Wasteland Campaign - Project Thread

[Refineus]

Wasteland chapters (Working name)

Download at Steam
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1784807573

Main content, this campaign is set to have the following:

• 11+ desert-themed maps. (Depends on time or release on separate chapters)
• Background and lore for 30 pre-made characters. (Mostly desert-themed)
• A custom story connected with Age of Wonders III timeline.
• New world maps created for all campaign scenarios.
• The return of Ashen Steppes, Kesh, Drakar Oasis and Jungle of Umbura.
• A story containing choices and consequences with different endings.
• Unique and different scenarios.
• The main story about a king and his faction goals.
• 1 Dwelling

Other planned content:

• Custom multiplayer scenarios

Implemented content so far:

• 40 premade leaders for all races
• 11 campaign scenarios
• Royal Tent Dwelling with Slaver and Smuggler units and Watchmen
• Storm Wyvern and Storm Dragon in Dragon Dwelling
• Storm Wyvern mount in the item section
• Nomad race

Unimplemented content:

• Wasteland alignment (Specialization)
• Voice acting
• Custom page backgrounds

To maintain stability, the campaign will not use any other content provided from other mods.

​

Questions supposed to be answered by this campaign:

• Is there a possibility that some Frostlings could have made it past Brisska?
• What happened to the Nomads and the Tigrans?
• Why did the Tigrans abandon the continent of Kesh and for what reasons?
• Why were the Commonwealth's colonists rebelling?
• How did the Elven colonist appear in the Ashen Steppes?

In-game story improvements of original characters:

• Non-canon stories for Sundren and several other key characters
• Returning characters from Shadow Magic

The goal of the campaign:

• Unite all the various factions met in the campaign to become the great Wasteland Alliance.
• Secure the lost lands of your ancestors and establish the capital of the Wasteland Alliance in the Horn of Kesh.

Development thread and diaries on steam:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/226840/discussions/0/1761356057422015333/

Future:
The campaign is planned to be released on steam in 2020
The development diaries on steam might move over here on the Paradox platform.

Overlook of a possible lineup of a broken side of humans in the Nomad Race

I. Irregular – (Undecided)
a. Melee Strike
b. -
II. Infantry – (Undecided)
a. Melee Strike
b. -

III. Archer – Desert Archer (Created and finished)
a. Melee Strike, Shoot bow
b. -

IV. Pikeman – Spearmen (Undecided, due to being a racial lineup of pikeman)
a. Melee strike, Throw Spear
b. Polearm, Pike Square

V. Support – Herbalist (Undecided)
a. Poison strike, Poison darts, Healing.
b. Poison Protection, Forestry, Concealment, True sight, Night vision, Armoured, Fearsome

VI. Cavalry – Elephant Rider (Created and finished)
a. Melee Strike
b. Charge, Mounted, Wall Crushing

VII. Special – Roq (Created and finished)
a. Melee strike
b. Grasp

Overlook of a possible lineup of a broken side of humans in the Royal Tent Dwelling

I. Irregular – Smuggler
a. Melee Strike, Shot bow
b. Sprint, Fast healing, 40% fire protection
II. Cavalary – Slaver
a. Melee Strike
b. 40% Fire prot, 20% Frost weak, Charge, Trap (Unimplemented - replaced with throw net)

Overlook of the Storm Dragon and Storm Wyvern

I. Dragon – Storm Wyvern
a. Melee Strike
b. 100 % Shock prot, 20 % Blight weak, Fearsome, Forest concealment
II. Dragon – Storm Dragon
a. Melee Strike, Shock breath
b. 100% Shock prot, 20 % Blight weak, Fearsome, Forest concealment

Pictures released so far on steam:

 

[Artfactial]

Awesome, I sorely miss the Nomads! Best of luck on this, always good to see expansion of the AOW world.

 

[Refineus]

Awesome, I sorely miss the Nomads! Best of luck on this, always good to see expansion of the AOW world.

Yeah, I missed the Nomads too and the camels. I had intentions to make an offspring race of the humans and apply a specialization on top of them to replace the lineup of humans with nomads with a specialization. I dropped the idea as it seems to much work behind it. However, I never stopped the writing for this campaign and it is probably content for about 6 missions currently. But, I don't have time to script it and work on two campaigns at once.

 

[Artfactial]

You should give it a go if you have some spare time. Duplicating the Human race isn't a whole lot of work; giving them distinct names and visuals is all up to you how much you want to spend on. Could help you along with that if you'd like.

6-10 missions is a lovely start. So you're planning to give the player choices leading into different scenarios like the campaign of the main game?

 

[Refineus]

I believe for a start at least 6 mission has potential. The intended mission progress in the planning document will leave the player with a choice after the prologue mission to choose which leader to play with. After that, there will be story events leaning toward evil or good things which would determine the fate of the newcomers.

Essentially, there are some mechanics planned for the campaign that could trigger if the player does something like razing cities or similar that adds up with other things done in each mission. If the leader did too many bad things it will change many of the goals into something else for the future missions. It won't be so obvious like the original campaign when you choose between being evil or good in a dialogue.

 

[Refineus]

On Christmas and new years holidays. I have been writing a lot with pen and paper which I usually do on vacations.

Currently, I think I have around 20 mission pages done, 10 mission briefings. 200+ unique dialogues and more ideas added as they come when I add them to word document.

The current lineup of missions will start with a prologue.

Then it ends with a choice to pick between two different leaders. They do not have the same missions, but they share storylines with each other and progress side by side on the world map.

So one will be the story of the King. The other one about his trusted friend and guard. They work on the same goal to improve the Wasteland Alliance and gather the scattered people at various places in order to unite them.

The main storyline will be from the king's side. But the player will learn things and clues from both sides of their stories. The difficulty will be a lot harder with the second storyline as you do not have cities for three missions. It will be sort of commando styled missions with infiltration, hunting and convoy protection. The king will also see this kind of missions, but they will have a different style like a rescue mission.

The progress has not halted, but the planning has been improved. It will make life easier and speed up the map making when the story is done.

As far as it goes time wise I should have time to start with this partly in February. The campaign for Shadow realm scenario 3a has come to 1/3 part of progress and will be completed hopefully in January

Also, I wrote an input for the latest issue of Stronghelm Globe regarding the project and added the campaign selection screen.

 

[Refineus]

The campaign is still in progress and to give players a heads up. I will demonstrate an example of how a convoy will perform in the campaign and how it will work its way each turn through a scenario.

It's possible to choose directions entirely and also adding wait timers.

Here I set up a basic test arena that is common for many of the experiments of mine with the editor.

In this screen, the mission starts with Drugal giving the convoy an order. Here the enemy has a settler.

On each turn, the convoy will move forward.

Here I will give the settler an order to either continue moving east or south. I choose south and it will reach its target

So the convoy reaches its final destination by the watchtower. I will also give a try for the second option by forcing the convoy to go east instead.

On this picture, I gave the convoy a new choice. So the convoy can have a second destination also. This will be crucial in one of the scenarios of the campaign when an escort will be needed.

So I choose to go east and the settlers move forward on the next turn after I pressed east.

Same thing when I pressed Southeast. The convoy settler will now move south-east when I pressed the button thus overriding Colm initial plans for the settlers.

 

[Artfactial]

That's a very neat system, awesome work!

 

[Refineus]

That's a very neat system, awesome work!

It's very neat. I wanted to deploy my own escort missions so it took some time to try scripts. I already have some developed scripts pointed towards a defense and stealth mission. The convoy was the last scripts in order to be able to finish two scenarios which both depend on this convoy scripts.

 

[Artfactial]

Yes, many applicable scenarios! I was thinking of a reverse with an intercept mission to stop a convoy of getting somewhere as well, with perhaps the added difficulty of the AI choosing which path to take.

 

[Refineus]

Yes, many applicable scenarios! I was thinking of a reverse with an intercept mission to stop a convoy of getting somewhere as well, with perhaps the added difficulty of the AI choosing which path to take.

In one case this is in the planning already. The possiblities with "carry over" scripts from previous scenario can change the goals completly. Being evil for example leading the protection of convoys to become a goal to set up blockades to stop the convoys at chock points.

 

[Artfactial]

That's awesome! Would, in this way, it be possible for the AI to determine the goals?
If a convoy reaches destination A: Defense missions,, if the convoy reaches Destination B: Fetch Mission.

 

[Refineus]

It can absolutly let the a.i change goals and increase their responses.

So far the intial response will look something like this:

For the path with the king, in his mission he will enter the region of Relekesh where Draconians are rebuilding their newly aquired lands. In this case, if the King previously failed some of the mission he can decide that the Draconians are preventing his expansion and his missions will then be about stopping all settlers and forces. While the other path with his guard will meet some mysterious travellers that claims they need protection for an escort and if they see through your intentions the map will be turned into a exploration instead when the travellera running away.

 

[Refineus]

So essentially a little presentation in this post will be about the stealth mission and some of the returning characters. In the mission "Storming the fronts" there will be some classic action with the evil character Lucian van Kesburgh from the Commonwealth faction. His role will be explained in a similar way that the Wasteland faction is meeting him before the part where Sundren and Reskar are exploring their part of Relekesh.

Taballu, a much older version of the Shadow magic character. There will be a few characters introduced to the campaign, old characters is a difficult decision to decide if they can be as old as Merlin or died because "they really are too old" but for the flavour of the campaign it's intended to bring back at least some characters one way or another. Also, provide choices to further point characters in a certain direction.

In the mission called "Green infiltration" which is the path for the character and his story. There will be a stealth mechanic involved which individually control most of the units around the map. The reason for this is that, if the a.i had its control over everything, it would mean they take all their forces and attack instantly your forces which are not that many.

The map uses, of course, many custom scripts and quests that are beneficial for the stories.

There is a couple of quests that initially set off the whole mission and connects with everything around. The maps quest will be revealed after facing certain events on the map and things like hints will also be revealed as soon as the player gets in contact with the things that "hints".

All in all the main mission is to perform a raid and sabotage as much as possible before the enemies discover what's going on.

Thankfully, some search patrols can be quite dangerous and challenging. This units will be attached to the leader's personality and will reveal a quest hint. Not so smart maybe, but forces of Urlagh is more dangerous and stronger. Oftenly they do not report you for trespassing or when they see you on sight. They will attack instantly, but not follow if you outrun them.

I know this mission do not contain cities at all for the player to build up a snowball of units and then beat the crap out of the a.i. Try to take one, and the result will come with units on their way. Even if you take a city or outpost you will immediately be reported for this. You will be given a brief moment to escape and given a tutorial text to know what to do.

The result will, of course, trigger some additional confusion for your foes. Getting caught in this situation can be very difficult for the player, so better not stay around when the search patrols arrive... Groshak is of course to represent the smarter one between him and Urlagh.

In terms of this mission, there will be many more things with quest matching with those characters from the Relekesh campaign. The scripts and quest will favour a more stealth approach, always. It's not an instant loss when discovered, but escaping from the enemies will lead to your doom as soon as they start targetting your band of units.

I can say from now, that this map was probably the most difficult to make because of all the individual scripts movements, but also for the connection with scripts that has something to do with raid, stealth, ambush and razing structures. Then setting them up to be a mission where everything is performing as intended.

 

[Refineus]

A comparison between the world maps. The initial "Borders" purple for Elven court and dark red for Commonwealth I have not successfully manage to recreate. However, the colours of the factions will progress in the same way as both of the other campaigns only with the Wasteland alliance breaking in later and conflicting with the others later on.

 

[Refineus]

First 5 scenarios are available at the steam workshop!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1784807573

 

[Mr.Lost]

Hello,just got a try.Find some thing below:
In 1a scenarios pirate coast,can not decalre war with the human and elf pirate,it is a bug or not?also when i found the goblin town,cause there is no buttton so i can not get the town misson ?the 3rd is meet Tanner,no dialogue or event happen,do not know it is an error or not?
a question about the leader,In the later scenarios any chance to see a tigerian race hero as a leader?
All in all a good campaign mod,hoping to see the complete version.

 

[Refineus]

The thing with this scenario is it got added new things the final version of the map.

Hm, they were quite added recently. I shall

The map resolve under differential quest and scripts. I will look into this evening and see what went wrong.

 

[Refineus]

Hello,just got a try.Find some thing below:
In 1a scenarios pirate coast,can not decalre war with the human and elf pirate,it is a bug or not?also when i found the goblin town,cause there is no buttton so i can not get the town misson ?the 3rd is meet Tanner,no dialogue or event happen,do not know it is an error or not?
a question about the leader,In the later scenarios any chance to see a tigerian race hero as a leader?
All in all a good campaign mod,hoping to see the complete version.

Applied fix.
It turns out "CityQuest" is a malfunction and no longer supported in scripts. Changed it and it became a normal standard quest should work.

Regarding pirates, in the scenario there is a couple of actions that makes them declare war on you. Tigran may return later

 

[AnarchCassius]

I really want to get the Nomads in and supported by this campaign.

I noticed your list and have some issues/suggestions. Mostly I think they feel too generic "Alliance" and the Nomads should get their own list but have Human, Tigran, etc allies. As an already hybrid culture the Nomads should be a melting pot but this is going a bit far I think and leaves little room for their old units.


Lizardman Militia: Personally I love the lizards but they don't belong with either humans or nomads. I tend to like how they are considered to have hybridized with Draconians and Naga in much of fan-lore. If pure-blooded lizardfolk are part of the plot I think they should be a Dwelling race or something similar.

Mercenary: Just doesn't seem as interesting or Nomad themed as the Barbarian.

Blade thrower: Isn't this more of a Tigran thing?

Spearman: A classic but I'd use them as Irregular.

Herbalist: Could work. I don't have any particular idea for a Priest, particularly if they don't follow Yaka. I forget what they got in the mod for SM that gave racial priests, but that would probably be where I look first.

Slaver: I can see a solid argument for this. I was kind of thinking they could go in a Racial Heritage compatability submod as part of the evil path, but this does work.

Swashbuckler: Isn't this more of a Human thing?

The list I came up with earlier this week by coincidence was:

Irregular: Spearman (has melee and ranged, very basic)
Infantry: Barbarian
Archer: Desert Archer (no horse, like old Azrac archer, use Warlord for Horse Archers)
Pikeman: Elephant Rider (not technically Calvary, but has mounted)
Calvalry: Chieftan (maybe a bit epic for basic Calvary, but I needed them to go somewhere)
Support: Priest (yeah, no real solid ideas for this guy)
Special (Calvary): Roc (too cool not to have)

My idea was that Slaver and Pit Guard would be a Racial Heritage style thing and the Djinn might go to a Dwelling that adds some neutral AoW1/2/SM units back. Heritage mod style is the only way to fit enough units into a race to really capture what they had in SM.

Not married to anything, just wanted to get some brainstorming going.