Orcish Campaign: The Founding of Borstep

[beetlenaut]

Story
Some campaigns have orcs who just want to get along with everyone, but not this one! Krag-Ubor is a typical orc: warlike and rude; but he does look out for his people. Follow him as he searches for a new home for his tribe — whether it is already occupied or not!

Design Considerations

• Some unusual gameplay mechanics like hunting for meat and the respawning of dead units.
• Three levels of difficulty including Nightmare.
• Wide variety of enemies.

Changelog

version 0.4.0: First five scenarios done.
version 0.6.0: Two more scenarios done.
version 0.7.0: Eight out of ten finished.
version 0.9.0: Complete!
version 0.9.1: Works around a BfW bug that might be triggered in the second-to-last scenario. Slight code clean up and balancing also.
version 1.0: Now with music and journey dots.
version 1.0.1: Small interface improvement suggested by Elvish_Hunter (on page three of this thread).
version 0.9.9 first version for BfW 1.9
version 1.1.0: Major rebalancing and the addition of a new, easier difficulty level. See the bottom of page four for more information.
version 1.1.1: Fixes a bug caused by changes in 1.9.5 that kept the campaign from loading.
version 1.1.1a: Fixes some more bugs caused by changes in the development version.
version 1.1.2: Updated for BfW 1.12.
version 1.1.3: Some bugs fixed.
version 1.1.4: Updated for BfW 1.14

Look for it on the 1.12 server. From the author of Dead Water and Secrets of the Ancients.

[zookeeper]

I wish everyone would write WML like that.

[SkyOne]

Congratulations beetlenaut for:

1. Dead Water is going to the mainline
2. becoming an Art Contributor
3. publishing The Founding of Borstep


This campaign is interesting because of in 9 YW at the Far North. No humans are around at the time, yet. And you have created the early_farnorth.jpg as a BG map. Orcs cultivate the far north, I guess.
It is probably the time before the island is called Bilheld.

I have a question: could you tell me you are planning to animate TSI's new Orcish Mages on this campaign or you will wait for a while?


best regards

[beetlenaut]

No humans are around at the time, yet.

Yeah, and I can't put undead very many places either because they haven't been here long. It puts a crimp on my possible enemies.

I have a question: could you tell me you are planning to animate TSI's new Orcish Mages on this campaign or you will wait for a while?

I'll do it if nobody else gets to it first. Finishing the campaign is a higher priority. I may put them in before they're animated too. I still have to try it and see if it looks OK.

Two more levels are posted, but that may be all for a week or two.

[SkyOne]

No humans are around at the time, yet.

Yeah, and I can't put undead very many places either because they haven't been here long. It puts a crimp on my possible enemies.

On the other hand, you can use Yetis, and I am happy to contribute my Snow Fairies who are supposed to live in the Mountains of Dorth on mine. They are almost look like the elves though:

Spoiler:

Fairies (Snow Fairies) have haunted the highlands of Wesnoth for centuries, preferring to stay in only the coldest and most inaccessible places. Unlike most elves, they love the fragile beauty of the high mountain flowers and the soft multi-colored palette of the heather, rather than the lush green forests preferred by their lowland brethren. They even appreciate the delicate forms of the underground mushrooms that are normally only seen by dwarves and trolls.

Snow fairies are powerful, ethereal, and elusive; even dwarvish wardens and the highest-flying drakes rarely encounter them. They harness the elemental power of the mountains to work their magic, suddenly animating the wiry highland plants to entangle an unsuspecting target, or assailing their foes with a magically-created cold flash of arctic purity.

I have a question: could you tell me you are planning to animate TSI's new Orcish Mages on this campaign or you will wait for a while?

I'll do it if nobody else gets to it first. Finishing the campaign is a higher priority. I may put them in before they're animated too. I still have to try it and see if it looks OK.

Thanks and good to know.
I have been using them already without animations, so I can attach the unit file or send you the saving file if you are interested in seeing them first. (the novice and elder shamans only though)

EDIT: well, you do not have to care what I said.
A nice campaign with beautiful codings. I am still curious how you are able to create the BG map with that quality under 300 KB.

[Unnheulu]

On the first scenario the victory condition is: Become the leader of your tribe be killing the rival leaders.

Shouldn't that be "by"?

[beetlenaut]

Shouldn't that be "by"?

Whoops. I'll fix it next time I upload a scenario.

I am still curious how you are able to create the BG map with that quality under 300 KB.

The magic of jpg compression. I saved it at only 90% quality, but that's not noticeable on a mottled background like the map.
I'm glad people appreciate the code. One of the challenges of WML is to create readable code, but I try.

[Sneezy]

Let me know what you think, especially of the first scenario. Does it make you want to continue? Is there too much talking and animation?

Hi Beetlenaut-- playing FoB ver 0.6.0, normal difficulty, with BfW 1.7.15. The first couple of times through scenario #1, I was too defensive, and got creamed. Thought that I'd let the two enemies pound each other and then I'd move in and take charge. Bad choice! Third time, I was somewhat more aggressive, and that worked quite well. It was quite a melee, but the home team did quite well, promoted a number of units, and only lost a few goblins. Once you figure out a workable strategy, it feels like a good scenario, and you look forward to moving on to the next one. I think the talking is okay; it doesn't seem excessive. You kind expect (and need) some talking to explain the situation, and establish who's who.

My experience with the second scenario was kind of like the first: first time through I was a bit too aggressive, and probably lost more troops than I should have. I'm planning on repeating it -- reducing the force by a couple of units, and being a bit more cautious until the first wave has been dealt with. These two scenarios are interesting, and I think they do a good job of pulling the player into the story. Nice work! --sneezy

[beetlenaut]

Another scenario is done, but it's going to be at least a month, and likely more, until the campaign is finished. I have no days off for a few weeks, and the last scenarios will be complex. Meanwhile, you get to slog through a lake.

[boombox]

Just started playing and I'm really enjoying your campaign so far! I'm not far into it yet but I don't feel like there is too much talking and the first scenario is really drawing me in. Nice job!

[humanressource]

Greetings there,

playing on hard. seems quite balanced so far, but i only got to the 3rd scenario yet. getting owned there and need to figure out how much more defensive i need to be.

there seems to be a bug tho: game is not ending, if Ubor dies. Guess thats the side effects of life and undeath...

cheers
HR

[boru]

I'm enjoying this one a great deal, you have a lot of inventive ideas here. In the first scenario, I kept getting slaughtered until I decided I must need what competent gamers call a "strategy." So I let the two rivals slug it out with each other a few turns before advancing my forces. This worked out nicely for me (although it sounds like the exact opposite of someone else's experience above).

The idea of regaining hp from killing boar in scenario 2 was clever and very helpful. Those damn saurians always seem to have one more attack coming.

I only tried scenario 3 once and it was quite a rout. Too bad the orcs can't go from ghosts to ghosts-of-ghosts, then ghosts cubed. We quickly deduced that seizing merfolk villages was a bad idea ... too bad our allies didn't catch on to that.

Thanks for another fun campaign.

[beetlenaut]

Thanks for the compliments! I'm glad people like it.

game is not ending, if Ubor dies. Guess thats the side effects of life and undeath...

Actually, that was the side effect of a typo. Thanks for the catch. It's fixed on the server now. You may want to download the campaign again, because the bug will affect other scenarios too.

So I let the two rivals slug it out with each other a few turns before advancing my forces. This worked out nicely for me (although it sounds like the exact opposite of someone else's experience above).

I think it's best to let the enemies attack each other for a few turns--you just have to get moving before the green enemy finishes off the wolves and becomes too powerful. It's a fine line.
Ghosts-cubed FTW! Maybe in my next campaign...

I'm still working on the last couple scenarios, but I'm also working mostly 80-hour weeks this month, so it's slow going.

[Krellja]

Just played the first two szenarios till now. The campign is real fun. An exspecially nice and novel idea is "healing by hunting" in Thieves!

Krellja

[boru]

Still trying to beat "Life & Undeath." When the Shaman advances I got this message: