The Eight of Cembulad - 1.8 port

[Groggy_Dice]

The epic campaign from 1.4, The Eight of Cembulad, lives again! I will be uploading the first version of my port after I post this. However, DON'T DOWNLOAD IT just yet. I had planned to upload it tonight, after working through all the wmlscope bug messages. But I did another wmllint dryrun as a precaution, and found another raft of bugs. I'm going to upload anyway, lest some mishap like a hard drive crash befall me, but I figure it'll be another day or two to fix all the wmllint bugs. VERSION 1.1.1 IS UP! Download away!

The Eight of Cembulad is set on the island (or small continent) of Cembulad, which appears to be outside the Wesnoth/Irdya continuity. Its protagonist is the heroine Sel Iminar, a citizen of the kingdom of Cirithin, and a member of the band of human, elvish, and dwarvish champions known as the Eight of Cembulad. As the campaign opens, King Trenle has turned against her and her brother Taan. They must flee, and reunite with the other six members of the Eight, to face orcs, demons, and the evil that has gripped the throne.

The original designers, Lintana~ and WYRMY, have left a solid foundation for this port:

• all scenarios ( 24 battle, 3 story) are complete; players will not be stuck with an unfinished campaign
• its story is reasonably well-written
• artwork is fairly decent for UMC, making good use of recycled and old-school style graphics

I've played the first three scenarios, and it hasn't crashed yet. Other players found it playable on 1.4, and I wouldn't be surprised if the port held up even better, since most of the bugs were inherited from the 1.4 original, and I've fixed many of them.

[Coffee]

Thanks for putting up this campaign as a port. I've played it before (on 1.6 I think) and enjoyed it.

Just wondering 2 things. Firstly, why not for 1.9? Secondly, will there be a problem with gold/income? I remember there being a difference in gold/income calculation. Something like where the units you have now don't count for as many villages for upkeep, but before they did.

[ydcl]

Is it normal, in "Trouble in the hills" we can't recall anybody ?

[moony]

hey. ive the same problem. i cant recall anybody in "trouble in the hills" and my 3 fellowers , taan and the others are not there. after one round it has finished. in the next level all elvish fighters and the three other important persons were not there.
ive wesnoth 1.8.6 and opensuse

[Groggy_Dice]

Just wondering 2 things. Firstly, why not for 1.9? Secondly, will there be a problem with gold/income? I remember there being a difference in gold/income calculation. Something like where the units you have now don't count for as many villages for upkeep, but before they did.

I'm not on the bleeding edge. I don't care to download massive files every month or two, and I don't want to chase a moving target. I did download 1.9.8, and it had a bug where it wouldn't display all the terrain types in the unit help, which also gave me the impression it wasn't ready for prime time. (More recently, I found that its wmllint didn't output the "unknown '%s' referred to by id" error, at least on my system.) With a feature freeze coming soon (which wasn't announced in a timely manner in the forums), perhaps I will reconsider at some point.

As for the gold, I don't know anything about any special code relating to the gold. The campaign does use the old 80% system, rather than the 40% carryover that is now the preferred standard.

Is it normal, in "Trouble in the hills" we can't recall anybody ?

As far as I know, that's not deliberate, and I'll have to look at it.

If I can find the problem, the solution will go into 1.1.2. It will also fix a couple of problems with scenario 3. There is also a bug with a macro which is supposed to give you a victory without an early finish bonus in a few scenarios.

[Krake]

The reason recalls doesn't work is because whenever the string "MOVE_UNIT" and "TELEPORT_UNIT" appears its argument is "description=name" rather than "id=name". Also Taan lvl 4 only has leadership level 3 ability, otherwise it seems to be working as it should.

[Groggy_Dice]

The reason recalls doesn't work is because whenever the string "MOVE_UNIT" and "TELEPORT_UNIT" appears its argument is "description=name" rather than "id=name". Also Taan lvl 4 only has leadership level 3 ability, otherwise it seems to be working as it should.

Thank you, I'd been looking at the scenario earlier today, and nothing had jumped out at me. I did notice that the scout used "description" instead of "id", and would have eventually experimented with changing that, but probably not as my first choice as: a) the wiki documentation led me to believe that description was a deprecated, but not broken, key that the program aliased to id; and b) it's not immediately apparent that it would be connected to recruiting/recalling.

As for the leadership level, I had thought that it was a deliberate design decision to keep his leadership level one rank below his own level, but it looks like you're right; this was an oversight.

I will try to have 1.1.2 up tomorrow night with all these fixes.

[Sneezy]

Hi Groggy-- earlier posts sounded interesting, so I downloaded TEoC, and have started to play (using win2k, BfW 1.8.5, TEoC 1.1.1, difficulty=Easy). Pretty enjoyable so far. Just completed scenario 3, The Journey West, and found some funny behavior.

Spoiler:

when you step on the tree in the path (at location 6,9) you are asked "do you want to pick the object up? yes or no?" but you have no idea what the object is(!). After you say yes, you might learn that it is a staff of light, or you might learn that it can only be picked up by elves. There also was a message about a potion(!?). I found the macro STAFF_OF_LIGHT in utils/objects.cfg. It uses a macro named PICK_UP, which is defined in that same file. It looks like the definition of PICK_UP has the potion references embedded in it.

The problem is that you are asked for your decision before you know that you've stepped on something. And the reference to a potion probably isn't right.
Thanks for tackling this port. I've not played this one before, but it does indeed seem like a UMC that we'd all like to keep alive.
--sneezy

[Groggy_Dice]

OK, 1.1.2 is up, fixing all usages of "description=" in macros to "id=". Another change is that I've added {NO_EARLY_FINISH_BONUS_NOTE} to those objectives that don't give you an early finish bonus.

Hi Groggy-- earlier posts sounded interesting, so I downloaded TEoC, and have started to play (using win2k, BfW 1.8.5, TEoC 1.1.1, difficulty=Easy). Pretty enjoyable so far. Just completed scenario 3, The Journey West, and found some funny behavior.

Spoiler:

when you step on the tree in the path (at location 6,9) you are asked "do you want to pick the object up? yes or no?" but you have no idea what the object is(!). After you say yes, you might learn that it is a staff of light, or you might learn that it can only be picked up by elves. There also was a message about a potion(!?). I found the macro STAFF_OF_LIGHT in utils/objects.cfg. It uses a macro named PICK_UP, which is defined in that same file. It looks like the definition of PICK_UP has the potion references embedded in it.

The problem is that you are asked for your decision before you know that you've stepped on something. And the reference to a potion probably isn't right.
Thanks for tackling this port. I've not played this one before, but it does indeed seem like a UMC that we'd all like to keep alive.
--sneezy

I hope you download 1.1.2 before you get to scenario 5, since it's broken in earlier versions.

As for making a decision before knowing anything about it, I assumed that was the way the designer wanted it. After all, in Northern Rebirth, there is an object where you aren't given a choice at all (in pre-1.9 versions), though you do know an item is there. Also, I believe there really are potions, later in the campaign. It could be that this code dates from before there was a PICK_UP macro in core, and was copied from somewhere. I could take a look, but I'm not sure I will change anything.

I do indeed feel good about reviving this campaign, and I'm thinking about maybe reviving a couple more 1.4 campaigns. They're old enough to be in danger of being lost, but not as difficult to port as the older campaigns.

[Sneezy]

Hi Groggy_Dice--

I hope you download 1.1.2 before you get to scenario 5, since it's broken in earlier versions.

I was aware that was coming, and it's why I stopped at the end of scenario 3. I'll update later today.

As for making a decision before knowing anything about it, I assumed that was the way the designer wanted it. After all, in Northern Rebirth, there is an object where you aren't given a choice at all (in pre-1.9 versions), though you do know an item is there. Also, I believe there really are potions, later in the campaign. It could be that this code dates from before there was a PICK_UP macro in core, and was copied from somewhere. I could take a look, but I'm not sure I will change anything.

Please think about making a change. I'd be fine if the dialogue went something like:
The unit that moves onto the hex says: "Hey! There's something here in the brush."
Then comes the pop-up: "Shall I pick the object up, yes or no?"
That would make sense. And it wouldn't reveal any of the object's abilities.

Regarding the words that appear describing a potion: as I pick up a staff, it seems wrong to be told about the effects of some potion. I wasn't picking up a potion. And I didn't seem to receive any of the potion effects that were mentioned. But it's your call. I just want you to be aware that the current behavior seems strange.
--sneezy

[Groggy_Dice]

I've taken a closer look at the PICKUP_ITEM code, which was indeed copied from an old version IftU, and it does appear to include superfluous text related to a potion. I'll convert all the object macros to use the macro that is now in core, PICKUPPABLE_ITEM, but I'll test it in scenario 3 first to make sure it works.

I may add a bit of dialogue, but it does seem to be a deliberate design decision not to put an item image on the map.

[Groggy_Dice]

Just to give a quick status report:

Yes, I have begun editing the objects.cfg file to fix the pickup bug. However, because of the looming feature freeze, my Wesnoth time is largely being devoted to last-minute comments and suggestions I'm hoping to fit in for 1.10 - in particular, the HttH rewrite. Sorry that Cembulad is lagging. In the meantime, just remember that the text about the potion of strength is harmless, you can ignore it.

[Konrad2]

Someone ported this campaign to 1.16 and did no create a new topic, so I'll use this one to report bugs.

There are some units (the outlaws from S1, all of the Cembulad) that do not demand upkeep until you level them up. I believe the intention was for them to never demand upkeep, so that's a bug.

Unexpected Foes
My leaders speak as if the map cleared up, but its still shrouded.

[Lord-Knightmare]

Someone ported this campaign to 1.16 and did no create a new topic, so I'll use this one to report bugs.

I am too lazy for a new forum topic. Also, I haven't started the reworking of this campaign yet so updates will take some time. Will open a new topic once the rework is showcase-able.

[egallager]

Someone ported this campaign to 1.16 and did no create a new topic, so I'll use this one to report bugs.

There are some units (the outlaws from S1, all of the Cembulad) that do not demand upkeep until you level them up. I believe the intention was for them to never demand upkeep, so that's a bug.

That's bug 14: https://github.com/knyghtmare/The_Eight_of_Cembulad/issues/14

Unexpected Foes
My leaders speak as if the map cleared up, but its still shrouded.

This might be related to bug 5? https://github.com/knyghtmare/The_Eight_of_Cembulad/issues/5
In any case I was working on a PR of changes I noticed while playing through the campaign, but I never finished it:
https://github.com/knyghtmare/The_Eight_of_Cembulad/pull/16