Winds of Fate

[SigurdFireDragon]

Wings of Victory v0.8.0 is now available on the 1.14 add-on server.

A Drake campaign, it is "fully armed and operational" with 11 fully playable scenarios plus 2 story only.
Intended to be added to Mainline at some point in the 1.15 development cycle

The thread for the previous version on the 1.10 add-on server is here: https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=32018
Many changes from the previous 0.4.0 alpha version on the 1.10 add-on server.

The story starts shortly post-TRoW in 3 YW with increasing population pressure on the drake homeland of Morogor and the drakes inspired to find new lands.
It is Galun's journey to become a drake Dominant, and then find a home for his Flight across the Great Ocean somewhere on the Great Continent.

[Konrad2]

The Hunt
Purple is the only side that never moves or attacks (boar).
The unit type 'Shoat' (still boars) has a 'Tusks' attack (blade) with the charge special, but advances into a 'Tusker', which has a 'Tusks' attack (blade) without charge, but also has 'Tusk Charge' attack (pierce) with the charge special. And that's kinda not making much sense. Right now the lvl 0 Shoat deals while attacking with his Tusks more dmg than his lvl 1 advancement. (I suggest changing the Shoats attack into a Tusk Charge attack, 6-2 melee, pierce, charge.)

EDIT:
The way the story is written somewhat breaks with the usual style, it's mostly told in the present. (No past tenses at all.)

EDIT 2:
The Contention
What'S the explanation story wise for my enemy having way more income than me?

EDIT 3:
You earn full xp for kills.

[SigurdFireDragon]

Version 0.8.1 is up

Bug fixes:

01 The Hunt
Shoat changed to Tusklet
Boar leveling now makes sense
The Tuskers & Tusklets now move

03 The Contention
The dialog now states why enemy starts with different income
Kill xp reverting to full when loading from a save has been fixed



Thanks for the bug reports Konrad2.
I've noted the story style issues, I'll look into it.

[Konrad2]

Islands
My units repeat the 'drake in water' in water message whenever a Sea Serpent emerges from the depths. (Is that intended?)

The_Three_Sisters
That's the way the scenario is refered to in the scenario prologue and the sceario objectives. But not in the save files. So, probably technically a bug.
Also, while the campaign takes around 3YW, this scenario uses a world map from around 400YW (I'm guessing based on the amount of cities).

[SigurdFireDragon]

Version 0.8.2 is up

Changes
06 The Three Sisters
Removed underscores from the scenario name

Replies

Islands
My units repeat the 'drake in water' in water message whenever a Sea Serpent emerges from the depths. (Is that intended?)

Maybe, it was intended to match TRoW Rough Landing, but with a different message. The new message might not work as well, noted.

Also, while the campaign takes around 3YW, this scenario uses a world map from around 400YW (I'm guessing based on the amount of cities).

Noted.

Thanks, Konrad2

[Konrad2]

Islands
My units repeat the 'drake in water' in water message whenever a Sea Serpent emerges from the depths. (Is that intended?)

Maybe, it was intended to match TRoW Rough Landing, but with a different message. The new message might not work as well, noted.

I'm mostly 'taking offense' at them repeating the same thing three times. How about having them say the 2nd time 'Look, another one of those beasts!' and the 3rd time 'A third one? Now that's a challenge! Burn them!'

[Lord-Knightmare]

Firstly, I am happy that you guys FINALLY decided to bring this campaign back from the grave.

Secondly, my review:
I loved most of the scenarios overall and was impressed on how the remaining plot-holes were filled, compared to the original release. However, the scenarios lacked objective-variety...Like all of them were "Kill all enemy leaders"

The Three Sisters:

It would have been better if you added the Midnight Queen from TRoW instead of a Spectre impersonator.

Wesmere:

Maybe the objectives could be shifted to a survival scenario. Like the player resists the elves and woses, with a special feature as you get [5 4 3] gold by landing on a forest hex and terraforming it to a flat hex.

Foothills:

This reminded me of the time when I used a hair-spray and a lighter to kill spiders.

The Confrontation:

This is a joke. Just had to spam recall on Wardens, Arbiters, Blademasters and Enforcers. Loved how 80% of my recall list was useless in a Drake vs Drake finale.

In any case, I am happy that someone brought this back...

[Konrad2]

The Three Sisters:

It would have been better if you added the Midnight Queen from TRoW instead of a Spectre impersonator.

Spoiler:

If I understood that reference correctly, the Midnight Queen from TRoW was killed in TRoW. As in dead. Or as in ...Ghost. So, maybe this one isn't an impersonator, it's just all that was left of her.

[gnombat]

Shouldn't there be three temples on the island?

[SigurdFireDragon]

Version 0.8.3 is up

Changes:
01 The Hunt
Slight cleanup of boar movement code that may improve behavior.

05 Islands
Serpent message changed to something less annoying when repeated for now.

06 The Three Sisters
Temples have been added.



Replies:

How about having them say the 2nd time 'Look, another one of those beasts!' and the 3rd time 'A third one? Now that's a challenge! Burn them!'

I might do something like this later on, thanks.

I am happy that someone brought this back...

Thanks, it's appreciated.

The Three Sisters:

It would have been better if you added the Midnight Queen from TRoW instead of a Spectre impersonator.

Spoiler:

If I understood that reference correctly, the Midnight Queen from TRoW was killed in TRoW. As in dead. Or as in ...Ghost. So, maybe this one isn't an impersonator, it's just all that was left of her.

What Konrad2 said.

Secondly, my review:
I loved most of the scenarios overall and was impressed on how the remaining plot-holes were filled, compared to the original release. However, the scenarios lacked objective-variety...Like all of them were "Kill all enemy leaders"

Wesmere:

Maybe the objectives could be shifted to a survival scenario. Like the player resists the elves and woses, with a special feature as you get [5 4 3] gold by landing on a forest hex and terraforming it to a flat hex.

Foothills:

This reminded me of the time when I used a hair-spray and a lighter to kill spiders.

The Confrontation:

This is a joke. Just had to spam recall on Wardens, Arbiters, Blademasters and Enforcers. Loved how 80% of my recall list was useless in a Drake vs Drake finale.

I would like to have more objectives variety, maybe about 1/2 the scenarios are possible candidates.
There's also some places it might make sense to have "Kill all enemy units" instead of just all leaders.
I'll think about the change for Wesmere, it's one of the places an objective change might work.
As for Confrontation, I don't have any ideas for what to do about that at the moment, other than encouraging more of a variety in the player's recruit throughout the campaign, which will be implemented in various places.

Shouldn't there be three temples on the island?

Yes, thanks for pointing this out.

[Konrad2]

Foothills
'if the storm increases' -> I'm not sure what this means. :/

EDIT:
The scenario might be a bit too hard on the hardest difficulty. I started with 149 gold, so I couldn't recall more than 7 units (forget about hoping for income, almost no villages on this map), while my enemies started with 250 gold each, which means a bunch of undead (some of them Ghouls) and a Giant Spider per turn for 4-5 turns. And poison hurts Drakes a loooooooot. Especially if you have almost no villages to heal and only a small number of Drakes.
Also, is it intended that higher difficulties have more time available to beat the scenario?
(I can't imagine beating this scenario with only 100 gold.)

[SigurdFireDragon]

Version 0.8.4 is up

Changes:
09 Foothills
Lowered difficulty


Replies:

Foothills
'if the storm increases' -> I'm not sure what this means. :/

It means I need to do a better job with the dialog/story overall in Foothills. I'll get to it at some point.

The scenario might be a bit too hard on the hardest difficulty. I started with 149 gold, so I couldn't recall more than 7 units (forget about hoping for income, almost no villages on this map), while my enemies started with 250 gold each, which means a bunch of undead (some of them Ghouls) and a Giant Spider per turn for 4-5 turns. And poison hurts Drakes a loooooooot. Especially if you have almost no villages to heal and only a small number of Drakes.
Also, is it intended that higher difficulties have more time available to beat the scenario?
(I can't imagine beating this scenario with only 100 gold.)

I dropped the gold amounts for now. Though part of this depends on how the previous scenario is handled. I'm leaning toward making the previous one a little easier if need be. Yeah, the longer time for the higher difficulty levels was intentional. It's something I might change.

At some point, I do want to revise the map/story/dialog a bit for Foothills.

Thanks for the feedback.

Also, if anyone would like to post replays and start of scenario saves for S07 Elensefar and later that would be helpful as well.

[Konrad2]

There you go.

[name]

I am very glad to see a mainline drake campaign finally happening and this one hits the spot. It is all around very well put together; hard to imagine how it was lost for so many release cycles. This is what I noticed playing through 0.8.2:

The Hunt:

I really appreciate that you do not get the ubiquitous starting castle so that the action focuses on commanding a small pack of units. Campaigns in general could use more like this, it is good for variety.

The sense of space and mobility options provided by the map design is a very fitting way to start off a drake campaign.

The Raid:

It is good to see the map of Morogor from TRoW is the same. It has not shape-shifted as Weldyn tends to, when going from one campaign's geographical depiction of it to the next.

The situation is reversed from how it was in TRoW's Morogor scenario, with you now playing as the drakes who are the ones surprising the invaders, which is a fun twist.

I am on the fence about whether or not the orcs should have said anything before the end of the scenario or mentioned anything relevant to this time period of circa 0 Y.W. and their goal(s) in stopping by this island in the middle of the great ocean. On one hand hearing the typical orc-speak doesn't add anything to the story progression. On the other hand this is the first encounter between these two races (that we know of). And it might have been fun to see the vicious threat-spewing orcs, that are normally contrasted with the "good" and virtuously-speaking typical protagonist races, instead encounter similarly merciless but tersely spoken "lawful" creatures. In other words the orcs have finally run into something that sees them the way they see everyone else: prey. In any case, the closing dialogue does deliver some fun interaction between the two.

The Contention:

Fleshes out more of drake society in a way that feels fitting for them. They are quite militant but still "lawful" such that positions are determined through prowess in combat primarily, but the combat is not taken to the point of being lethal.

Islands:

On the default difficulty level (challenging) this was actually quite a bit harder than any other scenario in the campaign. It is a bit of a jolt for the difficulty curve. Maybe the rate the sea serpents spawn could be slowed down. Map is correctly consistent with how it was in TRoW.

The "scenario objectives" panel notes that "This scenario takes place during the summer." but I could not figure out how that is relevant to anything.

The Three Sisters:

I like the tie in with TRoW via the midnight queen and the map being consistent with both TRoW and HttT. The clash between the natives is fun as is your ability to circumvent a lot of the fighting using the sea around the island.

The drakes already seem to know what a ghost is. Is this not their first encounter with the undead though, I wonder?

Elensefar:

A fine versus-loyalists scenario. This is one place where the saurians might have been introduced, as they were fairly trounced by the new comer humans in TRoW so the two could be already at war when this scenario begins. Maybe the player has the option of taking them on as allies/slaves against the loyalists or just hunting down the both of them for their meat.

Should elensefar already exist this early in the historical timeline?

Wesmere:

A similarly good versus-rebels scenario.

I wonder if the elves should have had anything to say about their first encounter with drakes though? Maybe they offer a land-for-quests deal similar to what they offered haldric in TRoW, but galun sees no wisdom in serving "lesser races" and his blowing them off sets off this scenario's conflict.

Foothills:

Some of the opening dialogue could be rephrased a little. Instead of this--

Naemir: "Who invades my domain?"
Vank: "(Galun, that sounds like slave-speech.)"
Galun: "(Yes it does, how fitting...)"
Galun: "Who are you to challenge us."
Naemir: "It speaks, does it? I am Naemir, and I rule here."
Galun: "I am Galun, and I am not ruled by anyone"
Naemir: "Here you are ruled by me or you will be dead. Or, possibly, both."
Galun: "No being of a lesser race may rule a drake."
Vank: "(Careful, Galun, we are no longer in Morogor.)"
Naemir: "Lesser am I, I think not."
Naemir: "Rise, my pets, there is food for you.
Spider: "Click, click."
Naemir: "And you, arrogant one, will serve me. Living or dead, I care not.

Maybe something like--

Naemir: "What nature of creature are these that trespass my domain?"
Vank: "(Galun, that sounds like slave-speech.)"
Galun: "(Yes it does, how fitting...)"
Galun: "What exactly are you that dares ask?"
Naemir: "It speaks, does it? I am Lich-Lord Naemir. I rule this place and all that set foot upon it."
Naemir: "Which now includes you."
Galun: "No."
Naemir: "... Yes. You will be ruled by me or you will be dead. Or, possibly, both."
Galun: "No being of a lesser race may rule a drake."
Naemir: "Lesser am I? Let us see which of us is so."
Naemir: "Rise, my pets, there is food for you."
Spider: "Click, click."
Naemir: "And you, arrogant one, will serve me. You will see how well death tames you."
Galun: "I will see how well flame ignites you."

Heart Mountains + Fire Meets Steel:

You are between two enemy armies in "Heart Mountains" but otherwise this one is pretty basic. I wonder if maybe this should be "merged" with "Fire Meets Steel" such that one of the two armies is actually the dwarves who are going up against the trolls and you are just caught in the middle. Movement on the "Fire Meets Steel" map is also a bit tedious due to the degree of frozen terrain.

Also, the dwarves only learn the practice of gryphon riding during HttT, which takes place centuries after this point. Perhaps wild unmounted gryphons could instead appear as allies to the trolls?

Confrontation:

I felt like this was going to be a big thematic conflict between the straight path (represented by kerath's flight) and the spiral path (represented by galun's flight). But it does not fully deliver on that. I think there could be some more elements, perhaps:

1. Meeting kerath before leaving morogor. Either setting him up as an enemy, rival or friend of galun's. So his betrayal has more to it.
2. Galun only fully makes the spiral path his own after learning some lessons over the scenarios.
3. Galun's adoption of the spiral path becomes known to kerath, making the former look weak to the latter as reshan'lo had warned, thus the betrayal.

Also the map size is a bit cramped on this one.

[josteph]

The "scenario objectives" panel notes that "This scenario takes place during the summer." but I could not figure out how that is relevant to anything.

It means the time of day schedule has 3 day turns and 1 night turn.

Heart Mountains + Fire Meets Steel::

Also, the dwarves only learn the practice of gryphon riding during HttT, which takes place centuries after this point. Perhaps wild unmounted gryphons could instead appear as allies to the trolls?

Spoiler:

It's not clear to me that dwarves learnt gryphon riding in HttT. Relgorn might have known for centuries that his people could tame baby Gryphons; his dialog allows for that interpretation.