After the Storm 0.10.18.1 [Wesnoth 1.14.x & 1.15.12+]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Would you play untested versions of IftU and AtS on Wesnoth 1.15.4+?

Poll ended at August 29th, 2020, 5:32 am

nah
1
10%
yee i can play on the latest wesnoth dev release
5
50%
i can play on wesnoth dev releases but no guarantees im going to be updating every time a new one comes out
1
10%
am big brain and can play on the wesnoth dev branch from git, who needs binary packages
1
10%
what the heck is wesnoth 1.15
2
20%
 
Total votes: 10

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Iris
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After the Storm 0.9.10 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Iris »

Version 0.9.10 is out.

Due to circumstances, it has been quite a while, and honestly I lost track of what this release was supposed to have besides a thing that requires another thing from another campaign that has not been completed or released yet. So let’s talk about what AtS 0.9.10 actually has.

Firstly, the minimum Wesnoth version requirement now is 1.11.11.

That’s right. Previous versions (including 1.10.x) are no longer supported. Ever since I moved to 1.11.x following the release of AtS 0.9.0, maintaining support for previous versions (including buggy development releases) required a series of unwieldy kludges that made the code uglier and harder to maintain and were, for the most part, untested beyond the classic “does it compile?” test. With all those bits gone, it will be easier to improve and optimize some aspects of the campaign, as well as work on the thing that requires the other thing I alluded to above.

For now, the first one such aspect I have worked on is converting several units to the 1.11.x animation WML syntax. Although some other people seem to prefer the new syntax over everything, I have chosen a more pragmatic approach for this campaign, so the set of units that I’ve converted in this release is rather limited. Hopefully more will follow soon, but I’m certain that there are a few for which the change hurts code readability. Plus, since most of my units are headbutters, the code size gains are marginal in the average case.

Finally, somebody reported to me of an issue with the player’s recall list and gold being discarded during certain key scenario transitions. It turns out this resulted from a change in Wesnoth 1.11.13 purportedly intended as a bug fix for MP campaigns. I was aware of the change and its implications at the time 1.11.13 was released, but I wrongly assumed AtS would not be impacted because I failed to take a tiny detail into account. Exactly three months later, I realized the sheer gravity of my mistake — but fortunately, it seems nobody else played AtS on 1.11.13+ in the meantime. (Thanks to RainerT for the report. This would have gone unnoticed for who knows how many more years months otherwise.)

As you can see, there is not a lot to talk about in this release other than the version requirement change. Since it’ll be a while before Wesnoth 1.12.0 is released, and AtS remains largely the same as it was the last time I posted in this topic, I believe stable version purists won’t be missing out on anything for now — at least not until the thing is done.

Also due to circumstances, this release is largely untested, so I would not be surprised if I accidentally broke a thing or two since 0.9.9.

The complete changelog for this version follows:

Code: Select all

Version 0.9.10:
---------------
* General:
  * Raised minimum game version requirement to 1.11.11. All existing
    compatibility code for previous versions has been removed.

* Graphics:
  * New or updated unit graphics: Sprite, Fire Faerie, Forest Spirit, Dryad,
    Demon Shapeshifter.

* Scenarios:
  * Added an option to certain scenarios to ensure Wesnoth does not discard
    the player's gold and recall list under certain circumstances due to a
    behavior change in version 1.11.13 and later. Affected scenarios:
    * E1S9.3 - The Triad, part 3
    * E1S11 - Return to Wesmere, part 2
    * E2S0 - Transience
    * E2S11 - A Final Confrontation
    * E3S0 - Opening (Within)
    * E3S6 - Divergence
    * E3S8B - Destiny, part 1
    * E3S11 - After the Storm

* Units:
  * Balancing changes:
    * Changed Leech's alignment from 'lawful' to 'neutral'.
    * Decreased Leech's HP from 62 to 42.
    * Decreased Leech's melee damage from 11-2 to 9-2.
    * Decreased Leech's unit level from 3 to 1.
  * Converted to the simplified 1.12 animation syntax:
    * Dusk Faerie, Night Nymph, Nightshade Fire
    * Sylvan Warden
    * Sprite, Fire Faerie, Dryad, Forest Spirit
    * Elvish Wayfarer
    * Faerie Avatar
    * Demoness Hellbent Tide
    * Verlissh Control Spire

* User interface:
  * Cutscene themes now use the 1.11.10 [theme] id attribute on 1.11.10 and
    later.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
caoraivoso3
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.10 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by caoraivoso3 »

dude i am playing this campaign on 1.11.15 and i am getting a save error past the campaign fear, in the campaign the triad (next one) i cannot save and automatic save can't save aswell. any ideia how to fix?

edit: it says save_game_failed
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.10 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by WanderingHero »

Love the campaign so far, but encountered a bug when I start part 3 with my Wesnoth 1.11.13 save. Each of the 3 heroes is now a slyph warden with the same sprite as Ely! What causes this and how do I fix it? Tried 1.11.15 and get the same thing
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.10 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by caoraivoso3 »

well i already finish the campaign( i think) but the story does not end there it should go till the destruction of uria. the campaign really ends when the fairie get some crazy power and all go black and you go to the main page?
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.10 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by WanderingHero »

Got past the "everyone is ely" glitched by using debug mode to clear the mission on the turn before and using that save.

I don't know if its a glitch, but in the 2nd scenario none of the enemies recruit. Is this an oversight?
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.10 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Iris »

The Elynia multiplication bug is actually a side-effect of the same bug that AtS 0.9.10 was supposed to fix (see the changelog in my previous post above). So you wouldn’t have encountered the issue if you had started over AtS E2S11 (A Final Confrontation) with version 0.9.10 on Wesnoth 1.11.13+, or added a certain line of code to the last mid-game save of the same scenario under the [snapshot] tag and resumed playing from there:

Code: Select all

remove_from_carryover_on_leaders_loss=no   # Wesnoth 1.11.13 and 1.11.14
remove_from_carryover_on_defeat=no    # Wesnoth 1.11.15 and later
Enemies not recruiting in E3S2 is most likely a bug resulting from the various compatibility-breaking changes in Wesnoth 1.11.10 and later that weren’t supposed to happen. Quite unfortunately, I don’t really feel motivated to look into this or do as much as even launch Wesnoth at the moment, so unless somebody else can reproduce and provide a fix for the bug, it may be a while before I can publish a fixed version 0.9.11.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
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After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Iris »

Version 0.9.11 is out.

Code: Select all

Version 0.9.11:
---------------
* General:
  * Work around bug in Wesnoth 1.11.17 that could cause units to be deleted
    from the game by units moving during cutscenes.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
Cashcam24
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Cashcam24 »

It's a great campaign so far but every time I play the scenario terror at dusk it crashes when my units are attacked.
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Iris »

Is that on the iPhone/iPad port? Because I’ve heard that before.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Cashcam24 »

Yeah it's on the iPad version
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Maiklas3000 »

The following reviews are for After the Storm 0.9.11, hard difficulty, under Wesnoth 1.11.17.

PART 1

The Skirmish
Difficulty: 6 or 7.
Challenges: The assault wave is scary and causes high casualties.
Fun: 8, I like smaller scenarios like this.
Restarts: None.
Replay: I recruited a lot of WC's and a few skeletons and advanced forward with my ally. I retreated back to the river area once my ally's banzai charge was spent. I lost a lot of units due to Skirmishers there. Walking Corpses helped boost my numbers via plague. This bought time for my three main units to turn the tide of battle.

High Pass
Starting gold: 308
Difficulty: 7.5, a nice level of difficulty.
Challenges: Being outnumbered, beating the final leader.
Fun: 9, a nice small scenario with some tactical challenges.
Restarts: None.
Replay: I made a long straight line anchored in the mountains, and I was surprised that the enemy numbers swelled to where they were going to flank me. I retreated into a hedgehog ball in the mountains and my critical units just barely survived. I advanced and killed the first leader. The next and final leader was trickier. I was running out of time, and Elynia's attempt to slow the lich leader backfired, critically wounding her. I had no choice but to attack with Mal, who would then also likely be critically wounded. Fortunately, his attack killed the lich. I won on turn 32/33. I took high losses from the initial assault wave, but got three L3's by the end.

Civil War
Starting gold: 382
Difficulty: 7.5 if you under-recruit, maybe a 5 if you spend all your gold.
Dialog: I suggest Mal's line about "attacking other elves" be given to an elf, like Galas. Also, Galas says "The situation is not improving. If those reinforcements don't arrive soon we won't be able to hold this place for much longer!", but at that point the battle was already won for me and I was just mopping up. At the end of that turn, there was just one elf anywhere near my forces: a near dead Elf Fighter in the water facing down a Royal Guard on a castle tile. And I under-recruited, so others will do better. I suggest you move that dialog at least a couple of turns earlier.
Challenges: The fort is poorly constructed (hard to set good lines), hard to avoid fighting in forest.
Fun: 9, I usually don't like three way battles, but this one is not too silly.
Changes: The scenario starts with an early finish bonus and 40% of gold carried over, but later changes this to no early finish bonus and 0% gold carried over. I've never noticed any scenario do that before, and I missed the change here, so I vastly under-recruited. I suggest you change it to make the carryover the same throughout the scenario, one way or the other. I think the scenario would be a lot better with a carryover, because it will be too easy if you spend all your gold.
Restarts: None.
Replay: I retreated to more defensible lines and awaited the elves, while sending a couple of bats to grab villages. I did a lot of fighting in open ground to avoid fighting elves in woods. My force became heavily wounded and used nearly every village for healing. I was just barely able to keep it under control on all fronts.

Terror at Dusk
Starting gold: 330 (the minimum, also the maximum)
Difficulty: 6.5
Challenges: Not getting flanked or skirmished.
Restarts: None
Fun: 8.5
Replay: I headed north to quickly kill that leader and was surprised to see the rapid advance of western forces. Fortunately, I was able to lure out the northern leader and kill him, otherwise I could have been overwhelmed. I formed a line against the western advance, but took heavy losses due to their mobility and skirmishing. After the wave was broken, it was just mop up operations, but it wasn't too boring. I foolishly lost a revenant to the northwest enemy leader, and I had to sacrifice an experienced bat to save a Shadow and Wraith after a failed attempt to kill the southwest leader. I won on turn 21/23.

Bay of Tirigaz
Starting gold: 397
Difficulty: 8
Challenges: L3 Saurian Flankers!
Restarts: None.
Fun: 8
Changes Orcs have... fountains? I hope those were built during a human occupation of the cities.
Replay: This scenario was a bloodbath. I tried to keep a line from my stronghold to the enemy stronghold, but I got myself in trouble, especially when I split off one group to head south. I lost three units in the southern group in one turn! I also lost many units up north. I should have perhaps done my usual strategy of letting the Saurians come to me at the board edge or corner.

The Search for the Past
Starting gold: 414
Difficulty: 5
Dialog: I feel that there should be some reward for actually reading the crystals. So, when the red crystal is triggered, I think it should be up to the player to figure out that Elynia needs to be the one to use the crystal. I suggest you move the explicit hint from Galas about 5 turns later or remove it entirely. (He says, "Elynia, you should check this crystal; it may have the information we need.") Also, I don't understand how they infer it is Argan's old lair when they see Ghouls and a Necrophage. Argan was associated with Minions and Drones and Armegeddon Imps. Ghouls, not so much. I don't remember any Ghouls or Necrophages in his army.
Challenges: Lesser Giant Spider bottleneck.
Fun: 7
Changes: I feel the cave is too sparcely populated, at least towards the end. Ghouls are not much of a challenge alone. Combined with L1 Minions, Blood Bats, or similar, the Ghouls' poison could be effective, by ZOC locking units. Also, the "enemy unit sighted" for "enemy" doors is silly, and what's even more funny is that I only just now figured out that it is the doors that triggers it, having been confused all through Invasion from the Unknown by these "false" sightings. The message is also annoying for leeches and other immobile monsters. Perhaps Wesnoth should be changed so that immobile monsters do not trigger this message and the "press t to continue" message (unless you are about to move adjacent to them.)
Replay: I recruited a Walking Corpse and 5 Goblin Spearmen, figuring they might not be of any use due to their slow speed, but as L0's they would not sap my gold. Unfortunately, 3 of the Goblins turned out to be slow, so they really were just a nuisance. I also recalled a Shadow, which I lost when three high success attacks failed against the Lesser Giant Spider. Fortunately, there was a keep right there, so I just recruited a couple of Ghosts and advanced one of them to Shadow and the other to Wraith. The rest of the scenario was pretty easy, with just poor cave mobility causing some challenges.

Fear
Starting gold: 678
Difficulty: 8, a real challenge.
Challenges: Keeping loyals alive, holding a long line over water and swamp using spam.
Fun: 10
Restarts: I lost a few times, restarting from start. I'm not a save-loader.
Replay: With this type of scenario, it usually works to either spam and be patient or bring in mostly L2's and L3's and blitz. I chose to spam and go slowly. I recruited Walking Corpses, Goblin Spearmen, and Vampire Bats, supplemented with Ghosts and the loyals, and made a line along the village next to the stronghold. I had the board edge for one flank, but the enemy attempted to flank around the other end in the water. Bats and Ghosts were barely able to hold there. I lost my loyal archer. I had put her on sand, which is 50% defense for her, but I should have kept her off the line at night. Once the enemy assault was broken, the fun began, with the advance of my spam army. I thought I was being careful, but a scary L3 leader swooped out of the fog and almost took out Elynia. I was more careful during my advance on the final leader. I won on turn 27/30.

The Triad - Part 1
Difficulty: 4
Fun: 10
Challenges: No real challenges, just hack-n-slash fun and plot advancement!
Restarts: None

The Triad - Part 2
Difficulty: 7
Fun: 9
Challenges: The ambush.
Restarts: I lost once, and restarted from start.
Changes: I don't really like Mal being able to pull skeletons out of his ass. It would be better if there were some keeps and he was given some gold (or some is hidden in chests).
Replay: I felt like I rushed into the ambush (knowing about it from my previous loss), leaving my forces split in two and also not in the best of health. However, I won on turn 20/20, so it looks like you do need to rush here. I liked the flash-bang that Elyssa pulls. You might want to build on that, like you could make a small object appear and Galas yell "Grenade! Hit the dir..." before the flash and boom.

The Triad - Part 3
Difficulty: 6
Fun: 10, it's like a novel you can't put down.
Challenges: Mal survived the ambush only because he AMLA'ed. It might have been harder otherwise.
Restarts: None.

Tears
Starting gold: 342
Difficulty: 7
Objectives: Not so clear. I wasn't initially sure if it was "AND" or "OR" (both objectives or just one.)
Fun: 9, a lot of fun, just a little anticlimatic towards the end.
Challenges: The initial assault wave plus those 44 damage drones that wait for you.
Changes: Maybe reduce turns to make for a more exciting finish.
Restarts: I lost due to not understanding the objectives, getting Elynia to the north edge, only to find that was insufficient. I restarted from start.
Replay: I did my favorite recruiting strategy of L1's up to my income, L0 spam, and finally one round of L2's for the last of my gold. This seemed to work great. I did go negative on income, but eventually it switched and my gold went positive. My Walking Corpses did more good than I expected, though they dropped behind after the first skirmish, never to assist again. I was glad I went heavy on bats, which helped plug holes in my lines and lure out enemy leaders. I recalled three Shadows to help with killing the leaders. I headed east and then north, since that seemed the safest route. I pretty much steamrollered the enemy, but only barely; the combats were tense, requiring thought and judicious gambling. I finished on turn 18/30 with a good early finish bonus.

Return to Wesmere - Part 1
Starting gold: 465
Difficulty: 6.5
Dialog: You know nothing, John Snow.
Fun: 8, a bit too much like the previous scenario.
Challenges: Dealing with two L2 Demonesses at the same time was tricky.
Changes: To make it different from Tears, I suggest bats spawning out of the holes or else a river. If you add a river, I suggest putting it near the northern fortress, as additional defense.
Restarts: I lost once, due to death of Kyara. Restarted from start.
Replay: Much like the previous scenario, I recruited L1's up to my limit, then L0's, then one round of mostly L2's, which again worked out pretty well for gold. I went heavy on Shadows, Wraiths, and Ghosts, and this proved a good strategy in the everlasting night here, but you need to protect them from the fire-breathing demons and arcane-shooting Chaos Invokers. I killed the southwest leader first, then headed north while dispatching a small squad to kill the southeast leader. I took some losses, but got a lot of promotions, and finished on turn 21/30.

Departure (cutscene)
Dialog: "I know you cared about the boy much like cared about Argan" should have another "you" in there, i.e., "I know you cared about the boy much like you cared about Argan". In the same dialog, "your self" should be "yourself".

Return to Wesmere - Part 2
Difficulty: 5
Fun: 8
Challenges: Patience.
Changes: Upon victory, you get an overwrite replay warning, due to the scenario names being basically the same. I suggest the name be changed.
Restarts: None.
Replay: I recalled a Nightgaunt, a Shadow, a Dark Sorcerer, an Orcish Warrior, my loyal Marshal, and my loyal Shyde. That proved to be a pretty good force for the next scenario. Maybe a Spectre would have been better than the Orcish Warrior.

The Queen
Difficulty: 7
Fun: 10
Challenges: It's a hell of a way to lose a roster.
Changes: The cut between scenarios is strange and awkward. I got two consecutive combat turns without the enemy getting to respond. Maybe this scenario should start on the enemy's turn.
Restarts: None.
Replay: There's not much of interest until the boss. I foolishly attacked it several times the first turn. Then I killed the matrix hubs and, with a couple of Nightgaunts, the boss went down instantly.

Final thoughts on Part 1
It's enthralling. Great story telling. What's missing is much strategic level thinking in combat. However, it can hardly be faulted for that. Great job. The last part of the campaign is similar to Invasion from the Unknown, in that you get to recall just a few units and that's it, but it works better here since the period is shorter.
••••
PART 2

By the Moonlight
Difficulty: 8
Fun: 9
Challenges: The initial combat is tricky, and the Lich can be difficult to take down with a Footpad army.
Changes: Nitpick... When Elynia is first spotted by the townsfolk, she can be hidden in forest. Similarly, when Daent gives his first dialog, he might not have ever been seen, like if a non-quick Thug is the one to trigger the dialog. You could fix the first one by removing all the forest near the town, which would give the player a dilemma as a plus. For the second glitch, you could perhaps cause Daent's hex to be revealed automatically when his dialog is triggered.
Restarts: I lost 3 times, restarting from start each time.
Replay: I recruited mostly Ruffians, plus a couple of Footpads and a Sprite. I backstabbed my ally and stole all his villages, which helped create enough recruits to win the initial battle. The Revenants weren't hard to take down, since Elynia was able to slow them. I thought the Lich would be really hard to take down, but I lured him onto ice, hit him with one Bandit at dawn, and gave the killing blow to a Ruffian. (The XP would have been better spent elsewhere, but I wasn't sure I was going to be able to recruit Thugs in the next scenario.)

The Heart Forest
Starting gold: 322
Difficulty: 8
Fun: 6, suffers from triggers.
Dialog: The end dialog was awfully laid back, considering that I had one Faerie who was about to die and a critically injured Outlaw who needed someone to jump in the water to block for him. I suggest you have one of the remaining outlaws (if any) say "We give up!" and possibly remove the bandits before starting the end dialog.
Challenges: If you trigger the bandits while far away or still fighting many trolls, you will lose. The second wave of bandits is also stressful. The Water Serpent jumping out of the fog was nasty. The bridge is the final challenge.
Changes: It's logical to go north along the board edge, in which case you will trigger the bandits far, far away, with no chance of saving the girl. This qualifies as a "tomato surprise," I think. I suggest the designer either remove the trigger or encourage the player to go northwest by putting a big lake or swamp on the eastern edge.
Restarts: I lost three times, restarted from start each time.
Replay: I recruited three rounds of L0's and L1's, then headed north and west to confront the trolls. I was trying not to trigger the bandits, but I did eventually hit the trigger, and then it became quite tense fighting both trolls and bandits, and I took some losses. Meanwhile, the northern leader had started recruiting, and his wave of mostly Poachers and Thieves hit just as I was finishing the last of the trolls and first bandits. I formed a straight line, since it was an intimidating force. The AI flanked my line just when he was getting low on units, which made it easier to finish them off. As I approached the river, a Water Serpent jumped out of the fog and almost took out one of my Faeries. I'm glad the Faerie survived, because I needed both my Fire Faeries to support my bridge assault (since they can go on deep water.) I probably should have backed up and defeated the enemy as he crossed the bridge, but I thought I could force my way across and instead got jammed up. The AI has an interesting strategy of trying to cut off the retreat of the lead unit. However, putting his leader in water to cut off my lead unit's retreat was a big gamble that he lost, due to my Faeries maneuvering to subject him to multiple attacks.

Shifting Allegiances
Starting gold: 359
Difficulty: 9 the first time, 5 after you've lost once.
Fun: 7, I prefer scenarios that don't require a loss in order to gain the wisdom for victory.
Objectives: It was slightly confusing when it said I needed to defeat the enemy leader, when I was facing three enemy leaders. Maybe explicitly say "Elorran".
Dialog: Zynara looks exactly like that Necromancer of Uria, uh, you don't think...
Challenges: Shifting objectives.
Changes: I was surprised how quickly Elorran's forces were overrun. With his forces wiped out, I shielded Elorran with four Vampire Bats, who all died in one round. The next round I sent (critical) Zynara to help, and she was pinned and a round later killed. By then I had noticed that Elorran seemed to be immortal, but it was already game over. To avoid this, my suggestion would be to have one of the player's units comment that Elorran seems incapable of being wounded, after he is successfully attacked. Also, there is a bug: the unit description of Drones is "This unit is unknown for the moment. You must discover it in the game to be allowed to see its description." It said this even after one of my units killed one and one killed one of my units. Same for the Enforcer Drone. Other units seem to be okay.
Restarts: One loss, restarted from start.
Replay: I recruited too big a force, in part because I feared another shift of objectives where I would have to fight the immortal Elorran at the end. I went heavy on Faeries, Bandits, and Ghosts, with a few Bats and Ruffians. Non-quick Bandits and Ruffians were too slow, being late to the attacks on the leaders, so I would recommend just Faeries, Ghosts, and Bats. I sent everybody (except some bats) along the bottom edge, and killed the two leaders there for the win.

The Eastern Front
Starting gold: 354
Difficulty: 7.5, perfect.
Fun: 10, perfect.
Dialog: The dialog reflected my own thoughts, "What are we gonna do?!" Slightly less than perfect was the end dialog from the dying leader. IMO, dying leaders should not be verbose and eloquent with their last breath.
Challenges: Being surrounded, facing a large, balanced force with Acolytes.
Changes: I love you just the way you are.
Restarts: None.
Replay: I recruited a little of everything, with an emphasis on units with high defense in the open: Faerie, Ghost, Bat, and Footpad lines. I created a line to the northwest that would force my opponent to fight in the open. I flanked on both sides, annihilated the forces, and killed the leader. Meanwhile, the assault wave from the other two leaders had arrived. This fight was more stressful, since my forces were already heavily wounded and many units spent their time healing, but soon I was on the offensive again. I lost a Wraith and three Ghosts, one of which had advanced to Shadow, ouch. This was due to arcane attacks from Acolytes and one of the leaders. So, Ghost line units are not a good choice for this scenario. The mop up was not boring, since my forces were spread out and some were busy recapturing villages.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Starting gold: 241
Difficulty: 5
Fun: 7, pretty vanilla.
Dialog: "Admiral, there be whales in here!"
Challenges: Not much, maybe village snatching wolves.
Changes: Might as well add thirst to make this more of a challenge. Maybe whales too.
Restarts: None.
Replay: I recruited a mixed force and sent a task force to grab villages in the east, while the main force went south. I send my compliments to the AI for not biting bait put out by the east task force, and instead subtly trying to encircle them with Wolf Riders on each side and assassins and archers in the middle, forcing me to retreat my task force. Then the AI sent the Wolf Riders to grab my initial villages, much to my annoyance. Meanwhile, my main force just steamrollered the opposition and coasted to an easy victory on turn 28/36.

Proximus
Starting gold: 272
Difficulty: 9, due to time and the requirement of using Elynia to kill Zynara.
Fun: 8, it would be a 9 without that requirement. Does it really add anything?
Dialog: At the start, I don't really like that Elynia and Zynara stop to have a conversation in the middle of a deadly magical battle. Additionally, the conversation is silly, "You betrayed us!" Yeah, no s**t, Sherlock. At the end, it's implied that Zynara dies, but Elynia then says "she is...", referring to Zynara in the present tense, unless she was referring to another female.
Challenges: It's stressful to break the initial assault, and then a rapid advance needs to be made to kill the leaders in time.
Changes: Zynara should transform into a Necromancer, not a Lich, IMO, although then the problem is that the player might have already leveled her to Necromancer from Dark Sorcereress. (I tried not to, but I still did.) You could have her throw away all her experience when she should have leveled from Dark Sorcereress with some dialog from her, "Oh, I am so stupid, maybe I will never advance!" She is called a Necromancer in the dialog, and I don't think she could cover up her Lich bones with a spell that would confuse Elynia. Additionally, I think she should run out into the fog (fake move) rather than just disappearing. Also, I strongly believe the player needs a reminder that Zynara can only be killed using Elynia, like when another unit attacks the Zynara, Elynia can say, "No, leave her to me!" I forgot and lost a couple of times because of it and was swearing at the RNG. :lol: Or better yet, just get rid of the requirement. And then this is a general Wesnoth bug, I think, but the Chaos Invokers use their 2-1 melee attack to bash Thugs rather than just zapping them. Sure, Thugs have 20% Arcane resistance, but big deal, a Chaos Invoker will still do more damage with its ranged arcane attack, plus it will take no retaliation damage. Shamans sometimes do the same thing here and in other campaigns, but since their ranged attack is weaker and the melee attack is stronger (compared to Chaos Invokers), it is not such a huge mistake or can even be a good play.
Restarts: At least three losses, restarted from start each time.
Replay: I recruited only L0's and L1's. In retrospect, I think recalling some ready-to-level L1's might be wise, since healing all the damage is a problem here. As in recent scenarios, I emphasized units that have high defense on bad terrain: Ghosts, Bats, Sprites, and Footpads. I also recruited a couple of Thugs to bash skeletons. I formed a straight line, which the enemy bent back on the left, turning it into a "V". After the assault was broken, I advanced on the enemy leaders. I tossed a Fire Faerie to Zynara to lure her closer, and fortunately the Faerie survived and Elynia was able to kill Zynara in two rounds. (I think Elynia's attacks always succeed on Zynara - and of course other units' attacks always miss.) I finished on turn 24/24.

And then there was Chaos
Starting gold: 260 (minimum is 180)
Difficulty: 9
Fun: 10
Dialog: Excellent.
Challenges: Survival, time, getting up the guts to attack false Lady of Light with Elynia.
Restarts: I lost twice, restarting from start each time.
Replay: I recruited one round of spam, then one round of L3's. This was the first time I've resigned myself to go negative on gold. I made a "V" shaped line rooted at the village just northwest of my stronghold, broke the assault, and then advanced on the leaders. It's scary to attack the Lady of Light with a ranged attack from Elynia, because Elynia can go down to ~11 HP, which is what happened to me. Fortunately, the game ended at that point with the Lady of Light running off. I won on turn 36/38 with -339 gold.

New Hive
Starting gold: 100 (the minimum)
Difficulty: 7, less after you know you need to hurry.
Fun: 8
Changes: Shouldn't gate crystals be a different color than healing crystals? [Edit: Oh, I see now that gate crystals are turquoise and healing crystals are blue, okay.]
Restarts: I lost due to time, not even close the first time, restarted from start.
Replay: I recalled my new loyals and recruited bats and tried to go as fast as possible. Bats help with the gate crystals. Towards the end, I recalled a couple of Shadows. Elynia reached the exit on turn 33/41.

The Betrayal
Starting gold: 130 (the minimum)
Difficulty: 8
Fun: 8
Objectives: I wasn't sure if there was going to be carryover and early finish bonus. (There is.)
Dialog: Fine.
Challenges: The biggest challenge is the troops pouring into the first crossroads from far away.
Changes: I think there should be a lot less villages, because I wound up with 1490 gold for the last scenario.
Restarts: The first time, I lost when I defeated the Hell Guardian at the crossroads just as the recruits of distant leaders were arriving and I got overwhelmed. The second time I went so conservatively at the start that I ran out of time, which is a bummer in an 84 turn scenario. I restarted from start and won the third time.
Replay: I recruited lightly, just my loyals and some L0's and L1's. I like the initial combat, because it is in close quarters and unusual, but it's rather easy when the enemy does not recruit any skirmishing demons. I advanced rapidly to secure the crossroads before more enemy would arrive. I did a holding action in one tunnel while advancing in the other, and finally I was able to break through on both fronts, kill both leaders, and activate the gate crystals. Meanwhile, I had sent some of my slowest troops to wait at the gate, but I also should have sent my very slowest, the two loyal Elf Fighters (now Marshall and Captain.) I finished on turn 64/84 with 1290 gold, plus early finish bonus.

A Final Confrontation
Starting gold: 1490
Difficulty: 7
Fun: 7, you're mostly along for the ride here, like a movie, not much strategy.
Objectives: I had a negative reaction to the changing objectives here. The first time that is says the objectives are to last until the end of turns, I considered running like hell with all my troops. Then almost the next turn, the objectives change to where Elynia has to attack the Lich. This contributes to my feeling that I'm a passive observer to events that I cannot control.
Dialog: "Search the chamber - there must be some mechanism for controlling [the spires.]" Although I thought this might be a red herring, I still tried to search the chamber and found nothing. I guess the Lich is the control mechanism. Maybe tweak the dialog to hint at this, e.g., Elynia: "There must be something controlling them." Anya: "Something... or someone."
Changes: Maybe for this scenario and the previous, allow only recalls, no recruits. The idea is to make your roster be of some assistance at the end of the campaign, rather than being able to beat the scenarios with raw recruits. I don't like when Elynia is suddenly able to fly. She can teleport. Let her teleport there instead. Also, it would be nice to have more choice in this scenario. For example, maybe it should be possible to wound/kill the Lich. And maybe the objectives should not change to kill Ivyel, but there should just be a hint to do so, and the objectives could be "Find some way to weaken Mal Hekuba." Also, I didn't understand why killing Ivyel should make any difference. Maybe I missed some dialog somewhere. Isn't Ivyel the same sort of thing as the fake Lady of Light apparition in the previous scenario? "Killing" it didn't do anything. I was even more confused when I thought that Ivyel was responsible for Elynia's sudden healing. Maybe change the dialog to make it clear why she has suddenly healed.
Restarts: None.
Replay: Despite my 1490 starting gold, I recruited/recalled fairly lightly. I recalled a bit more in the final chamber. I used Spectres, Nightgaunts, and a Dread Bat to take down Ivyel, since it seemed too dangerous to use Elynia. I won on turn 33/52 with 1170 gold remaining.

Final thoughts on Part 2
It's a great story, and I appreciate the enormous effort that went into it. "The Eastern Front" and "And then there was Chaos" are two scenarios where victory requires good strategy, not just tactics, and I just wish there were more like that. There is just one scenario that is too easy, The Voyage Home, so it begs to be toughened. And again I point to the general goal of a campaign usually being to groom your roster and accumulate gold for the final battle. There is some aspect of that here, like for me Nightgaunts helped take down Ivyel in the final scenario, but since I got 1490 gold from the previous scenario, The Betrayal, I suspect ~70 Ghosts could have done the job too. So, getting rid of most of the villages in The Betrayal would help make your roster mean something in that scenario and the last.
••••
PART 3

Beyond her Smile
Difficulty: 7
Fun: 8
Changes: Early finish bonus is 2 less per turn compared to owning all villages.
Restarts: None.
Replay: I recruited mostly Ruffians. Just when I was about to rush Elynia back to recruit more units, the enemy assault waned. Then it was mostly boring mopup operations, going west to kill the two leaders there. I hadn't noticed the northeast leader(!), so I lost some turns running back.

Return to Raelthyn
Starting gold: 284. I have all loyals.
Difficulty: 9.5
Fun: 10. Now this is what I'm talking about! This is a scenario where your strategy must be novel, and any simple strategy will fail!
Dialog: I always get lost at "Lord Torancyn said we should take them down no matter the cost." That gets my attention, but "them" refers to "strange exploding creatures" from several paragraphs ago, so it's too long ago for me to be sure to what "them" refers. I think it would be better to call them "exploding drones" or "mechanical beasts that explode", and then to use "drones" or "machines" to refer to them rather than "them". About the statue dialog, it's interesting, but if you can make it fire only once that would be better, and also I think it would be better if it were to read as an engraving under the statue, e.g., "In celebration of our great victory over the North Peoples, we the Aragwaithi people dedicate this statue of Adavyan..." About the dialog after the destruction of the last Destructor Drone, if possible this dialog would be better after the explosion.
Objectives: It is critical to understand "Adavyan's Keep comprises the initial keep and castle tiles where Torancyn stands," but I found the wording awkward and confusing. Better: "Adavyan's Keep comprises his initial keep hex and its associated castle tiles." I got an 85 gold bonus at the end of one game. Maybe that was for killing some leaders. Whatever it was, maybe it should be stated in the objectives, or else the gold could be given during the game.
Challenges: OMG. It's hard enough to kill those Destructor Drones, but then you have those hordes of enemies, and when they are combined, they are very dangerous. Also, this is one of those scenarios where you have several fronts, all difficult, and if any one front fails, you lose, so it's a nightmare, but perhaps appropriate for the third sub-campaign.
Changes: I suggest Destructor Drones should be called "Doomsday Drones," because they tend to take out friend and foe alike and can singlehandedly end the game. I suggest Lancers should be called anything but Lancers since they look like Lancers and they sound like Lancers, but they are most definitely not Lancers. (They don't have charge ability.) I suggest "Dressage Warrior", " Chevauchée", or "Mounted Pikeman".
Restarts: I lost like four times due to Valen dying, even though each time I sent him to a different front. I then won with one reload to save Torancyn. Then I replayed from start for a clean victory.
Safety Instructions: Congratulations on your purchase of a Shaxtal Technologies Destructor Drone(TM), the very best doomsday device money can buy! Knowing how your Destructor Drone operates will be critical to getting the most out of this device while remaining alive. We have programmed your Destructor Drone to have as its top priority to survive until it reaches its specified objective. Once reaching its objective, it will self-destruct, obliterating everything (and we do mean everything) in its immediate vicinity. It will also self-destruct if destroyed prematurely by outside forces. The care and feeding of your Destructor Drone is important to your survival. Feed it melee units, such as Thugs, to keep its attacks directed away from units you value. Your Destructor Drone will travel to the ends of the Earth for a chance to kill even a mere Vampire Bat, which may keep it from reaching its objective. Should you need to destroy your Destructor Drone, use powerful attacks until it is somewhat wounded, then you may need to select weaker attacks to avoid destroying it before you can clear your important units from its immediate area. It is impossible to destroy a Destructor Drone without losing at least one unit. Your Destructor Drone is equipped with a poison self-defense system, so be aware that melee units attacking it may become poisoned. If poisoned by a Destructor Drone, seek immediate medical assistance.
Replay:
  • With Elynia, I recruited L1's up to my limit and recalled my loyals, then recruited L0's, and at the end of my gold I recalled everybody I could, which wasn't much, but I did have a L3 Forest Spirit. I recruited a fair number of Ghosts, with dreams of assassinating the leaders with Shadows, but all the Ghosts died (two died in Destructor Drone explosions, one kill and one assist.) I migrated Elynia to the southern keep, which has one more recruitment hex than the initial keep. With Torancyn, I went heavy on Spearmen, who are pierce resistent, and Eagle Riders, who are good for panic situations, of which there will be many. Also, if strong/resilient Eagle Riders have more than 36 HP, then they can take a double hit from a Destructor Drone and keep on ticking.
  • On the northeastern front, I tried to use minimum force and go a minimum distance eastwards, because it's a long walk back west. Blitzing the eastern leader isn't worth it, since he doesn't have much gold, and you have a zillion loyals to protect. On this play, I decided to send my Eagle Master and Lancer immediately west, because you're going to win the northeastern front battle without even trying.
  • On the northwestern front, I focused initially on taking out those hula girls from hell (also known as Demon Stormtides.) On the first allied turn, if you move up a Strongbow, a hula girl will attack and they will likely cripple each other, so then you retreat that Strongbow and finish off the hula girl with another Strongbow and/or Eagle Riders and/or Eagle Master. However, in the replay note that the critically wounded hula girl survived 6 attacking units (including two L2's) to survive another round! Hula girls have 50% defense, which is not so high that you would expect such an occurrence. The second hula girl was just about as hard to finish off. The hula girls are skirmishers, as are other units in the area, so I tried hard to keep a solid line, paying for it in Eagle Rider blood.
  • On the southwestern front, on turn 4, I had arranged such a powerful defensive line near the castle that the enemy hesitated and grouped his forces. Once the enemy attacked, my line was stressed to the breaking point, while enemy bats picked off the fleeing wounded. Eventually, Anya teleported there (after one of my bats had reflagged an allied village in the area) and was a big help in securing the castle, since very few of my allied units were still in fighting shape. Meanwhile, I had distracted the southwestern Destructor Drone with a single Longswordsman and then a single Vampire Bat.
  • On the southeastern front, I distracted the southeast Destructor Drone using several units. The enemy sent some units over, and I got rather unlucky in combat against them, but prevailed. Eventually, I was down to just a Scout and I decided to let the Destructor Drone do its thing, since it was getting late in the game and it was still far from the castle and most of my forces. Meanwhile, I had let most of the southeastern enemy's troops advance unimpeded, and that made my tense situation at the castle even worse. There, a Chaos Magus arrived, flanked by a Gunner and an Invader. Torancyn and several other units took them down. Torancyn is an awesome fighter (11-5 melee-blade marksman), but by now he was heavily wounded and withdrew to a village for some well-deserved R&R.
  • I killed the last Destructor Drone on about turn 19. I was nowhere close to finishing off the leaders, having only killed the northeastern one, so I just waited until the end of turns at turn 20. I think I managed to keep all my loyals.
Amidst the Ruins of Glamdrol
Starting gold: 182, plus all loyals.
Difficulty: 8, if you don't want to lose any loyals.
Fun: 8
Dialog: I suggest fewer pronouns here and in other scenarios.
Challenges: Facing your fate. Defeating leader guards.
Restarts: Restarted from start two times after losing loyals.
Replay: I sent everybody east, then south. I won barely in time on turn 20/20.

Note: I'll edit this post with later reviews and to attach a zip file of all the replays once I am finished.
Last edited by Maiklas3000 on November 2nd, 2014, 5:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Iris
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Iris »

@Maiklas3000:
Spoiler:
Regarding E2S10 and E2S9, solving several difficulty imbalance issues with them (plus eliminating the frustratingly long crawl at the end of E2S10) is actually on my to-do list. The original plan was to get it done for version 0.9.10 along with a certain other thing, but that didn’t happen and I’m still not quite back from my Wesbreak on the UMC front.
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
bendare
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by bendare »

Hi there
First time forum user, so apologies for any blunders. Just come back to Wesnoth after a while away, so just installed Wesnoth 1.12 today. After the Storm fetched up as the User Campaign to play, so downloaded that too through the wesnoth in-game interface (0.9.11).
But I get an error:
The following add-on had errors and could not be loaded:
C:/Program Files (x86)/Battle for Wesnoth 1.12.0\userdata/data/add-ons\After_the_Storm/_main.cfg

Please report this to the author or maintainer of this add-on.

Details:

Macro/file 'TRI_TRASH_BASE' is missing
at ~add-ons\\After_the_Storm\\terrain-graphics\\_final.cfg:38
included from ~add-ons\\After_the_Storm\\base-loader.cfg:6 included from ~add-ons\\After_the_Storm\\_main.cfg:163 included from ~add-ons\\After_the_Storm\\base-loader.cfg:84
included from ~add-ons\\After_the_Storm\\_main.cfg:163
What to do? Any more info needed?
Thanks in advance
Ben
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by Iris »

Did you install any other add-ons? I just downloaded AtS from the add-ons server into a clean 1.12.0 install and it worked without any issues. This error you encountered sounds like somehow one of its files was damaged or became missing. Perhaps you could try reinstalling it?
Author of the unofficial UtBS sequels Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm.
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Re: After the Storm 0.9.11 [Wesnoth 1.11.11+]

Post by gnombat »

shadowm wrote:This error you encountered sounds like somehow one of its files was damaged or became missing. Perhaps you could try reinstalling it?
[acronym=For What It's Worth]FWIW[/acronym] I tried installing it and it gives me the same error.
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