Leafsea Burning (1.16)

[Paulomat4]

Hey,
I've had some time recently and decided to play some wesnoth again. I downloaded your campaign and really enjoyed it, so I thought i'd leave some feedback.
I played on Normal difficulty.

Some thoughts that come to my mind:
- I really did enjoy the amla leveling system that you added. I built up quite a strong army in the end and it feels really great levelling your army from level 0. I actually wondered why you are able to recruit normal units, additionally to the elite units. There's almost no case in which I wanted to recruit a normal unit as it only costs a few gold more anyway. I also really enjoyed leveling my units from level 0. Maybe it's worth thinking about disabling elite recruits for level 1? So, give the player the choice to recruit elite units at lvl 0 or normal units at lvl 1. This would give normal units a bit more worth and would make it even more rewarding once you level a elite unit.

- The amla system is great but the bonuses it gives are more or less "basic". Maybe you could spice it up by unlocking some special ability or weapon special per unit type after 2-3 lvl ups?

- +1 ranged strike is overpowered for the dwarvish thunderer line.

- In the scenario "Host", it was physically impossible for me to move the caravan to the eastern side of the map within the turn limit and in consequence I never got to know what happened to that drake . Maybe consider extending the time limit by a few turns?

- In Westpoint, similarly, I only managed to place all the bombs at the last turn because the tide interupted my movement. Again, maybe exted the turn limit a bit.

- I really enjoyed the various different mechanics you included in each scenario, especially the scenario where you have to coordinate the dwarvish miners moving east. Great job!

- The Story is great too, but I missed a last scenario with the woses. Would be nice to see those one last time.

- There should be some more modern sprites floating around for the elvish civilians and elvish lord lvl 1 unit. The ones you used were a little bit jarring compared to the other units.

All in all, I had a great time playing. Thanks for the campaign!

[Spannerbag]

Hi Paulomat4,
Thanks for the complimentary feedback, really appreciated.

First off, it's worth saying that there's a slightly later version on the v17 server but I'm still working on additional tweaks for that, some of which address some of your points below.

Regular recruits
These are primarily as an option for players on hard difficulty who might be a bit low on gold (though Konrad2 did OK).
They still generate combat xp for later recruits but can if needed die valiantly protecting more valuable (i.e. elite) units.
But yes I take your point; I suspect most players won't want or need to recruit regulars, but I thought I'd leave them there as an option.
I do still wonder if elite recruit costs are high enough...


L1 Elite recruits

...Maybe it's worth thinking about disabling elite recruits for level 1?...

Main reasons/rationale for L1 elite recruitment:

• Once combat xp maxima reached the player can recruit near-L1 units for a greatly reduced cost - so gold would need rebalancing in later scenarios.
• The point of combat xp is in part to give a reason why the player gets to recruit L1s later on.
• In the later parts of the campaign if a high level unit is lost, L0 units are rather fragile and also some players may, somehow, not have great starting xp for their (L0) recruits so going to L1 means they are guaranteed access more robust/viable units when the enemy fields greater forces.

That said, your idea about forcing all elite recruits to start at L0 is intriguing, tho' I don't see an in-game rationale why elites must start at L0...
Also, allowing L1 elite recruits gives (I hope) players a feeling of progression?
I'm not saying your idea is bad, merely that I'm driven by what (I think) is most enjoyable for (most) players (that I can implement given my pitiful abilities).
I have the feeling that if I did restrict recruitment of elites to L0 I'd then have others saying "Why can't I recruit L1 elites as well as L1 regulars? " or if I disallowed all L1 recruitment; "Why can't I recruit L1s? "
That is, I fear I'm never going to please everyone...


AMLAs
Heh, I'm actually with you here.
The AMLAs in this campaign were meant for elite units by which I mean superior specimens of regular units hence only existing capabilities are enhanced.
I'm working on another campaign (currently about 70% completed but progress is slow as I've many plates spinning at once here both IRL and Wesnoth) and I'm also migrating what I have to v17 plus am continually tweaking the damn thing.
However that is my study of AMLAs and I go berserk with AMLA logic there - it's a very silly, unbalanced campaign that takes itself seriously (but players really shouldn't). I'm dithering because one or two really high level AMLAs confer battlefield level powers to some units (with a high usage cost) but these can only be accessed after many other precursor advancements have been gained first.
I'm thinking of maybe saving these uber-AMLAs for when I get round to rewriting "AfterEI" which has been on the back burner for years.
One of these uber-AMLAs is fully playable (with animations) and avoids use of the context menu, though using it's a bit fiddly and I'd like to find a more elegant method (when I get time -hah!- will follow up on this thread).


Thunderers

...+1 ranged strike is overpowered for the dwarvish thunderer line...

Yep, agreed - but it's fun, hopefully.
That said, unit changes between v16 and v17 significantly reduced Thunderer required xp so players will on average gain that AMLA earlier in the campaign compared to v16 which was when the majority of balancing was done.
I suppose I could change this AMLA so the Dragonguard gets 2 lower-damage shots; maybe 2x24 vs 1x40?
Do you think that might work?



Host - caravan
Sorry you found the scenario so difficult, it's intentional that the hide option is much easier than the sneak option.
When did the orcs appear?

Spoiler:

How long you get before the orcs arrive depends slightly on how early the previous scenario (Vanguard) was finished.
On normal difficulty you need to finish Vanguard with 6+ turns remaining to gain the maximum "grace period" (an extra 2 turns) before the orcs arrive in Host.
(Turn 8 is the latest they can appear in Host.)
If you do play the scenario with only the minimum delay before the orcs arrive then yes, getting the caravan safely east is likely to be challenging.
All I can suggest is re-load your Vanguard saves (if you still have any) and see when you finished the scenario, if it was with less than 6+ turns remaining it might be worth trying to finish earlier?
Just a thought...

Bomb placement
FWIW three bombers have the quick trait and are placed at the front of the queue when the bombers disembark.
They are the units I used to plant the bombs in the most distant locations (that said Konrad2 used slower ones).
It's almost impossible to save many bombers - but they play no further part in the campaign anyway so are expendable.
The tide is annoying but IIRC it's only at higher tide rising that shallow water can become deep so for the rest of the time you can place units in shallow water.
That said, the time limit is meant to be tight and recalled non-bombers on the boat shouldn't be ones you'd not want to lose - I usually use regulars from Medley if I have any, otherwise I use general purpose ones like scouts or cheap ones like fighters.

I really enjoyed the various different mechanics you included in each scenario, especially the scenario where you have to coordinate the dwarvish miners moving east. Great job!

Thanks - you wouldn't believe the hassles I had getting that scenario to work as I wanted - again, the v17 version has slightly updated dialogue and logic.

The Story is great too, but I missed a last scenario with the woses. Would be nice to see those one last time.

Yeah, a few people have said that.
I did it as a cutscene 'cos I'd spent ages on the damn thing and wanted to publish it.
That said, I've added several bits and pieces to the v17 version (not yet available tho', still a work in progress) and I will have a think about what I can do in the last scenario - I did originally plan for it to be playable but much of the later scenarios were rather downbeat so I thought I'd truncate that part.
I fear I rather overdid the trimming of content!
I do hope to have a playable last scenario, need to develop (or adopt with the author's consent) a burning forest animation (e.g. Antar, son of Rheor).
Tho' I'd prefer to do my own thing if time permits... I did make a start - might revisit my old notes and gifs...

There should be some more modern sprites floating around for the elvish civilians and elvish lord lvl 1 unit. The ones you used were a little bit jarring compared to the other units.

Oh, didn't know they'd been updated?
Can you recall where you saw them? (If not I'll have a dig if there are later versions.)

All in all, I had a great time playing. Thanks for the campaign!

Thanks again for the feedback and kind words, it's all appreciated!

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Paulomat4]

Thanks for answering! All of my suggestions are just ideas. Feel free to ignore them if you don't think they fit.
I played on wesnoth 1.17 btw, sorry if that came across wrong.

That said, your idea about forcing all elite recruits to start at L0 is intriguing, tho' I don't see an in-game rationale why elites must start at L0...

I think you could probably explain it somehow along the lines of: "Elite units are more thoroughly trained from their youth on and prepared for a life of warfare. As they spend their earlier years focusing on the basics, this makes them start out slower but allows them to reach a level of combat prowess unmatched by other units"
It's just an idea though, it is fine as is. I guess removing normal units entirely could also work.

I suppose I could change this AMLA so the Dragonguard gets 2 lower-damage shots; maybe 2x24 vs 1x40?
Do you think that might work?

That is how most Campaigns with amla systems i've seen have done it. LOTI does a similar thing I think. 2x24 seems a bit too nerfed, maybe something along the lines of 28x2?

How long you get before the orcs arrive depends slightly on how early the previous scenario (Vanguard) was finished.
On normal difficulty you need to finish Vanguard with 6+ turns remaining to gain the maximum "grace period" (an extra 2 turns) before the orcs arrive in Host.
(Turn 8 is the latest they can appear in Host.)
If you do play the scenario with only the minimum delay before the orcs arrive then yes, getting the caravan safely east is likely to be challenging.
All I can suggest is re-load your Vanguard saves (if you still have any) and see when you finished the scenario, if it was with less than 6+ turns remaining it might be worth trying to finish earlier?
Just a thought...

So, i just replayed host, and they did indeed appear on round 8 and I managed to get the caravan east on the earliest turn possible, which is 18/20. I think in my initial playthrough i was just unprepared for the orcs to arrive, with my guys chilling all around the map after gathering the villages. That meant that the orcs were able to go deeper into my territory, which hindered the pathing of my caravan. I still think 18/20 as the earliest finish is a bit too harsh, maybe consider increasing the turn limit by 2? That way 22 turns is still very hard but at least achievable.

I do hope to have a playable last scenario, need to develop (or adopt with the author's consent) a burning forest animation (e.g. Antar, son of Rheor).
Tho' I'd prefer to do my own thing if time permits... I did make a start - might revisit my old notes and gifs...

Right, I remember that scenario. Something like that would be cool.

Can you recall where you saw them? (If not I'll have a dig if there are later versions.)

For the lvl 1 lord: I think you can get it from my own add-on "Dawn of Thunder" from the add-on server. Its called elvish thunderer there, but essentially its an elvish noble. There's even animations, so too many files to attach them on this forum post.
Regarding the peasants: I might have wrongly remembered but could only find "elvish prisoner" sprites in my sprite dump. I might also have seen it in some add-on, but I don't remember which one.
I'll attach them regardless, they might still fit.

elvish-prisoner-male-unarmed.png (6.03 KiB) Viewed 626 times

elvish-prisoner-male.png (5.82 KiB) Viewed 626 times

elvish-prisoner-female-unarmed.png (5.51 KiB) Viewed 626 times

elvish-prisoner-female.png (5.47 KiB) Viewed 626 times

[Spannerbag]

Thanks for answering!

Happy to do so, if people take the trouble to post (constructive) feedback I'm more than willing to engage and explore ideas for making the game more fun.

... you could probably explain it somehow along the lines of: "Elite units are more thoroughly trained from their youth on and prepared for a life of warfare. As they spend their earlier years focusing on the basics, this makes them start out slower but allows them to reach a level of combat prowess unmatched by other units"...

Interesting how different people view things.
Originally I planned to add an Elite trait so that some units would be "upgraded" for free but decided in the end to adopt a more player-centric method (higher cost, choose traits etc.).
However I always viewed elite units rather more as "inherently gifted" rather than "better trained" and both types would go through basic training and progress through the lower levels the same way and the elite potential only emerges when the unit reaches maximum level after living through many battles.

TBH I think for now I'd rather not do any more new work on this campaign, I'd like to work through the existing stuff and publish that first.
Changing the recruits is easy but I'd need to playthrough and rebalance the later scenarios and fiddle with gold and maybe turns etc. and I've already done that so often I can't stomach it again right now...

That said, if several players make the same suggestion I'll implement it once I've had a decent break from working on this campaign (it's taken me ages to get it to this point and it's beginning to feel a bit "stale" ... not a good sign).

I suppose I could change this AMLA so the Dragonguard gets 2 lower-damage shots; maybe 2x24 vs 1x40?
Do you think that might work?

That is how most Campaigns with amla systems i've seen have done it. LOTI does a similar thing I think. 2x24 seems a bit too nerfed, maybe something along the lines of 28x2?

That's hopefully an easy change I can implement with minimal testing as it uses existing attack animations.
However as this attack is now less devastating players might still want to use the existing single shot attack so I'll probably add another attack rather than modifying the existing one - will have to look into that.
It will affect game balance but I don't think it will have a huge effect.
Another easy mod (as it uses existing code) would be to add another AMLA that increases the double attack damage slightly, say to 2x32?
Aaargh... there I go again with more "good ideas"...
Added to todo list.

...I managed to get the caravan east on the earliest turn possible, which is 18/20 ... as the earliest finish is a bit too harsh, maybe consider increasing the turn limit by 2? That way 22 turns is still very hard but at least achievable.

The turn limit is the same on all difficulties, so this change is trivial.
It's meant to be a challenging scenario (and the "reward" for sneaking is better than for hiding) but I'll review a few replays and see how others fared (not actually viewed any Host replays yet).
It's very helpful to hear other player's views because when I playtest I know what's going to happen and this skews my gameplay.
As a rule of thumb I always try to ensure a scenario is winnable with poor (but not maybe dreadful) luck so adding a turn or two is a distinct possibility.
Added note to todo list.

For the lvl 1 lord: I think you can get it from my own add-on "Dawn of Thunder" from the add-on server...

Downloaded your add-on (V16) and had a look at the Elvish Thunderer, nice sprites.
Unusually my unit has 3 attacks; melee, bow and magic (ranged) so I'd have to add a bow attack to your Thunderer.
I can frankenstein but I'm no artist and the current Novitiate spell attack is, IIRC, essentially the bow attack without the bow!
Adding a bow is a bit trickier to get right - for me anyway.
I like the current unit's ranged options, the player can have 3 low damage bow strikes or one more damaging magic strike and wouldn't want to lose either as it shows the unit migrating from bow to magic...
So as what I have works I think (for now at least) I'll stick with that - but many thanks for the offer, very generous.
Added note to todo list: add bow attack/defend animations

...Regarding the peasants: I might have wrongly remembered but could only find "elvish prisoner" sprites in my sprite dump... I'll attach them regardless, they might still fit...

Added note to todo list: look for later/better versions of Elvish civs.

Elvish Prisoner: if these are the only sprites available they lack many actions such as attack and defend animations?
I'll keep them as they might come in handy but these alone are insufficent to replace the existing ones I already have.

Will finish my existing stuff then go through these todos and see what I can do.

Thanks for the comments, thought and feedback it's all very helpful appreciated!

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[ZIM]

Hello, I would like to report a bug, it seems the Vampire's Kiss axe will broke if dropped and then picked up again by another unit. It loses the marksman the drain special and if it were dropped and picked up again, the miniberserk special got doubled.

[Spannerbag]

Hello, I would like to report a bug, it seems the Vampire's Kiss axe will broke if dropped and then picked up again by another unit. It loses the marksman the drain special and if it were dropped and picked up again, the miniberserk special got doubled.

Thanks for the report, will investigate and fix.

Also realised I hadn't started a thread for 1.18...

Edit: removed, see post below.
Created it https: //forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=57877.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Spannerbag]

Hello, I would like to report a bug...

Further to my last post, it was suggested to use the existing v1.17 thread for continuity, so I'll delete the above thread and rename the v1.17 thread instead.

Sorry to mess you around.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[Spannerbag]

Hello, I would like to report a bug...

I think I've worked out what was broken and preliminary experimentation and testing would seem to show I have a fix, but fully testing the new logic might take a bit longer as your report actually brought to my attention a few things that weren't, ah, optimal.

If you're happy to experiement I can post the new items.cfg file and you can try it out, though you'll probably have to restart the campaign as I've added several new [object]s. It might also work if you purge the cache then resume play from anywhere earlier than Medley, but I can't say for certain.
I'm adding/changing a lot of stuff in response to feedback/bugs reports so although I'll probably have this fixed soon there's loads more I need to do before I publish the new version.

Thanks again for the bug report.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

[ZIM]

Hello, I would like to report a bug...

I think I've worked out what was broken and preliminary experimentation and testing would seem to show I have a fix, but fully testing the new logic might take a bit longer as your report actually brought to my attention a few things that weren't, ah, optimal.

If you're happy to experiement I can post the new items.cfg file and you can try it out, though you'll probably have to restart the campaign as I've added several new [object]s. It might also work if you purge the cache then resume play from anywhere earlier than Medley, but I can't say for certain.
I'm adding/changing a lot of stuff in response to feedback/bugs reports so although I'll probably have this fixed soon there's loads more I need to do before I publish the new version.

Thanks again for the bug report.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag

Okay, no problem, I would like to try the new items.cfg.

[Spannerbag]

Okay, no problem, I would like to try the new items.cfg.

No worries, file attached, just overwrite the existing items.cfg in utils.

Just be aware that this code is effectively untested, the campaign loads but that's about it.
If you do get errors and want to have a dig around yourself there are two bits of new code:

• Lines 226-237 (starting from ([and])
  This was to remove potential weirdness if Blunt was somehow still L1 and picked up VK (would have no advancements and no default amla either.)
• Lines 282-353 (starting from [effect] apply_to=overlay)
  This was rewritten and (hopefully!) will resolve the issues you were seeing.

If you do still have problems please let me know.

Cheers!
-- Spannerbag