Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign on 1.18 servers

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MathBrush
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Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign on 1.18 servers

Post by MathBrush »

This is a campaign designed to showcase the new Dunefolk units designed for 1.16. The units and their animations are fantastic! It includes Jinn, Rocs, and a Wyvern Rider as enemies in the final scenario, as well.

"Even in the deserts far to the south of Wesnoth, Queen Asheviere's shadow darkens the land."

Features 7 scenarios, with Dune Paragon enabled. Follow the adventure of Amir, a young man who is trying to save his family from a deadly sickness.

This is a beta version. I'm pretty bad at this game, but I beat it on Normal, so if you're an expert I'd try a higher difficulty.

Feedback I'm looking for:
-Bugs and typos
-Scenario too hard/too easy
-Scenario objectives too repetitive
-Story or dialogue bad or in need of improvement
-Maps need changing

The code is available on Github, and pull requests are welcome!
https://github.com/brirush84/Ashevieres_Shadow
Screenshot3.png
Screenshot2.png
Screenshot1.png
Last edited by MathBrush on March 2nd, 2024, 12:35 am, edited 5 times in total.
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, beta version on 1.16 servers

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Playing this right now. I have made it to Territorial and it's been fine so far. Also, many thanks for giving Burners at the very start of the vs Undead scenario. helped a lot. I don't really care about the plot here since it's just Dunefolk vs every other faction in core.
Attachments
ASDC-Marauders replay 20210722-115733.gz
(13.78 KiB) Downloaded 116 times
ASDC-Mercenaries replay 20210722-123436.gz
(16.4 KiB) Downloaded 113 times
ASDC-Sanbaar replay 20210722-125532.gz
(26 KiB) Downloaded 112 times
ASDC-Dark Secrets replay 20210722-131238.gz
(25.62 KiB) Downloaded 114 times
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, beta version on 1.16 servers

Post by MathBrush »

These were great to watch! I was surprised at how well your herbalists did against the skeletons in direct melee; I never recruited more than 1 herbalist and only used them as support units, but they seem pretty buff.

It's really fun seeing all the units get to level 2 and unlock their weird powers (like distraction and slowing and marksman).
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, beta version on 1.16 servers

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

I was surprised at how well your herbalists did against the skeletons in direct melee.
They are pretty much the second best level 1 healer in game. Plus, can play them as sub-damage roles as well thanks to the impact melee.
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, beta version on 1.16 servers

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

That scenario of KA + Northerners vs Dunefolk extensively needs to be rebalanced. It was hell.
The vsDrakes one was okayish, but I lost a LOT of my recalls in these two. Not sure if the one after it is winnable in my present state.
Attachments
ASDC-Chieftain.gz
(9.51 KiB) Downloaded 112 times
ASDC-Territorial replay 20210722-230351.gz
(31.47 KiB) Downloaded 107 times
ASDC-Drake Flowers replay 20210722-231645.gz
(26.49 KiB) Downloaded 99 times
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, beta version on 1.16 servers

Post by MathBrush »

You're right, I'm not sure the last one is winnable now; I also bumped up the last one's difficulty since I played, since I originally had Horned Beetles and Rock Scorpions in the enemy recruits instead of ogres, and I think that change made it harder.

I could immediately see where the problem was with the northerners/knalgans: in my testing, the only strategy I tried was massing everyone in the center, with no scouts to the right. Because of that, all the northerners tried crossing the water, and none attacked my flank. In your game, you spread out more, and they flanked you.

That seems less like a 'feature' and more like an imbalance, since it depends on the wonkiness of the enemy pathfinding AI. So I can think of a few solutions:

1-Remove the bridge on the right, delaying the orcs until after dawn or forcing them into the water.
2-Get rid of ulfserkers
3-Decrease enemy money
4-Add an 'easy' scenario after this to give people a chance to rebuild (maybe vs saurians, nagas, and undead in a swamp with fog of war)
Edit: 5-Let the northerners and dwarves attack each other. That was my original plan, but they really took a number out of each other in testing and it felt a bit too easy.

Do any of those sound like a 'good fix'?

I think fixing that scenario will fix the drakes.

Someone in a PM suggested I extend the turn limit on the first two scenarios, which I plan on doing (by 2-4 turns), so that may affect the balance overall as well.

Edit: Also, in the knalgan scenario, there's a little spit of land that just out, surrounded by water. Putting a guy there early makes the enemies try to swarm it, leaving them all in the water. Also, nagas are fantastic in this scenario!
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, beta version on 1.16 servers

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

I'd pick option three. They both had 250 gold and I had a little higher than that (~280). So, maybe 200? or 220 for each enemy side?
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, beta version on 1.16 servers

Post by MathBrush »

Sounds good. Balance is hard for me because I am a save-scummer (I'm sorry!).

I've decreased enemy gold for both sides by 40 on all difficulties. I've also added 10 gold to the first scenario and lengthened the number of turns for the first two scenarios.

Since there don't seem to be any major bugs, I'm listing this as 1.0 and taking it out of 'beta'. I plan on doing more balancing if more people play it, though. Thanks so much for your help!
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, 1.1 version on 1.16 servers

Post by MathBrush »

Very small update: Changed reference about Asheviere having 'undead servants' to 'orcish assassins'.
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, 1.1 version on 1.16 servers

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

MathBrush wrote: July 25th, 2021, 8:06 pm Very small update: Changed reference about Asheviere having 'undead servants' to 'orcish assassins'.
Hehe...looks my ranting in discord got this noticed XD

Anyways, here's the rest:
ASDC-Territorial replay 20210727-104953.gz
(32.08 KiB) Downloaded 101 times
ASDC-Drake Flowers replay 20210727-110010.gz
(26.29 KiB) Downloaded 91 times
ASDC-Chieftain replay 20210727-112106.gz
(38.83 KiB) Downloaded 96 times
The KA+Northerners one is less stressful now. I think the vsDrakes one was unintentionally nerfed as well. You don't keep changelogs so I cannot tell but I didn't see any inferno drakes this time. Saw one Drake Enforcer though.

Enemy leader recruiting Jinns...yeah...you have just entered my list of evil UMC authors...
The last scenario has no "Is Last Scenario" note. Additionally, the map seemed to be outputted from the random map generator. It's okay.

Anyways, decent campaign. I hope to see you making all 7 (as in one campaign for each MP faction in the core package), you do have 3 already XD.
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, 1.1 version on 1.16 servers

Post by MathBrush »

Thanks for your feedback! And I did notice what you said on Discord, including how you shared screenshots of the campaign, which I thought was really nice.

I'll check out the replays. As for the map of scenario 7, I'll admit I was just uninspired and did in fact use the random generator. I wish I could come up with a cooler design for the whole scenario; maybe some kind of 'big caravan camp' for the main enemy and an abandoned wasteland for the Jinn.

And yeah, my goal is to do one for every mainline faction at some point. It always bothered me that you can't recruit goblins and naga in SotBE or fencers in almost any of the loyalist campaigns.

Edit: Based on the feedback, I updated the final map so that the keep around the Jinn recruiter is blasted and evil-looking with braziers, chasms, skeletal remains and dead forests, and the other keep became an encampment with another circle of fortifications and campfires, and most villages turned into tents. I like it a lot better now; it should only marginally affect gameplay, as I mostly replaced one type with another of the same type (like hills to hills, etc.)
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, 1.1 version on 1.16 servers

Post by shevegen »

I love all dune/desert style campaigns in general. Tagging this thread here mostly so that I can have a look at it at a later time - right now I am making a little wesnoth break (I do this usually... in some weeks I may play more again).
marcelius
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, 1.3 version on 1.16 servers

Post by marcelius »

Played it until before Chieftain now, looks fairly nice and balanced to me. Really nice to have also a Dunefolk campaign. I was looking for one after finishing most of the main campaigns.
I am not a very good player and play this on the lowest difficulty. So far all is moderately easy and comparable to other intermediate campaigns on easy level.

I am trying to upload some replays, please let me know if I uploaded some nonsense or if you see some obvious gameplay mistakes.
Attachments
ASDC-Marauders Aufzeichnung abspielen 20211122-205038.gz
(13.73 KiB) Downloaded 70 times
ASDC-Mercenaries Aufzeichnung abspielen 20211122-211650.gz
(16.75 KiB) Downloaded 66 times
ASDC-Sanbaar Aufzeichnung abspielen 20211128-141205.gz
(20.08 KiB) Downloaded 65 times
ASDC-Dark Secrets Aufzeichnung abspielen 20211128-145305.gz
(24.34 KiB) Downloaded 76 times
ASDC-Territorial Aufzeichnung abspielen 20211128-154952.gz
(28.66 KiB) Downloaded 62 times
ASDC-Drake Flowers Aufzeichnung abspielen 20211128-164315.gz
(28.4 KiB) Downloaded 74 times
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, 1.3 version on 1.16 servers

Post by MathBrush »

Thanks for the playthroughs! I watched through all of them. It was interesting to see which upgrades you went for (Lvl 3 leadership looked really useful!).

To me, the first scenario looked harder than the others (and the drake one), and the undead one looked maybe too easy (you took them on in nighttime and only lost one guy!). Does that sound right?
Drake Campaign: A Fiery Birth | Knalgan Alliance Campaign: Drunkards, Dwarves, and Doubloons | Dunefolk Campaign: Asheviere's Shadow | Northeners Campaign: Goblin's Glory | Undead Campaign: Shakespeare's Ghost | Rebels Campaign: Santa Must Die
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Re: Asheviere's Shadow--Dunefolk Campaign, 1.3 version on 1.16 servers

Post by marcelius »

Yes, perhaps the undead one was a bit easy. The rest appeared quite ok for me.
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