Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

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Aldarisvet
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Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

Zombies:Introduction campaign - the only campaign where you can recruit variations of zombies of different races from the recruit list by your choice.

Play on the side of a young peasant with a plague staff that is eager to become a lich! Wipe out various types of enemy that standing on his way to Mal-Ravanal's capital.
You can recruit 6 types of zombies: Bats, Trolls, Saurians, Swimmers, Woses, Dwarfs.

3 level of difficulties. On Hard main hero starts at level1 and can get only ALMA advancments, on Normal he starts at level2, on Easy at level3, all ALMA-only. Main hero have leadership over zombies and can heal them, the higher the level of hero, the higher are effects.
Can be downloaded at 1.14 add-ons server.
zombies_vs_bandits.png
I hide initially published post under the spoiler below.
Spoiler:
Last edited by Aldarisvet on August 17th, 2020, 7:22 pm, edited 12 times in total.
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BeardyUnixer
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Re: An idea for the mainline sinlge scenario

Post by BeardyUnixer »

It sounds a lot like Danse Macabre in many ways. Not entirely, but very similar. You should check it out for the units, at least.

Edit - I just looked at the Units database and it seems to be missing quite a few units. Try the actual campaign files instead - for whatever reason, the named units aren't showing up, and they include undead wose, saurian, griffin, etc
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Re: An idea for the mainline sinlge scenario

Post by Aldarisvet »

Of course you cannot find sprites of exotic zombies nor in campaign's units database nor in campaign's files because they are mainline, core sprites. Not an author of Danse Macabre made it, he just used it in his campaign. And aside of the fact that you can really meet different types of zombies in Danse Macabre, I can see nothing common in it with what I suggest. Dance Macabre is not about using exotic zombies as main force because you can recruit there skeletons, ghouls, even bats as I remember. Also it is not a single scenario campaign, it is 12 scenarios campaign.

I see suggested scenario as some kind of tutorial, introduce to 'the world of zombies of different races'.

And I forgot about merman zombies. Of course there would be a lake in the mountain pass where a hero should meet mermans and would get marman zombies too. And as I think for now, in the final battle they should meet footpads, thieves and poachers, so 3 different type of attack they meet, crushing, blade and piercing.
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Re: An idea for the mainline sinlge scenario

Post by Eagle_11 »

You can use 'Zombie Randomizer' addon in melee to randomize variation of walking corpse being recruited. Other than that try 'Undead Empire' sometime.
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Re: An idea for the mainline sinlge scenario

Post by Aldarisvet »

Eagle_11 wrote:You can use 'Zombie Randomizer' addon in melee to randomize variation of walking corpse being recruited. Other than that try 'Undead Empire' sometime.
Thanks, I will try that 'Undead Empire' scenario to see if it has something similar with my idea.
And about 'Zombie Randomizer', I see you an author of it, but it its not what I needed.
First I am going to create a little map with mixed terrain and play vs AI with all that different zombies types available to recruit to test them vs AI recruiting footpads, thiefs and poachers. Might be intresting.
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Re: An idea for the mainline sinlge scenario

Post by Aldarisvet »

I made a scenario for my idea.
What I actually found is that it is impossible to get in recruit list various types of zombies by standaart means.
You can modify a unit type of Walking Corpse you can recruit by special macros, but
1) In recruit list you would still see standart human working corpse
2) Hence engine sees Walking Corpse as one type, you simpy would not be able to get multiple Walking Corpse variations for recruit.

So it is obvious that no one before me ever tried to realize my idea. But there is a simple solution. Just to use all that variations as custom units. By this they obviously would be assessed by engine as different units.

Also I found that goblin zombie variation is really not worth recruiting for the price 8 gp compared to others. But others are different and intresting enough to be a faction together.
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by Aldarisvet »

I created a scenario that fully realized my idea of having different variations of zombies in a recruit list.
They are really different and it was quite tactically intresting to play having undead zombies as a faction. Of course they would not cope without a main hero, but still it was fun for me.
A scenario already uploaded on add-ons server, it is named 'Zombies vs Bandits', more at the first post of this thread.
Any comments are welcome.
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by DeCoolest_Cat »

I enjoyed playing the scenario a lot! Just a few thoughts and bugs:

1. There is little to no story, but I assume that is because it is unfinished
2. Some of the walking corpses I found weren't that useful (swimmer), while others I spammed (bat, saurian)
3. The troll and swimmer walking corpses level into the regular soulless

I played on easy difficulty to get through it, and it took 26 turns (I know I'm bad :P)
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by Aldarisvet »

Great thanks to the feedback and especially for the replay!
DeCoolest_Cat wrote: 1. There is little to no story, but I assume that is because it is unfinished
The story is the secondary issue for me, of course there is no problem to add it. First I wanted to know is anyone find this idea (playing with different zombies as a faction) so intresting as I did. I wrote the approximate story in the spoiler of the first post (however I am not sure now if there is a sense to include in the scenario that part of it when the hero obtains all this races as zombies to recruit, skirmishing through the mountains).
DeCoolest_Cat wrote:2. Some of the walking corpses I found weren't that useful (swimmer), while others I spammed (bat, saurian)
I made a map in so way that every type of zombie would be useful, there are lot of water and swamps in the map. However, as I found later that most battles take place in the centre around hill village, where there is no water and not much swamps there, so I think I should make little changes. However I disagree that bats and saurians should be main force. They have too low HP. You should use woses vs pierce attacks and also dwarf zombies have good resistances too and especially good at mountains. Would be impossible to win with saurians and bats on Hard, I am sure. In fact I passed it on Normal and in Hard difficulty I got huge problems in this scenario.
DeCoolest_Cat wrote: 3. The troll and swimmer walking corpses level into the regular soulless
Shame on me, I will fix it asap.
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by Deciton_Reven »

I haven't played yet, but I find it interesting in a map designed to show off all the wc variations, the only thing to fight is humans that give no variation at all. If you don't want the Goblin variation recruitable, perhaps goblins would be better to fight as they also give you another variation if you kill a Wolf Rider.
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by Aldarisvet »

Deciton_Reven wrote:I haven't played yet, but I find it interesting in a map designed to show off all the wc variations, the only thing to fight is humans that give no variation at all. If you don't want the Goblin variation recruitable, perhaps goblins would be better to fight as they also give you another variation if you kill a Wolf Rider.
If you want to play with goblin variation vs goblins, plz play the first scenario of my campaign A Whim of Fate :D And at the second scenario there you can get a mounted variation.
Actually I skipped also Gryphon variation and Drake variation, because their animations are not so good and because they flying but way better than bat variation. Also I do not find correct that wolf rider becomes zombie on the horse.
I choose poacher, footpad and thief because they provide piercing, crushing and blade attacks consequently. The main point still is to create tactically balanced, playable scenario, and not to present 100% existing variations of zombies.

@DeCoolest

I've watched you replay. You won realatively easy, without using your main hero. Well, it is easy difficulty, still AI was defending good. AI plays good because zombies have no zones of control, his units have lot of moves, he can use backstab effectively. But actually main hero with his magic attacks, leadership and healing must play decisvie role in the scenario. I suggest you to try Normal difficulty. In Hard I was balancing today for 30 turns in the brink of survival near my camp before I get real advantage.
_______________
I fixed level up mistakes and also upgraded map a bit, added more water in the center, some reefs and fords. Swimmer is really actual now. All units are quite useful.
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by skeptical_troll »

Hi Aldarisvet. I just played your scenario and really enjoyed it, I find the idea of fighting with zombies and plague very refreshing, it is an unusual mechanic and quite rewarding, once you get a grasp on it.

I manage to beat the scenario at the third attempt. In the first two I messed up to much with woses and bats, which have too poor defense and especially at the beginning you need to survive. In the third attempt I mostly used a combination of dwarves and saurians, and that worked decently. I must say that I had really favourable RNG, especially at the beginning, while in the previous two attempts I was unlucky. Replay attached.

few comments:

- You may want to explain in a note at the beginning that different zombie tipes have different MP and defenses, as I think it is not completely obvious to everybody
- It took me some time to realize that the windmill is a village! Is that standard? When I was young windmills in Wesnoth were just decorative :)
- The very last part of the scenario was a bit tedious, I had to drag an army of zombie through very slow terrain. I am not sure what is the best way to improve this, maybe add some swamp channels or mountain ridge that reach the enemy leader. In this way my units would be faster but not the enemy, so the time of the initial clash is not affected. Think about it.
- I'd need to play few more times to be sure about it, and maybe better players have different opinions, but I wonder whether the outcome is a bit too much reliant on the initial luck. Plague is really luck-unstable in a certain sense: if you corpse win a duel you get two units, otherwise zero. This is a bigger difference than a normal duel, obviously. Especially at the beginning, you need to use corpses to screen your leader, so if your initial force gets swamped there is little you can do. I'd say to wait what other people say before making changes. In case, a possible thing to do is to add one or two level 1 zombies from the beginning, so that you can ZOC potential threats to the leader, and balance that with less gold.

Nice job!
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by Aldarisvet »

skeptical_troll wrote:Hi Aldarisvet. I just played your scenario and really enjoyed it, I find the idea of fighting with zombies and plague very refreshing, it is an unusual mechanic and quite rewarding, once you get a grasp on it.
I am really happy for this, and not only because you appreciated my work, but also because you mentioned about unusual mechanic. What I really wanted from the very beginning I appeared in the forum is to bring tactically new things into Wesnoth because in all mainline campaigns and many UMC all that you have to do vs AI (except skirmishing scenarios) is to hold a frontline, rotate wounded units and use healers at the back. That is becoming quite boring after you learned this tactic because AI is helpless vs this tactic, he cannot use same one.

I will answer you fully at the everning once I would be able to see a replay, but for now I want to comment on this:
skeptical_troll wrote: - I'd need to play few more times to be sure about it, and maybe better players have different opinions, but I wonder whether the outcome is a bit too much reliant on the initial luck. Plague is really luck-unstable in a certain sense: if you corpse win a duel you get two units, otherwise zero. This is a bigger difference than a normal duel, obviously. Especially at the beginning, you need to use corpses to screen your leader, so if your initial force gets swamped there is little you can do. I'd say to wait what other people say before making changes. In case, a possible thing to do is to add one or two level 1 zombies from the beginning, so that you can ZOC potential threats to the leader, and balance that with less gold.
Obviously you right about double luck dependence in the case with plague attack. Moreover, the fact is that to get some critical advance (critical number of zombies) you need some luck happened in the stage when you coming from defence to attack. This can happen sooner or later, you can struggle near your camp more or less time depending on luck, I find it ok. The whole idea of the scenario and all graphics are taken from A Whim of Fate, where in the first scenario you have to zombify goblins from two goblin tribes fighting each other. Possibly it is of less interest because you have no variety of zombies except goblin one, and moreover, there you cannot recruit at all (I suspect it is the only campaign in which a player begins absolutely alone with 20HP and without a possibility to recruit, I was trying to be very original but seems that it was not appreciated). However for now I think that there is no need of additional support at the start, zombies are cheap and at the beginning you can grab a lot of villages just with one bat, others will have to defend while you recruiting more. May be I am not right, I will have to show my own replay of course.
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by skeptical_troll »

It is more a concern than a fully supported statement, so wait for others to reply. In my successful attempt I felt I played better and was never at risk of losing, but it is hard for me to say how much I was aided by luck. On the other hand, ignoring the windmill-village surely penalized me, so maybe that balances it.

PS: If you like this style of playing there is a short and fun campaign which is (partly) based on the plague mechanic: Ooze mini-campaign
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Re: Zombies vs Bandits single scenario

Post by Aldarisvet »

I saw your replay, what I would say that I would avoid recruiting 2 bats at the beginning, actually you neednt more that one bat in this scenario, and I prefer using more woses, they have lot of HP and excellent resistance vs pirecing and also it is good to have 2 swimmers all time if possible. In fact all types is needed, may be troll zombie is less of use, in most situations dwarf zombies are better to defend in hills, but sometimes is better to have 4 MP of troll. Also I cant agree that the final way to the leader is long. I was fighting 35 turns defening near my camp and then relatively fast finished the enemy leader.
Look at my replay. There were no reloads, but I made 2 stupid mistakes. First is that I lost my bat for nothing because of inattention, just had to retreat, I think that cost me really a lot of gold. And second, in turn 28 or 29 I put my hero under huge danger attacking a poacher, there was no reason for that, I just tired and made a bad move (could use another unit for the attack), luckily he got only 2 shots from 4. Also it is appeared that AI can be so bold that even comes to the camp with thiefs and with some luck he can even kill hero, but AI do not try this because he have 60% defence there.
In general I think that scenario is absolutely balanced for Hard difficulty.

But of course I would be happy with more feedback and replays.
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