Wrath of the Lich Lords (1.14)

[Sur_191]

For centuries the Lich Lords of the Old Continent were ignoring their southern neighbors, but now they decided to launch a full-scale invasion on Dunefolk territory. Can you save Dunefolk from unrelenting doom?

IMPORTANT: The campaign is unfinished. Currently, ten scenarios are ready (including one dialog-only) out of seventeen planned.

Features:

• You start with Dunefolk's units, but in later scenarios you will be able to recruit drakes, orcs and nagas (scenarios with orcs and nagas haven't been added yet).
• Simple AMLA system for heroes inspired by AMLA system in "A New Order".

  

Changelog

• Version 0.1

  • Added first four scenarios
  • Version 0.1.1
    • Bugfixes
• Version 0.2

  • Added two more scenarios
  • Minor changes in other scenarios
  • Added different music playlists for every scenario
  • Changed heroes' AMLAs balance
• Version 0.3

  • Added new senario: The Valley of Gryphons
  • Minor changes in other scenarios
  • Added few missing textdomains
• Version 0.4

  • Added new senario: Old Promise
  • Minor changes in other scenarios
• Version 0.5

  • Added new senario: The Siege of Munkaram
  • Minor changes in other scenarios
  • Added two new variations for Walking Dead and Soulless: Dunefolk and Dunefolk Mounted. At the moment they use identical sprites as regular and mounted zombies
  • If player lose a loyal unit to an enemy unit with a plague special, or to any unit during a scenario where all killed units are raised, he or she will face an unpleasant surprise
  • Version 0.5.1
    • Fixed game-breaking bug
• Version 0.6

  • Added new senario: Obscurity
  • Minor changes in other scenarios
  • Rewritten the following macros, to take unit filter as the argument instead of unit id:
    • FACING
    • FACE_TO_FACE
    • FACE_TO
    • FREEZE
    • THAW
    • THAW_OLD
  • Added the following macros:
    • FACE_TO_LOCATION
    • MIDDAY_FANCY
    • MIDNIGHT_FANCY
    • NO_UPKEEP_NO_OVERLAY
    • SPOOKY_VOICE
  • Added new ability:
    • Distrusted - Adjacent own Dunefolk units' attacks will do 15% less damage in combat.
  • Merged few similiar AMLAs
  • Added two new terrain overlays: ^Fyed and ^Fyes (they are impassable substitutes of respectively ^Edp and ^Esd)
  • Added new unit: Spook

I'm interested in feedback regarding campaign difficulty, story, bugs, writing etc. Also, I'm not native English speaker, so I apologize for grammatical or semantical mistakes in my campaign.

Have fun!

[Sur_191]

I uploaded new version (0.2) to server. It adds two new scenarios (including one dialog-only), so now there are six playable scenarios. It also include other minor changes. Full changelog is in main post.

[Sur_191]

Version 0.3 is on the server. I added seventh scenario and made few other minor changes to other things.

[Sur_191]

Yet another new version (0.4) has been uploaded to server. One new scenario has been added and few minor things have been changed.

[Sur_191]

Version 0.5 is here! Ninth scenario has been added alongside two new variations for Walking Corpse/Soulless. Right now they are reusing sprites of mainline zombies, but I may add some unique ones later. Have fun and don't forget to leave a comment here afterwards.

[Sur_191]

I didn't notice earlier but there was a game-breaking bug in scenario 9. If somebody kill Yrina (lich leader), while Rushnak (orc leader) is fully surrounded by units not belonging to his side and there are other unit belonging to Rushnak's side, final event will break and scenario become unwinnable. I uploaded new version which fixed that, but if you started this scenario beforehand, you will have to make sure that this situation will not happen.

[Sur_191]

Version 0.6 is on the server. Most important new addition is the tenth scenario. Full changelog is in the main post.

[white_haired_uncle]

Fun campaign, though a couple of the scenarios went on (and on and on) more than I care for.

I played on normal. I think I always ended up with negative gold, though a few times the finish bonus gave me some to carry over. Built up a pretty powerful army of levelled up units. Siege put a big dent in that army. Obscurity finished off most of the rest.

I think Murad should probably be a hero you have to keep alive. I thought he was the best part of the campaign, and if he died the player would miss out on a lot. I'd also give him a trait like "creepy" (lowers chance to hit by 10/15/20% based on difficulty for adjacent units on his team, because he makes them nervous when he's around).

In Old Promise, the objectives say you can't recruit Burners. So I did. Not a great idea, though.

Spoiler:

I like the concept of units joining your side in Old Promise. However, if you have to fight your way through all of the units to get to the leader, it doesn't really add anything to the game. I didn't see any way to play it other than to slowly chop through drake after drake, leaving the leaders pretty much the last units on their team. The spear concept was a neat touch, but again wasn't really relevant.

I think it might make sense to have several small factions (and maybe the one big one) so that you can build up a force that tips the balance (maybe an alternative win would be if you control the majority of drakes, or have converted all of the other leaders or something like that, the main enemy leader surrenders?).

I also didn't see much point to the villages producing drakes thing. I only had like two drakes join my side, and they were so outnumbered they died the next turn anyway.

[Sur_191]

Fun campaign, though a couple of the scenarios went on (and on and on) more than I care for.

I played on normal. I think I always ended up with negative gold, though a few times the finish bonus gave me some to carry over. Built up a pretty powerful army of levelled up units. Siege put a big dent in that army. Obscurity finished off most of the rest.

I will rebalance Easy and Normal difficultly to make them a bit easier and quicker.

I think Murad should probably be a hero you have to keep alive. I thought he was the best part of the campaign, and if he died the player would miss out on a lot.

I don't like forcing player to keep too many units alive, so I don't think that I will change that. Besides, I already spend too much time writing alternative dialogs in case that player lost him. Though, I may change my mind.

I'd also give him a trait like "creepy" (lowers chance to hit by 10/15/20% based on difficulty for adjacent units on his team, because he makes them nervous when he's around).

Wasim will have a very similar ability in upcoming scenarios, and I don't want to duplicate heroes' special abilities. Naturally, I could switch that ability to Murad, but I think that it is more fitting for Wasim, because...

Spoiler:

he is a mage and while most of Dunefolk soldiers accustomed themselves to lunatic Burners (granted, Murad is a bit extreme in that regard, but still) the presence of a sorcerer, who know necromancy on top of that, will be much more distressful for them.

In Old Promise, the objectives say you can't recruit Burners. So I did. Not a great idea, though.

Why?

Spoiler:

I like the concept of units joining your side in Old Promise. However, if you have to fight your way through all of the units to get to the leader, it doesn't really add anything to the game. I didn't see any way to play it other than to slowly chop through drake after drake, leaving the leaders pretty much the last units on their team. The spear concept was a neat touch, but again wasn't really relevant.

I think it might make sense to have several small factions (and maybe the one big one) so that you can build up a force that tips the balance (maybe an alternative win would be if you control the majority of drakes, or have converted all of the other leaders or something like that, the main enemy leader surrenders?).

Drake leaders never surrender. Thought, they soldiers can. Vershinar Murr's guard will leave the battlefield after you defeated other leaders (in the fair fight). This should make last stage of scenario not such a hustle.

I also didn't see much point to the villages producing drakes thing. I only had like two drakes join my side, and they were so outnumbered they died the next turn anyway.

Yeah, they supposed to die quickly, this event is mainly supposed to help your enemies not you. Though, two drakes in the entire scenario on Normal is too few, that how is this supposed to work on Nightmare. I will increase chances that they will join player.

Thank you for you feedback.

[white_haired_uncle]

I recruited a burner because it said I couldn't and it looked like I could so I wanted to try it out for debugging. Probably not the best unit to take against drakes since they resist fire well.

[Sur_191]

I recruited a burner because it said I couldn't and it looked like I could so I wanted to try it out for debugging. Probably not the best unit to take against drakes since they resist fire well.

Ah, I misunderstood. I thought that you mean that it is a bad idea to prevent player from recruiting burners (which, as you notice, don't work in current version).

[jaa]

Hi there, just wanted to say that I really liked this campaign and it's become my all time favorite. Also wanted to ask wether you are still working on it and wether it will be updated to the newer versions?