Colosseum for 1.18

[Shiki]

Feedback and general discussion thread for Colosseum.

Check the »Custom Options« of the maps. All maps have options which one can chose before opening the game.

Besides the maps from 1.16 there exist now 1-2 additional maps as part of the same add-on, ported from an old version. Change log is in _main.cfg file.
I improved the add-on on the technical side, but didn't make balance changes for the most part. I would appreciate it if someone could take over the add-on from this point.

There are also several other Colosseum add-ons from ChaosRider on 1.18. They work, but need some fixes to use the new markup in the shop.

[ChaosRider]

Ill check soon colosseum addons shop. Can you send me screen of the things that it has to be fixed?

[Shiki]

A screen will probbaly not be needed.
The syntax with the & doens't exist anymore: DescriptionWML
The main thing to change is:

message= _ {MENU_IMG_TXT "items/bones.png~SCALE(36,36)" "Done"}

to

image="items/bones.png~SCALE(36,36)"
description= _ "Done" (or label= )

I looked at one add-on and it are 500 cases.

I assume there is much copy and paste between the add-ons, or maybe in the add-on. Maybe we could combine all the add-ons into one single add-on, so there is less code to maintain? I could help.

[ChaosRider]

I'll have to take a look on how it looks like in open game of colosseum scenario shop. Right now I dont have such a possibility. Maybe tomorrow I'll check it.

[ChaosRider]

Ok, I checked it in game and now I see how images in messages arent created but there is a text path to image. This will take me some time to fix it.

[ChaosRider]

A screen will probbaly not be needed.
The syntax with the & doens't exist anymore: DescriptionWML
The main thing to change is:

message= _ {MENU_IMG_TXT "items/bones.png~SCALE(36,36)" "Done"}

to

image="items/bones.png~SCALE(36,36)"
description= _ "Done" (or label= )

I looked at one add-on and it are 500 cases.

I assume there is much copy and paste between the add-ons, or maybe in the add-on. Maybe we could combine all the add-ons into one single add-on, so there is less code to maintain? I could help.

Shiki could you write me right code for changing this:

"message= _ {MENU_IMG_TXT "portraits/undead/transparent/death-knight. png~SCALE(36,36)""Choose your unit class"}"
?

[ChaosRider]

Ok, I found the way how to do it and I fixed bugs. Atleast for me colosseum addons works well now. There are new versions of colosseum addons on Wesnoth v1.18 server. Go get it people and try it. Any feedback will be a good sign for me!

[Shiki]

New upload v2.2.0 with changes to ai settings: The vanilla 3p and 6p maps use the 1.14 ai now.
Additionally, the 3p map had before grouping of enemy units disabled, it has now like the 6p map grouping=aggressive.
You can downgrade to version 2.1.2 with the add-on manager for comparison with the 1.16/1.18 ai.

The ANL/water map continues to use the 1.16/1.18 ai. When using 1.19 you can now also play with the new JoyCamp add-on.
To play the water map instead of the ANL map, enable it via the options.

[Argothair]

Thank you for updating and maintaining the Colosseum ANL mod! It's a very interesting idea, and I love the thought of combining two of my favorite add-ons. Technically, the scenario is mostly functional -- the hexes labeled as 'village' look like they're supposed to give you a free village, but they don't, and the shipwrecks don't seem to do anything but disappear when you step on them. There is also a weird effect where units often seem to be marked with the red 'already moved' orb at the start of your turn, but this bug is harmless because the effect always vanishes when you hover your mouse over the unit.

Mechanically, I don't think the scenario is well-balanced. I've been playing on the easiest difficulty, and there just isn't enough space or time to build up a meaningful economy before waves of high-level units start attacking you. With only 2 starting castle hexes, you can't recruit a large army even if you want to spend all your starting gold on it -- the enemies literally start attacking your home area on turn 2, and your castle on turn 3. There is only one sensible area to create a bottleneck (the corners of the triangle where the impassible mountains are close together), but this area is only one move away for the red team of enemy units. If you guard it, then you get attacked by multiple level 2 & level 3 enemies with charge, skirmisher, etc. and you have no real control over whether your guards survive the first turn of each wave. If you don't guard it, then the enemies immediately penetrate into your home area, which you need to protect in order to have any economy other than what you get from end-of-wave bonuses.

If you play on easy, then maybe there are just so many bonuses that you can survive anyway and turn your hero into a ridiculously powerful character at the expense of sacrificing all the units you recruit, but it's not especially satisfying; too much depends on the luck of whether your guards happen to survive the initial assaults. I'm not sure how to fix this without radically expanding the size of the map -- possibly it would help to add a variety of extremely rough terrain in front of the enemy spawn points and/or delay the turn on which the first enemy attacks begin to trigger, so that you have some hope of, e.g., building castles and moats and things in the chokepoints.