Drake campaign - few ideas

[Elven]

Hello everyone,

as you surely know, a new campaign with drakes is becoming official. What is, of course, very nice. I am currently thinking about making a new, very simply campaign for 1.15 and newer versions of Wesnoth, yet I do not wish to make it alone. So... looking for some help. I allready made some campaigns in the past, like Final Exam, The Three Elves, Unite the Clans etc.

So, first things first... here are my plans:

- 3 scenarios, no special units. Aim is to make a simple campaign, good for new players, so not very hard and not very complicated.

Scenario 1: Drakes are living in a medium-size island. Everything is okay for a long time. Leader of the drakes is a big, powerful and respected drake. However, a LOT of orcish assassins are attacking and the leader is encycled. His son will have to gather saurian allies and drive back invading orcs.

Scenario 2: By making allies of the saurians, some drake "clans" do not wish to be a friend with you any more. Also, your main drake leader is dead and they do not think your hero, his son, is strong enough. Yep, classis drake civil war, that will end by your victory, if you defeat all rebel leaders.

Scenario 3: Orcs are back with greater numbers. However, your scouts reported it to you soon enough, so you can prepare and kill a lot of orcs in the waters between your island and the main continent. Orc leader is very strong and have a lot of strong units (and they can use poison), so you will have to starve them - take a lot of villages. However, naga will come to help orcs against you, so this will be the longest scenario.

Heroes: Your leader is very fast drake glider and his best friend is also a very fast drake glider. You will be able to hire strong drakes during the campaign, so you will not have every drake in the first scenario.

Now, about technical things. I will draw maps, write dialogues etc. However, it is some time before i made some campaigns, so I need a good template to start. Does anyone wish to help a bit?

[Lord-Knightmare]

Scenario 1: Drakes are living in a medium-size island. Everything is okay for a long time. Leader of the drakes is a big, powerful and respected drake. However, a LOT of orcish assassins are attacking and the leader is encycled. His son will have to gather saurian allies and drive back invading orcs.

A drake campaign would be nice, even if it is just 3 scenarios. However, I do find it rather trite/banal of orcs and undead always being thrown in as the bad guys. It would be nice if the antagonists were another faction for a change.

Scenario 3: Orcs are back with greater numbers. However, your scouts reported it to you soon enough, so you can prepare and kill a lot of orcs in the waters between your island and the main continent. Orc leader is very strong and have a lot of strong units (and they can use poison), so you will have to starve them - take a lot of villages. However, naga will come to help orcs against you, so this will be the longest scenario.

Not really a fan of an orcish warlord spamming Slayers and Nightblades. Plus, since you have already mentioned that the player is given access to high level Drakes, then can be countered with the Drakes backed up by Saurian Soothsayers which seem to be the ideal advancement considering your intended drafts for the 3 scenarios.

However, it is some time before i made some campaigns, so I need a good template to start.

Your previously created work "The Final Exam" is one of the best campaign starter templates there is. I used to use your add-on as a skeleton for my own ones back in 2013-2015.

[Elven]

1) well, i wish to use poison. so... outlaws have poison too. maybe i can use them.

3) using all orc units. not just the guys with poison. so... not sure if he will use trolls, but basic melee and ranged units are a necessity of course.

about final exam, donno how can i get to it. where can i find the data after a looong time? i know that an archive is somewhere... can you pls find a link?

[Elven]

https://github.com/cooljeanius/wesnoth_ ... Final_Exam

found it

[egallager]

https://github.com/cooljeanius/wesnoth_ ... Final_Exam

found it

Oh yup that's mine; I originally got it from the 1.14 add-on server, seeing as it's still on there...

[Elven]

and i found an old mail, where i had my old main, server.pbl etc lucky me

question, how should i take care about gold carryover? how does campaign use it these days?

[Elven]

currently working on scenario 2. And there might be a problem with it. Currently it have a lot of sides, leaders, units... everything on big map. with classic "kill all enemy leaders".

Problem is that the scenario is very boring and not very logical. I simply does not want a million drakes everywhere. So... any idea how to change it? 25 gold for everyone is not a good idea, because there will be a very small amount of drakes early on and yet a lot of them at the end. removing most of the villages are also not the desired way... also adding a LOT of water in a problem, because i wish to use crashers. So... ideas? Or, do you think that civil war between crashers might be still a good idea?

[Lord-Knightmare]

Problem is that the scenario is very boring and not very logical. I simply does not want a million drakes everywhere. So... any idea how to change it? 25 gold for everyone is not a good idea, because there will be a very small amount of drakes early on and yet a lot of them at the end. removing most of the villages are also not the desired way... also adding a LOT of water in a problem, because i wish to use crashers. So... ideas? Or, do you think that civil war between crashers might be still a good idea?

Why not just spice things up a bit?
Like, add some pick-up items and some hidden surprises on the map, monster nests.
instead of Drakes sides spamming massive enemy blobs like the traditional way, why not reduce the starting gold and vary the income to ensure a constant stream of recruits joining the battle from all sides?
Alternate between their allies. Certain Drake sides might have Naga on their team, or Merfolk, or Saurians?
Add water ford terrain instead of shallow/deep water hexes to ensure Clashers do not get hindered significantly.
Finally, if you have a big map with a large number of units, please use the Fast Micro AI and maybe a recruiting MAI to ensure that the Ai turns are faster than 10 minutes.

[Elven]

well, i deeply tested it right now and it looks fine. there are some minor surprises, time to add more of them. there is more types of water, so crashers does not have a problem. acutally, i lost, because my saurian friend was killed one turn before i finished the last drake enemy

in fact, i dont want this scenario to be too hard. big battle means a lot of experience, what is needed for last scenario. also i need to modify dialogues. right now it is just a lot of talk at the beginning and nothing in the middle, just killing...

[Elven]

Published, so free to play

Name: Leader of the Drakes

Wesnoth versions: 1.14 and 1.15

Differences between versions: none. No mushrooms, no units that needs newer versions

[Lord-Knightmare]

Published, so free to play

Name: Leader of the Drakes

Wesnoth versions: 1.14 and 1.15

Differences between versions: none. No mushrooms, no units that needs newer versions

Hi!
I think I may be the first to review this.

Wesnoth 1.15.10, NORMAL difficulty

My Review:

First Scenario - Island

• Kazin (the drake fighter) had his death listed as a death condition but is a loyal unit. Should be a Hero unit.
• I could only recruit Gliders and then Fighters, which was nice.
• Orcs? really? I am tried of seeing them as the antagonists all the time...it's getting really overused now.
• Saurians as AI allies..I guess that's nice. However, what did you set as the AI parameters? This ally was more of a hindrance than of actual assistance.
• Won in 15/32

Second Scenario - Clans

• Two AI allies. I appreciate it but they seem be really dumb. One just took stole all my villages and the other kept feeding the Drakes XP and almost gave me a defeat condition if I hadn't adjusted him mid-game.
• I got the full recruit set of Drakes by luck. The Sky Drake helps.
• This scenario was very frustrating. I expected some all out Drake-civil war but a 3v5 brawl instead. Still won with heavy losses.
• Recruiting Burners here seem like a waste since all Drakes have a 50% Fire resistance. I spammed Clashers here as soon as I got them unlocked.
• Please just make my allies actually useful rather than nuisances.
• Saurians got slaughtered more or less on grassland areas.
• The 2x Soothsayers were nice. Appreciated.
• Thank you for that Drake Thrasher who camped at his village the entire time.

Scenario 3 - Homecoming

• Final scenario, I guess?
• I guess you assumed Naga Spam would be useful but all it did was feed my Drakes.
• Trolls are useless and were just XP to me. Drakes have impact resistance and during the daytime, then can severely reduce the trolls to a pathetic level where they just don't attack back.
• My AI ally was stealing my villages and being useless as usual. I gave up on him.
• Assassins? Yeah, annoying but got swatted down like flies. Drake Warriors and that Drake Blademaster made them regret using the ranged attack.
• Goblin Spearmen? really? I see the pierce melee and ranged but they are squishy and only fed.
• The enemy AI leaders all moved at the same keep so killed them in one turn. This restricted them in properly organising their units in the 2-3 passages and this was their undoing.
• Maybe consider using Naga Dirkfangs too? Naga Fighters are hopeless against Drake Burners and Sky Drakes.

Replays

LotD-1 Island replay 20210309-030634.gz

(21.22 KiB) Downloaded 101 times

LotD-2 Clans replay 20210309-034807.gz

(42.58 KiB) Downloaded 108 times

LotD-3 Homecoming replay 20210309-041645.gz

(45.53 KiB) Downloaded 104 times

Starting Impressions

• Campaign icon had no TC
• Difficulty descriptions lacked TC
• Scenario names in objectives had their number with them like 3_Homecoming
• I really love your map detailing. They were very vivid.
• You can improve the flawed aspects of this campaign by making some improvements, especially to the AI allies.
• I liked how the total gameplay lasted around 70 minutes at most.
• Do consider swapping out the orcs for some other enemies..like maybe Dunefolk (they got poisoners too)?

[Elven]

Many many thanks! Your feeback is excelent. Some bugs can be easily removed by me, like in the last scenario. Some... Well... I might use some help.

Naga dirkfang: they are great, i even had them, but i decided to remove them to make it the same with 1.14 and 1.15. i can add them for 1.15 only, or i can add mermen. Mermens are not the same as nagas of course.

About that special clasher in s2 - i used him to attack, so defending only for few turns.

Also, i have to improve dialogues etc.

[Elven]

changes so far (i will upload in the evening):

- passive leaders
- they have more gold after turn 16 in s3 and more units to choose from
- Hirem the defender is now quick
- heroes are marked as heroes

well, i will be very happy if someone cen help a bit with other things

[Elven]

v 1.0.1 uploaded to both 1.15 and 1.14

- lots of fixes
- modified some maps (map 2 should be tested a lot, because central fort is currently very large)
- TC corrected
- enemies have more possibilities in s3
- changes to some unit
- big change - your warrior hero is now a drake fighter with cold attack and slow
- turn 16 in s3 is a big boost for enemies
- dirkfangs

[Lord-Knightmare]

Hello, I have tried out the recent updated version:
Replays:

LotD-1 Island replay 20210311-125157.gz

(19.7 KiB) Downloaded 102 times

LotD-2 Clans replay 20210311-131809.gz

(40.03 KiB) Downloaded 107 times

LotD-3 Homecoming replay 20210311-134444.gz

(43.76 KiB) Downloaded 101 times

Comments:
1. Campaign menu icon still lacks some TC but the difficulty option icons have them now.
2. The Drake Fighter Hero still gets a Loyal icon.
3. The Drake Fighter Hero has cold and slow in both ranged and melee.
4. AI ally of the first scenario has improved.
5. Second scenario is less frustrating now.
6. Third scenario notes:

• The AI ally is still useless. Clashers are not optimized for this side. The Fighters and Burners did provide some aid. Consider swapping out Clashers for Drake Warriors/Drake Flares/Fire Drakes?
• Adding the Naga Dirkfang added some challenge to this scenario.
• enemy formation can fall apart if aggressive tactics are undertaken during the Dawn/Morning time, which is intended I guess.

7. Scenario names still have numbers in them.