Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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octalot
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Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by octalot »

This topic is for the campaign Defense of Elensefar, which is a single-scenario of humans (loyals and the thieves guild) vs undead. A major question here is whether the text should be rewritten to avoid spoilers to other campaigns. It's set immediately after SotA, and contains a retelling of the necromancers' attacks from the perspective of sailors and normal townsfolk; I'm assuming it's not a plot spoiler that SotA has undead running all over the map and killing people.

In 23 YW, a necromancer ransacked Blackwater Port and Carcyn. No-one was left alive to tell the tale in Blackwater, but those who survived in Carcyn told of the necromancer recruiting ruffians and apprentice mages to his cult.

Three months after the attack on Carcyn, an army of undead came out of the Northlands. They were met by a huge force unified against necromancy, but that battle was lost. The army of undead next turned towards Elensefar. Now the few who remained in Elensefar must hope to defend.

Status: incomplete but playable. For now the enemies are all south of the river, but this will change.
beetlenaut wrote: March 7th, 2019, 4:06 am
gweddeoran wrote: March 7th, 2019, 3:54 am Ras-Tabahn's Siege of Elensefar?
Yep! Elensefar didn't get turned into a city of dark magi though, so Ras-Tabahn must have failed. Someone needs to write that scenario (from the point of view of the defenders) and show how Ras-Tabahn got defeated.
Edit: changed the thread title

Edit2: the Git repo is at https://github.com/stevecotton/Defense_of_Elensefar/
Last edited by octalot on March 30th, 2019, 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Konrad2
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-scenario campaign for 1.14

Post by Konrad2 »

The purple journey tracker is partially covered by the dwarvish journey tracker (before/during the final battle).

Shouldn't the castle hexes as well have 'holy aura'?

The Lighthouses demand upkeep.

EDIT:
Since Lighthouses can be attacked and are almost invurnerable, they basically take out any enemy that gets close to them out of the equation.
I suggest making them more vulnerable or abandon representating as units.

Also, 'holy aura' doesn't seem very useful since you are probably down if the undead got past your defense on the walls.

EDIT 2:
Lichs can't advance to Ancient Lichs, unlike the ones in SotA.

EDIT 3:
The hardest difficulty didn't feel hard. It felt almost trivial as long you don't mind losses.
It's very odd that there there is a carryover being calculated at the end of the scenario.

EDIT 4:
Wouldn't it be better to call this add-on a Scenario instead of a Campaign? (Unless you mean to add more scenarios.)
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-scenario campaign for 1.14

Post by octalot »

Thanks for the feedback, it's very useful. I've just uploaded 0.2.0, which should be a lot harder (probably too hard). The holy auras are dropped, and the AI is smarter about the lighthouses.

Good point about it being a scenario instead of a campaign, I'll correct that in the 0.3.0 upload but missed it in this one.

I feel that journey tracker has a lot of dots, but them overlapping feels OK to me - the dwarves took the most direct route.
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by Konrad2 »

Why would Undead units be raised from the villages with the deposited bodies when a normal Undead unit steps on it? Shouldn't it have to be a necromancer?

EDIT:
Winnable.
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by octalot »

For gameplay I want the player to defend those two villages from the northern enemy's bats.

How does this justification sound: Ras had been planning this siege for a while and has known for a couple of days that all the graves in Carcyn were emptied. He's worked out how to enchant items that will raise at least a few walking corpses, possibly needing him to be nearby to power the items, and that can be carried by the bats. That could be given dialogue and have the black-magic-lightning crackle around the bat; it could fry the bat and turn it into a walking corpse too.

Thanks for playtesting. I get an OOS in the replay, for the definition of the lich units. I'll investigate further.
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by Konrad2 »

That certainly sounds better than it is right now. ^^

Try installing 'Reign of the Lords' and watching the replay afterwards.
Read this for more info.
https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.ph ... 31#p639431
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-scenario campaign for 1.14

Post by EarthCake »

Konrad2 wrote: March 24th, 2019, 10:54 pm EDIT 2:
Lichs can't advance to Ancient Lichs, unlike the ones in SotA.
To fix this, you need to add in your _main.cfg file this tag:

Code: Select all

	{ENABLE_ANCIENT_LICH}
In case you don't know. :D
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-scenario campaign for 1.14

Post by James_The_Invisible »

EarthCake wrote: April 17th, 2019, 9:13 pm
Konrad2 wrote: March 24th, 2019, 10:54 pm EDIT 2:
Lichs can't advance to Ancient Lichs, unlike the ones in SotA.
To fix this, you need to add in your _main.cfg file this tag:

Code: Select all

	{ENABLE_ANCIENT_LICH}
In case you don't know. :D
I think that this would actually cause an error as macro with that name is not defined. octalot needs to put

Code: Select all

extra_defines=ENABLE_ANCIENT_LICH
in the campaign tag.
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by EarthCake »

You're right.
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by octalot »

Thanks, but the liches were already fixed in v0.2.0. :D

New in version 0.3.0: lots of dialogue about the bats, and the AI now knows that those villages are special.
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by EarthCake »

Maybe you should give player opportunity to recruit cavalryman. They are quick like horsemans, but don't have their charge attack which is sometimes... too strong in retalitation.

Also, on hard maybe longer 50 income, to be maybe in turn 25 cut off. Also, maybe give Ras-Tabahn more recalls on hard.

Maybe Ras-Tabahn should be lich with same sprites like one in SotA. Also the portrait.

Also, what is castle in north in caves used for? Just like decoration?

Maybe give side 3 recruit blood bat on hard, because I left on north 1 knight (leveled up in south), 2 mages and 1 heavy infantryman, and they easily hold their line. It would be more interesting to see how they would fight blood bats.

Maybe on hard give player less gold, because I recruited only one keep at start and I continued spamming gold, and I recruited second keep only at turn 7-8.

Also, bats only go for keep and bodies. I mean, there was 3 free villages next to bat and he continued to keep. Also for the ghosts. They continue going toward castle while they have 2 empty villages north of Elensefar that I own.

Why scenario doesn't end when I kill Ras-Tabahn? I mean wraith (maybe spectre for hard) would have disappeared with their master dead.

An idea: maybe make that Methor must kill Ras-Tabahn; only he has power to make him to go in the world of the dead.

Methor isn't unrenamable; you forgot to put that tag into code.

Great scenario, here is my replay to see all bugs mentioned up there:
DoE-Elensefar replay.gz
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by Konrad2 »

Why can I not recruit Bowmen?

If an Undead gets to my keep, then it will rise some WC and the 'glow' will disappear even though the keep is still to be protected from the necromancers.

There is a Shadow on 13,31 but I can't see him, even though he is range of the Southern Lighthouse. Why?

Ras-Tabahn says that Ardryn- Na retreated into the mountains, but your storymap says she retreated into the Grey Forest.
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by octalot »

Thanks for the feedback, I've uploaded v0.4.0, making hard a bit harder, adding a nightmare version, and addressing anything that doesn't have a comment below.
bats only go for keep and bodies. I mean, there was 3 free villages next to bat and he continued to keep. Also for the ghosts. They continue going toward castle while they have 2 empty villages north of Elensefar that I own.
I've hopefully made the ghosts more likely to go for the villages, but haven't changed the AI for the bats as that would make the micro AI settings more complex.
Also, what is castle in north in caves used for? Just like decoration?
I've changed it to a keepless castle to clarify that. I was going to put side 3 in it, but in the end didn't use it.
Maybe Ras-Tabahn should be lich with same sprites like one in SotA. Also the portrait.
I'm puzzled here - Ardryn-Na has custom sprits and portraits, but AFAICS Ras-Tabahn has the same portrait in DoE as he did in SotA. The sprites differ in team-color.
Ras-Tabahn says that Ardryn- Na retreated into the mountains, but your storymap says she retreated into the Grey Forest.
I'm assuming Ardryn-Na retreats quietly, and so she disappears as far as the living know. The ones retreating in to the Grey Woods are adepts who didn't retreat with Ardryn-Na, but at Carcyn they've had a couple of days to realise that the ones who stayed with Ardryn-Na made a good choice, some of them are familiar with the local geography, and they slip away instead of fighting people that they know.
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by Konrad2 »

There is no music in this scenario. Maybe you disabled it or didn't add any?
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Re: Defense of Elensefar - single-player scenario for 1.14

Post by vghetto »

Hi,

I was looking at the code and noticed that you have the AI params set for side one for balance testing.
I like the idea and wanted to try it out but failed miserably.

My first attempt was to write a small mod where with a right click menu item I could modify_side one from controller human to ai. That approach failed, the units just stood there and I lost control of the End turn button.

Second attempt was to change the code of the scenario and set side one controller to ai. That did work, but the
caravans wouldn't move to any of the villages and were attacked and killed right away by ghosts at a very early
turn.

If you don't mind, could you explain your approach of how it is enabled for the balance testing?

Thanks
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