Invasion from the Unknown 2.1.13.1 [Wesnoth 1.14.x & 1.15.12+]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Do you ever use the Episode II menu entry to launch the campaign?

Poll ended at August 6th, 2020, 4:21 am

Yes
1
8%
No
11
92%
 
Total votes: 12

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Invasion from the Unknown 2.1.13.1 [Wesnoth 1.14.x & 1.15.12+]

Post by Iris »

Image

Description

Long after the Fall, the last forest elves on the Great Continent are forced to abandon their secluded home and forge an unprecedented alliance in hopes of retaliating against the great evil that has befallen Irdya. But even then, they will require more than one ancient power to aid them in their quest...

(Intermediate level, 24 scenarios.)

Although not strictly required, players are advised to become familiar with the stories, characters, and historical events presented in Under the Burning Suns and (optionally) Descent into Darkness before playing this campaign.


Downloading
  • Latest campaign release: 2.1.13.1 (release notes)
  • Music package: 0.3.2 (IftU Music)
All packages can be obtained from the official Wesnoth add-ons server.

The latest release of this campaign is intended to work with Wesnoth 1.14.3 and later only.

Support for Wesnoth 1.15.12 and later is HIGHLY experimental and you are required to report any issues you find while playing to this thread. Previous development versions are not supported.


Feedback

There are two officially-sanctioned venues for posting your feedback on this campaign: the feedback topic in the Add-on Feedback section, or this same topic you are reading right now. The Add-on Feedback topic has a questionnaire template and an optional survey, whereas this development topic encourages free-form posting and it is generally more fitting for bug reports and minor comments or general questions and exchanges with other posters. It is up to you to decide which communication channel to use and how!

The nomenclature for scenarios and episodes of this campaign (which I use in my own posts) is Sx (scenario x). This may be used as a convenient shorthand in lieu of the complete scenario name. Most scenarios throughout the campaign include this shorthand along with the standard scenario name during story screen sections.


Translating

See the Ethea-i18n wiki for information about starting or taking over translations.


Related links

Have fun! 💜
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Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Iris »

Version 1.99.0 (a.k.a. 2.0 Release Candidate 1) is out now!

So, after so many years of work, it’s finally here: the first public Reconstruction release; that is, not counting this year’s April 1st release (which apparently everyone simply assumed to be a hoax instead of actually downloading it from the trunk add-ons server).

Because I can no longer afford writing code or words due to spending the whole budget on this single initial release, I’m going to cut this post short and talk about the Reconstruction development process at a later time, assuming anyone actually wants to know about it. (Let’s do an experiment: if you are reading this, post below. Come on, you know you want to say something.)

A couple of caveats for legacy IftU players:
  • Do NOT use your old saved games with this and future versions! Start over from the beginning. Seriously. You will break the campaign if you do otherwise.
  • Music is no longer included in the main campaign download, which is why its size went down from 15 MiB to 9.73 MiB. The first time you install or upgrade to IftU 2.0 RC 1 or later, you will see a dependency resolution prompt suggesting installing the IftU Music add-on. Installing the music add-on is not required. This separation of packages is provided as a convenience for people who don’t play with music or sounds enabled, or people on metered connections (e.g. mobile broadband).
Special thanks to nemaara and vultraz for making this release possible.

The complete changelog for this version follows:

Code: Select all

Version 1.99.0 (codename Reconstruction RC 1):
----------------------------------------------
* General:
  * Raised minimum Wesnoth version requirement from 1.9.10 to 1.12.0.
  * Removed remaining code implementing/referencing the glamour ability.
  * Removed code for story maps that's gone unused for who knows how many years
    due to the campaign's chronic lack of proper story map artwork.
  * Many changes are missing in this changelog, either because they were
    forgotten or because they constitute spoilers.

* Graphics:
  * New or updated terrain graphics: Dark Hive, Dark Hive Surface, Dark Hive
    Depths.
  * New or improved unit animations: Elynia (melee).
  * New or updated unit graphics: Anlindë, Chaos Arbalestier, Chaos Warlord,
    Demon, Demon Zephyr, Demon Grunt, Demon Warrior, Sprite, Fire Faerie,
    Forest Spirit, Dryad, Rabbit, Chaos Emperor.

* Music:
  * All music tracks have been moved to a separate add-on, named "IftU Music".
    This add-on is now an optional dependency for those who can't afford
    downloading it or don't play with music enabled. When absent, the IftU
    campaign menu entries for each episode will include a notice stating so.

* Scenarios:
  * Rewritten or revised all scenarios, including maps. As a result, there are
    too many changes that will not be listed here.
  * Fixed several instances of sighted events taking place prematurely on
    Wesnoth 1.11.x.
  * S2 - A Real Confrontation:
    * Removed Sprites from the player's recruit list.
  * S3 - Memories from the Depths:
    * The Ring of Swiftness now increases movement points by one instead of two.
  * S4 - Over the Sands:
    * Removed Ghouls and Elvish Warrior Spirits from the player's recruit list.
  * S14 - Bye and Behold:
    * Sprites are now added to the player's recruit list here instead of S2.

* Units:
  * Walking Corpses no longer can advance to Ghouls.
  * Elynia's alternate AMLAs heal her.
  * Imps are now immune to the plague weapon special.
  * Removed units:
    * Tiger
    * Verlissh Prong Bug
    * Verlissh Spearbearer line
    * Steppe Orcs faction
    * Aragwaith Peasant
    * Dwarvish Gyrocopter and Dwarvish Steamcopter
  * Renamed Chaos Advanced Crossbowman to Chaos Arbalestier.
  * Renamed Errant Spirit to Errant Soul.
  * Balancing:
    * The Protection ability affects own units of any lower level again instead
      of only level 0 and 1.
    * Granted the new 'precision' weapon special to the Greatbow's ranged
      attack.
    * Increased Psy Mindraider's HP from 58 to 59.
    * Gave feeding ability to Psy Mindraider.
    * Decreased Demon Zephyr's movement cost on deep water terrains from 2 to 1.
    * Decreased Demon Zephyr's movement cost on unwalkable terrains from 3 to 1.
    * Increased arcane damage resistance for most Shaxthal units from -50% to
      -20%.
    * Decreased Shaxthal elusivefoot defense on Deep Water from 20% to 10%
      (Shaxthal Rayblade, Shaxthal Stormblade, Elyssa).
    * Increased Errant Soul's ranged attack strength from 2-1 to 2-2.
    * Changed Leech's alignment from 'lawful' to 'neutral'.
    * Decreased Leech's HP from 62 to 42.
    * Decreased Leech's melee damage from 11-2 to 9-2.
    * Decreased Leech's unit level from 3 to 1.
    * Disabled Elvish Sylph advancement from Elvish Enchantress.
    * Elvish Trapper has skirmisher instead of ambush again.
    * Increased arcane resistance for mechanical units (Worker Droid,
      Automaton, Iron Golem, Goliath) from 30% to 50%.
    * Increased Elynia's resistance to impact damage from -10% to 0%.
    * Decreased the Chaos Emperor's max moves from 6 to 5.
    * Removed skirmisher ability from the Chaos Emperor.
  * Applied changes from bumbadadabum's "The Aragwaithi" add-on, versions 1.0.6
    through 1.0.9, and "Era of Chaos" version 1.3.1+dev up to commit
    9dedeba7cddc2a027745c9994a917fdcb78ed341:
    * Archer HP increased from 26 to 28.
    * Granted the new 'precision' weapon special to the Greatbow's ranged
      attack.
    * Increased Guard's blade resistance from 10% to 20%.
    * Increased Guard's XP from 64 to 74.
    * Decreased Guard's cost from 28 to 27.
    * Decreased Pikeman's cost from 38 to 28.
    * Increased Shield Guard's cost from 37 to 45.
    * Increased Shield Guard's blade and pierce resistances from 10% to 20%.
    * Granted the 'marksman' weapon special to the Swordsmaster.
    * Renamed the Aragwaith Witch's image files.
  * Fixed Chaos Arbalestier ranged attack animation failing to trigger.
  * Fixed unit types with missing faction prefixes in their names:
    * Arbalestier -> Chaos Arbalestier
    * Cataphract -> Chaos Cataphract
    * Crossbowman -> Chaos Crossbowman
    * Heavy Longbowman -> Chaos Heavy Longbowman
  * Fixed multiple "Descriptions should no longer include the name as the first
    line" warnings on 1.11.1 and later.
  * Fixed "Terrain '**' has evaluated to 100 (cost) [...]" warnings on Wesnoth
    1.11.x caused by Aragwaith units.
  * Replaced old bird NPC behavior code with the newer Lua-based implementation
    from AtS.
  * Removed help markup from the Sylvan Essence ability special notes to avoid
    issues in Pango contexts (e.g. sidebar tooltips).
  * Removed references to nonexistent image files in the defense animations for
    female Elvish Trapper and Elvish Prowler units.
  * Fixed recruited elvish units from scenario 4 onwards belonging to hidden 
    unit types.
  * New unit type descriptions:
    * Demon, Demon Zephyr, Demon Grunt, Demon Warrior
    * Elvish Civilian
    * Elvish Hunter, Elvish Trapper, Elvish Prowler
    * Sylvan Warden
  * Fixed a minor inaccuracy at the beginning of the Terror ability
    description.
  * New or improved unit animations: multiple Aragwaith units.

* User interface:
  * Made sure cutscene theme with menu bar works on Wesnoth 1.11.5 and later
    (affecting S8x, S14xA, S14xB, S16x, S20x, S23By).
  * Cutscene themes now use the 1.11.10 [theme] id attribute on 1.11.10 and
    later.
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by ahmannar »

First of all, congratilations on the update, it surely was a massive task to undertake because of the size of the campaign.
I will eventually download and play it when i have more time, for now i just have one question. Is there a transition from one episode to another like before, or is it just 24 scenarios long without it? I ask this because, in the previous versions, there was the feeling that the second episode was easier than the first one, maybe because there was a need to also balance it for players who started right from that point.
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Iris »

ahmannar wrote:First of all, congratilations on the update, it surely was a massive task to undertake because of the size of the campaign.
Thanks!
ahmannar wrote:Is there a transition from one episode to another like before, or is it just 24 scenarios long without it? I ask this because, in the previous versions, there was the feeling that the second episode was easier than the first one, maybe because there was a need to also balance it for players who started right from that point.
The episodes still exist (episode I has 13 scenarios, episode II has only 11 scenarios) and you have the option to continue on to E2 straight from E1, or start E2 without gold and recalls, just like before.

Although no-one has tested playing E2 alone in this version yet, there are some new measures in place to make sure that the difficulty level is more or less the same for both episodes. In particular, you will be forced to part ways with some of your recalls at two points; one near the end of E1, and another near the middle of E2. I found that this approach worked well in AtS, so that’s one of the first things I set on adding to IftU. Some redundant (Aragwaithi) or obsoleted recruits (Ghoul, Elvish Spirits) are also no longer available.

In general, whether IftU is easier or harder than before will probably vary between different players and play-styles, and it definitely will need tweaks depending on other people’s experience with the new version. At least the campaign isn’t falsely advertised as being for “advanced” players anymore; it’s now officially for “intermediate” players, like AtS.
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Whiskeyjack »

Awesome!
shadowm wrote:Because I can no longer afford writing code or words due to spending the whole budget on this single initial release, I’m going to cut this post short and talk about the Reconstruction development process at a later time, assuming anyone actually wants to know about it. (Let’s do an experiment: if you are reading this, post below. Come on, you know you want to say something.)
As you wish. . . I´d be very interested in reading about this at a later time.

I´d also still be interested in translating this campaign to German at a later point if noone has actually done so, but before that I´d have to finish my suggestionwork for EA and with the few hours/month I have to spare for Wesnoth at the moment that might be a long time off.

I´m looking forward to playing the campaign in my Christmas hollidays.
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Dugi »

CHANGELOG wrote:Disabled Elvish Sylph advancement from Elvish Enchantress.
Noooo! This used to be my preferred strategy! My shaxthaldronebuster team of Elvish Sylphs will no longer rock!
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Sire »

Congratulations on the revision!

Once upon a time I was originally in the middle of playing the original Invasion of the Unknown, but decided to wait upon hearing news of this reconstructed version. When I get the chance, I'll play through the campaign and leave my feedback and other findings here.
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Konrad2 »

Been kicking myself for 5 minutes straight now because I missed this release by one month -.- No idea how i could misread 1st December as 1st nevember :annoyed: but for now im happy that i found the release pretty much as soon as it was made ^^

EDIT:
description of Episode 2 says 10 scenarios, while you said Episode 2 has 11 scenarios

"A Real Confrontation"
dont read the following except you want to fix the bug or you want to become a professional bug-user
Spoiler:
EDIT 2:
"Memories from the Depths"
could you remove the chests (one with gold one with nothing) or move them somewhere else? Its not like anyone could reach them, now that sprites are disabled in until scenario 14...

EDIT 3:
What exactly did Alinde do? (What spell did she cast on Mal Keshar?) Its not explained :(
...tried to look it up in the code, but the only thing I found, is that Mal Keshar doesnt complain about the magic, even though he is supposed to

EDIT 4:
"Over the Sands"
I really like the idea of banishing ghosts :D Felt like a good person after banishing them all xD I also like very much how you integrated the ruins from your first version of this map into the new version ^^ (although i hoped a bit for the appeareance of sand trolls :D)
my only problem: you cant chose if you want to fight the humans or go for the plateau. When Mal Keshar ask for you choice, there is only the choice to go for the humans given
is a chioce with one option actually a chioce? :D
Last edited by Konrad2 on December 3rd, 2015, 7:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Iris »

Fixed the village count bug in S2, as well as Mal Keshar’s missing line in S3. Thanks for the reports!
Konrad2 wrote:"Over the Sands"
my only problem: you cant chose if you want to fight the humans or go for the plateau. When Mal Keshar ask for you choice, there is only the choice to go for the humans given
is a chioce with one option actually a chioce? :D
The second choice is disabled for the moment because I didn’t get scenario 5b done in time beyond the general map layout. Hopefully it will be in the next release; failing that, it’ll surely be in 2.0.0.
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Konrad2 »

„The Moon Valley“
black and purple behave weird, they seem to have no intention to attack me, all their units cluster around their respective leader

Why did you remove the yeti? :(

"An Errand of Hope"
Is it intended that the black Loyalists have some Trolls on their side?
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Iris »

Konrad2 wrote:„The Moon Valley“
black and purple behave weird, they seem to have no intention to attack me, all their units cluster around their respective leader
Both AIs have some unusual configuration settings that I’m pretty sure were intentional but not to this extent. I’ll see what can be done about it.
Konrad2 wrote:Why did you remove the yeti? :(
After finishing AtS, I received a strongly-worded letter from QA overseas telling me to reduce the number of tomato surprises in my campaigns, so I did that. Plus, the event never really seemed to fit with the story and was there only for the sake of a cheap laugh at the expense of unwary players.
Konrad2 wrote:"An Errand of Hope"
Is it intended that the black Loyalists have some Trolls on their side?
AtS spoilers:
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 1 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by mantra »

On a whim, I decided to replay Invasion from the Unknown and After the Storm. I had no idea about the revision but I'm so glad for it. I'm not very far into it, but I really like the revisions so far. Some of the scenarios I remember having trouble with seem to play much better. Thank you for the update! These have always been among my favorite wesnoth campaigns.
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Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 2 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Iris »

Version 1.99.1 (a.k.a. 2.0 Release Candidate 2) is out now!

This is a bug fix-only release which primarily addresses some of the bugs reported after RC 1 was published, so I don’t have much to say about it.

The complete changelog for this version follows:

Code: Select all

Version 1.99.1 (codename Reconstruction RC 2):
----------------------------------------------
* Scenarios:
  * Removed redundant "(Bonus)" annotation for some objectives in S9, S11, and
    S16.
  * S2 - A Real Confrontation:
    * Fixed pre-captured elven villages not being counted for the scenario
      defeat condition.
  * S3 - Memories from the Depths:
    * Fixed Mal Keshar not speaking one of his lines.
  * S20 - The Heart:
    * Fixed alternate victory by defeating all enemy leaders never triggering
      without using cheats.
  * S21 - Innuendo:
    * Increased turn limit.
  * S23A - Into the Lair:
    * Added a somewhat more elaborate initial sound transition.
  * S23B - Until Death:
    * Fixed an oversight so that player recruits no longer require upkeep.

* Terrains:
  * Ported gate fix from AtS 0.9.1 meant to solve clipping issues for gates
    adjacent to (convex) stone wall corners.

* Units:
  * Door units now clear terrain beneath them on 'last breath' rather than
    'die' events, in order to ensure shroud is correctly cleared before
    scenario-specific event handlers are run.
  * Replaced Chaos Crossbowman and Arbalestier's sword attack with an axe to
    match the sprites.
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 2 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

* Disabled Elvish Sylph advancement from Elvish Enchantress.
*Cries in a corner :cry: *

At least, I can still use my Spectre and Elven Prowler Spam strategy...
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Re: Invasion from the Unknown 2.0 RC 2 [Wesnoth 1.12]

Post by ahmannar »

Having completed already the first episode i thought to give in here some general feedback on the scenarios that were more overhauled and some specific things(playing in the hardest difficulty). In the future i´ll probably also post on the feedback topic:

-> The removal of sprites on "Memories from the depths" make for a more challenging scenario and also make the rest of the episode less of a walkover, so good move with it and also with the reason they appear later. Can´t talk about the spell part, because i completed it before the last fix;

-> The reworked "over the sands" feels much more orientated and well designed while still feeling a big scenario. I liked the story and conections with the bandits, although it seems kind of a strech to view the elves in such a "bad way", considering the lifestyle of the bandits;

-> The "Crossfire" seems to have a AI problem and it makes this scenario the easiest of the campaign. The lich troops are completely decimated by the chaos empire and the bandits and the bandits have such low mobility on the terrain that the few that survive the fight with the lich are easily picked off 1 by 1. In the end, the player can just move all troops against the chaos empire and, after that, it´s just a long walk to the other 2 enemy leaders without any kind of strategy involved;

-> I didn´t noticed the AI problem previously talked on the "Moon valley", it sure feels like each enemy troop´s only move when the player gets closer and can be easily distracted with a couple units, but i think otherwise this would be close to impossible to pass the scenario without huge casualties(given the difference in gold and the fact that at this point there isn´t such a high number of good recalls). If it´s intended to be a scenario to deplete part of the recall list instead, then it isn´t doing that;

->The new elements of storyline about the need for vengeance by galas and his doubts, as well as the increased conflict within the group because of mal keshar and some not so good advices by anlinde, make the story more interesting than before, kudos for managing to put this in;

-> The "goliath" one, at least for me, feels like the only scenario in the campaign that isn´t quite there yet. It still seems like a brutal massacre of the enemies units like before the reconstruction, without a need for much strategy. Given the story at this point, having a ever growing number of enemies in order to rush the player to complete the elvel seems impossible to do, but maybe something in that train of thougth can work?;

-> I feel like the there should be some kind of dialogue from galas/mal keshar when the player sees that the chaos empire has trolls on their forces, especially given that it´s previously talked that the other trolls wouldn´t ever talk peacefully(don´t remember the reason that was given, my memory is not my strongest point). Also, is it supposed that the cofin has nothing?;

-> The next 2 scenarios are some of the best i have played in the "underground" type with good enough mobility and a balanced need for veterans and new units(namely bats and sometimes walking corpses) to fend the enemy. If the second part of the campaign as them as these ones that it will surely be even better than before;

-> Nice development on galas in here, making it so that only here, faced with almost certain death, he makes the decision to finally allow mal keshar to use his powers as he wants, it improves the story when compared to the previous versions where mal keshar did this even before this scenario. The massacre was not high as i expected, lost only two shydes, two dread bats, 1 nighthaunt and 1 spectre, which will influence the next point;

-> Seeing as you said that there would be some kind of wipe list on the recalls and the fact that half of the campaign is underground,i predicted that it could be only undead related. Because of this i only recalled shydes on the underground(and 1 sharpshooter to get the bow) with hopes to conserve my elves. With this i managed to conserve 15 elves(most of then leveled until scenario 6), 6 undead units(max number allowed anyway), 2 bats and 2 necromancers(all of these units being higher than level 1). Im not sure if i am supposed to have so many units given your previous answer but the method of recall wipe, combined with the fact that undead units are much better in the last 6 scenarios of the campaign, makes so that a high number of elves makes it to the 2 part;

If this comes across as only negative feedback my apologies, but it´s easier to criticize than to compliment, anyway i tried to do that also. The campaign feels more entertaining to play, to read and, even if i ended the first part with many units, there´s a constant need to recruit great numbers of units. It seems that, in general, there´s a implied strategy to spam perphaps close to 50% of level 0 units in most scenarios, coupled with support units and some level 1 to be leveled, instead of creating a squad of killer units as it could be done before.
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