Defenders of the Crown (First beta ready)

[RaustBD]

Hello, and welcome to the discussion thread for my upcoming campaign, currently in the planning stages, called "Defenders of the Crown", a campaign where, in a huge change of pace, you play as the heroic loyalists against the evil rebels.

Yes, the elfish rebels, those rebels. This story takes place in quite possibly the darkest hour in elfish history, a time when a brilliant but power-hungry and manipulative new ruler takes the throne and, through subtle propaganda and enforced isolation, exploits his peoples' feelings of moral, physical and intellectual superiority over the other races of the realm in order to wage war with and attempt to overthrow the kingdom of Wesnoth "for the sake of nature and to ensure prosperity throughout the land".

The story follows a young sergeant named Mynnrych (pronounced Min-rick) who is stationed at Eskard, a city with crucial tactical importance to Wesnoth's defenses, and is out with a squad investigating a sudden rapid growth of trees in what had previously been plains when he discovers the horrible truth behind the elves' recent lack of communication with Wesnoth, and thus begins an epic tale of Mynnrych's adventure to defend his country from its former allies, and even, in some ways, from itself.

Every single loyalist unit, among some others, will be recruitable in this campaign, and you will get a loyal unit for each of them. There will be no special items or anything like that, partly because this is my first campaign but mostly because I feel they can often be inherently unbalancing to the game. I will also make an effort to make this pseudo-mainline, as in it could fit into the existing mainline canon, mostly because I feel that will make for a more immersive and rich story.

Any advice or suggestions are appreciated, thanks for reading, and I'll update as soon as I have a concrete product to show

[Paulomat4]

The title sounds promising
It sound interesting, because of the unusual enemies.
Do you have a certain time in which you wan't this campaign to take place?

[RaustBD]

The title sounds promising
It sound interesting, because of the unusual enemies.
Do you have a certain time in which you wan't this campaign to take place?

I'm flexible about it, whatever could plausibly fit into existing canon as I said, but preferably past the events of HttT.

[Dugi]

You haven't told much about your campaign plan. You have said that it will be about a war against misguided elves and what style will the campaign be, but that isn't anything you are likely to change based on somebody's suggestions.

The only thing I can really comment on is the number of loyals. That would be too many loyals, given that they will necessarily get to the highest level and then uselessly consume experience (maybe you could give custom AMLA to them somehow).

Can you write more about your idea, like the exact story? The story is something the community can help greatly with, you write the story and receive tons of suggestions and notes about possible issues and flaws.

[RaustBD]

You haven't told much about your campaign plan. You have said that it will be about a war against misguided elves and what style will the campaign be, but that isn't anything you are likely to change based on somebody's suggestions.

Fair point. Another aspect of it is that I might make it so that easy mode can serve as a good tutorial for loyalists, giving the player an idea of how loyalists play and how the various units work. It'll be a medium-length campaign, not as long as HttT (and ASSUREDLY not as long as your veritable epic), but long enough to feel like it tells a full story.

The only thing I can really comment on is the number of loyals. That would be too many loyals, given that they will necessarily get to the highest level and then uselessly consume experience (maybe you could give custom AMLA to them somehow).

I love loyals. They're awesome, and I love that there's no consequence to training them up and you can get them out right away during the initial recruitment panic without overloading your upkeep. However: I might, might add in some custom "supreme classes" to the unit trees if I find the loyals have all maxed out their levels too easily, and I think I would make these advancements exclusive to the loyals if I include them at all. The only problem with that is that I have jack in terms of experience with spriting so I'd have to rely on somebody else for that.

Can you write more about your idea, like the exact story? The story is something the community can help greatly with, you write the story and receive tons of suggestions and notes about possible issues and flaws.

Alright, here's the general plot:

The aforementioned evil elf ruler has essentially used his cunning and power, along with standard fascist tactics like controlling information and subtly cutting the people off from outside sources, to stir the elves into a fit of arrogance, imperialism and xenophobia that nearly all depictions of Wesnothian elves suggest they are capable of. It started out with moral outrage regarding deforestation and villifying a group of humans who were cutting down parts of their home, and this moral outrage quickly resulted in all criticism of the general sentiment being deemed vile hate speech, which allowed the frenzy to only intensify. The elf ruler silenced powerful dissenting voices and framed them for crimes against nature, feeding fuel to the fire of hysteria. The elves who have not bought into the propaganda are terrified into silence, and the young elves, being the most fanatical, signed up for various "projects", one of which is the basis of scenario 1:

Our story begins when Mynnrych goes out to investigate a local peasant village that has been overrun by extremely fast tree growth that has destroyed their year's harvest. Mynnrych quickly runs into the source of the farmers' woes: groups of elves, fanatical victims of propaganda, who are using magic to grow huge forests in the middle of open-plains, seeing this as an inherently just and unassailable action. When questioned, the arrogant elf youths quickly resort to violence, and Mynnrych has to lead his small company, backed up by the village's inhabitants (to let Mynnrych use his leadership on somebody) to drive them back.

In the next few scenarios, the elfish incursions on the lands surrounding Eskard soon escalate and the city's army fights valiantly to keep them from seizing the city (which would be a huge blow to Wesnoth's defenses). At first they manage it with ease, but then things start taking a turn for the worse as elements within the city rally a portion of Eskard's own people against them by convincing them that Wesnoth is corrupt and appealing to much of humanity's general reverence of and admiration for the elves and guilt about some of their kind's own actions.

I haven't entirely worked out the nature of the 2nd half of the story, though I imagine it would end with an assault on the elfish capitol, since obviously the elves don't succeed in their goals.

[Dugi]

However: I might, might add in some custom "supreme classes" to the unit trees if I find the loyals have all maxed out their levels too easily, and I think I would make these advancements exclusive to the loyals if I include them at all.

I wasn't trying to suggest the "supreme classes". You can use custom units with all properties of default units, but having a different AMLA than default. Any of these techniques is totally easy to code.

Alright, here's the general plot:

Why don't you add some more details? Just throwing in a few ideas that might enrich the story:
- an elvish dissident, hating what happened to his nation, willingly joining you as loyal and giving you hints about locations of targets in the elvish land
- the city's garrison's general being seduced by a beautiful Elvish Shyde, totally failing to defend the town and resulting in all its inhabitants having to flee and Mynnrych needing to visit another garrison to get more soldiers
- forging a temporary alliance with orcs/drakes/saurians/trolls to help each other with common enemy
- taking over a town by sneaking through the sewers with leader and a few loyals only, killing the enemy marshal, and attacking in the resulting lack of order
- supporting a revolution attempt in the elvish land, that arose against the dictator because the war's cost was too high (controlling information is not a fascist technique, it is rather a general dictator technique, commies and theocrats were using this a lot too)
- Mynnrych's son/an important Mage of Light/a princess being kidnapped
- the dictator sneaking into Mynnrych's camp and persuading one of his underlings to join the elvish cause
- the dictator being a powerful warlock (or having a few powerful warlock servants), using some long range spells and incantations to damage your soldiers (lightning? bad weather? pox? madness?)
- the elves accidentally desecrating an ancient tomb making its guardian (Vampire? Hellhound? Mummy Queen? Baobhan Sith?) arise and walk against any living, forcing the evil elves ally with humans to deal with this peril first and continue their war afterwards
- saving a group of human poachers/rogue woodcutters from being flayed by an enraged crowd of elves

[RaustBD]

Wow... interesting ideas there! I like several of them, especially the temporary alliance with the orcs/trolls/etc. Though the undead idea I'm a bit iffy on.

[Dugi]

I am not telling that all of them are good, just that you might like some of them.

[RaustBD]

I am not telling that all of them are good, just that you might like some of them.

A lot of them are good though

[RaustBD]

SO... just giving an update, turns out that I suck royally at map design. Does anybody have tips for map making?

[Turuk]

SO... just giving an update, turns out that I suck royally at map design. Does anybody have tips for map making?

Send me what you have so far or post them up here, and we can see what can be done to improve on what you have. Don't let one piece of the campaign hold you up too much, it's better to push it all the way through to completion and update later than have this be an end to your plans.

Unless they are that bad.

[Velensk]

Map making is more about A: Setting up a puzzle and/or B: telling a story than it is about realism.

The only other thing I can tell you is that in general try to avoid making maps bigger than you need to.

[RaustBD]

Also, I've been debating when to set this campaign, and I'm looking at the timeline and there doesn't seem to be a place to put it in. The best I can think of is to modify the plot slightly so that the enemy is Landar, but I haven't played Legend of Wesmere yet (doing so now) so I'm not sure if my understanding of his xenophobic civil war would be accurate. (Edit: Furthermore it looks like Wesnoth was barely formed at all during that time.)

To clarify, I haven't been continuously working on this all this time, it's been an on and off project, I've had other things going on. Hoping to devote more time to it now.

Turuk, thanks for your offer, I'll let you know when I have something to show you.

[Turuk]

Turuk, thanks for your offer, I'll let you know when I have something to show you.

Sounds good, just let me know, I will be floating around here somewhere.

[RaustBD]

And here's my rough draft for the intro text to the campaign! Lemme know what you think of it, I suspect it may be a bit long but I don't see how any of it can be cut:

518 YW: The Dark Queen Asheviere’s reign of terror was finally brought to an end thanks to the efforts of Delfador, Konrad, Li’sar and Kalenz. A mere 17 years of her tyrannical rule, however, had been enough to scar the country for decades to come. Abusive officers had pillaged the defenseless towns they were supposed to protect. Orcs and the undead had been allowed to run rampant across the country. The economy had been ruined. The reclaiming of the throne by King Konrad and Queen Li’sar did not make any of this simply go away.

However, there was some immediate progress. Soon after the death of Asheviere, the Wesnoth army was brought under the control of the new rulers, with the exception of various pockets of dissidents still loyal to the memory of the old queen. Over the next few years, however, these pockets dwindled and eventually vanished.

Of course, the Dark Queen Asheviere had enlisted the support of far more than just Wesnoth’s normal army. There were the massive bands of orcs that had previously been welcomed by the old rulership, and the various necromancers that the queen had turned a blind eye to. It wasn’t long before the orcs got wind of the fact that they were no longer welcome. The orcs who could make it fled north back to their homeland, while others fled east to the Estmark or Dulatus Hills. The rest, like cornered wild animals, lashed back wildly at the Wesnoth countryside, pillaging and burning everything in sight. Fortunately, the majority of them were swiftly crushed by the new army, with one major exception.

The area immediately northeast of the Aethenwood became the site of an infestation of orcs and undead so extensive that it simply refused to be crushed. It soon came to be called “The Orcscar”, and its tenacity and resilience was truly a terror to behold. Their numbers grew rapidly, sustained by methods that continued to be a mystery to the Wesnothian people for decades, and by the time Konrad and Li’sar turned the army’s attention to it, it was far too firmly established to be easily eliminated. Blackwater Port, Aldril and Fort Tahn were regularly the victims of attacks from it, and many feared that this land would never be reclaimed.

Fortunately, they were wrong. In 540 YW, a brave and brilliant general by the name of Destigan took his forces and, like a mighty multihuman lance, carved a violent and bloody path straight into the heart of the Orcscar and set up camp in a truly impressive natural fortress that the Orcs, had they seen any value in central government, might not have ignored. From this keep, which came to be known as Eskard, Destigan proceeded to destroy the Orcscar from the inside out over the next decade.

Eskard grew from a natural fortress to a real one, and then in the 550s, as the Orcscar came close to being utterly purged, Eskard grew into a city. By the year 563, when Konrad and Li’sar died and their daughter Ana’sar took the throne, the horrors of the Orcscar were but a memory, and the remaining orcs were no more of a menace to the surrounding farmland and villages than bandits were elsewhere. It was a truly wonderful moment in the age that was otherwise rightly to be called “The Age of Fear”.

…And it came right before, and was the site of, one of the moments that earned the age that title, and which historians unanimously agree to be the single darkest moment in Elven history: The Madness of the Aethenwood.