To Lands Unknown 3.11 - new portraits and achievements!

[RHH]

I have finished this campaign first time few months ago. It gave me wonderful experience both in enthralling story, fresh game mechanics and astonishing landscapes. The advancement of graphics there is unmatched.

Several units from the campaign bear some resemblance to creatures from Heroes V game, namely earth and water elemenals and cyclop goliath. Were they inspired by those counterparts or is it just a coincidence?

[inferno8]

Zim, ValcenPlacid, RHH - thank you for the kind words. :)Thanks to people like you, I've been able to contribute to this community for so many years, crafting and polishing add-ons that delight you to this day.

Secondly, I want to report a bug. In the latest update, in scenario Chaos, Badass mode, when the turns runs out, the objective didn't update. Here I attach the following error.

Thank you for reporting. I'll investigate these issues soon.

And I want to ask, why isn't there any early finish bonus in TLU? It kinda incentivize me to spend my remaining turns to grind income and exp from remaining enemies.

That's a good question. I... don't know why there is no early finish bonus in the campaign. Tbh, it's been a long time since I checked that gameplay aspect of the add-on. If you have any ideas on how to improve that, I'll gladly hear your suggestions.

Lastly, I want to share some opinion. I think the scenario Southern Nations on Hard difficulty is a bit too RNG dependant, as sometimes the Darkblood and Barbarian equally kills each other till only a few of each sides remain (before the Barbarian reinforcement), but other times the Darkblood are completely wiped out while there're still many barbarians, tbf maybe I'm just being really unlucky.

You were really unlucky indeed, just like me Well, I don't think the situation you described is a big issue. But if more people complain, I'll try to make that scenario less rng-dependant.

Several units from the campaign bear some resemblance to creatures from Heroes V game, namely earth and water elemenals and cyclop goliath. Were they inspired by those counterparts or is it just a coincidence?

Yes, at least to some extent. I did play Heroes V in the past, but if you think about it, these creatures have already been described countless of times in various media. One could say it is hard to come up with something truly unique these days. I agree with that statement. But I also believe that if you mix and match for long enough, you can end up with something truly original.

[NSoph]

This is my favourite campaign so far, tops even IftU and DiD. The last two times i stopped at the siege of Mag-Magar, but this weekend i pulled through and i loved it. The increase in the power of your hero and army as you progress is palpable and i love that. Choosing between unique AMLA's, on whom to bestow artifacts, training up level 4 units, getting access to higher level units later in the campaign, but especially the "upgrade" scenes which raise your hero level contribute to this feeling. Aside from relaying the feeling of increasing power well, it also has the best humor by far (even without badass mode)

The background art and animations for scripted events are great, the siege of Kharos in particular was impressive. The regular unit sprites and animations are great too, though the size of the Air God sprite and the Megacircle animation can become quite irritating for dense battles and when you stare at them for too long. The character portraits are maybe the only thing where it is found lacking compared to mainline content, the Rhami-type portraits excluded (and for some reason the water god)

The story was engaging and I'm hungry for more, like ZIM, i too want to know what Guru's plan is and what hopes we can have for a sequel. I have been pondering this for a while since i finished and i want to share some thoughts i have on the plot, in fact, that is why i created this account today.

In the gameplay i found that i avoided certain unit types that seem suboptimal. Camel riders, Earth Elementals and Heavy Summoners seem to be mostly an opportunity cost and the Neutral one would be too, if it were not for the ability to get early Jinn. The low mobility of Rhami's and Water Elementals restricts their usefulness in later parts of the campaign with larger, more open and rough terrain, while many of your faster troops have the regeneration ability. Summon's Masters with the quick trait are faster than both and can fit the role of healer and damage sponge with decent melee capabilities.
Dispellers/Banishers seem to be only useful in "Ka-Gatta" and "Abyssal Rebellion" and seem otherwise inferior to the Summoner path(s).
(Maybe move the hammer attack from summoner's to them and switch their HP so that Dispeller's are the bulkier ones?)

Some questions/remarks
- The Master Banisher is not listed as an upgrade to the Banisher, so i thought the story would at some point "gift" me one. The story did not, at some point, gift me one. Are they supposed to be available in the campaign?
- I did not get the Jinni advice achievement. What is the first scenario where you can get Jinni advice?
- Rhami'datu are gold, Dharma'rami are red. These colours seem to be meaningful.

[NSoph]

Comments on the plot and guesses about the sequel

A problem with a possible sequel would probably be that Mehir and Rashti are already at the power ceiling of EoM, so there would be little room for growth within the EoM era. Being swarmed by level 4's and 5's would also get boring pretty quick i guess. Going around that issue by debuffing Mehir would be rather lame and creating another Era where powerful units of EoM become regular units would be a ton of work.

The campaign is called "To Lands Unknown," but it is actually crazy how unknown the lands are. It is a bit hard to believe that the Summoners did not have exploratory missions out of the desert with the tools they had. IMO It needs to be explained why they have been so incurious.

Summary of ancient history

Spoiler:

In the early history there was a dwarven techno-empire, and a human and cyclopian mage empire.
Then "The Destroyers," which are a bit like the Necromorphs from Dead Space or the "The Flood" from Halo, appeared and drove the dwarves to near extinction, made cyclops dumb and un-magical somehow and shattered the human empire into at least 2 parts (to begin with). One fraction, probably a subsection of the magical elite created the precursor to the Sky Kingdom, the other faction are the lands of Kharos, which were only recently united under the sun cult of the city of Kharos (probably by force of a magical artifact) and where for the most time squabbling city states with different ideas about religion. The Summoners of Ka-Gatta/Al-Kamija are a splinter section of them that left these lands and experienced extreme culture drift due to the distance, different environment and of course abyssal shenanigans. The "Hidden Face" troop info provides that they may come from desert nomads allied to the Sky Kingdom. The Darkblooded seem to have been around for a long time too. We have few clues about the Tharisians, their knowledge about The Destroyers seems to imply they survived contact, their appreciation of them seems to indicate the opposite. (except of course what they say is correct, because their ancestors created this magical bioweapon with themselves being immune, but the knowledge about it got corrupted into a cult (at least for the uninitiated). It would be fun if the Destroyers mutated and they are vulnerable anyway.)

The political players

Spoiler:

Guru and the Sky Kingdom is the major pro-human faction. They are magi-technologically advanced knowledge-seeking scientists gathering intel about all other factions but are otherwise mostly isolationist in their foreign politics. They advise the highest echelons of Kharosian society and subtly nudged Mehir into power, which they view as some sort of "chosen one". They want to get their hands on Nomolas. They have the last known surviving dwarve on their side. Then there is also the people mentioned in the Hidden Face troop info.
Nomolas has near completely opaque motives. He pretends to be obedient to humans for research purposes and other Abyssal creatures do likewise because they respect him and his wisdom. Red abyssal creatures do not go along with him as much and are therefore less obedient to humans too. If Nomolas suddenly chooses to not obey or gives anti-human commands, nearly all power humans have over abyssals vanishes.
The Saurians are isolationist and probably do not have grand designs, same for the cyclops/barbarians.
Tharisian's want to destroy for the sake of the Destroyers. The Destroyers themselves are opaque.
So really: Guru, Nomolas, Destroyers

Conflicts/Actual plot with Mehir guess

Spoiler:

The great war in the latter half will be the Destoyers versus everyone else. At first it is the Sky Kingdom with its allied dwarves and Kharosians, then Mehir convinces the Darkblooded and Barbarians to join, and at last even the Tharisians which see the error in their ways.
Before that, there is the war in the Abyss. Reficul the Efreet will have assembled a massive army to oppose human rule. Mehir joins the war against Reficul at first, but then something upsetting about Nomolas is revealed (He retroactively created the Destroyers using time magic to study the world, gathering all the species the planet has to offer across multiple time periods) and his side gets split into Nomolas loyalists and Human Loyalists. The abolitionist agenda of Reficul is more agreeable than whatever was revealed about Nomolas and they join to fight him. As the defeat of Nomolas draws close, Guru intervenes and tries to catch Nomolas for research/WoMD purposes, but is defeated and held bondage. Reficul absorbs Nomolas to become True Reficul, he reveals the great scheme of Nomolas and helps out with saving the surface world

[ZIM]

That's a good question. I... don't know why there is no early finish bonus in the campaign. Tbh, it's been a long time since I checked that gameplay aspect of the add-on. If you have any ideas on how to improve that, I'll gladly hear your suggestions.

Oh, did you balance the campaign without calculating the possible gold from early finish bonus? I'm afraid I'm not that experienced with balancing, so I guess if nobody else took problem with it, it's fine the way it is now. Imo, in lower difficulties the extra gold from early finish bonus doesn't matter too much since you probably have enough gold anyway. But on Hard having extra gold for recalling unit, which matters since this campaign doesn't use the standard 20 gold for all units, really helps.

[IceSandslash]

balance the campaign without calculating the possible gold from early finish bonus?

Early finish bonus was introduced to Wesnoth only in 1.14, IIRC. To Lands Unknown is older than that. Some other popular campaigns also do without early finish bonus. Note that early finish bonus is a thorny matter. In principle, early finish bonus is meant to compensate for the gold that you could earn by waiting out until the final turn and only then winning. However, the RPG aspect of Wesnoth includes XP, and early finish bonus doesn't handle it.

Spoiler:

A popular trick is setting up a situation in which you got the total advantage in the scenario, then siege the enemy leader in their keep, and farm every unit they recruit until the final turn. This isn't compensated by early finish bonus. I don't claim that's the intended way to play TLU, but let's not think the basic early finish bonus mechanic is all that good.

Imo, in lower difficulties the extra gold from early finish bonus doesn't matter too much since you probably have enough gold anyway. But on Hard having extra gold for recalling unit, which matters since this campaign doesn't use the standard 20 gold for all units, really helps.

This sounds like you have had trouble in one or more Hard difficulty scenarios. Could you expand on that? Again, please note there are several ways to balance gold other than early finish bonus.

[IceSandslash]

In the gameplay i found that i avoided certain unit types that seem suboptimal

Totally. Figuring out the best units to recruit/recall is a huge part of this campaign, specially for players otherwise unfamiliar with Era of Magic, such as myself.

Camel riders, Earth Elementals and Heavy Summoners seem to be mostly an opportunity cost and the Neutral one would be too, if it were not for the ability to get early Jinn.

Camel riders are a strong unit. They have huge HP bars, are highly mobile, and deal a quite large amount of cutting damage. Without going into too much detail, I have found them to be very effective in Near the Jungle, Southern Nations, Fire Canyon, Defense of Saffaros, and Sky Kingdom. They also have an important niche in Abyssal Rebellion, and I am sure they can do a good job in Siege of Kharos. Note that, as any cavalry unit, they should be used only in open spaces, which makes them a sure liability in scenarios such as Siege of Mag-Magar.

Earth Elementals are a very niche unit. When promoted to Earth Gods, they are fiercer Colossi. They share almost all their strengths and weaknesses, except that they aren't troubled by poison. They are very valuable in situations where Colossi would be useful. I have had success with Earth Elementals in Fire Canyon (regular mode), Siege of Mag-Magar, Defense of Saffaros, and specially Siege of Kharos.They also pull their weight in Ruins, and are a great emergency summon in North Pole.

Heavy Summoners provide a defensive aura that has an important niche in Abyssal Rebellion, and to some extent in Ruins. But, yes, the unit sucks. I agree.

Neutral Summoners. I actually find them to be a quite cool unit, because of life drain. With the scimitar from Ka-gatta you can have a quite strong Neutral Summoner. Too bad that there are so many enemies that are immune to drain. Anyway, I am glad they have found their niche with the introduction of early Jinn a few versions ago.

]The low mobility of Rhami's and Water Elementals restricts their usefulness in later parts of the campaign with larger, more open and rough terrain,

In contrast, Rhamis are amazing in Southern Nations, Fire Canyon, Ka-gatta, and Siege of Mag-Magar. They can also pull their weight in Defense of Saffaros and Siege of Kharos, and are amazing cannon fodder in North Pole, and Ruins. Note also that their regeneration capability makes them great for fighting in bottle-necks, such as bridges, just like trolls are amazing for protracted battles in caves.

[...] while many of your faster troops have the regeneration ability. Summon's Masters with the quick trait are faster than both and can fit the role of healer and damage sponge with decent melee capabilities.

Summons' Masters are definitively an amazing unit. But they still can't fully replace Water Gods in maps with water, such as Defense of Saffaros and Siege of Kharos. In the final map, Water Gods can still be used for their Slow capabilities, though players also have a variety of alternatives by then. Note also that putting a Summons' Master to work as damage sponges can be a very dangerous matter in some scenarios. In my opinion, Rhamis can do that job more safely.

Dispellers/Banishers seem to be only useful in "Ka-Gatta" and "Abyssal Rebellion" and seem otherwise inferior to the Summoner path(s).
(Maybe move the hammer attack from summoner's to them and switch their HP so that Dispeller's are the bulkier ones?)

I mostly agree that the Banisher line becomes obsolete. But I think there are people who actually like using Banishers. They can Slow, after all, which makes them very useful against units with dangerours abilities such as Kamikaze, or Charge.

[ZIM]

Early finish bonus was introduced to Wesnoth only in 1.14, IIRC. To Lands Unknown is older than that. Some other popular campaigns also do without early finish bonus. Note that early finish bonus is a thorny matter. In principle, early finish bonus is meant to compensate for the gold that you could earn by waiting out until the final turn and only then winning. However, the RPG aspect of Wesnoth includes XP, and early finish bonus doesn't handle it.

Is it? Damn, I never realized despite playing this game from 10 years ago.

A popular trick is setting up a situation in which you got the total advantage in the scenario, then siege the enemy leader in their keep, and farm every unit they recruit until the final turn. This isn't compensated by early finish bonus. I don't claim that's the intended way to play TLU, but let's not think the basic early finish bonus mechanic is all that good.

Yep, that's what I did. I'm just not sure if we're supposed to do that.

This sounds like you have had trouble in one or more Hard difficulty scenarios. Could you expand on that? Again, please note there are several ways to balance gold other than early finish bonus.

I'm not really having difficulties, I just felt the gold is a bit too tight in some scenarios, that I can only recruit my veteran and unable to recruit any fodder. I mainly having issues with scenario 9-12, besides that it's still manageable

[gnombat]

Early finish bonus was introduced to Wesnoth only in 1.14, IIRC.

The early finish bonus has been around since Wesnoth 1.0 at least (probably long before that).

[inferno8]

On the early finish bonus

The early finish bonus has been around since Wesnoth 1.0 at least (probably long before that).

Yeah, I remember the early finish bonus being a thing back in 1.2, even before I started creating content for the game.

Oh, did you balance the campaign without calculating the possible gold from early finish bonus? I'm afraid I'm not that experienced with balancing, so I guess if nobody else took problem with it, it's fine the way it is now.

Some other popular campaigns also do without early finish bonus. Note that early finish bonus is a thorny matter. In principle, early finish bonus is meant to compensate for the gold that you could earn by waiting out until the final turn and only then winning. However, the RPG aspect of Wesnoth includes XP, and early finish bonus doesn't handle it.

I think IceSandslash's argumentation perfectly describes why TLU lacks early finish bonus in some places.

I just felt the gold is a bit too tight in some scenarios, that I can only recruit my veteran and unable to recruit any fodder. I mainly having issues with scenario 9-12, besides that it's still manageable

As long as it is manageable I see no issue here. This campaign is very different from typical BfW campaigns, but it was reviewed by very professional players several times in the past and they all did agree that the gameplay experience was mostly fine.

--------------

I did not get the Jinni advice achievement. What is the first scenario where you can get Jinni advice?

In normal mode you can get the first jinni advice in S06 Fire Canyon while in badass mode in S08 Ka-gatta.

In the gameplay i found that i avoided certain unit types that seem suboptimal.

I can confirm that not all units are perfect for some missions. But as IceSandslash pointed out, this is actually part of the design. The campaign offers quite a large number of scenarios where particular units shine while others not. It is for the player to figure out the correct army composition for certain tasks.

Dispellers/Banishers seem to be only useful in "Ka-Gatta" and "Abyssal Rebellion" and seem otherwise inferior to the Summoner path(s).

This is also part of the design. Note that the protagonist is a Summoner not a Dispeller, so it should be no surprising that the campaign focuses on this branch of units a little more.
Now that I think about, it would be nice to make another campaign, this time about Banishers fighting the Red Cult - a dangerous sect worshiping red abyssal beings (this is actually part of the lore, you can read more about it in S14 dialog). That way Banishers and Dispellers could get more attention.

The Master Banisher is not listed as an upgrade to the Banisher, so i thought the story would at some point "gift" me one. The story did not, at some point, gift me one. Are they supposed to be available in the campaign?

Master Banisher has just been recently added to EoMa so it is not available in TLU. But because of his incredibly powerful ability of banishing lvl3 abyssmals, the unit has been intentionally locked in TLU. You can get him with debug but I do not recommend it.

The character portraits are maybe the only thing where it is found lacking compared to mainline content

Yep, I know that. That's why I am going to improve them one day. Drawing high quality portraits is one of the most time consuming tasks.

---
Now onto something I really like - the story related stuff :

Comments on the plot and guesses about the sequel

NSoph, this is actually one of the most detailed TLU world/plot analysis I have ever seen! Let me answer some of your questions.

The campaign is called "To Lands Unknown," but it is actually crazy how unknown the lands are. It is a bit hard to believe that the Summoners did not have exploratory missions out of the desert with the tools they had. IMO It needs to be explained why they have been so incurious.

I agree. Exploration lies in the human nature, but we only see Rashti admitting in S20 that she scouted the borders of the Great Desert with her master a several centuries ago ...and that's it. Vast majority of summoners used to believe there was nothing interesting outside of their territory and/or that they were "safe" in such a remote place. The utopian life possible thanks to all those incredible abyssal beings further strengthen their isolationist nature. But in every society there are people who have different visions and motivations. Yet it turns out there are no such people in the land of Summoners. What if there is something or someone who is secretly affecting their minds, their very human nature? Read S15 Abyssal Rebelion for more hints on this.

Re: Summary of ancient history:

Spoiler:

We have few clues about the Tharisians, their knowledge about The Destroyers seems to imply they survived contact, their appreciation of them seems to indicate the opposite. (except of course what they say is correct, because their ancestors created this magical bioweapon

Destroyers are much older than you think and they were not created by humans. See Chosen of Marsh description for more details.

A problem with a possible sequel would probably be that Mehir and Rashti are already at the power ceiling of EoM, so there would be little room for growth within the EoM era.

Everybody's talking about a sequel, but actually I've been thinking about making ...two prequels Such hypothetical campaigns would be much shorter than TLU (up to 7-12 scenarios long) and would focus on the early history of Summoners. One would probably tell a story of their war with the Red Cult (as previously mentioned), while the other would be about the discovery of the Abyss and Nomolas' motives. I already have some very interesting plot ideas. With enough support I might be able to pull this off one day.

[NSoph]

in every society there are people who have different visions and motivations. Yet it turns out there are no such people in the land of Summoners. What if there is something or someone who is secretly affecting their minds, their very human nature? Read S15 Abyssal Rebelion for more hints on this.

My base guesses before re-reading were that Nomolas assured them that nothing interesting happens outside and/or the curious ones just explore the Abyss instead

Spoiler:

speaker=Reficul "It reached the point that he slowly started shaping the Abyss to resemble the mortal world, and introducing the mortal world to the Abyss.

. Maybe the skill of superpersuasion displayed by Reficul is relevant because

Spoiler:

speaker=Reficul "I know you very well, Dharma'rashti [...] We are quite similar, you and I. What if I told you I can... release you from your blue half's constraints"

Spoiler:

Destroyers are much older than you think and they were not created by humans. See Chosen of Marsh description for more details.

"albeit not without consequences" - understatement of the millenia lol."Great Bog" sounds a bit underwhelming tbh, but also like a Great place for a campaign.

Everybody's talking about a sequel, but actually I've been thinking about making ...two prequels Such hypothetical campaigns would be much shorter than TLU (up to 7-12 scenarios long) and would focus on the early history of Summoners. One would probably tell a story of their war with the Red Cult (as previously mentioned), while the other would be about the discovery of the Abyss and Nomolas' motives. I already have some very interesting plot ideas. With enough support I might be able to pull this off one day.

The one about the Abyss and Nomolas' motives sounds amazing, much of what i would hope for in a sequel could be also contained there. Seeing how you would give a new protag and Nomolas a funny personality would be quite something.

Spoiler:

He trained the Nation of Summoner's wrong on purpose, as a joke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D-4zgezQE4

[artross]

To start with, thank you inferno8 for this masterpiece!

Two small questions I'd like to ask:
- was the bug desribed here fixed? The one about Mehir's MP still 3 in Ka-gatta. It wasn't something critical but quite unpleasant.

- was there an alternative ending in badass mode implemented?

Spoiler:

I guess it should be about getting *the other* battery, right?

[inferno8]

- was the bug desribed here fixed? The one about Mehir's MP still 3 in Ka-gatta. It wasn't something critical but quite unpleasant.

I've never encountered this particular bug in my playthroughs, but nonetheless I'll investigate it soon. If I find something, I'll attempt to fix it in the next version.

was there an alternative ending in badass mode implemented?

Currently there is no alternative ending. It is planned, though (low priority - long term).

I guess it should be about getting the ***** *******, right?

Yes

[artross]

Btw that new "abyssal regen" animation is awesome!

[kjRwN4Sf1N]

Hello,

Today I've encountered a bug in this campaign and I can't progress any further.
In campaign To Lands Unknown - TLU-Chaos, Turn 5, when enemy mage Aerius provoke Rashti to say the invocation, animation starts, and items on the map start flying off towards the portal. Soon after animation stops, and everything stops, and wesnoth process ends with abort crash.

Details:
To Lands Unknown 3.9.0
Era of Magic 4.6.2
To Lands Unknown Resources pt 1 & 2 2.3.0
Wesnoth 1.16.11
System: OpenBSD 7.5 AMD64
Game installed from system repository, and mods installed directly from in-game mod manager.

Crash log from terminal:

Code: Select all

$ wesnoth
Battle for Wesnoth v1.16.11 x86_64
Started on Sat Jun  8 14:59:02 2024


Data directory:               /usr/local/share/wesnoth
User configuration directory: /home/USER/.config/wesnoth
User data directory:          /home/USER/.local/share/wesnoth/1.16
Cache directory:              /home/USER/.cache/wesnoth

Setting mode to 1366x768
Checking lua scripts... ok
20240608 15:01:00 error config: Error while loading the map: Unknown tile in map: (Qxu^Yyyy) 'Qxu^Yyyy'
20240608 15:01:05 warning engine: Invalid anchor!
20240608 15:12:10 error display: ~BLIT(): image not found: '0'
20240608 15:12:34 error display: ~BLIT(): image not found: '0'
assertion "dst" failed: file "/usr/obj/ports/wesnoth-1.16.11/wesnoth-1.16.11/src/sdl/utils.cpp", line 2014, function "blit_surface"
fish: Job 1, 'wesnoth' terminated by signal SIGABRT (Abort)