Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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nenau
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Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

This campaign is an history-based story about the life of the 9th roman emperor, Vespasian. It contains 14 scenarios, but most of them are not finished.
With the kind permission of UnwiseOwl, this campaign uses many atwork from the Imperial Era.

Gameplay goes from skirmishes to large (medium?) scale battles and though there are a few features that are not present in the mainline BfW, the way to play is globally the same as in core campaigns.

I'd be glad to read any imput you may have on anything related to this campaign : gameplay, maps, atwork, grammar, historical mistakes...
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TorMac
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Joined: February 23rd, 2017, 2:13 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by TorMac »

Just started the campaign. This is awesome (I'm a fan of historical simulation)!

A couple of quick notes. Scythes should be Scythians in English. Tribun=Tribune. I can PM more corrections if they are helpful.

Really enjoying it, so far.
Take command of Napoleon's armies in an 11 scenario historical campaign with the Napoleonic Warfare for Battle for Wesnoth project.
nenau
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Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

Thank you for your answer.
TorMac wrote:I can PM more corrections if they are helpful.
That would be great ! Thanks !
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TorMac
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Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by TorMac »

This is a very well written campaign (barring some spelling issues). It is very funny.

The bit with the dog had me laughing out loud. Also the stoic jokes and the honest living of Vespasian's brother.

One thing I might suggest is making some maps a little smaller - especially in the celtic ones I end up spending a lot of time just moving units into position...

I quote from Eric S. Raymond's guide
http://www.catb.org/~esr/wesnoth/campai ... maps_right
Calibrate the size of your map according to the speed of player units; a small map is one that takes 6 or fewer turns to move across in either the horizontal or vertical direction, medium-size tops out at 10, and anything bigger should be considered large. It's a common error to make too many maps too large.

Slogging troops across a large map is exhausting, especially if you have to do it a couple of scenarios in succession; thus, save the big maps for the handful of set-piece battles that wind up the campaign or a major story arc within it.

Map size controls the overall feel of a scenario; medium and large maps make for army battles, small ones produce an experience more like a role-playing game.

Heir To The Throne, the prototypical Wesnoth campaign, has exactly two large maps in 25 scenarios; of the remainder 18 are medium and 8 small. The Hammer of Thursagan has no large maps in it all; about two thirds of its maps are medium and a third are small. These proportions are typical for mainline content.
Haven't finished playing yet, but this is very very promising.
Take command of Napoleon's armies in an 11 scenario historical campaign with the Napoleonic Warfare for Battle for Wesnoth project.
nenau
Posts: 114
Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

I've uploaded an update taking into account the first remarks, and I added a few immersive events (like the dog one).
The size of the maps didn't change, I'll need more time to rethink them.
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TorMac
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Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by TorMac »

Almost finished;

Here are the things I enjoyed the most:

1. The fact that it is a historical campaign
2. The sense of humor and narration
3. Having enough troops to try out different tactics

Some things that would have made it more enjoyable:

1. A little more diversity with units... Slingers? Alae? Greek swordsmen vs Jewish swordsmen, Mauretanian archers... There are lots of possibilities. Also more variation in appearance when they change levels. A different colored helmet, shield, bigger bow, feather in the helmet... Again, more opportunities.
2. More of those flavor/immersive events. Marcus Domitius Cantor basically does not speak after the first scenario... Titus Vespasianus just shows up. They have great NPC development potential.
3. The maps are too big for the amount of units. Playing the road to Jerusalem - just moving my units takes 3 minutes. Meaning it took an hour and a half to finish just one scenario. That's a huge time commitment for most players. You don't need to make new maps; cutting 10 hexes at the edges, or moving the keeps closer to each other would make a huge difference.

Finally, in Jericho the enemy did not really recruit any units. I rolled over him in a few turns.

Thanks for making this! I know it's a huge effort and time commitment, and most players do not take the time to really show appreciation.
Take command of Napoleon's armies in an 11 scenario historical campaign with the Napoleonic Warfare for Battle for Wesnoth project.
nenau
Posts: 114
Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

Hi,

Thank you for your remarks.

For the question of diversity of units, I totally agree with what you wrote, and I am planning to add much more variety. The point is that, in some cases, I need to do the atwork, witch is time consuming. I was planning for example to add celtes mounted flagbearers and roman velite skirmishers. Slingers could be also fun, but I don't know what new strategical opportunities they could add...

More immersive events are going to take place in the next release, with background with Cantor and between Vespasian and Titus. I will also redesign some maps, as you requested. I'm also planning to suppress the river in the final battle, because it causes the AI to mindlessly attack in a very bad situation. I'd like this battle to be a slaughter on both sides. The historians describe it as a real mess.

For Jericho, could you tell me how you did this? I get always stopped, in easy, for about 7/8 turns on the other side of the river. I only manage to cross the walls once the enemy leader starts to be short of units. Anyway, there is a problem on this map because the village on the south and east make the enemies to scatter just during the initial shock.
nenau
Posts: 114
Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

Hello,

I've published a new release containing more variety of units, abilities and atwork, some maps became smaller for gameplay reasons and a few illustrations were added during the story parts (not a lot of them though). There is :

* New roman unit : the velite, which is equivalent to the celtic skirmisher at level 1, but gets different abilities at level 2.
* New celtic unit : the dog trainer, the only neutral unit so far.
* One unique surprise unit in the last britain scenario, somehow based on historical witnesses.

I think (hope) that the enemy units aren't going to scatter anymore in Jericho, making this scenario more challenging.
nenau
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Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

And a new release that should fix many bugs.

There are many new atwork for units and Vespasian now actually becomes a legate.
The size of the battle at the end was decreased in order to make it less boring.
And many other minor changes.
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PapaSmurfReloaded
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Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by PapaSmurfReloaded »

I like the concept of the campaign, and most units look really good. The only thing I'd like to point out are the numerous typos in dialogues and that some maps people have just way too much gold. I mean, I know the point is creating massive battles, but I don't think +1000 gold is necessary, for example.

Is there an era that includes the units from the campaign?
nenau
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Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

Hi,

About the typos, it's really hard for me to write decent texts since english is not my mother tongue.
About the gold, on reflection it's true that I may have given too much to some leaders at the end.
I'll try to rebalance the stuff.

I have not done any era for now (it should not be so hard to create rapidly a not very balanced one by putting units together though). But mainly, the roman's atwork and gameplay come from the Imperial Era.
nenau
Posts: 114
Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

A new update featuring :

* Some more work on the unit sprites
* Added a few portraits to 2 units and the 2 main characters. It's not great art, but the goal is to add life to the dialogs. More are coming.
* Changed the enemies gold in order to match the "easy" level claimed in the campaign presentation and to make the end scenarios more convenient. (The truth is that I designed those ones just after having finished playing the Northern Rebirth)
nenau
Posts: 114
Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

And an other update :

* More portraits
* More units sprites
* A new unit : the marksman, mainly for siege scenarios
* A few other updates I don't necessary remember...
nenau
Posts: 114
Joined: May 12th, 2017, 5:46 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by nenau »

I updated the add-on on the server :

* The legionnaires don't slow on defense anymore (in order to make them vulnerable against bowmen)
* Some minor graphical tweaks
* I now use the race to display the nationality, with various traits depending on it
ogr
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Joined: March 21st, 2018, 6:20 pm

Re: Pax Romana : The Rise of Vespasian

Post by ogr »

Hey,

I just finished the campaign on hard difficulty.

It's a great campaign. The units combination are great, the story is enjoyable and the maps are most of the time interesting on a strategic level.
During the whole campaign, I had "Star Wars - the imperial march" playing in my head. Might be relating to the fact that you constantly crush rebels in this campaign :)

However, I almost not tried it because the description did not attract me that much.
"Don't expect high quality texts at all since I've always been English-challenged"
Reading that I thought I would not enjoy the campaign, as I like some depth in campaign stories. But it's not bad at all.
There's a good atmosphere in the campaign and that's what matter and if there were mistakes, it did not bother me (on a side note, I'm not English native either).
So I suggest you remove this sentence in the description because it's a little offputting.

Also, it feels quite complete to me, so I'm not sure why you say it's not in the description.
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