New Campaign: Elves and Wose: The Son of Kalenz

[dthurston]

whitewizard, in general you need to really polish the beginning and make it new and original. Many people will not play past the first few scenarios, especially if it seems derivative. I would suggest going back and revisiting those early scenarios now that you have more experience.

(I haven't had a chance to play either Legend of Wesmere or this campaign; I'm just speaking from general principles and experience giving talks. In giving a talk, one good piece of advice is that you need to grab the audience's attention and tell them something new and interesting within the frist 5 minutes.)

[player]

i think it's juz fine, doesnt bother me at all cause it have different units and your with the trolls, not with the dwarves(if you did not cross the river)

[whitewizard]

Okay, I have further re-worked the campaign to give it more of its own character. This version should run okay without any missing tags (hopefully), as I was able to give a test run without any problems.

Santi, I began this latest overhaul without having read your comments. I will change the main character's name if you feel it is not consistent with the larger story. I would prefer to change my story so that it is more in line with the other campaigns. The human end of things is more of a background story that can be altered without too much trouble. I mention this because I didn't want you to feel as though I was disregarding your thoughts.

Incidentally, I noticed that LOW no longer runs on the latest version because they have dropped the unit "Saurian" from the game's data folder. A quick fix could be to add Saurian to your campaign units folder, or re-write those scenarios with Saurian Skirmisher in place. (just an observation) I was hoping to play it again taking more in-depth notes about the story and the different characters.

My long run plan with this campaign is to implement some major revisions, especially in the earlier scenarios--perhaps using different maps and so forth (dthurston, I am looking your way ). I would also like to incorporate the larger history of Wesmere/Wesnoth more accurately. I vow not to publish version 1.0 until these issues have been resolved, and I have a campaign that is satisfying to all interested parties, and can stand on its own.

[whitewizard]

Okay, after a lot of work and time, I have made a complete overhaul on this campaign. The old story and scenarios have been completely eliminated. The son of Kalenz is no more!

The new campaign introduces a new character, Saleh, who is a childhood friend of Kalenz. The rest of the characters, with the exception of the wose, are also different.

I decided that this would be the best thing to do with this campaign. The old version was mainly a tool to get me entrenched in the world of WML. LOW, being a well-organized campaign, was a good one to work from.From a design perspective, I have adopted many of the conventions used in LOW, using it as a template. But I felt that I would not be able to create enough originality with what I had started, and which relied heavily on the existing code of LOW. Also, the story I created had a lot of holes and inconsistencies with other campaigns. This is not to mention the discontent many of you expressed about the son of Kalenz character.

This time I have done a lot more homework and note taking in terms of the story. It is not very complex, but it fits in with the larger history of Wesnoth more accurately (or at least, does not contradict it). Most importantly it is 100% original (maps, scenarios, etc.). I have also created, I think, a fairly creative account of the origin of the orcs. This is a theme I am currently developing in another campaign.

Some of the more interesting themes that I created in the old version may reappear in a new campaign in the future. For example, the Great White Mage Horndolf will surely reappear at a later time.

I hope you have a chance to play the new version of this game, and can give me some more feedback. Now that I have a more original campaign, I am going to focus on adding more bells and whistles. Any suggestions are welcome.

Best,
WW

[player]

why can't i recruit from the "troll road" up to the "gitamoth forest?

i already checked the recruit unit ids and they were right.
can you help me on how to make them work? if not, can you tell me whats wrong with it so imay be able to fix it?

[ben]

So, I like a challenge as much as the next guy, but I'd say the first scenario on hard difficulty is too tough. Every time I've tried it, Kalenz has gone charging out kamakazi style and died gloriously. Sometimes he bothers to recruit first, sometimes not. But either way, Saleh is stuck on the other side of the river and can't do much about it.

I'd say Kalenz needs some WML-caution, and probably a bit more gold. Or else you could make it a bit easier to cross the river, so that Saleh can ride to the rescue. (Why are they so far apart, anyway? A slightly odd way to travel.)

[janus]

I enjoyed playing this scenario. It seems however that after the "Dwarven Path" scenario I cannot recruit any more (only recall). I thought it was part of the game but after I checked the .cfg files it is not. The error I get say in "Troll Road" is:

error engine: player not found!
error config: the animation for crushin unit Wose Shaman is directly in the attack, please use [animation]
error config: the animation for entanglein unit Wose Shaman is directly in the attack, please use [animation]
error config: the animation for crushin unit Wose Shaman is directly in the attack, please use [animation]
error config: the animation for entanglein unit Wose Shaman is directly in the attack, please use [animation]
error engine: could not find unit 'wose'

This is with wesnoth 1.1.2.

[janus]

I enjoyed playing this scenario. It seems however that after the "Dwarven Path" scenario I cannot recruit any more (only recall). I thought it was part of the game but after I checked the .cfg files it is not. The error I get say in "Troll Road" is:

error engine: could not find unit 'wose'

This is with wesnoth 1.1.2.

Ok it seems that in the scenarios: Troll_Mountain and Troll_Road, you can recruit a "wose". If you change it to "Wose" everything seems ok.

[santi]

Just playtested the first scenario on hard. Apparently randomly, or maybe depending on what Saleh(the unit you control) does, Kalenz comes out sometimes even delaying recruiting(and when he does he gets only or mostly wose samplings) and is quickly surrounded by Saurians. Even when Kalenz kills saurians next to the village he is holding, the wose instead of filling the places of the fallen saurians to limit the number of attacks Kalenz(and themselves) can take, concentrate on the most advanced -in the sense of nearest to Kalenz's keep saurian units.
I think you need to tell AI to be more cautious with "must not die" characters,
but other than that the map is really nice

[whitewizard]

Sorry for the delay. I work in a binge like fashion, based on the level of work I am doing on my Phd dissertation. For the last couple of weeks that has taken over my time (which is really the way it should be, but hey).

I watched the replay you posted. I had not tried the game on hard mode yet, and I see what you mean. I indeed need to program the AI to keep Kalenz alive longer. I had felt this was problem in easy and medium mode. And the random nature of Kalenz's actions made it difficult for me to determine what to do. Sometimes, he recruited many units and fought more cautiously. Other times, he delayed recruiting and waited for certain death

Let me give it another crack. And thanks for the feedback.

[whitewizard]

Okay, I think I have Kalenz taking a more defensive role in the first scenario, as opposed to the mad blaze of glory that he had taken in the past. I also reduced the number of augurs and took out the orcish crossbows. Both of these characters could overwhelm the wose with a powerful ranged attack.

I am still working on the recruiting problem. I tried changing from "wose" to "Wose", but on my machine I could still not recruit.

In the past when I play tested the game I had enough units on the recall list by the dwarven path scenario that recruiting was not necessary. As a result, I have considered making the inability to recruit more wose permanent. It makes sense since Saleh leaves Glyn's Forest, and thus should not have an infinite supply of wose. What do you think? Is it too hard in difficult mode to go without further recruits?

You will notice that when the dwarves enter the picture on Troll Road, they just appear. This was one way I thought of that could get around the recruit problem (which I have not decided is a problem completely).

[whitewizard]

I had to laugh at your comment. What kind of friends travel on opposite sides of a river? I will think of way to explain this in the story.

[troodon]

In the scenario Regaining Clearwater Port, after a few turns, there is an error message saying that it can't find the Sea Orc. Copy the Sea_Orc.cfg file from Heir to the Throne/units into your units file, and it works. By the way, great campaign.

[le horla]

It is a good campain, but i have a problem.

I can't load the troll road's map, i have this message :

illegal character found in map. the scenoria cannot be loaded

Thanks to help me.

[Deliverator]

Hi, I just downloaded the current version of this game for Wesnoth 1.1.10, and... the Wose Shamans have "long" and "short" attack types instead of missile and melee. Ugh. Any chance of fixing that?

Thanks.

Matt