Orb & Crown 0.93: Fantasy warfare mod for World at War

[El_Condoro]

Orb and Crown is available to play in Strategic Command: World At War

Orb & Crown mod and campaign files are linked here

Orb and Crown is a fantasy warfare mod with a completely new custom map, unit counters (2D style only) and scripts. Dragons, giants and other fantastical creatures join the knights, praetorians, and keshig of the world's armies to battle for supremacy and to find the Orb and Crown of the Emerald Imperium.

A full AI has been scripted for both the Allies and the Adversaries.

An optional Strategy Advisor has been included for single-player games in version 0.8 and later (link to YouTube)

A full-size map is available here (41.4 Mb JPG)

INSTALLATION
Download the ZIP files and extract them into your [User]\Documents\My Games\Strategic Command - World At War\campaigns and ...\Mods folders. Do not install to the main Strategic Command game folders (under the Steam installation, for example). Activate the Orb & Crown Mod before playing the campaign and ensure that 3D units are turned off, as the mod only uses modified 2D-style symbols.

Please try the campaign and leave any comments, questions, or criticisms here so that it can continue to be developed and improved.

Versions:
0.8 - Strategy Advisor
0.9 - Random (3rd) Victory Condition
0.91 - Hero changes; elephant unit added for Ancients; minor convoy route changes
0.92 - Review and rewrite of the Adversary AI
0.93 - Review and rewrite of the Allies AI

For an excellent AAR that also introduces the context of the wars, see here.

Orb & Crown YouTube
Discord

[El_Condoro]

Orb and Crown version 0.5 released for World at War

[YueJin]

Congratulations on the successful port. I've put a game up and will let you know how the mod feels when it gets going.

[jjdenver]

YueJin I saw your game up I'll try to install the mod and accept the game to try it out with you.

[YueJin]

Found a small problem, in multiplayer the nations all have their names from the base game I assume they replaced, so Angnord is Kenya ect.

Interestingly this doesn't occur in singleplayer, everything displays correctly there.

[El_Condoro]

Yes, it has been a recurring problem without a solution as yet. It should fix itself next turn.

[YueJin]

I think the descriptions for invasion and ranged weapons have been flipped in the research screen.

[redrum68]

Yeah I'm seeing the weird issue with ww2 nation names appearing in many places in MP as well. Maybe Bill or Hubert can take a look to see what the issue is?

A few other thoughts/issues:
- Ranged and invasion techs have their tooltips swapped
- The Ancient's Giant Wing unit starts in 0 supply which feels awkward as it can only move 1 hex
- Some of the "!" locations don't have tooltips or its unclear what they do. Examples: Huntington which could have a tooltip saying it damages undead/adversary units and green dragon attack zone which doesn't say anything about what it does and isn't in the strategy guide.
- Dragons seems very strong and strategy guide doesn't really discuss how to deal with them

[El_Condoro]

• Swapped tech descriptions - yes, that is an easy fix for the next version. The actual techs are in the right slots, though.

• Yes, I thought about changing that to a suppled hex - next version, too. From turn 2 it will have normal flight movement.

• The "!" locations without a hover text are teleporters that will teleport a leader or heroes unit to the destination marked in yellow under it. A few people have mentioned this, so I will add a hover text.

• Dragons are meant to be the kings/queens of the battlefield and are super tough. Stay out of their way, stay hidden as much as possible, and defeat their countries is what I do. And they are cowards! If you put a weak unit (garrison) in their line of sight, they will attack them first.

• The Strategy Guide needs a thorough revision, which I intend to do.

[redrum68]

Thanks for the quick response!

For the Ancient's Giant Wing, I think you can only safely move it west or north if the Golden Khanate's elite advances as far as it can turn 1 which I think means it'll be in 0 supply again turn 2 unless I'm missing something.

Yeah, there are the teleport hexes but also several other "!" locations that don't have very helpful tooltips either.

[El_Condoro]

I have changed the teleporter on-map text and symbol to a popup with the hover text of "Teleport From X to Y (Leader, Heroes)".

If there are others that are confusing, please give their hex ref and I'll try to clarify them. The ones that should have hover text do but if the actual text is ambiguous, I will try to fix it.

The air unit issue is easy to fix and came from a focus on the AI and not MP games. My mistake but perhaps a home rule for MP games that the Golden Khanate not attack them until turn 3 if they go all-in against the Ancients until the update is posted.

[redrum68]

For some reason, Jummerock dropped to 5 supply a turn after it joined. Not sure why that happened or if its intended?

Jummerock.png (25.3 KiB) Viewed 3760 times

[El_Condoro]

I have not noticed that before. I assume there is a game mechanics reason but I am playing an AI game where Jummerock has been Allies for a long time and it is on Supply 10 and Value 15 GP. I assume you will see its Supply increase each turn until it reaches 10 and its Value likewise.

[redrum68]

Ah I think the issue was I had good supply the first turn due to the HQ that spawns there. But since it was immediately attacked supply dropped.

[YueJin]

No you're right Redrum, on the turn Jummerock went allies it had a natural 10 supply value which dropped to 5 the next turn. Since minors usually join with 5 and then scale up (Booyahron did) I think it just starts higher than it should then corrects on the next turn.

Thinking about it more it might be because they came in on Adversary's turn but without having war declared on them, that's unique as far as I know, might cause it to behave differently.

[redrum68]

General feedback after playing as Allies for about 10 turns and surrendering:
- Very nice map and some interesting concepts
- Balance seems way off as Allies get crushed everywhere and hard to see how they ever compete. Tribal is super weak and far away. I'd be surprised if MP games have Allies winning but maybe just poor play from me, I dunno.
- Units feel kind of like I'm just playing WW2 on a fantasy map as mostly same stats
- Dragons are crazy and have no real counter play
- Diplo seems way too random and because minors are so strong in terms of income and units swing the game a ton
- Lots of things seem missing or unclear in the strategy guide
- Research feels really slow for a game that is probably decided within 50 turns if not sooner

[El_Condoro]

General feedback after playing as Allies for about 10 turns and surrendering:
- Very nice map and some interesting concepts
- Balance seems way off as Allies get crushed everywhere and hard to see how they ever compete. Tribal is super weak and far away. I'd be surprised if MP games have Allies winning but maybe just poor play from me, I dunno.
- Units feel kind of like I'm just playing WW2 on a fantasy map as mostly same stats
- Dragons are crazy and have no real counter play
- Diplo seems way too random and because minors are so strong in terms of income and units swing the game a ton
- Lots of things seem missing or unclear in the strategy guide
- Research feels really slow for a game that is probably decided within 50 turns if not sooner

Thanks for the feedback. 10 turns is not enough to get much of an idea of the campaign but I expect its difficulty is due to it being your first playthrough. I find it interesting that you say the Allies are too weak (they certainly are in the first 10 turns) because my challenge has been to try to make the Allies (the player) not win too easily. In the version I am working on, I am feeling threatened, which is my goal.

- the unit stats are the one thing people should be familiar with (generally). The map and situation is completely new, so the units are a point of familiarity. Yes, dragons are the most obvious outlier but there is only 1 - possibly 2 - on the map. They cause massive destruction as they should but not to completely dominate the battlefield. I think I have actually killed Draca once in all my tests and generally avoid him and go for his capitals, leaving him still alive and dangerous (but out of the campaign!).
- diplomacy is critical and faster than in SC but I have not found it to be an issue as both sides get a few potential allegiants.
- Yes, the Strategy Guide has not kept up with the changes. In my experience, that is a fairly common gaming experience.
- Research is actually faster than SC at least from Level 0-1 or 1-2. By 2402, most majors are on Level 2 in the main technologies.

The campaign is meant to be really tough to start and then even out as it progresses. There are DE events to influence the outcome (after the 10th turn in many cases), such as Angford supporting the beleaguered Angnord and others that affect the mobilization of important minors (Beegwulf and Dwarf Kingdom are two good examples). I hope to put out some strategy guides on YouTube for each Allied major but am too busy at the moment. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks.

[redrum68]

Sorry if I wasn't clear, this was a multiplayer game not vs the AI. I'm sure I can play Allies and crush the AI but it seemed like you were positioning this as a multiplayer mod not just singleplayer.

[YueJin]

I'm never one to criticize a surrender, if you feel lost or not enjoying the game it's no problem. I would heavily disagree with the assessment of the situation though. The Golden Khanate had been stopped dead, the Guartenheim giants destroyed, Mul'kan was facing only a couple of medium humanoid units and Angford was about to crash into the weak flank of Draca with only sappers and infantry in the way.

I did get incredibly lucky with Draca himself evading damage several times but I don't think taking Donsborough was a sure thing with Guartenheim's measly 70GP income in the early turns and Beegwulf about to threaten the Southern flank. It would take most of the year to get Andania/Potentia involved somewhere and I can see on the post game screen I would almost certainly have lost the Mittleheim fleet to that ambush.

Thanks for trying out the mod though I enjoyed testing some things out.

[redrum68]

While I agree with most of your current assessment the issues I see are:
- Angnord I think is dead. I can't stop the dragon and with pressure from 3 sides, they are going to collapse. I don't think that is supposed to happen and I don't think the game is balanced for it to happen.
- Ancients are also going to slowly die once Potentia and the southern minor join as they can't defend against all 3.
- Andania appears to be by far the strongest faction and already has tons of research. They will long term crush everyone and tribal is like a joke in comparison as they are very poor and have bad research rate.

Maybe I'm missing something?