Carved in Stone 0.8.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.13]

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gooby
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by gooby »

I'll answer the other stuff later because I'm tired, I just want to bang out a description for our Tyrserker Grim here real quick:

"Ferocity in battle is a hallmark of the Dwarvish race and there are those who take this trait to extreme, even pathological heights. The Dwarvish Tyrserker throws himself into the enemy's midst, wildly carving his path to victory or death with unshakable faith in the keen edge of his axe and the ancient protector god of the Dwarves, who is said to have lost a hand binding a great, ravenous wolf who menaced the whole world in the heart of the earth to remain there until the end of days. So too will a Tyrserker risk life and limb to defend his people. With time, a Tyrserker can become increasingly inured to wounds, land harder and harder blows on the foe, fall into a bloody frenzy under pressure and even gain renewed strength from seeing the enemy fall all around him. Wherever the manic laughter of the Tyrserker is heard, blood turns to ice in the veins of all those would dare threaten the Dwarvish kind."

This description was written on the entirely reasonable assumption that the name was a reference to Týr.
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Kwandulin
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Kwandulin »

Factoring the (unlockable) abilities into the description is the way to go. The description is amazing! Mentioning a dwarvish god feels a bit odd, though, as there is no such clue about a god in the campaign. In fact, with the prefix "tyr" I don't mean the nordic god Tyr himself, but rather his warlike nature. Refering to the dwarvish forefathers might be a better choice, as I made several links to them (e.g. the fortification in The March; the Iron Bulwark that had been crafted by generations of dwarves; or the dwarvish centurion that were more common in the times of the forefathers).

I'd suggest something like this (changing the god theme into a valhalla-like theme) :
Ferocity in battle is a hallmark of the Dwarvish race and there are those who take this trait to extreme, even pathological heights. The Dwarvish Tyrserker throws himself into the enemy's midst, wildly carving his path to victory or death with unshakable faith in the keen edge of his axe and the will to join the ranks of the ancient dwarvish forefathers, who are said to have won battles and wars in which they were highly outnumbered and whose warrior souls are said to rest in the heart of the earth to remain there until the end of days. So too will a Tyrserker risk life and limb to defend his people. With time, a Tyrserker can become increasingly inured to wounds, land harder and harder blows on the foe, fall into a bloody frenzy under pressure and even gain renewed strength from seeing the enemy fall all around him. Wherever the manic laughter of the Tyrserker is heard, blood turns to ice in the veins of all those would dare threaten the Dwarvish kind.
gooby
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by gooby »

Well it's your campaign, so I'll roll with it:

"Ferocity in battle is a hallmark of the Dwarvish race and there are those who take this trait to extreme, even pathological heights. The Dwarvish Tyrserker throws himself into the enemy's midst, wildly carving his path to victory or death with unshakable faith in the keen edge of his axe and in his destiny to enter the ranks of the ancient Dwarvish forefathers, who are said to have fought and died in battles in which they were greatly outnumbered and whose warrior souls now have been richly rewarded with an afterlife of feasting and brawling in the heart of the earth until the end of days. So too will a Tyrserker gladly risk life and limb to defend his people, knowing the rewards in the hereafter. With time, a Tyrserker can become increasingly inured to wounds, land harder and harder blows on the foe, fall into a bloody frenzy under pressure and even gain renewed strength from seeing the enemy fall all around him. Wherever the manic laughter of the Tyrserker is heard, blood turns to ice in the veins of all those would dare threaten the Dwarvish kind."

How's that? I changed things around a little to match more closely the Valhalla theme you mentioned. Death in battle rather than of old age is something seen as desirable and they do not rest in the earth but get the full Valhalla treatment:

Image
Last edited by gooby on August 6th, 2015, 9:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Kwandulin
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Kwandulin »

That's exactly how I imagined this! Good work!

Edit: A first attempt at Skjol, the protector:
Wearing a mighty armour and shield that have been passed on by generations of dwarves, the dwarvish protectors withstand even the sharpest weapons and hottest flames. The protectors are a rare caste of dwarves that have sworn allegiance to protect the lord of the clan they belong to. As such, the protectors are often seen in the throne halls of the imposing fortifications. Standing still for days and days and being blesses with a stoic mind, they are often mistaked for lifeless statues of stone that grace the inner halls and resemble the mightiest warriors of old times. In times of war, the protector stands side by side with their clanmates and lords, his mighty shield protecting not only himself but also the warriors at his side. Being able to call forth thunder strikes with his voice alone, the enemy army often scatters, even before a battle takes place.
gooby
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by gooby »

Pretty good. I would make a few alterations:

"Wearing mighty armour and a shield that have been passed on through generations of Dwarves, the Dwarvish Protectors withstand even the most vicious weapons and hottest flames. The Protectors are a rare caste of Dwarves that have sworn allegiance to the lord of the clan to which they belong and will die to protect him. As such, the Protectors are often seen in the throne-halls of the imposing fortifications of the Dwarves. Standing still for days on end and blessed with a stoic mind, they are often nearly mistaken for the lifeless statues of stone that grace the inner halls made in the likeness of the greatest warriors of yore. In times of war, Protectors stand side by side with their clanmates and lords, their mighty shields protecting not only themselves but also the warriors at their sides. Being able to call forth lightning strikes with their voice alone, the enemy army often scatters before a battle even takes place."

If you want me to explain any of the changes I made here, I can do so.
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Inky
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Inky »

Carved in Stone v 0.7.0.2 (Wesnoth v 1.12.4, Normal difficulty)

Amazing campaign so far! Nice to see a Dwarf campaign- they are very rare for some reason.

Individual Scenario comments:
Spoiler:
Typos
Spoiler:
General:
-Overall I felt it was well balanced for an intermediate campaign, possibly with the exceptions of Scenario 5 Mermen Outpost and S10 The Iron Bulwark being too easy, and S12 The Human Army being too hard.
-The protect ability doesn't seem to do anything, and attempting to view the description gives an error.
-Skjol's overlay when he gets the protect ability covers up his orb, so I can never tell whether I've moved him or not - maybe it could be recentered? (By the way, the overlay looks very cool!)
-The human crusader unit is very weak; being lawful in a cave-heavy campaign doesn't help. Maybe he could be fearless so he is not so useless in those scenarios.
-The dwarvish icesaints seem quite overpowered - magic attacks, slowing, teleport, good resistance, massive HP. They completely take the challenge out of S10 The Iron Bulwark for example.

Regarding the new dwarvish units:
-The lvl 4 fighter (Centurion) and Brewmaster were awesome and extremely useful. The level 3 gryphon riders were also very nice to have.
-The crossbow units (scoundrels) were useless. I leveled one out of curiosity and never used it. They are just too weak: low HP and low damage, and the AMLA's don't improve them much. By comparison, the Brewmaster has a comparable ranged attack, but has much more HP, and even heals +8!
-The lvl 4 guardsman (Thane) doesn't seem worth leveling either. Low damage and very high XP needed - the only use would be the protect ability but most units already have high resistances and Skjol has protect anyway.
-A level 3 ulfserker... I would be extremely impressed if anyone managed to level one of these! Even if you did level one, it would probably die to a single troll attack though...

Really fun campaign so far! Awesome AMLAs for the heroes, really nice maps, and very original mechanics like the dwarvish miners building things. Thanks for your amazing work!
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Velensk »

I played through this campaign. I give my feedback, but before I give it I must note that it's geared towards a view/style of Wesnoth that I do not use. The things that are 'cool' about it are not things I particularly appreciate and it does not have the things I generally look for. That said, I did play all the way through (which is not something I do with many campaigns these days and I have some thoughts/feedback. I'll break it up into the thoughts I don't really see anything you can do about (or don't need to), and the thoughts you probably could.

Comments:
-In general, I'm impressed by the sheer amount of effort put into this. I can tell that there's a lot of heart put into this. I find the campaign as a whole very easy with a couple notable exceptions which I'll note later.
-However, for all the effort to make it about dwarves kick-assery (or whatever, in character, it does not feel to me like a dwarf campaign. I have an odd relationship with dwarf campaigns as I find that at once, they are very interesting because you must play around the stringent limitations of the dwarves (low movement, very terrain dependent, no magic/marksman, no healing) which tends to make them very strategic, on the other hand as all the dwarves infantry functions almost identically to each and none of it levels into anything interesting other so it's almost all the same kinds of strategy. In this campaign, the diversity isn't a problem anymore but once you have healing and the ability to kill stuff that isn't in the open the only real dwarfy thing left is that if you don't stick to hills you have only moderate toughness (unless you're a crossbowman in which case you're dead).
-You put a huge emphasis on heroes and playing around/advancing them. This works in contrast to the way a typical hard wesnoth campaign will play. This isn't a bad thing however it will create a rift between your own play testing and the instinctive habits of many campaign players. I think that a few of your scenario designed reflect this in a big way, particularly ones where you're given only your heroes and you must keep them all alive. This is frequently quite annoying to me as I have a huge stock of leveled units, 500+ gold in reserve and I'm still forced to take my chances with a bunch of units I can't let die without being able to use all of the back luck mitigation my massive resource advantage allows for.
-There are a few things that feel very gamey in this campaign. The one that comes most to mind is the gryphons that appear out of nowhere disappear into nowhere, and let your units fly across the map 4x faster than your actual grphyons could. I don't actually mind them though as the gameplay is still fun enough.

Suggestions:
-The thing that irritated me most about this campaign, by far, was -twice- being forced by the story to abandon forts as it was supposedly hopeless. Not only could I have defended these forts for forever, but could actually have fought my way out of and killed all enemy leaders given a bit more time. The first fort I slaughtered all the outlaws and all the orcs before 'retreating' and at the second fort I had cleared one of the side tunnels, was thinning out the other, and was down to only two lines of trolls at the front. It would really be nice, if some other impetus to leave the fortifications could be added to the story.
-The animations for the level with the gryphons could use to be shorter (perhaps have them leave the screen then skip the rest of the movement and go to them landing at location).
-The second to last level I nearly lost, not because it was too hard (once I'd figured a good spot to fight the drakes at) but because my leader got stalled at narrow paths around the lava that were only a hex wide and a single drake could stop my train from moving. I was at no risk of losing units (I killed the trolls right off the bat) but the slow progress through the very long path was not only boring but nearly took longer than the turn limit. It'd be nice if the paths could be widenened or made more direct as after you've dealt with the main drake attack wave the rest of the meandering through the caves is more annoying and tedious caution than anything else (I only reload from the start of a scenario so having a hero die from my carelessness 25 turns is not to be bourn).
-The last level is just silly, particularly if you haven't been focusing on leveling your heroes. I think that without the level 3 bloodlust ability on the one hero it might actually be practically impossible as there's no other way to reach the enemy leader on turn one and if you can't win on turn one you will lose. Even if you have the right abilities on your heroes, it feels designed to work so that you have to save and reload until you get enough good luck to make your blitz work. There's not really any way to buffer yourself against bad luck aside from micro decisions in a situation which tells you what you have to do and gives you one shot.
-I'm going to avoid attempting to give a full critique on the dialogue but I'll say two things; first it's very important to be consistent. It's alright to use stylized writing as long as it doesn't seem inconsistent (which oft I felt it was). The second is that both it and the map decorations felt so overblown that even were I inclined to take it seriously I would not be able to do so.

For all my critiques and despite the fact that in general it felt too easy and not my style, I was relatively impressed by this and hope you find the time to finish it. I don't know that I'll play it again once you do but it'll still be just the thing for many players.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Kewltist
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Kewltist »

Where can one find this campaign? It's not on the 1.12 addonz server.
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Kwandulin
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Kwandulin »

Yeah, I removed it from the add-on servers several weeks ago. The campaign had been unfinished for a year now and I won't have the time (and motivation) to finish/update it in the near future. I'm sure it'll return sometime, though - in a finished state.
Kewltist
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Kewltist »

That's too bad :( looked very promising. I hope you get to finish it sometime :]
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Eagle_11
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Eagle_11 »

You could put up the first version until have finished with the redux, wasnt any bad.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by The_Gnat »

Yeah i just came across the units in the unit database and they all look really cool so i was wondering if you would be willing to post/upload them so others can use them?

Thanks Alot :D
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Kwandulin
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Carved in Stone 0.8 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.13]

Post by Kwandulin »

Here's a minimal revision of Carved in Stone that floated on my disc space for far too long now. I reduced the campaign size to 8 scenarios and the campaign now ends at spellkeep, but it has a 'proper' ending there.
Image

Just some 'nostalgia', enjoy the campaign and give the baddies a good beating, but please don't expect further updates.

When trying to upload, the servers somehow react with "Add-on rejected: The add-on contains an illegal file or directory name. File or directory names may not contain whitespace or any of the following characters: '/ \ : ~'" but I couldn't identify the cause yet. The campaign seems to be playable, though. If I find it out, I'll upload it to the 1.13.x servers.

Can be downloaded from the 1.13 servers
Last edited by Kwandulin on January 7th, 2017, 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Paulomat4
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Paulomat4 »

Great to hear that! It's still one of my favourite campaigns.

regarding the wrong file name the file runic-protection - bottom.png has whitespaces in it, so that might be the cause. :)
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Kwandulin
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Re: Carved in Stone 0.7.0 [SP Dwarven Campaign for 1.12]

Post by Kwandulin »

Paulomat4 wrote:regarding the wrong file name the file runic-protection - bottom.png has whitespaces in it, so that might be the cause. :)
That's it! Dumb me and that image wasn't even used, blargh. Anyway, it's up on the 1.13 servers. Thanks!
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