Undead Campaign: Despair and Decay

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Ken_Oh
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Undead Campaign: Despair and Decay

Post by Ken_Oh »

I'm shooting for no more than 10 scenarios with this. The campaign server has an earier stable version while the latest in-progress versions can be found near the last posts.

The campaign let's you take part behind-the-scenes in HttT, acting as a tool of Undead forces (aka the "bad guys"), but allows you to make some choices later on. I'd like some story (and some Wesnoth history) input/feedback. But, let me note that the text in the campaign isn't complete and may be awkward. I'd rather get the scenarios all up and then figure out how I'm going to word the storyline that I have outlined. The other point is that we have Flava_clown, who does an awesome job of helping many misc elements, but doesn't speak English natively. I'm going to wait to re-word all of his text later too.

The layout of the campaign is as such:
  • 4 tutorial scenarios that familiarizes the player with some unit alterations
    1. #1 Showcases the new WC ability to replicate itself while on villages
    2. #3 Showcases Ghouls being "native" to swamps; thus, I altered them to have better movement and defense while in swamps.
  • The middle scenarios take place during HttT, where you siege some locations that Konrad later finds taken over by Orcs/Undead, most notably, Elensefar.
  • The last few scenarios allow for some choicemaking and branching. You'll have to choose between a few bad endings and one good one. There'll even be a chance to take part in the battle between Konrad and company, showing an alternate version of the last battle of HttT.
I welcome any gameplay feedback, but note that gold/turns are just rough values, especially for different difficulties. I'd also like anyone who plays and wants to make suggestions to keep in mind a few of my single player philosophies:

No surprises that make players want to start the scenario over and play differently.
This means no FOG, no Shroud, no random units out of nowhere and general unpredictable mid-scenario storytelling. I never appreciated having to play scenarios over again because I didn't anticipate some event that I could only deal with if I knew it was comming. Also, each scenario has the player side as the -last- side to go in every turn. This means that you get to see the opposing sides' recruit list before having to make your own choice. Some events can be random and have a positively/negatively of your game, but none should be so large that the player just wants to start over again.
Fun in strategy games comes from having to make tough choices.
We all love The Siege of Elensefar in HttT. What I love from it are the tough choices you have to make in it given the clear set of obstactles. This ties into my philosophy above, because to make an informed choice, you need information. Scenario 4 (Haunted Houses) demonstrates a scenario where taking on enemy sides in one order may not be any better than another order (except trying to take down Elves first, which is definitely a dumb choice).

Here are the current questions for anyone (June 22, 2006):
  1. How do you like the new WC? Comment on replication, slow movement, lowered defense (just stole treefolk for now), higher resistance or anything. I want to make the replication ability somehow balanced enough to use in MP (not that I really want this in MP, but I'm still shooting for that level of balance), so I'm desparately trying to find a KISS way to somehow limit the ability.
Last edited by Ken_Oh on October 19th, 2006, 11:45 am, edited 4 times in total.
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turin
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Post by turin »

I haven't even touched the campaign, but...
What kind of units should Elensefar have or not have before being overtaken by Orcs/Undead in the HttT timeline? Do Elves live there at all? Any units on Horseback? I see Saving Elensefar emphasizes Fencers and Pikemen. I also want to make this scenario quite difficult (as difficult as the scenario that takes it back in HttT, if not more ;) ) so there'll be White Mages a plenty. Maybe even a Paladin or two. Also, I plan on having the Thieves Guild play a role again.
Some elves live in Elensefar, but not many... probably not a significant enough amount to have them recruitable, but it might make sense to have an area of the city that they pop out of and attack you from.

Elensefar doesn't have horsemen, I would say.

The army of Elensefar is basically like the army of Wesnoth, but probably without the HI, Cavalry, or Horsemen, and with some of outlaw humans. (The thieves' guild is big in the city.) Thugs could provide worthy opposition to undead.
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Ken_Oh
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Post by Ken_Oh »

You mean you didn't beat the campaign in 7 minutes? ;p

Thanks for the info.

EDIT: Oh my heavens, I seemed to have put this in the wrong sub-forum. I kept on going back and forth from development to writing and didn't realize I just opened a posting window for formatting.

Can I bother anyone to move it please?
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Post by Yogibear »

I moved it to "Campaign Feedback".
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Post by turin »

Undid the move - its a decent idea, but currently we aren't putting UMCs in campaign feedback.
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
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Ken_Oh
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Post by Ken_Oh »

Thanks, turin.
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Post by Yogibear »

Argh, my first moderation and i screwed it :? .

In germany we have a saying: "Those who can read have an obvious advantage". How true :P !

Sorry for the trouble :oops: .
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Post by flava_clown »

hi
i had some nice crashes before i was able to play this campaign.
it was necessary to touch some .cfg...

in the scenario where you say that the training is over, is it not possible to gain "walking corpses" from villages. is it meant like this or just a bug? because it works in the next/latest scenario.

about your question 6. i realized also that there isn't a damn mage. have you checked what type of unit a mage is? like fighter,archer... if you know it than add this to the recruit thing and your done, i think.

anyway i would put the wc gain makro in an own cfg file and would call this instead of having the whole code in every scenario file.
Last edited by flava_clown on April 29th, 2006, 11:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Ken_Oh »

Thanks for taking a look at it all.

I'm not sure why the changes you made to the .cfg make it work better (or even what the problem was), but I'm glad that you made them for me.

You mean you weren't able to replicate WCs on that island scenario? That's weird. I might not have added the macro for it.

Thanks for reminding me to put the macro into utils. I've been meaning too but have been too lazy. I've done it now.

I've figured out about the Mage thing. I'm really confused about recruitment_pattern and usage. I bring it up here: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10933

I'll take your changes into account and will have a workable revision of that and what I've been working on this past week up by tonight.

EDIT: g/f just called. I how about we expect that revision to be up sometime tomorrow. ;)
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Post by Ken_Oh »

Bleh, not going to get it done today. Here's what I have. Call it v0.1 revision 2.
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Post by flava_clown »

damn, that means that i've made version 0.1b "por culo"... not only that i have to write it again, because some mintues ago i've destroyed a hard disc here in the cyber cafe... what a day...

okay let me add my version anyway, i've added an die event for "????", to make sure that we loose immediately if "????" re-die ;) ... in the final scenario i've lost the hero but was able to play until the enemy leader was killed.

i've added also an die event for the "trapper ligh", just because i don't like to beat a leader without a note. i let the light mage say something which doesn't fit his person very well, but it is just an idea ;)

the mage problem is also fixed, but i guess in your version too...

i will give your version a try when i am on my computer.

regards
Last edited by flava_clown on April 29th, 2006, 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by flava_clown »

hi

it seems that i am too fast for you ;) ... damn i found a little bug in my version. it is always right, a new feature have at least one new bug.

okay don't worry this will be my last disturbence, errm version.

i like the idea with kiki, you should use this at least for the 4 first scenarios which you want as some kind of a tutorial right? but to do so she have to leave after delivering the message. i did this in my new version.
the changes you've made to the first and the last scenario are a bit too "hard" for me. i mean white mages against undead is really hard, their magical attack hits 3 of 4 times, that kills every undead even the level 3 ones. and fencer/duelists are "skirmisher" so that you'll need for every good unit 6 WC to protect them.

however i've changed these scenarios. if you choose easy then it will be as it was before and if you choose hard then it's like yours. the normal setting is something between.
oh and i've touched the first map a little bit, hope you don't mind. i am not really glad with the result, but i will give it (maybe) another try.

note: you should "call" the map data also with an @ in front of the path and uncomment the util folder in the campaign definition. (i did and added some "about" tags)
i've fixed also the problem with the message: "nothing but death remains...". its speaker=narrator not description=narrator ;)
i've included a message, which tell the player that this campaign is still in progress and that you need feedback. it appaers after you've finished the last scenario

that's all for now... sorry that i mess with your campaign.
i hope that you see it just as an advanced feedback ;) since it is so small it is easier to change the things self and see then if you like them or not.

cheers
Last edited by flava_clown on April 29th, 2006, 11:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Ken_Oh »

Hey, thanks!

I'm currently kind of busy, plus I'm house-sitting so I'm on a Mac, and I'm having trouble getting some things to work on it. Never-the-less, I'll be sure to take a look at it all.

But, before I look at it, the point of the first scenario is to make it impossible to win without using WCs. I'm not sure exactly how hard I want it to be, but I'm looking to take the emphasis off of other unit types. Optimally, I'd like to make all other units recruitable and just make it so it would be dumb to use them.

And you found Elensefar hard? I'll go look at it again, but I never found it hard, even with a ton of White Mages. I was actually planning to give the enemy vastly harder forces, but also more chances to screw the enemy over. I guess I'll look into it again.

btw, don't worry about adding to the campaign as you would like it. That's a pretty easy way to give feedback. And, if I don't like it, I'll just change it back. :p
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Post by flava_clown »

okay i am glad with your last post ;) because i am about to do it again, even if i wrote i won't do it anymore. but this time it's really a help. i found a way to open/close the dam as you want it to. it took me some time to find it out, wednesday i thought that i have it already, but i've realized yesterday that i need another check if the dam house is already in our/the enemy hand. without the check, the event fired again and removed all villages (in that range)

other than that, i've made for every leader a die event, for the scenarios with 2 leader, the dialogue depends which one you kill first. i've added also some other events and opend the map files in the editor, but left them nearly untouched ;) i've changend also the gender of the whitemage on damn_an_isle, coz she is female in httt and i guess hiding in a temple and waiting for help doesn't change the gender :twisted:
not to forget some bugfixes are made too. (my own bugs)

i haven't add some "out of time" events. coz i had no idea why should be an undead in hurry... mmm it's up to you to do this.

btw. i would love to sit on a mac, really... okay i don't know the behave of wesnoth there, but a mac is such a nice computer.

i understand your point, with the wcs but some people don't like if the first scenario is already too hard. and specially if it's some kind of a tutorial. if you want that we use the wcs more, then we should think about to don't change the time of the day while the scenario, so that it is always night, this can be a good idea for the story too. at least it can be done for the easy setting...

elsenfar yes i found it hard, but i am not a skilled player and i choose always "easy" coz i play to win, not to get angry all the time, and if i loose one good unit after another, while my units are to dumb to hit, then i get pissed ... sometimes...

anyway i hope you like one of the changes as i do. i would like to see some kind of a "todo", what's your plans? and the like...

bye...

edit: there was a little bug in the "dam" event, thanx to copy/paste one variable was set to
a wrong value. while i've touched this campaign once more, i've included a "time over" event
, i became some kind of a stupid idea, which works quite well. (it's in the deaths.cfg)
and i had to make another die event for the human-leader from elensefar, because in 2 games
he went down to the orcs and get killed there, so that his "last words" were "wrong".

edit 2: file removed, new version is on the next site.
Last edited by flava_clown on May 2nd, 2006, 6:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Ken_Oh »

The change to the Dam House effect you made works great, but it only works one way (it doesn't drain the swamp if a human controls the house). I'll take a look at the code tomorrow.

I really like how you've added some character to the maps by putting items in, especially since that's not the kind of thing I would bother with doing myself. ;)

I've got something in mind for the "out of time" event. In most of the scenarios, your Master would show up, call your a useless servant and then release you from being undead. I'll deal with the other ones as I get to them.

I had no idea the White Mage in Isle of the Damned was female. I always played Muff Malal's pennisula. :shock:

Yeah, I've made a todo list for myself but I'm been really busy lately so I haven't been able to do more than just look at stuff. Play-testing the scenarios takes so much more time in this dev process than I expected. ;)

I've completed a storyboard for the campaign.

1. Awake and Arise
2. Sink or Swim
3. Muck and Mire
4. A forest/mountain/cave vs. Elves and Dwarves end tutorial (called Haunted Houses), where you finally meet your Master
5. To Damn and Isle
6. Elensefar
7. some insignificant battle while on the road, this is where you'll meet Delfador
8. some northern scenario, probably from HttT and probably just going to be on the Valley of Death map
9. A small skirmish on the way to Weldyn where you have the option to turn against your Master
10a. @ Weldyn vs. Asheviere vs. Konrad + crew
10b. @ Weldyn allied to Asheviere (but some humans refuse to fight along with undead) vs. Konrad + crew
10c. vs. your Master, blocking him from getting to Weldyn

Small todo list:
-give Ligh in south island in To Damn an Isle more gold (to emphasize battles if you send decoy units north at the begining).
-redo tutorial recruitment
--only WCs and Skels on Sink or Swim, ghosts on water are too cheap
--introduce only Bats and Ghouls in Muck and Mire. while Ghosts work really well in the swamps, but I'd rather not overshadow the use of Ghouls. I'll have to make the scenario much easier if that happens.
--introduce Ghosts and Dark Adepts in Haunted Houses, have that scenario give multiple enemy leaders and cash bonus for killing each (probably impossible to kill them all).
-change Kiki's name to Ache (reference to Zelda 2), put in scenarios 1,2,3 and keep in the battle in scenario 3
-figure out how to make an attack harm yourself as well as the enemy (if at all possible).
-add a village to Awake and Arise that is 6 hexes away from the north-west recruiting space (2 WC movements, giving more time to make undead)
-add a unit that tries to escape Elensefar to call for help. if you don't block him, he'll return in a day with some units.
-add thieves in Elensefar, which desert the place when the fighting gets too rough.

I was thinking about making only 2 difficulty settings: Easy and Normal. I simply don't like the extra burden for something that I don't expect many people to use.

Anyway, thanks again for the help. I'll definitely get some work done on it this week.
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