The Sojournings of Grog (3.6.1 is out)

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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Eros
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Eros »

Will sort out the bugs mentioned by docrock.

I like the cactus wose idea a few suggestions though; 1 lower the number of the ranged attack to make it a bit more haphazard whether you are slowed (7-2 maybe) lower the strength of the melee (make them more of a pest than a real enemy?). I like the particular cactus idea as that is the "architypal" cactus. Lower their defenses in woods as well.

Let me clarify the scenario scene.

B5-defence
B6-unknown title (semi-complete)
C1-as an aside where the messengers are sent to Kaleh. (would only have this scenario if you still have gryphons alive) You would not get to recruit in this one just get given a set of free units (as in the last scenario of sof) I don't think even a gryphon could fly to Zocthanol so we would have them fly to a friendly human port further down the coast where they would take ship to Kaleh.
B7-dragonbane

If you want to write that scenario you may. Neither me nor Marz can do art so any help would be appreciated. :)
"Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration" (Thomas Edison) Which is why I smell so bad!
Anonymissimus
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Anonymissimus »

Elvish_Hunter wrote:
Deusite wrote: {DEFENSE_ANIM wose-hit.ogg }
will cause a preprocessor error, put null strings "" "" there
pretty tough for a level 1 unit
projects (BfW 1.12):
A Simple Campaign: campaign draft for wml startersPlan Your Advancements: mp mod
The Earth's Gut: sp campaignSettlers of Wesnoth: mp scenarioWesnoth Lua Pack: lua tags and utils
updated to 1.8 and handed over: A Gryphon's Tale: sp campaign
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Eros
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Eros »

Fixed bugs mentioned by dolrock but we could not reproduce the problems with the various passages.

I agree the cactus wose is too strong for a level one but the idea is very good
"Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration" (Thomas Edison) Which is why I smell so bad!
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docrock
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by docrock »

could not reproduce the problems with the various passages
strange, humm

whatever, played "First Contact" (new version), could not detect any bugs
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Elvish_Hunter »

Eros wrote:Neither me nor Marz can do art so any help would be appreciated. :)
Please excuse me, but I'm sorry to tell you that I'm not an artist. Despite this, I tried to create a sprite: and the result was so horrible that I deleted it. It's so difficult to create a good one, and I'm not able to do it at all. :annoyed:
Maybe we can use the old Shaman Wose graphic from Story of the Wose and DM (not the new graphic from Extended Era and BEEM) as placeholder?
wose-shaman.png
wose-shaman.png (3.82 KiB) Viewed 4851 times
wose-shaman-attack.png
wose-shaman-attack.png (3.61 KiB) Viewed 4851 times
wose-shaman-defend.png
wose-shaman-defend.png (3.73 KiB) Viewed 4851 times
Current maintainer of these add-ons, all on 1.16:
The Sojournings of Grog, Children of Dragons, A Rough Life, Wesnoth Lua Pack, The White Troll (co-author)
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docrock
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by docrock »

so, playing part2 "South Gate": that map just does cry for exploit aloud:

-at the time when the additional dwarves come in you should have 2-4 lvl2 trolls
-now start dissolving the frontline from west to east and retreat especially the units with good xp
-move everybody over the northeastern bridge and man the end of the bridge with one lvl2 and one lvl1
-that way only one dwarven unit can attack at a time, you have yourself just built a xp-generator
-cycle units up and down the tunnel to replace injured ones, use Krunk to kill off ulfs, rinse and repeat indefinitely

i stopped at turn 97 with 18 units lvl2 plus Krunk
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Eros
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Eros »

whatever, played "First Contact" (new version), could not detect any bugs
The most important bugs are when the same enemy kills two of your units. Also the code for their release in A7 needs update.

Does the prisoners bit make it more fun? :?:
Maybe we can use the old Shaman Wose graphic from Story of the Wose and DM (not the new graphic from Extended Era and BEEM) as placeholder?
Yes that would do as a place holder quite nicely. Not actualy played story of a wose though.
playing part2 "South Gate": that map just does cry for exploit aloud:
Yes I know I already made the passages wider. It is trying to get a balence between the two extremes. Thanks a lot for your suggestions it makes it much more enjoyable.
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docrock
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by docrock »

The most important bugs are when the same enemy kills two of your units. Also the code for their release in A7 needs update.

Does the prisoners bit make it more fun?
yes, it sure is interesting and fun, though if you do everything right you wont even run into that, just by looking at the code i decided to let one of mine get killed to try it out, i dunno about the stacking of imprisonment for enemy units

played further until "Defense" so far:
-"The North Gate" is very good and tough at the beginning, after Krunk turns up things lighten more and more until total overkill ensues, even if the dwarfes would turn up (which did not for me of coz due to the many turns i survived in the first scenario) it should very well be doable, i'd say if you survive 40+ turns in the first scenario you are pretty much set for this one
-"The Rearguard" was extremely easy for me as Grog had the ring of speed and just plainly ran aside of all the action through the mountains to the objective hexes while a few recalls were collecting xp. the saurians are at an extreme disadvantage due to terrain in the open, they just get slaughtered by the orcs and the occasional saurian in the mountain is no match for a troll wizard which i used as bodyguards for Grog.
-in "Waves and Waves" i used a troll force to screen the heroes against the orcs and the elvish bodyguard to distract the drakes a bit, very easy again due to that ring of speed
-in "Defense" i decided to control allies myself (a great idea to offer this option, certainly reduces frustration induced by suicidal allies, grats). again pretty easy if you just spend all the gold of the allies on javelineers manning the fortified positions while own forces pick out the easy kills and a small troll force keeps the orcs busy on the southern shore. slaughter.
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Kerth
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Kerth »

Cactus Wose doesn't feel like a fitting name, Wose still implies that they are wood creatures as it starts with W. If they are put in, perhaps they'd be given a different name? Maybe Cactose?
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Elvish_Hunter »

I took the Wose_Shaman.cfg from Delfadors' Memoirs for 1.6 and modified it this way:
- changed both attacks from impact to pierce, for two reasons: first for balancing, because Gryphons are weak to impact, and second because cacti have thorns also on their arms
- weakened ranged from 10-2 to 8-2
- camouflage instead of ambush
- modified resistances as I wrote before
- 1 MP and 40% defense on sand, but 2 MP and 30% defense on forest, 5 movement points
- the unit is now level 2, as is the original Wose Shaman
- inserted the Magenta team color macro, just in case that someone team-colours the sprite, or makes a completely new sprite
I'm attaching the zip with the unit's cfg and png files.
I playtested the unit by inserting it in Longbow's MP Era, and it seems to work as intended (except for camouflage: this era don't have it, and I didn't added it, in the macros. However, it should work in your campaign). It is still missing the attack sounds.
Feel free to balance it and to correct it if you find anything wrong, after all I don't know WML so well, not (yet?) enough to write a whole scenario (and I'm sure that you'll make the scenario better than me). I simply do what I can.
For the title of this scenario (Gryphons flying across desert), I thinked to "Between Hammer and Anvil" (because the Gryphons are between Drakes and Cacti Woses). Do you like it?
Attachments
Cactus Wose.zip
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Current maintainer of these add-ons, all on 1.16:
The Sojournings of Grog, Children of Dragons, A Rough Life, Wesnoth Lua Pack, The White Troll (co-author)
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docrock
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by docrock »

well, while playing "Defense" i had an idea, dunno if you like it or if it contradicts the purpose of the scenario, but what about giving the player the opportunity for 10 more turns (in form of a dialogue) after turn 16 with a change of objectives to "kill all enemy leaders" and at the same time inducing a total of say like 400 gold evenly distributed among the remaining enemy leaders. that would be at least 100 gold for each of them, depending on how many are still alive at that point.
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Marz
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Marz »

Docrock: Thankyou very much for your comments. B3 needs a complete redesign. We will make C1 and hopefully release it on Saturday.

Cactose sounds good. :)

And thanks for the cfg for the cactus wose/cactose. We'll see about the balancing when we actually make the scenario.
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Eros
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Eros »

RELEASE 2.2.1

Includes B6 for the first time and millions of minor changes.

The authors of this campaign hereby announce the desire of eventually making this campaign mainline quality. There follows a list of the criteria as set out elsewhere and what we have to achieve this goal.
CORRECTNESS
* Run wmllint on the campaign before submitting it. This is to make sure your WML syntax is correct and up-to-date.
* Run wmllindent to make the indentation match the rest of mainline.(This is to make the WML easier for our maintainers to read.)
This is easy
TRANSLATIONS
* The campaign must be in wescamp prior to inclusion and all strings that should be translateable have to be marked as such. This is to easy the pain of including the translations and to make sure that everything is ready for translations.
Will do this when we have finished the text.
UNITS
* All custom units should follow the guidelines for the inclusion of new units into mainline, except for the balance part. That is: the units do need to have reasonable arts, animations and all this stuff (at least: 1 standing frame, 1 attack frame per attack and 1 defense frame, if the ability exists: 1 leading and 1 healing frame are needed).
* All units that are not included in data/units/ do have to be in the campaign itself (using campaignspecific units from other (mainline-)content is not the way to go, copy it over. This makes it possible to easier remove content when something is not working and to easier split packages. Though make sure to *only* add units that really are needed. If the only change is adding a portrait, do it via plain WML.
This is already done apart from the lava beasts etc in A5
COMPLETENESS
* The campaign should be complete. It doesn't have to be polished in all aspects, but it shouldn't have any gaps. This means the story should have an end, and anything that needs to be done after that can be qualified as "improvement"
Getting there. All text needs expansion etc to explain the action better.
BALANCE
* The campaign should be reasonably balanced within each difficulty level, and if the level has the same name as a difficulty level in mainline, it should be about the same difficulty
this is going to be a lot of work
STORY
* The story should be interesting and reasonably consistant with the rest of the wesnoth universe.. This means that if you point to Wesnoth history it should somehow match it. If you do vary history in some places, please mark it accordingly as "legend" or something like this in the intro of the campaign.
I think we perform pretty close to this apart from the fact that Nym, Zhul, Elyssa, and Grog
PAST HISTORY
* The campaign must be on the campaign server for some time.
* A feedback thread on the forum is a must.
* A mainline developer has to speak in favor of adding the campaign.
we fail on points 1 and 3
STORY ART
* If you got *good* artworks, include it. Do not include placeholder graphics, better use black screens just with text.

PORTRAITS
* Better do use no portraits than bad / incomplete ones.
we are using mostly borrowed art so this pretty irrelevant.

AS WELL AS THIS THE WHOLE TALK BASE NEEDS A COMPLETE REWRITE

All speach needs up-dating. This is a huge operation. Unlike UTBS which hardly ever has the unit or second_unit speak, we intend to have much more role calls than other campaigns. This means; We need to know the linguistics and phonetics of all the main races (troll, ogre, gryphon, orcs and drakes). To do this we will need to isolate all the examples of speech in all the mainline campaigns (and umc?). Minor decisions such as whether a gryphon speaks or its rider, and what to do when a hero triggers an event will also have to be made. The combined set of speech for all the races/heros will have to be collected into separate files. A set of basic rules for how to compose for each race will be suggested. Also we need to expand greatly on the already existing talk. For consistancy we need to bring out much more explanation of the origin of the lich/dragon.

If you want to help with this (especially balancing and text rewrite) we will be most happy. :)
"Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration" (Thomas Edison) Which is why I smell so bad!
Anonymissimus
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Anonymissimus »

some thoughts

A2-Homecoming.cfg:
The map is way too large and the scenario too lengthy. On my relatively slow machine I spent a lot of time watching the undead allies move. Although there might be an engine issue with "share_view" and such; this didn't work when I was playing it and the engine has in general problems with that feature afaik.
Even if I had played with quick elves, the eventless moving in the windy tunnels is tedious. I recently realized how important it is to force oneself to make maps mostly rather small (~1000 hexes) - they don't need to be large, really. For this scenario I'd suggest a medium map (~2000 hexes), though.

A3-First_Contact.cfg:
This one was great. Just to say something positive as a placeholder for the rest. ;)

A4-Siege_Perilous.cfg:
-In the middle objectives, lose-condition "Time runs out" doesn't make sense.
-Have you tested what happens if Grog and Krunk don't enter the tunnel in the same turn ? Because Krunk is the leader, but Grog must enter last, the player will probably loose as soon as Krunk has entered and the player hits "Turn done" with Grog still on the map, since the human side always looses if there's no leader afaik.
You can, maybe, "fix" this by adding to the objectives that Krunk and Grog must enter in the same turn. ;)
projects (BfW 1.12):
A Simple Campaign: campaign draft for wml startersPlan Your Advancements: mp mod
The Earth's Gut: sp campaignSettlers of Wesnoth: mp scenarioWesnoth Lua Pack: lua tags and utils
updated to 1.8 and handed over: A Gryphon's Tale: sp campaign
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Eros
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Re: The Sojournings of Grog (1.6)

Post by Eros »

A2

We have decided to leave as is. We want to have at least one mammoth scenario like the one at the end of HoT.

We do have a lot of problems with share_view. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. We found that the thing that slows the ai down is the target clauses, however we need these to make the undead play correctly.

A3

Thankyou. It is very play dependant. sometimes its a walkover sometimes its impossible. We want to have lowere level units though as it is an amazing leveler scenario.

A4

We did check it (I think) If we have any problems I will make it so Krunk enters last rather than Grog.

Thankyou for the feedback it is really helpful.
"Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration" (Thomas Edison) Which is why I smell so bad!
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