Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

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Telchin
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Telchin »

EDIT:
Why is 'crush' (clams) a 'blade' attack?
Because I figured you have enough impact attacks already (tentacles, cuttlefish, magic tentacles), so Giant Clams (and later Fire Squids) were added to provide different damage types (I know that cuttlefish have pierce attack with their ink, but that is more for poisoning than dealing high damage). Think of the clam's melee attack as biting the enemy with its shell.
Fish that is killed by an attack with the plague special is raised twice (plague special + scenario special).
The wight rising effect is in part so that the undead aren't overwhelmed by freely spawning fish and actually put up a fight when you reach them. From gameplay perspective I was OK with it triggering even if the killing unit has plague because 1) my laziness 2) walking corpses are weak anyway, so think of them as almost free XP for your units. From flavor standpoint this double spawning kind of makes sense - the wight represents the killed unit's soul and the WC its body.
Globster, Kraken, Trench Hunter and the Magma Squid 'unit portraits' (that thing on the right side about the unit information) look staunched.
This is because I made their sprites by enlarging the default cuttlefish sprite and run over the default sprite size 72*72 pixels. If I stayed within the default size they wouldn't look bigger than the level 2 units. The "unit portrait" apparently can't go over the default size and tries to "squeeze" bigger sprites.
But I think you can counter that by making the Poll accessible not only from the south but also from the north, west and east, cutting down a lot of the distance if you don't know in advance from where to go in.
Having the entry only on the south appeared elegant to me, because there are player bases on the three other cardinal directions (cuttlefish on the west, guardian sharks on the north, undead on the east).
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Konrad2 »

Telchin wrote: March 13th, 2019, 7:52 pm From flavor standpoint this double spawning kind of makes sense - the wight represents the killed unit's soul and the WC its body.
In this scenario an undead killing a fish doesn't spawn a wight, it spawns a WC. Double spawning in this case means 1 fish = 2 WC
Having the entry only on the south appeared elegant to me, because there are player bases on the three other cardinal directions (cuttlefish on the west, guardian sharks on the north, undead on the east).
It's just a suggestion. ^^

And I have to say, you made rather drastic changes to the map in the next scenario. The Divine Pool island looks completely different. Not to mention the new islands with keeps. (Please at least turn those keeps into encampments. >.<)
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Telchin
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Telchin »

In this scenario an undead killing a fish doesn't spawn a wight, it spawns a WC. Double spawning in this case means 1 fish = 2 WC
That's what happpens when I answer questions late in the evening :doh: Perhaps I could change the unit being raised by the scenario event to a wight? I might also filter the killing unit, so that the scenario event doesn't happen when the killing unit is a WC (or a Soulless). I suppose that neither change would make the scenario much different, though I haven't tested it yet.
And I have to say, you made rather drastic changes to the map in the next scenario. The Divine Pool island looks completely different. Not to mention the new islands with keeps. (Please at least turn those keeps into encampments.
In "The Divining Pool" I wanted the actual pool only small, as it was just a goal location, while in "Changing of the Guard" I wanted the pool in the center of the island bigger, so you have more area to maneuver your units. As for the keeps, the saurians spread swamp over the island (as it's their favourite terrain) so I gave them swamp castles to match the terrian (there are no "swamp encampments" yet). I'm aware that the castles are on the map before the saurians arrive in the opening cutscene, so just pretend there were there already on the island and just weren't depicted in the previous scenario because they weren't important then. I don't deny that to play this campaign your disbelief must have better suspension than a tank ;)
BTW, "Changing of the Guard" was the last scenario to be added to the campaign, so don't be surprised if the following scenarios seem less elaborate - they were added earlier.
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Konrad2 »

Globsters don't have the swarm special for melee.
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Telchin
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Telchin »

Globsters don't have the swarm special for melee.
Not a bug, but a feature. "Swarm" is the signature ability of the cuttlefish, but it's a drawback. The Globster was intended as a variation on the "promoted unit gains a new abilty" concept - it loses a negative trait instead. You might notice that the globster actually does gain a new weapon trait - plague. That was added later because some players thought that the globster's lack of swarm was too overshadowed by the Kraken's higher stats, so I added another ability to the globster to make it more appealing. From flavor standpoint the globster is meant to some sort of aberrant, disfigured mollusc specimen - it's named after a carcass, weaker than the "healthy" Kraken and with abilities unusual for the rest of its unit line. How does it keep all its tentacles even when low on HP is left to the player's imagination.
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Konrad2 »

Changing of the Guard
Let's se who will -> Let's see who will

Old Lich and the Sea
have set out on journey -> have set out on a journey

On turn 7 the Lich-Lord says 'another wave of useless reinforcements' but no reinforcements appeared that turn.



Master Sea Head mp costs:
Changing of the Guard: He doesn't move, so of course not affected.
Old Lich and the Sea: Almost all the way deep water, nerfing his shallow water mp cost would make sneaking past the nagas harder (2mp) or impossible (3mp).

EDIT:
Drowned Dwarves' Day
When Eternal Slave is revived, it isn't as a leader, but as a normal unit of his side.

EDIT 2:
The cave drowns in deep water pretty fast, so changing the mp cost wouldn't really matter.

High Risk, Low Tide
Also nagas -> Also the nagas
it's only matter of time when it gets worse -> it' s only a matter of time until it gets worse

EDIT 3:
A Burial at Sea and High Risk, Low Tide
Again, almost only deep water, pretty much no consequences to nerfing that mp cost.

EDIT 4:
Wouldn't it be a good idea to use the map of 'Changing of the Guard' in 'The Divining Pool' as well? Because as it is now, the position of the Guard Stones changes, which is unbelievable as well.

I got only a silver laurel despite finishing it on 'Difficult'.
Also, description of your campaign in the campaign list:
Begginner -> Beginner

EDIT 3:
(The silver laurel is apparently caused by using the old difficulties syntax.)
Details as to why and how to fix it can be found in issue #3983.
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Telchin
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Telchin »

On turn 7 the Lich-Lord says 'another wave of useless reinforcements' but no reinforcements appeared that turn.
He's refering to the reinforcements that appeared on turn 6 (and because the game progressed to turn 7 the reinforcements failed to kill you, which is why he calls them useless).
EDIT 3:
(The silver laurel is apparently caused by using the old difficulties syntax.)
Details as to why and how to fix it can be found in issue #3983.
I'll look into it. Not sure how long it will take me. EDIT: Now done, see below.

EDIT: Version 1.5.4 released!
Following changes:
  • Master Sea Head's movement changed - now he has movement cost 2 on shallow water and swamp. Note that I haven't tested how it affects the campaign's difficulty, so I'm interested in feedback.
  • The campaign should give proper laurels as per Konrad2's message above. Note that the translations of difficulty levels (e. g. "(Easy)") won't work, as previously the parentheses were a part of the translatable string, but now the programm adds them automatically (so if I left the parenthese in the translatable string, the English version would have double parentheses).
  • The Divining Pool - if the undead kill a unit with a WC or a Soulless, it should still produce only one WC.
  • Drowned Dwarves' Day - when Eternal Slave respawns, he should still be his side's leader.
  • Fixed some typos mentioned by Konrad2.
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Konrad2 »

How about adding a forum link to your add-on? ^^
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octalot
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by octalot »

That's a good idea Konrad2, but how about adding a WML reference link to your post? :grin:

Please add this Telchin, it's done with the PblWML#.5Bfeedback.5D tag.

Code: Select all

[feedback]
  topic_id=32501
[/feedback]
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Konrad2 »

octalot wrote: March 16th, 2019, 1:24 pm That's a good idea Konrad2, but how about adding a WML reference link to your post? :grin:

Please add this Telchin, it's done with the PblWML#.5Bfeedback.5D tag.

Code: Select all

[feedback]
  topic_id=32501
[/feedback]
All I knew was that it's possible, but I had no idea how to do it. :D
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Telchin
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Telchin »

@Konrad2, @octalot - I didn't even know this was possible, so thanks for the info! I must confess that I'm not very familiar with the .pbl WML - I actually started this thread before publishing this campaign because I couldn't get the .pbl file to work. A kind soul (Wesbane) had to send me a functional example of a .pbl file and after publishing the campaign I haven't edited it except for version numbers. And speaking of version numbers version 1.5.5 is released, now with the code suggested by octalot. Otherwise it's identical to verion 1.5.4 released yesterday, so if you have dowloaded that and are reading this thread, you don't have to download today update. On the topic of downloads - time for another pseudo-boasting about an arbitrary milestone - 1500 downloads on the 1.14 server. Thanks every body for your support!
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Konrad2 »

I've uploaded my replays (kinda) here.
(Technically I uploaded it here.)

Would you mind putting the link(s) on the first post of this thread and maybe into the add-on description when/if you update it the next time? :)
(Sorry, I didn't know I'd get to doing this so soon.)
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Telchin
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Telchin »

Would you mind putting the link(s) on the first post of this thread and maybe into the add-on description when/if you update it the next time? :)
(Sorry, I didn't know I'd get to doing this so soon.)
First, thank you! I have added links to those replay threads to the first post. I have thought about having such response threads before, but one of reasons I didn't do it myself was that I didn't want to appear to overestimate the importance of my add-on.

Second, now I have dozen more threads to check... :shock: This is another reason why I didn't do it myself - I try to check this thread regularly, but I'm not going to have the time to do so with all those threads. I might check them about once a week. Thus I didn't add links to them to the campaign description and actually added a disclaimer to the first post. It's not like I don't care about your replays, but I'll wait with watching them because I'm not going to do them justice when I'm tired from my job. Thanks for understanding.
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by Konrad2 »

Technically there is no need for you to watch them or keep up to date with them. :D Those threads are not for giving feedback, but literally only to share replays. ^^ That forum hasn't even started yet, and it will take ages for me to complete this especially if 'complete' includes at least one replay per scenario. (I have maybe a third for 1.14...)
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Re: Inky's Quest - The Cuttlefish Campaign

Post by drakearbiter »

I like this campaign as it involves the usage of deep sea creatures. It completely changes the way you play the game - you are strong in deep sea, good in shallows and weak on land. Also the extensive usage of swarm, poison and magic tentacles.

There is one suggestion about "The Divining Pool" scenario though. Playing in Kraken difficulty, the eternal slave and his minions were owned by streams of level one fish!. Sitting in 60% defense, the anglers sliced the chocolate bones and WCs with their magical blade attack. Sure, the choco bones occasionally hit with their charge attacks, but standing in either shallows or deep water didn't help their cause as they were up against anglers in 60% defense. Also the electric eel with their magical lightning attacks swarmed and fried just about every undead. The eternal slave was swarmed and trapped by electric eels when he charged out to attack and met his sad demise.

Perhaps you should place the electric eels or the anglers on the side of cuttle fish and give weaker monsters for the undead to face?
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