H4 campaign in progress - The Tale of Young Mudgeon

[Karmakeld]

I already got some fun ideas for text parts, but thanks anyway. You're right that text is a useful way to create illusions. I'll post some ideas later, I'd like to develope and Maciek also shared some interesting ideas.

[Panda Tar]

Before I return to game, I haven't got really alert to some of the text of the MAP 1. I noticed that we simply lose all our gold from time to time. That money is being retrieved and stocked for the main or we must really gather all 60 K gold before one of these losing-gold events trigger? As I only played twice and had it freezing in battle, I'd rather not going about too much on this matter, due lack of time.

[Maciek]

I think freezing in battle is caused by running h4 on multiple cores which it was not designed to do. To avoid this, open Task Manager (while running the game), right click h4mod.exe, go to process, right click, set affinity to one processor.

Money and resources used to build Fort and Citadel don't count towards the main goal. In total, you need 2k Gold payed to the Dwarfs in advance early in the scenario (so they can buy some tools), then 5k Gold, 20 Wood and Ore (materials to build the Fort), 7.5k Gold, 10 Wood and 10 Ore (materials to build Citadel) and also the Gold and Gems to pay the Dwarfs with (the 2k doesn't count towards that goal). Materials for Fort/Citadel are taken as soon as you gather them (but checks for them are done only in the mornings). Checks for the final goal are continuous (requires Citadel built).

[Panda Tar]

Ok, thanks for clarification and with the help. I'll try that.

[Karmakeld]

Panda, I state in the intro that important info/hints can be found in some texts, so reading can be important/useful
But if you feel there's a general need to make of the info more clear, also regarding what counts toward reaching your goal, don't hesitate to say so.
Chances are, others will be having the same thoughts or questions. And if it's leading to the least de-motivation, it's something I need to adjust.

or we must really gather all 60 K gold

well the requirements for Champion is no less than 100K gold Maciek managed to gather an astounding 120K in one of his tests, so 60K is easily reached

One more thing, the objectives in Chapter 2 is known to not be exactly pinned out, so you should either pay attention or search your surroundings. I don't mind forcing players to use the old nogging but getting a feeling of being stuck, is not an intention of mine.

[Panda Tar]

I tried the Advanced level. I'll first try to make the game stop freezing before returning to your maps. And I also got a busy week at home now to finish some jobs before leaving for a week with my family.

Anyway, what I could say about text, is the amount of it. I think you could part the story a bit, here and there, as day passes, and not presenting all of things at once. As much as one reads it, sometimes you could place a sign outside town, as if dwarves fixed that there to explain the situation? Just an example.

[Karmakeld]

Some of the texts are depending on your progress, but I have a look at the timed ones, and see if I can spread them out more.
Building a fort/citadel is part of the win condition, and should remain mentioned in the win condition, even when it changes to gather gold/gems (will check to be sure). My issue is that you can't check for buildings being build, so a scripted build when resource requirements are met, was my solution.
But I'll consider having Vilingu order the working dwarves to put up a sign as a reminder to Mudgeon, what his tasks are. That could work storywise.
Oh and I hope you're not overwhelmed by the amount of text (I think map 1 is rather short on text), but it'll only get worse map 4 is heavy on text..

[Panda Tar]

It all depends on how text is shown to you. Sometimes you are eager to explore or fight. Text must not break too much the action, but all depends on the map. It's not mandatory that your hero must fight either.

[Karmakeld]

Well I'm curious to be Reading your comments on map 4. Sometimes text could also include action, or humor can light up 'the break', though you're right about it being a balance, not ending up killing the fun of the game play. But this campaign IS very story driven, but I'm aware of the need to actually tell something and not just show some text for the sake of just having some text - at least I believe so..

[Panda Tar]

But don't mind my hasty mood. It is mainly because it was a while since I last played the game and I felt like killing monsters and being heroic and awesome, and the blood lust spoke higher. As I settle down again, I become more sociable.

[Maciek]

I was testing hero cloning for map 13, trying to predict where will which hero go at the beginning of new campaign and can't figure out a pattern. See here: carryover test campaigns.

The maps were created and last edited from first to last and the heroes were created and last edited from top left to bottom right (first all heroes from map 1, then all from map 2 etc.)

In every map, the heroes got a little experience and some skills so that I could easily figure out which one is which (see signs near the heroes).
The heroes got +1 xp in map 2, +2 in map 3, +4 in map 4 and +8 in map 5.

The results I got were the following (heroes' experience from top left to bottom right):
map 1: 0
map 2: 1
map 3: 2,3
map 4: 4,5,7,6
map 5: 8,9,11,15,14,12,10,13
map 6: 0,1,3,7,15,13,6,10,8,2,5,11,12,4,9,14

If I also gave them +16 xp in map 6, this would've looked like:
0
1
2,3
4,5,7,6
8,9,11,15,14,12,10,13
16,17,19,23,31,29,22,26,24,18,21,27,28,20,25,30

Alternatively, here are the paths that the heroes traveled (numbers of maps in which they've been):
-
1
1,12
1,12,13,123,
1,12,123,1234,134,14,13,124
1,12,125,123,1234,12345,1245,134,135,15,13,124,145,14,1235,1345


I repeated the experiment on a single computer core and the result hasn't changed. Does anyone have any insight on that?

Without knowing which hero goes where, we may not be able to tell which clone will go where in map 13 and so there will be only 4 identical Mudgeons at most in that map or 7 identical and 1 different (but we might not know which one). If we figure it out, there could be up to 2 thousand Mudgeons in map 13.

[Karmakeld]

I will have to look in this when I'm in front of my PC, but my conclusions so far, has been that they follow the number in which they've been placed on the map (like you describe your work progress), but this is only based on a few clones. I will have to do a similar test, to determine if their paths indeed can't be traced.
But I don't think that 2000 clones would be needed. But I have thought about placing more along the way, to enable a larger number in map 13. I should look into how many would be useful, if the 4-7 is enough, or their placement is less relevant, it wont be a big issue.

[Karmakeld]

Vlad has send me his test results, so now I just need to compared results of map 2, do a few checks of some carried over variables, and some tweaking of certain settings on lower difficulties and then I should be ready to release updated versions of map 1-5 and be able to aim my focus on the later maps.
I will just sum up some of the most imporant changes this update will include:

- Campaign Description has been slightly changed, to better inform players that the story is set in the existing world of Axeoth and will involve references to some of the original 3DO campaigns.

Updates to Chapter 1 is pure text.
- But includes better description of the main hero having a custom skill and added info to win condition, based on recent feedback as well as other minor text changes to campaign introduction.

Most important updates to Chapter 2:
- A few visual changes.
- Various changes has been added so that completion time is now greatly reduced compared to version 1.0
- Among the above, the possibilty to save tiger cubs at certain points has been added, to reduce completion time of a tiger collecting quest.
- New hidden bonus has been added, enabling the player to achieve additional skills or artifacts as well as a luck and morale bonus (all is carried over).
- Certain scripts has been improved, fixing minor tecnical and display issues.
- A 'choice of tools' has been added, to better improve balance on all difficulties, but also help improve the balance in the later chapters.
- Certain neutral stack has been reduced, on lower difficulties.

No updates has been made to Chapter 3.

Most important updates to Chapter 4:
- Changed various settings regarding an Ambush event (placement, decoration, scripts etc). (Changes to this event, now mean that you will pass a point and suddenly be ambushed from behind the point you've just passed).
- An issue that could leave Orange impossible to eliminate, has been fixed.

Most important updates to Chapter 5:
- Various settings has been changed to make Novice difficulty easier.
- Changed certain carryover hero to purple (was neutral, didn't carryover to chapter 6 - this issue would cause a vital issue in chapter 6).
- Minor fixes to minor issues.

[Karmakeld]

All updates are finally done so once the map page is updated, it''ll be ready for download. I'll send it to other sites these comming days aswell. And then it's just forward wrapping up Chapter 6, 7 and 8.
Thanks to PandaTar, Vlad and iLiVeInAbOx05 for testing updates.

[Baronus]

Congratulations. I downloaded this title but its old version I suppose?

[Karmakeld]

Thanks and yes, the new version v.1.1 isn't up yet, but I can send the updated one to you. Just pm me and I'll send you a zip file.
I'll post when I'm informed that it's been uploaded on any of the map sites that I'm aware of.

[Baronus]

Ok. I collect Equlibris maps with new obiect. It isnt a lot of these.

[Karmakeld]

Sadly no, but I make use of the new artifacts from Equilibris but we can only hope to see the v.3.6 some day..
I initially didn't know you could make custom portraits work with WoW version and Further more it turns out some battles are impossible to win in WoW, so its pure intended for Equilibris version. Campaign description however does state this. But I hope you will enjoy it ..

[Baronus]

Ive got it. Thanks. All good for you! :-) Will be good I like this part of Heroes...

[Karmakeld]

version 1.1. can be download here:
http://www.maps4heroes.com/heroes4/maps ... ze=&sort=3
http://www.mightandmagicworld.de/maps/t ... index.html

I've send to CH, www.kartenarchiv.de/, tawerna.biz, heroesportal and Behemoths Cave aswell, but those still remains, to be uploaded it seems.