Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Konrad2
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign - 7 scenarios in one map

Post by Konrad2 »

Just a small thing, but the campaign awards (most times) the wrong laurel/wreath upon completion. (Apparently caused by using the old difficulties syntax.)
Details as to why and how to fix it can be found in issue #3983.
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Aldarisvet
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign - 7 scenarios in one map

Post by Aldarisvet »

Konrad2 wrote: March 4th, 2019, 9:45 pm I don't think this is what you are looking for, as I didn't recruit at all.
Omg!
Actually I thought that you uploaded a replay with using a silver mages squad.
Cannot even imagine that it is possible to win this scenario that way. Obviously you used some save-scumming. A least statistics shows quite a disbalance sometimes. For sure normally you should get someone dead playing this way (anyway thank you much for this replay because I am sure many will do the same).

I think I am matured to continue this campaign, I almost done with thinking out the third scenario.

I decided to upload how I myself finished a second scenario. It was quite hard and I think it reproducing very unusual mechanics. It is how Wesnoth should be from my point of view, because for quite a time the AI was able to resist and there was no clear way to use it's stupidness.

What you have done shows how just limited reloads (-12% inflicted) can ruin even a very balanced scenario. Damn this RNG again.

This replay is for 1.12 (I played it in 2016) and will not run in 1.14.
Attachments
ZI-Nature_Calls_replay.gz
(30.72 KiB) Downloaded 389 times
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Konrad2
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign - 7 scenarios in one map

Post by Konrad2 »

Regarding the statistics, you shouldn't just look at the perzents, but also at the numbers. 800 and 434 is small. And it is probably more likely that you get high +-'luck' stats than actually a +-0.
So no, I didn't save-scum.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign - 7 scenarios in one map

Post by Aldarisvet »

Konrad2 wrote: March 31st, 2019, 11:21 am Regarding the statistics, you shouldn't just look at the perzents, but also at the numbers. 800 and 434 is small. And it is probably more likely that you get high +-'luck' stats than actually a +-0.
So no, I didn't save-scum.
Not that small because an average single attack of the enemy is small (6 at the day for every zombie), player's units HP is small and so on.
That difference between average damage and damage you got actually would be enough to kill at least 2 of your units.
Nevertheless the fact is that you could get your rat hero killed twice (and at the first time you got quite a luck not getting it dead).

Well, I easely believe you played without reloads and got a luck with final "-15% taken" by a chance. That of course can happen.
But the worse thing is that: many others would play with save-scumming deliberately and will pass this scenario even with less skill demonstrated and with worse unit positioning. So that scenario would be easely passed with -50% luck.

The problem is that a player always prefer an easiest way. Hey, why just dont go and rush a enemy leader, yes? Even if it is obviously risky.

I know what I do to prevent such type of playing! I always do this. I will put guardians (lvl1 zombies in that case) around Velendar's base and use my "moves=0" system on Velendar so player would be forced to take control over the map at first and only after that make a final assault over the leader. Also I will put AI_agression to 0.8 because I saw sometimes AI avoids attacking Svarga.

So thank you much again for finding that bug of my scenario!
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Konrad2
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign - 7 scenarios in one map

Post by Konrad2 »

Just a small thing, but the campaign awards (most times) the wrong laurel/wreath upon completion. (Apparently caused by using the old difficulties syntax.)
Details as to why and how to fix it can be found in issue #3983. (Disclaimer: this is a me reposting myself. The issue is real though.)
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Aldarisvet
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

Finally.
I present version 2.0 of the camapaign. Added several scenarios that now is a preqel to two scenarios from the previous version of the campaign.

Scenario 1: Velendar acquires zombie bats
Scenario 2: Velendar acquires zombie saurians, zombie swimmers and zombie dwarves. For that you have to play only one scenario from 3, by your choice.
Scenario 3: Velendar acquires zombie woses and zombie trolls. Two option choice. Again, If you win a scenario with woses, the campaign assumes that you get troll zombies automatically and opposite.
Scenario 4: This is the scenario 1 from older version of the campagin where you have 6 types of zombies to recruit. There you was able to choose 6 different enemies on one map. Now you can not choose, the enemy you will face depends on choices you make on scenario 2 and 3. As 2*3=6.
Scenario 5: It is a scenario 2 from previous version of the campaign with almost no changes.

And I fixed the bug Konrad2 mentioned, thank to him.

In this campaign you would have only zombies of various types as units to recruit against very different enemies on different terrian.
I tried to show that a gameplay with zombies can really be interesting. The campaign itself is something like a tactical tutorial on the style of playing with zombies.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by dwarftough »

Hello, I've been playing this campaign for a while and decided to leave a comment and my replays for everyone to see.

Advantages: this is a campaign of a quite rare style where you have a mob of 0 lvls (with occasional 1 lvls) to crush things. As a result, you don't need to worry about saving your beloved op veteran and, believe me or not, you don't have to reload at all!! :shock: :shock: :shock: It's quite a refreshing experience, to be honest. All you need is to choose a right strategy, no need for constant and exhausting worrying about exact placing to cover your favourites, just strategy and battle.

As the only notable weak side I can notice that the first three scenarios are quite long.

Also a bug: for the second and the third scenario the game didn't create replays for a scenario start for some reason. Somewhat annoying, also it prevents a player from changing a difficulty, which is not good.

Here are my replays for the path I chose (saurians and woses), played on the hardest difficulty, campaign's version 2.0.0, Wesnoth 1.14.5
Attachments
ZI-Green Creak replay.gz
The third scenario, woses chosen
(77.31 KiB) Downloaded 212 times
ZI-Swamp Fire replay.gz
The second scenario, saurians chosen
(41.29 KiB) Downloaded 229 times
ZI-Reciprocal Drain replay.gz
The first scenario
(16.64 KiB) Downloaded 212 times
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

Thank you for the replays!
I fixed imortant bugs thanks to them.
The bug with saves, the bug with wrong number of gold in the fourth scenario and the bug with water pixie converting to human zombies after death in the scenario with woses (they must be immune to plague, but the status 'not_living' seems to became deprecatad recently).
I am satisfied with the way you passed scenarios and have nothing to say about that. Looking replays is a special pleasure for the author, however.

I updated the campaign on the server with fixed bugs.
I am eager to see how you would pass the fourth scenario.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by lynx »

Playing on a nightly, the sprite->humanoid zombie bug either wasn't fixed properly yet or it resurfaced.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0

Post by Aldarisvet »

lynx wrote: May 19th, 2021, 12:49 pm Playing on a nightly, the sprite->humanoid zombie bug either wasn't fixed properly yet or it resurfaced.
Hi.
What version of the game you speaking about? Well, play on and consider it as a bonus :mrgreen:

I would like to see replays, please, especially of two last scenarios, if you would be able to reach them.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0 -- Feedback --

Post by Spannerbag »

Hi,
Just downloaded v2.0.0fix on Wesnoth 1.14.15 and I'm afraid I never got past the first scenario!
Maybe Probably it's just me.

Maybe I was unlucky with the random number generator but my experience was:

1. The enemy bats almost always went for my zombie bats (easier target) and rarely missed.
Nevertheless the leader generated a few zombies and I thought I'd use leadership + healing to level them up. Mistake!

2. My zombies rarely hit - certainly far less often than the 40% they should have.
Several times I had an enemy bat softened up by the leader and any hit by any zombie (even without leadership) would kill it. I'd *never* take it out with the first zombie and often lost 2 or 3 full health zombies to the damn thing (leadership is no help if your units never hit anything!).

Aside: weirdly I find that ai controlled bats and Elvish Shamans seem much harder to hit: they often survive multiple attacks unscathed?
Or again maybe it's just randomness...


3. Unfortunately the turn limit was rapidly approaching so I gave up and decided to start again.


So I re-started your campaign (rather than just re-loading turn 1).
*Exactly* the same. Again. So I tried levelling the leader to see what happened. Didn't help.
Tried leaving the leader in the starting position to see if the bats came to me. After capturing all the villages they would attack but same again: leader created a zombie that was immediately killed on ai turn by single bat hitting/zombie missing every f****** time...
Gave up as I wasn't enjoying the game :(

Its a pity because I like the idea and I also know how much work goes into making content. However I'm afraid I found even the first scenario heavy going.
I suspect both times I had really poor luck in terms of randomness so ideally I'd suggest reducing this?

Maybe have the troll recruit a few zero level Vampire bats as well as Blood bats? These won't generate combat experience but inflict less damage and are easier (hopefully!) to kill. If you like you can do this based on how well (or lucky/unlucky) the player is; if by, say, turn 30 the player has fewer than a certain number of zombies maybe change troll recruitment?

I'd also reduce the number of villages so that the enemy bats can't heal so easily (you can give the troll income to compensate for lost villages if you like).
In addition, making the map more constricted might help: bats are much more mobile than player units. Further as player has level zero zombies they have no zone of control. Hence the bats had pretty much unrestricted movement. They could easily get to villages to heal or get to my injured zombies (which they always hit and killed) regardless of what I did with my always limited forces (I rarely had more than 3 zombies).
Also I could never corner them with zero levels (this was why I wanted level 1 Soulless rather than Walking Corpses).

Another idea: maybe make the first zombie created like the leader (always hits?) and loyal (maybe). You could name it "First Blood Bat" or "Zombie Zero" or somesuch :)

When I've calmed down I might re-install your campaign and try again. When you were playtesting how did you get through the first scenario?
I'm sorry but I didn't keep the replays - I deleted everything when I rage-quit.

Sorry I couldn't give happier feedback :(

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: August 31st, 2021, 12:32 am
When I've calmed down I might re-install your campaign and try again. When you were playtesting how did you get through the first scenario?
I'm sorry but I didn't keep the replays - I deleted everything when I rage-quit.

Sorry I couldn't give happier feedback :(

Cheers,
-- Spannerbag
Omg. Well. This is really the easiest scenario of this campaign!
What level of difficulty did you play?
Look, many people passed this scenario. You just have to think. And your main hero is in fact almost immortal and he kills enemy bats easely.
Nevetheless, I will replay this scenario on hard just for you and put a replay here. Or, better, can you just download a replay from dwarftough? Just a few posts above? ZI-Reciprocal Drain replay.gz
Spannerbag wrote: August 31st, 2021, 12:32 am I'd use leadership + healing to level them up. Mistake!
No, that is what you should do.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0 -- Feedback --

Post by Spannerbag »

Aldarisvet wrote: September 5th, 2021, 9:50 pm
Spannerbag wrote: August 31st, 2021, 12:32 am
When I've calmed down I might re-install your campaign and try again. When you were playtesting how did you get through the first scenario?
I'm sorry but I didn't keep the replays - I deleted everything when I rage-quit.

Sorry I couldn't give happier feedback :(

Cheers,
-- Spannerbag
Omg. Well. This is really the easiest scenario of this campaign!
What level of difficulty did you play?
Look, many people passed this scenario. You just have to think. And your main hero is in fact almost immortal and he kills enemy bats easely.
Nevetheless, I will replay this scenario on hard just for you and put a replay here. Or, better, can you just download a replay from dwarftough? Just a few posts above? ZI-Reciprocal Drain replay.gz
Spannerbag wrote: August 31st, 2021, 12:32 am I'd use leadership + healing to level them up. Mistake!
No, that is what you should do.
Hi,
I played the scenario on normal difficulty.

As you suggested I downloaded and viewed dwarftough's replay and saw that there, the bats actually missed occasionally and the zombies managed a few hits. It would seem I was simply horribly unlucky... twice. My strategy was, if anything, more conservative than in the replay (mainly because every time I took any sort of a risk it went as badly wrong as possible...). Even so, I was never able to build up enough zombies to have realistic chance of taking out the troll (even with leadership).

Will try again at some point. If same happens again, I'll post a replay for everyone's general amusement edification.

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 6th, 2021, 2:05 pm It would seem I was simply horribly unlucky... twice.
You needn't guessing were you unlucky or not.
In Wesnoth somewhere in the menu there is a Statistics option.
However, I am not sure if it counts draining effects correctly. But for ordinary games - you should know and use this thing. Everyone should. Too many complain about luck.

I am sure the scenario have nothing with luck. I deliberately made this campaign with lvl0 units - losing even many lvl0 units because of bad luck almost changes nothing. Losing one lvl3 unit in later stages can make you unable to continue the campaign. This porvokes a player to use reloads. I intended to avoid this.

You just need use a proper strategy. Heal wounded zombie bats, cover them, retreat when neccessary. A slow accumulation is needed before their number would become overwhelming. Attack bats almost only with Velendar, use zombie bats only when you sure you will finish the enemy bat by the zombie bat.
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Re: Zombies:Introduction campaign 2.0 -- Feedback --

Post by Spannerbag »

Aldarisvet wrote: September 6th, 2021, 2:33 pm
Spannerbag wrote: September 6th, 2021, 2:05 pm It would seem I was simply horribly unlucky... twice.
You needn't guessing were you unlucky or not.
In Wesnoth somewhere in the menu there is a Statistics option.
However, I am not sure if it counts draining effects correctly. But for ordinary games - you should know and use this thing. Everyone should. Too many complain about luck.

I am sure the scenario have nothing with luck. I deliberately made this campaign with lvl0 units - losing even many lvl0 units because of bad luck almost changes nothing. Losing one lvl3 unit in later stages can make you unable to continue the campaign. This porvokes a player to use reloads. I intended to avoid this.

You just need use a proper strategy. Heal wounded zombie bats, cover them, retreat when neccessary. A slow accumulation is needed before their number would become overwhelming. Attack bats almost only with Velendar, use zombie bats only when you sure you will finish the enemy bat by the zombie bat.
Hi,
Just tried again and it was third time lucky: got through without cheating.
Didn't do anything different to last time except this time I had, if anything, pretty decent luck overall.

When you say I am sure the scenario have nothing with luck I 95% agree with you.
In a well-balanced scenario average or even slightly poor luck with the random number generator will not seriously affect outcomes.
I wish I still had my previous games but all I can do is repeat what I said earlier: almost every time a bat attacked my zombies they killed it (i.e. every bat attack hit) and my zombies managed to miss most of the time.
I do feel in those instances I did have a sustained run of bad luck.

Anyway, replay attached (normal difficulty). Decided to go for swimmers next. Feel a lot better now :D

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...

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag
Attachments
ZI-Reciprocal Drain SBag replay.gz
(17.11 KiB) Downloaded 37 times
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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