A War of Fools

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Skayland
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A War of Fools

Post by Skayland »

Development thread for A War of Fools.

Recently I was creatively inspired while playing some UMC campaigns and decided to make my own. I am a complete beginner with WML and map design, Im not a good writer either and english is not my native language. But after 5 days of work I managed to get 2 scenarios done and Im quite proud of them.

A War of Fools is a story about an ancient lich that escapes his prison during a time of war for the human kingdoms. The Kings and Lords are too focused on the war to realise that something far more dangerous than other Kings and Lords is growing stronger. This story is set on a feudal continent where war, betrayal and death are commonplace. The campaign is meant to be highly interactive, the player will be given options to choose from in almost all scenarios, this also means that the campaign is story-heavy, but part of the story depends on the player's choices which may lead to different endings.

This campaign was created as a concept, if I see that at least a few others are interested then I have already planned a few more scenarios that i can work on. And if it all works out I also have a prequel in mind.

In total 10 scenarios are planned. Including Act 1 to 10 and a few cutscenes in between.
Please give feedback on the story, the difficulty of Act I and grammar/language corrections ;) And please don't laugh at the WML, I am willing to improve it :eng:
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Tarcil
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Tarcil »

Played it and I have to say, sc. 1 is fairly imrepssive if this is the result of 5 days work while being new to WML. I am at the same stage with my own campaign (*In Defense of Kharos*) and its far less sophisticated than yours.
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Helmet
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Helmet »

Skayland wrote: January 30th, 2023, 8:51 am Please give feedback on the story, the difficulty of Act I and grammar/language corrections
I played it and enjoyed it. In scenario 2, I won on turn 17 of 18. No save-scumming. Normal difficulty.

I was worried I wouldn't kill the undead before turns ran out, so it was pretty exciting. Good job on the timing!

Feedback time.

The story of the lich's escape was great. I like how the incarceration of 2 necromancers was the error, and how the dwarves fled. There's a lot of good stuff in the story.

In my opinion, whenever a spell was cast that had an effect more than 1 hex away, it felt wrong. Wesnoth attacks are always into adjacent hexes, so I was often not looking where you wanted me to look, which meant I was like, "Where did that skeleton come from?" You might consider changing it so that all scripted attacks occur in adjacent hexes...or not.

Scenario 1 did not have an "end scenario" button to allow the player to easily proceed.

In scenario 2, I suggest the Footpad not start off on your side and Loyal. It makes the decision to choose him too obvious. Perhaps make a separate side just for him, and if you choose him to join your army, update his side and then make him Loyal. (I did something similar in scenario 1 of "The Pool of Ek.")

Another option may be for the Footpad to offer 20+ gold for his release. If the player chooses to take the gold, maybe the Footpad departs, or maybe he joins your side anyway but is not Loyal. Having the Footpad was very useful.

At the end of scenario 2, I chose to not fight the 2 new enemies. Two enemy leaders seemed too risky, and I didn't know how much gold they had. If you want the player to seriously consider fighting reinforcements, instead of creating new Keeps, perhaps have 10 or so enemy units move onto the eastern edge of the map so the player can see exactly what they're up against.

Anyhow, good job! Don't be discouraged if you don't get several pages of feedback. For most players, feedback means "I found a bug in your WML." So lack of feedback simply means your code works. :D

Replay attached if you're curious about what units were killed or whatever.
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Skayland »

Hello!
Tarcil wrote: January 30th, 2023, 3:06 pm Played it and I have to say, sc. 1 is fairly imrepssive if this is the result of 5 days work while being new to WML. I am at the same stage with my own campaign (*In Defense of Kharos*) and its far less sophisticated than yours.
Thanks for your words Tarcil :) Scenario 1 was indeed the one that took the most work. I would probably have made more scenarios if that cutscene hadn't taken as long, but I think it was worth it.

And also thanks for the feedback Helmet, I also played your campaign recently and I found the bugs theme innovative ^_^
Helmet wrote: January 30th, 2023, 5:51 pm In my opinion, whenever a spell was cast that had an effect more than 1 hex away, it felt wrong. Wesnoth attacks are always into adjacent hexes, so I was often not looking where you wanted me to look, which meant I was like, "Where did that skeleton come from?" You might consider changing it so that all scripted attacks occur in adjacent hexes...or not.
I thought of that when I was making it. My solution in-progress is to fake a projectile that goes where I need it. Hopefully that would work better than invisible magic.
Helmet wrote: January 30th, 2023, 5:51 pm Scenario 1 did not have an "end scenario" button to allow the player to easily proceed.
That's weird. I'm using theme=Cutscene which should put the next scenario button on the top right (as well as the menu button on the top left) and it works for me, maybe it has to do with resolution? What is yours? I will see what I can do regardless, though.
Helmet wrote: January 30th, 2023, 5:51 pm In scenario 2, I suggest the Footpad not start off on your side and Loyal. It makes the decision to choose him too obvious. Perhaps make a separate side just for him, and if you choose him to join your army, update his side and then make him Loyal. (I did something similar in scenario 1 of "The Pool of Ek.")

Another option may be for the Footpad to offer 20+ gold for his release. If the player chooses to take the gold, maybe the Footpad departs, or maybe he joins your side anyway but is not Loyal. Having the Footpad was very useful.
One of the options gives gold
Spoiler:
I do agree that he should not start on your side though. And the loyal trait is there because I didn't think he should have an income cost. I think removing the loyal crown overlay should be enough though.
Helmet wrote: January 30th, 2023, 5:51 pm At the end of scenario 2, I chose to not fight the 2 new enemies. Two enemy leaders seemed too risky, and I didn't know how much gold they had. If you want the player to seriously consider fighting reinforcements, instead of creating new Keeps, perhaps have 10 or so enemy units move onto the eastern edge of the map so the player can see exactly what they're up against.
To be honest I have not tested fighting them. The addition of this option was a test of the concept. I will work on it to make it more appealing :) but it is meant to be the most challenging option.
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Helmet »

Skayland wrote: January 30th, 2023, 6:26 pm I thought of that when I was making it. My solution in-progress is to fake a projectile that goes where I need it. Hopefully that would work better than invisible magic.
That would be better, sure, but it would be so much easier for the units to be adjacent when the attacks happen. The Skeleton Archer can simply move to a hex adjacent to its target before it fires its arrows. All the long-range attacks could be made adjacent-hex attacks. Why are you punishing yourself with this complicated WML in your first scenario? I suggest you save it for your 50th scenario or whatever. :lol:

Skayland wrote: January 30th, 2023, 6:26 pm ...I'm using theme=Cutscene which should put the next scenario button on the top right (as well as the menu button on the top left) and it works for me, maybe it has to do with resolution?
Oops, you're correct, there was a button to end the scenario. I didn't see that little button in the top-right. I'm used to lower-right. :oops:
Skayland wrote: January 30th, 2023, 6:26 pm I do agree that he should not start on your side though. And the loyal trait is there because I didn't think he should have an income cost. I think removing the loyal crown overlay should be enough though.
If the Footpad is on Side 4, you could do this:

Code: Select all

					[modify_unit]					
						[filter]
							side=4
						[/filter]
						side=1
						{TRAIT_LOYAL}
					[/modify_unit]
Skayland wrote: January 30th, 2023, 6:26 pm To be honest I have not tested fighting them. The addition of this option was a test of the concept. I will work on it to make it more appealing :) but it is meant to be the most challenging option.
If it was only 1 new enemy leader, I might've risked the battle.

In general, though, I like it when a scenario ends where I expect it to. When suddenly there's a Part 2, generally I don't like it. If I lose Part 2, that means I suddenly also lose Part 1. It can work, sure, but, in general, I'm never happy to see a Part 2 within the same scenario, especially if my units are in bad shape.

If the Part 2 is actually a whole new scenario that splits from the one I just beat, and I have the option of skipping it, that's fine. The problem, though, is that the players who skip it may not have any level 2 units for their next scenario because they didn't earn the bonus XP. That makes it harder for you as a designer to predict the strength of the player's army, and you may unintentionally create a situation where players who skip optional scenarios can't win the campaign.
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Skayland »

Hello!

I've been working on some story and other things like adressing this issue
Helmet wrote: January 30th, 2023, 7:10 pm In general, though, I like it when a scenario ends where I expect it to. When suddenly there's a Part 2, generally I don't like it. If I lose Part 2, that means I suddenly also lose Part 1. It can work, sure, but, in general, I'm never happy to see a Part 2 within the same scenario, especially if my units are in bad shape.
Now you can choose to leave the battle at any time, that way you can decide more easily if you want or not to fight the new leaders. Not killing them will not drastically change the difficulty in the next few scenarios.

Act II and a new cutscene (not as complex as the prologue one though) are almost ready ^_^ .
But in the meantime here is some sneak peaks of what's coming:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Helmet »

Skayland wrote: February 1st, 2023, 1:30 am Now you can choose to leave the battle at any time, that way you can decide more easily if you want or not to fight the new leaders. Not killing them will not drastically change the difficulty in the next few scenarios.
Gasp! I'm looking forward to seeing how you accomplished this.
Skayland wrote: February 1st, 2023, 1:30 am Act II and a new cutscene (not as complex as the prologue one though) are almost ready ^_^ .
Ooo. I wonder if something cool happens, in addition to units moving and talking. No pressure, though (if my expectations are raised, it's your fault due to scenario 1 being so good :P ).
Skayland wrote: February 1st, 2023, 1:30 am But in the meantime here is some sneak peaks of what's coming...
That's your first animated Wesnoth sprite? Nicely done.

I'm guessing that you have experience creating sprites for other things.
Skayland wrote: February 1st, 2023, 1:30 am It might or not need balancing.
The stats seem okay, but I don't know. Unlike some people, I'm not good at memorizing all the mainline stats.

When balancing new units, this is my #1 rule: avoid making my units the best at anything stat-wise. For example, a similar dwarf would have more hit points, a similar elf would have better defense in a forest, a similar vampire bat would fly faster, etc. Deciding cost is always tough. For ages, it seemed like half the changes to Wesnoth were merely tweaks to various unit costs, nudging them up or down a few gold.

Nice map!
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Skayland »

Hello!

here is another sneak peak for the next scenario
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Skayland »

Hello! Act II is finished!

It might or not need balancing. The dialogues and story might also need to be improved.

I will not update the campaign yet though. I want the Act III prologue cutscene complete and it is taking slightly longer than anticipated. Although I didn't want to make it as complex as the first cutscene I still wanted it to feel a bit more unique or different than normal dialogue-only custcenes. I had to make some cutscene-specific WML code and it took me longer than I'd like to admit. However I think the end result will be worth the time. Or I hope so at least :(

I'll let you guess what's special about this gif. Hopefully you are as excited as I am about what it means. Maybe I'm just happy it works after so many hours of testing it :lol:
Spoiler:
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Skayland »

Hello!

It's been a while, but version 0.0.2 is now live on the addon server! ^_^
I did my best to keep the balance correct for Act II but please let me know if there is any issues with it.

I've tested all scenarios and they should work correctly but you might find some bugs or unintended behaviour specially during the Act III cutscene.
During the cutscene you will get a bunch of options which will (eventually) lead you to one of three possible scenarios. I hope I can keep them balanced enough but that is a problem for future me.

Here is some tips in case you struggle with any of the playable scenarios
Act I
Spoiler:
Act II
Spoiler:
Act III prologue cutscene will be improved once all of the variations are finished.
The temporary map from the sneak peaks is no longer used. A new map with the same shape was designed, it also uses wesnoth's icons and looks better than the temporary one did (in my opinion at least).
Any kind of feedback is appreciated!

Here is the changelog, the same one is now available on the addon description
0.0.2
- Added Act II and Act III-pre (This is a new cutscene in preparation for Act III Variation A, B and C, which are not added yet).
- Added map for story journey.
- Improved Prologue and Act I dialogues.
- Improved Act I choices.
- Improved Prologue movements.
- Improved Story writing.
- Added changelog here.
Current known issues:
- In Act I undead can get corpses twice from the same village if it gets captured and recaptured. Unintended but shouldn't affect gameplay in a significant way.
- In Act I first undead boss might some times jump to fight you very unprotected making it easy to surround him and kill him.
- In Act II on easy difficulty AI might recruit more ruffians and very few thugs. This is unintended but it helps ease the difficulty.
- Hard difficulty is considered unbalanced/untested.
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Skayland »

Hello!

0.0.2b (and now c) is out. Its just a few fixes.

Changelog:
0.0.2c
- Fixed story map compression.
0.0.2b
- Fixed and improved story map slightly.
- Improved Act III Prologue dialogues slightly.
- Added some leftout details for Act III Prologue.
- Added some missing variables for Act III Prologue.

Current known issues:
Spoiler:
0.0.3 is not yet ready, but hopefully will take less time than 0.0.2 did. Any and all feedback is appreciated.
Here is a sneak peak for 2 of the 3 scenarios coming for 0.0.3. These are not final.
Spoiler:
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by 3Lorde »

It show me this error. I can't continue.
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Re: A War of Fools (edited update)

Post by Spannerbag »

@ Helmet

Hi, re:
Helmet wrote: January 30th, 2023, 5:51 pm I played it and enjoyed it. In scenario 2, I won on turn 17 of 18. No save-scumming. Normal difficulty....
I'm not a great BfW player but I tried this on normal difficulty and couldn't beat the first scenario :annoyed:
(Rant deleted :) )

Tried again and this time things went much better.
The enemy ai recruited far fewer WCs and these managed to mostly miss so despite my ally's best efforts the number of enemy WCs remained low, thankfully.
I didn't play the scenario particularly well but managed, with help from my ally, to take down the enemy leader.
I was also lucky:
aWoF1.PNG
aWoF1.PNG (127.99 KiB) Viewed 2225 times
(I'd recommend skipping the spoiler if you haven't played the first scenario yet.)
Spoiler:
I probably over-recruited mid-game but really felt I needed the insurance after the first two runs...

@Skayland: if this setup was deliberately intended to force the player to manage the battle more closely fair enough: ignore my suggestion below :)
If I may, I have a suggestion about making this first scenario a bit more interesting, IMHO.

After the first woodsman is killed perhaps Aldridge could say something like:
Our civilians cannot help much in this battle. Should we send them away?
Whereupon the player can elect to lose the ability to recruit peasants and Alesdair no longer recruits woodsman?
Rationale: the woodsmen, IMHO, can unbalance the scenario if the enemy ai recruits a lot of WCs and gets lucky.

Whilst it is easy to limit the number of recruits this doesn't really help once the WCs are numerous enough to become "self-sustaining".
Further, the player cannot meaningfully influence what units are recruited by either ai side.
What this tweak does is allow the player some control over the "supply side" of those units that seem (in my experience) especially vulnerable to plague.
FWIW I only recruited a peasant once (as a village grabber) on turn 1 or 2 the first time I played the scenario.
Cheers!
-- Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
I suspect the universe is simpler than we think and stranger than we can know.
Also, I fear that beyond a certain point more intelligence does not necessarily benefit a species...
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Skayland »

3Lorde wrote: July 3rd, 2023, 9:35 pm It show me this error. I can't continue.
Hello! This error occurs because that is currently the last scenario of the campaign, as I have stopped development due to starting uni. I will get back to it when I get time, which will hopefully be soon.
Spannerbag wrote: July 6th, 2023, 1:45 am @ Helmet

Hi, re:
Helmet wrote: January 30th, 2023, 5:51 pm I played it and enjoyed it. In scenario 2, I won on turn 17 of 18. No save-scumming. Normal difficulty....
I'm not a great BfW player but I tried this on normal difficulty and couldn't beat the first scenario :annoyed:
(Rant deleted :) )

Tried again and this time things went much better.
The enemy ai recruited far fewer WCs and these managed to mostly miss so despite my ally's best efforts the number of enemy WCs remained low, thankfully.
I didn't play the scenario particularly well but managed, with help from my ally, to take down the enemy leader.
I was also lucky:
aWoF1.PNG
(I'd recommend skipping the spoiler if you haven't played the first scenario yet.)
Spoiler:
I probably over-recruited mid-game but really felt I needed the insurance after the first two runs...

@Skayland: if this setup was deliberately intended to force the player to manage the battle more closely fair enough: ignore my suggestion below :)
If I may, I have a suggestion about making this first scenario a bit more interesting, IMHO.

After the first woodsman is killed perhaps Aldridge could say something like:
Our civilians cannot help much in this battle. Should we send them away?
Whereupon the player can elect to lose the ability to recruit peasants and Alesdair no longer recruits woodsman?
Rationale: the woodsmen, IMHO, can unbalance the scenario if the enemy ai recruits a lot of WCs and gets lucky.

Whilst it is easy to limit the number of recruits this doesn't really help once the WCs are numerous enough to become "self-sustaining".
Further, the player cannot meaningfully influence what units are recruited by either ai side.
What this tweak does is allow the player some control over the "supply side" of those units that seem (in my experience) especially vulnerable to plague.
FWIW I only recruited a peasant once (as a village grabber) on turn 1 or 2 the first time I played the scenario.
Cheers!
-- Spannerbag
Hello spannerbag! Thanks for your feedback, it is indeed very valuable for me as there wasn't a lot of feedback for this campaign and I got a bit stuck with it. I will consider your suggestion, have in mind this is my first campaign and it is likely very unbalanced so it needs a lot more playtesting that I didn't have time for when I made it. Sadly I have no time to continue development as of right now but I do have plans to continue it when things clear up ^_^
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Re: A War of Fools

Post by Spannerbag »

Skayland wrote: September 9th, 2023, 4:02 pm ...Hello spannerbag! Thanks for your feedback, it is indeed very valuable for me as there wasn't a lot of feedback for this campaign and I got a bit stuck with it. I will consider your suggestion, have in mind this is my first campaign and it is likely very unbalanced so it needs a lot more playtesting that I didn't have time for when I made it. Sadly I have no time to continue development as of right now but I do have plans to continue it when things clear up ^_^
No worries, uni's more important than BfW!
(Puts on tin hat and awaits flames :) )

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag
SP Campaigns: After EI (v1.14) Leafsea Burning (v1.17, v1.16)
I suspect the universe is simpler than we think and stranger than we can know.
Also, I fear that beyond a certain point more intelligence does not necessarily benefit a species...
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