Vix: Looking for 1.9 Betatesters for Version 0.3

[artisticdude]

Quick update:

-Added a small wooden fort to the island, hopefully that will help the balancing process when I complete this campaign

-Minor changes to the campaign that improve the overall experience

-Fixed the maps in places

-Gave the player a new recruit, a lizard version of the heavy infantry, called the saurian hammerwielder, which advances to a saurian mauler, which advances to a saurian crusher.

Only read this if you want to know what happens in the 4th scenario.

Spoiler:

-Working on the 4th scenario... skeleton pirates! My basic idea is that Vix & Co. reach the far side of the great lake/sea, and shelter overnight in a inlet surrounded by cliffs. But in the middle of the night the cliffs collapse, filling the entrance to the inlet with rubble and leaving the saurians unable to leave. However, the tremors caused by the collapse of the cliffs cause a passage to open up in the far side of the cliff, which offers the only means of escape. The saurians enter the tunnel and find a large cave. After choosing to fight either two really powerful creatures guarding a shorter, more direct route or a bunch of less powerful but more numerous creatures guarding a longer route, the player comes across a vast underground lake, on the other side of which is the exit from the cave. But in order to get across the lake, the saurians must cross an island inhabited by the remnants of a crew of pirates who got trapped in the caves decades ago. Killing the pirate leader is optional, as the real objective is to reach the exit.

Only read this if you want to collaborate on this campaign or want to spoil the storyline for yourself.

Spoiler:

To be honest, I've been kinda making the storyline up as I go along, but I think I'm going to have this campaign end up by having Vix rescue a number of his fellow lizards from the clutches of the drakes, then have Vix found a saurian empire in the lands south of Wesnoth, which is feasible since there is no defined map of the lands in that area. This last idea might be a good setting for a sequel, if I ever decide to do one (that would depend on how well this campaign is received by the community).

[Gambit]

spoilerz

[artisticdude]

spoilerz

Dang! I knew I was forgetting something! Done.

[artisticdude]

Here's the storyline (spoilerz) of the campaign so far as I've been able to devise, though I might need/want to change something before this campaign is finished.

Spoiler:

Vix was the young leader of his tribe, the youngest any saurian tribe in the Hazarad desert had ever seen. Only twenty moons from his hatching, Vix round himself in command of his tribe after his father met his death in a war against another saurian clan. Though underaged, Vix nevertheless proved himself to be an excellent leader, keeping his tribe together when the great famine struck the land. This famine was the worst the inhabitants of the desert had ever seen, though they had lived through many before. In only a few weeks, the meager crops withered, the livestock sickened and died, and what little supplies remained was quickly consumed. This sudden and catastrophic event affected Vix's tribe as much as anyone else, leaving the young saurian leader with a choice: either stay and weather the famine as they had done before, or flee their desolate homeland in search of an easier life. Though it was difficult, Vix eventually decided that the risks were greater if they remained in an land without food, than if they were to brave the perils of the journey away from their homeland. Since fleeing south across the unknown reaches of the desert would be certain death, Vix chose to attempt to sail across the great sea that separated the Hazarad desert from a distant land that was rumored to be filled with strange and dangerous creatures; stubby little humans with beards and strange sticks that shot lighting at their foes; massive giants made of stone, wielding huge clubs and throwing fire at their enemies; tall humans with pointy ears that lived in trees, shooting arrows at any foolish enough to trespass in their lands; great lizard that breathed fire and flew through the air on wings like birds, and other such fantastic creatures. Though putting little stock in such tales, Vix knew the journey north would be hazardous, and his decision would trouble him not a little in the days to come. In order to cross the lake, Vix knew his tribe would need a ship. Most of the ships had already been tacked by others fleeing the famine, but a few remained in a human port. Unsure how much longer the ships would remain before the humans also sailed north, Vix determined to attack the port immediately and take the ships by force. Aided by his chief magic user, Slissra, Vix prepared his tribe for the journey ahead of them and hastened to the port. After a long and bloody battle, the saurians finally captured the ships and sailed northward. After stopping at a tropical island and provisioning the ships, the saurians were forced to flee before an oncoming storm. Luckily they managed to find a small island where they could take shelter, though in order to do so they had to fight against a pirate fleet and a sea monster. Once the storm had passed, Vix and his tribe continued sailing north without interruption, eventually reaching the southern coast of the vast northern lands. Taking shelter overnight in a inlet surrounded by high cliffs, the saurians were trapped when the cliffs collapsed, covering the entrance to the inlet and sealing the saurians inside. Luckily the collapse of the cliffs had caused a rift to open in the cliffs on the far side of the inlet, which offered the only hope of escape to Vix and his tribe. Though the journey through the caverns beyond the rift was not easy, the saurians eventually managed to overcome a variety of enemies and exit the caverns.

After this, I plan to have Vix settle the southern swamps, creating a saurian empire. It eventually comes to his attention that the drakes are holding many saurians in bondage, forcing them to serve in the drake armies. Event though these saurians are not of his tribe, Vix is angered that any of his race should be treated so. He organizes a rescue attempt and begins a campaign to rescue the captured saurians, eventually freeing a great number of them (though not all of them, because that wouldn't fit the mainline concept of having drakes and saurians allied), and the rescued saurians join Vix's new empire, making it a great power in the lands south of Wesnoth.


I haven't yet split this last part of the story into separate scenarios, but that's the basic plot line for the story.

@Midnight Carnival: So I was thinking this would be how the saurian empire was founded, but I'm not sure whether or not the geography suits you, as the story never actually enters Wesnoth.

[tsr]

version: 1.8.0

I've just downloaded this from the 1.8 add-on server, seems sweet

In the second scenario (which looks like the final one in the version on the add-on server) you have a small bug in the meat-delivery code: first_time_only=yes should probably be first_time_only=no.

Perhaps I should read thru the whole thread before posting, but honestly I'm just in the mood for playing atm, so I fixed my local version and will restart the second scenario

/tsr

[artisticdude]

Whew, this thing is still alive? Seems like ages since I started this thread up. Sorry about that bug, BTW. I've been working on this campaign, and have several more scenarios done, but I don't plan on uploading until I finish the entire project (well, I'll still be doing bugfixes and balancing afterwards, but the entire campaign will have all the scenarios working properly).

[tsr]

Noooooo!

Please upload what you got now, I want to playtest

/tsr

[artisticdude]

Oh noez, people actually like this campaign.

Okay, give me a couple days to fix some bugs and balance the scenarios a bit, and I'll put 0.3 on the server (with 4 possibly 5 new scenarios).

[tsr]

Yay!

/tsr

[Gambit]

(with 4 possibly 5 new scenarios).

You've been busy. Can you give us a [brief, non spoilery] rundown of the settings and plots?

[artisticdude]

You've been busy. Can you give us a [brief, non spoilery] rundown of the settings and plots?

I should have been busier, but I've had a lot going on recently. Here's a summary of the next 4 scenarios, I haven't finished the fifth yet, and I don't know if I'll put it in 0.3 or not yet, so for now I'll post a rundown of the 4 scenarios I have:

1. After you restock the ships on the island, you flee before the oncoming storm, luckily managing to find a shelter island just in time... but there are a few others who are also interested in the island for shelter, and there isn't enough room for all of you.

2. Then Vix & Co. wait until the storm blows itself out, then continue their journey until they reach the lands south of wesnoth. Unfortunately, the area they've navigated to is sheer cliffs, with no place for a landing. They find an inlet in the cliffs with an entrance just wide enough to allow the ships to pass through, and decide to shelter there overnight. However, the narrow entrance collapses during the night in an earthquake, trapping the saurians in the inlet with sheer cliffs on every side. Luckily the earthquake also opens a crack on one side of the cliff, so Vix decides they should explore it and see if they can find a way out of the trap. But when the crack leads to a tunnel, things start becoming a bit more complicated than crawling through a crack until you reach the outside world...

3. With daylight streaming from a newly-opened fissure in the cave wall ahead, Vix & Co. Hurry towards it, only for an aftershock to send tons of rubble into fissure, sealing it off. While an ally digs through the rubble to reach the outside, Vix and his tribe hold off the enemies that attack them.

4. Having finally reached the outside world, the saurians suddenly find themselves in the middle of a world ruled by savage monsters, their kinsmen enslaved, and the entire land in chaos. Vix and his tribe must try to conquer an outpost manned by these savage enemies, although the saurians are hopelessly outnumbered. Yet help can sometimes appear in the most unexpected ways...

[Gambit]

They just can't catch a break...
I look forward to playing through these.

[Evelangos]

Awesome! I got the upload before I saw this thread, I think it's pretty cool, but when you hit the island, I got 1 guy to drop off meat, and the rest weren't able to, I tried placing them on the boats, but the messages didn't pop up. It seems like you guys already fixed it though. (Not that I would've been useful) When will you get the updates out? (I love this campaign because it's the first Saurian-based one I've come across, my avatar explains my thoughts about Saurians, I mean, after all, I actually did some art!)

My dad is a Tcl code wiz, but I like the WML more....... I have the same problem with languages, my dad knows Spanish, but I want to learn Greek, Nei? ( Note the "want" to learn part)

Nice new avatar Artisticdude

[artisticdude]

Thanks.

Yeah, I was debugging the campaign before the last release and forgot to revert the debug code. Sorry. Anyways, I'm almost through cleaning up the scenarios. I've finally gotten around to coding Neoskel's skelly pirates as well (and Neoskel gets his deserved place in the credits ), so I can use them instead of having the other side generate spearmen (which is what I've been doing up until now). For a test run to make sure the units work properly, I spawned some in the first scenario, which you can see below. I'm hoping to upload version 0.3 sometime this weekend, but that's supposing my schedule allows it (just coding these units took me a solid two hours, as it's been ages since I coded units).

[Hulavuta]

I look forward to it. Are the enslavers of the Saurians the Drakes by any chance? If not, what are they?