Draft and Scenario plan for the potential AOI rework.

[knyghtmare]

Introduction

As the title suggests, I spent like a day reading up the forum topics and threads mentioning AOI and criticising the scenario design, setting and plot-holes regarding it. Yes, I aim to improve it. Raise the difficulty for the seasoned player base while keeping some leniency for novice/intermediate level players who start AOI based on recommendations, add challenges, improve scenarios, add some better plot elements (which seemed to be the primary complaint from everyone), etc.

Goals:

• Rework AOI to a point where it is considered for a "re-entry" into mainline (I am very unsure about this but I shall try my best)
• If the aforementioned objective cannot be done, it's okay. At least, I will be improving it extensively for people to go "Woah"
• Demonstrate how powerful/intelligent the Wesnoth 1.15 AI can be with the proper utilisation of the micro AI

• Revise characters (Erlornas)

  Geographical and historical assumptions (ESR):`
  
  As originally written by Josh Parsons, this campaign was not set in
  any particular time or place.  I changed it to a few years after the
  arrival of orcs on the Great Continent, and pinned it to the
  northern marches of Wesmere.  Erlornas and his troops were originally
  professional guards, but I've changed them to a scratch force of
  civilians raused by a local noble and gradually militarizing.  Thus,
  this becomes a story of how elves learned the nature of orcs and how
  to cope.

  Source of this comment block

Distribution Notes:

The add-on might have two campaigns. First, the classic AOI (the one which got de-mainlined). Second, the reworked one under a different abbrev (maybe AOIRW/AOI2?). This is to preserve the interests of players who might still want to play the classic AOI. Or, we can just get a new one done.

Progress:

My first draft is ready. The next step is having some opinions on the draft by the devs Then revising until we can get a finalised draft to work with.

References:

AOI: Questions and Ideas The Topic that broke it all I might be quoting some posts and arguments from these topics (and the discord) during my draft to emphasis some points so I am adding these links.

[knyghtmare]

An Orcish Incursion - The Rework

On account of real life (university), I was not very active in the Wesnoth Community apart from making small maintenance patches for the add-ons I maintained. Having returned, what do I find? AOI (one of my favourite campaigns) got thrown out of mainline with rather...harsh final comments. I would quote some but I am not really interested in calling people out.

Anyways, let bygones be bygones. Seeing that it was good as abandoned (I mean people did point out that it was), I offered to be the maintainer. No counter arguments against that. Lol. I checked out the threads.

The current flaws with classic AOI:

(These are all the ones I found to be stated, feel free to suggest more to add)

• Generic Story-line. Mainlined since it was one of the first ever campaigns.
• Poor design in terms of scenario variety. Every scenario in this campaign has a common objective: defeat the enemy leader. There should be some variety.
• Beginner level campaign in a pool of several other beginner campaigns such as A Tale of Two Brothers, The South Guard. A lot of criticism is mentioned for the incrementing the difficulting to intermediate or expert.
• Features the elves, but mainline currently has three other Elven-focused campaigns, and all three of them have stronger lore and better design than AOI.
• Small maps, not enough room for innovative strategies. Another similar argument is that a certain strategy is forced. Such as in Wastelands where you always just camp at the forest patch and have the orcs get wrecked in retaliation and a follow-up retribution during the following dawn.
• In some scenarios, the AI was intentionaly stupified to demonstrate how silly it can be. This is rather apparent in Scenario 4.

My propositions:

• Re-design the entire campaign, keeping the base plot but ensuring that scenarios are now properly attended to in terms of creativity.
• bigger maps, perhaps of medium size.
• thicken the plot a bit (add some mysterious innuendos)
• buff up the difficulty, to maybe Intermediate/Expert
• Make it fit better to the geography and timeline. The fifth and sixth scenarios did not make any sense to me other than being introductions to some tactics.

Draft:

This is where I start the re-designing.

Overall:

• Limit Shamans in the army. People did ask for a higher difficulty so I am denying you the Shaman spam. (quantities open for discussion)	Easy	Normal	Hard
  6	5	4

• Disable advancement to the Elven Sylph. Not sure if you would get one anyway.
  • Note that this is for a Expert/Nightmare level campaign so denying a higher level advancement seems a bit appropriate.
• Utilisation of custom Orcish and Elven units if applicable.
• Optional: female Main character.
• Add custom AMLA for the level 3 Elven units. Maybe this is overkill since it's only 6 scenarios.
• The player side should get a custom team color: dark green

Scenario 1:

Original Intention:

• Exhibit the prowess of the elves in their preferred terrain.
• Teaching of the General strategy of playing as Wood Elves

My re-design proposal:

• Erlornas starts out as a Level 1 Elvish Noble. He is just some noble of a village near the northern border of Wesmere so no point in him starting as an Elven Lord.
  • if the MC is female, Elvish Shaman with Elvish Sorceress advancement set.
• You start the scenario with a specified number of units (varied by difficulty) scattered across a bigger map.
• No recruiting :)
• Orcs actually start burning the forest. Additionally, Orcs might try to head straight for your village. It might be similar to The Raid from Liberty with some extra mechanics thrown in.
• One possible mechanic is that Erlornas should be able to rause the villagers to take up arms if he captures, spawning Fighters, Archers, Shamans(maybe?), Civilians, or (maybe Elven Spearmen)?
• Another mechanic, you get Wose Saplings spawning when the forest near them gets torched. Wose Saplings, since they really wouldn't impact the orcs much and just be fodder. I am starting to see that I might be a bit evil...

Scenario 2:

Original Intention:

• Demonstrate how dangerously lethal the Orcish Assassin and the poison weapon special is.
• Countering with reinforcing the frontline units with Shamans/Druid and exploiting the enemies low defense on shallow water.

My re-design proposal:

• Enlarge the map, make it possible to be attacked from several directions.
• Scenario objective: defeat all enemy units but you cannot lose too many of yours
• utilise the Assassin MAI to initialise squads to attack from several directions
• Maybe give some minor low-level allies to relieve some of the pressure from encirclement? Woses? Faeries? more Wesmere elves?

Scenario 3:

Original Intention:

• Demonstrate a situation where you have no villages and are reliant on base income.
• Learning how to effectively use the combination of Druids and the high defense of Wood Elves in forest terrain
• Some early attempt of a boss-fight scenario

My re-design proposal:

• Map re-design. Make it actually look like a Wasteland. No villages whatsoever.
• Boss-scenario mechanics. MAI integration to achieve level-boss like behaviour.
• You can recruit/recall for the first turn only. Maybe make it first 2 turns?
• randomise boss type for replayability (warlord/slurbow/nightblade..NOT sovereign since he is Rualsha)
• Design the level in such a way that the experience is both intimidating and enjoyable.

Scenario 4:

Original Intention:

• Teach player how to battle trolls by exploiting their poor defenses on flat terrain and when they are isolated.
• Multiple enemy leader vs player scenario

My re-design proposal:

• the player starts at the centre is a ambushed by trolls.
• objective: survive the night (yes, night)
• turn limit and schedule of the time will be determined by difficulty.
• there will be patches of forest around your keep but don't expect much
• end of the scenario, trolls will block the path North so Erlornas and his party has to enter a cave

Scenarios 5 and 6

Scenario 5:

• Lesson: hit and run tactics
• Only one general strategy is employed in most playthroughs - aggressive push

  Scenario 6:

• Elves on "unsuitable" terrain
• enemy is something that they don't have good counters against except Shamans and mages

My grand re-design:

• cave scenario (elves hate caves)
• exploration/large map
• objective: defeating enemy leaders will be optional, but you have to get Erlornas to the northern edge
• enemies will be cave monsters, dwarves, trolls, orcs (well, duh), saurians, and Linaera the Quick
• Linaera is a rogue silver mage here and summons elemental constructs
  • Option A: mainline units. She spams Fire Guardians which are buffed in accordance to difficulty. If you defeat her (which shall be a hard task), she teleports away.
  • Option B: using the Era of Myths as a dependency. She recruits the elementals. If you defeat her (which shall be a hard task), she teleports away.
  • Option C: using the War of Legends as a dependency. She recruits the elementals. If you defeat her (which shall be a hard task), she teleports away with a hint that a darkness is coming (indirect hint to the dark irdya canon)
  • Option D: importing the elemental units from EoM/WoL. If you defeat her (which shall be a hard task), she teleports away.
  • Note: Might be possible to make her an ally if the player avoids killing her units and instead assists them. This prevents dwarves being allied to.
  • Note: Options B and C might disregard any possibilities of a re-entry to mainline (I know this is a very high chance of not happening so I am not even concerned with it).
• Orcish leader is in your way through the pass, defeat him.
• defeating trolls: gold bonus (unless someone has a better suggestion?)
• defeating saurians: gold bonus (unless someone has a better suggestion?)
• defeating dwarves: gold bonus (unless someone has a better suggestion?)
• Possibility of Dwarves being able to be allied with:
  • Not attacking any dwarven unit
  • Moving your leader next to a dwarf (to start negotiations). Maybe the Dwarf leader himself?
  • The possibility of Linaera being allied with is not possible anymore
• Enemies defeated reward:
  • if dwarves were picked as allies: One of the dwarves (except the leader) joins you. Can any one of them. Even a dwarven steelclad if one is present on the map.
  • if Linaera was picked as an ally:
  • (options BCD) She conjures either an earthern or forest elemental for you. Random. (Stone Golem/Vine Tiger). Loyal.
  • (option A) She conjures a buffed loyal Fire Guardian for you. Buff dependent on the difficulty.

Scenario 6 (7 in classic AOI):

original intention (Showdown):

• Teaching the player how to effectively use Elvish Rangers to ambush the enemy leader
• Not to rush head-on (you can actually do on Easy/Normal though)

My re-design proposal:

• Make it suidical to try the "head-on" tactic.
• Map re-deesign. Medium/big size. Terrain favoured more by Orcs.
• Occassional spawn of squads of 3-4 units. Assassin MAI.
• Give Rualsha guards near him (who stay around him at all times)
• reinforcements arrive from the Wesmere Kalian
  • 2 Loyal Elven Rangers
  • 1 Elven Rider - Lormafel
  • 1 Elven Champion Hero (Logalmier)
  • He is an Elven Warlord in accordance to the description of TRoW so of course, he won't say no to smashing orcs
  • They do not arrive at event start, instead it varies by $turn_number (3/5/7).
• Only way to reach Rualsha is by circumventing the map and trying to lure his (recruited) forces away and dispatching them
• mixture of forest and hills around the enemy leader fortress.
• orcish ambushers when you get near hills (sinister smile)
  • EASY: just level 1 orcish units but high probability for Orc Assassin
  • NORMAL: level 2 units but high probability for Assassins/Slayers
  • HARD: level 2 units but high probability for Slayers/Nightblades
• Rualsha is not the enemy leader. He is an hero. He will be a boss-type enemy with an escort team, and will only move to attack you if you get near the fortress. MAI shall be applied here.

[knyghtmare]

Updated the draft after receiving responses from celticminstrel and egallager.

[cooljeanius]

egallagher.

No "h"!