Burning Souls

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Maiklas3000
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Maiklas3000 »

Scenario 1: Prologue
(1) Version and difficulty? 1.9.8, 1.4.1, hard
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 4
(3) Objectives? Not so clear. "Defeat the humans" means "kill the human leader."
(4) Dialog? There are grammatical mistakes in most sentences. I thought the enemy leader's dialog was too trite.
(5) Challenges? The main challenge was coming up with a strategy, because a toe-to-toe fight looks hopeless.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 7, pretty interesting
(7) Changes? I personally don't like when a unit can move its full movement and spawn another unit, which moves its full movement and spawns another unit, and so on. Could you have them spawn with zero remaining movement points?
(8) Recap? I set about rallying troops as fast as possible. Then I sent my two crowned units to the east to draw the enemy that way, while a large assassination force headed straight south for the leader. The two guards weren't much of a deterrent, though it was good idea. I was able to grab a little XP on the last round, once the leader's fate was sealed.
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

Thanks for play testing, Maiklas :)

I tired the suggestion of making the units start with 0 movement, and it works well. It makes the scenario a bit harder. I think I'll leave the guards the way they are simply because I like the fact that leader assassination is a possibility; The play is given a choice, either try to get as much XP as possible, or go for the early finish bonus by assassinating the leader.
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Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Maiklas3000 »

Scenario 2: The Humans Return
(1) Version and difficulty? 1.9.8, 1.4.1, hard
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 8 (to fight the humans)
(3) Objectives? Okay.
(4) Dialog? The dialog needs a proofreader.
(5) Challenges? Drake lines are brittle versus piercing enemy.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8, well done, no boring cleanup
(7) Changes? Fine as is.
(8) Recap? I set up a conservative line at the end of my villages. I knew time was on my side, as I could keep pumping out units to replace any losses. Eventually the enemy's assault ran out of steam, though not before I lost a lot of ready-to-level units.

Edit: I'm stuck on the third scenario, in the cave. Usually I do a great job of surviving and killing the enemy, but I always run out of time. On turn 47, there are a few Ghouls and Walking Corpses past the lava bottleneck north of the Dread Bat's lair, so it's game over. It looks like there's a lot of map after that point too, so I might need many more turns to win.
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

Maiklas3000 wrote:Edit: I'm stuck on the third scenario, in the cave. Usually I do a great job of surviving and killing the enemy, but I always run out of time. On turn 47, there are a few Ghouls and Walking Corpses past the lava bottleneck north of the Dread Bat's lair, so it's game over. It looks like there's a lot of map after that point too, so I might need many more turns to win.
Hmm... I never have never had a problem with the number of turns. Of course, I haven't played on the hardest difficulty either. I assume the Dread Bat you're talking about is the green one? If so, then you are only half way through the scenario, so I changed the turn number to 75 on hard.

Burning Souls version 1.4.3 has been uploaded.
"Everything is better with penguins."
Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Maiklas3000 »

I am still stuck on the third scenario even with the 75 turn limit. I lost 5 times at turn 75 still stuck at the two lava hex chokepoint just north of the green Dread Bat. The sixth time I finally got past the chokepoint (and more importantly the chamber afterwards) and got my leader to the artifact on turn 74, only to find that I needed to shlep all the way back the entrance. I would have needed 11 more turns to get my leader to the exit. I would suggest eliminating two villages for the Death Knight. The basic problem is that I can kill 1-2 units per turn, but the Death Knight can produce almost that many. If I try to broaden my front to kill more units, then my units take more damage than my villages can heal in time.

I have some suggestions for the scenario. One of the Drakes complains about not being able to fly in the caves, but actually they fly most of the time here. There are just a few cave hexes in the way, with most of it being MP=1 dirt. So, I would add more cave hexes. But that could make it harder, so just put them around the entrance and in the left half of the chamber past the two hex lava chokepoint. And add a dialog at the entrance, something like, "Hmm, it looks like the cave roof has collapsed here before, so it may collapse again. We'd best hurry." That would foreshadow the basic victory condition problem, with needing to escape the cave after finding the artifact.

Anothing thing is that the undead are uncharacteristically passive. Wounded walking corpses just sit on the front line rather than making the ultimate sacrifice to try to get multiple attacks on a unit. In most scenario WML files with undead, the AI for the undead is told to be maximally aggressive.

In the Elemental dialog, replace "quite" with "quit".

My best (but still unsuccessful) replay is attached.
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

Ok, I just realized that the scenario is actually a lot easier if you take Qwunvon's gold. So I made this scenario easier only if you fought the humans in the previous scenario. So now you have 77 turns, with less enemys to beat. I hope it works :)

Changes include:
-Another easter egg was added to scenario 3
-Walking Corpses throw caution to the wind
-Maiklas's dialog suggestions have been added
-You only get the extra 20 turns if you didn't accept Qwunvon's gold
-The death knight loses villages/income if you fought the humans previously
-Fixed a bug causing some dialog to not work
-Made the Fire Guardian a special unit which can be leveled up
-Fixed an issue with Garish in scenario 6
-A bunch of other little things in between
"Everything is better with penguins."
Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Maiklas3000 »

Scenario 3: Billheld's Secret
(1) Version and difficulty? 1.9.8, 1.4.4, hard
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 8, maybe 9 the first time
(3) Objectives? Not clear that the leader has to get the artifact and the leader has to be the one to exit yet that others will survive if he does.
(4) Dialog? Good.
(5) Challenges? The main challenge was getting the scenario designer to make it easier. However, he promised 77 turns, but I got only 40 turns.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 9, I really like this scenario, but maybe more so before the changes, though I couldn't beat it then.
(7) Changes? I don't really like the tomato surprise of the skeletons. I can't imagine trying to fight through them, especially with skeleton archers versus pierce vulnerable Drakes on 30% defense. The skeletons should be drastically weakened. Meanwhile, if the turns are increased to over 40, then the Death Knight's army can be strengthened.
(8) Recap? With only 40 turns, it was basically a sprint from start to finish. I finished on turn 40. The undead combat was somewhat interesting, though I missed the toughness the scenario had before. It's still tough, but only because of the 40 turn limit and the (probably) impenetrable wall of undead skeletons that develops. Fortunately, my leader could just run through the middle of them without needing to engage. I usually need about 47 turns to get the Elemental, so I failed this time. I don't know what the second Easter egg was.
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

Maiklas3000 wrote:The main challenge was getting the scenario designer to make it easier. However, he promised 77 turns, but I got only 40 turns.
Ack! I was afraid the code wouldn't work. Good thing I toned the death knight down more then I should have. I will fix those things soon for future players.
"Everything is better with penguins."
Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Maiklas3000 »

Scenario 6: Reinforcements Needed
(1) Version and difficulty? 1.9.8, 1.4.4, hard
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 8 the first time, 6 the second time
(3) Objectives? Okay.
(4) Dialog? Needs proofreading.
(5) Challenges? My allied leader was suicidal, charging out repeatedly even though I set my ally to defensive. This made the game unwinnable and I had to start over. Otherwise, it's mostly a game of puppeting, since you probably can't achieve a military victory and the undead and sea serpents will attack anyone.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8, very well designed
(7) Changes? Need to have text or graphic marker for egg carriers. There is a bug in that the Merman leader is invisible. There is a hilarious bug where if an undead delivers the last blow on the enemy leader, the undead launches into a dialog with the Drake leader and agrees to the Drake's orders by saying "Understood."
(8) Recap? I recruited a few rounds, then sent my leader to the southeast and into the ocean (before the humans and mermen closed the gap) along with two guarding units. Meanwhile, Gliders raced off for the eggs and the rest of the recruits fought the mermen just inland from the coast. The humans ran around in circles a bit, not sure if they wanted to charge across the island towards the allied leader or into the water towards my leader. This caused them to build into an unstoppable "wrecking ball," but it also delayed them so that they never reached the suicidal allied leader. Victory comes without a hitch this way. I finished 15 turns early.
sw_emigre
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by sw_emigre »

I've played it mostly through, on medium level. (1.9.7), but I am stuck on "Close to Kill". Is the object just to wait 15 turns? Because Q launches so many merfolk at you that there is no way through, even with the glider-assassin idea. Any thoughts?

As was expected, this is a campaign with a lot of dead drakes! I have restarted a few scenarios but no save-loads, so my recall list is smallish (Level 3 inferno, blademaster, two flamehearts, an enforcer, and a level 2 sky drake, and that's it.) But I doubt more recalls would help. Starting gold 252 or so.
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

You have to play it defensively. Since level 1 drakes get chopped down just as easy as level 2's, and sometimes even level 3's, it is best to recruit fresh units and place them on the front lines as suicidal guards. Basically, let the enemy attack the level 1's, and use the guys who are close to leveling up to make the kills.
"Everything is better with penguins."
Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
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Maiklas3000
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Maiklas3000 »

Scenario 7: Runners
(1) Version and difficulty? 1.9.8, 1.4.4, hard
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 8
(3) Objectives? Okay.
(4) Dialog? In this and earlier scenarios, "too" is misspelled as "to". Many sentences are run-on sentences. For example, "We have spent to much time here, Garish will surely be defeated..." That sentence should have a semicolon or period where the comma is.
(5) Challenges? There are two main challenges: securing the recruiting spot in the sea and getting past the Outlaws to get to the signpost.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8, a unique twist on the "race to the signpost" objective.
(7) Changes? One time my allied Saurian died before I would have even had a chance to prevent it, so I would try to change this, possibly by lengthening the bottom of the map or moving the Outlaw base north.
(8) Recap? I split my initial two units up. Both got pretty beat up, but I defeated the Nagas and started recruiting. I did a bunch of raw recruits and then 3 level 3's. Then I lined them up and had my leader run behind them. Since my leader ran southeast, the Saurians were able to take up the slack when I started running out of screening troops. I reached the signpost on the last turn. I didn't try to kill the enemy leader, but it seemed possible.
sw_emigre
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by sw_emigre »

Pewskeepski wrote:You have to play it defensively. Since level 1 drakes get chopped down just as easy as level 2's, and sometimes even level 3's, it is best to recruit fresh units and place them on the front lines as suicidal guards. Basically, let the enemy attack the level 1's, and use the guys who are close to leveling up to make the kills.
No offense, but I'd like to see a replay of this, cuz it makes no sense. If you sit at your keep and the one island next to you, you don't have enough time before the undead come on turn 9. If you try and take the two sand islands, well, you get shredded, with not enough land for your troops and nowhere to heal wounded ones without getting them attacked.

As for recruiting level 1 fodder, they are crushed almost instantly, since they can be surrounded just about anywhere. That means that soon you are left with only about 8 troops, and even at level 3, you can't kill everyone who comes at you. To say nothing of the undead at turn 9, and the fact that you still have to fly through deep water--slow and with bad defence-- to get at the leader. (Though to be honest, I am not sure that being able to recall 12 level 3's would get through this.)
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Pewskeepski
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by Pewskeepski »

I don't have a replay, but I have beaten this scenario on medium difficulty so I know it's possible. I hate to tell you this, but you might have to replay some previous scenarios to get a bigger recall list. When I played this scenario I had a much bigger list of high level units. Hope this helps.

I also noticed a small bug in Runners - The dusk schedule is was missing. It's been fixed!
"Everything is better with penguins."
Creator of Burning Souls, The Fall of Wesnoth (abandoned) and Adventures of Knighthood (now available on BfW 1.15!)
kele
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Re: Burning Souls

Post by kele »

I just have ended the campaign. It was interesting. Will you plan to internationalize it? I made some translations, and think to translate your campaign, but didn't find the po-file.
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