Arcane Defense

[TheEmptyLord]

Alright, the idea behind this is an advanced Orcia type map (with three glyphs per side) mixed with the XP upgrade mod and each side uses one of "Era of high Sorcery's" three spellbooks.

One being Evocation, one Nature, and one necromancy with a large amount of terrain they can modify for themselves or have their teammates help modify for them.

I have now gotten to the point where the map is ready for testing, but I haven't integrated EoHs into it yet. I will have two maps in the pack, one with and one without the EoHs, so it should be fine to balance this first.

I will be creating a map for 1.9+ and should have that out soon as well. Thanks for the support and any help is great.



EDIT 1:

Alright, so I worked quite a bit on the map, thought it appears to still need some help. Here is a picture of the map and the map file in case you're willing to give feedback. Evocation is on top, Nature left and Necromancy to the Right. They all have exactly the same structure of open space, but that can easily be changed (flat area)

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Spoiler:

Full Map Currently

Thumbnail

thumbnail.png (41.73 KiB) Viewed 7780 times

Arcane_Defense.map

.map file

(20.73 KiB) Downloaded 634 times

EDIT 2:

OLD

Arcane_Defense.zip

Old

(23.72 KiB) Downloaded 525 times

EDIT 3:

OLD

Arcane_Defense.zip

Newest. What I've got so far...

(24.24 KiB) Downloaded 652 times

EDIT 4:


Now versions are available on the Add-on server. This post will not be edited further.

[TheEmptyLord]

Alright, so I just finished meshing Orocia and XP mod into the map and am working out the bugs right now. Next goes the exact placement and timing of monster spawns and then the spellbook assimilation. Whew, a few hours of work so far, but it's worth it. I'll soon have a working map (without the spellbook) and it would be great if people could give feedback for balancing.

I will end up making a map for 1.9+ with the better tiles, and It'll make it look a lot better, but until then we'll have to stick with what I've got.

[TheEmptyLord]

Whew, just finished coding the Orocia glyphs into my map. My respect for the makers of orocia just tripled, it took me 3 hours just to assimilate them in, and I can't begin to wonder how much time it would take to make all that.

Anyways, I have now outlined all the monsters on all the waves an plugged them in, though with no real degree of balance or such so I'm about to move onto that. Now I can say for certain that it will last for 50 turns and I will have two versions, one with the three spellbooks, the other for those who want to play without, so I will have to balance it both directions. By the end of today or tomorrow I should have a working map up that has at least relative balance in it's waves.

[Atz]

Saying that leads to a question, does anyone know if it's possible for an MP map to specify an era (not like in creep wars where it simply suggests it) and makes it mandatory to play in that era on the map?

Travelling Tradesmen will complain and terminate the scenario if you're not using the right era, try taking a look at that. It's on the 1.8 server. I've also seen scenarios force a certain leader and recruit list regardless of era (eg. 2p - Gladiator Arena from Aethaeryn's map pack, also on 1.8 server), but I'm not sure that approach would work the way you wanted since eras also contain events and whatnot. Though I suppose it would be possible to include those in the scenario itself...

[TheEmptyLord]

Yeah, I encountered some problems working through that so I decided to try and get a working, balanced scenario working without EoHs then insert it step by step (for the abilities I want) to regard the leaders of those side, leaving them to recruit as the era they picked, yet also have a gold based spellbook as well. Thanks though

[TheEmptyLord]

Well this morning I finished creating all the monsters and items to put in so here goes. It is by no means balanced (which is why It's not on the server) but it would be great to have any help in that direction. Bug reports or anything else would be great too. Please remember my next step in to integrate the spellbooks in, so it is not fully done, but since I plan to have a version without the spellbooks it needs the balance anyways. Thanks!

P.S. Also updates main post with this.

[TheEmptyLord]

Well, after two hours of going through EoHS's code, I've already got a migraine. I suppose I should spend some time learning Lua before I try doing this.

Anyways, If anyone out there is goo at Lua and willing to spend a few hours dissecting for me that would be awesome. Otherwise it may take a quite a lot longer. All I need is to do is assign evocation spells to side 1, Nature to side 2, and Necromancy to side three. Doesn't matter whether or not half of the summons exp is given to their leaders, whatever is less complicated. I would do it myself right now but about 3/4ths of the code I wouldn't be using and I'm rather afraid to touch anything lest I delete something I need

[Elvish_Pillager]

Hi! (I'm the author of EoHS.) Uh... yeah, if you're going to mess with EoHS code, you'll need to know Lua. And if you want to include the EoHS rules, you're going to need to include all the EoHS code - it doesn't cleanly separate into sections.

Here's the simplest way to handle it: Don't combine EoHS into the map, just say that the map is intended to be played using EoHS, and rely on the players to pick the right era. And in your map code, have a "start" event that sets each leader's skills - e.g. setting unit.variables.EoHS_skills.evocation_skill=6 and unit.variables.EoHS_skills.picks_left=4 will essentially force the player to spend 6 picks on Evocation.

If you'd like to chat, I'm often available on IRC as Elvish_Pillager.

[TheEmptyLord]

Sorry I was away a few days for the holidays.

Thanks for responding, I have been considering telling the player to use EoHs but I kind of had my heart set on allowing them to use other Eras while having access to spellbooks. Ah well, I think I will follow your suggestion and focus on balancing the map, after I get a working map out perhaps I will come back and learn LUA.

Thanks again, EoHs is excellent.

[TheEmptyLord]

Newest version up. Not on Add-on server yet for various reasons. The version I just put up should be fully playable but does not yet select the EoHs picks for you as of yet. That should be in next version.

[TheEmptyLord]

Ok, Arcane Defense is now ready for testing on the Add-on server

I am labeling the downloads here "old" and will be uploading it soon.

[marvalis]

I really enjoyed this map. Would be great if it could be updated and uploaded to the sever somehow.

[TheEmptyLord]

Just returned to Wesnoth after quite a while away

I've got quite a lot of things to do for the Add-ons I had worked on, but I decided to start with this one since it is relatively straight forward. Spent a bit getting it compatible with Wesnoth 1.10.5, and its back up on the server now. I'm sure it still has plenty of issues, so feel free to let me know what you find and I'll make an effort to get to them quickly. I also plan to update my other project, and finish the ones that weren't done.

Thanks for the patience and support

EDIT: Had some problems when testing the map on multiplayer. Took it down, will have it up later on wednesday when I have a full day off to work out the problem. Sorry about that.

EDIT 2: Turned out to be a very simple problem (Though I didn't realize that until after a few hours . The map is back up on the Add-on server now and working. I plan on play testing the map fairly extensively in multiplayer to make sure nothing else slipped through the cracks, but it seems to be fine for now. Once I make sure its working perfectly, I'll try to make it compatible with 1.11.x

Thanks

[marvalis]

Thanks! I was just looking for your map. Good memories playing this with era of high sorcery.
Excellent work.

btw there is a bug when you level up your mage trough spells or exp from a summon: You do not get any new spell picks.

[TheEmptyLord]

Thanks I ended up fixing a lot of bugs and balancing some of the waves a bit better as well as updating it to 1.10 standard.

btw there is a bug when you level up your mage trough spells or exp from a summon: You do not get any new spell picks.

Yeah, unfortunately that is a bug with EoHS. I ended up taking all interactions to the Era itself out of the map to keep some bugs from happening already. Over the various updates to Wesnoth since EoHS came out a lot of relatively small issues have popped up with it, most causing OOS errors. It's really too bad since it's an awesome era, but Elvish Pillager hasn't really been active in quite a while and no one else has taken a crack at fixing it. I don't know any Lua, otherwise I'd be tempted to give it a shot. Ended up removing the auto-selected 6/10 picks from the map because of one of those issues already.

I had at one point hoped to create some more content focused on EoHS at one point, perhaps even trying a campaign, but with all the issues perhaps not (Though, admittedly, a lot of the problems have to do with multiplayer so perhaps it would work for a SP campaign). Now that I'm back at Wesnoth I'll probably focus on refining Cavanagh the Conqueror next.