A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

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OTna
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

Hello, I am quite new to the forum as I only visit the place occasionally. First of all, I would like to say that I have been having a blast playing through this campaign and is now currently at the first part of chapter 3. However, I get the message "unknown unit type: Solaevin silver mage" and couldn't get all the silver mages to appear in the scenario. Thus, I would like to ask of how to fix this, or to be precise, which add-on do I need to install in order to get this unit type. Thank you.
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Aldarisvet
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

toannghe1997 wrote: April 26th, 2019, 1:49 pm Hello, I am quite new to the forum as I only visit the place occasionally. First of all, I would like to say that I have been having a blast playing through this campaign and is now currently at the first part of chapter 3. However, I get the message "unknown unit type: Solaevin silver mage" and couldn't get all the silver mages to appear in the scenario. Thus, I would like to ask of how to fix this, or to be precise, which add-on do I need to install in order to get this unit type. Thank you.
Hi!
Thank you for the bug report!
I got what is the problem.
Obviously you are playing 1.12 version. I was not testing it for recent uploads, testing in 1.14 now. I found that somehow two unit type files for Solaevin got missed in 1.12 version.
I fixed that already.
Please upload the campaign again and continue playing.
Probably you would like to say something after you finish it, I would appreciate a feedback.
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OTna
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

I am downloading the update right now. But what type of feedback do you want to receive? I mostly just save loop to get through any situation, so the way I play might be unproductive for the developers.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

toannghe1997 wrote: April 28th, 2019, 4:42 am I am downloading the update right now. But what type of feedback do you want to receive? I mostly just save loop to get through any situation, so the way I play might be unproductive for the developers.
Oh, just any feeling you have about the campaign. What did you like most and what you did not like most. What scenario was most interesting and what was less.
How did you feel about the storyline and tactical challenges.
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OTna
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

Ah, I just finished the campaign, so here's my thoughts about part 3:

(I played the campaign on Hard)
-For the Winged Forest, I tried holding the ground on my first attempt (until I realized that those skully skirmishers could make mince-meat out of my
squishy defenders). So, I tried again, retreating all my important troops to the corner right while leaving the silver mages behind to buy more time. I then discovered that the mages could tank pretty well (as long as they only have to fight against 4 enemies) so I continue using them to kill some fishes then retreat to heal when low on hp while having another taking the heat. This strategy allowed me to take control of the entire lower half of the map, which I then pushed on the left and right flank while preparing to kill the (beaten) enemy remnant in the middle. The young elvish adept wasn't really needed as I could just tank with woses then use elvish archers to deal damage (which also means that even a poisoned archer can still be more useful than an adept)
-For the Stacked Bones. At this point, I realized that it is completely possible to employ guerrilla tactic using silver mages + gryphons. It went... Amazingly well!!! I was able to take full control of the right half of the map with the mages using the same strategy in Winged Forest and killed the boss as well as the majority of fishes by turn 9. A few turns later, the middle boss went down and all that's left was finishing the game.
-For the Clouded Land. I thought that it would be hard due to the intro, but in reality, it was the easiest out of the three. I just spammed goblin shaman and tank/take control of the map using silver mages again. Nothing special here.
-The Border Wasteland was the Best, in my opinion. Not being able to recruit while the enemies had a horde of mage killers was scary at first, until you noticed that they are incredibly slow. My strategy here was to set up a line of melee units right at the edge of the enemy's melee unit's range. Tank, retaliate, kill them then retreat further and repeat. It allowed me to get rid of the majority of the melee foes, while staying safe from those nasty skulls that could one-hit me. The AI seemed to realized that it couldn't deal with me so it mostly avoided my raiding party and circled around instead. I also got a gryphon on top of the right corner beforehand, waiting until the top bulk moved down, then took the village near the boss and summoned my mages there to take control of that camp. Once my melee units made it up top, it was just cleaning up the leftovers.
-The maze one was difficult and infuriating. I spent over an hour on it then gave up and looked up the walkthrough you posted. You might want to make the maze easier or get rid of it entirely. I think that after around 20 moves and if the player is still stuck, the next part should just open up on its own to avoid frustating them further.
-The last campaign... I didn't level the battle mage to max beforehand so I couldn't win it on Hard. Playing it on Easy without 2 level 4 silver mages was still challenging, though.

In general, I think that this campaign was very good. The story delivered, even if it was not the norm that I was used to (the ending made perfect sense, so it was enough for me despite not knowing what happened to the big bad/the silver order after we left). The fights were challenging but not impossible. The maze, on the other hand, needs to be looked into. My favourite fights were the last part of chapter 1 (flushing corpses down the troll's throat was fun), the ones I mentioned above (minus the maze) and the last part of chapter 2 (it wasn't difficult once you knew what to do, but it opened up a very interesting concept of fighting against teleporting units)
So, thank you for creating this amazing saga! I look forward to playing more campaigns from you soon. I have also uploaded some of my replays regarding the Winged Forest, Stacked Skulls, Clouded Lands and Border Wasteland below. Hope those help!
Attachments
AWOF-Winged_Forests_replay.gz
(117.6 KiB) Downloaded 447 times
AWOF-Stacking_Bones_replay.gz
(125.8 KiB) Downloaded 539 times
AWOF-Clouded_Land_replay.gz
(144.15 KiB) Downloaded 517 times
AWOF-Border_Wasteland_replay.gz
(133.72 KiB) Downloaded 447 times
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Aldarisvet
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Thank you much for the feeback and replays!

It is always hard to get a feedback for an addon-maker. Often only bugs force a people to contact an author, as was in your case, but my campaign had not much bags because the code is relatively simple.
Concerning replays, as you said, you do not hesitate to use save&load, so it affects the gameplay enormously. I would never dare to attack Abbaddon with a Young Gryphon, actually I would never dare to attack a full HP pirafly with it.

But in general I am happy with the way you played scenarios. In general it is all about using silver mages actively.

Concerning a maze, could you please specify, what was the problem. I personally was afraid it is too easy. I saw some players pass it easely almost immediately. You just have to guess that you can go forward then back and then again forward and back so repeat would make a difference. Where exactly did you stuck, at the first maze or at the second?

And, a big issue. Border Waseteland was a challenge for your style of playing ( -15 to -20 taken damage with +15 to +20 inficlted) only because you missed one thing. How it is possible that you missed undead control attack that Velendar got (missed what Karnda said to Velendar at the beginning of Border Wasteland)? Or was it not working? I think because you missed it you was not able to pass the final scenario. Use Velendar melee attack and he will get the attacked unit under his control (if it is undead). This includes that undead berserker plants too.
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OTna
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

I followed the instruction of the first maze but missed the teleport location at the top right corner. For someone that breezes through the maze in one go, it's simple. But once you get stuck in one place with no ideas what to do, it gets frustating. As time goes by, you become less and less able to solve it with a clear head, which further reduces your chance of spotting that you have already unlocked the second part.

I read the intro dialog for the Border Wasteland. At first, I thought it meant that Velendar could recruit undead again and was rather surprised that there were no camp/castle tiles nearby. I just tried that scenario again with the new knowledge and, while taking control of the enemy's unit was fun, I still find myself using the old strategy of picking them off via a melee line. The acquired troops were nice, but not necessary. They ended up being canon fodder once I pushed the left camp, so that was nice.

I think that you should notify Velendar's ability to control the enemy undead in the Scenario Objectives during the Border Wasteland and Finished Cycle. That would clear things up neatly and help future players in case they didn't know what to do.

By the way, are you planning to work on a new campaign soon? Maybe exploring the story of what happened after the 2 baddies fought, or a prequel of how the silver order came to ruin?
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

toannghe1997 wrote: May 4th, 2019, 2:44 am I followed the instruction of the first maze but missed the teleport location at the top right corner.
I will make an event with a screen centering on a new island with silver mages once it acquired to be sure that a player wouldnt miss that he get it and can go further.
toannghe1997 wrote: May 4th, 2019, 2:44 am I think that you should notify Velendar's ability to control the enemy undead in the Scenario Objectives during the Border Wasteland and Finished Cycle. That would clear things up neatly and help future players in case they didn't know what to do.
I will do that.
toannghe1997 wrote: May 4th, 2019, 2:44 am By the way, are you planning to work on a new campaign soon? Maybe exploring the story of what happened after the 2 baddies fought, or a prequel of how the silver order came to ruin?
I was not risking creating a lore for Wesnoth or going deeply inside the Silver Mage Order. My campaign is not about great events as mainline ones. It is just a side story. I tried to create a campaign where there are no knights of good (except caricature Volgast) and adepts of absolute evil. And main antagonist has his own motives, which is not about banal thirst for power or desire to destroy everything alive and convert all living to undead.

I know that the campaigns ends so it seems like there going to be a sequel (with Larrin or one of his scholars supposed to be a main character may be) but I have no desire to work over it for now. What is definetely sure is that a story for Velendar and Solaevin is ended.

In fact the focus of my campaign was a tactical part, not a storyline. At first I was thinking about creating unusual tactical mechanics and only after that I tryied to put a story line under it. That because to the end of the campaign it was quite hard to put a storyline to some good completion. I was thinking over it for more than a year.

But given the way you played the campaign, I think you missed the tactical part greatly.

I have another mini-campaign named Zombies: Introduction which is forcused on tactical part even more, and I am going to add a scenario to it soon. But I doubt it would be a challenge for you even on Hard given your manner of playing (and as I know from my experience, most players do play like you and I did too in the beginning). That because I got that I am going to built-in a No Randmoness Mod in both of my campaigns so reloads would not provide any advantage for the player.
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Mawmoocn
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Mawmoocn »

Hello!

I found a bug, when you complete the first scenario on Chapter I, the next scenario won't generate a save file....

It's a problem because I disabled auto-saves .... and I usually can't complete scenarios on one play through...

It happens on both 1.12 and 1.14 Wesnoth clients.

Please fix, unless you designed it this way :doh: . :whistle:

The first scenario chapter 1
Spoiler:
The second scenario was .... well didn't expect that I can't restart from the beginning so I can't comment further until I redo the first scenario again....

I usually can't get things done in one try, I like testing what's possible because it's fun to do, so I usually get beaten by it...


The starting background was nice to look at.

---
Edit: I tested the scenario 2 with saving the game of my replay to generate the scenario again, as it turns out, it’s nearly impossible to do the scenario with the units I advanced and I probably need to level more corpses to Soulless than Velendar.

Due to lack of cover (terrain) and assassins being hard to kill without baiting them to bad terrains, I need to redo the first scenario anyway due to lack of units.

Second scenario lacks cover and soulless lacks hit points, I’m not sure if it’s doable to build enough units for scenario 2 as poison really sucks and your only healer can’t heal poison, so you end up needing to be near a village to heal (living) units.

Because of the lack of cover, you need more fodder to outsource damage your enemies deal... it would not be a problem if I have resistance or spare fodder or advance a better soulless unit type (preferably a bat or dwarf) but as I haven’t leveled other corpses that’s near level up or be able to recall them, it’s significantly harder to kill Assassins.

Also, I don’t think a mounted corpse/soulless would make a differences on resistance, because they only give +30% smash resist, so you probably should change the tip to only “hit points”. (***For second scenario it wouldn't make sense if your not fighting smash type enemies, but for future scenario, it would make sense, just not second scenario.)

Oh and if you hide Velendar, the AI would stop moving units after capturing every village and if there’s nothing in their range of vision even if they’re not hidden by default. (I only tested on 1.12.6)

So you can probably manipulate the AI if you have enough units to slowly kill “all” units. (Not sure I haven’t tried to go that far, but I was able to do it with until my soulless died, which killed everyone :lol: ....)

I would probably have to build a perfect army on scenario 1 to beat scenario 2... basically, it’s probably too hard without more than 5 soulless? I’ll redo it again and see if it works.

(Assassins suck cause they’re not my units :lol:.)

Edit2: Added correction***
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The replay for Wesnoth 1.12.6
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Aldarisvet
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Hi!
Thank for the feedback.
I had reports about problems with save files. Yes, I must fix it.

I tested everything on hardest difficulty. Four soullesses is enough for passing scenario 2. However I admit that it is not so simple. Possibly scenario 2 is the hardest in the whole campaign. It is quite important to think a lot before every move.
Scenario 1 is not so hard as it seems. You just need to play carefully and without hurry slowly accumulating zombies. Goblins are too focused attacking each other, you can simply put all zombies you have aside, on the southeast corner. They will not come for them. In some critical moment all depends on luck when you go between two goblin camps. You either get overwhelming number of zombies and cut goblins from their villages or fall under pressure from two fronts and have to retreat back, if you do not have enough zombies.

There are replays on this thread for 1.12 as I remember. Chapter I is well tested from 1.10 version, it is possible to win there without saveloads.

If you hide Velendar, in scenario 1, goblins would fight each other, so I cannot catch what you are speaking about.

I'll watch your replay later and will comment further.
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Mawmoocn
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Mawmoocn »

Ah well that was my opinion for scenario 1 as I died a ton of times while getting aggressive :lol:. But I guess it's easier if I play at lower difficulties.

Scenario 1 is a problem of sorts because in order to replicate a safer and stable play on scenario 2, I think you really have to level up more than what's recommended. For that to happen, a near perfect replay or to be lucky on scenario 2 is probably required.
Aldarisvet wrote: March 10th, 2020, 10:29 pmIf you hide Velendar, in scenario 1, goblins would fight each other, so I cannot catch what you are speaking about.
What I mean was for scenario 2 of chapter 1, you could glitch it to work that way. I'll provide a replay if you want.
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

Version 1.0.2 uploaded on 1.14 server
Few minor things were added:
1) Fixed bug with no saves at the beginning of scenarios 2 and 3 in Chapter 1.
2) Fixed bug with wrong laurel after completing the campaign on Hard.
3) Added new animations for mounted Gorandor in Chapter 3.
4) Changed an icon representing the campaign in the add-ons server.
5) Changed icons representing levels of difficulties in the beginning of the campaign.
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slarty
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by slarty »

A short review
I just recently finished the campaign for the first time, and here is my feedback:
I love the story. The storyboard is interesting, it is fun to watch how the main characters develop, the final twist is well matching => everything fine, definitely much better than average, 100 out of 100 points.
Artwork is nearly perfect and is perfectly matching to the "wesnoth look", nothing to complain about.
The new created monsters are well matching to the story, when you meet them the first time surprisungly (too?) good in offensive acting, but the player learns how to deal with them => thumbs up. Especially the "sweeping blow" attac is quite surprising ;-)
It is also a good Idea to devolop the silver mages a bit more. The silver arch mage is quite a fascinating unit. And Velendars staff gives you a lot of different possibilities to play him => again, thumbs up!
The scenario you mainly solve riddles is a nice variaty!

But now to some less positive things, a little bit of constructive criticism:
Reduce the scenarios, guy! Less is sometimes more.
Some of them are simply too long on too big maps. The landscape is boring, no landmarks which are importand to hold, simply a long fight against a lot of spam. I would prefer to deal with one strong bad boy on a small map than mostly 3 or 4 on giant maps. The scenarios in the swamp are simply too big, it is no fun to walk 6 or 7 turns until the first battle begins and 12 before your main army is in the range of the first foe.

Some scenarios are too similar. You just finished one scenario in the swamps just to discover: "Hey the next one is nearly the same again!" A little bit later on grassland you have a deja-vu; again two nearly identical scenarios.

This sounds quite hard I admit. I really see a lot of potential in this campaign, but to use a different picture: If this campaign was a 1000p novel, reduce it downto 600p and it would be a bestseller! The storyboard, graphics and your enhancements concerning untis are too good to hide them under averagely designed scenarios.
Hope to see a brushed up version someday in the mainline campaigns!
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Aldarisvet
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by Aldarisvet »

slarty wrote: December 4th, 2020, 5:12 pm
Hi, slarty!

Seems you registered in this forum only to post a feedback for my campaign. This is an effort a very rare player would do. So thank you a lot just only for that. Often campaign creators live in vacuum of feedback. They spend months of their lives and almost have no idea what others think about their stuff except cases they directly asks friends from the community to play their campaigns.

The second thing is that you appreciated the storyline. Actually you are the first one who explicitly said that he likes the storline. One of the reason of that is that campaign was developed through years and I got a lot of feedback but the story cannot be seen as a whole until the very last two scenarios which were finished relatively recently (it took two years for me to invent the end of storyline I assess as suitable).

And now about your criticism. I can assure you that this campaign was designed with an emphasis on tactics and not on storyline. Scenarios were deliberately created the way they were created, the way I would like to see Wesnoth tactical challenges myself. Every scenario supposed to be tactically innovative. Many scenarios deliberately made in that way that it is nowhere to hold. That fact that you prefer to deal with one big bad boy than with many lesser ones means only that you are not fed up with classical Wesnoth campaign's tactical style (the matter of time, actually). I wrote tonns of text here in the forum about how boring it is just to hold the line, rotate units and heal wounded ones. So I made maps where AI's stupidness wouldn't be so clear, where there would be no "only the first wave" problem, and other issues of mainline campaigns most of which I rate rather low.

I can admit, however, that the map of the last scenario of Chapter II is probably too big, but it is the only one. That because AI recruits level2 units there, the only one scenario with lvl2 enemy units from the whole campaign. The map is in need of many villages to support AI's units. Else the battle for the villages would have no sense. And Wesnoth for me is a battle for the villages and not about always standing on a fortified place, on which AI stupidly lose his first and the only wave from its initial stock of gold. But I think the big map here is somehow let the player to enjoy the view of teleporting saurians in full. And there are no identical scenarios in the campaign at all. The way I put villages may be similar for several scenarios but it is the only way to let the battle for villages to have a sense. Villages should be evenly distributed on the map and the battle for them with silver mages teleporting from one part of the map to another supporting other units is a red thread running through the entire campaign (not for swamp scenarios of Chapter II where you have no silver mages but there are other interesting tactics to use). Probably you missed a tactical part greatly by playing on easy difficulty.

Returning to innovative tactical challenges, you can try my another campaign Zombies:Introduction (a prequel of AWOF) where my tactical innovations were developed further. It has some storyline and twists too despite the campaign is quite short. I am not sure would you appreciate it given seems you prefer to defeat the enemy quickly to taste a storyline asap - that is not the case for my campaigns. They are supposed to be tactically quite challenging, but I tested it on Hard only, to be honest.

P.S. About undead units from Chapter III, I am not a creator of these, they are all (except Deadeye) are taken from Era of Magic, Destroyers faction.
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OmeLuuk
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Re: A Whim of Fate [SP Campaign]

Post by OmeLuuk »

Well yeah, here I registered also just to tell you this was / is an awesome campaign with loads of original twists.
As it lives already for some years (version 1.0.2) and Wesnoth (Battle for Wesnoth v1.15.3 on Linux) is still in progress, I thought I ought to tell you that there are some flaws in the version I played.

My play style is one of save and redo also, but after reading loads of your posts, next time I sure will also try to leave that style.

But there are some errors that I need to mention, because they disallowed me playing the campain in a straight flow:
1) When the Kalifathe was renamed Dunefolk, also your units need to inherit the dune* properties. I noticed that in Zaryal was not able to move when on horseback.
Fixed by:
Whirlblade_Zaryal.cfg: movement_type=dunearmoredhorse
Stormblade_Zaryal.cfg: movement_type=dunehorse

2) Then later my save/retry style was impossible because of an error (initially thought intentionally to avoid that style, but later found the root cause in the unit files):
Necro_Dark_Master.cfg Three-handed2.cfg used
advances_to=none
this needed (as by other units) to be
advances_to=null

First time ever that I started to read dialogs in the save file to know how this would end!
With these fixes in the unit files, I can finish the campaign now.
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