Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Discussion and development of scenarios and campaigns for the game.

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egallager
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Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

SotBEEE_big.png
I recently published my fork of Son of the Black Eye, called "Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition" on the 1.14 add-on server. At first I developed this fork as part of my generalized collection of mods; its history as part of that can be found here: https://github.com/cooljeanius/wesnoth_mods/tree/master/campaigns/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye
Once I decided that I was actually going to make a separate add-on for it, however, I moved development of it into a new, separate repository for it, which can be found here: https://github.com/cooljeanius/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye_Easy_Edition
Here is a brief summary of the changes I made compared to mainline:
  • Difficulty (obviously). Note that I only tried to make it easier to complete the main objectives; it still ought to be difficult to complete the optional objectives, such as defeating enemy leaders in scenarios where you're only supposed to survive. I added some new events to discourage you from trying to kill such leaders.
  • Flavor changes. These are changes that aren't necessarily about difficulty, but rather more about trying to make the gameplay situations better match the descriptions given for them. Some even might actually make them harder rather than easier.
  • Completing unfinished code left commented-out previously. For example, I added back the assassination code in "Civil War"
For people who have played thru the campaign, I have the following (spoilered) questions for feedback for future directions to take the campaign in:
Spoiler:
For people who HAVEN'T played the campaign yet, well, I hope that you will!
Last edited by egallager on June 19th, 2022, 2:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
WINR
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by WINR »

I will update this post slowly trying all scenarios twice:

S01
Difficulty: Normal
First Try
Sticking to your definition of easy I tried a quick raid (few recruits in the start keep and run to the second keep)
and I ended up massacred around turn 15 :D
But that happens to me sometimes also in the Standard Hard Edition.
I believe first scenario is all about timing if you speed up things too much you get destroyed, if you wait too much turns run out.
A Cavalry man successfully claimed back 3 south-west villages (also in the second try) I think earlier than normal.
Don't know if Core-AI got better since last time I played Sotbe (which was long ago) or was just a coincidence.

Second Try
Same tactic but a more solid first recruit.
This time everything went smooth and I won easily and ended up with really a lot of gold and a bunch of good re-callables.

Conclusion
As you stated no significant changes apart from the chance to end up with a lot of gold which makes SO2 an option

S02
First Try
320 starting gold
recalls
2 orchish warriors
1 level 2 crossbow archer
7 half-levelled units
vrag
I decided to wait for the loyalists in my keep and waited to recruit for a few turns in order to save more money.
The plan was taking the surrounding mountains (probably a good idea) and fight toe-to-toe.
But when the loyalists got close I panicked and recalled all the units (bad idea) which opened for a quick escape at turn 14 which awarded me a lot of final gold (233 carryover 50% 117 final) but also costed the death of all the good recalls.
I didn't try to find the easter eggs you mentioned. I will do in the second try after I studied your code, but first impression is that without them Langbach remains untouchable. Indeed still a significant change from standard edition where optional S02 is basically only a loss of time (in my xp at least)
S02
Second Try
320 starting gold
This time the plan was to not recall any veteran unit in order to save them for later scenarios and to advance as much as possible in order to impact the loyalists close to middle map.
01_sc02.png
I also recruited a few units to stay with the leader close to the signpost, for another early escape or to be ready to support the frontline in the unlikely case they could somewhat survive the loyalists impact
02_sc02.png
How it ended is better described by the two following screenshots
03_sc02.png
04_sc02.png
Ayway I could escape again early at turn 13. All in all second try was more convient as I ended up with the same large sum of money and all the veteran units. First impression was somewhat confirmed but all in all at least it makes sense to play the optional scenario.
For the moment it is all from the frontlines :D
(maybe I'm spoiling too much for other players, let me know in case)
The real fun starts when you code your first campaign
WINR
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Joined: April 12th, 2014, 4:33 pm

Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by WINR »

Scenario3
Since at first glance killing the dwarves seemed to be more than a feasibile target, I discarded the usual plan to run as fast possible to the signpost and opted instead to engage the dwarves.

First try
I was killed near the dwarves' keep :(

Second try
Same plan, but I added a couple of wolf riders to the recruit for fast-stealing the northern villages.
In the process I unfortunately lost a couple of valuable veterans but this time I ended up recruiting in the dwarves' keep
Once again I finished with a lot of gold which was encouraging for the next scenario (the siege of Barak_Gor) which is by far my favorite scenario and I too agree it has become too unbalanced.
02_sc03.png

Scenario4
starting gold 370
In addition to what you wrote here I think you also added a village in the upper north which is a good addition in case you are short of gold (which was not my case).
I overwhelmed the facing Elves' leader and could get in time to evacuate the shamans.
It was not too easy even at normal level, it took 24 turns out of 26 but rather than a desperate rush against time there was room for some strategy which is what makes wesnoth fun in my opinion.
On making Rugh's death a show-stopper I don't completly agree because I liked to use him a suicide attacker in trying to liberate the orchish assassin earlier in the game.
In conclusion the scenario is definetly more balanced and more fun to play than in official edition and is probably still challenging at hard level.
04_01.png
The real fun starts when you code your first campaign
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egallager
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

Note that Yumi recently pushed a balance patch to mainline SotBE, so I will be updating this add-on in response to those changes. So far I have pushed a commit to GitHub in response, but I will need to test it first before uploading a new version to the add-on server: https://github.com/cooljeanius/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye_Easy_Edition/commit/69da735dbf49abab92506217bce3048ccdd41a09
Last edited by egallager on June 19th, 2022, 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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egallager
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

egallager wrote: March 2nd, 2021, 8:02 am Note that Yumi recently pushed a balance patch to mainline SotBE, so I will be updating this add-on in response to those changes. So far I have pushed a commit to GitHub in response, but I will need to test it first before uploading a new version to the add-on server: https://github.com/cooljeanius/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye_Easy_Edition/commit/69da735dbf49abab92506217bce3048ccdd41a09
Update: I have now done said testing, and uploaded the resulting update to the 1.14 add-on server; the corresponding GitHub tag for it is here: https://github.com/cooljeanius/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye_Easy_Edition/releases/tag/1.1.0
Last edited by egallager on June 19th, 2022, 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

Some help updating the translations for this campaign would be appreciated; I've attached the latest potfile I've generated for it here, for any translators unable to download it from GitHub:
wesnoth-sotbeee.pot.gz
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egallager
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

Version 1.2.0 is now available on the 1.14 add-on server; corresponding GitHub tag for it (incl. changelog) is here: https://github.com/cooljeanius/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye_Easy_Edition/releases/tag/1.2.0
Last edited by egallager on June 19th, 2022, 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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egallager
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

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egallager
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

I have now ported this campaign to BfW 1.16; the release on the 1.16 add-on server is version 1.4.0 and the corresponding GitHub tag for it is here: https://github.com/cooljeanius/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye_Easy_Edition/releases/tag/1.4.0
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

I realized I hadn't released in awhile, so I made a new release: SotBE:EE 1.4.1, available on the BfW 1.16 add-on server:
https://github.com/cooljeanius/Son_Of_The_Black_Eye_Easy_Edition/releases/tag/1.4.1
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Re: Son of the Black Eye Easy Edition

Post by egallager »

Just a heads-up that 1.4.1 will be the final release for the BfW 1.16 add-on server. I haven't ported it to BfW 1.18 yet, but once I do, that will be a new release, although I'm not sure if that will be 1.4.2 or 1.5.0 yet...
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