Humor Campaign: Talentless Mage (1.14)

[Wonderboy]

EDIT: This campaign has now been uploaded to 1.14 server.

Talentless Mage is a humorous and silly campaign about mage apprentice who has managed to learn only one simple spell in thirty years. His master sends him to impossible quest. The campaign is 10 playable scenarios long. It is in the 1.7.9 add-on server.

The campaign also introduces new faction: Noobs! They do not have typical unit tree. Instead they have AMLAs that make them slowly stronger. I can promise to you that playing noobs will be very different experience.

Feedback is of course very appreciated.

[Anonymissimus]

(really)
"Hey! I did not want to be a healer!"

Gwercyn (or whatever, the player's character) rather looks like 74, not 54 in that portrait. And he IS quite usefull, though.

Even without the humorous aspects, the advancement stuff of your units is quite interesting. Probably your best work so far. I've partly played Battle against Time, too (but there wasn't anything to say).
Btw you can do stuff like

Code: Select all

[unit]
    ...
    advances_to=White Mage
    ...
    id=Free Experience
    max_moves=0
    moves=0
[/unit]

so you don't need to remove movement points every turn. It works for every variables/keys that are valid in the description of a unit in a savegame it seems.

[Fairy]

"It is honourable to help ladies in need. Also maybe them will show us... Some gratitude."
Subtle

I am in scenario 4 right now and it looks great, my only problem being that there is no difference (as far as I can notice at least) between those who have levelled up a few times and those who have not. Maybe it it possible to give them a slightly lighter pink?

[Wonderboy]

Anonymissimus:

I just 'stole' the Crelanu portrait from LoW. Maybe I will try to draw portrait for Gyrzan and other characters later (I kinda suck at drawing but that doesn't matter because this is not serious campaign ). And Gyrzan is definitely the most powerful unit in your army. Hemiac could easily get stronger if he could level to red/arch/great mage... Well, even the most talentless mage is more useful than noobs.

Also thanks for pointing that WML stuff! I just usually write something and try if it works.


Fairy:

Unfortunately, the campaigns biggest flaw is that more experienced noobs look like fresh recruits. I personally rename my units and then I can identify them by hovering the cursor over them.

This might change in the future if I actually manage to figure out how to change the unit sprites with AMLAs...

[Anonymissimus]

This might change in the future if I actually manage to figure out how to change the unit sprites with AMLAs...

One way at least is invoking different variations like it is done in UtBS. The different sprites are defined before that in the variations then.

apply_to=type could be another possibility

[Fairy]

I did rename them (Bob, Bob#2, Bob #3 etc.) however, they all stay level one, in my recall list I often accidentally recalled a unit I did not want to recall (or deleted an experienced Bob, aargh..).
Ah well, it was a fun campaign to play nonetheless, managed to make me smile quite a few times

[Darkmage]

Great campaign i love the jokes, the rod of uber-super-powers... i wanted to be a red mage no a healer, you ruined my life, i hate you!! For me you are nothing but free experience. tooth fairy #2, you are an apprentice, you should go with your master... Why sending the attack in waves? shouldn't be more effective to send everything? Why do you ssssssspeak sssso ssssstrange(map ssssssssssauriansssssssssssssssss) LOL(i am not trolling xD)

And for feedback humm it was hard for me to not get killed with all those noobs around.(also i played with half mind)

[Anonymissimus]

How do you think your noobs faction should in general be played ?
They level a lot slower than normal units after all, including Gyrzan and Nart, making the campaign increasingly difficult on the later scenarios. That means, to achieve the same power, a lot more experience is needed. I've decided to use them only as cannon fodder for now, except Gyrzan and Nart. Such a berserker royal guard is great. And leveled some of the other remaining peasants, too. But this is on easy and still a quite tough campaign...

/edit
And, there's a major problem when trying to level noobs - a leveled noob has so few more power than a non-leveled one and they're so cheap that it isn't even worth the recall.

[Wonderboy]

Noobs indeed don't get powerful very fast. However, they full heal every time they AMLA. Also noobs always require only 1 gold upkeep.

Leveled peasants can be quite useful but not necessary. Royal Guards/Halbeldiers/Master Longbowmen require 3 upkeep though. Most of the time I managed to play the campaign without the peasants. I had less gold when I had more (leveled) peasants because they require more upkeep.


Leveling guide:

First I give more damage to my units. Before the Ssssauriansss scenario I give them hp because the mobile saurian skirmishers are problem to low hp units. It is easy to level only damage and forget hp. But then your units will die easily.


Talentless Mage:
I mostly give Gyrzan more damage. I give him strike when he has about 12 damage. I give him very little hp and try to play very carefully with him.

Coward Noob:
You can either focus to uppgrade his backstab or slow attacks. Backstab can deal lot of damage but generally I think that upgrading the bola attack is stronger. However, bola heavy Nart gets less xp than backstab heavy. Nart also needs some hp because he is used more in the frontline than Gyrzan.

Sword Noob:
They benefit greatly from strong/resilient traits. You should focus leveling up with those traits. First some damage and later some hp. You can also give crossbow to intelligent ones. It is possible to have 70-1 crossbow in the end. It's kinda ridiculous though.

Bow Noob:
They benefit greatly from intelligent trait. I almost always give them strike first and then some damage. Also hp is important. I have never found the poison dagger to be very useful even though I've made it stronger every time. Maybe I should make it even stronger?

Horse Noob:
It's not impossible to get 20-2 lance even though I have made it cost more xp. Focusing to sword can be pretty powerful as well. Using the both weapons upgrade makes them less powerful but more versatile (and they require less xp to level). There is basically two kind of horse noobs:
-Those who focus to one powerful attack and not much to hp. Those are protected with ZoC after they have attacked.
-More versatile horses who use both attacks and more hp. Their weapon upgrade costs less xp and therefore they can get more hp. They can be very useful frontline units because they have resistance to blade and impact.


Strategy:

Well, I play pretty much the same way as I play normally. Check enemy movement and try to stay out of their reach. In the frontline I use either powerful troops or cannon fodder. Also forming a line so that you units can only be attacked from two directions can be quite useful. There is also some fragile but powerful units (Gyrzan, Hemiac, horse noobs with high damage). Attack with them first and then protect them with ZoC.

Losing an experienced unit sucks more than in other campaings. You just have to be more careful with them...

And, there's a major problem when trying to level noobs - a leveled noob has so few more power than a non-leveled one and they're so cheap that it isn't even worth the recall.

I have to disagree with you. Sure, fresh sword noob costs only 11 gold and sword noob with one AMLA costs 20 gold. However, you will never be able to level them if you always recruit fresh ones. Traits matter of course a lot. I would recall sword noob with strong and resilient even if he had no xp.

[StandYourGround]

I played through most of the campaign, and I thought it was pretty fun (and silly). To conquer the issue I had with the noobs never looking different, I gave them noobish names like "Posion ur daggerz!", "LOL, PWNzer lance", and stuff like that so at a glance, I could tell which horse noob I had given the mean lance, or which bow noob I had given a strong poison dagger to, etc. I suggest that more loyalist sprites be pink-ized like these to represent more advanced noobs. For example, lance and speed upgrades to a horse noob would eventually end up with a pink (or punk?) lancer, while upgrading the melee attack on a bowman could eventually create a noob ranger...

Also, a suggestion for the Talentless Mage's final nemesis: The Dark Inept! An aged dark sorcerer who resorts to tying bones together to make his skeletal minions, since he never learned how to assemble them magically. His minions randomly collapse on the battlefield into a state similar to a petrified unit (not "dead", but a pile of bones like the start of the recruit animation), and the Dark Inept must stand next to collapsed skeletal units for a turn in order to "repair" them. The Dark Inept thinks he has found that awesome Rod of Super Powers, and "desecrated" it by mounting a skull on it (clumsily, by a rope through the eye sockets holding it to the rod), hoping that no one will be able to use it if they could get it from him. The Dark Inept wears a mask to make himself appear to be a Lich, mostly as an attempt to disguise himself from the real dark mages who laugh him down at every chance.

[Anonymissimus]

I suggest that more loyalist sprites be pink-ized like these to represent more advanced noobs. For example, lance and speed upgrades to a horse noob would eventually end up with a pink (or punk?) lancer, while upgrading the melee attack on a bowman could eventually create a noob ranger...

Changing unit sprites is somewhat difficult via amlas. Kaleh.cfg uses variations to do that, another possibility is probably apply_to=type.
But even more difficult would be to determine when to change the sprites, considering that variables cannot be used in amla wml. This would no longer allow such great variations in the noob faction's advancement trees, e.g. you would have to decide upon the first advancement whether the horsenoob is going to become a damage dealer or a damage taker.

[Gambit]

Changing unit sprites is somewhat difficult via amlas. Kaleh.cfg uses variations to do that, another possibility is probably apply_to=type.

apply_to=image_mod
or
apply_to=new_animation
Depending on wtf he meant by "pinkized".

Also if [fire_event] works inside of an AMLA then you can always use [store_unit] and [set_variable] $stored_unit.image="blah.png"

[StandYourGround]

For lack of any other "word" to describe unit sprits being tinted to match his other "noob" sprites to make it possible for some appearance changes when they AMLA enough times...

[Wonderboy]

Talentless Mage has been uploaded to 1.7.9 add-on server.

[tillea]

Hi,
I think renaming noobs is a good idea. I just identified the most leveled units by their hitpoints and recruitet those with a lot of hitpoints rather than picking the top from the list which is ordered by highest chances to level up. This worked quite fine. The horse noobs advanced to real killers and did a quite good job.
I had a lot of fun. I wonder whether this should really be an official campaign stressing the fact that Wesnoth players also are seeking for some fun. Currently it is my most favourite campaign on the addo-ons server! Thanks a lot. (BTW, I also liked Bitter Revenge and The Dark Alliance and the (not existant) cash take over in Battle Against Time.)
Thanks for your nice work
Andreas.