Red Winter (Loyalist Campaign)

[Sire]

Notice: This campaign is still under development and may not be representative of the final product.

This is the general feedback thread for my campaign, Red Winter. You can download the latest version of Red Winter from Battle for Wesnoth's add-on server using the 1.12.x branch.

For the latest information on this campaign, such as changelogs, please check the last few pages of this topic.

Description:
501 – Years Wesnoth – Season of Winter
The Turmoil of Asheviere…

The isolated populace of the Estmark Mountains are known for their warrior prowess and for their military academy at Estlyn. Asheviere, desiring to use these warriors to strengthen her hold on the throne, sent emissaries in an attempt to gain their aid. The proud people of the Estmarks declined to join Asheviere, and the Dark Queen would soon respond with an answer of her own...

Play as these proud Humans from the Estmarks, resist against Queen Asheviere, and discover the buried secret of Estmark Mountain. All the while, as mortal forces clash in combat, an unseen force seeks release from her prison...
(Expert Level, 7 Playable Scenarios, 1 Story Scenario)

Features:
- A 7 scenario Loyalist campaign with an epilogue.
- Emphasis on story and characters.
- Custom music from the UMC Music Books.
- A focus on higher level units and heroes. Almost all of your units are level 2 or higher.
- Limited forces. You cannot recruit new units for this campaign, only recall!
- A fair amount of massive battlefields!

Required Portraits & Sprites:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
These are portraits and sprites that I require to truly finish Red Winter. While I can have placeholder portraits and sprites, it would be nice to have something more suited for the campaign.

Primary Portraits
- Mycen (Baron of Winterfell. Inspiration was from Lords of the Realm 2's Baron.)
- Aethac (Commander of Winterfell. Inspiration was from Warlord's Battlecry Human Hero.)
- Elyra (Warlord of Weldyn. A "female counterpart" to Aethac,)
- Lasoreth (Nether Goddess. Inspiration was the final boss of Ogre Battle 64.)

Secondary Portraits
- Covos (Weldyn General. The classic "good guy on the wrong side")
- Morgrim (Orcish Slurbow. He has a vengeance against humans.)
- Mal Rudrick (Necromancer & Lich. He is rather crazy, power hungry, and shares an unhealthy obsession with dragons.)
-- Dwarven Tank (Bonus Portrait for the unique Dwarven Tank unit. Showcases the tank itself, not the operator.)

The Council deliberately does not get custom portraits and use the default Wesnoth portraits instead. This also allows this campaign to show off the default portraits too!

Primary Sprites
- Baron (Mycen's custom unit. He is prepared for battle, wielding his Battle Axe.)
- Commander (Aethac's custom unit. My source of inspiration was Warlords Battlecry's Human Hero unit.)
- Warlord (Elyra's custom unit, shares similarities with Aethac's sprite)
- Lasoreth (A "large" sprite detailing the Nether Goddess Lasoreth. She has a nature theme and makes use of vines.)
- Dwarven Tank (A unique sprite for a unique custom unit.)

Secondary Sprites
- Nether Warrior (Originally a recolored Spearman, it may be better to use a custom sprite.)
- Nether Beast (Originally a recolored Yeti, it may be better to use a custom sprite.)

[revansurik]

Just downloaded it; won't play it right now because it's late in my country and I have classes tomorrow, but there are a few things I can already suggest:

1 - I may be wrong, but isn't Winterfell the name of a city in Skyrim? You may want to change this name, to avoid copyright issues, but maybe there's no problem with that (I personally see none, other than the fact that it doesn't seem to fit Wesnoth, though it is also a personal point of view).

2 - Still on the topic of names, don't you think it would be better to use Wesnothian or Wesnothian-sounding names instead of so many modern English names? Adam, Simon and especially Lewis sound a bit weird, at least to me.

3 - For the art, you could try picking images from landscapes and modifying them in order to make them more painting or drawing-like through, for example, gimp. I did it for my campaign A Song of Fire, and I thought it worked quite well

4 - The Baron unit is too overpowered with all those dwarf-like resistances and the 27-2/30-1 attacks; he doesn't even look human, I mean, he's stronger than an Iron Mauler, which is told to be the physically strongest human unit


This is my feedback for now, tomorrow I'll see if I find enough time to play the scenario (university life is quite busy, ya know )

[Sire]

Reply to the post above:

1: I also believe Winterfell happens to be a name in the Game of Thrones series. However, I would prefer if I didn't have to change it, but will when the need arises. (I don't believe I heard of it being used when I originally concept-ed the campaign)

2: I am happy with the names as it currently stands. I think I'm a little too attached to them over the course of development (especially the concept phase!)

3: I have ambitious plans for the artwork, as they are meant to represent the scenes described in the text (that's why there's so little!). Of course, this will require an artist, but I will worry about the introduction artworks later. [However, probability of it actually getting done if fairly low]

4: The Baron unit is meant to be overpowered. Play the scenario and you will find he is pretty invaluable and has weaknesses of his own (Despite having a ranged attack, he can still be swarmed by Bowmen and Mage, and Simon may be essential for completing the higher difficulties). As the campaign progresses, the player will fight higher level enemies, and Winterfell is supposed to represent a warrior-type people (Perhaps some of the best in the land). Because of this, I want the player leaders (Simon and Roland) to be better than the common units. Of course, if Simon is a little too overpowered, he may receive a nerf.

Also, I just got finished with my university work. Sweet freedom!

EDIT:
I updated Red_Winter to version 0.0.2. This fixes a major bug where the player couldn't recruit units when reinforcements arrived.

[Eugen]

Have you made a concept of your campaign back in the 90s then? 'Cause the first book of A Song of Ice and Fire by G. R. R. Martin was published in 1996.

[Raijer]

I suppose the book wasn't well-known in his country... That's normal since what really made it known is the series. They are still some people that don't know it's adapted from Martin's books.

[Sire]

While I'm in the USA, I'm not known to know much about culture and the current happenings. I want to say I created the original concept for this campaign late in 2011, with a revised version in early 2012. The current version was created this year.
I've only started hearing about the tv series and the fact it was based off the books just recently (I believe I was hearing talk about it before Season 3 released - around March).

However, all this is a discussion about the name of the barony (Come on guys. Does no one care about Northshire? That one was deliberate!).

Are there any comments to the scenario itself, such as the writing, difficulty, bugs, and so on?

[Sire]

Update:
- Red Winter uploaded to 1.10.5's add-on server. (Apparently, it works on that too!)
-- Note: I will primary be focusing on working with compatibility on the 1.11 branch (currently under development).
- I am aware that replacement dialogue may not play. This should hopefully be fixed in the next release.

Thank you for your patience.

[bigkahuna]

Tested it out on Wesnoth 1.10.6. Easiest Mode (Normal). Not a complete test; just up to about Turn 16. Things started bugging out a bit. Plus, I had just finished HttT earlier -- another troop-heavy, casualty-heavy scenario didn't appeal to me too much at the moment

Had no game-breaking errors that shut down Wesnoth, so I'm assuming these comments will hold true between the established and development versions.

First of all, some pros:

Spoiler:

• Setting and Initial Story are interesting.
• I really enjoyed the map! Very varied terrain; not just for looks -- it allowed some strategic placement of troops. Even though there were a lot of pre-placed troops, the terrain arrangement gave you some options.
• I also enjoyed the battlecries/death speeches of each character (although... Simon's "heretics" cry seemed a bit out of place. Not really any established Wesnothian human religions AFAIK. Will this be established?).

Criticisms/Bugs:

Spoiler:

• Both the allied and enemy troops were rather suicidal. Iron Maulers, Mages, Bowmen, etc. were walking into deathtraps of water (10% defense for Iron maulers) and snow without qualms.
• There are a LOT of units to keep track of, as well as a LOT of fronts. Many times I lost units simply because there were so many pre-placed units that I hadn't placed myself, which confused me.
• The default PC color is red, but in this campaign it's blue. Kind of confused me.
• When the reinforcements arrived, no new objectives were added like the initial objectives stated they would be. Plus, it's not clear where I will be able to recruit once the new objectives are added, since there is no keep tile unoccupied.
• Normally hero units (silver crown next to orb) cause you to be defeated when they are killed, but in this case they don't. Perhaps remove the hero icon and just make them loyal/note that they do not have to survive?
• I assume you know of Simon's need for art. His ax animation is just a straight charge, and he has no range animation at all. His attacks are capitalized (Battle Axe, Siege Crossbow), while mainline units generally have them lowercase. Also, does he have an advancement? His XP numbers are blue, indicating he is not max level, but an advancement is not listed in the unit description. If so, 200 XP is a lot for an advancement.
• Simon IS a bit OP. 27-2 melee damage, 35-1 range damage, very high resistances...
• Simon was killed in the course of game-breaking experimentation. Nothing happened. I didn't get a game over.
• When do the days end?! The "Survive for X days" objectives annoy me, since it's never clear when the days end. Dawn? Dusk? Morning? I would suggest putting a simple turn amount in parentheses next to the amount of days.

Other Criticisms/Bugs (Scenario Spoilers):

Spoiler:

• After the undead arrival: when enemy units are killed, Walking Corpses are created. However, when PC units are killed, WCs are NOT created (unless, of course, a unit with the Plague ability kills them).
• I was fine with the untraditional names (from a fantasy standpoint), but... Zachariah? Zachariah the SPECTRE?! Really?
• The Revenants and Spectre that arrived joined the purple side (human leader) rather than the undead (gray) side.
• Why is everyone specifically out to get the refugees? This isn't stated very clearly. The orc leader says it explicitly; he perhaps makes some sense [/i]maybe[/i], but the Spectre wanting to specifically target peasants? Odd, IMO.

Hope this helps. Haven't playtested in a while. Sorry for the large amount of text...

[Sire]

@ bigkahuna

No, thanks for the wall of text! More wall of text is needed!
Now, for the response...

Pros:

Spoiler:

- Thanks for the story comment! I hoped people would enjoy the setting.
- I'll admit, the map used was initally randomly generated and then I made appropriate edits to fix the scenario. Still, it is nice that you liked it!
- The battlecries are a new addition that appeared during development. At the time, "heathen" was the best insult I could come up with. I'll edit his next version.

Criticisms/Bugs:

Spoiler:

- I made it specifically so the enemy troops were suicidal. This was supposed to represent that they were trying to overrun Simon's forces with pure numbers, not tactics.
-- The allies (and the purple Royal Guards) are under the "Guardian" mechanic, which they will only move to attack when an enemy is within range. I could make them stationary, but a part of me likes them leaving their posts to assist in the battle (aside from making poor decisions, but they are merely meant to slow the enemy down. Also, I made no changes to their overall AI.)
- This scenario is meant to represent a large battle, hence the large number of units and multiple fronts. I know typical Wesnoth scenarios doesn't have battles on this large of a scale. A hint to managing such large numbers of units is to use the hotkeys "n" (heads to next unit) and "space" (ends that units turn).
- The blue color was selected somewhat out of selfish reasons, but it also represented the color of Simon's forces quite well. If there is enough people wanting it to change, I supposed I could do so...
- Perhaps I should change the wording of the first note, stating that "there will be updated objectives" instead of new objectives.
-- You should be able to recruit units near Roland's spawnpoint (an encampment appears there), or in Stonecold Fortress (in the middle upper-half of the map)
- The hero units (I refer to them as the council [Adam, Tristan, Victor, Lewis]), are expendable. However, should the player want to get the "true" ending, they must surrive all scenarios.
- Yes, Simon's sprite is meant to be temporary while a suitable replacement is found with (hopefully) completed assets.
-- The capitalization in attacks will be fixed in next release.
-- He doesn't have an advancement yet, but will later. The reasoning for the XP is the big battles and the fact he is very powerful.
-- Another one for "Simon is OP" boat. I'll wait on editing him when I get feedback on the higher difficulties and when more levels are released.
- Defeat condition didn't trigger? I'll have to look into this...
- When the days end can be guessed by looking at the max turn count, and I didn't want to state the turn number because "immersion". However, I'll add the specifics in the objectives next release. (It's out of universe, no immersion breakers! )

Other Criticisms/Bugs (Scenario Spoilers):

Spoiler:

- It is intentional that only enemy living units turn into Walking corpses
- Zachariah (and a hostile Adam that comes with him) is meant to be a nod to biblical texts (same with Abel and Cain). A for Adam, the first man, Z for Zachariah, the last man. (was it something like that, or was that from Z for Zachariah? I don't remember.)
- The undead reinforcements are meant to join purple's side, a foreshadowing event of things that may occur.
- It may have been explained poorly, but the idea is that Asheviere wants to slaughter everyone in the barony, leaving no survivors whatsoever.

* * *

Well, the general consensus so far is the names I chose really aren't "Wesnoth" enough. Is there a resource where I can find more "Wesnoth-ish" names?

[8680]

Is there a resource where I can find more "Wesnoth-ish" names?

Recruit some units and look at their names?

[bigkahuna]

General Bugs/Criticism:

Spoiler:

- The blue color was selected somewhat out of selfish reasons, but it also represented the color of Simon's forces quite well. If there is enough people wanting it to change, I supposed I could do so...

It threw me off. It probably won't be too much of a problem. It is a nice color for the PC's forces in the context of the campaign.

- Perhaps I should change the wording of the first note, stating that "there will be updated objectives" instead of new objectives.
-- You should be able to recruit units near Roland's spawnpoint (an encampment appears there), or in Stonecold Fortress (in the middle upper-half of the map)

Looking at the scenario code, it turns out that I didn't make it to the correct turn yet. Again, the day/turn amount threw me off. Maybe clearing up where the encampment will be would be nice, so that Simon isn't on the other side of the map when it arrives.

- The hero units (I refer to them as the council [Adam, Tristan, Victor, Lewis]), are expendable. However, should the player want to get the "true" ending, they must surrive all scenarios.

Clarifying this would help. Couldn't tell if it was a bug or a feature when they died. Knowing that there was a better ending based on their seemingly trivial survival several scenario down the line would frustrate me.

-- He doesn't have an advancement yet, but will later. The reasoning for the XP is the big battles and the fact he is very powerful.

If you're planning on balancing his character based on this, it probably doesn't matter too much that he's OP.

- When the days end can be guessed by looking at the max turn count, and I didn't want to state the turn number because "immersion". However, I'll add the specifics in the objectives next release. (It's out of universe, no immersion breakers! )

That's what I meant. Having it in the objectives would be perfect.

Scenario Spoilers:

Spoiler:

- Zachariah (and a hostile Adam that comes with him) is meant to be a nod to biblical texts (same with Abel and Cain). A for Adam, the first man, Z for Zachariah, the last man. (was it something like that, or was that from Z for Zachariah? I don't remember.)

Nothing like this in the Bible, AFAIK. I'm pretty familiar with biblical texts. The symbolism was completely lost on me.

- It may have been explained poorly, but the idea is that Asheviere wants to slaughter everyone in the barony, leaving no survivors whatsoever.

All I could see was "Haha! Leave the Refugees to me!" I would think that the soldiers would be their top priority, but since the Refugees' deaths are one of the defeat conditions... Dunno.

Well, the general consensus so far is the names I chose really aren't "Wesnoth" enough. Is there a resource where I can find more "Wesnoth-ish" names?

It's really up to you. I thought it was rather odd, but there's sure to be some oddballs here and there. This is an out-of-the-way fief, after all. However, having only the leader/hero units with these names and the other units without them didn't make much sense. For the official names used in the Wesnoth name generator, go to ./data/core/macros/names.cfg (the ./ being wherever Wesnoth is saved on your computer). Open the file with whatever word processor you have. It has a comprehensive list of all the drake/undead/human/etc. names the generator uses.

All the other responses satisfy me. Good luck with your campaign!

[Crow_T]

I have this campaign in my addons folder but its not showing up in game, either in the campaign menu or the remove addons. Just got it a minute ago, 10.6

[Sire]

Version 0.0.3 has been released!

Changelog:

Spoiler:

Units:
- Fixed Simon's AMLA. (He does have a promotion, but it is not yet implemented)
- Added projectiles to Simon and Roland's ranged attacks.
-- (Still no Sprite animation, remember that they are temporary)

Script:
- Edited Simon's battlecry
- Edited capitalization on Simon's attacks
- Added new note to specify where the player can recruit units when reinforcements arrived and the fact that both Simon and Roland can recruit.
- Added specific turn numbers in the objectives on how long to survive.
- Added a note on the council's surrival.

Events:
- Fixed defeat conditions for Simon
- Fixed replacement dialogues
- Expanded transformations in the rare event of level 3 units.
- Added a defeat event when a Refugee dies. (It wasn't implemented before)

Untested:
- Victory Dialogue (Outlast, Normal Rout, Early Rout)
- Hard (Medium) and Legendary (Hard) difficultues

Things to Do:
- Implement Global Variables
- Code Chapter 2
- Changes names to be appopriate for Wesnoth.

* * *
General Reply:

Spoiler:

- Hopefully most of the concerns are covered within the changelog. However, communication is always helpful.
-- As I said before, I initially designed Simon to be overpowered because of the setting. However, just like any other unit, he can be easily swarmed and taken down, especially if he starts to miss his attacks. I probably won't be balancing him until the campaign is fully playable.
--- Roland is weaker than Simon damage/resistance wise, but he has Leadership to make up for it.
-- On refugees being targeted, one can say it is more of a game mechanic instead of a story one, but even then it is far more likely that Simon or Roland will die first instead of the refugees. However, I'll try to clarify this more in the next release or perhaps revise it so the General guarding that room (the escape route) doesn't die.
-- Ah, so Adam and Zachariah aren't a thing. When I get around to revising names, they will be the first ones to go.
-- Even if it is an out of the way fief, if the names don't fit with the setting Wesnoth is set in then it ruins immersion and story. However, it'll be a hard go for me changing a few of them since I've grown a bit attached with some of the names. We'll see.

* * *
Ninja'd! I'll see what is causing the problem, it seems to be working for me at the moment.

[Sire]

I have this campaign in my addons folder but its not showing up in game, either in the campaign menu or the remove addons. Just got it a minute ago, 10.6

Seems like I'm a version behind in the stable branch. I uploaded the campaign using 1.10.5 of the stable branch. (1.11.2 of Developmental as well, which is my main focus)

Unless the 1.10.x add-on server is the same for each one, it may be that different versions of Wesnoth do not use the same files.

You can try downloading the attachment provided or try redownloading it from the add-on server if it is shared across the 1.10.x versions.

[bigkahuna]

Unless the 1.10.x add-on server is the same for each one, it may be that different versions of Wesnoth do not use the same files.

It is. I played it on 1.10.6 and it showed up just fine.

Things to Do:
- Implement Global Variables

Be very careful with these. They always worked spottily for me, when they worked at all (of course, that was when 1.9.x was the development branch. Things might have changed). If you can find a workaround using normal variables, I'd recommend it.