Where should Wesnoth go next?

[Elvish_Pillager]

A bunch of them I would support being added as WML options. A lot of the time, a multiplayer scenario would play better with certain settings changed.

[GarethBeaumains]

Campaign-Level Command

Rulfgar IV was a happy king. His people were content. Far-flung border forts protected the edges of his domain, while strong navies patrolled off shore. Then suddenly, a civil war broke out. Almost half his kingdom ceded with the rebels. Worse, the leader of the rebellion invited orcs to come and destroy his remaining lands. There were three cities he now needed to defend from rebel and orcish raiders, two cities he needed to retake, and a border fortress that was under siege at the main point of orcish incursion.

If he could protect his cities, he would be able to raise more gold and feed more troops for the coming campaign season.

If he could crush the rebel forces before they got to organize further, he could ensure the rebellion might fizzle before it flamed out of control.

If he could raise the siege of the border fortress, and teach the orcs a lesson about raiding into human lands and ensure no more orcs would plague his people.

Perhaps, if he could send scouts on a raiding party, they could find the rebel leader himself and capture him, ending the war before massive armies needed to come to blows.

How would he split his forces to respond to the onslaught?

What would be possible to create a more dynamic beyond-the-battle campaign system?

Campaign Control System

• Campaign map with dynamic "hot-spots" rather than simple decision-trees of where to go next. Imagine that you had a map of an entire nation, with border forts, cities, ports, etc. In any season, there might be more than one place that was needing to be defended. You'd have to choose where to move your "army stacks" (perhaps represented by flags) to respond.
• At the start of each campaign turn, perhaps a season, you get economic choices to make. A low recruiting year might mean a year of prosperity for the people, increasing future prosperity (a random new village or two might pop up on each scenario map increasing each map's economic output). A high recruiting year might actually depopulate an area, decreasing future growth (a town disappears).
• There could still be some scripted "roleplaying" for key elements added into a main story, such as the advent of a major villain, or allies or advisors who pop up to assist for particular threats.
• Enemy AI should make campaign-based decisions, such as an orcish enemy that builds up turn-after-turn and waits to see if they might make an opportunistic attack based on the player's overall defensive strength.
• This would be far less "linear" storytelling, which might require other rethinking.

Campaign Scenario Map Modification

• You can invest in making more defenses for an area, adding more fortifications over time.
• You can invest in making roads (and bridges) through an area.
• You can invest in "training centers" allowing certain units to be built, like magical colleges, holy temples, military schools, etc.
• Towns can grow and shrink over time.
• You can have trees chopped down, or new forests planted. They might take far longer than 1 year to grow back.
• Dwarves, orcs, trolls, and even humans can dig more tunnels over time.
• Different races might have different 'build costs' for terrain changes. (Imagine what undead leaders might get.) Allies could modify overall build capabilities. (Imagine if you got a dwarven engineer.)

Yes, this might sound more "Civ"-style roleplaying, but you would still have the Wesnoth scenario engine for resolution of battles.

I think the thing to me is to enable people to do more 'empire building' and allowing scenario designers to elevate the art to a whole new level.

It would be great if a dwarven king was able to build deeper and deeper tunnels year after year. And if he dug too far, there might be a random beast that appears out of the darkness.

It would be wonderful for an orcish lord to devastate an elven forest, but then have the elven lord replant the trees, restoring the health of the land by the end of a campaign.

The same hex-by-hex system might be able to be used, but more as a strategic map system. There might be different graphics to show more macro-scale features.

Otherwise, there can be the dot-dot-dot approach of showing where armies are and where they go.

Feedback?

[Beleth]

Feedback?

Interesting ideas... Definitely more "Civ style", as you say.

I guess that I'm going to hold off on suggestions for improved campaign stuff until I get around to making a campaign of my own. I'd like to see what is and isn't possible and what is and isn't easy before I comment on changes to it. And there seems to be a lot that one can do with WML as it is (more and more "Can I do this?" "Yes, with WML" posts seem to appear every day).

[Dave]

Gareth,

I think your idea is an idea for a different game than Wesnoth. Such a game could reuse some Wesnoth resources, such as some code and graphics, but I do think it goes beyond what the Wesnoth engine itself was intended to do, and what the Wesnoth development team is committed too.

It may be one day that members of the team decide to adapt some of our resources for a new game -- or others could come and use our resources for a new game. That wouldn't be a new version of Wesnoth though, it'd be a new program.

David

[yakip]

Whoa, that sounds alot like shogun total war

[GarethBeaumains]

I'm not sure if it's beyond what is possible. It might simply require a refocusing away from the the battle map and more on a nation map.

Saving Elensefar was the first time this sort of thing took a more strategic view of movement.

Imagine instead that there were army "units" that did not fight, but were "bags" of units. When they came in contact with other strategic units (a garrisoned city or castle, or an army in the field), rather than kick off a macro-battle, it simply asked whether you wished to engage the adjacent army. If so, then proceed to a battle board.

The issue of putting a pay-for-terrain-change engine into the game is not entirely dismissible. Consider it like "SimWesnoth" instead of SimCity.

You start with a basic geographical map, and then year after year instead of recruiting army units, you recruit a village, perhaps a church, put down a fortification, etc. You could also raze them and get money -- liquidation or raiding of enemy lands, which should only be able to occur once you "own" the place by defeating all others for possession of it.

Would there need to be more stuff added to the basic Wesnoth engine? Yes.

Would it need to happen all at once? No.

I would first propose a small "manor-keeping" scenario, where you get a small cluster of villages and a bit of a keep, and a small army, and then have to manage your budget. If you earn enough gold, you can trade it in for more villages or more forts, and so on. You might also have to pay for your roster of recalled units, or dismiss them to demobilize and save money.

There can be winter (snow), spring (a bit more grassy and flooded marshy), summer (lush), and fall (dry dirt) maps for the same location. (I saw this sort of thing done in another scenario already. I believe it was the rise of Wesnoth, where the old king dies as the orc attack.)

What it would require is a bit of random scenario generation for the season.

Periodically there are raiders that attack, or a peasant revolt depending on whether you treat them well or cruelly, or even because of plotting of usurpers or evil people. Not every period, but once in a while.

There can still be scripted "set" encounters that occur over time. Some of those scripts might need to change based on cases and conditions of the random events, or they might be based specifically on the scenario.

A wizard comes to the manor. He seems a bit sheepish and awkward. He asks to be a guest. You can offer him protection or not. If you accept, he belatedly informs you that he was being chased by a bunch of necromancers -- look, here they come! Battle, and a new ally. If you turn him away, the necromancers still might show up, but the wizard left in a huff without helping you.

I think it's do-able. But it would need to be carefully spec'ed out to keep it from turning into an endless project with scope creep. Keep it simple for the first cut, and then plan bigger Phase II, III, IV, V, etc.

[freim]

GarethBeaumains, it's not that it isn't possible, but as Dave says this would be a completely different game. This wouldn't be Wesnoth anymore.

[Beleth]

Consider it like "SimWesnoth" instead of SimCity.

I think that you're supporting what Dave was saying - if it's SimWesnoth, then it isn't Wesnoth.

[WanderingPaladin]

I like the game the way it is. If I wanted a large simulation, I'd play SimCity or Civ or Empires or any of the other games in that style. What I'd like to see is extending WML to give campaign authors as much ability as possible to create interesting scenarios that go beyond "Kill all enemy leaders".

[Yogibear]

There might be much more possibilities than you think at the moment. Have a look at the Wesbowl scenario for example (you find that in multiplayer scenarios).

[turin]

I like the game the way it is. If I wanted a large simulation, I'd play SimCity or Civ or Empires or any of the other games in that style. What I'd like to see is extending WML to give campaign authors as much ability as possible to create interesting scenarios that go beyond "Kill all enemy leaders".

You already can create a whole lot of interesting scenarios with WML. Look at my campaign Sceptre of Fire, for example - nine scenarios, with not a single one having the objective "kill enemy leader".

Really, I think that most of the people who actually develop campaigns don't have a whole lot of additions they'd like to make to WML... mostly, minor things, like being able to filter by terrain, would be greatly preferred to big, sweeping changes that allow us to do a whole lot of strange stuff. There are some exceptions (AMLA being more powerful would be nice), but not many.

[WanderingPaladin]

What I mean by extending WML is taking actions that currently take several lines and creating a WML function to do that same thing in one line

[turin]

What I mean by extending WML is taking actions that currently take several lines and creating a WML function to do that same thing in one line

Like what? And why can't you just use macros for that?

[Disto]

I did suggest making something like this, but it was ignored so....

[Beleth]

You already can create a whole lot of interesting scenarios with WML. Look at my campaign Sceptre of Fire, for example - nine scenarios, with not a single one having the objective "kill enemy leader".

Note to self: talk to turin when designing scenarios...