Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

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beetlenaut
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by beetlenaut »

Oh, okay. In my defense, I wrote this about seven years ago. Thanks for your work on this! I'll update it when I get home. Now I'm really confused about why it worked for me though. I'll take a look at the replay too.

Edit: Okay, after looking at your replay, I triggered the assertion failure myself. I guess it makes sense that if the ai_turn event is not creating a unit like it was intended to, then the next available unit ID would not have advanced (or something like that) and IDs could collide. Your replay has the suspect ai_turn event in it, so the crash isn't that surprising. I changed ai_turn to side_3_turn, and replays seem to be fine now. I updated TFoB on the server to 1.1.6.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
dada216
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by dada216 »

Hi, I've been playing the campaign recently and I'm having a lot of fun, haven't finished it yet, I'm at the scenario "The Law" and I think I need to replay the previous one cause I only have three ghosts, no level 3 unit and little gold. anyways here's a couple of improvement I can suggest:

1) when you explain at first that killing a wild animal will heal your units I didn't understand at first that it would heal ALL units, you might want to make that clearer in the phrasing, btw very very nice mechanism, I love it, it's a great strategic addition to the game mechanics, but I had a weird start on my first try where all the bores went towards the saurian and one got lucky and with it's charge killed immediately an unit (I sent a lone wolf only) and only mid-game I killed the first one and really got the mechanic, i thought it would heal only the units that killed it, I restarted the scenario and dedicated a couple of archers to the bores to heal the rest of the army as it was advancing, which is the best strategy, (and lots of fun!)

2) when you explain that units that are gonna die in the necromancer scenario are coming back as ghosts I had similar doubts, like any kind of unit will come back as what level of ghost? so i did the scenario only trying out the options and getting all kinds of units killed.

besides a clearer explanation of the game mechanics at the beginning I'm finding this campaign absolutely amazing so far, it's brutal and challenging and I love it.
it probably requires a walkthrough to be even more enjoyable, I replayed both the first and now the second scenario because as I advance I realized in order for the campaign to be beatable you really have to be careful with everything here, as I started the third scenario I was astounded how many high level units the opponent has, one needs to get here with a number of level 3 units already, and I realized I had beaten the necromancer in a rush (turn 15/35 or so I was close to the enemy keep) and It was a mistake to avoid the mermaids since the elf have so much gold, as I rushed their keep they had way too much spawn for me not to sacrifice too many unit to kill their leader, so now I'm redoing it with a completely different attitude and I'm gonna spawn lots and lots of goblins to turn into ghosts and I'll kill all the mermaids I can while I let the elf waves crush on my defenses and as I advance I'll both take away the elfs money for myself while leveling up to maximum with the mermaids.

So I feel like I have to redo scenario too often here because they need to be beaten with very specific gold and unit limitations for the next one to be doable, which is absolutely fine, but I need some guidance for that to be the case, maybe a walkthrough with general strategic no-spoiler advice or some more in-game hints?

Again, so far this is one of the best campaigns I've ever played, am i correct in assuming you alse wrote dead water?
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by beetlenaut »

dada216 wrote: June 1st, 2019, 11:54 am I'm at the scenario "The Law" and I think I need to replay the previous one cause I only have three ghosts, no level 3 unit and little gold.
Yeah, if you are playing on challenging or nightmare, that won't be nearly enough. Nightmare is intended to be about as hard as possible while still being beatable. I'm glad you like it though!
dada216 wrote: June 1st, 2019, 11:54 am I didn't understand at first that it would heal ALL units, you might want to make that clearer in the phrasing....in the necromancer scenario ...I had similar doubts
I can change "each of your units" to "all your units" in the second scenario. That might be clearer. I'm not sure what to do with the ghosts though. This is what it says now: "Any of your units that dies during this scenario will be replaced by a ghost of the same level." I'm not sure how to make that clearer. Do you have a suggestion?
dada216 wrote: June 1st, 2019, 11:54 am I'm gonna spawn lots and lots of goblins to turn into ghosts
Goblin ghosts are awfully weak, so I prefer archers and assassins, but that's the right idea. The number and strength of the merfolk goes up the more villages you attack, so trying to get all of them is probably more trouble than it's worth.
dada216 wrote: June 1st, 2019, 11:54 am I need some guidance for that to be the case, maybe a walkthrough with general strategic no-spoiler advice or some more in-game hints?
There was a walkthrough at some point, but I didn't write it, and I can't find it now. I don't have time to work on anything at the moment, but maybe you can find the author of that walkthrough or someone else who can help in the Strategies & Tips forum.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
dada216
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by dada216 »

So I've finished it, very nice campaign but I have to admit it got a lot easier by the end, especially the trolls were a lot easier than I had expected by reading here, mind that I had 5 level three ghosts and some more low level in store in case I'd loose one, the other scenarios were easy too since I had plenty of units, I did play on medium tho, so I think I definitely need to redo it on nightmare, because I had heaps of gold hence cannon fodder hence high survival rate and leveling up, so I got to the drakes with 5 ghosts (I sacrified only the one that doesn't drain but backstab to lure a couple of elf shaman on the ice and that's about it, sacrified grunt and cannon fodder, goblins swarms mainly, one or two leaders and the occasional goblin picker that would survive and level up but mainly inexpensive lvl 0 with a leader behind, they can take down the HP of anything while ghosts control the map and orcs level up snatching kills from the goblins and then support the ghosts as higher level units, you keep stringing goblins like that in the law and it's a piece of cake.

I think that if you do the necromancer level as good as possible and you level up some orcs and some ghosts as well using the mermaids the whole campaing becomes a lot more easy. I went full in on the mermaids, started with the village at the back of your keep with two goblins and an archer and they became ghost but took down the first two mermaids and these units joined the fight pretty quickly after being bogged at the back, then I presented some goblins that rushed forwards to the elf snatchig favourbale positions in the middle forcing the elf on the road where possible while a smaller force timed the second mermaid village, got ghosts from the front goblins but snatched good positioning, took them down dividing the forces between the elfs there and the mermaids, then waited for the necromancer skeleton to slow down the elf forces while clearing up the mermaid villages on top, you see with the mermaid you can force them to spawn on land, taking the villages on the top map from the elf causes them to split their onslaught across the bridge but also going north across the lake, which is slower, I let the skeletons slow the elf from the bridge down avoiding them while concentrating on the fourth mermaids village and the few elf that reached across the lake coming north, who were isolated, I then moved back to the mermaid village across the water from the elf keep while moving in the lake with ghosts I even forced an elf shaman to attack me from the swamp and used her to force spawm a mermaid on land, snatching both easily from the village.
It took me at least four restart to get the strategy down but I ended up the level with heaps of gold, heaps of ghost (including a level three drainer already) and high level orcs as well, which made the law a piece of cake and in turn made the rest of the campaign a lot easier.
maybe it's a bit of cheating and I don't think you can take down 5 or even 6 mermaid villages in nightmare, but I'm gonna have to try.

I'm attaching the reply because this has been the most fun I've ever had in a single scenario, very challenging and very very nice.
TFoB-Life and Undeath replay.gz
(52.51 KiB) Downloaded 309 times

I loved the mechanics and all in all I'd say this is definitely mainline material, very well designed maps and interesting game mechanics, I wished there'd be more bores to slay in other scenarios as well instead of relying on the shamans, having a healer with orcs seems wrong in some sense to me, makes them too powerful, by the end I had three or four and I could hedgehog with them easily, having that on top of the goblins and the ghosts was brutal, would have loved having to rely on hunting instead, but I imagine how much it complicates the map design and balance since they actually attack and the enemy uses them as well.
I thought it was very nice when at the first level the shaman uses supply to heal units for up to 16HP or cure and 8HP, they could have done that in other scenarios as well instead of being healers themselves, you know finding healing supplies in villages across the map that you need to move a shaman onto to use two or three times. they could heal units adjacent to the village where the supplies are and this could be a nice mechanics for the orcs.

I see how the undergounr lake is a leveling up basically bonus level, much needed, I had a blast, basically I recruited ghosts (two level three and the last level one that needed leveling up and two keeps worth of basic orcs, took the intelligence potion with a wolf and had a blast taking down plants and cuttlefishes with the ghost first and then leveling up the other units, one level three ghost in the lake and one level two to control the cuttlefish and one to take down plants hp, leader as backup if you get an unlucky shot and you can do it without loosing any unit and level at least a full keep of orcs to level two close to three.
maybe a bit too much, but I needed the units for the drakes at the end, I had only level three units and lost quite a bit to take down the drakes, sacrified all of the ghosts to do it but it worked like a charm.


Regarding the wording for the ghosts it could be something like:

"Any of your units that dies during this scenario will be replaced by a ghost of the same level, regardless of unit type"

and for the hunting mechanics I think you could write one more phrase stating explicitly that the healing happen "regardless of where your units are on the map all of them will be healed by 2, 4 or 6 HP as soon as you kill the animal" and maybe you can hint at a "careful they fight back" or something like that.

It could have been just me and consider I'm not a native speaker so there's that, but maybe if I didn't understand it immediately somebody else too couldn't.

I have "cheated" a little bit with savegames, but only to change tactics without having to restart the full scenario and I did this a number of times for each scenario, not to get the dice to be my way, but maybe this is also why I was so strong by the end, I wouldn't advance if I didn't finish the scenario the best possible way and often I'd go back midgame even if I was winning because it wasn't enough, i.e. in the lake I left no plant at all standing and the last leveling up occurred on turn 29/30 at the very top of the map.

on a sidenote after the drakes my game crashes so I haven't seen the end and I don't get the nice crown in the campaign list but it's allright, I can't be bothered to troubleshoot that now, I know I've finished it.

So thanks for the fun man, much appreciated, I don't always play but lately I've had a couple of weeks off and I came back to BfW and I'm having a blast with your campaigns, dead waters too was magnificent, youre campaigns are the best I've played so far.

do you have any other campaign you liked the most to suggest now?
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by beetlenaut »

dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 3:32 pm Regarding the wording for the ghosts it could be something like:
"Any of your units that dies during this scenario will be replaced by a ghost of the same level, regardless of unit type"
I don't want to emphasize that any type is replaced because it's not really true. If your unit is a ghost, it is not replaced. Which unit caused you a surprise?
dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 3:32 pm having a healer with orcs seems wrong in some sense to me
I see your point, but I would have to rebalance the whole campaign if I changed the mechanics, and I don't want to do that. Eventually I will work on this campaign again (maybe this summer), and I am considering only allowing you to recruit one or two so they must stay rare.

I can add "immediately" to this line so it's similar to what you suggested: "Every boar you kill will immediately heal all of your units by 2, 4, or 6 hitpoints." Is that enough? Using "all of your units" and "anywhere on the map" seems redundant.
dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 3:32 pm consider I'm not a native speaker
Maybe you would consider working on a translation of the campaign for your native language. (What language is it?)
dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 3:32 pm do you have any other campaign you liked the most to suggest now?
Well, my other one is Secrets of the Ancients. Personally, I really like The Rise of Wesnoth and Under the Burning Suns.

Edit: Fixed messed-up quotes.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by dada216 »

beetlenaut wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 4:36 pm
dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 3:32 pm Regarding the wording for the ghosts it could be something like:
"Any of your units that dies during this scenario will be replaced by a ghost of the same level, regardless of unit type"
I don't want to emphasize that any type is replaced because it's not really true. If your unit is a ghost, it is not replaced. Which unit caused you a surprise?
I didn't realize the ghosts were the regular one, I thought maybe he made different units and an archer will become a kind of ghost and a goblin another, instead they're just translated to ghost of the same level retaining the experience the unit had.
beetlenaut wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 4:36 pm
dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 3:32 pm having a healer with orcs seems wrong in some sense to me
I see your point, but I would have to rebalance the whole campaign if I changed the mechanics, and I don't want to do that. Eventually I will work on this campaign again (maybe this summer), and I am considering only allowing you to recruit one or two so they must stay rare.
Maybe just the loyal shaman as a healer and try etiher giving him another level (for increased HP mainly) if it's too hard that way?
Again, you know what you're doing your campaigns are wonderful.
beetlenaut wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 4:36 pm I can add "immediately" to this line so it's similar to what you suggested: "Every boar you kill will immediately heal all of your units by 2, 4, or 6 hitpoints." Is that enough? Using "all of your units" and "anywhere on the map" seems redundant.
emphasis is not a bad thing, especially if explaining new dynamics, but as I said, these are very minor things in an otherwise very nice campaign.
beetlenaut wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 4:36 pm
dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 3:32 pm consider I'm not a native speaker
Maybe you would consider working on a translation of the campaign for your native language. (What language is it?)
I could, where should I look?
beetlenaut wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 4:36 pm
dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 3:32 pm do you have any other campaign you liked the most to suggest now?
Well, my other one is Secrets of the Ancients. Personally, I really like The Rise of Wesnoth and Under the Burning Suns.
played them both, gonna give a try to Secrets of the Ancient now, eventually I'll replay this on nightmare.
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by beetlenaut »

dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 8:12 pm instead they're just translated to ghost of the same level retaining the experience the unit had.
Yes, and that's exactly what the scenario says. I don't think I can make it clearer without making it a lot longer, which I don't want to do: The longer it is, the fewer people read it.
dada216 wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 8:12 pm consider I'm not a native speaker
beetlenaut wrote:Maybe you would consider working on a translation of the campaign for your native language. (What language is it?)
I could, where should I look?
Basically, you will use a Wesnoth tool to generate a .pot file containing all the text from the campaign. Then you use an editor to add the translations, then save it as a .po file and send it to me in a PM. I've never done any of this before though, so you should look for help in the Translations forum, or read the translation links in the "Create" tab at the top of this page.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by James_The_Invisible »

beetlenaut wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 9:58 pm Basically, you will use a Wesnoth tool to generate a .pot file containing all the text from the campaign. Then you use an editor to add the translations, then save it as a .po file and send it to me in a PM. I've never done any of this before though, so you should look for help in the Translations forum, or read the translation links in the "Create" tab at the top of this page.
Someone has written a guide for it, though it is more for UMC creators rather than translators.
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by dada216 »

James_The_Invisible wrote: June 3rd, 2019, 3:57 pm
beetlenaut wrote: June 2nd, 2019, 9:58 pm Basically, you will use a Wesnoth tool to generate a .pot file containing all the text from the campaign. Then you use an editor to add the translations, then save it as a .po file and send it to me in a PM. I've never done any of this before though, so you should look for help in the Translations forum, or read the translation links in the "Create" tab at the top of this page.
Someone has written a guide for it, though it is more for UMC creators rather than translators.
I've tried to walk my way through that, I'm quite nerdy but I'm not a developer myself and I know basically nothing about wesnoth development.
I've found the GUI tool to run wmlgettext, I understand I should choose the relevant add-on directory as working directory but what should I input as "Text domain", I tried all and it created an empty pot file, how should I do this?
afterward are you sure i can just open the .pot file with any text editor (I'm on linux and I'm gonna use kate) and then I'll find what? text strings? any guide just for translators? sorry guys I really can't be bothered learning how wesnoth development works and how it is all structured, but I can definitely spare some hours to translate this.
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by EarthCake »

To see textdomain, you need to enter some of scenario .cfg files, and first line in that .cfg file should be like this:
#textdomain wesnoth-The_Founding_of_Borstep

You can instead use .po files which can be opened with Gedit in Linux (or some Notepad) or with Poedit. About running wmlxgettext, you need to have Python.
dada216
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by dada216 »

EarthCake wrote: June 3rd, 2019, 5:13 pm To see textdomain, you need to enter some of scenario .cfg files, and first line in that .cfg file should be like this:
#textdomain wesnoth-The_Founding_of_Borstep
Thanks, found it, it was wesnoth-tfob.
EarthCake wrote: June 3rd, 2019, 5:13 pm You can instead use .po files which can be opened with Gedit in Linux (or some Notepad) or with Poedit. About running wmlxgettext, you need to have Python.
nah I got the pot file, I see stuff like this in it:

Code: Select all

#. [message]: speaker=narrator
#: The_Founding_of_Borstep/utils/tfob-utils.cfg:104
msgid "With their momentum lost, the orcs descend into pointless squabbling no matter how many of them you punish."
msgstr ""
I'm assuming I need to write the translation inside the msgstr tag, correct?
Last edited by Pentarctagon on June 3rd, 2019, 11:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: [c] -> [code]
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by EarthCake »

Yes. You need to add that file where you add something in
msgstr
with ie. tfob.po
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by gaojicainiao »

Hello, if you can send me the .pot file(It's not convenient for me to generate it), then I will translate this campaign into Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese.
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by beetlenaut »

I'm still a little to busy to get to this. If someone doesn't mind posting the .pot file, that would be great.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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Re: Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

Post by Adamant14 »

Here it is:
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