"Age of Empires"-Based Campaign

[PhantomJedi]

First off, I intend no copyright infringement against Microsoft or Ensemble Studios. I am simply using their game as inspiration for content I am creating. Once I have thought of a better name (that accurately describes the intent of the campaign), or if someone suggests one, I will gladly change it. That being said, let's move on to the actual details.

Unlike the Mainline Wesnoth Campaigns, "AoE" is set in a (more) realistic Ancient World period. There will be no fantasy elements. Due to this, the campaign will not be a prime example of all the features within Wesnoth. I am using my creativity to incorporate Wesnoth elements, such as alignments, abilities, traits, etc. but they will not be paraphrases of how they are used in Mainline Wesnoth.

The primary focus of "AoE" is unit development en masse. Hero units will be extremely hard to come by, forcing players to rely on numbers and strategy. Starting at Level 0, units can be advanced all the way up through Level 7 in some cases. The unit trees will be relatively complex, with multiple options for players to choose from to diversify their forces. All unit statistics are being calculated mathematically. If there is interest, I will gladly share my formulae and methods. Basicaly, all units will be balanced based off of Ability Points, similar to any kind of RPG or other game in which players can customize their characters' attributes. The amount of AP a unit has is determined by its level. With few exceptions, all units follow the same rules in how AP can be used. Certain attributes (HP, attacks, movement points, armor, etc.) all cost a set number of AP for value increases. Instead of trying to explain all the details, let me show you an example:

Code: Select all

Village Fighter:
L=1
XPV=8
AP=40
XP=40
HP=23
Attack=3*2 Melee (Pierce), 3*1 Ranged (Pierce) (12AkP)
MP=5(1)

Now, allow me to interpret. 'L' stands for Level, which is fairly obvious. 'XPV' means experience point value. For anyone familiar with Wesnoth, they would know this value by heart, as it is the default for the level of the unit. 'AP,' as already defined, means Ability Point(s). 'XP,' another fairly obvious one, is the amount of Experience Points the unit needs to reach the next level. As you can see, AP and XP are the same. This is true for all units. If you are wondering how I made those values up, they are five times the XPV of the particular unit. Again, this is true for all units. 'HP' (again obvious) means the number of Hit Points a unit has. Each HP costs 1 AP. 'Attack' lists the attacks the unit has. I will provide more specific information on this category later. 'MP' means Movement Points, which indicated how far the unit can move in a single turn. You will notice that it is listed as 'MP=5(1).' The first number, 5, is the number of hexes the unit can move. The second number, 1, is the cost modifier. It is always equal to the level of the unit. In this case, the unit is L1, so each MP only costs 1 AP. However, for L2 units, 5 MP would cost 10 AP.

As promised, I will now expound upon the Attack section. All attacks listed will be separated by commas, with melee attacks first and ranged attacks second. If there are multiple of each kind of attack, the most powerful will be listed first, and then subsequent attacks in decreasing order of power. For each attack, the power is written as X*Y, where X is the damage per attack and Y is the number of attacks. In this case, the Village Fighter's melee attack does three damage and attacks twice. The total value of the attack is six. As you may have guessed, this makes the attack cost 6 AP. Now, the ranged attack does three damage and only attacks once, for a total power of three. However, ranged attacks cost twice as much as melee attacks, so this ranged attack costs 6 AP. The 'AkP' at the end of the Attack section above stands for Attack Power Points, or the total value of the unit's attacks in AP.

If we add the MP and AkP together, we get 17, which is the total number of AP we have used so far. The remaining 23 AP are all spent on HP for this unit. Now, we could have used them elsewhere, such as for more attack power, movement points, or even armor, but without any HP, all those attributes are useless. Don't worry though, higher level units with more AP to spend will be able to enjoy the extra attributes.

That is a general summary of unit statistics. There are some more rules I use to ensure that units are balanced, but as long as someone is thinking rationally, they should be able to come up with a decently balanced unit such as the one above. The other rules I have simply ensure that units are not spammed with special abilities and no HP. Keep in mind that 'balanced' refers to within this campaign only. If placed within the world of Wesnoth, "AoE" units would be quite unbalanced.

I welcome any suggestions for units that you may have. If you follow the example above, I will be able to quickly and easily evaluate your unit and add it into the Campaign. I will add a full form for units later on (time-wise) so you can play around with all the different attributes and abilities available, but let's keep it simple for now.

My primary flaw with the units is that I am not an artist whatsoever. For the moment, I am borrowing art from Wesnoth, but I would greatly wish that someone would be willing to assist in this section. You would receive full credit for your work, of course. Until then, you may have to pretend that the Dwarf of Elf is really a human, and that the melee attack animation is actually ranged.

As I mentioned toward the beginning, units are by far the most important element in "AoE." The actual scenarios will not have a phenomenal storyline like the Mainline Campaigns, but they will at least be coherently linked, with a rational order of progression. The campaign itself will be long, very much so by Mainline Campaign standards, but the scenarios, particularly the earlier ones, will be shorter and simpler. Like with the units, my main problem with the scenarios is my lack of artistic skill. I can write out objectives for each scenario, but designing any sort of a story with detail and dialogue is beyond my reach. Likewise, the Map Generator has been my friend. That means the current maps are pretty bad. They don't exactly fit with the 'story' well, they most certainly aren't balanced, and they lack a purpose in their design. Map Editing is something I do plan to work on, as it (to an extent) does not require the same level of skill as graphic design.

In regards to what I have coded so far: there are currently over 20 units, and 3 scenarios. All three of the scenarios need to be replaced, and for the moment, they just function to test gameplay mechanics. I don't plan on uploading the campaign to the addon server until at least the first era/section of the campaign is done, which will be four scenarios.

I will continue to post more as I have time, and I will hopefully thing of a means by which I can streamline this information so it is much easier to access. Contributions and suggestions are most welcome, and I will gladly make this a joint effort with anyone who wants to participate. I do not have the inspiration nor the skill to take this project where I would like it to end up.

[PhantomJedi]

I am working on the first scenario. The basic plot is as follows:

The player's character (leader of future empire) is a young villager in a moderately-sized tribe, but he/she is getting banished, or for some other reason has to leave. They have to flee the village, and pick a path by which to travel. There are four paths, each leading of a different side of the map, and are aptly named by direction. The chief of the village is angry at the character, and after a certain number of turns, sends out men to kill them. The number of turns would correspond to the difficulty level. The path the player chooses will affect where they begin the next scenario. I would love to have a world map eventually, but for now, I'll just have to estimate the environment in each direction. The map for scenario one is attached. The player would start in one of the tents, with the others being occupied by a mixture of Villagers, Village Fighters, and Village Hunters. The Chief would start in the encampment/keep.

Suggestions for pre-game cinema, plot, and dialogue are all welcome, as well as critiques of the map. I will work on the coding so the scenario actually does what I want, instead of spawning the player in an encampment able to recruit.

[gfgtdf]

so the only realtion between your campaign and AoE is that is is set in a "(more) realistic Ancient World period" ?
mean for example the AP thing to customize your units have nothing to do with AoE and the story neigher, maybe i wouldn't call it AoE.

if you want to make your campign like Aoe sou could for example make EP a global value, wich can be used to buy global improvements like in Aoe3.
Also beeing able to build buildings is another important factor of AoE like games.
Limited diffrerent recources on the map would also be a interesting game feature. In AoE2 you normaly run out of gold after a period of time so you will mostly recruits units costing wood and food.

finaly note that massive amounts of units are normaly a bad idea in wesnoth because it makes the turns take very long (human and ai)

writing this made me want to play AoE so i'll play AoE now .

[PhantomJedi]

This is an AoE-based campaign, not AoE copied into WML. The campaign will have more in common with AoE than just the era, but it is a campaign, not a death match without a plot entirely. Most importantly, it is for Battle of Wesnoth, so I will be using Wesnoth's mechanics as best as possible to capture the spirit of AoE, not the other way around. I plan on including building, with different buildings allowing for different units and upgrades. Limited resources would be more difficult, as vanilla Wesnoth only allows for gold. While other campaigns/scenarios do have other resources that can be collected, the systems used are, in my opinion, at best difficult to comprehend, and at worst just plain impractical.

finaly note that massive amounts of units are normaly a bad idea in wesnoth because it makes the turns take very long (human and ai)

Long turns are not necessarily bad. They can be frustrating, and will prolong the chronological length of games, but they really only hurt save-scummers who are testing the randomization. It is inevitable that units will be lost along the way, and I want this campaign to focus more on building an army instead of an elite fighting force like in mainline Wesnoth.

In regards to progress, I am still working on the first scenario, which will set up the story a bit, instead of dumping you in the middle of a map and saying "build an empire and kill everyone else."

[gfgtdf]

if you dont want elite units, why do you implment a difficult advancing sytem with 7 levels and ap points?

[PhantomJedi]

Players will be able to purchase upgraded units as they progress in the campaign. The point of the XP level-up is to allow players to get a 'free' upgrade for some of their earlier troops. Some upgrades can only be gained through XP. For example, I will discuss the Clubman unit tree:

The Clubman (basic infantry unit) will upgrade to the Axeman by default. However, someone who levels-up their Clubman will be able to choose between the Axeman, the Elite Clubman, and the Chaotic Clubman. The latter two are only available from XP level-ups, whereas the first will be able to be bought. The Elite Clubman is an AMLA unit, but the Chaotic Clubman can be upgraded to either the Berserk Clubman or the Elite Chaotic Clubman. The point of having the 'Elite' units is to give players a choice not to get abilities and effects that they don't want their units to have. Like the name implies, the Chaotic Clubman switches to a Chaotic alignment, which makes them more useful at night, but some players may just want to keep a neutral Clubman instead, which would be the Elite Clubman. In turn, the Berserk Clubman gains the Berserk ability at the cost of damage-per-hit and HP, which some players may not want, so they could choose the Elite Chaotic Clubman. It could be debated that the Chaotic Clubman is better than the Elite Clubman because the CC can be leveled-up again, whereas the EC cannot, but it is up to the players to decide if the alignment trade-off is worth it.

By saying that I don't want players to depend on Elite units, I mean that I don't want them to have a recall list that they are unwilling to lose in battle, but they are unwilling to use anything else. While leveled-up, unique, elite units are useful, they are not supposed to be the bread-and-butter of a player's army. The focus is on building an army and empire, not an elite fighting squad.