Ashen Hearts [SP Drake Campaign for 1.12.6]

[Kwandulin]

The Ashen's Maw

Description
"In the ancient Heartfang mountains, a once powerful population of drakes has begun to weaken due to a mysterious force dimming their inner fire. Guide Herkarth, the heir of the Menor kings, and his companion Uluthur on a journey to delve into drakes' past and reignite the flames of their ashen hearts."
(Expert difficulty, 8 scenarios)

Intent
Ashen Hearts aims to be an expert level drake campaign that combines both classic and new gameplay-elements. As such, the player has to make use of the scenario-specific elements to be able to win a scenario. Adding a small selection of new unit types (for the enemy), the player will also have to adapt his well-tried drake-playstyle to match the new conditions.

Features

• play as drakes
• discover the past of the drakes and the secret of their inner fire
• expert difficulty
• intense battles on medium sized maps
• small, yet fine selection of additional campaign-specific units, such as the Dwarvish Protector or Gryphon Scouts
• find a handful of useful items and other places of interest
• tasty unique micro AIs made by mattsc, such as a shieldwall AI and an AI that makes use of special scenario objects (and many more!)

Impressions

Spoiler:

AH makes use of campaign-specific micro-AI made by mattsc

Some new dwarvish units

Feedback
Feedback is much appreciated.

Walkthrough
A walkthrough for the campaign can be found here: viewtopic.php?p=615517#p615517

Download
The newest version of the campaign can be downloaded via the add-on server that is accessible from Wesnoth 1.12.6

[ForestDragon]

hi, i noticed a few minor wrong things with dwarvish protector:
1.in game files, he has resistance values of '150' to impact and '120' to fire, that means he is actually vulnerable to them, which i doubt is supposed to happen, just change it to '50' impact and '80' fire, and it will work as supposed
2.he has ulfserker portrait (you can just give him the same one used in Carved in Stone)

[taptap]

So excited from reading the headline, so disappointed from seeing caves in the screenshot. How much of the campaign takes place in caves?

[ForestDragon]

well, it not like making a good-looking cave map is an easy thing

EDIT: btw Kwandulin, you won't mind if i use a few images from the campaign's files for my era, i know it's GPL, but i prefer being a bit poilte

[Kwandulin]

So excited from reading the headline, so disappointed from seeing caves in the screenshot. How much of the campaign takes place in caves?

The first scenario and the last three scenarios. In the last three scenarios, there isn't the {UNDERGROUND} schedule, so it doesn't feel like a cave, though.

[Sudipta]

So excited from reading the headline, so disappointed from seeing caves in the screenshot. How much of the campaign takes place in caves?

Same here. Using drakes in caves is hellish. Why would flying creatures ever enter underground?

Anyway, is it completed or a WIP? I've started several drake campaigns but never got around to finishing them..

[Kwandulin]

Same here. Using drakes in caves is hellish. Why would flying creatures ever enter underground?

Anyway, is it completed or a WIP? I've started several drake campaigns but never got around to finishing them..

You'll have to find out why they are going underground. I know about the problem drakes have underground, so I've added many places where the drakes can easily fly through (flat+lava), so it won't end up in a "move-only-2-tiles-per-turn"-madness. It's not the typical cave terrain down there.

The campaign is finished and can be played through.

[Paulomat4]

Hey Kwandulin,
When I read about your new campaign I had to play it instantly! Poor me, I'm just a casual player and there's only one difficulty which is nightmare Well i did I have to Resort to debug a few times for a few minor things that could easily be avoided.

Spoiler:

scenario 1:
Had to reload once from turn two because I didn't pay attention and menor IV died. Loss. On turn 2 of the first scenario.
This has got to be the fastest campaign loss in The history of wesnoth.
Second try I assassinated the enemy leader, but had Bad luck, else i could have finished 2-3 turns earlier. Managed to get the two loyal Drakes though.

Scenario 2:
1st attempt, a full frontal Assault failed miserably.
2nd try I did only recruit flying Drakes, waited on the Lava, picking off Single wounded dwarves while my Ring glider wnt East to steal the gold chest. He got killed sadly because the dwarf leader Hit him with 3 of 3 strikes. When he dwarf leaders had spent their gold and surrounded the Lava from all sides, i broke through, leaving behind most dwarves, went down, killed the Western leader and then aragan. Die to back Bad luck aggain I finished a turn later with my leader as only Survivor, otherwise I would have kept a Drake flare.

Scenario 3:
I managed to get through relatively good, but lost a few turns at the end because I wanted a Drake Flare to take the fire sword, only to see that he could use it I mean come on, he's using the exact same waepon as the Drake fighter line.
Also, i was Linda missing an explanation on why there were other Drakes on the map and why they were enemies.

Scenario 4:
Having to fight the Wanderer copy's forced me to reload again. I cleared the lake off ice on turn 16 (also beat both Yetis)but didn't have enough units to beat khazrans illusions and not enough turns left to recruit new guys. This is Kind of a tomato surprise. Maybe consider hunting that you will encounter more enemies than just the Yetis and/or increase the turn Limit after spawning the Wanderers.

Scenario 5:
Beat in on first try, no changes needed. Maybe it would be nice to add some Story Fluff about why there are elves and merken guarding the entrance as well. (Same goes for the mermens in The next scenario)

Scenario 6 (the river one):
This one was Bad. I won on first try but that was on thelast turn and I recalled too many Veterans so I was deeply in minus. Had to Replay it because the next scenario was unbeatable with 180minimum starting gold.
On my second run I reached the end of the Cave 3 or 4 turns before the limit with about 50 gold left. The only Problem was that it wasn't my leader who reached the end but a stormdrake (who didn't Trigger the win).
Why was my leader behind in the first place? Because I wanted to give him The regeneration armor, only to find out he can't use it. I mean come on! Inferno Drakes wear armors as well and Armageddon Drakes even have their special armors mentioned in The German description. They should be able to use it as well.
Same. sh*t. as. with. the. firesword.

Anyway, that was the first time I used debug Mode, to move my leader to the end of the Cave because I didn't want to Replay the whole thing again.
Suggestions:
-either rewrite the objectives so that it indicated that Herthgar must reach the Cave end of make it so that any unit can Win the scenario.
-Make the armor usable at least by Inferno and Armageddon Drakes.

Scenario 7:
First of all, really great Sprite from zerovirus! It was only a matter of time until it was used somewhere and that is definitely a really good usage!

First playthrough was a complete fail again.
After my second playthrough of scenario 6 I had 230 gold approximately. Strategy was the following:
My leader and another Inferno Drake tanked on the village where you can only be attacked by one Hex. The ai sends all his units there, only to be slaughtered one by one while the Rest stands around doing nothing. The Rest of my army flew over the chasm and killed one leader after the other. While I managed to beat all leaders in time I didn't have enough money and time to recall the necessary units to be sacrificed. I extended the turn Limit through debug and finished on turn 46.

I would strongly advise you to tone down that scenario. Not only it is really hard, you're also rewarded by sacrificing 5 of your best units.
- I'd tone it down to making it 4 dwarf leaders with 4 units to be sacrificed. Also maybe slightly extend the turn Limit.
- make it so that you can also sacrifice the higher levels of a unit. I had to spend 4 turns making a Drake flare instead of sacrificing one of my 3 flamehearts.

Scenario 8:
I don't see how you can beat this scenario except maybe with an army of stormdrakes. I went North as fast as I could, but menor IV the Idiot suicided himself by attacking his attackers instead of simply flying over Lava where he can't be reached as every mentally sane Drake would do. I already guessed he was suicidal after scenario 1 where he exposed himself to die.

I resorted to debug Mode again to beat that scenario because I really wanted to know the end of the story.
Also, the Dragonheart still has the description of the armageddondrake and why can't he fly over Lava?

Suggestions:
-Make menor IV immobile so that he doesn't move from his keep.
-shorten the distance on the map by 3-4 hexes

Don't worry about the feedback, overall I really really enjoyed the campaign! Great Story and great Gameplay where you have to think about how to beat the enemy!

I'd love to see some Replays of scenarii/ios 6-8, maybe I'm just too dumb to beat them.

Great work!

[Inky]

Ashen Hearts v0.1.1

Drakes are my favorite race so it's great to see them getting some love!
Overall it's a nice campaign, with well written dialogue and interesting mechanics (and a cool portrait for the main hero!) but like Paulomat4 I had some issues beating certain scenarios (so far I've played up to scenario 7 which I think is impossible without debug).

Scenario comments

S4 (The Wanderer)
The objectives and dialogue were pretty vague, and it wasn't clear to me that you had to break every single ice tile in order for the Wanderer to show up (I just assumed he was hidden somewhere in the center of the lake). I eventually figured it out because I was checking every tile, but by that time it was turn 18/20 so I ran out of time (I also underrecruited because I did not expect so many enemies to show up at the same time).

I think a stronger hint could be given, since you need to start clearing the ice from the beginning in order to make it in time. Also, maybe there could be less ice, because it's very tedious to clear the entire lake.

S5 (Runic Gate)
This scenario can be impossible to finish on time if you don't know the layout beforehand. On my first attempt I sent my leader southeast, but this caused me to run out of turns since there's a huge mass of dwarves in the center blocking the way north. Maybe those dwarves could just be removed since they never attack you anyway, they just block the path and provide free XP.

The 1-hex and 2-hex bottlenecks with the dwarvish protectors are pretty annoying; the drakes have the -25% cave penalty and the dwarves are on 60% defense so depending on the RNG it can take a very long time to break through. Widenening these bottlenecks would save a lot of frustration.

S6 (Tears of the Heartfangs)
The 32 turn limit is much too short- it takes about 20 turns for Herkarth to reach the exit by the shortest path without stopping (I didn't give him the speed ring), and he has to stop to recruit/fight/heal. Also, the objectives are unclear since they do not mention that Herkarth specifically needs to find the exit.

I think it may be better to make it so any unit reaching the exit works, that way you could use the fast hurricane drake, and you wouldn't be punished for not giving Herkarth the speed ring.

It also takes some trial and error to figure out where the exit is- I would either put a sign in the corner, or make it so that any hex on the eastern edge of the river works.

S7 (Dragonheart)
I don't think it's possible to win within the 36 turn limit (you can kill all the leaders if you hurry, but you need extra turns for the runes). Even then it's very difficult due to lack of healing since the villages are so far apart.

Personally, I would recommend removing the sacrificing part of the runes altogether (or make it so you only have to activate 3-4 of the 5 runes). Having to lose so many veterans for no reason is frustrating. Also, even if the runes accepted higher level versions of a unit, it's not realistic to expect the player to have a unit of every single type. For example the nonflying clasher types are really useless in this campaign due to poor mobility, and I wouldn't have bothered with them at all if I hadn't gotten a couple free level 2s in scenario 1.

General:
-More flat terrain in the cave scenarios would be nice- moving the 5 MP drakes through cave areas is pretty painful. I think it's especially an issue in Scenario 7, where your nonflying drakes have to slog through the eastern cave to reach the battle.

-For the items, it would be nice to have a more descriptive message for when you try to pick it up with the wrong unit, to save a lot of trial and error. For example the armor in S6 could say something like "Only a heavily armored drake can use this."

[Kwandulin]

Thanks a lot for your feedback! I considered your points for the first update:

Full changelog for 0.1.2

Spoiler:

• General
• decreased size of custom portraits
• fixed Herkarth's portrait being blurry
• increased dragonhearts movement from 5 to 6
• added teleport to the dragonheart with a fancy animation
• removed slow special from shield attack of the dwarvish protector
• added unit descriptions for the wanderer and the dragonheart
  
  S3: Snowthorn Vale
• flaming sword can now be picked up by Drake Flare line
• give hint about who can pick up the Flaming Sword
• explain why the drakes are your enemies
  
  S4: The Wanderer
• reduced lake size
• give a hint to melt all the ice
• increased turn limit from 20 to 22
• give a hint to station more drakes around the lake before the wanderer returns
  
  S5: Runic Gates
• give a hint that there are several walls to break down
• clarify why elves and mermen are protecting the temple
  
  S6: Tears of the Heartfangs
• increased turn limit from 32 to 38
• it now suffices to send any drake to the end of the river
• end of the river is now marked
• added more flat tiles
• anyone can now pick up the armor of regeneration
  
  S7: Dragonheart
• increased turn limit from 36 to 44
• increased starting gold from 180 to 280
• you no longer have to sacrifice your units to activate the runes. you still need to move the specific units to the runes, though.
• you can now also activate the runes with the specific L3 drakes
• increased amount of dirt and chasm tiles
• added a few more villages
• limit recruits of thunderguards
• enemies now mostly recruit runesmiths
• decreased enemy income by 2
• fixed the wanderer not having a portrait
• changed animation when activating the runes
• allow Herkarth to activate the inferno rune
• units that activate a rune are now granted the "power of the dragons" effect, increasing hp by 15, mp by 2 and damage by 2, instead of being killed.
• added sound to the awakening of Khazran
  
  S8: Ilrandh
• fixed Khazran spawning on a slighty wrong tile
• moved herkarths starting points about 4 hexes to the north
• increased starting gold 180->300
• give Menor IV a brain: Menor IV the genious is now avoiding a battle, yet he sends in his troops to defend the stone and himself

The update is on the servers. Thanks again!

[Delicius169]

I really liked this campain, it s great, just finished it. Storyline is great, I think it could be mainline campain...

Spoiler:

Last scenario
I think, that the enemy leader in last scenario should have less hitpoints: 90. It took me 25rounds, till Khazran managed to kill him. There is also danger,that if he 3times advance. he will have 109hp, and therefore, he will be unkillable. Khazran s attack on dwarf is 18*6=108.
Or I was expecting, that something is going to happen, when I teleported Khazran to Menor- some kind of dialog, or buffing allied drakes. And same, when I won, Menor said nothing to me.

Btw:you managed to make really nice caves

[Kwandulin]

Glad you liked it! It's always good to see people appreciating the work!

Spoiler:

The expected amount of attacks you have to do on Ilrandh in order to kill him with Khazran is about 8 (8.49 to be precise). You must've been very unlucky then: the probability to kill Ilrandh on the 25th attack and not before that is 0.0058. Reducing Ilrandh's hitpoints sounds like a good idea, I'll tinker a bit with the numbers, as I don't want any non-Khazran to finish Ilrandh. About Menor: yes, he is still very silent, I'll also get some additional dialogues ready for the next update.

Btw:you managed to make really nice caves

I had no other choice when daring to put drakes underground

[WhereIsBaodur]

Hi! I've just played the first 4 scenarios, I'm having a blast! I only hope that your other campaign is as good as this one.
Have you thought about going mainline with it?
You managed to get a feel for the drakes as a species as I've never seen on Wesnoth. Great, really great. And I absolutely loved the nice touches, the drake that takes the dwarf in the second scenario, lava healing, ice melting, dwarf phalanx formations, bear riders etcetera. By the way, I had no idea lava counted as illuminated terrain!!
And great scenarios, very funny to play (I'm thinking of the very first in particular). They are atm just right, in lenght and dimension, with the right amount of units.

I've got a suggestion for you already. In the 3rd scenario, I goaded the enemy drakes with fast flying units, paying attention to leave the ice intact, so they would follow me without success, so that I would have less troups to fight in their base. Point is, enemy drakes don't melt ice. Do you think you can rectify that? Expecially because they were the bulky, armored ones, and so there should be no reason why that is. It's no huge deal, but the overall quality so far was so high I felt compelled to point it out.
Thanks for the great time!

[Paulomat4]

Hey Kwandulin, I just played through ashen Hearts again in The new Version. I think you might have made it a bit too easy for nightmare difficulty. I had better luck on this playthrough, especially in The early scenarios, so The last one's weren't so hard. While it is awesome how much units can improve in scenario 7 when moving on the statues, they're definitely too strong. My suggestion is to not buff them at all, or at maybe let them sacrifice half of their hp. Or maybe only buff them half of what you do right now. Scenario 8 is doable right now

[Kwandulin]

Thanks for the kind words!

I've got a suggestion for you already. In the 3rd scenario, I goaded the enemy drakes with fast flying units, paying attention to leave the ice intact, so they would follow me without success, so that I would have less troups to fight in their base. Point is, enemy drakes don't melt ice. Do you think you can rectify that? Expecially because they were the bulky, armored ones, and so there should be no reason why that is.

That indeed sounds reasonable, I'll change it accordingly, expect the behaviour in the next update.

While it is awesome how much units can improve in scenario 7 when moving on the statues, they're definitely too strong. My suggestion is to not buff them at all, or at maybe let them sacrifice half of their hp. Or maybe only buff them half of what you do right now.

I wasn't too sure myself about giving the buff when activating the runes, so it's good to have additional opinions about this. I think I'll remove the buff part and just let the statues start emanating fire. Overusing the fire overlay isn't a good idea anyway.