Under the Burning Suns

[quartex]

Unfortunately, I can't access the campaign server, so I'm uploading 0.2.2 to the website I linked to from the top of this post. I probably won't be able to upload the campaign to the server until Tuesday night. Enjoy!

0.2.2 Changelog:
scenario 2:

-Increase number of turns from 65 to 69 to give people a bit more time
-Edited scorpion dialogue, so it works if an undead kills the last scorpion
-The ogre counter wasn't broken at all, the problem was that I was creating, too many ogres. And too many ogres is always a bad thing.
-Edited Elyssa's starting position so this time she really is farther out of danger or Normal difficulty.
-Edited Elyssa victory dialogue, so it works if Elyssa kills the last undead (I had assumed the killer would be an elf)
-Moved SW oasis southwards, and moved scorpion event southwards in an effort to make sure player doesn't trigger both scorpions and ogres at once.
-Changed castle wraith back so it only appears at dusk or at night.


scenario 4:

-fixed naga bug so if you already fought them, then they don't appear when you capture first outpost

-fixed "goblin impalier" bug
-fixed bug where entering cave dialogue was displayed twice
-fixed victory bug not where you wouldn't win at the north edge of the map
-removed NW bridge bottleneck in Normal diff in case people were having trouble
-Added full animations for Cloaked Figure
-Made a quick hack to solve problem of Cloaked Figure appearing in walls. I'd like to write a more nuanced function, that actually put him in an empty space, but the problem seems a bit too complex right now. And besides requiring a bit of suspension of disbelief, the current fix isn't a major gameplay problem.

[silvermane]

What's the .DS_Store file in each of the directories? Shouldn't they be deleted from the zip to save space?

silvermane

[silvermane]

In the second scenario "It's refreshing water" should be "Its refreshing water".

s.

[scott]

What's the .DS_Store file in each of the directories? Shouldn't they be deleted from the zip to save space?

silvermane

Those are metadata files used by the mac's file system. Yes, they can be safely deleted by you and should be deleted by us. I don't think they make it onto the campaign server because I never heard anyone talk about them before. It's easy for us to forget about them because there's no easy way to see them from within OS X without using the terminal.

[quartex]

In the second scenario "It's refreshing water" should be "Its refreshing water".

s.

Actually that's not a typo. For once my grammar is correct. It's is short for "it is" so in this case "it is refreshing water" is what I meant to say.

I just uploaded version 0.2.2 to the campaign server for everyone who hasn't gotten it yet.

[quartex]

Certain player have been suggesting that I get rid of recruitment, and just allow players to use the units I give them manually. This would require players to be a lot more careful conserving units and would fit the theme of a small band of elves struggling to journey across the sands with no reinforcements.

However I believe that recruiting is an important part of the strategy of Wesnoth, and I think eliminating it would limit instead of broaden the tactical possibilities of the scenarios. Recruiting allows players to customize their army. Also in later scenarios it is often difficult to recruit a only of level 2 and 3 units and then have them all survive. To do so often (in my experience) requires a lot of save/loading. By allowing players to recruit some cannon fodder/expendable units, I'm making it a lot easier to preserve the more important ones. I want my scenarios to be interesting and challenging but no frustrating. I already require that you keep certain campaign heroes alive, so it's only fair to give you access to other expendable units. And based on how I want to tell the story, I don't want to give excuses for why allies show up and help at every scenario, that's what recruiting is supposed to be for.

My rationale for allowing recruiting when you people are in the middle of a journey is that you control the guard and warriors who are escorting a lot of non-combatants who you can recruit and make into fighting units. While I don't want to force people to be limited to recalling units, I like the idea that these elves are not limitless in number, and that their number does actually decrease as they journey across this dangerous world; harsh terrain, undead, orcs and other dangers take their toll on Kaleh's people. So I'm implementing an economic motivator to represent the idea that there are less and less surviving elves available to recruit in later scenarios.

Starting in scenario 3, the cost of recruiting units slowly increases, and probably will increase throughout the campaign. The idea is that about two thirds of the way through the campaign it becomes cheaper to recall from your existing army than recruit new units. I will probably increase your amount of gold a bit to make sure you cna afford to recruit a few units even in the last scenarios. Overall I think the idea of a variable recruiting cost is an interesting game mechanic which will add more flavor to the campaign and underscore the increasingly desperate situation that Kaleh's people find themselves in.

[quartex]

0.2.3 has been released and is available to download from the campaign server. I'll try to put up a copy on the website tomorrow night.

0.2.3 changelog:

Added variable recruiting costs, now the cost to recruit units increases slowly throughout the campaign

Scenario 4: tightened tunnels in Challenging and Hard difficulty to make scenario a bit harder

[Gafgarion]

I just got around to playing this campaign quartex, and I've gotta say that it's great.

It has innovative gameplay elements, excellent use of the capabilities of WML and a very unique feel to it... Essentially everything I tried to do (and failed at) in my Assassin Campaign.

Keep up the good work, I'm eager to see how the campaign progresses.

[silvermane]

Actually that's not a typo. For once my grammar is correct. It's is short for "it is" so in this case "it is refreshing water" is what I meant to say.

I beg to disagree. Look at the sentences in full:

"Look an oasis! It is refreshing water will heal any of our wounded people who enter them."

That doesn't make sense. "It" is presumably referring to "oasis" and "its" make more sense than suddenly switching the subject to "water" in the second sentence (even if you meant to say "it is a refreshing water and will heal..."
You also used the word "them", but there's no plural subject it can refer to (unless you thought oasis is the plural of oasi Should be changed to "it" (ie. the oasis).
Additionally, there should be a comma between "Look" and "an" (as "look" is an interjection and not the verb of this phrase).

silvermane

[theCAS]

So I'm implementing an economic motivator to represent the idea that there are less and less surviving elves available to recruit in later scenarios.

Starting in scenario 3, the cost of recruiting units slowly increases, and probably will increase throughout the campaign.

This is a terrific idea quartex! Much better than the ones I proposed you via PM.

May I make a suggestion to improve the recruitment mechanics?

You can make the recruitment cost depending on the units on your recall list or on the number of units of one type you recruited.

Example 1: recall list
If you have many shamans in the recall list the cost of a new shaman will lower (more teachers).

Example 2: units recruited for one type
If you have already recruited many shamans their cost will be higher, since there less individuals in the Kaleh's people with the qualities needed to become a shaman.

Keep up the good work!

[quartex]

silvermane: You're right, my bad. I wasn't reading the sentence carefully enough. I stand corrected.

theCAS: I like the second example, the idea of increasing cost based on how many you recruit. The problem is that the recall list just records how many your keep alive, not many you recruit (I'm not sure it's possible to track how many shamans you recruit). For now I'll stick with the simpler method of increasing cost gradually over scenarios.

[Sangel]

Thought: Perhaps the first increase in recruitment cost could occur at the end of level three, and be dependent on how many camps you manage to save.

10-12 = No increase in recruitment cost
8-9 = +1 gold per unit
6-7 = +2 gold per unit

Rather than the current "gold bonus" for saving lots of camps, which feels slightly out of place.

Then you could have a warning message: "[Though we saved most of them this time,] as the numbers of our people dwindle, it's going to become more and more difficult to recruit new warriors. It would be wise to stockpile gold against this eventuality."

This would let players know about the increased recruitment costs.

[quartex]

That's a good idea Sangel, I think I'll do that. It makes more sense that the elves giving Kaleh extra gold. And it is nice to let the player have some control over limiting rising costs. However since this means that level 3 will have no gold bonus at all, I think I'll add a few more turns onto level 2 so that the player has enough gold to last until level 4. It would be nice if a player could enter level 4 with more than 100 gold.

[tkilian]

kilian: Thanks, I fixed it so that it will only display the victory speech if an elf kills the last ogre. I was intending scenario 3 to be quite difficult, and was worried that it would be too hard. What difficulty were you on? How much gold did you have going into it? Even better, can you pm me your replay of the level (and tell me which version of the campaign you were running?). I didn't intend it to be easy, even if you knew what was going to happen.

I don't have a save replay for the scenario. but basically once i knew who was going to be posessed, i just surrounded him with troops. I used a bunch of new units in the first ring, and then had leadership units to back them up.

[Invisible Philosopher]

(I'm not sure it's possible to track how many shamans you recruit).

It is possible.

Code: Select all

#put in all scenarios, via a macro
[event]
name=recruit
first_time_only=no
[filter]
side=1
type=Elvish Shaman
[/filter]
[set_variable]
name=recruited_shaman_count
add=1
[/set_variable]
[/event]