Intentionally silly campaign: Shameless Crossover Excuse

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

User avatar
Turuk
Sithslayer
Posts: 5283
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by Turuk »

It sounds pretty amusing, and I like that you managed to weave several different chars from various campaign together, as well as adding in a few puns of your own. I look forward to seeing this all put together, or even just the first few scenarios to laugh at and run through. If you have any more issues with your code, just let me know.
Mainline Maintainer: AOI, DM, NR, TB and THoT.
UMC Maintainer: Forward They Cried, A Few Logs, A Few More Logs, Start of the War, and Battle Against Time
jani
Posts: 38
Joined: October 26th, 2008, 9:40 am

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by jani »

could it be possible to add kalenz, kaleh (quenoth elf), haldric and malakar (drake) to the campaing too :D
User avatar
Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by Orcish Shyde »

Kalenz will already have to show up in mission 2 if you're meant to be helping Asheviere to win The Battle for Wesnoth in HTTT.

Gwiti's objective is to kill anyone who uses his portraits - so far that's Darken Volk, Malifor, Ro'Sothian, and Mal Festo. Of those four, the first 3 are confirmed to (un)live north of Wesnoth, and Mal Festo lives in a hidden fortress for dark wizards that Wesnoth has yet to storm if I recall correctly. Kaleh is way too far in the future to cross Gwiti's path or to be of much use as an ally, Haldric would only be an issue if he sought out Jevyan's help, and having not completed Flight to Freedom I don't really want to include Malakar.

Also: I decided the final battle needs a bit of a rewrite, it'll use the Showdown map from Northern Rebirth, only Malifor's in the middle instead of Rakshas, and his helpers are Mal-Bundy, Mal-Jay, Mal-Bob, and Mal-M'brin (The South Guard). Gwiti marches in from the east, then Kapou'e from the north, then (shock horror) Asheviere from the south, then Malifor comments he can still run west - at which point one of the network players from the "Get from one side of a multiplayer game to the other and not die" scenario joins the game on Gwiti's side to cover the western flank.
Shameless Crossover Excuse
Necromancer (campaign)

You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
User avatar
Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by Orcish Shyde »

Version 0.1.0 is now available in this thread, because I don't think the Add-On Server is up again yet. Improvements include:

- Day & night cycle normalised for gameplay purposes (but not normalised entirely... it's a surprise!)
- Dialogue added to 1st scenario
- 1st scenario playtested on Medium. It's not actually that hard if you keep your wits about you, don't get intimidated, and don't fear losing troops to Ro'Sothian himself. I didn't even move Gwiti from the keep.

TODO:

- 2nd scenario doesn't exist yet, and it definitely won't be "Proven by the Sword"
- Gwiti is currently a mainline Dark Sorcerer; need to put his custom unit line in (esp. after all the work I did on sprites for it)
- Ro'Sothian doesn't use his image from NR yet
- Currently modifying Asheviere's unit to fit more with my take on HTTT & to be more useful when she reappears in the final battle
Shameless Crossover Excuse
Necromancer (campaign)

You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
User avatar
Turuk
Sithslayer
Posts: 5283
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by Turuk »

Orcish Shyde wrote:2nd scenario doesn't exist yet, and it definitely won't be "Proven by the Sword"
My mistake, I just put that in there when I was trying to figure out the scenario problem. Where in this thread exactly did you put it? I cannot find it. The only attachment is the old zip file.
Mainline Maintainer: AOI, DM, NR, TB and THoT.
UMC Maintainer: Forward They Cried, A Few Logs, A Few More Logs, Start of the War, and Battle Against Time
User avatar
Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by Orcish Shyde »

...I pulled my old trick of stupidly forgetting to attach the file. :oops: Here it is.

ALSO: I figure the final battle should be against someone else who can mess with continuity. What I can't decide is whether that someone should be Malifor as originally planned, or if - due to how badly he's screwed up the timeline he's in - Gwiti Ha'atel's final adversary for SCE is an enemy Dread Lich called... Gwiti Ha'atel.
Attachments
Shameless_Crossover_Excuse.tar.gz
(20.06 KiB) Downloaded 316 times
Shameless Crossover Excuse
Necromancer (campaign)

You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
User avatar
Turuk
Sithslayer
Posts: 5283
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by Turuk »

Just playtested through the scenario, and I like the humor, especially the dialogue set off by his death. My only thought was perhaps give him a bit more income? His initial castle of recruits look intimidating, but when I realized that was pretty much the brunt of his force (and the odd ogre here and there), my +23 income allowed me to just stockpile gold and watch my skeletons go to town. So I ended on 300 gold with a fair number of level 2s, and I do not know how powerful/wealthy you want the player to be.
Mainline Maintainer: AOI, DM, NR, TB and THoT.
UMC Maintainer: Forward They Cried, A Few Logs, A Few More Logs, Start of the War, and Battle Against Time
User avatar
Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by Orcish Shyde »

I took the early finish bonus, finished with over 1000 gold and only a few level 2 troops. Yeah, I was rushing, and the gryphon wave is actually pretty scary to fight - but the player will need to be pretty powerful for level 2, given it's meant to be a pastiche of The Battle for Wesnoth off HTTT. So, level 2/3 recruits for the enemy, and at least L2 recruits for Asheviere, making Gwiti's job hell.
Shameless Crossover Excuse
Necromancer (campaign)

You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
User avatar
Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Idea for an intentionally silly campaign

Post by Orcish Shyde »

Edited the campaign further today, with the following changes:

- Pre-scenario story now works.
- Scenario 2 "Saving Asheviere" is now added and works, though has not been playtested to check that it's actually physically possible
- Scenario 1 "That Valley from Northern Rebirth" has been made harder by boosting Ro'Sothian's income. To compensate Gwiti can recruit Dark Adepts to help against all those mountain-bound ogres. Has been playtested and found to be possible without the DAs.
- Scenario 1 now follows the new proposed carryover gold rules - 20% of your final total in addition to the minimum gold for scenario 2.

Still todo:
- Gwiti is still a Dark Sorcerer
- Delfador and Kalenz haven't yet got death speeches; Konrad and Li'sar do.
- Have not tested to make sure the death events for Gwiti & Asheviere result in defeat for Saving Asheviere, but the WML looks OK.
- Ro'Sothian still needs the Demilich pic
- Asheviere's pic from Heir to the Throne really doesn't match the quality of Konrad's or Li'sar's or Kalenz's or Delfador's, but that's an HTTT problem not a SCE problem. As it is she will explicitly say she refuses to use her pic because it's so bad.
- Have not playtested for difficulty, only for "does not crash"

Does anyone know how to put this on the Add-On server? I Googled it with no helpful results.
Attachments
Shameless_Crossover_Excuse.tar.gz
(278.1 KiB) Downloaded 313 times
Shameless Crossover Excuse
Necromancer (campaign)

You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
Skizzaltix
Posts: 1114
Joined: December 9th, 2005, 2:38 am

Re: Intentionally silly campaign: Shameless Crossover Excuse

Post by Skizzaltix »

You need to have another file in the UMC campaigns directory called sce.pbl (It should have the same name as the campaign .cfg file, just ending in .pbl). The contents should look like this:

Code: Select all

author="Orcish Shyde"
icon="items/flower1.png"
passphrase="" # If you leave this blank, the server will automatically generate one for you.
title="Shameless Crossover Excuse"
version="1.0.0"
...Or at least, that's how it was back in 1.2 or whatever I had when I was active on the campaign server. I'm not sure if changes have been made since then.
User avatar
Turuk
Sithslayer
Posts: 5283
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Intentionally silly campaign: Shameless Crossover Excuse

Post by Turuk »

When you label it in text edit, title it _server.pbl.

It should look like the following:

Code: Select all

title="A Rough Life"
icon="data/core/images/units/human-outlaws/thief.png"
version="0.9.3"
author="Turuk"
passphrase="***********"
description="It's a hard enough life for us..."
email="*********@gmail.com"
The why for each tag is explained here. http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/BuildingCampaignsThePBLFile
Mainline Maintainer: AOI, DM, NR, TB and THoT.
UMC Maintainer: Forward They Cried, A Few Logs, A Few More Logs, Start of the War, and Battle Against Time
csarmi
Posts: 288
Joined: August 13th, 2007, 1:57 pm

Re: Intentionally silly campaign: Shameless Crossover Excuse

Post by csarmi »

I've played the first map on hard, and I run into problems.

First of all, I've finished the map with about 1600 gold - could have been much more, but I've played very poorly. In the last 65 turns or so I could just keep pushing end turn while killing about one unit/turn (the fresh recruits). Giving the player an experience milking oppurtunity like that is no a good idea, in my opinion. Not like it matters. But it's so tempting and such a waste of time...

The griffon wave was scary, yes (especially since it caught me off guard: I thought he was going to recruit undead and recruited 3 bats, 2 ghosts, 1 ghoul, 1 zombie and 2 adepts). I countered the griffon wave by getting another ghoul and zombie and archers.

They did kill some of my units, but in the end, you can always kill AI units at will, especially so fast ones (with no backup coming at all). Yes they ruined my ghosts and bats, but I still stole enough villages to make it worthwhile. Had I known the enemy recruits, I should be able to do it better, I suppose. Once he started to run out of griffins, it was all over, since all villages fell into my hands.

Some ideas to improve the AI:

Give all his land-based units the quick trait by default, or as an addition. It makes sense anyway... Mages who live in the mountains are supposed to have enough moves. Or just change their movetype (lose 2 over mountain, 1 over hill). Mountaineers.

Make the AI villages harder to occupy. For example, you could just put a single zombie everywhere (with zero moves even). Not sure how to do that, but once the AI leaves a village, it's like unprotected forever if you lure his units.

You could give the AI waves of units every few turns. It needs to be balanced properly, but it would be more fun.

If the AI loses enough villages - gets into a hopeless situation, he should enter surrender mode (meaning he wont ever recruit again, so you cant milk xp - or maybe he even leaves the game).
Oh and I couldnt recruit with Asheviere at all, making his 1000 gold quite pointless.
User avatar
Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Intentionally silly campaign: Shameless Crossover Excuse

Post by Orcish Shyde »

csarmi wrote:I've played the first map on hard, and I run into problems.

First of all, I've finished the map with about 1600 gold - could have been much more, but I've played very poorly. In the last 65 turns or so I could just keep pushing end turn while killing about one unit/turn (the fresh recruits). Giving the player an experience milking oppurtunity like that is no a good idea, in my opinion. Not like it matters. But it's so tempting and such a waste of time...
I don't completely sympathise - you're going to need that level grinding time to take many level 2s into Saving Asheviere, and indeed to get Wraiths with which to help off Ro'Sothian. Liches are a [censored] to kill. Still, 90 turns is a bit ridiculous, even given I run by the "turn limit as gold limit not time limit" theory of scenario design.
csarmi wrote:The griffon wave was scary, yes (especially since it caught me off guard: I thought he was going to recruit undead and recruited 3 bats, 2 ghosts, 1 ghoul, 1 zombie and 2 adepts). I countered the griffon wave by getting another ghoul and zombie and archers.
You're playing campaigns on Hard, and didn't notice that it's meant to be the same Ro'Sothian from Northern Rebirth, with units to match? :P
csarmi wrote:They did kill some of my units, but in the end, you can always kill AI units at will, especially so fast ones (with no backup coming at all). Yes they ruined my ghosts and bats, but I still stole enough villages to make it worthwhile. Had I known the enemy recruits, I should be able to do it better, I suppose. Once he started to run out of griffins, it was all over, since all villages fell into my hands.
You're better, luckier, or both than me then. I was at least 26 turns in before I stopped being mauled by mages and ogres following the gryphons.
csarmi wrote:Give all his land-based units the quick trait by default, or as an addition. It makes sense anyway... Mages who live in the mountains are supposed to have enough moves. Or just change their movetype (lose 2 over mountain, 1 over hill). Mountaineers.
It said somewhere that this can be done, and apparently is in TRoW; I wasn't paying enough attention to notice when I was playing that campaign though. Anyone who knows how, could you please post so I can make Ro'Sothian nastier?
csarmi wrote:Make the AI villages harder to occupy. For example, you could just put a single zombie everywhere (with zero moves even). Not sure how to do that, but once the AI leaves a village, it's like unprotected forever if you lure his units.
No thanks. I find it hard enough moving anything but ghost spam through the mountains.
csarmi wrote:You could give the AI waves of units every few turns. It needs to be balanced properly, but it would be more fun.
Wonder if waves of gold triggered by turns would have the same overall effect...
csarmi wrote:Oh and I couldnt recruit with Asheviere at all, making his 1000 gold quite pointless.
You should be able to. I don't know what the problem is here; I took a look at the .cfg file for it though and I think it might be to do with the number of unit options I gave her. I mean, she was able to recruit back when she just had all the L3 Loyalists as options.

Code: Select all

    [side]
        side=5
        controller=human
        type=Dark Queen
        description=Asheviere
        user_description= _ "Asheviere"
        gender=male
        canrecruit=1
        team_name=Heroes
        recruit=Red Mage,White Mage,Knight,Lancer,Swordsman,Pikeman,Javelineer,Shock Trooper,Longbowman,Spearman,Bowman,Mage,Heavy Infantry,Cavalryman,Horseman
        
        {GOLD 1500 1250 1000}
        {INCOME 8 5 3}
    [/side]
Shameless Crossover Excuse
Necromancer (campaign)

You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
User avatar
doofus-01
Art Director
Posts: 4122
Joined: January 6th, 2008, 9:27 pm
Location: USA

Re: Intentionally silly campaign: Shameless Crossover Excuse

Post by doofus-01 »

"Heavy Infantry" might have broken the recruit list.
User avatar
Orcish Shyde
Posts: 303
Joined: October 13th, 2008, 6:13 pm

Re: Intentionally silly campaign: Shameless Crossover Excuse

Post by Orcish Shyde »

Thanks for pointing that out; the problem is now fixed.

Version 0.1.3 is now on the server, with the following changes:

- Asheviere can now recruit in "Saving Asheviere" (yay!)
- All enemies in "Saving Asheviere" made weaker on all difficulties, as I decided it was more than a little too hardcore after the first scenario (one of Li'sar's Lancers charged a gap in my keep and murdered Gwiti on turn 4, ending the playtesting session).
- Delfador now has a death speech in "Saving Asheviere"
- The turn limit for "That Valley from Northern Rebirth" has been reduced to 55. This may again be subject to change.
Shameless Crossover Excuse
Necromancer (campaign)

You are a Dwarvish Berserker: you're freaking crazy and enjoy it.
Post Reply