Rise of the Elementalist campaign

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arobinson
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Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

"Rise of the Elementalist" trilogy now available on the addons.wesnoth.org website. Now Wesnoth 1.12 compatible.

The campaigns are fully developed and AFAIK, bug free, having tested it a significant amount before I uploaded them. The campaigns consist of units of a new race (elementals) that have custom advancements after level 2 and a new mage unit type (Elementalist) and a new elemental unit with advancements to level 3 in the 2nd campaign. The first campaign has with a twist at the end with an additional unit type (won't spoil it here) and the 2nd is a continuation of the story of the first, but with new characters.

The first campaign is 17 scenarios, the second has 8, most are playable, a few are story.

These are my first campaigns with only one difficulty level at the moment. I'll continue to work on the balancing of the scenarios and the units. The dialog will continue to be improved over time. Also, it would be nice to have a different profile graphic for the main character in the first campaign (Vallin) and also different unit images for the elemental mage progression (right now I am re-using the Red Mage and Silver Mage graphics), so if you want to help with that, please let me know (I did the elemental profiles, but those were easier to do with my gimp skills).

Feel free to leave feedback here, hope you enjoy it.
Change Log
5.1.0
  • Updated to Wesnoth 1.12 (including removing deprecated code)
  • Replaced the Fog unit with a Fog Warrior that can advance to level 3
5.0.2
  • Small dialog changes for scenarios 2 and 3. Made map for Rebirth in campaign 2 not so bottlenecked (added path for flying units to south Troll room)
5.0.1
  • Removed any desert next to water due to 1.10 bug (filed)
  • Re-wrote some of the dialog in the first campaign
5.0.0
  • Fixed the terrain images to work with wesnoth 1.10 (not perfect, but adequate, as good as they were mostly)
5.0.0alpha1
  • Numerous dialog changes including grammar and spelling fixes
  • Now passes the wmllint tool (fixed errors)
  • Should be fully working on wesnoth 1.10 (tested on 1.9.14)
  • Known issues: The last two scenarios of campaign 3 will have terrain issues. This is due to my custom graphics not working well with the new 1.10 graphics. I'll be trying to fix it, but it may take me some time.
4.0.3
  • Fixed lua error with the fire elementals in campaign 3
  • Fixed a destination bug in campaign 1
  • Fixed an incorrect speaker in campaign 1
4.0.2
  • Grammar fixes
  • Removed the "poison dart" and came up with a little better story for Elania (still needs some polish I think though)
4.0.1
  • Replaced intelligent trait with loyal on Elania due to it not working on certain platforms (like Mac OSX)
  • Removed bottlenecks from flood scenario in WotE
  • Added a turn limit to flood scenario in WotE
4.0.0
  • Created portraits for all water elementals for all scenarios
  • Decreased villages in the WotE Heartfangs scenario
  • Small advancement changes to the air elemental and earth elemental so that they always heal
  • Made the RotE 08_Protect_The_Guild scenario a little easier (dwarves and elves, decreased income, lower gold and limited some of the dwarves level 2 units)
  • Made the radius to find the trap door in RotE's 15_Revenge 2 hexes larger
4.0.0beta
  • Beta version of the 3rd, and last installment of the series!
  • 16 new scenarios, 2 of which are story only
  • 5 new units
  • 19 custom tiles (mostly graphical)
  • Increased story compared to part 2
  • Over 6000 lines of WML!
  • Tweaks to the elemental balancing
  • Why this is still in beta:
    • New units do not have portraits
    • There are balancing issues (I found that too much gold accumulates)
    • Tested and run through, but not aggressively, so (non-fatal) bugs may be present
    • I did not check the dialog too closely, so there may be unintentional grammer and spelling mistakes
3.5.1
  • Small _main.cfg updates
  • Decrease water unit defense on non-water based tiles
  • Completely re-written campaign 2
  • Contains more story and more code, no "kill the leader" campaigns at all this time
  • More story regarding Kil'rathacar in this version
3.1.0
  • Unit balancing (consisting mostly of lowered elemental resistances)
  • Changed victory conditions in several campaign 2 scenarios
  • Completely re-written "Elvish Forest Perimeter" scenario
  • Fixed crown bug (crowns are now gold instead of silver for leaders)
  • Improved lord of the deep ranged animation
  • Other small changes and scenario balancing
3.0.0
  • New campaign, Source of the Elementals
  • Earth elemental now has an ensconce advancement (hide in rocky terrain, needed another synonym to hide, hence the name)
  • Removed healthy trait from fire elemental list of potential traits
  • Removed fearless trait from elemental race (was not seen in part 1 as all elementals were neutral)
  • Increased earth movement in forests, decreasing the cost from 3 to 2
  • Decreased earth defense numbers by 10 for a few terrains
  • Increased fire elemental damage from fire, was too powerful to have it invulnerable
  • Reordered the advancement blocks of elementals so the one that is generally preferred is now on top
  • Decreased number of air elemental ranged attacks from 7 to 6
  • Air elemental has a one time AMLA tough advancement of 7 HP
  • Removed ice touch advancement from water elemental as it seems to be too much (also a reason pertaining to part 3)
2.0.3
More unit balancing
  • Whirlwind and air now have skirmish by default (not an advancement)
  • Whirlwind and air no longer get the dextrous trait as it was too powerful with it
  • Rock pile/elemental damage reduced to be closer to troll since it heals
  • Gave whirlwind/air higher defense in a village (40% to hit instead of 50%)
2.0.2
  • Added music (mostly just the default playlist so there is some music)
2.0.1
  • Profile images for elementals except for water which I still need to do
  • "Trailer" for part 2, Source of the Elementals
2.0.0
  • Scenarios 11 to the end completely re-written
  • Epilogue now introduces part 2 (scenarios to be written, but new units already have been created)
  • Improved "fun" and challenge of the end scenarios
  • Added level 3 wisp
  • Large wisp fixes and rebalancing (only level 3 wisp can have devour, a special type of plague, and only once per advancement instead of all the time)
  • Fire elemental can now heal on forest terrain by burning the forest (destroys the forest as a result)
  • Elemental changes and balancing of the units
  • Several small bug fixes and improvements
  • Specify Elania's traits to make the last levels easier instead of random traits
1.1.0 and 1.1.1
  • Improved parts of the story
  • Implemented 40% new gold carry over
  • Weakened the air elemental and whirlwind melee damage
  • Removed magical attack upgrade on the air elemental
  • Added skirmish upgrade on the air elemental
  • Map alteration in the Dwarven diplomacy scenario
  • Shroud in the Dwarven diplomacy scenario
  • Fog in the village scenario
  • Few other small bug fixes and improvements
1.0.2
  • Added dialog to the start of the source scenario to mention the undead are coming and Vallin needs to find the source
1.0.1
  • In consequences scenario, fixed the unit speaking to ensure it is a troll
  • In protect the guild scenario, number of turns increased from 36 to 44
  • Added two last breath dialogs to the dwarven diplomacy scenario
  • Updated the dwarven diplomacy scenario and added more water near the choke points
  • Fixed the bug where, in the dwarven diplomacy scenario, the trolls had the dwarf team.
  • Fixed the location of Elania in the dwarven diplomacy scenario so she does not go straight to the recall list
  • Increased the turns in dwarven diplomacy scenario from 40 to 48
  • Fixed the bug where you only need to kill one zombie in the prologue (don't need the "key")
  • Added dialog to the prologue to suggest to search the graves
Last edited by arobinson on June 2nd, 2015, 3:10 am, edited 23 times in total.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by alternate-form »

Looks promising. I played a few levels.
I noticed it because i have an elemental faction in very early stages of development.
Spoiler:
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norbert
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by norbert »

arobinson wrote:new campaign called "Rise of the Elementalist" [...] Feel free to leave feedback here, hope you enjoy it.
I just finished playing it and it's not bad. The scenarios at the beginning and at the end were the most interesting, because they were the most diverse. Below you'll find an overview of the things that I liked and the things that I think need work.

What I liked:
  1. I didn't run into any (WML) bugs or crashes.
  2. The (sad) story is okay.
  3. The number of scenarios seems about right.
  4. A first upload and it's fully playable; I like that.
  5. Several new unit types.
What needs work:
  1. Balancing: some scenarios either need (a lot) more turns or less (or less powerful) enemies. The campaign is currently quite difficult to finish.
  2. Proofreading: the story prose contains mistakes. Mostly things that you'll be able to find and correct yourself, but some things might require the help of a native English speaker.
  3. The image of the bed in the guild's tower seemed blurry/scaled.
  4. In the Dwarven Diplomacy scenario, the blue leader only recruits Dwarvish Guardsmen who flood the small cave passages. This is a problem near 15,22 and 25,11, and because the two level 3 leaders aren't easy to kill either, this is one of those scenarios that needs (a lot) more turns.
It would be nice if the campaign contained a bit more events during and after fights. For example, if one of three enemy leaders dies, he could say something about how the others will avenge him. Or some friendly units that show up. Even simply "Hurray, we made it!" after a last enemy leader is killed would be welcome.

(this paragraph contains spoilers) In the Source scenario, the first objective is that "Vallin must find the source of the magic [...]". I thought that "Vallin" was referring to Vallin and his army, not him personally. I probably should've known better, but it wouldn't hurt if the objective specifically mentions he needs to go there himself. When the Lich suddenly appeared in my game, Vallin and three loyal units were basically surrounded, because I had sent out all units except those four.

Keep up the good work...
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Lord-Knightmare »

The campaign has a problem:
the back to turn (number) doesn't work.
please fix it.
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arobinson
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

Lord-Knightmare wrote:The campaign has a problem:
the back to turn (number) doesn't work.
please fix it.
No idea why it would not be working, it was working fine for me. Is it only on my campaign that it is happening?

Sounds like a bug in the wesnoth engine as I have not yet seen any WML for affecting that behavior.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

Thanks for the feedback, I'll make the changes when I get a chance.
norbert wrote: What needs work:
  1. Balancing: some scenarios either need (a lot) more turns or less (or less powerful) enemies. The campaign is currently quite difficult to finish.
Which ones? I ran through the whole campaign myself without an issue, and I am not the best wesnothian ever (peoples hard difficulties often get me). The one that I know of is the protect the guild (8) scenario, where it could use about 8 more turns. When I went for the bonus I only had 3 turns to spare.
norbert wrote:Proofreading: the story prose contains mistakes. Mostly things that you'll be able to find and correct yourself, but some things might require the help of a native English speaker.
Could you be more specific? I have to admit that I wrote the story and dialog portions quite quickly, so they could be better written, but I didn't catch any mistakes necessarily.
norbert wrote:The image of the bed in the guild's tower seemed blurry/scaled.
That is because it is :)

Yeah I should try to find a better graphic. I am no graphic artist, so I tried to find all of the images on the web, which is not so easy to find ones that do not have usage restrictions in place.
norbert wrote:In the Dwarven Diplomacy scenario, the blue leader only recruits Dwarvish Guardsmen who flood the small cave passages. This is a problem near 15,22 and 25,11, and because the two level 3 leaders aren't easy to kill either, this is one of those scenarios that needs (a lot) more turns.
I didn't have an issue, but I can see where it could happen if you don't leverage the elementals in the strategy. I think I may bump up the turns a few on this one and also change the map (add some more water near the choke point to allow water elementals to be more useful on this scenario.

Here is how I did it with time to spare:
Spoiler:
norbert wrote:It would be nice if the campaign contained a bit more events during and after fights. For example, if one of three enemy leaders dies, he could say something about how the others will avenge him. Or some friendly units that show up. Even simply "Hurray, we made it!" after a last enemy leader is killed would be welcome.
Yeah I got that feeling too. Honestly I got lazy and tired of writing message WML statements, WML is a fairly verbose language.
norbert wrote:(this paragraph contains spoilers) In the Source scenario, the first objective is that "Vallin must find the source of the magic [...]". I thought that "Vallin" was referring to Vallin and his army, not him personally. I probably should've known better, but it wouldn't hurt if the objective specifically mentions he needs to go there himself. When the Lich suddenly appeared in my game, Vallin and three loyal units were basically surrounded, because I had sent out all units except those four.
I think I'll throw in a comment by Vallin saying that the undead will be right on our tail or something of the sort.

Thanks for the feedback.

PS -- As for the middle, I really need to fix 11 (The Search) scenario, as it is lame. I am just not sure what else I can do here. I don't want to jump right to the end, but the undead battles are getting old. I was thinking possibly bandits, but did not think of a good way to fit them into the story well. If anyone has suggestions on this scenario, please feel free to comment.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by arobinson »

Looking for feedback to improve the last two scenarios. Here is what I am thinking of (for those that have played it already):
Spoiler:
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Feufochmar »

I've played some scenarios (I am currently in Defending the Guild) and I have some questions about the scenario Dwarvish Diplomacy :
1) Why Elania is in the recall list at the beginning of this scenario ? Should not she be on the map when the scenario starts ?
2) Is it normal that the trolls and the dwarves are in the same team ?

I think Dwarvish Diplomacy should have a little more turns (I've finished it in the 38th turn and the scenario has 40 turns...). Or some modifications on the map : the main path a little more larger (there are two bottleneck, as pointed by norbert) , the keep of the blue leader should not be in corner of the map : only two units can attack him when he is on his keep. For the green leader, three units can attack him when he is on his keep (his keep is on a side of the map).
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by alternate-form »

Further playing...

I leveled up my spare mage in "dwarven diplomacy" I can choose between White, Red, and Elemental mages. However the Elemental mage is identical to the red, except red lacks the powerful cold attack. Why would anyone choose red?


Also on this map, the time limit seems pretty challenging. On my first try i was only half-way across the map (a few hexes across the lava bridge), by turn 37 -- time to concede defeat.

In general the elemental L2s feel pretty powerful vs. the dwarves and trolls, it's just slow going in these bottle necks.

...and as was mentioned, it seems odd that the trolls and dwarves are allied, especially since the dialog implies the are hostile.


EDIT: arobinson, your recipe for victory in dwarves diplomacy is probably the result of snowballing, you must have beat the previous levels with lots of turns to spare, and thus had lots of cash. I didn't have enough cast to buy 2 of each elemental until after turn 20. Try beating it starting with 150 gp.

I tried a second time, doing more recruiting and less recalling, and aggressively went after the troll-leader from the start. managed to win on turn 39, with a little save/loading. Still i judge this harder than what i'd expect from a campaign that wasn't of expert difficulty, or played on hard.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Feufochmar »

I am playing the scenario Source and I have a bug : some units are placed in the walls of the cavern when they are recalled.
Screenshot
Last edited by Feufochmar on June 26th, 2010, 11:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by norbert »

Feufochmar wrote:some units are placed in the walls of the cavern when they are recalled
Yeah, I had the same thing, but that's a Wesnoth thing, not a bug in the scenario.
The units are put on the map on a single hex; if it's occupied, nearby.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Tet »

This is a mage from one of the old storyline artists. Maybe it fits your purpose. I will download soon.
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This is "must-play" campaign! Don´t read the thread, unless you need help. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31895
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Iris »

Tet: did you really get permission from the artist to modify and post that in here? Also, non-GPL content is not allowed in the add-ons server, you know. I don't remember seeing that being worked on anywhere in these forums so I'll assume you obtained it from elsewhere.
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Enginuity »

Bug:
Spoiler:
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Re: Rise of the Elementalist campaign

Post by Feufochmar »

I've finished the campaign. I liked this campaign, the story is interesting, but I found that the campaign is lacking in game dialogs.

Another bug I've noted : in the scenrio "Consequences", when the last orc killed is Eraol (the orc leader), it is not Vak (the troll leader) who talk in the dialog, but Eraol.
Screenshot
However, when the last orc killed is not Eraol, Vak speaks in the ending dialog, as expected.
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