[Historical] Liberty

This is the place for discussing development of mainline campaigns, reporting bugs in them and providing overall feedback.

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Invisible Philosopher
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Post by Invisible Philosopher »

scott wrote:This crossed my mind. I haven't done it out of pride. Why have an outlaw campaign when you can't actually use the real outlaws?
1) The real outlaws are supposed to be weak (although I wouldn't mind them having weak level 3's)
2) Users wouldn't be able to tell the difference - the name can be the same
3) Oh no, the horrible menace of pride! It leads people to leave their campaigns buggy! I mean this seriously.
4) Wesnoth is very stupid about units in different campaigns. They only work properly when they are completely outside the campaign's #ifdef. If anything in Wesnoth should be fixed, this is it. It forces me to use ids like "Wesvoid Drake Slave" to make sure I don't conflict with MadMax's Drake campaign, or anyone else's campaign who uses a unit like that. The least problem is that this makes the WML ugly. What is really happening is that campaign #ifdefs are supposed to effectively give each campaign its own namespace [1], as long as no two campaigns have the same campaign-define (which is avoidable), but the badly-ordered savefile loading code [2] has to verify the units before reloading the WML with that campaign defined, so all units must be put in the global "namespace", and loaded from there. It ought to first check the campaign-define and reload the WML before continuing with loading the savefile.

[1] even if that wasn't quite the original purpose, which was to speed up loading Wesnoth - having to load all campaigns slowed down Wesnoth, but so does loading all the units, to a lesser extent.

[2] if I understand what's going on correctly - I haven't actually looked in Wesnoth's source code, and don't know whether there's an easy way to implement a fix.
Play a Silver Mage in the Wesvoid campaign.
scott
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Post by scott »

At least I admit my personal failings.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
ott
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Post by ott »

In liberty5.cfg, "interesting" should be "interested".

Back to the campaign!

On Hard, I hacked my way through Hide and Seek with 100 gold by recruiting a few footpads to create a distraction and give Baldras room to run for the SE corner. However, now The Gray Woods seems impossible with 200 gold. A few enemy wraiths are near-invincible, cutting a wide swathe through my best units, and to counter this, the daytime damage of most of the outlaws is typically an exciting 1-4 due to the weird effects of additive damage calculations against high resistance units. I can't even kill the west-central lich before the south-eastern hordes overwhelm my army. Most of the undead would be manageable, but the wraiths are lethal, and the 18hp walking corpses aren't much fun either. (Reminds me how playing The Dark Hordes got much easier between 0.8 and 0.8.5 with the new, more powerful undead.)

Am I overlooking some resource (like a holy water bottle, a friendly unit with holy attacks, or some way to win Unlawful Orders with significant gold reserves), or are my difficulties just an artifact of the new "improved" wraiths and walking corpses in 0.8.5? If the latter, perhaps some re-balancing is in order. If the former, please suggest a way forward!
scott
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Post by scott »

I just uploaded a new version today with some improvements that made it Unlawful Orders a little easier to beat. I gave the allies more gold and gave them more villages so they don't scout around any more. My goal for this level at hard is that the enemy is able to recruit 1 or 2 new enemies per turn. I still might reduce the enemy's gold a little bit.

I am actually in your same position now, having just finished hide and seek with about 270 gold. I really went overboard in Unlawful orders with the recruiting because I wasn't able to beat it by being conservative. However, I think I recruited 2 castles too many and estimate I could finish with about 400 gold.

This is what comes to mind: give the SE Lich a free wraith and take them off the recruit list, as well as possible gold reductions.

I would love to give them a healer of some sort but I am slow to move on it because I don't think I could get it to fit without changing the story's flavor. On a recent update I added some villages near the SE Lich, and I think they really helped.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
ott
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Post by ott »

Version 1.6 is starting to look more manageable. Replayed the campaign from the start, maximizing gold and retention/advancement of loyal units. Starting The Gray Woods with 353 gold, probably largely due to the enemy leader in Unlawful Orders obligingly swanning around outside its castle (a bit anticlimactic, that). At least with the additional villages the allies now make a useful contribution to the fight in Unlawful Orders.

The Gray Woods seems very cramped, somehow. I'm making better progress than with 1.5.1, but the hordes of Walking Corpses makes it feel like playing against someone using a cheap zerging strategy. Narrow access points to the castles and numerous terrain obstacles makes progress really slow. I doubt I could score a convincing win within the 38 turn limit on Hard, though I'm still trying.

The other issue that is really highlighted in Gray Woods is how overdone the day/night swings are against high resistance units. (This is a general comment, not a criticism of Liberty.) I don't understand the rationale for the gigantic day-night swing. It is quite ridiculous to have level 3 outlaws doing 1-4 damage during the day against several types of undead, while the undead units do at least 2 or 3 damage per hit. On the other hand, it's fun but quite pointless doing 17-4 damage at night. It certainly doesn't feel balanced for a level 3 unit to be doing less damage per swing than the Walking Corpse it is fighting. Overall, I would prefer the more reasonable time-of-day swings from multiplicative modifiers.
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Post by Dave »

Okay I have attempted to solve this problem with #ifdefs not being respected properly for units.

You should now be able to #ifdef a unit according to your campaign. Let me know if it doesn't work.

David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
scott
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Post by scott »

Hey thanks. I will build and test. Then report.


ott: I think level 6 must be winnable on hard. If you look at the difficulty settings in the .cfg file you will see why. I finished L4 with 400+ gold so I will give it a go soon.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
ott
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Post by ott »

Level 6, have dispatched two of the lichs. But the third, south-eastern lich has an income of 25 which translates to 2 extra Walking Corpses each turn even with zero villages (on Medium it has 15). I just don't seem able to get through the morass of Walking Corpses in time to make the 38 turn limit, especially since the last few turns are daytime.

It does seem possible to win with the changes in 1.6, though -- I'll keep playing. 1.5.1 seemed pretty impossible.
scott
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Post by scott »

I will double check and fix that. I thought I had made medium and hard the same gold-wise.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
scott
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Joined: May 12th, 2004, 12:35 am
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Post by scott »

Version 1.7 is out. It has some very important changes.

- I fixed some compatability bugs with 0.8.8 wrt obsolete units (that's the big one)

- The L2->L3 experience bug is fixed with 0.8.8. Thanks Dave!

- I think the Gray Woods is now pretty good. I added a lot to the map to make it easier to navigate and heal, but not so much that it loses the cramped feeling (thanks ott!). I decided that was the atmosphere I wanted for players imagining they are stuck in a creepy haunted forest, surrounded by undead hidden by fog, and unable to escape.

- Some minor graphical improvements for the L7 story splash

In the gray woods, it is winnable on medium and hard with the brute force approach. Since medium and hard are very similar on this level, the main difference should be the amount of gold you have saved up from prior scenarios. I also found out that exploiting Lich #3's back door produces some very nice effects (for ott or others interested).

After this point I might make "hard" harder by increasing both the gold for Lich #3 and the number of turns. I'm not sure yet what will produce the most fun challenge to experienced players.

Thank you for those who continue to submit feedback.
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
ott
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Post by ott »

I've now tried Gray Woods (v1.6) about a dozen times seriously. After realising that I couldn't rely on village income to recruit a second wave of troops and still finish on time, I went back to Hide and Seek to sneak past with minimal combat, ending up with 430+ gold to start Gray Woods, but fewer experienced units. Twice I've been within a turn or two of defeating the south-eastern lich, once I couldn't even defeat the northern lich, and the rest I got bogged down approaching the south-eastern lich (tried the main entrance, back entrance, side entrance, usually attacking from both front and back). I'll check out the changes in 1.7, but based on my experience with 1.6 I would have increased the number of turns from 38 to 40, or, preferably, decreased the income of the SE lich from 25 to 22. This would have meant a close win at least once, and possibly another one to two times.

My reservations about the large day-night swings still hold. It's very disheartening during the day to see Walking Corpses do more damage per hit than Bandits. After all, aren't Walking Corpses chaotic level 0 units? What causes zombies to tolerate sunlight better than bandits? Makes no sense, even if This Is Wesnoth.
chairmclee
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Post by chairmclee »

Can you post a atachment in this thread becuse i cannot access the campain server at this moment
scott
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Post by scott »

I will post my hard replay on 1.6.2 and a zip file of the campaign in the usual location, which I'll divulge when I post it. You need version 0.8.4 or later of the game to play it.

Ott, we're still talking about hard, right? Edit: On 1.6.2 and 1.7 the gold for Lich 3 is reduced. 1.6 is probably still too hard, which is why I released 1.6.1, 1.6.2, and 1.7 based on your feedback!
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
scott
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Joined: May 12th, 2004, 12:35 am
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Post by scott »

Here is a replay of level 6 on hard

Check http://www.cis.rit.edu/~slk8779/wesnoth/ for a the current version of the campaign as of today.

It's too big to upload in this thread (~ 1 MB)
Hope springs eternal.
Wesnoth acronym guide.
ott
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Post by ott »

OK, played Gray Woods v1.7 (on Hard, wesnoth-0.8.7) and completely annihilated the SE lich. Even the northern lich gave me more trouble. Now starting the next scenario with around 500 gold (replay attached).

Perhaps reducing the gold per turn from 25 to 10 was a bit overdone? 15 would be more reasonable, and 20 probably just manageable. The new village in the central-east section is very handy and perhaps enough to swing the tide on its own without any other changes from 1.6.

BTW, I'm seeing corruption with your savegame with wesnoth-0.8.8:

Code: Select all

up to replay action 1005/2357
error network: SYNC: In defend Thug (28,21) vs Walking Corpse (29,21): chance to hit attacker is inconsistent. Data source: 60; Calculation: 40 (over-riding game calculations with data source results)

up to replay action 1579/2357
error network: SYNC: In attack Walking Corpse (28,35) vs Fugitive (28,36): chance to hit defender is inconsistent. Data source: 30; Calculation: 40 (over-riding game calculations with data source results)

up to replay action 1888/2357
error network: SYNC: In attack Huntsman (25,10) vs Soulless (25,9): the data source the unit perished while in-game calculations show the unit survived (over-riding game calculations with data source results)

up to replay action 1889/2357
error network: SYNC: In attack Fugitive (29,29) vs Walking Corpse (29,28): the data source the unit perished while in-game calculations show the unit survived (over-riding game calculations with data source results)

up to replay action 1891/2357
can get to: 36,23
src cannot get to dst: 0 1 36,23-36,21
I'd really like to understand the cause of these corruptions, see also http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?func=d ... m_id=10777 and http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?func=d ... m_id=10786 and http://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?func=d ... m_id=10842 for related bug reports.
Attachments
gray.zip
(47.23 KiB) Downloaded 238 times
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