Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

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Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

Post by Sire »

Better to make a forum post than spam Discord, so here we are.
-- This post was originally prompted by a conversation on Discord about mainline campaigns, and then I felt compelled to write a bit about each. The results of this endeavor are below.

* * * * * * * * * *

Right, so this is happening. Here's my perspective on the current Mainline campaigns.
-- Please note I have not played all of them, but I mostly know the general ideas of each.

Core of the Core
1. Heir to the Throne
-- Anyone can say anything about HttT, but it still remains as the flagship Wesnoth campaign and serves as one of the main settings for BoW content itself. Due to its legacy and importance with the Turmoil of Asheviere era, it remains mainline.
-- Granted, I never got far in my playthrough of HttT myself (I still remember Anime Konrad and Li'sar), and know there have been attempts to remake HttT. // One of my potential future projects is to create my own version of HttT, but who knows if that will actually come to pass.

2. Under the Burning Suns
-- Drastically different from HttT, UtBS establishes a massive time-skip and a new setting to play around in after "The Fall." Due to the importance of this setting (and how well UtBS plays), I'll say it should be core.
-- While I personally played before the massive rework, I enjoyed this campaign a lot and it brings a lot of interesting ideas that were not really seen in other mainline campaigns.

3. Rise of Wesnoth
-- Now we delve into the beginning, or at least the beginning days of Wesnoth before it was even founded.
-- While I haven't played this campaign very far, it has importance in the overall timeline and I think its a fairly decent campaign.

The Good Stuff
1. The South Guard
-- A separate story located in the southlands of Irdya, I found it to be a fun campaign with its two branching paths and tutorial-like nature.
-- While it is a relatively separate storyline, the potential tutorial and campaign quality convinces me that it should remain mainline.

2. Descent into Darkness
-- One of the better storylines of mainline and once served as the as *the Undead campaign* (until Secrets of the Ancients became mainlined).
-- Yeah, DiD should remain mainline. It is also used for some UMC stuff, making its place in the timeline somewhat important.

3. Secrets of the Ancients
-- Honestly, I know little of this campaign as it was mainlined while I was on a large break from Wesnoth. However, it does seem to tie some of the ancient history (Green Isle, Rise of Wesnoth) as well as having a connection to Descent into Darkness.
-- Due to its connections and being mainlined fairly recently, I think it should probably stay. (I put it up here since due to its connections, I don't know how it plays or reads.)

The Complementary Stuff
1. Liberty
-- The "Outlaw" campaign and one of my favorites (although the whole Shadow Mage thing could be improved).
-- This campaign represents the regular people of Wesnoth resisting Asheviere, so its a good side story that relates with one of the core campaigns (Heir to the Throne).

2. Legend of Wesmere
-- I think this tells the story of one of the Elves featured in HttT, and also serves as one of the Elvish campaigns. However, I'm not sure of its quality and I think it has been plagued by reworks over the years due to its potential as the Multiplayer campaign.
-- I hear there is potential reworks to LoW, although I don't recall if its official, an UMC, or there are separate efforts

3. The Sceptre of Fire
-- This tells the story of how the Sceptre of Fire came to be, and serves as a Dwarf campaign.
-- Not sure about its quality as I haven't played it, but as it relates to core events, its left here.

Side Stories
1. A Tale of Two Brothers
-- A short and simple campaign that is relatively straightforward with a small variety of gimmicks and battles.
-- The potential problem is that it doesn't really contribute anything to the overall timeline. It it literally an independent tale of two brothers.
-- AToTB can be considered for removal if trying to cut down on the total number of campaigns. The campaign itself isn't bad, but it also doesn't do much either in the overall narrative.

Overhaul or Remove
1. Delfador's Memoirs
-- I know, I know. This campaign features Delfador, the man from HttT who is plays a prominent role! How can this campaign be on the chopping block? (Hint: It's not that good.)
-- While having a campaign featuring the adventures of a young Delfador can be fun, as it stands this campaign is definitely one of the weaker ones in Wesnoth. // That being said, it does feature some interesting and unorthodox ideas. The issue is if an overhaul will be worth the effort.

The "I Don't Know" Stuff
-- Most of these I have no real experience with, so I'll leave it to the others to decide.

1. The Hammer of Thursagan
-- A Dwarf campaign about reconnecting with their lost kin, and something about a hammer.
-- I do know that apparently this campaign is getting merged with Northern Rebirth, so it'll be interesting to see how everything develops.

2. Eastern Invasion
-- As a concept, the EI campaign sounds amazing, but if I recall correctly, it was one of the weaker campaigns. I never got around to playing through it myself, so I can't form an opinion on it.

3. Dead Water
-- This is the Mermen campaign, so it should get a boost for that alone.
-- However, as I am not that experienced with Dead Water, I don't really have an opinion on it.

4. Son of the Black Eye
-- This does serve as the Northerner campaign, but it also relatively indepedent from any other storyline.
-- Aside from hearing it features "big massive battles," I know little of this campaign.

5. Northern Rebirth
-- I constantly hear about how massive the battles can get in NR, but never actually played it myself.
-- As stated in THoT, I hear that NR and THoT are getting merged together. I wonder how everything will turn out.

6. Winds of Fate
-- This was mainlined while I was on break, so I have no real knowledge of this campaign.
-- It seems good since it serves as a Drake campaign, but otherwise I got nothing.

* * * * * * * * * *

...and that should be everything!
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Re: Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

Post by Yomar »

A tale of two brother's Is a very good beginner's campaign in my opinion.
Also a good one if you don't feel to dive in something too deep, somethng that dosen't take too much time to finish.
A neat nice little self-contained story.
Actually adding the voice-over mod to mainline would be a good idea, imo.
Beholded Wesnoth's Origins.
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Re: Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

This is going to be a long post. Brew some coffee or tea before reading.
1. Heir to the Throne
-- Anyone can say anything about HttT, but it still remains as the flagship Wesnoth campaign and serves as one of the main settings for BoW content itself. Due to its legacy and importance with the Turmoil of Asheviere era, it remains mainline.
Probably one of my favourite campaigns and one of the first to introduce me to Battle for Wesnoth. Good and Decent campaign with a few hidden Easter eggs if you know where to look or what to do but it's rather outdated in some parts of it and has some unexplained plot holes in it. One is the the setup of the Thoria branch S19C, doesn't make sense how Wesnothian soldiers just somehow appeared out of nowhere, and then there's S20B which is harder than its S20A counterpart but the reward gained from this path is hardly inadequate as compared to the flaming sword and/or the void armour. Anyways, this campaign is good as is, but may need modernization at some point as Nemaara mentioned in viewtopic.php?t=55192

TBH, I was making a PR on improving the S20B's item bonus but stopped when I came to the realisation that berserk melee as a power up might be too much of an overkill. Open to more suggestions.
3. Rise of Wesnoth
-- Now we delve into the beginning, or at least the beginning days of Wesnoth before it was even founded.
-- While I haven't played this campaign very far, it has importance in the overall timeline and I think its a fairly decent campaign.
Pretty good campaign. I just Prince Haldric's sprites were updated to the current standards, as they are quite outdated now.
2. Descent into Darkness
-- One of the better storylines of mainline and once served as the as *the Undead campaign* (until Secrets of the Ancients became mainlined).
-- Yeah, DiD should remain mainline. It is also used for some UMC stuff, making its place in the timeline somewhat important.
DiD has been reworked by nemaara for the 1.15/1.16 releases so I suggest you to give that reworked one a try. It's astoundingly good and might be considered a standard for the quality control of mainline campaigns.
3. Secrets of the Ancients
-- Honestly, I know little of this campaign as it was mainlined while I was on a large break from Wesnoth. However, it does seem to tie some of the ancient history (Green Isle, Rise of Wesnoth) as well as having a connection to Descent into Darkness.
-- Due to its connections and being mainlined fairly recently, I think it should probably stay. (I put it up here since due to its connections, I don't know how it plays or reads.)
Hmm...I guess it's okay. I did play just once and I think it's the hardest campaign in mainline or one of the hardest. The plot's good but some scenarios left me a bit confused like that DA training one, still it's quite unique in some ways.
(although the whole Shadow Mage thing could be improved).
How so? Care to elaborate?
3. The Sceptre of Fire
-- This tells the story of how the Sceptre of Fire came to be, and serves as a Dwarf campaign.
-- Not sure about its quality as I haven't played it, but as it relates to core events, its left here.
The SoF was reworked as well and has quite unique rune-magic related features in it now. I suggest giving it a try but it might be a bit too hard now. I think a rebalance patch should be done so it's at least passable on the Easiest without resorting save-loading spam or biased RNG.
1. A Tale of Two Brothers
-- A short and simple campaign that is relatively straightforward with a small variety of gimmicks and battles.
-- The potential problem is that it doesn't really contribute anything to the overall timeline. It it literally an independent tale of two brothers.
-- AToTB can be considered for removal if trying to cut down on the total number of campaigns. The campaign itself isn't bad, but it also doesn't do much either in the overall narrative
I like AToTB's tutorial and (also challenging difficulty) nature. Shouldn't be considered for removal but yeah, doesn't really have any impact on the main timeline of events.
1. Delfador's Memoirs
-- I know, I know. This campaign features Delfador, the man from HttT who is plays a prominent role! How can this campaign be on the chopping block? (Hint: It's not that good.)
2. Eastern Invasion
-- As a concept, the EI campaign sounds amazing, but if I recall correctly, it was one of the weaker campaigns. I never got around to playing through it myself, so I can't form an opinion on it.
Both DM and EI are rather poor in terms of quality.
I am aware there is a merger rework of DM/EI in the works but rather in hiatus right now due to the programmer having some RL issues. I hope it gets back on track for 1.19.x at least.
3. Dead Water
-- This is the Mermen campaign, so it should get a boost for that alone.
-- However, as I am not that experienced with Dead Water, I don't really have an opinion on it.
Quite good campaign. I suggest giving it a go. Also, I think one of the scenarios could be reworked in it to allow an underwater themed scenario as we have an underwater terrain kit going into 1.17.x soon. That would be cool.
4. Son of the Black Eye
-- This does serve as the Northerner campaign, but it also relatively indepedent from any other storyline.
-- Aside from hearing it features "big massive battles," I know little of this campaign.
The Only Northerners campaign, but I think it's rather dated and needs some refurbishment. I was playing it the other day and noticed that the "defeat enemy leaders" objective was being tossed for around 6 scenarios in a row, which should be allowable. There must be some variety. Also, seeing some coversations as a discord moderator, I think SotBE's weaknesses are that it's difficulty level is high on all and this causes some frustration for Northerner-favorite players who are just breaking into the faction and not that skilled yet; and the other weakness is that there is no enablement for the Orcish Nightblade (so cool unit) and the Troll Shaman which should be allowed.

I recall two people telling me they had two intermediate/novice level Northerners campaigns WIP which they wanted to offer up to mainline so I am still waiting to see what they offer up. Maybe this year or the next. Dunno yet.
6. Winds of Fate
-- This was mainlined while I was on break, so I have no real knowledge of this campaign.
-- It seems good since it serves as a Drake campaign, but otherwise I got nothing.
Pretty good campaign. I suggest you to give it a go.
1. The Hammer of Thursagan
-- A Dwarf campaign about reconnecting with their lost kin, and something about a hammer.
-- I do know that apparently this campaign is getting merged with Northern Rebirth, so it'll be interesting to see how everything develops.
5. Northern Rebirth
-- I constantly hear about how massive the battles can get in NR, but never actually played it myself.
-- As stated in THoT, I hear that NR and THoT are getting merged together. I wonder how everything will turn out.develops.
NR's rather time consuming and has some frustrating elements in it which led to complaints on it on Steam and THoT's rework sort of had some backlashes (Where is Ratheln?). That's why a merger/overhaul was considered.
2. Legend of Wesmere
However, I'm not sure of its quality and I think it has been plagued by reworks over the years due to its potential as the Multiplayer campaign.
The LoW I played when it was first mainlined was decent.
Now, it's a disaster. I think LoW got so many bad feedback that it's rework is apparently the most demanded one.
The extra_recruit and multiple side leaders function is quite a cool thing but here, it's badly done and I think a lot of people were not happy when their 66% recall list was transferred over...
I could list all the other flaws it has but I think I wrote too long a post already.

Also, where is your entry on World Conquest? which is also a mainline campaign (MP)
Last edited by Lord-Knightmare on May 18th, 2022, 9:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

Post by Sire »

Also, where is your entry on World Conquest? which is also a mainline campaign (MP)
World Conquest doesn't count.
-- The more serious answer is that I consider World Conquest to be more of a game-mode than a campaign, similar to the different Survival maps that Wesnoth has. The only difference between Survival (and A New Land) is that World Conquest is a chain of maps strung together instead of a single map.
-- Also, I consider campaigns to be story-based, and World Conquest seems to have no real story whatsoever.
DiD has been reworked by nemaara for the 1.15/1.16 releases so I suggest you to give that reworked one a try. It's astoundingly good and might be considered a standard for the quality control of mainline campaigns.
Yeah, I played the original version back in the day. Like I said on Discord, I do plan on giving the new version a try at some point.
Shadow Mage Improvements
I remember their sprites not being as appealing, although looking at them now they seem to be okay.
-- I don't know if the sprites were touched up or I am not remembering correctly.

Story-wise I think I was content with them, it was just the sprites that jumped out at me when I first played Liberty.
The SoF was reworked as well and has quite unique rune-magic related features in it now. I suggest giving it a try but it might be a bit too hard now. I think a rebalance patch should be done so it's at least passable on the Easiest without resorting save-loading spam or biased RNG.
Didn't know the Sceptre of Fire had a rework. Guess it got bumped up in priority to play (I do plan on going through all the campaigns as some point, but who knows when this will actually be done.)
I like AToTB's tutorial and (also challenging difficulty) nature. Shouldn't be considered for removal but yeah, doesn't really have any impact on the main timeline of events.
Like I said, I don't mind AtoTB, It's just "if there are too many campaigns" and I absolutely had to lower the number somehow, I would consider it a candidate.
-- Personally, I don't mind the number of campaigns and would like to keep AToTB. Not everything has to be related to the overall timeline or story arcs.
Both DM and EI are rather poor in terms of quality.
I am aware there is a merger rework of DM/EI in the works but rather in hiatus right now due to the programmer having some RL issues. I hope it gets back on track for 1.19.x at least.
Huh, a potential merger of DM and EI.
-- This does lead into some timeline issues, as I imagine the DM time period will be the priority. EI takes place down the line, and while nothing seems to immediately relate to it, it is a potential setting.
-- Also, one wonders how Asheviere factors into all this, since she is active during the time of Delfador.
Campaign Recommendations: Dead Water, Wings of Liberty
I'll check them out at some point!

* * * * *
As for some other random topics

Back in the day I was advocating for a "Scenario" category where one-shot scenarios with unique objectives with a small story would be featured. Aside from the creation of some UMC scenarios, it didn't seem to go anywhere.
-- It could also be the place where alternative gameplay for Wesnoth can be featured, such as the mentioned survival maps and A New Land.
-- I would probably put World Conquest in the Scenario category, even though it is a chain of maps.

For my own projects, I do have concepts for "A Bard's Tale: Heir to the Throne" which rebuilds HttT from scratch, as well as a "Tutorial Northerner Campaign," which features the Orcs being a part of the Northern Alliance. I state these potential projects here as I do want to nominate them for mainline at some point, but that is many years from now (provided they ever get created in the first place).
-- Bard's Tale: HttT is essentially my take on the original campaign, granting me complete freedom to do whatever with the story and characters (just say a Bard's embellishment of events). Of note it features a "younger looking Asheviere" who uses dark magics to keep her youthful appearance, and a planned boss fight against her,
=== However, I do not plan on doing this campaign any time soon. If I do ever work on it, it will probably be years from now, as I want to make sure I make it into the best campaign possible with all the small details and art present.
-- The "Northerner Tutorial" campaign takes inspiration from "The South Guard," in being a tutorial-level campaign with branching paths. It is planned on having a expansion to the Northerner unit list as well. One path has the protagonist stay true to the Northern Alliance with the Humans, Dwarves, and Elves, while the other breaks away and focuses on the Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, and Naga instead. (The main conflict is over the discovery of a lush valley that has plenty of resources in the harsh north.)
=== As before, this project is not likely to happen any time soon, mostly because I an prioritizing my Red Winter Reborn campaign first, and that the Northerner Tutorial campaign requires art assets that I can not fulfill. While I could technically work on one branch (Northern Alliance) with some modifications, it would still feel incomplete without everything being present.
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Re: Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

Post by Krogen »

In SotBE, the two loyal assassins that ultimately join your cause, could really use some improvements, namely level 3 and some fix traits. Preferably resilient among them for both. Orcish assassins have the single worst resistances in the game, and Slayers have 36 hp. Keeping those two fools alive is quite the challenge and not in a good way. You get to fight humans, elves, dwarves, even other orcs, and the two assassins that happen to join your side are the two most incompetent ones that existed throughout hundreds if not thousands of years of lore.
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Re: Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

Post by egallager »

Krogen wrote: May 18th, 2022, 9:48 pm In SotBE, the two loyal assassins that ultimately join your cause, could really use some improvements, namely level 3 and some fix traits. Preferably resilient among them for both. Orcish assassins have the single worst resistances in the game, and Slayers have 36 hp. Keeping those two fools alive is quite the challenge and not in a good way. You get to fight humans, elves, dwarves, even other orcs, and the two assassins that happen to join your side are the two most incompetent ones that existed throughout hundreds if not thousands of years of lore.
My "Easy Edition" of SotBE does just that: https://github.com/cooljeanius/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye_Easy_Edition
(I haven't ported it to 1.16 yet though)
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Re: Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

Post by Krogen »

Leaders and loyal units still not having traits in some campaigns (when it's a basic unit and not a special one, for example it's okay for Troll Hero not to have traits) is just weird and in general bothers me personally. I kinda like the idea that the heroes or villains most of the time are not all that special in terms of powers compared to their lackeys. But when they are just straight up inferior to everyone else, that's just not right. They should be at least as competent as the common soldiers.
Now, most of the time that's nothing but a nuisance, but in case of those orcish assassins, it's really painful. They are just so much worse than everyone else, but they require no upkeep (perhaps because noone would be willing to actually pay them), and in SotBE, managing upkeep and the number of units makes a huge difference, so you're just forced to use them, really. But then it takes a ton of effort and some miracles to keep them alive. I can even understand why the elves chose to imprison the first one instead of just straight up killing him, like elves usually do with orcs. They just couldn't believe the orcs would sink that low and be that desperate, to send someone so beyond useless to assassinate their leaders. Showing that fool to the world would be the perfect anti-orc propaganda.
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Re: Sire's Thoughts on Mainline Campaigns

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Huh, a potential merger of DM and EI.
-- This does lead into some timeline issues, as I imagine the DM time period will be the priority. EI takes place down the line, and while nothing seems to immediately relate to it, it is a potential setting.
-- Also, one wonders how Asheviere factors into all this, since she is active during the time of Delfador.
Yeah, I suppose the timeline would be undergoing some changes to accommodate updates. It's just a wiki page though...
Leaders and loyal units still not having traits in some campaigns (when it's a basic unit and not a special one, for example it's okay for Troll Hero not to have traits) is just weird and in general bothers me personally.
I think there should be an added mainline campaign rule of leader/hero units getting 2 traits at least (in addition to loyal) since the characters appear superficial and shallow without those trait characterizations. I think most of the updated campaigns follow this convention already...so it's just those old ones needing some updates.
Back in the day I was advocating for a "Scenario" category where one-shot scenarios with unique objectives with a small story would be featured. Aside from the creation of some UMC scenarios, it didn't seem to go anywhere.
This was requested a lot. Not just you, but by me and others as well. I have 3 SP scenarios (one inherited and 2 authored). I think it should be added in. Like campaigns, scenarios would have their own interface. The Main menu would have a "scenarios" (with maybe help-text -> "play a stand-alone scenario vs the AI") and the scenarios would be shown with some [scenario_menu_item] tag.

There are some scenarios which are canon timeline relevant like _Defense of Elensefar_ (takes place after SotA maybe) and maybe some others, can be considered if it does happen. Very Big If though.
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