Leafsea Burning (BfW 1.18)

[Spannerbag]

Edit: This is now the thread for v1.18.x

As the 1.16 version isn't beta and is essentially the same I decided to do the same on 1.17.
As always, any issues, suggestions, feedback etc. gratefully appreciated.
Also incorporated a slight change to the interface that makes gameplay a bit quicker but the original beta is still the same in terms of narrative and actual gameplay.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[KingArthur2049]

Sorry but crash immediately:

Macro/file 'DROWNING_SETUP' is missing
at ~add-ons/LSB/./scenarios/01_prologue.cfg:187
included from ~add-ons/LSB/_main.cfg:1072

[Spannerbag]

Sorry but crash immediately:

Macro/file 'DROWNING_SETUP' is missing
at ~add-ons/LSB/./scenarios/01_prologue.cfg:187
included from ~add-ons/LSB/_main.cfg:1072

Thanks ever so much for taking the time to report this.
I foolishly backported this version to v16 and did a final few tweaks to v17 at the same time and managed to muck up both campaigns by editing the wrong versions.
Been working to fix the v16 backport and had hoped v17 was OK
Should be fixed now, hope nothing else goes wrong.

Also discovered terrain macros have changed and I'm using deprecated versions so need to fix that too.

Have removed the add-on for now as it has several issues I need to fix.
Hopefully will have everything re-tested and working properly in a week or so.

Thanks again.
Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Spannerbag]

Hope to publish a new version with a greatly revised scenario 13 soon, maybe a week or so.
Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Spannerbag]

1.1.0 release, comments, feedback, bug reports etc. as always gratefully received.

Enjoy!
-- Spannerbag

[Konrad2]

1.1.0 (Hard)

S2
Is it intentional that the only way to max out the sapling xp is by losing units? (It's mean. ) (Nevermind, I thought I could do that only in this scenario.)
Btw it would be great if the player could check how much xp they already earned for their future recruits.
Achievement suggestion: reach X xp for your saplings
Achievement suggestion: max xp for your lvl 0 recruits.

In the level up dialog it's not clear that the Wose Shaman has an advancement, their xp is shown as purple. (applies to elite unit only)

Salt water seems to apply poison in S1, but not in S2? Does it depend on the level of the unit? (Yes it does)

S3
It's unclear which part of the castle is the keep. (this remains true for the following scenarios)
How come the forest already recovered from the camp the orcs made in S1?

S4
The Orcish Dark Sorcerer trying to return to unlife: Could use a small delay before the killer of them says that they are not coming back.
The Humans side doesn't show up in the status table.
Not sure why there is a gold 'reward' for killing enemy leaders here. There is no carryover, and I can only recruit lvl 0 units anyway.

Medley (S9)
It's pretty funny that the leveled civilians no longer count as civilians and are under my control.

Somehow the dwarves stats for Sea-caves are the starts from the orcs?

LSB-Medley-Auto-Save10.gz

orc stats

(107.37 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

I missed the axe at first, but the hint when I ended the scenario made me redo the last couple turns to get it instead.
It does feel like you need to know what is going to happen on the east side of the map in advance to win. Keeping the dwarves alive might make you commit your units to the west side, which would make it hard to catch up with the civilians afterwards.

S11
Definitly doable if you have a decent number of recalls. You do have the tanks to create a good defensive line. Wait at night, advance at day. The enemy numbers are not overwhelming as long as you don't rush all the time, since waking up undead is the only way to get overwhelmed.

S12
Excuse me, but why would I not be defending the bridges? D:

a timer -> a timer.

Doable, but to be fair I saved all the gold I could in the previous scenarios. Somewhat of a slog.

S13
I did not get the dwarves back I sent to support the masons in S12. If that's intended, maybe it should be made clear? (I might have missed the info though.)


Thunderscope claims a 60% chance to hit when on offense, but it seems to be only 50%.

LSB-Firefly-Auto-Save28.gz

thunderscope

(66.54 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

Leafsea Burning (scenario)
A cutscene of the wose being forced out by the fire would be very cool. It feels a bit dry with just the text.

It's very obvious that a lot of care (and effort) went into this campaign, which is great. I very much enjoyed it, especially the AMLA of course. I also very much appreciated the way you used undead.

Spoiler:

Very sad about everyone dying though.

I kinda went through the scenarios a bit too fast, so I'm not that sure about the kind of achievements you could give out. Some ideas though:

Spoiler:

Achievements for picking up the items in various scenarios. One for bringing your drake up to lvl 4. Getting 30 kills with a berserker that has the axe?
Getting 3 elite Loremasters. Having one spare bomb left. Losing less than x civilians in S9.

Btw, by editing the subject of your first post in the topic, you can change the subject future replies will reference. Like I could edit my posts subject to 1.1.0, but it's easier if you do it.

Replays

Spoiler:

LSB-Shipwreck replay 20240215-152358.gz

(24.48 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

LSB-Overhaul replay 20240215-155612.gz

(43.54 KiB) Downloaded 16 times

LSB-Treachery replay 20240215-163244.gz

(87.11 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

LSB-Scouts replay 20240215-164211.gz

(46.25 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

LSB-Vanguard replay 20240215-165606.gz

(55.28 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

LSB-Host replay 20240215-165953.gz

(44.38 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

LSB-Sea-caves replay 20240215-170804.gz

(47.44 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

LSB-Firefly replay 20240215-180846.gz

(45.28 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

LSB-Medley replay 20240215-185012.gz

(Firefly run)

(78.44 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

LSB-Treestumped replay 20240215-194553.gz

(99.99 KiB) Downloaded 15 times

LSB-Westpoint replay 20240215-203952.gz

(118.22 KiB) Downloaded 12 times

LSB-Dwarvish Departure replay 20240215-205930.gz

(93.45 KiB) Downloaded 16 times

LSB-Elvish Exit replay 20240215-212040.gz

(79.54 KiB) Downloaded 12 times

[Spannerbag]

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.
BTW I count the prologue as "scenario 1" so please adjust my previous scenario numbering accordingly

1.1.0 (Hard)

S1
...Btw it would be great if the player could check how much xp they already earned for their future recruits.
Achievement suggestion: reach X xp for your saplings
Achievement suggestion: max xp for your lvl 0 recruits.

Added to todo list.
For checking xp earned, would a context menu item work?
The player could click any appropriate unit and get a menu item to display xp if applicable.



Is the levelup dialogue consufing?
Happy to change if you've any suggestions (and I can actually implement them).

Salt water damage is both terrain dependent and highly random

S2
It's unclear which part of the castle is the keep. (this remains true for the following scenarios)
How come the forest already recovered from the camp the orcs made in S1?

The keep appearance is mentioned in this scenario but it is really easy to miss.
Screen grab attached - can you find it?

The idea was that elves and woses would not want to inflict more damage on the forest than they have to.
That said, it's probably easier just to lose the forest overlay

The forest hasn't recovered, this scenario uses a different map; the player's units are tracking those orcs that went south.

S3
The Orcish Dark Sorcerer trying to return to unlife: Could use a small delay before the killer of them says that they are not coming back.
The Humans side doesn't show up in the status table.
Not sure why there is a gold 'reward' for killing enemy leaders here. There is no carryover, and I can only recruit lvl 0 units anyway.

Dark sorcerer: good suggestion, added to todo list
Status table: unless I've misunderstood something (highly likely) I cannot replicate this, checked the first 3 playable scenarios and all display the human player side in the status.

Did a quick hack on debug to test after the woses arrived and the status table still displayed the human controlled side?


Gold reward: that's there to give the player the option to recruit/recall a couple of extra units if they've had bad luck.
Also, this is the last scenario when you can recruit 0 lvls and having a few in recall needing only 1 xp to level up is a lot cheaper than recruiting elite units.
Anyway, that was my logic...

Medley (S9)
It's pretty funny that the leveled civilians no longer count as civilians and are under my control.

And it's expendable fodder if needed

Somehow the dwarves stats for Sea-caves are the starts from the orcs?

Not sure I understand this - looked at the attached medley auto save but not sure what the problem was?
Could you enlighten me please?
Sorry to be dim.

I missed the axe at first, but the hint when I ended the scenario made me redo the last couple turns to get it instead.
It does feel like you need to know what is going to happen on the east side of the map in advance to win. Keeping the dwarves alive might make you commit your units to the west side, which would make it hard to catch up with the civilians afterwards.

Yeah, I agree with the above.
I'd like to hint more strongly on the map about the caves but couldn't find the right balance (for me anyway) between too subtle and blatantly obvious.

Re. east side of map I do try and give a hint in Cobblenog's dialogue when Hew arrives but maybe it wasn't obvious enough?
Och, sounds like the wolves've got reinforcements too! On top o' that there's rumour o' things worse'n wolves in yon eastern heights, so any chance ye could spare a few guards?

S11
Definitly doable if you have a decent number of recalls. You do have the tanks to create a good defensive line. Wait at night, advance at day. The enemy numbers are not overwhelming as long as you don't rush all the time, since waking up undead is the only way to get overwhelmed.

Phew

S12
Excuse me, but why would I not be defending the bridges? D:

'cos those bomb loving dwarves blew up the bits near the shore

a timer -> a timer.

Added to todo list.

Doable, but to be fair I saved all the gold I could in the previous scenarios. Somewhat of a slog.

Will look at your replay and see how you went about it, always interesting to see how other people do stuff.

S13
I did not get the dwarves back I sent to support the masons in S12. If that's intended, maybe it should be made clear? (I might have missed the info though.)

There is a note in objectives (in scenario 12, Westpoint) that only displays while there are units in the underground section that states:
Any units left behind in Westpoint when the boat departs will be stranded and unable to rejoin your army.

Although it might not be obvious - - I do try and keep dialogue to the essentials hence I put quite a bit of stuff in objectives.
The only way I can think of to make this more obvious is... more dialogue.
I suppose you can't please everyone all the time.
Would you prefer to have this stated more clearly/obviously?

Thunderscope claims a 60% chance to hit when on offense, but it seems to be only 50%.
LSB-Firefly-Auto-Save28.gz

Ooops, you're quite right, I did a cut-and-paste and forgot to change 50 to 60

Leafsea Burning (scenario)
A cutscene of the wose being forced out by the fire would be very cool. It feels a bit dry with just the text.

Yeah, me too. Trouble is I wanted to get the thing published, I can spend ages tinkering with stuff.
I was originally going to make this scenario playable with the woses having to escape the flames (well, some, anyway).
Might try and do that for the next release perhaps.

It's very obvious that a lot of care (and effort) went into this campaign, which is great. I very much enjoyed it, especially the AMLA of course. I also very much appreciated the way you used undead.

Spoiler:

Very sad about everyone dying though.

Well, FWIW:

Spoiler:

Weeeeelll, I did kinda leave it a bit open-ended in case anyone wants to do a campaign about how the survivors (or even better their offspring) somehow made it home (with a narrative explaining how all records were lost/destroyed including the memories of later generations).

I kinda went through the scenarios a bit too fast, so I'm not that sure about the kind of achievements you could give out. Some ideas though:

Spoiler:

Achievements for picking up the items in various scenarios. One for bringing your drake up to lvl 4. Getting 30 kills with a berserker that has the axe?
Getting 3 elite Loremasters. Having one spare bomb left. Losing less than x civilians in S9.

Btw, by editing the subject of your first post in the topic, you can change the subject future replies will reference. Like I could edit my posts subject to 1.1.0, but it's easier if you do it.

Replays

Spoiler:

LSB-Shipwreck replay 20240215-152358.gzLSB-Overhaul replay 20240215-155612.gzLSB-Treachery replay 20240215-163244.gzLSB-Scouts replay 20240215-164211.gzLSB-Vanguard replay 20240215-165606.gzLSB-Host replay 20240215-165953.gzLSB-Sea-caves replay 20240215-170804.gzLSB-Firefly replay 20240215-180846.gzLSB-Medley replay 20240215-185012.gzLSB-Treestumped replay 20240215-194553.gzLSB-Westpoint replay 20240215-203952.gzLSB-Dwarvish Departure replay 20240215-205930.gzLSB-Elvish Exit replay 20240215-212040.gz

Thanks for the replays, will go through them when I get chance, probably this weekend.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback!

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Konrad2]

For checking xp earned, would a context menu item work?
The player could click any appropriate unit and get a menu item to display xp if applicable.

That sounds good.

Is the levelup dialogue confusing?
Happy to change if you've any suggestions (and I can actually implement them).

IIRC, I merely misread the 'max level' for elite units as 'lvl 3+', which made me worry for no reason when I saw that Wose Shamans don't go beyond lvl 2. So nothing to worry about there.

The keep appearance is mentioned in this scenario but it is really easy to miss.
Screen grab attached - can you find it?

The idea was that elves and woses would not want to inflict more damage on the forest than they have to.
That said, it's probably easier just to lose the forest overlay

I did read the mention that it doesn't look that much different, so I tried looking at the UI to find out which one is the keep. I was under the wrong impression that it normally shows up there and thoughts you did something because it didn't. Trying to confirm it showed me I was wrong and everything is fine. D: (Oops.)

The forest hasn't recovered, this scenario uses a different map; the player's units are tracking those orcs that went south.

Looking at the map I see it now. My bad.

Status table: unless I've misunderstood something (highly likely) I cannot replicate this, checked the first 3 playable scenarios and all display the human player side in the status.

Sorry, I didn't word that clearly enough. <.<

I meant the side of the Human Dark Sorcerer.

Gold reward: that's there to give the player the option to recruit/recall a couple of extra units if they've had bad luck.
Also, this is the last scenario when you can recruit 0 lvls and having a few in recall needing only 1 xp to level up is a lot cheaper than recruiting elite units.
Anyway, that was my logic...

Sorry, it makes completly sense. I was about to suggest putting it into the notes that you won't have access to lvl 0 units anymore... but you already did that. Simply my oversight again.

Not sure I understand this - looked at the attached medley auto save but not sure what the problem was?
Could you enlighten me please?
Sorry to be dim.

Don't worry, it's a confusing bug.
These are the dwarvish statistics in Medley:

Somehow they are accessing the orcish stats of the previous scenarios. Or at least the onces from side 2, because they are side 2?
On the other hand, the elves have access to the dwarvish stats of the previous scenario:

Likely because the elves are side 1, just like the dwarves were in the previous scenarios.

Re. east side of map I do try and give a hint in Cobblenog's dialogue when Hew arrives but maybe it wasn't obvious enough?
Och, sounds like the wolves've got reinforcements too! On top o' that there's rumour o' things worse'n wolves in yon eastern heights, so any chance ye could spare a few guards?

Watching my replay, it was enough of a warning, and I did (barely) arrive in time. I'd like a stronger hint not to send my leader anywhere until turn 10 though, because if they are not on their keep, I'm out of luck. + I didn't try to stop the civilians at all, even though I could have stalled them for 4 turns, so that's on me for making it harder than it had to be.

S12
Excuse me, but why would I not be defending the bridges? D:

'cos those bomb loving dwarves blew up the bits near the shore

Let me rephrase that, wouldn't it be more tactical sound to defend the shore and take advantage of tides to drown more enemies? I don't see any explanation for that, even though defending the shore would give me a huge advantage. Just 2-4 more hexes to the left would make the defense much easier.

There is a note in objectives (in scenario 12, Westpoint) that only displays while there are units in the underground section that states:
Any units left behind in Westpoint when the boat departs will be stranded and unable to rejoin your army.

What's considered as Westpoint though?

I get losing the Rune Master, but I don't get losing 'normal' Dragonguard and the 'elite' Lore Master. Neither of which was on my recall list in Dwarvish Departure.

Would you prefer to have this stated more clearly/obviously?

(As always, I rushed too much and could not remember that note (which is exactly the right amount of hint)...but just this once my point actually seems to stand. )

Yeah, me too. Trouble is I wanted to get the thing published, I can spend ages tinkering with stuff.
I was originally going to make this scenario playable with the woses having to escape the flames (well, some, anyway).
Might try and do that for the next release perhaps.

Thanks for the release.

Spoiler:

Weeeeelll, I did kinda leave it a bit open-ended in case anyone wants to do a campaign about how the survivors (or even better their offspring) somehow made it home (with a narrative explaining how all records were lost/destroyed including the memories of later generations).

Spoiler:

Honestly, I thought you were setting up your own sequel with that.

[Spannerbag]

For checking xp earned, would a context menu item work?
The player could click any appropriate unit and get a menu item to display xp if applicable.

That sounds good.

Added to todo list.

Sorry, I didn't word that clearly enough. <.<
human sorcerer.PNG
I meant the side of the Human Dark Sorcerer.

Yeah... was a bit conflicted here.

Spoiler:

I had the side hidden initially so that the player would not get the idea that the dark sorcerer (DS) would go rogue (i.e. DS is just part of undead side).
DS only recruits a single walking corpse each turn whilst enslaved, so isn't a major contributor to the battle (though that doesn't mean it shouldn't be visible to the player of course).
Which option do you think would work best?

• Visible from start of scenario
• Unhidden when DS rebels
• Leave as is

FWIW given that what I have already works I think simply unhiding the DS side is best?
Would value your thoughts on this.

Not sure I understand this - looked at the attached medley auto save but not sure what the problem was?
Could you enlighten me please?
Sorry to be dim.

Don't worry, it's a confusing bug.
These are the dwarvish statistics in Medley:
orc stats.PNG
Somehow they are accessing the orcish stats of the previous scenarios. Or at least the onces from side 2, because they are side 2?
On the other hand, the elves have access to the dwarvish stats of the previous scenario:
dwarf stats.PNG
Likely because the elves are side 1, just like the dwarves were in the previous scenarios.

Whoah... I see it now.
I suspect the issue stems from the fact that I don't properly understand how to manipulate side persistence and there's some (player) side-mangling in the early scenarios as leaders change, all done with my own home brewed methods that probably are not optimal.
Not at all sure how (or even if) I can fix this but will add to todo list and probably ask people cleverer than me on the forum if they have any ideas.

Re. east side of map I do try and give a hint ... maybe it wasn't obvious enough?

...I'd like a stronger hint not to send my leader anywhere until turn 10 though, because if they are not on their keep, I'm out of luck...

Just to clarify:

Spoiler:

Do you mean hint to the player that the leaders should stay put until the yetis appear?
(The yetis can appear earlier if the wolf leader is sighted.)

Off the top of my head I can't think of anything that isn't a bit klunky, but I'll give it some thought.

S12
Excuse me, but why would I not be defending the bridges? D:

'cos those bomb loving dwarves blew up the bits near the shore

Let me rephrase that, wouldn't it be more tactical sound to defend the shore and take advantage of tides to drown more enemies? I don't see any explanation for that, even though defending the shore would give me a huge advantage. Just 2-4 more hexes to the left would make the defense much easier.

You make a fair point.

The issue to some extent is that I was constrained by the terrain logic; I wanted this map to look the same as the earlier versions.
Essentially I have two maps with same right hand (east) sections but different left hand (west) layouts.
Getting the east portions to render the same was the issue.
Very few sizes and arrangements did that (otherwise mountains especially were rendered differently and the map didn't look the same even though the actual terrain was the same).
I did try extending the map but this layout was the best I could do.

I suppose it depends whether having maps with same terrain codes but rendered differently would be a price worth paying for extending the map.

It was suggested that I could define multihex terrain and force the map to look the way I wanted.
I did investigate and realised that for me at least, that way lies madness...

If past experience is any guide, simply shifting everything 2 hexes right as it were would still probably muck up the mountains, regardless of whether map size was kept the same or extended

The other point is that doing that might make the scenario far too easy?
This is meant to be a frantic defense for a brief time.

That said, I'll revisit this and see what - if anything - I can do.
As you'll probably realise, terrain ain't my strong suit - especially as so much changed in v17/18...

There is a note in objectives (in scenario 12, Westpoint) that only displays while there are units in the underground section that states:
Any units left behind in Westpoint when the boat departs will be stranded and unable to rejoin your army.
...
What's considered as Westpoint though?

I get losing the Rune Master, but I don't get losing 'normal' Dragonguard and the 'elite' Lore Master. Neither of which was on my recall list in Dwarvish Departure.

Would you prefer to have this stated more clearly/obviously?

(As always, I rushed too much and could not remember that note (which is exactly the right amount of hint)...but just this once my point actually seems to stand. )

Well the meaning I wanted to convey was this:
When the boat departs from the underground portion of Westpoint any units left behind (have not boarded the boat) in said underground area will be unavailable in future scenarios.
It's challenging to extract all the bombers but other units (i.e. those recalled by Cobblenog) should be retrievable.

Spoiler:

They are either stranded with no way back or die depending on where they are in said underground area.

I'll reword the note - would that be enough or do you think something more is needed (e.g. the narrator issuing a message)?



Re. LSB follow-up campaigns I do have some ideas but I have so many already swirling around my head that I have to prioritise.
I have several viable, fairly well-formed campaign concepts in my head - including a major reworking of AfterEI and several linked sequels - and a campaign (campaign #2) that is about 70% complete but needs porting to v17/18.

Will hopefully find time this w/e to issue a "maintenance release" for both versions to fix a few bugs and change dialogue/guidance text here and there.
If I can, will also try and sneak in the accumulated xp menu item

Thanks again for the feedback.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Konrad2]

Yeah... was a bit conflicted here.

Spoiler:

I had the side hidden initially so that the player would not get the idea that the dark sorcerer (DS) would go rogue (i.e. DS is just part of undead side).
DS only recruits a single walking corpse each turn whilst enslaved, so isn't a major contributor to the battle (though that doesn't mean it shouldn't be visible to the player of course).
Which option do you think would work best?

• Visible from start of scenario
• Unhidden when DS rebels
• Leave as is

FWIW given that what I have already works I think simply unhiding the DS side is best?
Would value your thoughts on this.

Show him as Undead or Prisoner side. It's already been made quite clear that he is not willingly here and just biding his time to escape.

Just to clarify:

Spoiler:

Do you mean hint to the player that the leaders should stay put until the yetis appear?
(The yetis can appear earlier if the wolf leader is sighted.)

Off the top of my head I can't think of anything that isn't a bit klunky, but I'll give it some thought.

Sounds good to me. Maybe reword the 'patience is key' hint?

Well the meaning I wanted to convey was this:
When the boat departs from the underground portion of Westpoint any units left behind (have not boarded the boat) in said underground area will be unavailable in future scenarios.
It's challenging to extract all the bombers but other units (i.e. those recalled by Cobblenog) should be retrievable.

Spoiler:

They are either stranded with no way back or die depending on where they are in said underground area.

I'll reword the note - would that be enough or do you think something more is needed (e.g. the narrator issuing a message)?

I'd have been willing to swear that entering the boat didn't work. So I tested it. It works. Sadly (luckily?) that's another problem that's actually not a problem and is being handled perfectly.

Will hopefully find time this w/e to issue a "maintenance release" for both versions to fix a few bugs and change dialogue/guidance text here and there.
If I can, will also try and sneak in the accumulated xp menu item

Thanks for listening to me. Enjoy.

[Spannerbag]

Show him as Undead or Prisoner side. It's already been made quite clear that he is not willingly here and just biding his time to escape.

OK

Maybe reword the 'patience is key' hint?

Good suggestion, will have a good old mull.

Thanks for listening to me. Enjoy.

You're very welcome, I always appreciate (constructive) criticism!

Will crack on with the maintenance release this w/e, not sure how long I'll need to work through the more gnarly bits...

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Otdoy]

Hi, just came here to say that I enjoyed this campaign immensely. The tidal mechanism is fascinating, it makes you wonder how other coastal campaigns would play with it. Would be cool if this was a base BfW mechanism you could turn on or off. Thanks for the hard work! Had a lot of fun.

[Spannerbag]

Hi, just came here to say that I enjoyed this campaign immensely...

Thanks for your kind words, much appreciated and glad you enjoyed playing my campaign.
Working on various bug fixes and changes based on player feedback.
Some time off publishing the new version yet tho', keep having "good ideas"...

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag