WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

Here's some more replays.

In v1.2.60 I tried to play the game using only Library, no other recruiting buildings.
WF-A New Beginning replay.gz
(145.71 KiB) Downloaded 202 times
WF-Summer of Dreams replay.gz
(208.49 KiB) Downloaded 200 times
WF-Autumn of Gold Turn 17l60e.gz
(353.81 KiB) Downloaded 197 times
Without horsemen or spearmen, the elves were super scary. I could only fight them with super squishy mages and level 0s, or practically irreplaceable diplomatic mercenaries. I learned true fear to the point where I started planting trees to appease them. (Thanks to random great trees, it actually didn't cost much gold, just my dignity. :oops: )

In hindsight though, I didn't actually lose anyone important. So I stopped the game here out of sheer embarrassment :oops: .

In v.1.2.61 I tried to play the game with 0 Farms.
WF-A New Beginning replay.gz
(143.69 KiB) Downloaded 204 times
I started the game by running to the top-left corner of the map. Without any farms, there was no village support, so I could only field an army made out of my initial loyal units, level 0 fodder, and a spearman paid for by my tavern. I also had to build lighthouses for healing, since there were no villages for my injured units to rest in.

I called for allied reinforcements pretty early, but failed to get the loyalist white mage onto my city wall (that would have made the game soooo much easier).
WF-Autumn of Gold replay (2).gz
(189.23 KiB) Downloaded 192 times
In the 2nd autumn, a necromancer snuck into my city from the very edge of the map, and killed all of my allies while my loyal units were away. But it dropped 500 gold in exchange, so it was absolutely worth it.

I can't post the whole replay since there's an attachment limit of 6, but here's the third spring that I just finished:
WF-Spring of Raindrops replay (2).gz
(181.59 KiB) Downloaded 192 times
Surprisingly, this strategy actually works somewhat well. I mean, this completely goes against the idea of city building and instead just uses a small outpost for bounty hunting, but it worked. By the start of the 3rd year I had over a thousand gold. And while that may not sound like much compared to the tens of thousands of gold a 100-farm city creates, each turn completes way way faster since you have so few units to manage.

The tavern also allows you to slowly generate loyal javelineers one by one without going into negative income, so your army can grow... albeit very slowly.
The biggest problem I found was that there is no way to cure poison, without summoning a white mage/immediately leveling up/finding certain artifacts. So any unit that gets poisoned is effectively dead. Better hug the ghouls and orc assassins with level 0 units.

Also, the real allies are not the reinforcements you summon, but the team 2 woses. Those trees absolutely wreck all enemies. Just need to avoid going near them yourself.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

These were so cool and fun to watch! Funny at times :)

Some notes:
* I don't think the shared vision would be popular, imagine watching them trudge back and forth in the snow, that would be painful and slow.
* Ruffians are chaotic, toggling off the lighthouse at night might be more useful in that case.
* I haven't tested this but I think it is the case. If any of those level 0 units have achieved AMLA, then they would have gotten the loyal trait if you built an armorer or bowyer ... (after they level up to max ofcourse) The extra AMLA requirement would have been already satisfied.
* The bounties are all over the place, I know. The reason the necromancer gave less than 20 was because the bounty gets divided on the number of leaders on the map. When you killed the side 4 necromancer, there was a side 4 longbowman already on the map, so the original bounty was 36 I think and it was divided on 2.
* Mushrooms can cure poison for your units, they actually cure slowness too and are yummy al'round. For everyone else, all units get cured at the end of season, i guess you should have sentry that guy and hoped he survived to the end of the season.
* I found it difficult to control the amount of lakes in the generator. Sometimes I got a lot and other times I barely got any. I've given up on it in all honesty. WF does try to control it a bit. See all those flowers and mushrooms at the beginning of the first campaign? well, in the original map generation they are all supposed to have been water, and they got replaced. All stones you see are originally hills. That should give you an idea of how wild the map generator can get.
* Can't suspend a quest after the fee is paid, sorry about that :(
* orcs and undead raids can get skipped sometimes. That's why the number was positive and then flipped to negative. You got lucky and the raid was skipped :)
* In the first year, they are more likely to skip than spawn. In the following year, I think the chance is 50/50. Same thing for calamities, there is a small chance that they get skipped in some years.
* orc and undead raids can happen any season except for the winter. But it is more likely to get the orc in the spring and summer, and the undead in the autumn. The chance of each season is also different. Spring is less likely than summer. But can happen as you saw. and it could have been undead.
* Being able to sentry an unseen unit is difficult to fix. I'm leaving it as is.
* Using woses to your advantage was really cool. especially since they leave you be in the winter.

Did I miss anything else?
Thank you for uploading these, they've been fun to watch.

Nerdy comment: Replay revision: 3036993 for all. No OOS.
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

Started a proper game on v1.2.61, and here's how it has gone so far:
WF-A New Beginning replay.gz
(145.65 KiB) Downloaded 216 times
At the start of the game I thought I hit a jackpot, because there was a castle with an illumination artifact right next to my spawn location. Naturally I put my keep next to it so I could recruit two peasant workers at once. Unfortunately a bit of exploration revealed I was surrounded by mountains I would need to destroy, meaning lots of angry dwarves would soon attack.
WF-Summer of Dreams replay.gz
(215.21 KiB) Downloaded 230 times
An orc spawned at the very end of summer. It built a keep then immediately rushed me in autumn before it could spend its gold on recruits, so I got a nice big bounty from it.
WF-Autumn of Gold replay.gz
(321.56 KiB) Downloaded 196 times
As usual, everything went crazy in autumn. Elves from the West, Dwarves from the East, and a Necromancer from the South. I knew this was coming so I had built my encampments in a + shape rather than a circle, so I could recruit new units directly in front of each signpost instead of having to send hundreds of level 0s waddling slowly across the map.

I delayed building my armory, blacksmith, and archery range until very late in autumn, since peasants/ruffians/woodsman are baby spearmen/heavy infantry/bowmen. So getting the mages, cavalry, and horsemen was much more important.

I also tried using horsemen against the dwarves since they worked so well on elves.
That went terribly, since all the dwarves had great pierce resistances :(.

Also I confirmed that dark adepts do burn down farms. :cry:

Questions:
  • Do runes disappear if their caster dies? If not, who gets the xp when the rune triggers?
  • Does diplomacy with outlaws actually have penalties? The dialogue suggests there could be consequences, but I haven't seen any?
Bugs/Oddities:
  • The AI is behaving somewhat strangely. The dwarves sent their army southwest to meet my army but sent their leader with two pathfinders northwest, even though there wasn't anything there other than some really far away peasant workers at the northern signpost. That made it really easy to kill the leader and get the bounty.
  • The undead are allied with wild animals: I saw their units walk through each other. Why are they allied O_O? Shouldn't the undead want to kill everything to make more walking corpses?
Balance Suggestions:
  • In my opinion, dwarves are the ultimate race. They have high hp, decent or high resistances, and high defenses on mountains/hills, making them incredibly hard to kill. Their one weakness is the total lack of accuracy, meaning in MP you can dance fencers around them, and here you can flood them with 60% def woodsmen in forests. While the Elvish marksmen and magical attacks are usually quite lethal, dwarvish attacks just aren't if you move your units onto good terrain. Dwarven runesmiths break all that with their powerful magical attacks, and they appeared in large numbers on the very first wave! :shock:

    On the other hand, the gryphon masters that would appear on wave 3+ are actually pretty easy. Sure they are fast, but that just means they would reach you before the rest of the army so you can wreck them first. They are also only level 2, and lack the high resistances of regular dwarves. So compared to the Ancient Woses of the Elves, they just aren't scary. So I believe they should be swapped with the magical dwarves: let gryphon riders spawn normally, while Dwarven Arcanisters only spawn in twos on wave 3+. After all, the Dwarven Arcanisters are to dwarves what the Ancient Woses are to Elves: a terrifyingly tough but slow unit that covers their faction's critical weakness. (They even share the same weakness to ranged fire/arcane attacks.)
Feature Suggestions:
  • I found the 20000 gold win condition to be kinda mundane. After all, one could simply stop angering the elves/dwarves, summon a bunch of allies, then simply wait for several turns to stockpile that gold. Going from stockpiling 5000 gold to 20000 gold involves simply more of the same gameplay for many many more turns. I suggest replacing the win condition with building a cheaper 3000gold 5x5 monument building and defending it for a year. Story-wise the monument would upgrade the status of your town from a mere frontier village into a great city of mankind, so having it would cause various enemies of mankind to appear and want to destroy it. Maybe it would also raise your Lord's noble status to Viscount, making jealous rivals also attack.

    Gameplay-wise the rate of enemy attacks would keep increasing over the year, so the player would have to fight off more and more stronger and stronger enemies all hellbent on burning down that monument building, which will count as defeat. In exchange, the monument could give some kind of bonus to all the player's units, like an additional trait. The player could then choose to build exactly one out of 4 monuments:
    • Monument of Strength
      A symbol of the strength of humanity.
      Graphic: Up-scaled image of a petrified Iron Mauler.
      Gives every current/future unit an additional strong trait. So for example, a unit that was strong, resilient is now strong, resilient, strong, which would be +2 dmg to every melee attack.
    • Monument of Intelligence
      A symbol of the intelligence of humanity.
      Graphic: Up-scaled image of a petrified Great Mage.
      Gives every current/future unit an additional intelligent trait.
    • Monument of Quickness
      A symbol of the quickness of humanity.
      Graphic: Up-scaled image of a petrified Master at Arms.
      Gives every current/future unit an additional quick trait.
    • Monument of Resilience
      A symbol of the resilience of humanity.
      Graphic: Up-scaled image of a petrified Royal Guard.
      Gives every current/future unit an additional resilient trait.
    (Later this can even be expanded to have monuments of diplomatic cooperation, so you can get the traits dextrous from elves, healthy from dwarves, fearless from trolls, loyal from loyalists, and undead from undead, with the last two attracting way more enemies since their bonus is much better. You would need to make new traits for the outlaws/drakes/dunefolk though, since they don't have anything in the default era.)
OTna
Posts: 27
Joined: April 26th, 2019, 1:41 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

@vg perhaps you can lower the amount of dwarven raiders compared to the elves? Plus I have to agree that gryphon masters make a pale imitation of ancient woses. Instead, you could replace wave 3 and beyond’s special unit with high level dwarven runesmith (this would also fit with the story I will write)

I always thought that undead allying with animals was due to a necessity in coding. Having undead kill animals and turn them into zombies might be difficult since there aren’t enough corresponding animal zombie unit (except for the wolf and bat zombie, I believe)

Many people have been aiming for a fast, agressive strategy in order to win the game. Build a ton of farms -> have money to field vast amounts of troops -> secure more lands to make more gold. Since this tactic has been proven to be fruitful in just 1-2 years, it also negates the increasing amount of enemy quantity/quality that grows with time. At the moment, you are punished for expanding too fast only in the form of elven and dwarven raids (and this is only if you destroy trees and mountains)

Here’s a way to counter this: later on, whenever the player’s farms reach a high number (20 for very hard difficulty, 30 for hard, 40 for normal,...) a warning will pop up and warn you against expanding further. After that, each farm you build past the limit would trigger a group of enemy in a few turns (I’m thinking wild animals in vast number, over a dozen or so, since animals are pretty weak in the first place) and there will be escalating dialog each time to warn you like with the elf and the dwarf. Animal stampede will have shorten/no cool-down at all in order to deter the player’s rapid expansion. The number doesn’t have to increase past 20, but the overall high level of units and the frequency would make people think twice before building more farms

To make this even more difficult, the stampede can spawn directly from a tree/hill/mountain tile near the town (so from any mentioned tile near a wooden encampment/farm building) instead of spawning from the edges of the map. Doing this means that players will have to cut down trees and clear hills/mountains inside their base to avoid being rushed right from within, angering the elves and dwarves in the process and having even more raids descend upon their town. Towns that surround itself with moats can have a high chance for a combination of water beasts+bats stampede to appear right next to the walls
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Hey thank you for the new replays, I'll hold off uploading the new version until I've seen the replays in case I spot anything else that requires changing.

In the upcoming version, we'll have the markets of sorts. Caravans will come from the edge of the map heading towards the windmill. They will be controlled by the ai and they carry a single random item each season. they are controlled by the goto micro_ai.
I shamelessly lifted the item names/description/effects from the excellent addon "Heroes". Thank you guys.
The changes are already on github.

I changed the ai_algorithm for all sides except for the animals to ai_algorithm=experimental_ai hope that would fix the problem you spoke of.
The other minor change is allowing to relocate the keep in the winter.

To your questions, Undead being allied with animals is described in the CotF comments as "Undead want souls, not creatures". I'm fine with that. The animals turn against them in the winter though :)

If the rune caster is on the recall list or dead, then no one gets the experience. When you try to remove a rune of a living active mage, then that mage will object. If no one objects, then that means he's RIP.
I was thinking of turning off the glow of runes by dead casters, but that would increase code complexity. The remove rune message is as far as I think it'll go.

I thought the gryphon masters were level 3, I'll switch them around with the runesmith as suggested, that too will be in the next upload.

Edit: Autumn was intense! too many oh crap moments lol
a couple of new changes, third orcs quest changed from hunting animals to killing dwarves.
I reduced the number of summoned mercs by 3 units.
There wasn't originally a penalty for being allied with the outlaws, so I made the penalty be no new king troops spawning ( the free ones)
dwarves special unit will be the runemaster and not the runesmith.
Rogue dwaves will not have a berserker or gryphon master for their leader.
not many comments about the replays. at the end of a season, the orc leader abandons the keep and no prisoner gets released. To get the prisoner, the orc leader must still have the golden crown/band and not the silver one at the time of death.
The rogue dwarves are the same side as the elves, so they are allied with the green bandits and the animals, and they will not burn down anything.
All possible mainline higher level units are enabled in WF.
@OTna, should we change the second elves quest from planting trees to killing dwarves?
I'll see how to fit in the stampede idea.
OTna
Posts: 27
Joined: April 26th, 2019, 1:41 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

Sure, I can rewrite the 1st elf mission to have the player plant trees and make the 2nd mission into blowing up mountains to anger the dwarves. The difference is that unlike the elf raiding party who you could make peace with the first time you cut down trees, the dwarves won't take any apology once their raiding party spawns (thus you will ultimately have to fight them). I also have to mention something noteworthy: the rouge mages could destroy any buildings and mountains in just 1 turn, which might be too fast.

I will have some free time next week to finish more of the dialog for diplomacy. By the way, do you need me to change anything about the undead one before putting it in, or is it not possible to use the written one?
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

the rouge mages could destroy any buildings and mountains in just 1 turn
They can actually destroy multiple of them in 1 turn. 2 mountains or 6-7 encampments.
WF-Winter of Storms-Auto-Save13.gz
(398.6 KiB) Downloaded 238 times
Here's winter, and I must say elf/dwarf attacks in winter are seriously mean. I had to fight a two front war at night, on snow, and with no gold income. All while on a time limit because my caravan decided going west into the two waves of elves was a splendid idea.

Horsemen still somewhat work on elves at night, and the snow sorta makes them even better. But even so I lost almost as much gold in units within the first 10 turns of winter as I did throughout the entirety of autumn. If I didn't have 2k gold saved up from autumn I would have lost the game right here.

Edit: Looking through the code I see that Dwarven Runesmiths still spawn normally and have their level 3 form as the wave 3+ boss. Could they be removed from the normal spawn list, for the same reason elves don't have elder woses in their normal spawn list?

Edit 2: Just thought of something: Taxing the rich doesn't work because they might hit negative gold or just spend all their gold immediately before taxes. But what about donating to the poor? At the end of each season, there can be a story event like "Your father, hearing about the recent difficulties you have been facing on the frontier, has decided to help you out by donating X gold to your coffers.", where X is something like (100 - #farms) * 3. Or maybe he can instead send you more friendly side 9 troops to secure the land. Or maybe even an additional loyal unit if you have really few farms (like less than 10 * #seasons passed).

Alternatively, a prosperous fief may be tasked to help the less successful. If you have more than 40 farms, then there could be a story event like "You have faced the challenges of the frontier and thrived, but not every fief has been so successful. A message arrived this morning from the western/eastern fief owned by your younger brother: his strongest warriors have been slain by orcs and bandits now roam his domain unchecked. He requests for any aid you can spare to restore order to his lands."

You then have to send units to the west/east signpost, where they will be sent to your brother's aid. Sending level 0 units would be too easy, so let there be a message popping up saying "My lord, you wish for me to leave the safety of your domain? I shall surely perish within the week!" when you try to send a level 0.

Then, depending on the total cost of the units you send, there could be different outcomes at the end of the next season. If you send more than the required amount of aid, then depending on how much more aid you sent and some RNG, each of your sent troops could either die or return alive with some additional experience. On the other hand, if you send too little aid compared to the number of farms you have, an angry message arrives saying "Your father has learned of your heartless refusal to send proper aid to your brother. Though your brother has somehow fought off the bandits on his own, your father is most displeased." Then your initial loyal units could go "Our loyalty is to your father, not this heartless cur." and lose their loyal trait.

If they have already lost their loyal trait in a previous event, then they will simply say "Clearly, you no longer possess any loyalty to the house of your birth. We acknowledge your desire for independence and will leave at once." then disappear.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Fixed some bugs in the market and added some more artifacts. Please update to latest version if anyone intends to test the market code.

@OTna, since dwarves are more frequent, maybe we can add killing/capturing them to some quests? Why can't the second quest be fighting/capturing dwarves directly?
I don't think I'll be changing the undead quests, it's meant to be a comic and incoherent dialogue between your leader and a brain dead zombie. Maybe instead of plague anything that moves, change it to plague certain race victims? What do you think?

@weewah, hmm. the monument stuff is interesting, like a world wonder or space race in freeciv. It sounds compelling, I'll think about it.

About taxation/donation etc. I don't think I will add anything that will needlessly take away gold or units from the player. If they want to speedrun through WF. that's fine. If they want to take their time and pace it out, that's fine. I like WF to be flexible like that.

I'm leaving the runesmith in for now, i need to test how it plays out with the additional artifacts. if they end up getting on my nerves I'll remove them. I'm looking at you Elvish Lord, you're right on the edge! :lol:
I might double the chance of every other unit so the elvish lord and the dwarvish runesmith end up spawning less frequently.

Another request, please leave some feedback on the experimental_ai change that was done to all sides except for the wild animals (side2). This might be something that I'll end up reverting back in a future upload.

Oh, about the rogue mage and destruction, I'm aware of that, it's one of those things that i'm too lazy to change and not really compelled to change it. I'm fine with the way it is. :whistle:
OTna
Posts: 27
Joined: April 26th, 2019, 1:41 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

@vg yeah, I can see elves capturing dwarves for further 'imprisonment'. Maybe some dwarves fell too many trees causing the elves to become absolutely livid

The undead quests are actually the ones that should not be comic relief since there needs to be a justified reason as to why you (and more importantly, your followers) would fight alongside the dead - which is considered a serious crime that could get the entire human kingdom as well as many other races to turn hostile against you. Plus, the leader of the undead which gives you power to protect your land (in the form of promising dark adepts, skeleton soldiers and zombies) would require you to do more than just creating some zombies as they would be taking a huge risk allying with you as well (luckily, there is one person from the main campaign who fits all the creteria that is you-know-who). After all, someone powerful enough to command so many undead units would definitely not be a simple zombie (lol)

If you want comic dialog, the orcs would make a better candidate. I can already see many Hulk jokes including "(unit's name) Smashes", "Elves grew trees, please go kill trees for (unit's name). Please kill elves while you kill trees as well" or even "Shorties are short, but strong. So go make shorties shorter!" etc... This can work because, well, they're orcs! You don't need a reason to justify working with them as everyone already knows that they are too simple (aka not very smart) and you only want them for their strength
Note: I think that the 'orc faction' should be called 'horde faction' since there are more than orcs and goblins there
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

The funny thing is, I found the orc faction best for their Orcish Leaders. Considering their first quest is to chop trees (which you would do anyway) and they only cost 100 gold to summon, they are cheaper than building two armories to get sergeants (you need a library for orcs, but you would build that anyway or die to ghosts). Furthermore the only other leadership options are elves (no thanks, they are really squishy and you have to plant trees, ew.) and drakes (why would you make a Flameheart instead of an Armageddon Drake?)

The other orc units are kinda bad to be honest: their greatest advantage is how cheap they are (easy to make hordes), but you can't actually recruit them until diplomacy mission 10. So rather than wanting orcs for their strength I only want them for their leadership.
OTna
Posts: 27
Joined: April 26th, 2019, 1:41 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by OTna »

That's true. I found that several of their faction's units (regular orcish archers/grunts/nagas/troll shamans/...) quite underwhelming compared to those of other factions (except drakes...) or even your own units since you can already recruit mages/spearmen which are better. Their best units are pretty much orcish assasins and trolls which are the perfect fit for evasive poison/strong tank positions. However, much like the other faction, we had to put in a random factor while recruiting their mercs instead of giving those 2 units all the time (much like how you would get mixed quality mercs when signing a contract)

Using horde units, I realized that they are not very appealing due to most of their units don't have special traits/abilities like how elves could rush through trees or how elven archers could further get 'ambush' later on. To make up for this and to drive home their advantage (aka being cheap and plenty), maybe giving some extra 3-4 mercs whenever you complete one of their quest would make them more noteworthy? After all, quantity has a strength of its own, and the horde always has many in reserve
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

Started a hard campaign on Wild Frontiers v1.2.63, Wesnoth v.1.14.6.
WF-A New Beginning replay.gz
(144.1 KiB) Downloaded 197 times
WF-Summer of Dreams-Auto-Save22.gz
(320.06 KiB) Downloaded 195 times
Market is great, though I am somewhat worried about it spawning in the middle of an enemy wave. Maybe there should be a few turns warning about which direction the trader will come from?

More importantly though, the AI seems to have broken. Many wild animals charged towards my troops as if it were winter. The orcs spawned, then didn't recruit their units. I killed the leader to check if they somehow spawned with no gold, but they had plenty.

Can someone check if they have the same issue? I think the Wesnoth experimental AI was changed somewhat between Wesnoth v1.14.6 and v1.14.12, so that could be the reason instead.
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Sorry about that, I'll revert back the ai in 1.2.64 which I will upload shortly.

FWIW, I got these errors when I clicked on end turn using weewah latest attached save file.
WF git revision ee87b9f

Code: Select all

Battle for Wesnoth v1.14.12 (730da2be58b-Clean)
Started on Mon May 25 09:27:25 2020

MESA-LOADER: failed to retrieve device information

Data directory:               /home/USER/local/games/wesnoth/1.14/share/wesnoth
User configuration directory: /home/USER/.config/wesnoth/1.14
User data directory:          /home/USER/.local/share/wesnoth/1.14
Cache directory:              /home/USER/.cache/wesnoth

Setting mode to 1024x768
Checking lua scripts... ok
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
ALSA lib pcm.c:8424:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:58 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:27:59 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:28:00 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
20200525 09:28:00 error scripting/lua: [string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: attempt to call a nil value (method 'village_hunt_eval')
stack traceback:
	[string "return (...):village_hunt_eval()"]:1: in main chunk
Edit: The animals rushing towards you wasn't because of the experimental_ai. It was because of something you picked up :)
The experimental_ai bugs were, the orcs not recruiting and the village_hunt_eval thing. Did you get those same messages btw?
OTna wrote: May 25th, 2020, 2:28 am @vg yeah, I can see elves capturing dwarves for further 'imprisonment'. Maybe some dwarves fell too many trees causing the elves to become absolutely livid
How about they want you to capture an elvish/dwarvish leader to interrogate and investigate who's instigating the rogue elves/dwarves within them.

dammit, forgot to rename orcs to hordes in the latest upload. it'll be done eventually.
weewah wrote: May 25th, 2020, 6:19 am Market is great, though I am somewhat worried about it spawning in the middle of an enemy wave. Maybe there should be a few turns warning about which direction the trader will come from?
From the few seasons that I've tried so far, I found the caravan does manage to get safely unaided. The challenge is the winter or if bandits spawn near that location. Orcs and undead never spawn that early, (unless they spawned very late the previous season). That leaves it up to you to plant trees and raise hills to make sure the dwarves and elves don't spawn on turn 1. I'm keeping it as is for now.
weewah
Posts: 101
Joined: October 31st, 2019, 7:11 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by weewah »

Sorry, I didn't think to check for the error messages in the log files, and they are gone now. :oops:

Thought of some more feature suggestions:
  • A way to tell an allied unit to retreat, not just sentry. This could be done by adding a dummy "retreating" special just like sentry, then adding a cowardly micro ai for side 9 with filter unit selecting only units with the retreating special.

    The reason this would be very valuable is because of the day/night advance/retreat. Loyalists usually charge forward to fight enemies in the day then run away at night, but we can't do that properly with ai units. If we advance together in the day, then there is no way to tell the ai units to run away when night comes, so they get wrecked by the enemies. So players are forced to either stick with the ai units and suffer horrible losses at night, run away and sacrifice the ai units, or hire so many units that the enemy is destroyed before night comes. In all cases the ai units just aren't that useful.
  • A starting bonus: the initial gold can be reduced by 100 on all difficulties, then at the start of the game you could have the following dialogue:

    Advisor: Before we get started, your father has sent you something that you might find very useful.
    Hero: Oh! Didn't he mention something about...
    • Option: some starting funds?

      Advisor: Yes indeed. One hundred gold coins will go a long way towards securing these new lands.

      (This is the default option that brings the initial gold back up to the original amount.)
    • Option: some loyal followers?

      Cynic: Indeed, but they seem to have gotten lost. *Shakes head.*

      <Fake move from the south and spawn a loyal peasant, loyal woodsman, and loyal ruffian.>

      Peasant: *huff* *puff* Sorry we are late my lord!
    • Option: a powerful artifact?

      <Spawn a random artifact next to Advisor.>

      Advisor: Yes indeed. Behold, the <artifact name>!
      Fool: Our enemies will tremble in fear!
      Cynic: *mumbles* (So long as you don't give it to <Fool>.)
    • Option: a strong guardian?

      <Fake move from the south and spawn a side 9 grand knight>

      Fool: Yes, I heard about that as well. But where is he? *Looks around.*
      Grand Knight: Right behind you.
      Fool: Eek!
      Grand Knight: Your vigilance is lacking lad. Better correct that before some rogue stabs you in the back.
  • If possible, a lot more starting options can be added, then at the start of each game, 4 of options are randomly selected and the player is asked to choose between them. That could add more replay value. More option ideas:
    • Option: a book on fortifications?

      Advisor: Yes, here you go.

      <Wood encampments cost 4 gold instead of 5.>
      <Stone encampments cost 20 gold instead of 30 gold.>
      <Stone keep costs 50 gold instead of 100 gold.>
    • Option: a book on fungi?

      Advisor: Yes, here you go.

      <Mushrooms heal amount is doubled.>
    • Option: some training manuals?

      Advisor: Yes, here you go.

      <Every new recruit starts with 4 xp.>
    • Option: a book on treatises?

      Advisor: Yes, here you go.
      Hero: *Puzzled* What does my father expect me to do with this?
      Advisor: I am sure he had a reason. You best read it carefully.

      <Later on, when the first rogue elves attack:>

      Elf_leader: The Treaty does not give you the right to make war upon trunks and branc-
      Hero: *interrupt* Actually, it does.
      Elf_leader: ...
      Elf_leader: ...what?
      Hero: Yes, in section 3, paragraph 2. The Kingdom of Man shall be allowed to cut down any trees within the lands granted by the treaty, for whatever reason, be it for firewood or simply to clear space for their farmlands.
      Elf_leader: ...
      Random_elf: <Elf_leader>, you told us that we were coming here to stop a Treaty violation. Instead, we find that it is you who is trying to violate the Treaty. If you wish to go rogue, you may do so on your own. We are leaving.

      <Random elves despawn.>

      Elf_leader: W-what?! Come back here you cowards!
      Elf_leader: ...It-it doesn't matter! We elves here are the true defenders of nature and will not suffer your presence any longer! Attack!
      Advisor: Excellent work my lord. This weakened splinter group shall soon fall below our weapons.

      <All future rogue elf attacks have less units.>
vghetto
Posts: 755
Joined: November 2nd, 2019, 5:12 pm

Re: WF - Wild Frontiers [SP Campaign]

Post by vghetto »

Hey thanks, I liked these suggestions, I did most of them. Obviously I haven't fully tested them or tested the artifacts changes that I've been altering these past few days. I hope the changes don't break anything.

Ok, let's see. about the sentry and retreating. It's not clear in my head how I want to go about doing it, so I'm leaving that for later.
Initial gold reduced by 100. done
Opening selection. done.
Starting funds. done.
loyal followers. done.
powerful artifact. done. still random though.
strong guardian. done. but made it side 1
a book on fortifications? tricky, might not do it. kind of like the rogue mages destroying in one turn type of thing. Most prices are harcoded with macros, i don't feel like going through all of them and changing them to variables, i'm that lazy :|
a book on fungi? done.
some training manuals? i don't think i'll be doing this one.
a book on treatises? done.
<All future rogue elf attacks have less units.>. Not quite. instead if you have the book on treatises, every turn will calm down the elves and dwarves by 1. check the library report to understand what I mean if it's in the positive.
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