Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0 -- Feedback --

Post by Aldarisvet »

Spannerbag wrote: September 6th, 2021, 3:29 pm [
Oh, and if you're wondering why I captured all the villages when there was no carryover it was just to force the bats to attack rather than scuttling off to a village to heal every time they got a scratch...
It is obvious why you need to capture all villages - else the enemy will have them and will produce more gold. At least enemy bats are suppposed to overtake all villages.
Well, I am eager to see how you will pass through the whole campaign.

And well, in my 2 campaigns there is no carryover in most scenarios. At least there is no carryover at all in this campaign.
After deep thinking for many years I decided that gold carryover disbalances the game greatly. The same about recall system and and many other things that present in mainline campaigns.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0 -- Feedback --

Post by Spannerbag »

Aldarisvet wrote: September 7th, 2021, 9:22 pm Well, I am eager to see how you will pass through the whole campaign.
Will let you know - bit busy right now with real world stuff, sadly :annoyed:

Aldarisvet wrote: September 7th, 2021, 9:22 pm And well, in my 2 campaigns there is no carryover in most scenarios. At least there is no carryover at all in this campaign.
After deep thinking for many years I decided that gold carryover disbalances the game greatly. The same about recall system and and many other things that present in mainline campaigns.
Yeah, I recall reading - many many moons ago when I was coding my UMC - that gold control was difficult after a few scenarios with early finish bonuses.
Out of interest, if recalls unbalance the game do you have any thoughts as how to rectify that? One way might be to limit recalls on a per scenario basis. Or would you do away with the concept of recalls altogether? Just curious :)

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
I suspect the universe is simpler than we think and stranger than we can know.
Also, I fear that beyond a certain point more intelligence does not necessarily benefit a species...
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0 -- Feedback --

Post by Aldarisvet »

Spannerbag wrote: September 8th, 2021, 12:29 pm Yeah, I recall reading - many many moons ago when I was coding my UMC - that gold control was difficult after a few scenarios with early finish bonuses.
Out of interest, if recalls unbalance the game do you have any thoughts as how to rectify that? One way might be to limit recalls on a per scenario basis. Or would you do away with the concept of recalls altogether? Just curious :)
Look, I wrote a lot about it here - https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=44003 - and also in some other places of the forum.
I do not want to return to it.
Many of my ideas are imlpemented in two my campaigns.

For example - you play a long 15+ scenario campaign, but you will get core of your heroes and veteran units advanced to lvl3 in 3-5 scenarios.
So you will have no pleasure of advancing units in most of the length of the campaign.
So I decided to split the campaign into Chapters. In each Chapter a hero will get a new unit type, a new profession (new sprites also) so you will have to advance him again. But each chapter a hero stats with higher level to reflect that he/she is stronger than before.

Such thing is implemented in A Whim of Fate.
Chapter 1: Main heroes start with lvl1 and can advance to lvl3.
Chapter 2: Main heroes start with lvl2 and can advance to lvl3.
Chapter 3: Main heroes start with lvl3 and can advance to lvl4.

Theoretically it can be made even more systematic:
Chapter 1: lvl0 -lvl2
Chapter 2: lvl1 -lvl3
Chapter 3: lvl2 -lvl4

However that means a hero would need lot of more sprites. But it is much more interesting when a hero changes his profession during the campaign.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0 -- Feedback --

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Aldarisvet wrote: September 8th, 2021, 3:34 pm Look, I wrote a lot about it here...
I do not want to return to it.
Many of my ideas are imlpemented in two my campaigns...
Skimmed the posts you mentioned and I'd broadly agree with many of the points you raise. I won't revisit the subject here :)
Thanks for the reply, much appreciated, and will let you know how I get on with your campaign.

Ah well, back to the real world...

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Spannerbag »

Hi,
finished scenarios 2(b) and 3(b) on normal difficulty.
Same strategy in both: churn out zombies and throw 'em at the enemy :)

Chose scenario 2b (merfolk) at random.
Chose 3b (trolls) due to woses having huge impact resistance.
Will try the other forks at some point...

ZI-Lake Beam_2b SBag replay.gz
(48.79 KiB) Downloaded 48 times
ZI-Desert Impact_3b Sbag replay.gz
(73.71 KiB) Downloaded 48 times
Cheers!
--Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
I suspect the universe is simpler than we think and stranger than we can know.
Also, I fear that beyond a certain point more intelligence does not necessarily benefit a species...
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

Spannerbag wrote: September 10th, 2021, 11:12 pm Hi,
finished scenarios 2(b) and 3(b) on normal difficulty.
Same strategy in both: churn out zombies and throw 'em at the enemy :)

Chose scenario 2b (merfolk) at random.
Chose 3b (trolls) due to woses having huge impact resistance.
Will try the other forks at some point...


ZI-Lake Beam_2b SBag replay.gz
ZI-Desert Impact_3b Sbag replay.gz

Cheers!
--Spannerbag
Thank you for replays.
I've watched your replays at once. At the first scenario you could care a bit more about you zombie bats, keep them away from enemy bats, at least in the beginning. But in the end you did a right thing - used Velendar's leadership to kill the troll.
The second scenario was really easy for you and the third was not hard too. Good you guessed to recruit a bit of dwarvish zombies to use them in mountains. I tested the game only on the hard difficulty, and had no idea how good it is balanced on Normal. I also had no replays from feedback on Normal, all others played it on Hard. I assure that on Hard everything is really hard. Seems I can adjust gold for AI a bit but not sure if I am going to do it.

Now I am eager to see how you will play fourth and fifth scenarios. That is the most important thing for me actually. Could be much harder.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Spannerbag »

Aldarisvet wrote: September 11th, 2021, 1:54 am Thank you for replays.
You're very welcome :)
Aldarisvet wrote: September 11th, 2021, 1:54 am ...
The second scenario was really easy for you...
Yeah, but it was fun to just spawn a horde and let them get on with it :)
Aldarisvet wrote: September 11th, 2021, 1:54 am ...and the third was not hard too. Good you guessed to recruit a bit of dwarvish zombies to use them in mountains. I tested the game only on the hard difficulty, and had no idea how good it is balanced on Normal. I also had no replays from feedback on Normal, all others played it on Hard. I assure that on Hard everything is really hard. Seems I can adjust gold for AI a bit but not sure if I am going to do it.
Hmmm, I can understand your thinking. I realised I was probably going to win long before it happened due to the slow movement rates of my units (it take time to group zombies into a decent battlegroup given their low mobility).

For me the 3rd scenario (3b), though enjoyable, lacked contrast with scenario 2b and felt a bit like a re-run of it on different terrain.
IMHO and FWIW, I would prefer to have more of a change in gameplay "feel" and pace between these two scenarios and I'm not sure changing gold will affect this very much? The few vague suggestions I came up with would probably entail a considerable redesign/re-code of your campaign and I can understand if that doesn't appeal :)
Of course, it may simply be that had I chosen other scenarios I would not have had this experience?

One idea you might find interesting/workable for scenario 3b is to maybe put one (additional?) enemy leader a *lot* closer to the player?
(So close, in fact, that even Velendar could get involved via leadership or even direct combat?).
Of course I have not finished your campaign yet, nor have I played the alternative branches so you may do something like this elsewhere already!
Aldarisvet wrote: September 11th, 2021, 1:54 am Now I am eager to see how you will play fourth and fifth scenarios. That is the most important thing for me actually. Could be much harder.
Will post replays here when I have them :)

Cheers!
--Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
I suspect the universe is simpler than we think and stranger than we can know.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

Spannerbag wrote: September 11th, 2021, 1:03 pm I'm not sure changing gold will affect this very much
....
For me the 3rd scenario (3b), though enjoyable, lacked contrast with scenario 2b and felt a bit like a re-run of it on different terrain.

Nope, it is not that at all. Or, to say more precisely, different terrain and different zombies you have to use and a different enemy (trolls instead of merfolk) demand a totally different tactics you have to use. Bats are very mobile and you can attack a merman from all sides in one turn and kill him in this very turn (but zombie bats are very vulnerable at the same time). So playing with zombe bats demands a very offensive style of playing. Saurians are less mobile, so surrounding a troll from all sides would be much harder, and if you do not kill him in one turn - he will regenerate at the next. So you really need to care about wounded saurian zombies, retreat with them to heal and so on. Scenario with trolls is much harder, it demands much more micromanagment.

You was not able to find the difference because it was too easy for you.
These two scenarios are similar in that matter that finally you create a swarm of zombies that devours all on his way.

But micromanagment in these two scenarios is absolutely different. The problem is that people is often too lazy to think - if I made it harder from the money point of view they will rather cry that it is too hard scenario than try to use a careful suitable micromanagment (I know it for sure because of the first scenario of A Whim of Fate, my another camapign, it demands thinking even on Easy).

For example. In scenario with merfolk it is imortant to attack Mermaid Priestess with swimmer zombies as much as possible because bats are vulnerable to impact attacks and priestess retaliate with their staffs. You probably never paid attention to this difference, you needn't, you had plenty of zombie bats anycase. You need to replay on hard to understand the difference.

How to explain this in a proper way. Well, I am playing Vedmak 3 (The Witcher 3) nowadays, I will use this game as an example. If you play on easy difficulty, it does not matter which monster you have to kill. You just go and kill the monster, with blatant straight attack, whoever it be. But on hard difficulty you will see that the devil is in details.

See this humorous video about it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQWvmwC5-Dg

_____
Last edited by Aldarisvet on September 12th, 2021, 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

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Aldarisvet wrote: September 11th, 2021, 5:51 pm
Spannerbag wrote: September 11th, 2021, 1:03 pm I'm not sure changing gold will affect this very much
....
For me the 3rd scenario (3b), though enjoyable, lacked contrast with scenario 2b and felt a bit like a re-run of it on different terrain.
Nope, it is not that at all. Or, to say more precisely, different terrain and different zombies...
Scenario with trolls is much harder, it demands much more micromanagment.

You was not able to find the difference because it was too easy for you...
Your analysis is correct: I was aware of the different properties of each zombie type (bats move well over almost any terrain, saurians defend well on most terrains, resistances vary between types etc.) but, as you say, I didn't need to exploit those characteristics too rigorously to win.
Aldarisvet wrote: September 11th, 2021, 5:51 pm But micromanagment in these two scenarios is absolutely different. The problem is that people is often too lazy to think...
Guilty as charged :)
Aldarisvet wrote: September 11th, 2021, 5:51 pm ... - if I made it harder from the money point of view they will rather cry that it is too hard scenario than try to use a careful suitable micromanagment (I know it for sure because of the first scenario of A Whim of Fate, my another camapign, it demands thinking even on Easy)...
... But on hard difficulty you will see that the devil is in details.
IMHO, different people have different playing styles/needs and thus enjoy the different aspects of gameplay in varying proportions.

For myself the fine detail of tactics, though enjoyable in (what I would regard as) moderation, are not the highlight of gameplay. I realise such discipline and attention to detail is required on hard difficulty where mistakes can be very challenging to recover from. However when I play the game, that is not my main source of enjoyment or reward (I'd make a lousy commander in real life...).

Please understand I'm not saying your campaign wasn't enjoyable or not well made, simply that when I played it (on normal) I enjoyed it my way and that came from sending out swarms of zombies without having to worry too much or too often about exactly what each zombie was doing, as long as the general crowd was going roughly the right way. On hard where I would have to employ, as you said, suitable micromanagement I would have had to work through more tactical detail and a lot of that - for me at least, I suspect - would be more of a hard slog than enjoyable challenge...
This is why I tend to play normal difficulty: it is generally reasonably challenging without requiring investment of hours of time (which I don't always have).

[note_to_self]
Hmmm. That said, I haven't played anything on hard for ages. Maybe I should revisit hard...
[/note_to_self]
Aldarisvet wrote: September 11th, 2021, 5:51 pm See this humorous video about it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQWvmwC5-Dg
Heh, great video! Despite what I said above I do align more with the guy spending ages getting ready (rather than the chap who simply waded in and trusted to sheer luck). However I rather suspect I do not align with "preparation guy" as closely as you do :D

Cheers!
--Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

Spannerbag wrote: September 12th, 2021, 2:19 pm Please understand I'm not saying your campaign wasn't enjoyable or not well made, simply that when I played it (on normal) I enjoyed it my way and that came from sending out swarms of zombies without having to worry too much or too often about exactly what each zombie was doing
Well, the next scenario is totally different. You are in the small map with few villages so you would be forced to use a proper micromanagment. And Velendar would have to take an active part in the battle.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

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Aldarisvet wrote: September 13th, 2021, 1:45 am Well, the next scenario is totally different. You are in the small map with few villages so you would be forced to use a proper micromanagment. And Velendar would have to take an active part in the battle.
Heh, I'd already finished next scenario using the strategy you mention.
Replay attached:
ZI-Full Deck SBag replay.gz
(48.75 KiB) Downloaded 58 times
[whinge]
Did restart the scenario once when I almost ran out of units and Valendar was in danger of getting cornered after several really poor outcomes.
Had three units attack a badly injured sapling in water - 80% chance to hit - all 6 attacks missed: 0.032% likelihood.
Then almost all enemy units hit in retaliation :roll: The sapling regenerated and attacked one of my units (also in water, also 20% defense IIRC). It hit my unit twice (no surprise), destroying it (and just to rub my nose in it my unit missed its single retaliatory attack :doh:).
Had that sapling been killed as intended I would have had a zombie wose in the water to distract nearby enemies.
The next two turns were similar; my units generally missed regardless of enemy defence whereas enemies generally hit.
The upshot was that I had lost several units with midrange xp, lost control of much of the nearby forest terrain and most of my remaining units were somewhat strung out.
IMHO no matter how good a player is it is simply not possible to progress if the random number generator churns out a sustained run of poor outcomes.
I held out as long as I could but even with average luck going forward I could not see a hopeful strategy; Valendar was too badly injured to risk in combat (yes, he always hits and drain-heals in melee but there were 2 scouts and at least one mermaid with ranged attacks nearby) plus he was just over 1 turn of movement from both villages and keep, mainly due to there being so many enemy units around. Given recent luck I decided to go back a few turns and resume from there.
[/whinge]

Had a quick look at the final scenario (spoilered in case anyone reading this has not yet played it).
Spoiler:
Anyway, will let you know how I get on.

Cheers!
--Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
I suspect the universe is simpler than we think and stranger than we can know.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0 *Finished*

Post by Spannerbag »

As promised I managed (finally!) to get throuh the final scenario.

I've spoilered the whole message for those who may not yet have played this last scenario.
Spoiler:
Well, that was how I did it. Care to show me how it should be done? :)

Cheers,
--Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

Thank you for such a comprehensive feedback. Few do this.

Now about replays. You was playing on the Normal difficulty and I really think there is no problem here you should have.
At the forth scenario you should definitely use different types of zombes more actively and put them on the appropriate terrain to control the space. А flashy thing you missed is to recruit zombie dwarves and put them on hills. They have 25 HP and 70% defence on hills and also resistant to impact - a great weapon against enemy woses. There are 6 types of sets of enemy in the fifth scenario and it depends on enemy which types of zombies you should use more actively. Swimmers are very useful too in some cases. You also should take care more about controlling as much villages as possible to get more gold.

At the fifth scenario you quickly took all the space and had much unused gold. You should not have problems at all. You lost several times only because of exposing Svarga too much. On Hard you couldn't afford playing such a way. You should put spiders on mountains because they have 70% defence on it and can safely slow enemy zomies with ranged attacks. And you should actively use your loyal lvl1 animals who can recruit - not just sit with them in the base. 2 of them can fight and 1 recruits, then they rotate. Rats are good vs woses with their blade attacks whenever zombie woses as live woses have resistance to pierce. You used snakes mostly which is wrong. Everyone cannot get an arcane bonus from Randa and rats are much more mobile on plains than snakes.

Btw, Konrad2 passed the fifth scenario recruiting no one. Just used units he had in the beginning. On hard! Can you imagine it? This made me furious of course, I coudn't imagine it was possible. Well, Konrad2 is a very skilled player. You can find it in this very thread. But, important note, this was before I made a verison 2 of Z:I.

Now we are coming to the fact that before I added 3 scenarios and made a verison 2 of Z:I, Velendar was much weaker. He had not draining and his attack was not unavoidable (just 70%) but he could level up to lvl3, hence get more health, undead healing and leadership. Still this cannot compare with draining and 100% probability to hit. I made Velendar different for scenario 1 of Z:I, else he would be too weak agains bats. In Chapter 1 of 'A Whim of Fate' Velendar is still like he was in a shortened version of ZI which had only scenarios 4 and 5. So after changing Velendar passing of scenario 4 became much easier and scenario 5 became somewhat harder because it is a bit harder to defeat Velendar. So I do not speak about scenario 4 - it is really not a challenge even on hard now.

Now you asked a quiestion, how to kill Velendar if he drains and only Svarga can effectively attack him with ranged. And lvl0 spiders are not very effective to slow him because they have just 1 attack. From my point of view you were lazy to think. How about... poisoning Velendar? Your lvl1 snake has a poison. Moreover, would you use it in the battle it could even advance to mainline lvl2 Water serpent with more HP and more probablity to poison Velendar before getting killed. Not speaking you also could use lvl1 spider who have 2 attacks with slow. So that is. Let poisoned Velendar lose HP and then just finish him with Svarga.

Now, well, I really hope you enjoyed the campaign and the final twist and will continue giving you feedback on Normal difficulty for A Whim of Fate campaign. You can try different branches of Z:I though.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Spannerbag »

Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am Thank you for such a comprehensive feedback. Few do this.
You're welcome :)
Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am Now about replays.. you missed is to recruit zombie dwarves and put them on hills. They have 25 HP and 70% defence on hills and also resistant to impact - a great weapon against enemy woses.
Note quite that good :)
ZI_DwarfZ_1of2.PNG
ZI_DwarfZ_2of2.PNG

Also, wose saplings have 40% impact resistance, 26 hp and regenerate so despite their generally low defence they are no pushoverfor impact damage inflicting zombies - though attacking at night with leadership boost makes a big difference but - very unreasonably - the enemy often does not stop attacking during daytime :)
Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am There are 6 types of sets of enemy in the fifth scenario and it depends on enemy which types of zombies you should use more actively. Swimmers are very useful too in some cases. You also should take care more about controlling as much villages as possible to get more gold.
Errr, I think I'm counting scenarios differently to you :) - do you mean Full Deck? If so then I did use swimmers and tried to keep hold of villages but it wasn't always possible, due to the threat posed by high mobility enemies with ranged attacks (scouts on land and mermaids in water).

Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am At the fifth scenario you quickly took all the space and had much unused gold. You should not have problems at all. You lost several times only because of exposing Svarga too much. On Hard you couldn't afford playing such a way. You should put spiders on mountains because they have 70% defence on it and can safely slow enemy zomies with ranged attacks. And you should actively use your loyal lvl1 animals who can recruit - not just sit with them in the base. 2 of them can fight and 1 recruits, then they rotate. Rats are good vs woses with their blade attacks whenever zombie woses as live woses have resistance to pierce. You used snakes mostly which is wrong. Everyone cannot get an arcane bonus from Randa and rats are much more mobile on plains than snakes.
Gold: I had plenty of units and the map was clogged with them.
I needed to be able to extricate wounded units from the front line and into a village quickly and it's easy (at least for me) to mess up when shuffling large numbers units around so I went for the simple approach and only recruited as many units as I felt I could manage/use.
That said, had it not been for the fact that any lost unit is zombified and gives the enemy an extra unit I would have recruited far more units and used a swarming approach. Numerical supremacy did not work well here (for me at least).

Spiders: the very first time I played (didn't save the replay) I did use spiders and kept them on mountains.
Even so they did not have the resiliency to survive. They rarely actually managed to slow an opponent and even with 70% defense roughly 1 attack in 3 will succeed. They cannot retaliate against melee so the AI attacked them mercilessly. The upshot was using spiders was at best neutral; the advantage of slowing an opponent was offset by losing a spider which became an enemy zombie (now complete with melee attack to use against my other spiders as it moved well in mountains...).

Svarga: this was the only unit with decent ranged and melee attacks plus enough hits to survive a couple of full strength zombie attacks. Also this unit could survive an attack from Velendar (and thus not gift him another unit).

Rats: in my experience simply did not inflict enough damage. The enemy generally was able to retaliate and with only 15hp they frequently died, yet again adding to the enemy's forces :annoyed:

Loyals: I did think of using them but the fighting was a good way from my keep and I did not want to risk a leader unit getting bogged down. Though to be fair I didn't test this strategy...

Snakes: having said all of the above I was left with snakes as combat unit of last resort. With Radna's arcane enhacement they inflicted decent damage and had good defense in watery terrain.

Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am Btw, Konrad2 passed the fifth scenario recruiting no one. Just used units he had in the beginning. On hard! Can you imagine it? This made me furious of course, I coudn't imagine it was possible. Well, Konrad2 is a very skilled player. You can find it in this very thread. But, important note, this was before I made a verison 2 of Z:I.
Impressive: might have a look at some point.

Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am Now we are coming to the fact that before I added 3 scenarios and made a verison 2 of Z:I, Velendar was much weaker. He had not draining and his attack was not unavoidable (just 70%) but he could level up to lvl3, hence get more health, undead healing and leadership. Still this cannot compare with draining and 100% probability to hit. I made Velendar different for scenario 1 of Z:I, else he would be too weak agains bats. In Chapter 1 of 'A Whim of Fate' Velendar is still like he was in a shortened version of ZI which had only scenarios 4 and 5...
? The version I played (v2.0.0fix) had only 5 scenarios (Wesnoth 1.14.15) ? :-?
Do you mean scenario 4 was (then) the first scenario and scenario 5 the second? Just curious.

Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am So after changing Velendar passing of scenario 4 became much easier and scenario 5 became somewhat harder because it is a bit harder to defeat Velendar. So I do not speak about scenario 4 - it is really not a challenge even on hard now.

Now you asked a quiestion, how to kill Velendar if he drains and only Svarga can effectively attack him with ranged. And lvl0 spiders are not very effective to slow him because they have just 1 attack. From my point of view you were lazy to think. How about... poisoning Velendar? Your lvl1 snake has a poison. Moreover, would you use it in the battle it could even advance to mainline lvl2 Water serpent with more HP and more probablity to poison Velendar before getting killed. Not speaking you also could use lvl1 spider who have 2 attacks with slow. So that is. Let poisoned Velendar lose HP and then just finish him with Svarga.
I did consider levelling up some zero levels to access generally better units (including poison and so forth). Trouble was the required xp.
Puddle Snakes and Rats needs 25 xp (IIRC) and Spiders 20 which equates to 7 kills for the former and 5 for the latter as it is not possible to obtain xp in non-kill situations against zero level oponents. In addition it is not sensible to use the normal approach of sacrificing a less valuable unit in the course of promoting/protecting a more valuable one because the less valuable unit will almost certainly end up as a zombie and attack (given my luck) the unit it was formerly shielding :annoyed:
In such situations it takes a long time to level up a unit and the balance of probability is that at some point in all these combats there will inevitably be a run of bad luck...

I found myself with very few (what I regarded as) workable options that I could employ without resorting to save-load to recover from poor outcomes.

Spamming units often resulted in gifting units to the enemy, so large amounts of gold were of limited use IMHO.
Using sacrificial units to shield others again gifted units to the enemy.
No leadership so no way to enhance attacks (except for Radna+snakes).
Level-ups take time and are risky for reasons given above. I did try and give xp to the same units but as you can see from the replay, even with the generous turn limit I struggled.

Hence, on balance, my decision to rely heavily on Svarga, especially as every other unit with a melee attack would get one round of attack against (an unslowed) Velendar and then be zombified by his retaliation and gifted to him. Plus, in large numbers some will need to stop within range of Velendar. Thus he could attack an inbound unit before it gets an offensive attack. Result? Velendar gets 2 hits to my unit's 1 (and so largely drain-heals) and gets another zombie :annoyed:

No idea how I would cope on hard -shudder-...

Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am Now, well, I really hope you enjoyed the campaign and the final twist and will continue giving you feedback on Normal difficulty for A Whim of Fate campaign. You can try different branches of Z:I though.
Yes I did enjoy your campaign overall (though we have very different ways of enjoying Wesnoth).
TBH not sure when I'll have time to play through a large campaign but may get chance in due course - if I do, I'll post feedback via the link in your signature.

Having created UMC myself I know it takes a lot of time and effort and it can be upsetting and unsettling when others do not see your pride and joy in the same way as you do :)
I do not think any campaign (mainline or UMC - and most especially my own effort) can appeal to everyone; there will always be those that love it, some that hate it and the rest will be somewhere in the middle. The be frank I am in that last group. I certainly respect your efforts and the work you have put in and I did enjoy much of your campaign, but I cannot in all honesty say that for me it was one of my all-time favourites. However that said I'd still thank you for taking the trouble to create ZI and giving up your time for free, it is appreciated. Thank you.

Cheers!
--Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
I suspect the universe is simpler than we think and stranger than we can know.
Also, I fear that beyond a certain point more intelligence does not necessarily benefit a species...
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Aldarisvet
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

Spannerbag wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:37 pm
Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am They have 25 HP and 70% defence on hills and also resistant to impact - a great weapon against enemy woses.
Note quite that good :)
Yes, I forgot they have just 21 HP. And I meant mountains, not hills, some times in English I use wrong words.
Nevertheless, 70% at mountains with 21 HP is much better than 40% at forest with 26 HP. That is a strong argument. Even despite zombie woses have 40% resistance to impact and dwarves have 20% (I mean who is better against woses).

And same thing about snakes. They may have a better damage compared to rats, but they have only 40% on plains and very limited mobility there.
Spannerbag wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:37 pm
Aldarisvet wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:50 am There are 6 types of sets of enemy in the fifth scenario and it depends on enemy which types of zombies you should use more actively. Swimmers are
Errr, I think I'm counting scenarios differently to you :) - do you mean Full Deck?
I meant fourth. Yes, Full Deck, of course.

Spannerbag wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:37 pm ? The version I played (v2.0.0fix) had only 5 scenarios (Wesnoth 1.14.15) ? :-?
Do you mean scenario 4 was (then) the first scenario and scenario 5 the second? Just curious.
Yes. But actually at the very beginning that was only one scenario (fourth) called Zombies vs Bandits. Then I added 5 more variations of enemies which could be chosen through the menu. Then I added the scenario with Svarga and it was Z:I version 1.0. You can find this version on 1.12 server.

Spannerbag wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:37 pm I did consider levelling up some zero levels to access generally better units (including poison and so forth).
You already have 1 unit with poison from the beginning. Once you overrun Velendar, you can bring it to him to poison him.
Actually it is very important to use that Swamp Snake in the battle. At night and with arcane bonus it can do a great damage. This unit has good chances to advance to lvl2. Not that really crucial in general way to play, but Konrad2 was able to win without recruiting exactly because leveling up that snake. Well, he got some luck, could fail with unluck for sure.


Now I must admit, I tried to pass the last scenario on Hard, spent 2 hours on 3 attempts, but failed. I forgot all nuances of this map, several years passed afer I created that scenario. Same was when I was testing it after the creation. After several attempts I was thinking it is impossible, but with some persistency I overcame and not once (not because of luck but because of finding a proper strategy, a deep micromanagment is needed). Now I am slowly getting an understanding about what is happening on the map. You need proper maneuvering. It resembles chess very much. In verision 1 of Z:I both scenarios had an alarm that they are extremely hard on hard (for the first scenario it was true too because Velendar was starting at level0 there).

I will upload the replay as soon I will able to pass it.
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My campaign:A Whim of Fate, also see it's prequel Zombies:Introduction
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