WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Argothair
Posts: 53
Joined: May 10th, 2014, 12:01 am

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by Argothair »

Hello! Really enjoying the campaign so far; thank you so much for all of your work. Some of my favorite parts are:
(1) caravans -- really well done; it's innovative and fun and works well
(2) diplomatic quests -- fun, gives lots of options, helps you think about what kind of kingdom you're building and not just your income
(3) extra recruiting options -- nice to be able to build multiple buildings to get new options.
(4) woses and ogres infesting the wild -- the wild is *just* safe enough that I can send a ruffian out to gather info, and just dangerous enough that sometimes I lose them. It's a fun balance.

I played 9 seasons of the original Cities of the Frontier on Easy, and found it to be really challenging. I barely survived my first winter, and I lost a bunch of loyal units in season 9 when they got ambushed by a huge swarm of elves and a huge swarm of undead at the same time -- they both just popped up at the edge of the map without warning while I was visiting that edge. I like that your Library gives me the option to get some intelligence reports on what raids are likely to come next.

I played 3 seasons of Wild Frontiers on Easy with the loyal Peasant Workers and then stopped because I felt like I had already won and it was just a matter of time until I hit 20,000 gold. I had 50+ farms totally surrounded by forts with plenty of troops to man them.

I played 1 season of Wild Frontiers on Medium with the building discount, and I've got about 20 farms manned with mostly level 0 units. My loyal Cavalry found an arcane bow on turn 2 and has been cheerfully roaming the woods murdering bunnies for XP. I'm going to continue this game for a while longer, but so far it feels like it is also on track to a relatively easy win -- the bandits are mostly level 0 and I have plenty of notice that they're coming, so my loyal soldiers can just gather with some ruffians and woodsmen and kill them and take their gold and spend it on more farms. It's possible that I'll get a nasty surprise soon, but with farms only costing 24 gold, it's not too hard to get into an exponential growth cycle, I think. I've got 3 peasant workers, and as soon as summer starts I think I'll be able to have all of them building a farm every turn.

That's my biggest concern with the game, I think -- you don't really run out of land to farm on; there's lots of flat grasslands available. You don't really run into upkeep costs, because you can use level 0 units; Ruffians make good defenders and Woodsmen make good attackers. They need a little support sometimes, but not very much -- your starting loyal units and the starting King's Troops are almost enough for the whole game. You can recruit a couple of mages for undead and a couple of cavalry as a rapid reaction force and then just use level 0 units for the rest of the attacks. If you lose a couple of farms, no big deal -- you can always make more.

Some of the other commenters have suggested things like a tax when your city gets too big, and I know you've scaled the bandit raids to be based on the number of farms you have, but something still feels missing in terms of a cap on farms. Why *did* medieval villages stop growing? I think it was mostly a transportation issue -- once you're more than about four hours' walk from the city center, it's not practical to buy horseshoes and plows and sell turnips and carrots in town; you need a new town that's closer to your farm. I'm not sure how to represent that in the game; it would be a pain to make all the villagers walk back and forth all the time, and you've already got the caravans. Maybe expand the caravan system? Like, farms provide mostly upkeep, even during summer, and if you want to get any cash income at all then you have to escort the caravans off the edge of the map. Except that escorting caravans doesn't get harder as your town gets larger; it gets easier, because the edge of the map is closer to the edge of your city! Another thought I had was that maybe the farms need some type of crafting equipment, like, you need 1 blacksmith per X farms to make their iron farming tools and so on, and maybe the blacksmith's shops need metal, which you can mine in the mountains or whatever. But then maybe it starts feeling less like a game and more like an economics course. So I don't have any great ideas for you here; just thinking out loud about how to nerf the strategy where you just spam huge numbers of farms.

I would agree that accumulating 20,000 gold or surviving for 2 years are kind of weird victory conditions that aren't very exciting. I like the monument idea a lot and I think that would work better. I'll probably contribute some dialogue soon, since that seems to be where you keep asking for help. I really like the direction you're taking the game! Keep up the good work.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Argothair wrote: September 9th, 2020, 8:11 pm Hello! Really enjoying the campaign so far; thank you so much for all of your work.
Hi, thank you for giving it a try. Glad you liked it.
Argothair wrote: September 9th, 2020, 8:11 pm I'll probably contribute some dialogue soon, since that seems to be where you keep asking for help. I really like the direction you're taking the game! Keep up the good work.
Yes, I'm not much of a story teller myself. OTna has contributed a big chunk of the dialog (thank you again), but some is still missing. I appreciate all dialog contributions from anyone, and it's very likely that it would get integrated somehow (as in the case of weewah and the dark adepts, thanks).

As for game-play suggestions, it's a matter of trade-offs between code complexity, ram usage, game speed, player taking their time with each season or rushing through it, dialog verbosity, and ofcouse game difficulty. i.e. is it too difficult for me to play :)
WF is a lot easier than CotF, that is true. The unscalable castle walls and the other perks makes it almost trivial. but hey, this is my relaxation game afterall, i don't like hair pulling scenarios, those aren't for me :)
OTna
Posts: 27
Joined: April 26th, 2019, 1:41 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

*knock knock*
Oh hey, I am back, just after 4 months of inactivity?...
...I have no excuses. Originally, I planned to finnish all the diplomacy quests before taking a break (real life duties and all) yet ended up switching those priorites altogether. I will now get back to working on them quests for the orcs, drakes and dunefolks and I believe that I have a good idea for why dunefolks want captured elves (which race is best at nature magic that can make trees and water sprout out of the barren dessert and who would benefit the most from such? You guess it!)
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Welcome back!
OTna wrote: September 11th, 2020, 2:49 pm I believe that I have a good idea for why dunefolks want captured elves (which race is best at nature magic that can make trees and water sprout out of the barren dessert and who would benefit the most from such? You guess it!)
Sounds good to me.
merithsage997
Posts: 3
Joined: June 28th, 2019, 12:49 am

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by merithsage997 »

This is an amazing campaign. The mage's Runes is one of the most OP power, yet this is so true. With magic, (explosive) runes should've been a thing. However, is there a chance to improve more things?
1/ Researchers: Enable you to recruit higher level units, with the more expensive prices. Since we'll be saving money, and having troops, I think this would be a great options for the early game, since you can turtle and get some OP units out to defend.
2/ Randomized the map for some "island ish", mountain ish, or anything. Could even make a map where we would be building from a ruin?
3/ TEAR DOWN THE RUIN CASTLE. THEY SCREW UP MY AESTHETIC wall ....

But to be honest, this is one of my 2 favorite Wesnoth campaign. Thank you so much for your work!
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Thank you, glad you liked it. It is a fork from esci's work and the runes idea came to me from the UMC heroes :)

Research suggestions kept propping up, I'll work out something in that regard, maybe an ANL style thing.
For now, completing 10 quests for a faction will spawn leveled up units on consequent diplomacy quests.

Changes to the initial land terrain was suggested before as well, I might add some sort settings options that can be tweaked before a new game loads.

The random castle ruins with artifacts can be destroyed using rogue mages (you get them by building 2 libraries or upon completing a loyalist quest), all other enemy castles are destroyed when you or an ally step on the keep tile. Is that what you meant here or was this about something else?
merithsage997
Posts: 3
Joined: June 28th, 2019, 12:49 am

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by merithsage997 »

Yeah, the original seems to have the bug where you become an undead dragon after the first spring... weird

I don’t know if you tried the map pack “New Settlers”. It has a very well developed Research tree (although it’s abandoned since 1.12, last I heard anything from it).
Also: 2 years surivived to win the campaign? I mean, it does have the charm being attacked by the 2 orcs bands (North and East), undead from West, and Bandits from south... in the same season, lol. the bandits even helped attacking the orcs and undead! But why 2 years?

Oh yeah, so that’s how you take them down..
Any chance for a tracking on how many libraires, armouries, blacksmiths I need to unlock stuff? Maybe when I “raid (my own) the intelligence report”, I can also have an update on that? I sometimes load the game the next day, and forgot when the tips said to build more to unlock.
Also, the hero unit doesn’t seem to have teleport ability on the Ipad version (trying to support wesnoth), is it because it was an earlier version?
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Hi
merithsage997 wrote: September 18th, 2020, 7:05 pm Yeah, the original seems to have the bug where you become an undead dragon after the first spring... weird
I am the current maintainer of Cities of the Frontier for wesnoth 1.14. It should be fully playable/functional/winnable.
Did you experience the skeletal dragon bug recently with the latest upload of CotF?

Please report any CotF bugs that you might find here :)
merithsage997 wrote: September 18th, 2020, 7:05 pm I don’t know if you tried the map pack “New Settlers”. It has a very well developed Research tree (although it’s abandoned since 1.12, last I heard anything from it).
I haven't, I'll look it up. Thanks.
merithsage997 wrote: September 18th, 2020, 7:05 pm Also: 2 years surivived to win the campaign? I mean, it does have the charm being attacked by the 2 orcs bands (North and East), undead from West, and Bandits from south... in the same season, lol. the bandits even helped attacking the orcs and undead! But why 2 years?
On the first year, the enemy is mostly level 0,1.
On the second year they will level up. The bandits will diversify into other factions, and you will get summer and winter calamities.

Introducing them in the first year would make the game very hard in my opinion. Forcing all players to at least survive 2 years was the only way I can get experienced players to see the upgrades to the enemies and at the same time not be unfair to novice players like myself.
merithsage997 wrote: September 18th, 2020, 7:05 pm Any chance for a tracking on how many libraires, armouries, blacksmiths I need to unlock stuff? Maybe when I “raid (my own) the intelligence report”, I can also have an update on that? I sometimes load the game the next day, and forgot when the tips said to build more to unlock.
Once there is no need for new additional buildings, the option gets removed from the peasant workers menu.
For example, a Bowyer building will give you the Bowman. Once you finish building one, you won't see the Bowyer appear in the menu any more, unless the existing one gets destroyed first.

For most recruiting buildings, you can build two of them to get all possible recruitable units. The library is the exception with three required buildings.
merithsage997 wrote: September 18th, 2020, 7:05 pm Also, the hero unit doesn’t seem to have teleport ability on the Ipad version (trying to support wesnoth), is it because it was an earlier version?
The hero gets the teleport ability if you select the powerful mage option at the start of the campaign or if the hero buys the Orb of Teleport from the market.
I don't have an iPad, so I can't test it for myself.
Please try it again, select the powerful mage option, and make sure that the hero has the teleport ability. It will say "leadership, teleport" on the hero's title card on the right.

Please report the bug to "iOS Support" forum under "Technical Support" if the teleporting itself is broken for the iPad version.

Thanks!
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

I uploaded a modified version of WF to the 1.15 server for testing.

It differs from the 1.14 version in terms of units, specifically the dunefolk and some other additions. I will include the new wose shaman later on...

I disabled the WF version of side 1 turn 1 healing and enabled the new do_healing feature which is supposed to do pretty much the same thing.

Finally, recalling injured units will stay injured thanks to https://github.com/wesnoth/wesnoth/issues/4888
However, units placed on the recall list are healed by 2 every turn.

disclaimer: Other than making sure that the mod loads on 1.15.5, I haven't tested any of these features yet :oops:

Edit: oh, about the confusion on whether recalling injured healed or not on an older versions of wesnoth. Turns out I tried out the mod Heist a long time ago and it didn't heal between scenarios, that's why I thought it was a wesnoth feature at the time.

Edit: WF version 1.4.0 is the unified wesnoth 1.14 and 1.15 codebase. It's now available on github.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Argothair wrote: September 9th, 2020, 8:11 pm Maybe expand the caravan system? Like, farms provide mostly upkeep, even during summer, and if you want to get any cash income at all then you have to escort the caravans off the edge of the map.
What do you guys think of Argothair's suggestion? Let's say for the Hard difficulty, would it do for you?

This can be tested right away by editing the file add-ons/Wild_Frontiers/utils/game_parameters.cfg
and changing the last column of farm_income to 0.

Code: Select all

        # Income per village per turn in each season
        [set_variables]
                name=farm_income
                mode=replace
                [value]
                        {QUANTITY spring 1 1 1}
                        {QUANTITY summer 2 2 2}
                        {QUANTITY autumn 2 2 2}
                        {QUANTITY winter 0 0 0}
                [/value]
        [/set_variables]
Edit: I'm thinking of doing the following changes to the HARD difficulty
For the starting bonuses:
Selecting loyal workers won't give the automatic faster build turns. You'll have to complete 5 loyalists missions for that.
Selecting strong guardian won't give the extra ally unit bonus. Completing 5 orc missions gives that.
Selecting prisoner won't give the reduced undead numbers. Completing 5 undead missions gives that.
Selecting rare artifact won't give 2 armored caravans. Completing 5 dunefolk missions gives that.
Remove treatises scrolls that cools down elves and dwarves, but completing 5 elves missions will still grant it on HARD.
Remove finance book that reduces build costs, but completing 5 dwarves missions will still grant it on HARD.
Remove maps that partially removes shroud and fog, but completing 5 drakes missions will still grant it on HARD.
Remove book on castle wall fortifications. There is no way of getting this on HARD.

As for the income, I'll use the CotF defaults on hard which are Spring 1 Summer 2 Autumn 1 Winter 0

Any objections? going once, going twice ...
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

vghetto wrote: October 3rd, 2020, 5:24 pm
Argothair wrote: September 9th, 2020, 8:11 pm Maybe expand the caravan system? Like, farms provide mostly upkeep, even during summer, and if you want to get any cash income at all then you have to escort the caravans off the edge of the map.
What do you guys think of Argothair's suggestion? Let's say for the Hard difficulty, would it do for you?

This can be tested right away by editing the file add-ons/Wild_Frontiers/utils/game_parameters.cfg
and changing the last column of farm_income to 0.

Code: Select all

        # Income per village per turn in each season
        [set_variables]
                name=farm_income
                mode=replace
                [value]
                        {QUANTITY spring 1 1 1}
                        {QUANTITY summer 2 2 2}
                        {QUANTITY autumn 2 2 2}
                        {QUANTITY winter 0 0 0}
                [/value]
        [/set_variables]
CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

Or so I would like to say but...
WF-A New Beginning replay.gz
(186.22 KiB) Downloaded 140 times
WF-Summer of Dreams replay.gz
(221.31 KiB) Downloaded 144 times
WF-Autumn of Gold replay.gz
(234.14 KiB) Downloaded 141 times
WF-Winter of Storms replay.gz
(258.7 KiB) Downloaded 151 times
I ended up getting ridiculously lucky. No orcs, no necromancers, nothing. Just a bunch of wild animals and bandits. I can't tell whether this is viable or not because none of the real enemies spawned. :hmm:

(This is Version 1.16.0, Wesnoth 1.14.14.)

Edit: On second thought, this was terrible luck/strategy. Year 1 needs as many enemies as possible to give me more bounties and xp, otherwise I go into year 2 and face hordes of level 2s with my level 1 recruits and only a few veterans and promptly get slaughtered. Going to retry on 1.6.1 and summon as many elf waves as possible. (Maybe dwarves too, but they scare me.)
Last edited by weewah on October 14th, 2020, 12:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

weewah wrote: October 13th, 2020, 6:44 pm I ended up getting ridiculously lucky. No orcs, no necromancers, nothing. Just a bunch of wild animals and bandits. I can't tell whether this is viable or not because none of the real enemies spawned. :hmm:

(This is Version 1.16.0, Wesnoth 1.14.14.)
:shock: I've been doing all of the changes/testing on wesnoth 1.15. I hope I haven't broken something for w1.14 in the process. I'll look into it pronto.

Thank you for the replays, I'll check them out shortly. Version 1.6.1 is coming very soon with the zero village income on hard.

Version 1.6.1 so far:
* In the winter there's a chance of getting a ghost/walking corpse raid. Bandits/outlaws limit reduced by 2 to make up for the new ghosts numbers.
* Flattening/Building hills and mountains can be done in the winter.
* On the hard difficulty. Village income is attained by moving the caravan to the edge. The first scenario village income is set to 1.
* On the normal difficulty, village income is set to the CotF defaults. Autumn income reduced by 1.
* Removed/fixed some market items and included 2 new items. The Prince, grants backstab. Ogre Perfume, attracts ogres.
* The coward flag is cleared when an ally finishes a turn on a village. Doesn't have to wait until they are fully healed.
* Unified most menus into one command. This way a single hotkey can be assigned for most WF actions.
* Changed the order of the library menu. Bumped up Spymaster and farm reports to the top.
* Disabled all AI target_location goals to speed up the AI turns. Burning will still happen if they land on one of the targets.

I'll upload this new version once I'm done with the testing for wesnoth 1.14

I'll revert the hard difficulty income if a lot people complain. Right now most complaints seem to be about how easy the hard difficulty is :)

git checkout for the replays is 4a1a2fa

Edit: I checked, and it wasn't a bug. You got extremely lucky for having no orcs or undead raids in the first year. But weren't so lucky with that cursed ring lol.
I just uploaded 1.6.1. The new menu might take some time to get used to. I'm looking forward for seeing the 1.6.1 replays. Enjoy!

Edit2: Oops, forgot to handle drought cases. 1.6.2 fixes that.
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

What are the odds of orc raids? I started a new game and saw 3 chances in summer, but all of them were skipped.

I'm sad now. Year 1 Orc hordes are basically walking treasure chests: they spawn a stream of level 1s for easy exp, drop lots of gold, and even give a free healer unit.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

How come they spawn for me while they don't for you. So unfair :(
That's randomness in action I guess.

hmm, let's see, for the summer the relevant lines :

https://github.com/virtualghetto/Wild_F ... .cfg#L4007

Code: Select all

{VARIABLE quota.orc_enemy_choice "orc,skip"}
1/2 chance for a raid on the first summer

https://github.com/virtualghetto/Wild_F ... .cfg#L4002

Code: Select all

{VARIABLE quota.orc_enemy_choice "orc,orc,orc,skip"}
3/4 chance for a raid on the following summers

https://github.com/virtualghetto/Wild_F ... .cfg#L3844

Code: Select all

{VARIABLE quota.orc_enemy_choice {ON_DIFFICULTY ("orc,skip,skip") ("orc,skip") ("orc")}}
If you got a raid for the season, the chances for a second raid before the turns run out depend on the difficulty.
This only happens if the ones above took place first.
Easy 1/3, Normal 1/2 Hard 1/1

The orc recruit list is the following:

https://github.com/virtualghetto/Wild_F ... .cfg#L1699

Code: Select all

{VARIABLE extra_recruit "Orcish Archer,Orcish Assassin,Orcish Grunt,Orcish Leader,Troll Whelp,Goblin Spearman,Goblin Impaler,Goblin Rouser,Wolf Rider,Naga Fighter"}
The orc recruitment on the first year are all level 1

https://github.com/virtualghetto/Wild_F ... .cfg#L1703

Code: Select all

{VARIABLE extra_recruit "Orcish Crossbowman,Orcish Slayer,Orcish Warrior,Orcish Ruler,Troll,Troll Rocklobber,Troll Shaman,Goblin Impaler,Goblin Rouser,Goblin Knight,Goblin Pillager,Naga Warrior"}
The recruit list is all level 2 after the first year + the Goblin impaler rouser

Hope that helps.

Edit: For the upcoming Version 1.7.0, the hard difficulty is now REALLY hard.
No help with the initial map, a path to the signs is not cleared and the center area around the player is not cleared either.
The raids will always take place on all seasons, except for a new beginning.
The chances of skipping described above no longer apply for the hard difficulty.

Calamity still takes place on the second summer. (One more peep and i'll bump this one too to the first summer :P)
Let me know if the changes make WF unplayable. :hmm:

The other change was done to the Gryphon calamity. The nest will have eggs in it and if any of the gryphons carry over to the autumn, they will hatch two new gryphons and attack the player. Cute.

The wesnoth 1.15 version of WF now includes the new Cave bear animal found only in 1.15.6 and later.
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

Question about Recruiting Buildings: What unlocks what?

In the old text version, buildings say what they unlock, but now there is only a graphic on the left, and it does not update. I built a blacksmith to get spearmen, and I know that building another blacksmith should get me something else, either Sergeant or Fencer. But I don't remember which, and the graphic didn't change.

Similarly, I am guessing that the Well will unlock the 3 merfolk types one by one, but what order is it in?
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