Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

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Velensk
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Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Velensk »

Panther Lord is an expert level campaign (or at the least it gave me a lot of trouble testing it) for the Era of Four Moons. Currently complete at twelve combat scenarios long though I am considering adding a couple more (the plot allows plenty of room for them).

This thread is for feedback, comments, and bug reports, however if you have any questions on how to beat any of the levels I will try to answer them and/or provide replays here. I have beaten the campaign on normal difficulty without save loading or debugging but many scenarios took many tries. I have not tested the other two difficulties and am not especially interested in feedback on them but I will note that I don't want it to be easy even on the easiest difficulty, and I'm fine with the harder difficulty being essentially impossible (though I do not believe it is).

On the fourth scenario you will have the option of hiring mercenaries to add to your recruit list or give you units from outside it. As this will affect you throughout the rest of the campaign I will provide a list of the things I hired when I beat normal difficulty in a spoiler (so those who want to live daring are not forced to read it but those who don't want to risk having to replay half of the campaign can check)
Spoiler:
One thing I would desire to accomplish with the new scenarios (if I add them) would be to create situations where more of the other mercenaries are more useful as I feel that the nature of the later scenarios tends to make most of them impractical.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, released for 1.9.7, not available on the stable branch.

EDIT2: Konrad is collecting replays here: viewtopic.php?f=68&t=49529#p639519
Last edited by Velensk on February 22nd, 2022, 10:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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tr0ll
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by tr0ll »

w00t. downloading it now.
i refuse to read the spoiler now 8) may i suggest that the need for a spoiler can be avoided by sprinkling hints in the dialogues about kinds of units that will be useful later.
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Alarantalara
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Alarantalara »

I've played through the first couple of scenarios on normal.

I noticed a few grammatical and spelling mistakes though I didn't track most of them. (Exception from introduction: churning our -> churning out)

I'm not familiar with the Era so it's been interesting getting used to the units.
The first scenario took me three tries. I abandoned the first two attempts as I learned about the units I had.
The second scenario was much easier and I won on the first try with only one casualty.

I've tried the third scenario once, but apparently I was too stingy with recruiting the first time, so I'll have to restart it. I took the statement to conserve gold too seriously and greatly underrecruited.

Regarding the next scenario, since I'm to be choosing units, is it possible to include a more complete description of what each unit does? Your spoiler lets me know what some of them do, but I have no clue as to what the other choices may be capable of, especially since they're all unrevealed in help as well.
Velensk
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Velensk »

There are simply too many options for me to try to describe them all in any kind of detail here.

You can look at the era files or play multiplayer. There's an easier campaign on 1.8 that might be better for familiarizing yourself with the era (Salt Wars).''

EDIT: Or more accurately, describing all the options would practically require detailing the stats for all but a very few units for three of the factions in the era and a description of what they level into. I could do that, but I'd rather not.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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Mountain_King
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Mountain_King »

Hi! I started playing through the campaign today (easy difficulty hehe), and I must say, it's been quite well-done so far! I'm just on the third(?) scenario, after leaving the caves. Here's some preliminary thoughts:
As this is my first time playing anything EoFM, I really like the South American style in it.
At the beginning of every scenario I've said, "Oh my Gosh!" after looking at the status table. I am quite pleased to find out they are actually winnable thus far, despite my first impressions.
Canoes do not change their base image when in deep water. This appears to be a bug. (EDIT: this only happens in the second scenario)
Loyal granite guys do not have the loyal overlay.
That's all for now, if I run across anything more I'll let you know. :)
EDIT: The siege scenario is quite insane. It's hard to strike a balance between buying warriors and having enough gold to still recruit/recall.

Best Regards,
Mountain_King
Projects: Ice Age Fun, Japhel's Journey (same link), Shameless Crossover Excuse (Maintainer), and Age of Dinosaurs!
Is cothabhálach an aistriúcháin Gaeilge mé.
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Konrad2
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Konrad2 »

er..
i began to play the scenario and now i am in the third scenario
the highlanders attack me cos they want to revenge the stone spirits right?
why they attack the loyal stone spirit from my army then too and dont leave me when they see that i am a "friend" of the stone spirits?

and could you delete automatically the units from the first scenario?
they disturb alot when you recall
Velensk
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Velensk »

There's quite a bit more to it than simple desire to avenge the stone spirits. Territorialism is a big part as well, as is the fact that you are loaded with gold, and the simple fact that the highlanders love to fight as much as any raiding culture. They don't have any problem attacking the Panther spirit or any stone spirits you have because presumably they were helping you to begin with, (the various spirit types especially animal and plant are just as able/inclined to fight their own kind as any other creature).

I can kill them all off (the units from the first scenario) but I'd think that if it bothers you, you should dismiss them yourself. I know a few people who never dismiss anyone simply so they can pick traits when they need them.

EDIT: Alright something odd has come up, in this test I'm running the canoe is turning into 'in water' form in deep water. I'll continue to look into it though. I've fixed other things mentioned, the typo, loyal rings for the granite spirits (and the paddle frigate that can be hired). I've also decided that I will kill off the recall list (after all, these things supposedly represent your pool of recruits). These will be in the next version. Thank you for the feedback.

EDIT2: I think what is going on is that the canoe does not change when it is in 'illuminated' deep water. I should be able to create a special case for this however the cannoe currently uses the {DRAKE_UNWALKABLE_TERRAINS} macro which means that in theory drakes in this terrain wouldn't be flying which sounds like a bug which mainline should fix.

EDIT3: I have devised a bit of dialogue which changes my original idea of why the highlanders were willing to fight the stone spirits some but should serve to adequately answer that question in a different way. It will also make it slightly easier to get through the scenario cheaply as it will put one of the stone spirit onto the field for free if the player has them.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Konrad2
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Konrad2 »

when i level Daklo to guard he gets very bad defense everywhere
on flat and water he have 10% defense, on castle, mountain, forest and village he gets 30 %defense
on hills he have then 20% defense and in swamp he have 0% defense
could you fix that pls?
Last edited by Konrad2 on October 29th, 2018, 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Velensk
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Velensk »

Could you send me your save file?

That's never happened to me and furthermore I can see no reason why it should happen at all as he's just a typical guard using the exact same movetype at all three levels.

EDIT: I have a theory now, could you please send me a replay of the Hill Clans scenario (if you have it)?

My theory is that there is some bug with the cursed special which causes the status to come off but the negative effects to not be allowing them to be cursed again. Two iterations of this would drop your defenses everywhere by 30%. I suspect that ending a scenario without removing the curse might do this however that wouldn't be enough for two itterations so there must be another cause as well. If you have a replay I should be able to fix something which would be an era specific problem rather than a Daklo specific one. In the meanwhile I can suggest how to work around your current problem though it will involve returning to the start of the Hill Clans scenario.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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Mountain_King
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Mountain_King »

I have the same bug as Konrad2. On leveling Daklo to guard he only gets 45% where he should get 60, and 55% where I think he would be getting 70%. The same happened to my serpent (lvl 2 whip dude).

And what is your strategy on the level where you're fighting all the darklanders (the one after you save Tas the fisherman in the forest)? They all just pour out of the fortress, leaving me creamed by about turn 7. :augh:

I might give it a couple more tries today or tomorrow, but I know I'm getting close to the end. I'm very much liking the style of the campaign thus far.

Best Regards,
Mountain_King
Projects: Ice Age Fun, Japhel's Journey (same link), Shameless Crossover Excuse (Maintainer), and Age of Dinosaurs!
Is cothabhálach an aistriúcháin Gaeilge mé.
EXTERMINATE!!!!
Velensk
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Velensk »

Do you happen to remember when the malfunction occurred?

How much gold are you going into that one with? That one was one of the tougher ones IMO and it comes right after another one which isn't easy but you must try to get into it with a lot of gold. My general strategy was such:
-Get some serpents and fast units on the north side of the river, units that do real damage to the enemy position without a whole lot of contact time and can make it away safely once the enemy is there in force.
-If you have leveled boatmen, the river dragon, or catamaran get them in the water.
-Get your sturdier units and head into the southern jungle. Make the best of the meatwall your ally provides and focus on the most dangerous enemies first.
-In general the bulk of the enemies forces seem to come around the north bank. Do a fighting retreat there with the forces I mentioned. Eventually they'll try to cross the river to engage your larger force. When they cross the river is when you have a chance to crush the majority. It helps if you have durable water units, and a healer. If you picked up regimenteers and have managed to level one into a merchant lord then have him there as well (the imperialist officers are not nearly so good for holding the woodline against the enemy forces. Don't be afraid to pull your water units onto dry land to give them relief.
-Have a couple elite units to hold the ford by your castle.

EDIT: Gah, I was a bit blind. You both said it. The cause of the malfunction appears to be leveling up while cursed, makes the effect permanent.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Konrad2
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Konrad2 »

um no
i leveled Daklo in the scenario where i picked up my mercenaries and he wasnt cursed
also there was no chance that he get cursed in this scenario
Velensk
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Velensk »

Scratch that theory then.

I'm seriously perplexed. Do any of your other guards have the penalty to their defense? It looks by all accounts like it was caused by some bug as a result of being cursed as both your problems are in increments of 15% defense below normal which is how much curses effect you. How good were your defenses at the start of that scenario?

In any case attach save or replay files. I can't help you when you say 'there's a problem, fix it' unless I know what's going on. It's not like I intentionally made it so that Daklo gets low defense when he levels and thus know how it happens and I need material to work with more than just "here's this problem which I have [and which you don't] and I want you to fix it."
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Konrad2
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Konrad2 »

on level 2 he had normal defenses but that bug stayed
Velensk
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Re: Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

Post by Velensk »

That's good to know, but please attach a replay of the scenario where he leveled up. If you do not help me help you, then I will start ignoring you when you ask for help.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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