The Earth's Gut for BfW 1.16

[Reval]

Attached you find a savegame from Ferry Crossing, one where Elara is still alive and canbe killed by the opponent, the other in the next round where she isn't anymore.

Works for me. Her last breath event fires when I let her get killed, ending the scenario...

Very strange. Well, if it would have happened for me, round 15 without her wouldn't exist. Was on 1.9.1. and her death was caused by an instant sink - maybe that is why?
Don't know what else could cause the difference, do you?

Even a Patrol, especially one that can kill a guard of the throne room, shouldn't get so close
But I might give in. Maybe the scout should stay alive...?

[Reval]

Concerning the begining: Don't you think it is "threatening" if the enemy is directly in front of the door to the throne room?
Well, maybe it is just me

Yes, and the dialog reacts appropiately. It's only a patrol (for then)...

Well I looked at the beginning and my feeling is again stronger. It say that the conference is "deep in the heart" of the Kings tunnel system and he speaks of his holy tunnels and the complete dwarfen troop is killed... including the cousin of the king!
And even though Hamel is send away for a "decade", the king says that time is of crucial importance...
Again, I really got the impression that the complete defeat is immanent and thus, I gues a little finetuning of the dialogue would make the beginning a little more sound.
And somehow I want a doctor to acompany me who is able to heal severe wounds.

What do you think about including an objective in "Unknown tunnels" with "move Dulatus here" because he wants to trance an idea about a secret passage?

Maybe intendet but the way it is know, I thought he migth be a traitor.

[Anonymissimus]

Was on 1.9.1. and her death was caused by an instant sink - maybe that is why?
Don't know what else could cause the difference, do you?

Indeed, the according [kill] was missing fire_event=yes...

[Reval]

By the way, do you still look for ideas for the last scenarios?
Keeps asking myself what the "unspeakable evil" could be, that made the dwarfs run away in terror - given that it should not be a normal lich boss.

Introducing the masked dwarfs in "Prison" might pose the question why they haven't apeared earlier and also why only undead came out of Kal Torlat and attacked the elves.
At least in The_Hammer_of_Thursagan the masked dwarfs are the "front line" in front of the undead which are secretly controling the dwarfs.
Also, I instantly wondered since when undead take prisoners, but the idea of torturing might indeed legitimate the earlier dwarfs runing away in terror and talk of unspeakable evil.
So maybe it might work if you tell the story that the masked dwarfs are the result of the torturing which are incredibly brutal, evil, canibalistic, etc. such that they cannot build a self sustainable comunity but are rather like a parasite consuming the souls of the newly arived dwarfs. Thus, these dwarf would need to be much more evil than the masked one from Kal Kathra from The_Hammer_of_Thursagan - they are just decieved by an evil leader.

That would explain why there where no masked dwarfs coming out of Kal Torlat while there are some now - they could be converted earlier troops of Hamel. And it would also explain the talk of the evil that got awaken, namely the worst sinde of the dwarfs themself which came out after some spesific "treatment" they got in the deepest tunnels of Kal Torlat.
It would thus be fun, if the Kal Torlat Masked dwarfs would occasionaly attack themselfs and one could say that they weare a mask because their faces are messed up by e.g. the torture or the presence of other evil dwarfs. (May be some Star Warsisch dark side of the force thingy?)

[Anonymissimus]

The dialog for the first scenario was written by StandYourGround, I don't think I'll change something about it.

I like your ideas concerning the masked dwarves however. Indeed I was looking for dialog introducing them, you give me some great ideas. Originally I wanted to explain them as belonging to the original dwarves, that is, the other half of the dwarves that didn't flee but got corrupted instead. Explaining them as converted followers of Hamel is MUCH better however.

[Reval]

If I think about it, I guess my thougth went from "unspeackable evil" to the "Reveers" from Firefly - probalby not the worst example for something that makes others run away in terror.

[Reval]

Since the campaign has been quietly updated, I can give some comments on the prison scenario:

Spoiler:

To see your friends be lead like lambs to the slaughter certainly has the moral effect it should have: But my biggest critique is that the executioner ignores all ZOCs and even does his job when a human controlled unit stands on the slaughter altar. Thus I would recommend that as soon as a players unit controls a field that is on the path of the executioner, he attacks this unit instead of continuing the execution and moving through units.

[Anonymissimus]

That's too complicated to do...no, I'll put into the objectives that only killing him stops him...
(Another reason is that the execution wouldn't continue long enough.)

[Kapoue_II]

Heya,
playing through the camapaign when I want a break from WML.Liking it so far
However, noticed a storyline error. This is set before NR right? And in NR scenario 3 (the story bit) Turin asks Hamel about wesnoth, and hamel says last he heard, Ashviere had control. Yet in your camapaign, Dulatus says in scenario 1 that he heard ashviere was overthrown. I appreciate this could be hard to change, but it makes no historical sense for Hamel to forget this fact. Seeing as its part of the premise for the campaign and all that.

Also, Aiglathing is basically useless, as you can recruit units like him. I suggest making him level 2, so he "has a reason to live" other than plot line.

[Anonymissimus]

Heya,
Yet in your camapaign, Dulatus says in scenario 1 that he heard ashviere was overthrown.

No, he doesn't...
Asheviere's power is said to increase at that point like it should. I however planned to mention at the end Asheviere's fall so Hamel would know it. Slight inconsistencies to mainline are unavoidable due to the many links.

[Kapoue_II]

Heya,
Yet in your camapaign, Dulatus says in scenario 1 that he heard ashviere was overthrown.

No, he doesn't...
Asheviere's power is said to increase at that point like it should. I however planned to mention at the end Asheviere's fall so Hamel would know it. Slight inconsistencies to mainline are unavoidable due to the many links.

Ah, I checked the scenario, and I had missread it that ashviere has been betrayed, not her doing the betraying. Sorry . However, my point about Ainglathing still stands.

[hagabaka]

In Ferry Crossing, I wasn't sure whether I need to all units in the recall list to the destination, or just whichever land units I choose to recall in addition to the units I start with. It turned out that it's the latter case. Maybe the objective could be more clear about this.

The main reason I was unclear though was that it would be a quite easy and mundane scenario when all you need is to recruit a few ships as guards, and load two characters into transport ships, move to the other side and unload the characters. Granted I was playing on easy difficulty, but this was still much easier and simpler than previous scenarios. Most of the AI ships tended to be busy capturing villages or fighting monsters, and since the ships all have a lot of HP, there was little danger of my ships sinking from the occasional attacks.

[Anonymissimus]

In Ferry Crossing, I wasn't sure whether I need to all units in the recall list to the destination, or just whichever land units I choose to recall in addition to the units I start with. It turned out that it's the latter case. Maybe the objective could be more clear about this.

Done.

The main reason I was unclear though was that it would be a quite easy and mundane scenario when all you need is to recruit a few ships as guards, and load two characters into transport ships, move to the other side and unload the characters. Granted I was playing on easy difficulty, but this was still much easier and simpler than previous scenarios. Most of the AI ships tended to be busy capturing villages or fighting monsters, and since the ships all have a lot of HP, there was little danger of my ships sinking from the occasional attacks.

Maybe you got lucky. The scenario can go pretty bad if the pirates capture some battle ships of yours (not only do you have 1 less but they have 1 more) or you get unlucky with the instasink attacks (or your opponent gets lucky). Both weapon specials amplify the luck effect, that is.
And you need to always shield your transport ships from both attacks; if the heros are affected you lose instantly.

[homunculus]

i just played the campaign at normal.
had some error message on the screen saying something like 'no suitable locations found in [nearest_location]', sorry i forgot to copy the error file before i restarted bfw, and i do not remember the exact wording or even scenario.
maybe this "report" was better than nothing at all.

in your first post you said you are not good at storytelling.
this is indeed true for the first scenarios, but in the later scenarios your storytelling has improved a lot imho.
maybe some day you will want to take another look at the first scenarios.

and i liked it when you got bit creative in the later scenarios.
especially nice was the 'undead are coming out of the stones' thing, a surprisingly nice dwarfish style horror.
but actually the things that came out of the stones were not all undead, as apprentices and necromancers are living creatures.

the scenario where konrad has to escape where you can recruit woses would be nicer if you could leave some woses behind.

in the ferrying scenario it would make sense to leave the not transported units behind.
however, after some initial player domination, the river quickly became filled up with enemy ships, and ferrying 5 units within the turn limit was quite challenging for me (wasn't really needed, as it turned out later).

the last scenario actually has a hard turn limit until the executioner is killed, but the turns show as infinite and this can be a bit misleading.

and the alchemists seem to be very powerful units with their somewhat high damage ranged attack.
isn't bola a barbarian weapon more suitable for hunting on open ground, like steppes (two reasons here why this look undwarfish to me)?
and healing +8 is imho also a bit on the powerful side.
shouldn't the dwarfs have the witness line like in THoT instead?

[Anonymissimus]

Thanks...

had some error message on the screen saying something like 'no suitable locations found in [nearest_location]', sorry i forgot to copy the error file before i restarted bfw, and i do not remember the exact wording or even scenario.

Without the scenario or a certain situation/event where this happens I can't do anything about it...did you get this with the newest version on the 1.9 server ?

however, after some initial player domination, the river quickly became filled up with enemy ships, and ferrying 5 units within the turn limit was quite challenging for me (wasn't really needed, as it turned out later).

I'll add some warning there that you shouldn't recruit/recall to much land units. (I do not at all.)

the last scenario actually has a hard turn limit until the executioner is killed, but the turns show as infinite and this can be a bit misleading.

There's some more warning about that but it's not yet on the server I guess.

and the alchemists seem to be very powerful units with their somewhat high damage ranged attack

It's low damage if you compare this to other ranged attacks; at level 3 it's 3-6, less than e.g. Elvish Archer 4-5 at level 1. It's to compensate for the two weapon specials; and at HARD difficulty alchemists aren't recruitable.
As for the bolas - that question I can redirect to THoT.