Campaign: Saving Elensefar

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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turin
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Post by turin »

Well, it looks like the {GIVE_EXP} macro is in the first scenario, and this is what caused the wierd behavior.

I've removed that macro from scenario 1, because I didn't think it really made sense there. But, be warned - this behavior IS considered normal for the remainder of the campaign. I give free XP at the end of some levels, and units will sometimes end up with more than their max XP. This looks a bit wierd, but it doesn't cause any problems. Just treat them like they have exactly one less than the max.

And I've published Saving Elensefar on the new "clean" campaign server. Enjoy.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
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lougarou
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Post by lougarou »

turin wrote:Well, it looks like the {GIVE_EXP} macro is in the first scenario, and this is what caused the wierd behavior.

I've removed that macro from scenario 1, because I didn't think it really made sense there. But, be warned - this behavior IS considered normal for the remainder of the campaign. I give free XP at the end of some levels, and units will sometimes end up with more than their max XP. This looks a bit wierd, but it doesn't cause any problems. Just treat them like they have exactly one less than the max.
That is what I read in the scenario file yesterday (but I was offline, so I could not answer to myself). This might have been intended, but since there is no verbal explanation of this fact, this was a bit surprising. Maybe a texte clue would have been enough.
turin wrote:And I've published Saving Elensefar on the new "clean" campaign server. Enjoy.
That is what I intend to do. Your campaigns are great mind-exercisers. Thanks.
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zookeeper
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Post by zookeeper »

Since this is now on the 1.2 server, you should probably update the custom units a bit, since some have rather abysmal animation WML: http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/Advanced_Animation_Tutorial. Some of the units still seem to use the old special=magical syntax, which probably still works but should be phased out at some point.

Also, you could TC the icon of the campaign on the server.

EDIT: You could also update the first post of this thread, since it doesn't really seem to be making much sense nowadays.
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Post by Taurus »

Hi Turin

I just finished this campaign and I must say it has come a long way (I played it a couple of times before when it wasn't finished). I found the whole concept of collecting an army very neat and original. Another thing I really liked was the ship to ship battles on the high seas. I that is what sea battles were really like, at least in our world around that time period ;-). Just a little side note on the sea battles though, I found you could quickly rush the enemy ship and trap them around the enemy's keep and take them out relatively easily. Maybe having one or two guards at the rails - as in the first navel battle - would make things a bit more interesting.

Having undead on your side was a bonus too. You don't often get that in single player campaigns.

The last two scenarios need a bit of balancing though - or namely they need to be a bit harder. In the second last, perhaps cutting down your ally's gold would do the trick. The last scenario was way to easy. What I did (path of least resistance) was just wait till my enemies were in an all out fight. Then I marched in and took out the wesnothian leader (I was attacking from the south). Since he sent all his men to attack the orcs, he managed to take out the orcish leader. Furthermore, the elves pretty much exhausted themselves attacking the orcs as well. I just marched in and did the clean up. I'll leave it up to you how to balance it out but I thought I would just give you a bit of feedback.

Oh, and BTW, I really like the way you get to choose your landing site. It adds a nice touch.

On the whole, very nice campaign, I had a lot of fun playing it.
Creater of the campaign, "Northern Rebirth"

Compleater of the campaign, "Son of the Black Eye"
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Post by Taurus »

Oh, and another bug I forgot to mention. In the last scenario you don't have a death event for the lich...
Creater of the campaign, "Northern Rebirth"

Compleater of the campaign, "Son of the Black Eye"
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turin
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Post by turin »

OK. Added to my todo list. I can't promise they'll be fixed anytime soon, though - I'm rather swamped at the moment.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
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Taurus
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Post by Taurus »

No problem. I am allready done the campaign. I just thought you would like to know...
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peet
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Post by peet »

I just finished this campaign, and I thought it was excellent. The use of the galleon on the large map of the seas was particularly creative, in my view. It had a great storyline and the scenarios were mostly balanced. My hat's off to you, Turin.

I also agree with most of the feedback that Taurus gave. Since you start each of the sea battles with your keep full of units, you were able to get your men on board the enemy ship before the enemy even musters any units. Also, all the sea battles have the same difficulty, so late in the game beating an enemy ship is very easy, whereas at the beginning it takes a fair bit of work. Perhaps other unit types could be found on those ships, like fencers.

I did notice that there was a certain pattern to the scenarios, in that some scenarios were good for bringing in gold, but you generally couldn't recruit anything, while others allowed you to recruit new troops but you generally didn't have a lot of gold left over afterwards. Fire Island was the main exception that I noticed, since there are no recruits to be had and yet there is no real reward for finishing the scenario either. Perhaps one of the drakes could join your army after they are defeated...

In the second last scenario I found that the northern orcs were defeated by my undead ally without any of my help. Of course, if you come into the scenario from the Dwarven Land to the north, you have virtually no money and so fighting on both fronts would be impossible, which did make the scenario fairly balanced. But since I would much rather do the killing myself (and let my ally be all beleaguered) I would suggest having the dwarves give you a big reward at the end of their scenario - maybe only if their leader is still alive. That way you would arrive at the Green Isle with enough cash to raise an army, and the northern ally could be weakened.

The last scenario I also found to be rather easy and in fact I did not need the gold "rewards" given when the Elves and Orcs fell (I took the northern route). One idea to make this scenario more challenging might be to give your enemies reinforcements whenever one of them dies. You could also give the leaders a large income, which would guarantee that after they have spent all their gold they will still be able to raise troops.

Anyway, thanks for a great campaign!

Peet
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Post by peet »

I started looking at the code behind the scenario, and I found a few things that seem to have caused bugs in 1.1.12, though they probably worked just fine in 1.0.2.

First of all, I noticed in the unit file that Black the Red is supposed to have the Leadership ability, but sadly in 1.1.12 this ability does not appear. I believe that this is because the Leadership syntax has changed.

Secondly, there were no animations for the shadow blasts that Black the Red can fire. I suspect this is because new images are in use in 1.1.12 and the unit file expects some of the old images to still be there. A simple way to fix that would be to upload those old images to a directory within the campaign.

Also, when you finish a sea battle encounter, are you supposed to spend a turn inactive? You end up getting six weeks of provisions from a ship that you take but the first week is always used up doing nothing. That seemed a little annoying.

Peet
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Sharur
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Post by Sharur »

I've played through some of this campaign, enough to say that I think it's excellent, a very original piece of work. A lot of the good things I'd have to say about it have been mentioned in the last couple of posts, however, so I'll just give you one suggestion, which is to give Black the Red either a draining attack or better defense. This is going to sound a bit silly, perhaps, but I'm basing this as much on the graphics as on game balance. That shimmering dodge animation he does (which is excellent, by the way) seems to imply that he's using magic to confuse enemies (& thus avoid attacks), while his blade attack looks a lot like the bane blade-type draining attacks. Since he's pretty weak on HP anyway, I think it would make sense for him to have one of those two defensive advantages. Anyway, great campaign, very clever idea!
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Post by nightcrawler »

Sharur wrote:This is going to sound a bit silly, perhaps, but I'm basing this as much on the graphics as on game balance. That shimmering dodge animation he does (which is excellent, by the way) seems to imply that he's using magic to confuse enemies (& thus avoid attacks), while his blade attack looks a lot like the bane blade-type draining attacks. Since he's pretty weak on HP anyway, I think it would make sense for him to have one of those two defensive advantages. Anyway, great campaign, very clever idea!
These ideas make sense, but all I can offer is that you should read the unit's description, which explains these features a little bit more. Don't underestimate the offensive advantage of magical melee.
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Music

Post by Gnork »

No music playing while playing this campaign :(
Will this be fixed :?:
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Iris
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Re: Music

Post by Iris »

Gnork wrote:No music playing while playing this campaign :(
Will this be fixed :?:
It's not a bug, it's a feature. :)
Well, it certainly needs music. Maybe we should edit the scenario files and add [music] information according to our likings on Wesnothish music.

I did that with UTBS (Wesnoth 1.0.2) and A New Order (Wesnoth 1.0.2)
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
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Re: Music

Post by Gnork »

Shadow Master wrote:
Gnork wrote:No music playing while playing this campaign :(
Will this be fixed :?:
It's not a bug, it's a feature. :)
Thanks for your answer, Shadow Master. :)

I regret that non-official campaigns don't play any music by default :(
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Re: Music

Post by Iris »

Gnork wrote:
Shadow Master wrote: It's not a bug, it's a feature. :)
Thanks for your answer, Shadow Master. :)

I regret that non-official campaigns don't play any music by default :(
Huh? What about Northern Rebirth? It has music tags in most scenarios.
It's all about campaign developers' interest on adding music to their campaigns. Interestingly, most of them seem to have very little or no interest on that, while IMO background music is a very important detail for making the player feel comfortable playing a scenario.

Anyway, after this I'm sure Turin will add music tags for the next version of this camapign.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
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