of this update is to rebalance the first scenario and to give it that "Last Stand" feel as well as to address issues regarding the "tomato surprises". Starting gold and income for the two enemy leaders have been drastically revised to accommodate for the player's predeployed units. The result is a much more harder scenario that accomplishes the last stand objective and leaves the enemy leaders in debt which can allow for a counterattack.

I hope you enjoy this latest update to Red Winter. Hopefully I'll be able to continue updates on a weekly basis, so remember, if there's any feedback, leave it here!
Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP - Needs Testers]

Post by Sire »

Changelog 0.0.6:
Spoiler:
Dev Insight 2 – Red Winter Scenarios
Note: Contains spoilers! Read at own risk.
Spoiler:
* * *

Main features is that Scenario 2 is mostly complete and Scenario 3 is in a "completable" state. A note to those who wish to play, it seems like this entire campaign (all 6 scenarios) is essentially going to be long battles with many leveled units. Be prepared!

With nothing else to say, I hope you enjoy the latest developmental release for Red Winter and remember to leave feedback if you decide to play!
Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
tnaser
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP]

Post by tnaser »

HELP!!!

I've been unsuccessful in obtaining a copy of "Red Winter".
-enter the add-on
I'm running 1.11.16 and have tried downloading version 0.0.6 from the main add-on server - it shows its downloading and the "download successful" screen appears, but it does not appear in the menu nor can I finfd it in ANY folder on my computer. Also, when I re-enter the server, it claims that "Red Winter" is not installed.

I've been able to successfully obtain every other campaign and their required addons.

Is there another way that I can obtain this file?

Tom

ADDENDUM: Somehow it was downloaded into my Downloads folder as Sire's Materials.zip. HUH? I had assumed as with all the other addons it was automatically uncompressed and placed in the default directory - oh well, more work!
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP]

Post by Sire »

@ tnaser

You can also obtain it using BoW 1.10.7, the latest stable version. Download it using the official add-ons server from within the game.
Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
StrangerThanFiction
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP]

Post by StrangerThanFiction »

I tried installing "Red Winter" and it says it was "successfully installed". It shows up in my add-ons folder, but not in Campaigns. When the Add-ons is reloaded, it says that it is "not installed". I downloaded and installed it manually and it still doesn't show up in the list. Any suggestions?

Edit: I have both 1.10.7 and 1.12.0 versions installed, and have the same issue with both. "Red Winter" doesn't show up in the playable campaign list.
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Sire
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Re: Red Winter [Revised, WIP]

Post by Sire »

StrangerThanFiction wrote:I tried installing "Red Winter" and it says it was "successfully installed". It shows up in my add-ons folder, but not in Campaigns. When the Add-ons is reloaded, it says that it is "not installed". I downloaded and installed it manually and it still doesn't show up in the list. Any suggestions?
I haven't updated Red Winter or touched Battle for Wesnoth in a long time, so my suggestions may not be completely valid. Red Winter is still unfinished and it has not been updated to the "current" versions of Wesnoth (Stable: 1.12.2 or Developmental: 1.13.0), so that may be where the difficulty lies.

I'll see if I can attempt some troubleshooting on my end and update versions before the end of the week. I'll make a post here to let you know.
Current Projects: [Sire's Scenarios] || [Red Winter Reborn]
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