The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

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Bob_The_Mighty
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The High Seas (Naval MP Scenario)

Post by Bob_The_Mighty »

I have made another multiplayer scenario. This time it involves piracy, plunder and tedious trading negotiations :)

It is on the Add-on server now.

It is a 6 player map and can be played 2v2v2, 3v3 or FFA. There isn't any story at the moment, nor any explanation so this will have to used for reference...
SHIPS

Each player controls a Flagship, the deck of which is represented by a section of the map off to the side. The stats of ships are different to what it says in the main help file. To view the in-game stats mouse-over the unit description on the right-hand panel (e.g where it says ‘Galleon’).

ACTIONS

There are various special actions that crew and captain can perform by right-clicking on the unit and selecting the action.

Operate Cannon: A crewman on a ‘cannon ball’ hex can choose to operate cannon, giving the Flagship’s cannon +1 attack.
Man The Rigging: A crewman on a ‘mast’ hex can choose to man the rigging, giving the Flagship’s cannon +3 movement.
Navigate: A captain on the ‘helm’ hex can choose to navigate giving the Flagship +2 movement.
Pilot: A captain on the ‘helm’ hex can choose to pilot giving the Flagship the skirmisher ability.

Note captains and crewman cannot move whilst performing the above actions, but they can still fight. All bonuses are removed if the unit dies or chooses to stop doing the action.

Board Ship: A captain or crewman next to a flagship can board the ship.
Drink Potion: If your ship has a Potion Cabinet a unit on the relevant hex can drink a potion and have all hitpoints restored.
Train: If your ship has a Training Dummy a unit on the relevant hex can train and gain 2xp.
Release Bat: If your ship has a Bat Hutch a unit on the relevant hex can release a scout bat. It appears next to the Flagship.
Launch Lifeboat: If your ship has a Lifeboat units on the relevant hex can launch the lifeboat. It appears next to the Flagship.
Return To Ship: Bats and Lifeboats next to the Flagship can return to ship.

TERRAIN

To make sea battles more interesting, I have changed the defence stats of ships and added some new terrains. This works in an unsatisfactory way at the moment. It applies the defence modification only when your ship moves onto the hex, so the % in the cursor is often incorrect. The indicator in the top right of the screen is right though. I have based the figures on the idea that ships are easier to hit when forced to go slower due to swamps or being surrounded by flotsam in the water - or whilst sat in a port. And they can use obstacles like wrecks and icebergs to hide behind.

Village: 30%
Swamp: 30%
Flotsam: 30%
Shallow Water: 40%
Deep Water: 50%
Sea Cacti: 60%
Iceberg: 70%
Shipwreck: 70%

BUILDINGS

Taverns: Your captain can hire criminals (Footpads, Ruffians, Thugs, Poachers).
Farmhouse: Your captain can hire farmers (Peasants and Woodsmen).
Barracks: Your captain can recruit soldiers (Bowmen, Spearmen, Heavy Infantrymen).

Plantation:
Can be raided to steal spices.
Distillery: Can be raided to steal rum.
Mines: Can be raided to steal jewels.
Banks: Can be raided to steal gold. Alternatively captains can deposit/withdraw funds. Each bank has a different rate of interest.

Trading Ports: Flagships can trade goods.
Shipyard: Flagships can get repaired and buy improvements and accessories.
Market: Captain can buy special weapons and supplies.

SKILLS

Right-click on your captain and choose ‘Character Sheet’ to pull up a list of skills. Each skill costs 1 skill point. You start with 2 and get an extra point to spend every time your captain advances.

Swimming: It takes you 1 movement point to cross all types of water.
Bartering: +2g for every commodity you sell.
Landlubber: +2 moves when leaving your Flagship.
Hoarder: +2 to the max cargo of all goods.
Seamanship: Your captain can operate cannons and man the rigging.
Rabble Rouser: All adjacent crew get 1 extra move.

TRADING

You can sell goods in any Trading Port, but they can only be bought in Trading Ports in a town with a Mine, Plantation or Distillery.

Mines: These are situated in the northern mountains. Mines supply their town’s Trading Port with one chest of jewels every turn.

Distillery: These are situated in the southern tropics. Distilleries supply their town’s Trading Port with one barrel of rum every turn.

Plantation: These are situated in the temperate regions in the east and west. Plantations supply their town’s Trading Port with one pot of spices every turn.

When you sell a good to a Trading Port, the demand for that good decreases by 2g. However, every turn the demand for goods increases depending on how far away the town is from the nearest Mine, Plantation or Distillery. Thus a town with a Mine will pay very little for jewels, but one of the southern towns will pay a high price for them. This encourages players to do ‘trade runs’, moving up and down the map seeking the best price for their goods.

Note if a Mine, Plantation or Distillery is raided then it stops producing goods and the demand in the town for that good increases faster.
Got all that? Good, now go enjoy.
Last edited by Bob_The_Mighty on January 30th, 2008, 12:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
My current projects:
MP pirate campaign: The Altaz Mariners
RPG sequel: Return to Trent
MP stealth campaign: Den of Thieves
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Ken_Oh
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Post by Ken_Oh »

Pretty awesome.

Bugs(?):
-It seems like your leader can't use the cannon, but only the mast. I don't know if this is by design though. Along with that, I don't see Seamanship doing anything.
-Navigate is only +2, not +3 as your description here says.


Things I'd like to see:
-I think the options to Scroll to Ship and Scroll to Deck should be available if you click anywhere on the map.
-Can you board a pirate ship? I didn't see if you could. Then you could take their ships instead of sinking them. See the next one.
-It would be neat if there were different damage types for ships and land units, so that way the two couldn't really hurt each other by setting unit resistances to 99% on the opposing types (my Dwarvish Steelclad was busting up some ships pretty badly with his hammer). I think the AI would also realize that it's best not to attack in the way that it only does 1 damage a hit.
-A single player version. I say this all of the time, but the more complicated some of these MP scenarios get, the more I would like to see these elements go towards a single player game.
-Undead options for leaders. Haven't you seen Pirates of the Caribbean? ;)

Is it supposed to be this hard? I did both a 2 player and a full player game and pretty much got gang-raped both tries. Only one side, out of the 8, ever reached land. All the enemy ships are just so much faster. If I were you, I'd make movement types for ships in shallow and deep different, so you could cruise around on the deep water but move slowly in shallow.

p.s. how do you find the time to pump out all this great content???
Edward V Riley
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Post by Edward V Riley »

As a pirate buff and the husband to a pirate fanatic, good job.
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viorc
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Post by viorc »

Another massive awesomeness Bob !
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Aethaeryn
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Post by Aethaeryn »

Great job, this is a really fun map. With a little extra time to kill, I tested it out on hotseat against myself with free-for-all.

One major issue though: I think you should be able to take over an enemy ship if you kill its crew/captain and put your captain on the command-area-hex-thing where you navigate from. While testing it out on hotseat, there was an epic PvP battle, but the person whose crew won and destroyed the enemy's crew lost their ship. Instead of being marooned, the captain (who was on the empty enemy ship) should've been able to take it over imo. When I tried to do "navigate" to see if that happened, he couldn't de-navigate or move. Comadeering ships I think would add an interesting twist on it because when your ship sinks, your leader isn't always on it (when at port, for example).

I also thought the AI was a bit too challenging - if you didn't run from it (and you can get cornered in the upper left northern area), it'll reinforce itself with other ships and you can't take on 3-4 ships with just one.

I also didn't see the "pilot" option, only the navigate one. If I had known about it I wouldn't have lost one of my ships when it got surrounded at high seas by about 3 enemies (again, AI makes it a big challenge on FFA).
Lim_Arcadia
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Post by Lim_Arcadia »

I agree with Aethaeryn, this map is great, but it needs less enimies, and perhaps an option to create a new flagship when your first dies.
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Aethaeryn
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Post by Aethaeryn »

After playing a 3 vs 3 yesterday and having to basically stop the contest in order to gang up on the AI, it's a little too hard. The start is also a bit slow.
Tom of wesnoth
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Post by Tom of wesnoth »

The map is great but why cant you take enemy ships when they are defeated?What about players ships have a boarding party attack?If you ship is defeated why don't you get put on a nearby desert island?
If i could i would turn into a world ruler!
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Jami
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Post by Jami »

Some bugs:

1. The Training Dummy is broken. Players can use it more than once a turn to level a unit from L0-L3.
2. The slave cage frame is not in the correct position for P4
3. Rabble rouser ability only works once.
4. Nitro occationally dissapears from a player before use.
5. Boarding seems to cause occational OOS.


Problems:

1. The Man-O-War galleons are way too powerful and too fast. Just one can take on a fully-manned flagship and win more than half the time.
2. Raiding is stupidly easy. Perhaps some units to defend the plantations/banks (especially the banks!)
3. Village defense seems not to be displaying correctly correctly.

Big MP error:

1. When a skirmisher is created by an attack, attack_end, attack_hits, or attack_misses event they are able too bypass enemy units for the host of the game on the turn of their creation. This appears to be a bug in the game (I've already submitted a report). This makes this scenerio nearly unplayable in true MP. I've been working on a modified version that fixes this problem, however, I won't post it without Bob's permission.
FireMaster
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Post by FireMaster »

The Man of War galleons are way to powerful.

also,I'd like to see this as single player
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Grand Marshal Aditya
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Post by Grand Marshal Aditya »

I copied this file to the wesnoth/.../campaigns section and when I played, it said it can't find the map..

What did I do wrong?
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Grand Marshal Aditya
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Post by Grand Marshal Aditya »

The same happened for all your maps... :?
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Bob_The_Mighty
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Post by Bob_The_Mighty »

Grand Marshal Aditya wrote:I copied this file to the wesnoth/.../campaigns section and when I played, it said it can't find the map..
What file did you copy?

If you download stuff using the in-game add-ons feature, it should automatically go to the right place. You do have to close and restart wesnoth after downloading add-ons, though.
My current projects:
MP pirate campaign: The Altaz Mariners
RPG sequel: Return to Trent
MP stealth campaign: Den of Thieves
Grand Marshal Aditya
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Post by Grand Marshal Aditya »

I did it by downloading from wolff.to
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

Amazing. :shock:
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