Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

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Dalas120
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Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Dalas120 »

Have you ever felt that mainline's Eastern Invasion was... lackluster? So do I, but the campaign premise has so much promise that I couldn't bear to see it go to waste.

So, I've worked on-and-off for the past year to build an extensive rewrite of Eastern Invasion, which I'm proud to present here as Eastern Invasion, Revised. Scenarios have more variety, characters have actual personalities, the AI is much more dynamic, and the plot no longer conflicts with Northern Alliance canon (and common sense).

Changes vary from minor (08_Xenophobia - dialogue overhaul, map flipped), to major (04c_Mal-Ravanals_Capitol - added opening cutscene, new terrain, a lich who's toying with you), to complete reworks (04b_Batty_Swamp - brave a toxic swamp to collect herbs for some dunefolk), to brand new scenarios (10_Dark_Sanctuary - explore a forgotten castle while orcs assault the gates).

I've played through this campaign (17 scenarios, 2 story) from the beginning a total of 3 times now (though I've only tried Hard), and while they're not all perfect I've definitely tried my best to apply a layer of polish and care to each and every scenario.

I would like to continue improving this campaign until it's high-enough quality to be considered for mainline, so please give it a spin and post your feedback!


mission1-cropped.png
Gweddry struggles to defend the southern outpost.


mission6-cropped.png
The last defenders of Soradoc are overwhelmed by undead.


mission10-cropped.png
Orcs siege the entrance to a long-forgotten sanctuary.


mission17-cropped.png
Generals Halrad, Halric, and Halrod battle undead through the dense streets of Weldyn

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ArthurMitchell
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by ArthurMitchell »

I checked the Add-On server, but couldn't find your campaign, is it uploaded or is it still in development?
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octalot
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by octalot »

There's a separate add-on server for the development branch of Wesnoth; the "1.17" is the version of Wesnoth needed rather than the version of the add-on.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Konrad2 »

S1
Seargent -> Sergeant

When turns run out, you first show the objectives, then you change them. -> The player doesn't see the new objectives, only the old ones.

The unit description of your Lich-Lord refers to the unit as Ancient Lich.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Helmet »

Dalas120 wrote: November 14th, 2022, 12:30 am I would like to continue improving this campaign until it's high-enough quality to be considered for mainline, so please give it a spin and post your feedback!
I played on Normal difficulty. I almost beat scenario 1, but the enemy unit that I urgently needed to kill didn't get killed, and then my Leader died. (I'm being vague to avoid conveying spoilers.)

I attached a replay.

After I played your version, I played the original Eastern Invasion, Scenario 1, to compare the two.

Yet again, I almost won but then my Leader died. :P

You introduced some interesting elements in your version, but, in my opinion, the original was more fun. It posed more interesting tactical challenges.

You asked for feedback, so here is one more observation.

In your version, I thought I would win the scenario if my guys survived until turns ran out. I survived, but I didn't win. You changed the objective after turns ran out and I had to do one more thing, and then my Leader died before I could do it. That "surprise" was creative, but it wasn't fun.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Konrad2 »

S6b
You 'deposses' at the wrong hex, so Mal-Ravanal is still on the map afterwards, as a leader. Making the bonus objective impossible to fulfill.
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Dalas120
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Dalas120 »

Konrad2 wrote: December 19th, 2022, 4:26 pm S1
Seargent -> Sergeant

When turns run out, you first show the objectives, then you change them. -> The player doesn't see the new objectives, only the old ones.

The unit description of your Lich-Lord refers to the unit as Ancient Lich.
Will fix all 3, thanks for the report.
Helmet wrote: December 20th, 2022, 3:09 am You introduced some interesting elements in your version, but, in my opinion, the original was more fun. It posed more interesting tactical challenges.
Do you mind me asking which tactical challenges you feel are missing?
Helmet wrote: December 20th, 2022, 3:09 am In your version, I thought I would win the scenario if my guys survived until turns ran out. I survived, but I didn't win. You changed the objective after turns ran out and I had to do one more thing, and then my Leader died before I could do it. That "surprise" was creative, but it wasn't fun.
Thanks, I'll change the original objective to say you'll need to move to 10,15 once the scenario ends.
Konrad2 wrote: December 20th, 2022, 12:48 pm You 'deposses' at the wrong hex, so Mal-Ravanal is still on the map afterwards, as a leader. Making the bonus objective impossible to fulfill.
Will investigate and fix, thanks. Not sure what happened in those saves, but something is clearly wrong; depossess isn't supposed to care about what hex Mal-Ravanal is on at all.

FYI, big new patch coming soon, which will include these bugfixes and should be uploading sometime in the next couple weeks. Also includes major changes to the northlands scenarios (S08-S12) & S13, new events for Grug/Dolburras/Hahid/Terraent, one new potential loyal, new sprites for a number of units, reduced difficulty on easy/normal, and lots of miscellaneous changes.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Konrad2 »

Dalas120 wrote: December 20th, 2022, 4:05 pm FYI, big new patch coming soon, which will include these bugfixes and should be uploading sometime in the next couple weeks. Also includes major changes to the northlands scenarios (S08-S12) & S13, new events for Grug/Dolburras/Hahid/Terraent, one new potential loyal, new sprites for a number of units, reduced difficulty on easy/normal, and lots of miscellaneous changes.
I'll hold off from playing furter then.

Replays
Spoiler:
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Toranks »

Helmet wrote: December 20th, 2022, 3:09 am I played on Normal difficulty. I almost beat scenario 1, but the enemy unit that I urgently needed to kill didn't get killed, and then my Leader died. (I'm being vague to avoid conveying spoilers.)
I know your feeling, because it was about to happen to me on hard. This skirmisher unit saved my life in an incredible way. :shock: I will never forget this victory :eng:
Sin_titulo.png
It's okay if Dalas lower the difficulty from easy/normal but PLEASE keep the maximum difficulty as it is, it's quite a challenge that leads to epic situations.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Helmet »

Dalas120 wrote: December 20th, 2022, 4:05 pm Do you mind me asking which tactical challenges you feel are missing?
In the original scenario, I had a choice of three enemy Leaders to attack. I noted what units they recruited and the terrain around their bases and then attacked. That was fun.

In your scenario, the number of enemy units was overwhelming. I quickly realized that I was not meant to attack any of the enemy Leaders, I was only meant to survive and keep my units huddles in the vicinity of the castle. There's nothing wrong with that, and your version was fun, but the version where I had more options was a little more fun.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

Contrary to what Helmet pointed out, I think the current S1 is better than the classic one. As stated in the Wesnoth UMC discord and to re-iterate, the S1 gives a very clear demonstration of how strong the forces of Mal-Ravannal is, as a foreboding sign of the upcoming invasion.
The classic one's undead didn't feel challenging at all (unless someone evilly removed HI from my recruit-list).

Thus, I think the S1 should stay as is.

I intend to give EI-rw another go once the latest patch is made available.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Helmet »

Lord-Knightmare wrote: December 21st, 2022, 1:07 am ...Thus, I think the S1 should stay as is.

I intend to give EI-rw another go once the latest patch is made available.
Hmm. Maybe my opinion was soured a little because an undead unit was standing on the open trapdoor the moment I learned about the trapdoor, and then all my units failed to kill the undead so I lost.

What if, when the trapdoor opens, any enemy unit standing on the trapdoor falls into the hole and disappears? And then no other undead would move onto the open trapdoor hex (because it's a hole)?

I almost didn't even see that the trapdoor was open, because the enemy unit was covering it. Some players might not see the trapdoor and get confused about what to do.

Just giving feedback. There was a lot in the scenario to like. For example, the arrival of the undead horde at the castle was well-timed, which was impressive.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Toranks »

Actually what you suggest is very easy as there is a function in AiWML
[avoid]: Makes the AI avoid specific locations. The AI never moves a unit to these locations except for trying to move its leader to a keep or toward [leader_goal]s, and thus applies to all CAs except move-leader-to-goals and move-leader-to-keep.
Specifying the trapdoor as StandardLocationFilter.

This is a good recommendation, actually, since if two or three enemies are positioned around that hexagon, you can quickly be overwhelmed by the enemy forces due to the delay trying to kill them.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Dalas120 »

Sounds like a good idea; I'll set the AIs to avoid the trapdoor, and will highlight the trapdoor when the objective pops up.
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Re: Eastern Invasion, Revised (1.17) - Looking for Playtesters!

Post by Dalas120 »

EASTERN INVASION, REVISED - v2.0.0

Have you ever felt that mainline's Eastern Invasion was... lackluster? So do I, but the campaign premise has so much promise that I couldn't bear to see it go to waste.

So, I've worked on-and-off for the past year to build an extensive rewrite of Eastern Invasion, which I'm proud to present here as Eastern Invasion, Revised. Scenarios have more variety, characters have actual personalities, the AI is much more dynamic, and the plot no longer conflicts with Northern Alliance canon (and common sense).

I would like to continue improving this campaign until it's high-enough quality to be considered for mainline, so please give it a spin and post your feedback!

----v2.0.0 Changes:
- one new loyal, and events for your all loyals: buy elixirs from Hahid, help Dolburras broker peace with dwarves, and more
- new economy and a more interesting storyline for S08 Xenophobia <-> S12 Evacuation, plus faster gameplay in S06b Soradoc and S13 Spoils of War
- several new sprites and animations, most noticeably for Dacyn/Terraent (to distinguish them from regular White Mages / Paladins), Owaec, Konrad II, and Mal-Ravanal's spirit form.
- easy/normal/hard difficulty scaling changed from 50/75/100 to 33/66/100 (easier easy/normal, unchanged hard)
- and much more! Full changelog available on add-on server.


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