Re: Swamplings - v1.1.7 - for 1.8 and 1.9

[boru]

I just registered to this forum to give You a little feedback for Your campaign: It is an excellent, most likely the most entertaining storyline in the game which wraps up some very good missions. Drama, irony, surprising u-turns, jokes, and glory: Your campaign has it all. This should go into the main package!

Jearrr, welcome to the forums. I'm honored that you joined just to give me feedback. I hope you'll stick around and get involved. It sounds like you may be interested in creating sprites, and there's certainly a need for good artists here.

It's my hope that Swamplings will eventually become a mainline campaign. There's still a few hurdles to clear before it can be considered for mainline. I need to code the ending, for example.

The only trouble I currently have is the last mission with the Augur.

Spoiler:

I found it very difficult to defeat the hordes of the abonimation (eay difficulty). The allied ghost troops needed four turns to get to my aid effectively, because they only started when I opened the door and saw the first undead. Only with a conbination of save-load cheating and risky manouverin I managed to kill the main honcho, and even then the ghost had to save my goblin butt from zombification.
I wasted a lot of turns to get that multi spear - maybe in that time the bad guy could build up his army. Nevertheless I find that the mission should be definatly easier on easy difficulty. Not quite a walkthrough as some missions, but not such a hammer for the goblin brain.

Spoiler:

Yeah, basically you're cooked without the help of the ghosts. So it's a good idea to retreat your non-expendable units after that door opens and you see what's in front of you. That said, I need to work on making easy mode a bit easier. There's a shortcut to the multi spear ... it involves exploring villages, and not getting killed by what you may find.

More praise and suggestions:

Spoiler:

You had some excellent special effects in the missions! If I may suggest: The destruction of a dam and subsequent flooding of a map would be a nice storyline and gameplay feature that would fit the bog theme well.

Spoiler:

Interesting idea. Actually the storyboard was all worked out in March and April of this year. A breaking dam would make an interesting story. Maybe you'd like to write one yourself.

ps How much effort/time was the creation of the pixel art? How long does it take to make a unit? Where does one start?

For me, it was no effort, because I didn't draw anything. We have some really gifted sprite artists here. Stern created the mosquito unit with all the animations in about a week, which really amazed me. He's really good at this. Definitely check out the starting points Dixie mentioned, he's done some spriting and knows more about it than me.

[boru]

Okay, when I first dreamt up this campaign I was going to keep the custom unit tree extremely sparse. The swamp goblins were primitives with no access to metallurgy beyond what little they could scavenge or trade, so no swordsmen or heavy armor. Wolf riding had not yet been invented, so things were going to be rather limited, and that would be one of the challenges.

Well, I've done just about a 180 on this concept. The more I thought about it, the more questions I couldn't answer, like why wouldn't they throw rocks? Why can't chaotic primitives use Nightstalk? What substitutes would they have for metal armor? And the tree just started growing, as trees will do.

I'd appreciate people's input on this, since it's my first attempt at a unit tree. I'm not all that concerned with balance - this is not intended for a multiplayer match against Knalgans or Undead -- just want to see if it looks fun and interesting to play.

Spoiler:

For the leader:
..........ONE.......................TWO.....................THREE....
Goblin Rouser -> Goblin Trumpeter -> Goblin Prime

Much of the tree will be available from the first scenario (sort of, since you can only recruit Spearmen). Three possible branches for the spearman:

...........ZERO......................ONE.......................TWO..........
Goblin Spearman -> Goblin Rouser -> Goblin Trumpeter
Goblin Spearman -> Moonbeam -> Nocturne
Goblin Spearman -> Goblin Impaler -> Peltast
Goblin Spearman -> Goblin Impaler -> Goblin Wose
.................................Swamp Wolf -> Great Wolf

Brief descriptions of these units follow:

Trumpeter - "Only the best of rousers can hope to become a trumpeter. Trumpeters spend many hours studying the subtleties of the complex orc war signals. For the orcs, such signals are much more than a simple message of advance or retreat, they inspire their entire army and reinforce their bloodthirsty nature. Many orc warlords consider their trumpeter a trusted confidante and sometimes a trumpeter may be allowed to consult with the warlord on his battle plan." Level 2, Leadership level 2, 41 HP, spear 8-3.

Moonbeam - "A primitive life has some advantages, and a Goblin Moonbeam capitalizes on this fact. Using their special affinity with the natural world, the Moonbeam advances undetected at night and strikes without warning." Level 1, Nightstalk, 26 HP, club 5-2, hatchet (ranged) 5-2

Nocturne - "The Goblin Nocturne has advanced beyond the skills of the Moonbeam. It is not known why so many of the Nocturnes are female. Perhaps they have a lighter step than the male, but whatever the cause, their mastery of nightstalking is unparalleled." Level 2, Nightstalk, 33 HP, club 7-2, bolas 4-2 (slow)

Peltast - "The goblin peltast specializes in the casting of the javelin. Although their javelin is little more than a crudely sharpened stick, the speed with which they cast these missiles is surprising and deadly." Level 2, 34 HP, spear 8-2, javelin 5-4

Goblin Wose - "Having no access to a forge, goblins often rely on leather armor, or in the case of the goblin wose, tree bark. They design their own intricately carved suits of armor, and the better armor is often patched and handed down to future generations. The name <i>Goblin Wose</i> is meant as a perjorative, like <i>Goblin Knight,</i> however goblins embrace it without irony." Level 2, 43 HP, spear 9-3 (firststrike)

As soon as you level up a spearman he gets the "Swamp Savvy" trait, making him faster in swamp hexes and giving slightly higher defense. (They are still not as good as saurians, however.)

Goblin Prime - "It is said that all you need to lead a goblin is a strong leash. In truth, it takes a subtle mind and a noble heart to be a goblin prime. Goblins leave much of their life to chance, a strategy that guarantees their short and pointless lifespans. Only the wisest and strongest leader can inspire them and turn them from their anarchic tendencies." Level 3, Leadership Level 3, 51 HP, spear (melee) 8-4, spear (ranged) 3-2

Swamp Wolf is the same as the mainline wolf. It levels to an incrementally stronger unit, the Great Wolf (Level 2, 49 HP, fangs 7-4). Wolves are not recruitable, you get a few now and then depending on the difficulty level you're playing at.

In scenario 2, you get access to your first scouting unit, the Vampire Bat, which is recruitable throughout the rest of the campaign.

In scenario 5, a loyal human bowman and a giant rat variant (Bosavi rat) joins you.

Then nothing much until the wolf riders show up. There's one in scenario 9, and you can start freely recruiting them in 11:

.....ONE..................TWO................THREE....
Wolf Rider -> Goblin Pillager -> Cutthroat
Wolf Rider -> Goblin Pillager -> Firefly
Wolf Rider -> Goblin Knight

Cutthroat - "The Goblin Cutthroat has trained his wolf to move at a blinding speed. In the time it takes to kill one enemy, the Cutthroat kills many. To add insult to injury, he snatches the purses of his victims." Level 3, 46 HP, fangs 5-3, torch 7-3 (Pickpocket), Cutthroat ability. (Cutthroat is like bloodlust, if you kill you can attack multiple units per round, regain all movement points.)

Firefly - "How can you carry a flaming torch and remain undetected at night? Only the Firefly, and her many victims, know for sure." Level 3, 44 HP, fangs 5-3, torch 7-3, net 6-2 (Slow), Nightstalk ability.

The observant will notice, no Direwolf Rider yet. That is because of the storyline, but there is a level 3 unit to work toward, so hopefully you'll be okay with that.

Scenario 11 also introduces a dwarven thunderer and thunderguard who will stay with your party if you keep them alive. You also get Thundergobos:

........ZERO..............ONE..........
Thundergobo -> Vundergobo

Thundergobo - "Put that weapon down, ye batty gobo!" Level 0, 18 HP, spear 6-3, thunderstick 15-1, Misfire ability (33% chance of 9 damage when you miss with thunderstick).

Vundergobo - "Slightly more accurate, the veteran thundergobo, or vundergobo for short, brings fear into the hearts of many a brave fighter, including the ones on his own side. Vundergobos lack the extensive training received by Dwarvish Thunderers, and consequently tend to misfire their weapons, resulting in undesired injuries." Level 1, 30 HP, spear 6-3, thunderstick 20-1, Misfire ability (20% chance of 9 damage when you miss with thunderstick).

In scenario 12, you get a loyal saurian augur.

Scenario 13 sees two more new units, the Mimic and the Slave. The slave is sort of a level minus one, because he levels up to Spearman.

.....ONE..................TWO...........
Goblin Mimic -> Jinx

Mimic - "After serving a lifetime as slave to saurian augurs, the goblin mimic has learned to mimic the augur's heal spell as well as the chilling curse." Level 1, 18 HP, staff 4-1, curse 4-2, Heals +4

Jinx - "The Jinx has pushed his knowledge of saurian augury as far as possible. Even a true augur could not outdo the Jinx's curse." Level 2, 23 HP, staff 4-2, curse 5-3, Heals +4

Slave - "Throughout most of known history, goblins have lived under the brutal domination of their orcish brothers. In some cases, goblins escape, and they often become enslaved by other races, especially saurians and trolls. It is difficult to say whether such a life is any less miserable than the one from which they escaped." Level 0, 15 HP, pitchfork 5-2, rock 5-2.

Near the end of scenario 14, things happen and you can level your Great Wolves to Direwolves, and Goblin Knights to Direwolf Riders. The Direwolf Rider can level up to a higher unit, the Direwolf Master.

Direwolf Master - "In time, the direwolf rider will either gain a greater level of expertise in the riding of his savage mount, or he is slaughtered in battle." Level 4, 61 HP, fangs 10-4, claws 5-4 (poison).

Seems like a lot. Hmm, if you've actually read all this, give yourself a pat on the back, and please let me know your comments.

[Fog]

A lot of the level twos have little to no similarities to their counterparts. Ex. Impaler > Wose, Pillager > Cutthroat. All of the ideas are great, but they are out of the blue. Generally a level one unit (level zero in your case, but the logic still holds true.), say a human spearman, gets special abilities on his level up and on the third level no new abilities are introduced, but the previous ones are hardened.

[boru]

Thanks, Fog. Okay, I get the part where you say all the ideas are great, and we are in agreement there. Not so sure I understand the rest. I think you are mostly objecting to the transitions between level 2 mainline units and higher level custom units. So for example, the levelup from Spearman to Moonbeam, a unit with no spear, a club, hatchets and Nightstalk is acceptable, but the levelup from Impaler to Wose, a unit with spear, Firststrike, and bark armor is out of the blue? All I did was give him bark armor. Or are both examples out the blue?

Your point about the Cutthroat is valid but the fix may be complicated. The Bloodlust variant I'm using is too powerful to give to a level 2 unit (it would be like letting the White Mage illuminate). Since Pillager can slow, and the combination of these abilities would be godlike, I'm taking away Slow and giving the other ability. A quick look at the mainline tree shows me that kind of thing isn't done in mainline -- once a unit has an ability or attack it doesn't go away. At least not from level 2 to 3. So I'll try to fit the Cutthroat in somewhere else, either by introducing a third level 2 unit branching from the Wolf Rider or have him as a branch off of the Goblin Knight.

[Dixie]

I mean what fog hint's at is RIPLIB, and while I forgot what the acronyms' letters refer to exactly, it generally means that a unit shouldn't be forced to lose a feature or worsen in a field. Basically, you can have units trading abilities/characteristics/etc. for others, thus worsening in some field and gtting better in others, but you should try to always have at least one unit branch that only gets beter at what it was already doing, whatever it was. I'm not sure if it applies to you, I've only taken a quick glance at your thing.

I think it's a fun change how you try to remain in the lower levels. Velensk designed a faction around that concept, some time ago, so you might like to look at it to get some ideas about balance/useful features for such a faction. I'm not really sure, but I think it's in Grafted ea, on the add-on server?

[boru]

I looked it up on the wiki:

RiPLIB - Reduction in Power when Levelling Is Bad: means that when a unit upgrades, at least one of its options should be strictly superior to the original unit.

There's a great deal of subjectivity here. I can see one player wanting to upgrade his Spearman to a Pikeman because he gets a better pierce attack, and hating the Javelineer because he can't get past level two, and another player wanting Javelineer because he won't lose the ranged attack and hating Swordsman because he'd lose firststrike. In this case, each of the three choices is "strictly superior" but in different ways.

I do think lower levels make more sense for goblins - they are the only race in Wesnoth with negative attributes. I guess it's fun to have them inventing democracy and flying around in balloons too but it really wasn't the kind of thing I was after.

[Dixie]

I think you don't really understand RIPLIB. Of course, all Lv2s are superior to their Lv1 counterpart (to any Lv1, for that matter). Wouldn't make much sense levelling if that wasn't the case.

You should rather interpret "strictly superior" as "the exact same thing, but better". Let's take the spearman's example: it's RIPLIB lv up would probably be the Javelineer (I think), since it loses nothing. Pikeman is about the same, but looses the ranged attack, and swordsman loses both the ranged, firststrike and changes type. (although I hesitate on that one, because the javelineer changes role (becomes more of a mixed fighter) and the pikeman less so (remains pure fighter). I doesn't mean "one Lv up path has to be clearly superior to the others" either: if some of them had no uses, nobody would pick them. It just means "there should always be a level up path that loses nothing, in case you want your unit to keep doing what it was already doing, and not change role, albeit very slightly".

Anyway, dunno if it applies to your faction.

[boru]

Me neither, since I don't understand it. But if it would cause someone to pick a unit that will never see level 3, over two other units that can, it's not all that great. (Shouldn't it be RIPWLIB anyway?)

[Elvish_Hunter]

boru, I noticed that, in Dire Cave, you have a Rocklobber, a magic spear, a Ghast and a Mausuleum.
- About the Troll Rocklobber, considering that this is the only one that you get, may be a good idea to make it able to advance as Troll Boulderlobber? In TSoG, all Trolls can advance this way. If you want to find the original unit, it is in the BEEM era.
- About the Ghast, you're recycling the same Necrophage graphics. Somewhere in the Art Contributions, there are the new Ghast sprites made by Stern. Really impressive.
- About the magic spear, the monster that appear seems a bit overpowered to me. Considering that the unit taking the spear will be at best a Level 1 Goblin (either Impaler or Rouser), I suggest you to lower its attacks, to give the player a chance to pick the spear.
- In the [item] tag for the Mausuleum, you're using the halo key. This causes every unit that moves here to be placed under the mausuleum. To fix this, you should replace halo with image - but then it can't be animated, and I'm not sure if this works with images bigger than 72x72.
I hope that this will be useful

[boru]

Elvish_Hunter,

Of course, your posts have been very helpful to me, including this one. Let's take your points one by one:

- I'll look into the boulder lobber. Sounds like a good idea.
- I don't think Stern has finished his work on the Ghast yet. Originally that character was going to be a saurian necrophage, but once I saw Stern's ghast, I decided he's got to be a ghast. I'll definitely swap out the necrophage sprites for the ghast when it's ready, but I know these things take time to get right.
- The spear guardian .. he's the Enlightened Master of Fire from Inferno8's Era of Magic. Yeah he's tough all right ... no way a level one gobo could survive solo, but there are a few other options. First, you'll have bats to run interference, and the guardian can only roast one unit per turn, usually he'll go for the weakest. So you could do it that way, also there are now level ups for the gobos. The rousers can advance to trumpeter and the impaler to goblin wose. So it will definitely be a tough battle to get that spear but it is doable.
- That mausoleum has to animate! It's Rhyging's awesome work here. I know that halo= isn't the best way to put this in the game, and image= won't work either. I think it needs to be defined as [terrain_graphics] -- eventually I'll blunder into the answer, but for now units vanish when they enter that hex. Kinda spooky huh?

[its_crunchtime]

I just registered so I could tell you that im really loving your campaign so far
Its great! Only problem is that when I try to load up the Selling bats to Merfolk scen, it gives me this:

Error
Error while playing the game:game_error: invalid slide(4) found in unit definition

Is this a problem with the scenario, or is it a problem of my comp? And is there any way to fix it? Please help... I want to play it through

[boru]

I just registered so I could tell you that im really loving your campaign so far

Hey wow, I really appreciate that!

Its great! Only problem is that when I try to load up the Selling bats to Merfolk scen, it gives me this:

Error
Error while playing the game:game_error: invalid slide(4) found in unit definition

Is this a problem with the scenario, or is it a problem of my comp? And is there any way to fix it? Please help... I want to play it through

Okay, I see the error .. sorry about that ... it's not a problem with your computer ...

I just posted a bugfix on the server. You will need to download it by clicking add-ons, then click "update add-ons." Reload from scenario 6 or earlier, and all should be fine.

[its_crunchtime]

Its downloading now, thanks for the help!

Im kind of getting inspired to make my own campaign now ... where did you learn how to code the maps n' all that stuff?
Thanks again for the help!

[Elvish_Hunter]

- I'll look into the boulder lobber. Sounds like a good idea.

In my opinion, it is.

- I don't think Stern has finished his work on the Ghast yet.

Glad to see that you already know it.

- The spear guardian .. he's the Enlightened Master of Fire from Inferno8's Era of Magic. Yeah he's tough all right ... no way a level one gobo could survive solo, but there are a few other options. First, you'll have bats to run interference, and the guardian can only roast one unit per turn, usually he'll go for the weakest. So you could do it that way, also there are now level ups for the gobos. The rousers can advance to trumpeter and the impaler to goblin wose. So it will definitely be a tough battle to get that spear but it is doable.

Then mine it's a cross-playing problem. I'll replay from scratch when you'll release 1.0.

I think it needs to be defined as [terrain_graphics]

The main problem is that I think that also terrains must be 72x72. Maybe it's time to file a Feature Request?

Im kind of getting inspired to make my own campaign now ... where did you learn how to code the maps n' all that stuff?

Click on "Create" at the top of the page, you'll find most of the things here. And, for every question, there is the WML Workshop.

[boru]

I think it needs to be defined as [terrain_graphics]

The main problem is that I think that also terrains must be 72x72. Maybe it's time to file a Feature Request?

The mausoleum tiles are 72x72 with a transparent edge, so the actual image is smaller. So there does need to be a terrain layer underneath. I think there are ways for the game to handle this, I just need to spend the time to look over my examples and work it out. My first priority is finishing the final scenario ... it's mostly coded now, I'm adding the battle events and smoothing out the rough edges.