Monster Hunt 2.0

[Limabean]

This is an asymmetrical 1v1 multiplayer scenario. One player will control a powerful monster leading an endless zombie horde, and the other will control a group of powerful heroes. Many mechanics have been changed from standard Wesnoth to make things flow more smoothly. It is available on 1.16.

I'd appreciate any feedback on balance, ideas to make it more fun, bug reports, or replays. Thank you!

The Basics

- The game host can either select which player gets which role at the start, or let it be chosen randomly
- Intended to be played with Age of Heroes (or equivalent), so the hero player can recruit lvl 2 units.
- Villages will not give gold income. The intent is for the heroes to have a limited number of powerful units from the start, while the monster will gain strength and numbers slowly but endlessly.
- There are 4 cave villages, called 'grottos', in the corners of the map. These will spawn zombies every turn, and can each be upgraded to a max of 6 spawn points by the monster.
- Grottos will be destroyed if a hero moves to them, and if all 4 are destroyed the monster loses.
- All hero units and the monster have a special hit-and-run ability: attacking costs 2 moves, rather than all remaining moves. This makes it much easier to cut through a zombie horde than in normal wesnoth.

Hero Bonuses

- Heroes will be able to choose between powerful global perks at the start. These include stat boosts, more gold, or the ability to attack again when they kill an enemy unit.
- Heroes can also buy powerful artifacts at the start to further enhance their abilities
- Several events will happen at specific turns to help the hero player (and give them some fun new toys).

The Zombie Plague

-Any time a monster-controlled unit with plague, poison, or disease moves onto a village, it is destroyed by a zombie plague. This creates a random number of walking corpses and hero-controlled survivors.
- If any of the hero units reach an unowned village, they will 'raise the alarm' and the player will get a random level 1 unit to help
-There is a central city with many ai defenders allied to the heroes. If the monster kills the ai general at the center, they win the game"

Horde Control

-The size of the monster's army can become very large. There is a special system to help speed turns up. Instead of moving every unit, just focus on the essentials. Units that have not moved by the end of the monster's turn will be controlled by the ai temporarily and then given back to the player for their next turn.
-As an extra incentive, each unit the monster doesn't use on its turn will earn 1 gold. Gold can be saved up and used to buy an instant burst of healing.

Monster Economy

-The monster has 2 primary resources: 'hitpoints' and 'max hitpoints'
-The monster's max hitpoints will slowly increase over time with a 'growth' ability, and by killing enemies with 'feeding'. They can be spent to increase the number of zombie spawns at each grotto."
-Hitpoints can be used to upgrade growth and feeding abilities, and recruit special units adjacent to the monster at any time
-Once per turn, instead of attacking, the monster can eat any of its own units to heal half of that unit's hp."
-Strategy: Feeding is extremely important to build momentum. You want to be killing enemies as frequently as possible. Use the ai units, or survivors from destroyed villages to do this consistently. Remember to keep at least enough max hp to do this safely.

P.S.

If the name sounds familiar to any old timers, this is a remake of an old scenario which I abandoned nearly 10 years ago. I was inspired to dust off Wesnoth earlier this summer, and couldn't help picking up WML along with it

[dwarftough]

Hi, there is an inconvenience that the hero side can't undo even if they don't disclose any fog/shroud. Seems like some moveto event or something resetting undo.

To be honest, with all horde control measures, still felt quite tedious, also I feel like zombies have an upper hand but maybe I didn't see a more focused approach for the hero side

[Atreides]

I played this vs the AI but on reading the post here I suspect that's not the intended method? If AI play is supported though there is a fair problem with the monster leader rushing at the centre solo and getting killed (on turn 5). I didn't even get my leader there in time to help, the city AI side managed it with ease.

A couple more minor things. At the side selection screen both player 1 and 3 are listed as part of the heroes team even though 3 is the monster. This confuses and I had to restart several times to get it setup correctly. All 5 sides need to have disallow_shuffle=yes else you (might) get a mess.

I should try this again without the AI player. Oh and some note suggesting an AoH era in the scenario desc. would help, I didn't know that either until I read it here.

It does look very promising though.

[Limabean]

Hi, there is an inconvenience that the hero side can't undo even if they don't disclose any fog/shroud. Seems like some moveto event or something resetting undo.

To be honest, with all horde control measures, still felt quite tedious, also I feel like zombies have an upper hand but maybe I didn't see a more focused approach for the hero side

Hi dwarftough, thanks for pointing out the issue with undo, I hadn't noticed it. I've just uploaded a fix, so undo should now work as expected. Would you mind going into more specifics regarding the horde? Is it just too long to wait for all the zombies, even when the AI is moving most of them? Is it not interesting to fight or control them?

[Limabean]

I played this vs the AI but on reading the post here I suspect that's not the intended method? If AI play is supported though there is a fair problem with the monster leader rushing at the centre solo and getting killed (on turn 5). I didn't even get my leader there in time to help, the city AI side managed it with ease.

A couple more minor things. At the side selection screen both player 1 and 3 are listed as part of the heroes team even though 3 is the monster. This confuses and I had to restart several times to get it setup correctly. All 5 sides need to have disallow_shuffle=yes else you (might) get a mess.

I should try this again without the AI player. Oh and some note suggesting an AoH era in the scenario desc. would help, I didn't know that either until I read it here.

It does look very promising though.

Yeah, it's not intended to work with AI. The AI doesn't know how to use any of the features, and it's dumb enough to go on a suicide charge. By side selection screen, do you mean the lobby before the game starts? It is intentional that both players start on the hero team. When the game starts, the host should get a menu option to pick which player gets to be the monster. So the monster is not always player 3.

I appreciate the suggestions. I've added disallow_shuffle to all the sides, and updated the scenario description to mention that it is meant for AoH, and does not work with AI.

[Atreides]

I've started a new game playing both sides and I see clearly now that with all the right click options there's no way the AI can play either side. : ) Although what one can do is to just order the monster leader and his whole side will be run by the AI then which is quite cool. Of course one can always assign special missions to some of the Zombie Horde as needed. (Such as an escort for the leader of course : )

Yes the lobby is what I meant (I don't play online often enough, hard to find anyone who doesn't wanna play Isar and default hehe) and I realized that the selection of the monster player (which was confusing) would likely be much clearer online with players names. All I saw when playing offline was anonymous player 1/3 (and random) and as you can imagine that's puzzling at first. Sadly Wesnoth doesn't use the player name offline since 1.14 anymore. Anyways it's all clear now.

This is a real hum dinger of a scenario. I've gotta try and rope in somebody online to play it. : ) Now what were the tricks again? Oh yeah, use a catchy name ("Are you a monster or a hero? Come find out!") , use the default era and don't give up too soon. ; )

Many thanks for bringing this back.

Addendum: A few more observations. 1) When I wrote that "all" sides need disallow shuffle I should have written player sides, the others don't get shuffled. (note for WML searchers) 2) The horde AI does not seem to control the special recruited monster units like ghouls and rats and so on (which is fine they really ought to be manually directed so just a reminder to players to not forget them!) 3) The AI can be set to play the Hero side on turn 2 actually since it only uses right clicks/makes selections on turn 1 (it doesn't play it well of course, the importance of villages is unknown to it) 4) This really is a "race for the villages" so mobility seems paramount. Playing with some non default eras that had great movement really showed that - the best perk for heroes seems to be the first.

[Limabean]

This is a real hum dinger of a scenario. I've gotta try and rope in somebody online to play it. : ) Now what were the tricks again? Oh yeah, use a catchy name ("Are you a monster or a hero? Come find out!") , use the default era and don't give up too soon. ; )

Many thanks for bringing this back.

Addendum: A few more observations. 1) When I wrote that "all" sides need disallow shuffle I should have written player sides, the others don't get shuffled. (note for WML searchers) 2) The horde AI does not seem to control the special recruited monster units like ghouls and rats and so on (which is fine they really ought to be manually directed so just a reminder to players to not forget them!) 3) The AI can be set to play the Hero side on turn 2 actually since it only uses right clicks/makes selections on turn 1 (it doesn't play it well of course, the importance of villages is unknown to it) 4) This really is a "race for the villages" so mobility seems paramount. Playing with some non default eras that had great movement really showed that - the best perk for heroes seems to be the first.

2) Yeah it would be nice to add some way to cycle through the special units only, to make them harder to forget. One thing I was considering is adding a button to give all remaining zombies to the ai before the end of turn. That way the only units remaining would be specials so the usual "next unit" would work.

4) Yeah, I'd agree that the speed perk is generally the most useful for the heroes. Although I think the multiattack is better if you're playing a faction that already has a lot of movement, like drakes or loyalists with a lot of knights. I think I probably need to change the balance the gold perk to make it more attractive. Let me know if you find another era that is fun with it! I playtest online as much as I can, if you see me there send me a message and we can play game

[Atreides]

This is a real hum dinger of a scenario. I've gotta try and rope in somebody online to play it. : ) Now what were the tricks again? Oh yeah, use a catchy name ("Are you a monster or a hero? Come find out!") , use the default era and don't give up too soon. ; )

Many thanks for bringing this back.

Addendum: A few more observations. 1) When I wrote that "all" sides need disallow shuffle I should have written player sides, the others don't get shuffled. (note for WML searchers) 2) The horde AI does not seem to control the special recruited monster units like ghouls and rats and so on (which is fine they really ought to be manually directed so just a reminder to players to not forget them!) 3) The AI can be set to play the Hero side on turn 2 actually since it only uses right clicks/makes selections on turn 1 (it doesn't play it well of course, the importance of villages is unknown to it) 4) This really is a "race for the villages" so mobility seems paramount. Playing with some non default eras that had great movement really showed that - the best perk for heroes seems to be the first.

2) Yeah it would be nice to add some way to cycle through the special units only, to make them harder to forget. One thing I was considering is adding a button to give all remaining zombies to the ai before the end of turn. That way the only units remaining would be specials so the usual "next unit" would work.

4) Yeah, I'd agree that the speed perk is generally the most useful for the heroes. Although I think the multiattack is better if you're playing a faction that already has a lot of movement, like drakes or loyalists with a lot of knights. I think I probably need to change the balance the gold perk to make it more attractive. Let me know if you find another era that is fun with it! I playtest online as much as I can, if you see me there send me a message and we can play game

The button for 2 would be quite useful. Order zombies you want to, hit that and then cycle through the remaining "elite" monsters. : )

For 4 that is spot on, different factions would benefit differently from the perks. Bloodlust would be good for hard hitters and glass cannons.
Yes the gold perk is nice but since it sort of negates part of the VIP bonus (no debt to erase) it seems a little less desirable. But it's a perfect choice if you intend to hand the heroes over to the AI on turn 2 since the AI will probably use gold best.
As for eras I'm sure most will work well. I've been using the Neverending Era (collection of eras) so far. Vampire faction from Era of Chaos were a lot of fun, super mobility from Bat transformation and immunity to plague too...

I just was reading your old post about version 1. One thing that was interesting was that then the monster side was much more fun apparently. Version 2 has equalized that nicely. Perks, artifacts, reinforcements and of course as wide a choice of factions as one wants. Still might DL the 1.12 port (still have 1.12 installed) out of curiosity. 4 players... placeable grottos. Yeah, curiosity always wins...

I'll keep an eye out for you online. No doubt I'll get schooled well, hehe.

[Limabean]

I've just pushed an update. Changes are:

1. A variety of small bugfixes.
2. Rebalancing artifacts for heroes. Added a few new artifacts. Increased the discount for the gold perk from 20% to 30%
3. Added button to give control of unused zombies to AI before the end of the turn.
4. Nerfed the monster by changing the way spawns work. Now, spawn points will be temporarily deactivated if there is a unit standing on the grotto village. So the monster can no longer just sit a unit on the village to play defense. They have to defend from farther out, which makes it more possible for the hero to slip a unit through. Whether or not a specific spawn point is active is kept updated with visual cues on the map.

[Atreides]

I've just pushed an update. Changes are:

1. A variety of small bugfixes.
2. Rebalancing artifacts for heroes. Added a few new artifacts. Increased the discount for the gold perk from 20% to 30%
3. Added button to give control of unused zombies to AI before the end of the turn.
4. Nerfed the monster by changing the way spawns work. Now, spawn points will be temporarily deactivated if there is a unit standing on the grotto village. So the monster can no longer just sit a unit on the village to play defense. They have to defend from farther out, which makes it more possible for the hero to slip a unit through. Whether or not a specific spawn point is active is kept updated with visual cues on the map.

Nice, I gave it a few runs and my observations are:
1) Found a small thing from 1.12 that needs changing. The arch mage portrait is still looking for the transparent directory. Saw that in the error log.
2) Tried putting in an [ai] directive for the player side (so when I droid the Hero side they might play better) with support_villages=yes and village_value=2 but so far it doesn't seem to be enough. Will try caution 1 and aggression 0 (zombie fighting has to be done CAREFULLY :- ) (Yes I know scenario was not designed for ai play, I'm just tinkering)
3) Now to the current stuff - I see that the lower right grotto no longer can be given any right click orders (like summon guardians, etc.). Wondering why.
4) That same lower right grotto now spawns player controlled zombies. Also wondering why.
5) The new option to turn over zombie control is nice. One new trick using it is to do it and get the extra gold for healing a turn sooner.

[Limabean]

Hey Atreides, thanks for taking the time to test some more!

Nice, I gave it a few runs and my observations are:
1) Found a small thing from 1.12 that needs changing. The arch mage portrait is still looking for the transparent directory. Saw that in the error log.

Aha, good catch. Updated.

2) Tried putting in an [ai] directive for the player side (so when I droid the Hero side they might play better) with support_villages=yes and village_value=2 but so far it doesn't seem to be enough. Will try caution 1 and aggression 0 (zombie fighting has to be done CAREFULLY :- ) (Yes I know scenario was not designed for ai play, I'm just tinkering)

Interesting experiment, I will say good luck! If you can make it reasonably fun with an AI I am happy to add the changes and credit you. I think the fundamental problem is that the AI will never have any idea how the monster works. So even if you give the AI enough income to recruit new units every turn, the monster can cheese them with things like mass poison or disease (which they have no response to). Then when they are weakened, the monster can farm them with feeding, which they can't strategize around. Not saying it's impossible, it just seems difficult to me.

3) Now to the current stuff - I see that the lower right grotto no longer can be given any right click orders (like summon guardians, etc.). Wondering why.
4) That same lower right grotto now spawns player controlled zombies. Also wondering why.

I don't think either of these are new. The lower right grotto has always had upgrades disabled. The thinking with this design is that the monster needs some time to build up numbers and feed. The starting grottos with 2 spawn points have no chance if the heroes just walk straight to them. The longer the game goes, the stronger the monster gets. The lower right grotto is intended as an initial challenge that the heroes are SUPPOSED to win. If they do it really fast, they get an advantage because they can get to the others before the monster is fully ready. If the monster can delay them with smart play, it gets an advantage. It's also kind of a tutorial as it immediately shows both sides how strong these buffed heroes are in comparison to a horde of zombies.

If upgrades are allowed, the monster is strongly incentivized to defend it at all costs because it starts with 2 extra spawn points. So, rather than going out onto the map to destroy villages and feed, the monster sinks surplus hp into that point to buy guardians and another spawn point. Maybe it also teleports there to defend it personally. If it does this and kills enough heroes to block them, the game is basically over in 5 turns. If it messes up and the heroes destroy the grotto anyway, the game is also over in 5 turns. Neither outcome seems fun to me, so I just disallow it. For that same reason I have an immovable ai zombie on the grotto: it prevents the monster from ever teleporting there to defend it personally.

The spawns from that point have always been player controlled. There is one change, which is that they spawn 4 human controlled zombies on the first turn. For what it's worth, I reduced the number of ai zombies at start by 4, so the total number is the same. Previously they would not spawn the first turn because the spawn points were blocked by ai zombies. The recent change is that now only human-controlled units block spawn points. I did this because now when a grotto is blocked, is also blocks all the spawn points. I didn't want an ai to mess with the player's reinforcements

None of this is explained to the player, and I'd agree it looks like a bug when upgrades don't work. It would just be a lot of detail to add to instructions that are already too long. Basically I need to make a better way to explain things to players that isn't a wall of text. I guess I could also design a KISS scenario, but I like making things complicated

5) The new option to turn over zombie control is nice. One new trick using it is to do it and get the extra gold for healing a turn sooner.

True, it's a decent strategy in a pinch

[Atreides]

Interesting experiment, I will say good luck! If you can make it reasonably fun with an AI I am happy to add the changes and credit you. I think the fundamental problem is that the AI will never have any idea how the monster works. So even if you give the AI enough income to recruit new units every turn, the monster can cheese them with things like mass poison or disease (which they have no response to). Then when they are weakened, the monster can farm them with feeding, which they can't strategize around. Not saying it's impossible, it just seems difficult to me.

Oh totally agree, the scenario is just too sophisticated for the AI (which is good at combat and that's about it). So far the other settings I've tried don't seem to have much of an effect. Teaching the AI is the fine art of zombie-slaying is a nice dream but there isn't even remotely an ai setting for "don't let your units be killed by zombies unless they're on a village"... :- )

I don't think either of these are new. The lower right grotto has always had upgrades disabled. The thinking with this design is that the monster needs some time to build up numbers and feed. The starting grottos with 2 spawn points have no chance if the heroes just walk straight to them. The longer the game goes, the stronger the monster gets. The lower right grotto is intended as an initial challenge that the heroes are SUPPOSED to win. If they do it really fast, they get an advantage because they can get to the others before the monster is fully ready. If the monster can delay them with smart play, it gets an advantage. It's also kind of a tutorial as it immediately shows both sides how strong these buffed heroes are in comparison to a horde of zombies.

If upgrades are allowed, the monster is strongly incentivized to defend it at all costs because it starts with 2 extra spawn points. So, rather than going out onto the map to destroy villages and feed, the monster sinks surplus hp into that point to buy guardians and another spawn point. Maybe it also teleports there to defend it personally. If it does this and kills enough heroes to block them, the game is basically over in 5 turns. If it messes up and the heroes destroy the grotto anyway, the game is also over in 5 turns. Neither outcome seems fun to me, so I just disallow it. For that same reason I have an immovable ai zombie on the grotto: it prevents the monster from ever teleporting there to defend it personally.

The spawns from that point have always been player controlled. There is one change, which is that they spawn 4 human controlled zombies on the first turn. For what it's worth, I reduced the number of ai zombies at start by 4, so the total number is the same. Previously they would not spawn the first turn because the spawn points were blocked by ai zombies. The recent change is that now only human-controlled units block spawn points. I did this because now when a grotto is blocked, is also blocks all the spawn points. I didn't want an ai to mess with the player's reinforcements

None of this is explained to the player, and I'd agree it looks like a bug when upgrades don't work. It would just be a lot of detail to add to instructions that are already too long. Basically I need to make a better way to explain things to players that isn't a wall of text. I guess I could also design a KISS scenario, but I like making things complicated ;)

Hmm maybe I was only _thinking_ of putting guardians in the lower right. One game I was playing both sides and I wanted to put some in the lower right as my heroes were getting too close. Turns out I surprised myself (WHAT?) and slipped a hero in the turn before I was gonna make guardians. Guess I never actually tried right clicking it before.

Thanks for explaining about how that corner is actually supposed to be doomed. I felt guilty each time I took it with my heroes, hehe.

Indeed the instructions are pretty long already and I suspect some players may give it the TLDNR treatment. : ( Even I, a big reader, am sometimes tempted (or even do) skim long texts when I'm anxious to try out something new.

I have an idea though. You can add "context sensitive" help in the right click menus. I've seen it in a few addons and it really works well. The menu icon for it even exists as a blue ?. So the right click menu for that corner could explain how it works differently.

5) The new option to turn over zombie control is nice. One new trick using it is to do it and get the extra gold for healing a turn sooner.

True, it's a decent strategy in a pinch

Actually I found out it does not work. It's a bit of an illusion. The status bar updates the gold but the text label show the correct amount. You can't use the gold until the next turn as it turns out.

[Atreides]

Wow, just played a cracker of a thrilla of an epic game. :- )

Quite a see-saw battle. The AI heroes really did well to begin with. Wiped out the lower right in record time. Then the lower left fell before I even expected it. The upper right grotto I reinforced with guardians and I tried a trick of moving them around the grotto to form a ring with the 3 spawns but it turned out that the spawns moved away and it only looked secure. Skirmisher is a nasty ability here but as I said already mobility is king in the scenario.
My monster caught the VIP using the recruited berserker to extend his range by 2. ;) Right on the bridge into the city!
After that though the heroes started to home in on me and caught me too. Came face to face with the enemy leader but a final duel was not going to be decisive. After feeding on a few of them it got too dicey and a teleport (to my last grotto!) was required.
Made a successful last stand there and drove them back. Sent out a commando rat to get the intact village just to the east (initial monster thrust was south so only AI zombies went that way and failed) and got a fresh zombie horde.
Went for the city and the leader once again zoomed out to meet me. This time I duelled him and got him down to a few hp and finished him off with a berserker guardian.

Replay uploaded. (some mods used but I don't think any of them are the sort that put the kibosh on replays)

Don't read this if you wanna find easter eggs on your own.

Spoiler:

Also I found the easter egg with spawns at last thanks to losing all my other grottos I was forced to rely on the starting one and built it up all the way...

[Limabean]

I have pushed an update for this to 1.16. This includes a much more extensive collection of help menus so it is easier for new players to figure out the rules and mechanics. I also fixed a number of bugs, one of which might have been causing OOS errors. I will continue looking for OOS errors, but these are difficult to track down. So if anyone runs into them, replays could be helpful.

[Atreides]

Oh yes saw them, very nice. Easier to read in parts and also the font is bigger.

One little error I think in the help though. It says you can get a instant boost of gold for healing by turning control of zombies over to AI during your turn. It does not work, you get the gold next turn.