The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) NEW SERVER VERSION: Up to Scenario 12 now!

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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CalculusKing
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) BALANCE PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

BALANCE PATCH:
-Scenario 4 player money reduced
-Scenario 4 "Captain of the Guard" ceases recruitment after turn 27. This nullifies his high income later on while still allowing him to field an impressive army in the early and mid game.
-Scenario 5 enemy money boosted
-Scenario 5 ally money reduced

KNOWN BUGS:
-"Image not found" sometimes appears at the location of the leader of the rebels in Scenario 5.
Attachments
The_Young_Khan.zip
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Last edited by CalculusKing on June 28th, 2018, 2:35 am, edited 3 times in total.
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CalculusKing
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) BALANCE PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

FEEDBACK REQUEST:
- I am concerned primarily about the balance of Scenarios 4 and 5 at the moment. Replays and feedback on difficulty greatly appreciated.
- I would also like feedback on the dialog and events.
- It would be amazing if someone with WML knowledge could take a peek at some of my .cfg scenario files and comment on my programming style. I don't want to have spaghetti code or rube goldberg machines if I can help it.

Special thanks to Inky for the replays and Ravana for pointing out a WML language plugin for Notepad++.
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CalculusKing
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) BALANCE PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

TODO:
-Get scenario 6 out.
-Finish planning Act II.
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Inky
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) BALANCE PATCH

Post by Inky »

Quick note on posting: if it hasn't been very long since your last post it's better to edit your previous post rather than making a new one, so the thread doesn't get too cluttered.

Back to the campaign...
CalculusKing wrote: June 24th, 2018, 9:33 am I've tied the recruitment of burners in scenario 3 to an event that the player should fire before they spend all of their gold. Feel free to sate your deepest pyromaniac desires.
ahAHAHAahaAHa burn little dwarves! :twisted:
Ahem... :whistle:

In scenario 4, maybe the blue dwarf leader who starts next to you could use a bit more gold, right now it's pretty easy to go straight to his keep and crush him. Meanwhile the purple dwarves kindly got rid of the other 3 enemy leaders for me. Due to the large amount of villages I ended this map with huge carryover (360) giving me 600 starting gold in the next scenario, not sure if it will make it too easy.

Small visual thing: Even after you get the loyal Orc warrior and heavy infantrymen units, their images still remain in the dungeon.

EDIT: Also I noticed that event on Turn 27 didn't trigger, I think it should be name= side 4 turn 27, not name=turn 27 side 4

---
Took a quick look at the WML, it looks fine but if you want it could be made much shorter and more readable with macros.

Here's a handy list of the built in ones: https://www.wesnoth.org/macro-reference.xhtml
For example STARTING_VILLAGES SIDE RADIUS is a useful one for giving a side all the villages within a certain radius of the leader's start position.

You can also define your own, for example in Scenario 5 you have a whole bunch of blocks like this:

Code: Select all

	[label]
			category=""
			color="221,221,221"
			immutable=yes
			side=0
			team_name=""
			text="Plain of Sacrifice"
			tooltip=""
			visible_in_fog=yes
			visible_in_shroud=no
			x=8
			y=32
	[/label]
so you could write a macro like this (you don't need to include stuff like immutable=yes because that is the default value):

Code: Select all

#define GREY_LABEL TEXT X Y
	[label]
		color="221,221,221"
		text={TEXT}
		x={X}
		y={Y}
	[/label]
#enddef
and then you could rewrite the above block using the macro as {GREY_LABEL "Plain of Sacrifice" 8 32}.
Attachments
TYK-Valley of Masks replay.gz
Scenario 4
(77.12 KiB) Downloaded 431 times
TYK-Demons and Dirtgrubbers replay.gz
Scenario 3 (new version)
(26.18 KiB) Downloaded 461 times
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CalculusKing
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) BALANCE PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

Took a quick look at the WML, it looks fine but if you want it could be made much shorter and more readable with macros.
That (much of the image placement and AI starting unit placement, all village ownership, time areas) is WML code generated by the scenario editor. I would code it myself, but it is much faster just to have the scenario editor print WML to a dummy scenario file for copypasting later. It gives me more time to focus on balance and event scripting.
ahAHAHAahaAHa burn little dwarves! :twisted:
Ahem... :whistle:
Nice and crispy, no? Goes well with ketchup I hear.
In scenario 4, maybe the blue dwarf leader who starts next to you could use a bit more gold, right now it's pretty easy to go straight to his keep and crush him. Meanwhile the purple dwarves kindly got rid of the other 3 enemy leaders for me. Due to the large amount of villages I ended this map with huge carryover (360) giving me 600 starting gold in the next scenario, not sure if it will make it too easy.
Yeah, that scenario is a nightmare to balance. I'm probably going to delete a lot of villages and I might add another invader player with a modest amount of gold or reposition the drakes on the other side of the field to make room for a bigger undead army. I could also reduce dwarf CotG money, but I like having a big battle. (probably another balance patch in the works soon)

What do you think of how I've been doing exposition? Is the story as presented in-game good? Do you want to see how it ends? Are the villains portrayed well? Any particular lines to cut or shorten (or add or lengthen)?

Thanks again for the replays and commentary.

Lastly, I'll get those two bugs (non-firing event and soldier images left behind) resolved sometime soon.
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) BALANCE PATCH

Post by Inky »

Oh cool, didn't know you could use the scenario editor to do those things for you. Learn something new every day!

Scenario 5: It was quite an intense battle in the beginning! I would suggest making the allied leader (Freda) passive because right now she rushes out to attack and it's very hard/impossible to protect her, in my replay she walks right up to the green dwarf's keep on turn 5 and almost gets mauled to death by him :doh:

The bridge/chasm terrain in scenario 5 was a bit confusing, it looks exactly like a chasm but since it's also a bridge units can walk onto it, making them look like they're just floating in thin air.
CalculusKing wrote: June 29th, 2018, 3:49 am What do you think of how I've been doing exposition? Is the story as presented in-game good? Do you want to see how it ends? Are the villains portrayed well? Any particular lines to cut or shorten (or add or lengthen)?
I think the story's really well written and it does make me want to find out what happens next! The villains just seem like your typical crazed evil fanatics, only motivated by power, but that's a very common thing in Wesnoth so I don't see anything wrong with it. The dialogue sounded good to me, I can't think of any specific place where it thought it was too long/too short.
Attachments
TYK-Assault on Kal Karrag replay.gz
Scenario 5
(91.38 KiB) Downloaded 399 times
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CalculusKing
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) BALANCE PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

NEW PATCH:
- Fixed the bug involving images of the orc and heavy inf from scen 4 being left behind
- Fixed the bug causing the event which stops recruitment by the captain of the guard not to fire
- Rebalanced scenario 4: lots of villages removed, undead AI given more gold, drakes moved to other side of valley, dwarf outpost next to human player gets more gold
- Allied leader in Scen 5 is now flagged as a 'guardian' by the AI and should not move from her position
- Freda, the allied leader in Scen 5, is renamed 'Gerta' due to another character later on having the name Winfred, which is too similar for my purposes.

KNOWN BUGS:
- "Image not found" on Gerta's position

FEEDBACK REQUEST:
- Please restart the campaign from scratch and play though scenario 4 (playing 5 again after that would be great, too).

TODO:
- Continue work on Act II
- Maybe release some plot details after a bit more refining.
- Figure out that last bug.
- Moar balancing

Thanks again to Inky for feedback.
Attachments
The_Young_Khan.zip
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CalculusKing
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) ANOTHER PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

ACT II STORY:
Spoiler:
Last edited by CalculusKing on July 5th, 2018, 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) ANOTHER PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

Reviewing Inky's Last Replays:
- Mood seems to be very appropriate in scenario 5: everything absolutely frantic at start.
- Scen 4 was unbalanced: recent patch should change this.

Thoughts on next patch:
- Thinking on adding thugs to the recruit list when poachers and footpads are introduced in Scen 4. I was concerned about crowding out dunefolk units, but then I remembered how subpar the thug upgrades are, thus discouraging the player from relying on them too much (and punishing them later on if they get lots of thugs).
- Scenario 6's map is proceeding well. I'm discarding the scenario 6 map currently found in the add-on maps folder and replacing it with a different one.

Scenario 6 map (slightly incomplete):
- Almost complete map for scen 6 is attached. The scenario should proceed like so:
Spoiler:
Attachments
new6.map
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Last edited by CalculusKing on July 5th, 2018, 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) ANOTHER PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

ACT III Story:
Spoiler:
Last edited by CalculusKing on July 5th, 2018, 10:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) ANOTHER PATCH

Post by CalculusKing »

ACT IV Story:
Spoiler:
Last edited by CalculusKing on July 5th, 2018, 10:17 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) NEW MAPS

Post by CalculusKing »

I have the maps for scenarios 7, 8, and 9 done (note: images may be inserted in the .cfg scenario file to make them look even better). WML coding for Scenarios 6, 7, 8, and 9 begins immediately.

Scenarios 7, 8, and 9 are discussed below:
Spoiler:
Attachments
09_A_False_King.map
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08_Taking_Westin.map
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07_The_Wedding_Joust.map
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CalculusKing
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) NEW VERSION

Post by CalculusKing »

ADD-ON SERVER EDITION (get it on the add-on server)
- tweaked gold amounts for scenarios 4 and 5
- changed the modifications for the loyal dune piercers and hvy. inf from Scen 2 and Scen 4, respectively
- slightly tweaked some dialogue
- added thugs to recruit list at the same time poachers and footpads are allowed
- removed placeholder portraits
- finally got the ally in Scen. 5 to stay still and not do suicidal stuff (as it turns out, setting max MP to zero works wonders).
- improved the choice of music for the scenarios (listening intently to the entire Wesnoth soundtrack a few times is pretty time-consuming, but rewarding)

TODO:
- get next 4 scenarios out
- get maps made for Act III

As a courtesy and for reference, the new version is also attached below.
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The_Young_Khan_0_0_1.zip
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CalculusKing
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) v0.0.1 RELEASED

Post by CalculusKing »

TIMELINE OF EVENTS:
Spoiler:
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Re: The Young Khan (1.14 Dunefolk Campaign) SCENARIO 6

Post by CalculusKing »

Scenario 6 is now posted with its slightly revised map. Note, however, that it is not yet included in the add-on server. This is because I plan to release the next few scenarios together.
TODO:
- Finish scenarios 7,8,9
Attachments
06_Tremors_In_The_Deep.map
(19.9 KiB) Downloaded 367 times
06_Tremors_In_The_Deep.cfg
(22.4 KiB) Downloaded 369 times
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