The Fall of Bort

[Raijer]

The map should arrive soon.

Following of what i started 30 minutes ago, might also spoil:

So they regroup in the city center (theorically, the village leader shouldn't be here, as he's supposed to flee to the capital. So only your leaders (Maia, Niel, Angelo, Rey and Leo) are put in the city keep, right in the center of the map.

Angelo: I can see them (there, unfortunately, i can't put O_O eyes on his unit, put anyway)! WHAT THE HELL???? HOW MANY ARE THERE ??? I can't believe this!!!

And then, dear WML master, please make something like that appear:
Orcish slurbows on the first column (the whole first column, should be 33), and Orcish Warlords on the second column (you know, those guys with huge swords and a bow...), so, a huge army, way too big for your little lvl 1-2 army, and anyway impossible to kill out of the most cheated UMCs you can imagine, but not in this one. Not yet, who knows where i will take the story (that's part of what i'm not sure of, don't expect overpowered units that can kill everyone in one word or whatever, pretty sure it won't happen).

So there, most people think something like: How the hell am i gonna kill this army ???????? (the insults to the creator were removed because we're in a game that can be played by young people)
If you're part of the 1% that would say, "let's do this!!!" you know you've played too much Wesnoth (way too much IMHO).

Back to the story (where you don't have overpowered strategists/units):
Niel:There are too many for us to fight! Fall back to the capital, we might be able to fend them off in its defenses!
Maia:We will! Bort shall not be destroyed by those evil beasts! Men, to the capital! There we will teach them the fear of fighting Bort!!! (ok there we got a problem. I wanted to say something like "Bortians" (like Russians, Americans, Frenchs, Britains...), not Bort, but... that sounds bad. Just my taste, anyone can think of something else ?)

And that's the end of the first scenario. Still need to add the death lines for each leader. And maybe a line for the orcish army.

About the units:
Maia has to get Li'sar's unit, if possible with a bow attack. Or the female counterpart of Konrad's unit (fighter, evolves into lord), but with Li'sar's sprite.
For Rey, i thought about getting the "sword mage" unit (fencer->sword mage->Knight of magic, no need for lvl 4, but get him +1 damage on his magic attack at lvl 3) from Dugi's era, as he needs to be absolutely perfect in everything (fencing and magic). Remove the "antisocial" ability, but don't add commandement, as there aren't many people that like him. If not possible, simply get Konrad's unit.
Already talked about Leo.
Niel is a master-at-arms, as classic as he can be.
Same thing for Angelo, just a fencer.

About the names. I went for it depending on what i wanted to do with them, some are out of my own imagination (Maia, Rey, Angelo), Niel and Leo i found on a classic name generator and i liked them. About mainline Wesnoth... Let's say i don't care. Names have always evolved, and actually depends on where you're born and which "era" you were born in, so let's say they had strange parents. Glad you seem to like them. But, if a lot of people say we should follow mainline, why not.


Here comes the map. I'm absolutely not proud of it, that's my first, so i implore you to give me advices to make it more balanced/more natural. It was done on 1.11.10, but doesn't use any special tiles or anything like that.

Did some small edits on my precedent post, correcting some typos, and changing who speaks in one of the dialogs.

[Paulomat4]

about the map:
It has an unnatural feel, because everything is so regular. Every single tile connecting the lake to the land has a ford, the forest edges are regular too, they are all the same kind of trees (normally one would meet different kind of trees), etc... Also, are you going for a village or a city? The current thing is rather small for a city (even perhaps for a village) but has stone pavement and those city villages.
The southern forest seemed unneeded. nobody would go there anyway, and no fighting would take place there. Same would go for the lake , but he adds a bit of change to the map.
To show you what I mean, I tried my hand at overhauling the map you posted. Please feel free to modify it.

About the units:
Maia has to get Li'sar's unit, if possible with a bow attack. Or the female counterpart of Konrad's unit (fighter, evolves into lord), but with Li'sar's sprite.
For Rey, i thought about getting the "sword mage" unit (fencer->sword mage->Knight of magic, no need for lvl 4, but get him +1 damage on his magic attack at lvl 3) from Dugi's era, as he needs to be absolutely perfect in everything (fencing and magic). Remove the "antisocial" ability, but don't add commandement, as there aren't many people that like him. If not possible, simply get Konrad's unit.
Already talked about Leo.
Niel is a master-at-arms, as classic as he can be.
Same thing for Angelo, just a fencer.

I think that's all a bit fencer oriented. You'd have 3. How about changing Niel to a royal guard? (which would fit, because he's guarding/teaching the princess).

[Raijer]

I think that's all a bit fencer oriented. You'd have 3

I intended to kill him in the next scenario (giving a loyal level 3 unit right from the start... maybe in your dreams), so i didn't really think about it that way. But you're right, so i agree with making him a royal guard.

About the map:I'm more going for a village, but didn't really know which keep to give it. You can do all the changes you need, i did it just to give an idea of what i thought of and give a map for the first scenario (things didn't really seem to get started up), even if it did need to be changed a lot. I will remember your advices to make better maps later (if i have the chance to).



Also, random idea, completely your choice as i don't really care, but after what you said about fencers, i thought i might make Rey a fencer that would then evolve in the royal guard line (with the same magic attack, of course), to protect the princess.

[Great_Mage_Atari]

I love where this is going. However, I don't believe it is necessary to begin the campaign with more than two or three "main" characters (i.e. characters that are either important or have a role). If you worry too much about too many characters right away, then attention is drawn away from gameplay. Also, standard Wesnoth names should be used when naming.

[Raijer]

However, I don't believe it is necessary to begin the campaign with more than two or three "main" characters

I might have gone too fast in there. I had a grandiloquent history ready, but you're right.

Going by that, i'm gonna keep 3 people: the princess, the perfect guy and the old mentor. The others will most likely appear in some scenarios, depending on the story (i can make the mage appear whenever i want, and i've got an idea of when i'm going to make the noble appear).

About the names... That's too bad. I liked how their names fitted them quite perfectly (though "Angelo" might have been too much), but i would like to at least keep Maia and Rey. I can change all the others' names, but those two are exactly what i want, and i would really want them.
For the old mentor, i'm gonna go with "Saent" which was created via Wesnoth (after lots of tries).

@Paulomat: seems like i have to redo the first scenario taking that into account. I'm gonna wait for Atari's answer before doing anything.

[Paulomat4]

I've been thinking about the names too, and thought that maia and rey were the names that we could keep. Also, what i've been thinking about, is to make the campaign also avaible as mp campaign, similar to "the legend of wesmere". This way, one would have two leaders in singleplayer and 2 player sides in multyplayer. This should be possible, (legend of wesmere shows how it's done) and I've allways wanted to create a mp campaign hybrid

[Raijer]

@Paulomat: Here's the reworked scenario, please start coding it. We can always rework the dialogs later, but it would be good to finally get the first scenario out.

Spoiler:

I used a ton of copy-paste from the first one, as it's jsut a matter of removing some characters.

Now the mentor's called Saent.

If possible, make it so that there are already 4-5 villagers and 4-5 orcs on the map, fighting at the limit of the town. No fog, no shroud. (i would also like to put 2-3 different corpses, put that can't really be done on Wesnoth, and i don't want skeletons)

As the battlefield was unfolding, i felt horrified at the violence of the attackers, which seemed to have no limit. It seemed like the whole field was covered by corpses
Maia: The battle have already started! To arms, men! There mustn't be any more deaths!
Saent: You heard the princess, soldiers. Go kill those beasts!

Battle starts:

Objectives:
Kill all enemy units (not only the leader. This is important)

Loss conditions:
Death of Maia, Niel or Rey
More than x villagers die (to be balanced, depends on difficulty)
Turns run out

Then, you kill every orc, and the last one you kill says:
Last orc standing: Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!(evilest laughter you can imagine) Can't you see our army coming ? They will destroy you, burn your houses, kill your children, make it so nobody will be able to live here for a thousand years and more. Hahahahahahaha...slash argh (any good idea for a dying sound ?)
If possible, the unit that's the closest to the left edge of the map, if not, Rey : My lady, i can see a dust cloud in the horizon! Seems like the army is indeed coming!
Maia: Regroup at the town! Start evacuating the villagers to the capital!

So they regroup in the city center (theorically, the village leader shouldn't be here, as he's supposed to flee to the capital. So only your leaders (Maia, Niel and Rey) are put in the city keep, right in the center of the map.

Then, dear WML master, please make something like that appear:
Orcish slurbows on the first column (the whole first column), and Orcish Warlords on the second column (you know, those guys with huge swords and a bow...).

Back to the story:
Niel:There are too many for us to fight! Fall back to the capital, we might be able to fend them off in its defenses!
Maia:We will! Bort shall not be destroyed by those evil beasts! Men, to the capital! There we will teach them the fear of fighting Bort!!! [ok there we got a problem. I wanted to say something like "Bortians" (like Russians, Americans, Frenchs, Britains...), not Bort, but... that sounds bad. Just my taste, anyone can think of something else ?)]

The units are the same as before (Maia->Li'sar with bow attack, Rey->fencer that advances to swordsman with fire magic attack, Saent->royal guard)

Ok now the death lines:

If Saent dies: Maia:[ Noooo, teacher, how can i lead my army without your advices? We still need your knowledge!

if Maia dies: Saent: How could i be so weak as to let her die? All hope is lost now that we lost the princess!

if Rey dies:no idea yet, let's hope nobody lets him die.

When turns run out: The orc leader/random orc still standing if you killed the leader before:Hahahahaha, the main army is here! You shall regret this, humans!

That should do it. For the balance, i would like it to be easy to win on normal, something like all 3 players have the same starting gold, so since you're 2 vs 1, you should win easily. The units you can recruit are all the loyalists' level 1 units (no thieves/dark adepts...). The village leader can recruit only peasants, pikemen and bowmen.

The orc leader should be an Orcish warrior (lvl 2), and can recruit the basic orcish units (Goblin spearmen too).

Turn limit should depend on how much gold we give each sides, but i think if we give 150 each, 15 turns should be enough (also depends on how you changed the map).

[Paulomat4]

Have you thought about the two leaders option?

Rey->fencer that advances to swordsman with fire magic attack

I think, that this would confuse players. I guess rey evolving into the mage-duelist from LOTI would be a better choice here.

[Raijer]

Indeed, since i removed the other fencers.
If you can make the map fit the 2 leaders option, i don't really mind. But then that means Rey will be a side leader in 2 players games, but not in single player games.

[Paulomat4]

well, as I see it, we could make it so that in sp the player has two leaders (as for example in LOTI, LOW or AOI), and in mp he becomes an entirely different side.
Or just leave him as normal hero, and let the player only have one leader.

[Raijer]

By 2 leaders, you mean 2 sides controlled by the player, which then separate when in multi-player, i suppose.
It's the best way to make the campaign playable for 1-2 players, though it usually annoys me as i never know which side has which veterans (but that's just me being lazy).

Making the second leader just a normal hero in single player was my first idea, but in fact, it got no real uses out of having only one turn to play. And isn't it a little harder to code (not sure) ? So anyway, let's use your first idea.

So the map has to be changed so you can put Maia in one keep, and Rey in the other. Saent should stay with Maia.

[Paulomat4]

No, what I meant is, that both rey and maia are leaders of the same side. They may have different recruit and recall lists (but that's no obligation) but they are on the same side. they share the gold, and no need to click end turn.

Also, do you want to have some introductory text at the beginning of the campaign? like maia telling: "I was born in the 5th century of .... as princess of the Kingdom of bort. The last princess of bort to be ever born.... etc."

[Great_Mage_Atari]

I love all the interest that has gone into this, and I believe I have come up with a rough draft of at least the first scenario and a bit of the after story. Once again, this is a community-created campaign, so any and all feedback is welcome. I would also like it if someone else who is skilled in WML could help me, as this campaign may be massive.

DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO DEVELOP:

Spoiler:

The story begins in a human kingdom of Bort (subject to change). The city has been threatened for years by numerous enemies based on its geographical location, but the kingdom has been able to handle the bulk of the attacks with ease. On a day like any other, our hero (or heroine) is set in charge of defending the city from attack while the cities army . After a week of nothing new, a large Elvish army attacks the kingdom (under as-of-yet undecided pretenses). The adviser (yet unknown as to which unit) to the hero suggests retreating from the city or surely suffering great casualties. After realizing that the odds are grim, the hero retreats with the inhabitants of the city in search for a place to stay. Knowing that they have at least a large amount of Elves against them, it makes their journey even more dangerous.

Suggested Units:

Spoiler:

-Mostly Loyalists, with the exception of maybe leaving a few units out to start off with.

-Adepts: As all the residents evacuated, those who practice the dark arts would also follow along. The hero would accept them as he or she really doesn't have a choice. (IMPORTANT: It may be implemented that either Mages or Adepts can be chosen, but not both, so keep that in mind when thinking up further scenarios.) Adepts will not have the choice to level into Lich's, so as to retain human form.

-Loyal Units: A wide range of loyal units can be picked up throughout the campaign, most likely being unique or not recruitable.

NOTE: For the sake of keeping the campaign as easy to follow as possible (as well as having ideal gameplay), the first campaign will most likely be full of mainline units.

[Raijer]

I've actually done an introduction in my first post:


"My name is Maia, and i'm the princess of Bort. As i write, our proud kindgom, which had never lost a war in his thousand years of history, is facing an unknown threat, more powerful than any ever faced. Random skirmishes has been reported in the last months, and i fear a stronger force might be behind them, testing our defenses and weakening us. I have moved to the village of Beemoor with my legion, as it has been under attack for 2 days now."

[Great_Mage_Atari]

I've actually done an introduction in my first post:


"My name is Maia, and i'm the princess of Bort. As i write, our proud kindgom, which had never lost a war in his thousand years of history, is facing an unknown threat, more powerful than any ever faced. Random skirmishes has been reported in the last months, and i fear a stronger force might be behind them, testing our defenses and weakening us. I have moved to the village of Beemoor with my legion, as it has been under attack for 2 days now."

I have read through your post, and though it could potentially work, I have gone the path of making it different than the typical "We don't know what is attacking us, so we'll go figure out". Also, I have made the Elves the beginning protagonist, which isn't done all that much from the start of a campaign. It should be interesting. Finally, I've left room for the following scenarios and the addition of character development. I also have not made names yet, as I'll figure those out once I play with some Wesnoth-compatible names.