A New Order (ANO) campaign - version 1.1.6

[t3st3r]

I'm also completed this campaign. Got 14 points (huh, scoreboard is quite incredible invention, I'm like it).
What I want to admit?
- Interrogations... after all it turned out I'm failed on quite many of them . It is hard to succeed on all interrogations since you not just have to bring proper units and kill someone. You have to do this with right unit. Too tricky. Usually this looks like this: leader stays in castle, then you have wounded him with other units. Now, interrogator have to inflict final blow. However units in castle have good defense. So all hits can miss. Then, AI usually chooses to do suicidal attack on some weak unit and enemy leader usually dies with high probability due to unit retaliation (yeah, Wesnoth about probability and nobody could be lucky forever). Or, you can frequently kill enemy leader when you're trying just to wound him. So, I either have to resort to numerous reloads\retries or fail interrogation. Suggestion is simple: count interrogation as passed if required interrogator on adjacent cell when enemy leader killed. That's simple: if enemy defeated, it is OK to interrogate him if there is proper interrogators are in place. Quite common practice during wars. The only issue is when result depends on interrogator. In such case if there is few interrogators on adjacent cells maybe allow player to decide? Ask something like "who will interrogate ... ?" and let's player to decide. It is up to player anyway.
- Last map... as for me, allied AI played more than poorly. This moron spend all soldiers attacking orcs and trolls during night while standing in water. This is good idea only if you're about to do something suicidal. So, I not just have to fight with all these hordes trying to cross the river but also have to kick orcs on left flank to save AI ass and not became outflanked myself on left flank by a bunch of powerful orcs and trolls. I suggesting to make this AI more defensive and rather willing to protect leader or holding it's river bank.
- Storyline explains that "now you can recruit ... again" on previous map. There is NO WARNINGS that I will be unable to recruit on last map. So, I had hard times up to recalling peasants. It not looks fair to pay 20 gold for almost useless peasant which can delay attackers a bit at very most. you probably should either add warnings on previous map or allow recruiting.

Actually, I like this campaign. Tricky story and incredible scripting make it worth of playing. The only thing... you may try to improve graphic. Akladian units have too simple attacks and some portraits could be better. However, it worth of playing anyway due to a number of unique things.

[Draciron]

When is AI as an ally anything but a distraction. They serve their purpose soaking up the attention of the Orcs and the Darknite long enough to kill off the Akladians and Highwaymen. I sent a couple mages to go after stray trolls and that was enough help for them to survive until I could kill the Akladian.

I also skipped a few interogations. Had to go back and play last turn all over again to find out how many points I got which was 18. I see at least one point more I could get by stretching the game out a little longer. That plus the potential to interogate more enemy leaders and get 100 gp which seemed to be worth a point. Think I'll replay the last scenario and see if I can't get a few more points out of it.

I don't think it's possible to be unit proximity aware for the interogations. I agree it'd save a whole lot of time. I had to do two or three replays of a turn several times to make sure the right guy got the killing blow and thus the interogation and some I just skipped as the nearest unit capable of the interogation was a long ways off and I needed the gold for a quick end more than the points at the end.

Hah, boosted it to 21 pts by replaying the last scenario and ending with 600 gp.

[Rhishisikk]

Okay, in order of priority:

1) YES, there are a number of scenarios where you can't recruit; the player needs to be made aware of these. Could you speed the process up by giving me a list?

2) It is VERY possible to do a [death] event that looks for adjacent leaders. I'll set up a variable that detects whether the player is attacking with the interrogator; this flags the ATTEMPT to interrogate. Duh. Just got it. A unit that can be interrogated will remember the last unit to attack it; this will be the unit that does the interrogation.

2a) If you use a 10 pound sledge to crack your walnuts, you won't be able to eat them all. I don't see the risk of accidentally killing the foe as a problem. Is it IRRITATING? Oh yes. But I'm going to do other balancing issues before even looking at 'how hard is it to interrogate X' issues.

3) There IS a way to set the AI to avoid stupid stuff. I see cases where szopen has set the toggles; I can check the settings. Don't expect this in the next patch; honestly, I'll probably use the same settings the player fought them at for those NPCs the player defeats earlier in the timeline. This is MORE CRITICAL than 2, it's here because I need to play with [ai] tags to understand and fix it.

4) I suppose I need to actually write all this down, so I have an overall priority list. I've put it off because that's just too much like work.

5) If anyone wants to help with the next stage, I'm looking for 'undocumented features'. This includes a help feature (how do I interrogate enemy leaders?), the mentioned 'cannot recruit' scenarios, and I'm sure there's other things I missed.

5a) Having identified translation as an ongoing (and high irritation) problem, I'll be doing work on it throughout.

[Mica]

Hey Rhishisikk, I was talking with Turuk about ANO and I remember that when I played it last (before you worked on it), the storyline was horrid. I am going to play through it again now though. Anyways, Turuk seemed okay with me helping on the storyline and I wanted to get your permission as well. I pretty much want to completely overhaul the storyline, but keep the plot similar to the current one. I also thought that to make it even easier is to just think of ways to keep all the current objectives for each scenario. What I mean is, I wouldn't want to change any objectives or conditions for the scenarios, and I'd just make the storyline fit to the scenarios. I have quite a few ideas for the storyline, and with Turuk's help I should be able to do this easily. Are you okay with this?

[edit]

And I must say I'm very impressed you decided to take on this huge job. This is the true project insanity!

[Rhishisikk]

Eh? New plotline? No!

Hold on a moment, got to throttle that instinctive NO response.

Okay, got it under control. I'm not certain I agree the campaign NEEDS a new plotline...

[whisper]
Save Karen.... Save the World....
[/whisper]

But what evil plans are the two of you hatching?

[Turuk]

No evil plans, you can certainly keep your instinctive NO response.

What he meant to say is pretty much what you and I already talked about, updating the dialogue and storyline to be a bit more consistent throughout the campaign, improve the dialogue and interactions, and make everything flow easier.

[Rhishisikk]

I've no problem with clarifying the dialogue, but I flinch at altering the story. Honestly, I *LIKE* the story-line, although some parts of it make me wince. That's why I've put such effort into making the campaign playable again.

I'm not saying ANO doesn't need improvement, or that some of the dialogue can't be re-done better. But I'm not going to help transform ANO into something it was never meant to be. It has its flaws, but I'm not about to throw away the good with the bad. Yes, it needs to be re-balanced and SOME tweaking will be needed.

But the level of change Mica wants? If it has feathers like a duck, flies and swims like a duck, migrates like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably isn't a frog. If a campaign involves new units, new heroes, new plotlines, then it's probably best to consider a new campaign.

[Turuk]

I know, you and I spoke on this last night in IRC, and I agree. Mica is also on board with the fact that as your campaign (since you're maintaining it now), it is all your call.

[Rhishisikk]

Tracked and hopefully stomped: Whenever Akladians are added to the 'CAN RECRUIT' list, be aware this can clear the recruit list. I've fixed that in the Haeltin scenarios, and need to know where else it occurs. Also, please let me know if it happens when Rob Roe, Reumario, or others join their factions in. It *SHOULDN'T*, but it might.

Again, I think this is fixed, but I've thought that about too many bugs in the code.

Secondary priority: I need to know all scenarios where you cannot recruit new units. I'm working on a pair of patches for this now.

a) some missions, you have no headquarters, and thus cannot recruit. These need to be documented better.
b) some missions were caught in Wesnoth changes: instead of using the last mission's recruit list (old default), they disallow recruiting (new default).

Attempting to upload latest to Add-On server now.
[edit]
Version 1.1.4 is out on the server.
[/edit]

[Kevynstar]

Rhishisikk, I really LOVE that you are taking so much time to make this campaign playable. I played it years ago, never was able to finish, and found it to be one of the most original and interesting campaigns in all of Wesnoth. I can't wait to try it again. Someone proposed overhauling the storyline, and plot. I vote a big NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! Please, please, please, stick to your guns on this!! The story was a huge humungous strength for this campaign, certainly NOT something that needed/needs to be changed. Please don't change the story!

In addition, I really like a lot of the grammer and dialogue "issues". I saw them more as flavour than errors. I know you have a lot of people helping you with this, but some of the "corrections" seem unnecessary. The only one I can recall at the moment concerns the phrase "Its a whole story...", the claim was made that this doesn't make sense in English, when in fact it does, and really helps me hear the characters accent when phrased in this matter as opposed to something like "Its a long story..."

Again, I love the work you are doing, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. If I find I have time in the near future, I would love to help on the artwork, (I am an artist --however not familiar with wesnoth tools, or animating, but willing to learn) if people really feel it needs updating. It really does have quite the styleized look to it doesn't it. Which is not necessarily bad either.

[Turuk]

Ah an artist. Those poor Akladians...

[Mica]

Hell, if we can get someone to overhaul the art for the Akladians, then there's a lot more that I'd be comfortable with keeping in.

[Rhishisikk]

YES, the Akladians need a severe art update, including attack, defense, and idle anims. However, as I lack the skill to draw the art myself, it's waiting on a donor.

Mica, Turuk: BTW, willing to help make a new Aragwaith campaign.

[Turuk]

I would love to help on the artwork, (I am an artist

YES, the Akladians need a severe art update, including attack, defense, and idle anims. However, as I lack the skill to draw the art myself, it's waiting on a donor.

It is fate, waiting to happen. Hopefully a facelift on those sprites could be arranged.

Hmm, a new Aragwaith campaign, not a bad idea. Any ideas on plot/story/setting or just willing to come up with something and run with it?

[Mica]

Alright, so the Akladians can get a huge art update, which IMO is amazing. For balance, they need some ranged unit(s), as that is a major issue to me.

And about the aragwaith campaign, it's a maybe, I've already got myself into a ton of work. xD