15 — A New Land

Identity

WML ID	`15_A_New_Land`
Next scenario	`16_The_Kalian`
Map	`15_A_New_Land.map`, 41 × 42 hexes
Turns	Unlimited until the first death
Automatic enemy victory	Disabled
Carryover	20%, with a custom survival-duration bonus

Archetype	Nonlethal survival / diplomatic misunderstanding
Story importance	Critical
WML complexity	Very high
AI complexity	Very high; custom Lua candidate action
End trigger	Any non-protected unit dies

Story and dialogue

After the fleet finally reaches the Great Continent, the refugees land in the middle of an elven–dwarven territorial dispute. The elves accuse dwarven colonists of violating an ancient treaty; Dursil argues that the dwarves have outgrown their northern mines and rejects elven control over southern forest resources.

The arrival of many human ships temporarily unites the continental factions against the refugees. Haldric repeatedly attempts his practiced peace speech, but the situation becomes violent before diplomacy can begin. The first death brings Lady Dionli, who stops the battle, recognizes the newcomers as kin to the earlier Prince of Southbay, orders the dwarves north, and summons Haldric to the Ka’lian.

Dialogue beat	Function
Elven–dwarven treaty dispute	Introduces the continent’s existing political and resource tensions.
Fleet mistaken for invasion	Places the refugees into conflict without making either local people inherently villainous.
Burin’s realization	Reveals that he traveled all the way around the world.
Dionli’s intervention	Ends the battle at the first death and redirects the story toward diplomacy.
Typhon’s departure	Closes the merfolk escort relationship and changes roster access by difficulty.
Fleet sent back west	Shows Haldric continuing to search for Green Isle survivors.

Map description

The 41 × 42 coastal map places the refugee landing among ocean, beaches, grassland, forest, villages, roads, hills, mountains, water channels, and three continental keeps. Glimir and Eowarar command elven forces while Dursil commands dwarves. Their shared team makes them temporary allies against Haldric despite their opening argument.

Map system	Design role
Large coast and visible fleet	Makes the locals’ invasion interpretation understandable.
Three continental recruitment centers	Creates pressure from distinct elven and dwarven rosters.
Elven villages and forest	Supports healers, archers, and woodland fighters.
Dwarven hill and mountain access	Supports guardsmen, fighters, thunderers, and pathfinders.

Objectives and unusual reward model

Success condition	Avoid deaths for as long as possible; the scenario ends when any ordinary unit dies.
Defeat	Death of Haldric, Lady Jessene, or Lord Typhon.
Turn limit	Unlimited while no death occurs.
Carryover	20% of finishing gold.
Bonus	Calculated to equal an early-finish bonus for the number of turns survived.

When the terminating death occurs, the scenario sets the turn limit to the current turn and then adds the current turn again. The resulting total is twice the survived turn count, leaving an equal number of “remaining” turns for Wesnoth’s early-finish calculation.

Design inversion. Ordinary campaigns reward finishing faster. This scenario uses the same engine bonus system to reward surviving longer without a death.

Sides and recruitment

Side	Leader / roster	Gold	Starting villages
1 — Refugees	Haldric and full party	100	Campaign state
2 — Elves	Glimir, Elvish Marshal; fighters, archers, shamans and selected level-2 units	150 / 220 / 300	8
3 — Dwarves	Dursil, Dwarvish Lord; fighters, thunderers, guardsmen and selected level-2 units	150 / 220 / 300	14
4 — Elves	Eowarar, Elvish Champion; fighters, archers and selected level-2 units	150 / 220 / 300	8

Recruitment instructions require at least one prioritized advanced unit before continuing with cheaper base troops. This ensures the three local forces visibly include their distinctive higher-level roles.

Custom Lua AI: aggressive attack without suicide

Each continental side replaces the normal combat, high-XP attack, and poison-spreading candidate actions with ca_aggressive_attack_no_suicide.lua. The scenario’s objective note explicitly tells the player that enemies will not initiate an attack if they risk dying.

The candidate action:

Gets every unit able to attack.
Enumerates possible attacks, including occupied destinations.
Simulates each combat.
Rejects any attack where the attacker has a nonzero chance of death.
Rates the survivors by defender kill chance, expected defender damage, low expected attacker damage, and stronger attacker HP.
Moves and attacks with the highest-rated option.

Rating component	Effect
Defender death chance × 100	Strongly favors possible kills.
Expected defender damage	Rewards useful nonlethal attacks.
Expected attacker damage ÷ 10	Penalizes self-harm.
Attacker HP ÷ 10	Breaks ties toward stronger attackers.

Escalating income

At every new turn, sides 2–4 receive base income equal to $turn_number - 1. The scenario therefore becomes progressively harder even though it has no fixed deadline.

Turn	Continental base income
1	0
5	4
10	9
20	19

This prevents an indefinitely passive strategy and makes every additional deathless turn increasingly valuable.

Landing and first-death event

Phase	Behavior
`prestart`	Stores and removes Haldric so the landing can be animated.
`start`	Runs the local-faction dispute, animates the fleet, unstores Haldric, recalls the party, and starts the failed peace attempt.
Turn 3	Jessene comments on the hostile welcome.
Every new turn	Raises all three continental sides’ base income.
First non-protected death	Lady Dionli arrives, stops the battle, redirects Haldric to the Ka’lian, resolves Typhon’s departure, initializes hub variables, converts survival time into a finish bonus, and ends with 20% carryover.

Difficulty-dependent merfolk transition

Difficulty	After Lord Typhon leaves
Easy	Merman Fighter and Merman Hunter remain recruitable.
Normal / Hard	Further merfolk recruitment is disabled; existing merfolk units remain available through the recall roster.

The dialogue reflects this distinction: on harder settings, Typhon says the warriors who already fought beside Haldric wish to remain.

Quest-hub initialization

Before leaving for the Ka’lian, Scenario 15 initializes the complete hub state:

Variable	Initial value	Meaning
`num_done`	0	Number of Ka’lian quests completed
`a_beach`	0	Lizard Beach incomplete
`cursed_isle`	0	Cursed Isle incomplete
`the_dragon`	0	Dragon quest incomplete
`troll_hole`	0	Troll Hole incomplete
`last_done`	`"none"`	No returning quest to greet yet

Assets and custom content

Resource	Origin	Use
`story/trow_story_15-A_New_Land.webp`	Campaign	First sight of the Great Continent
Lady Dionli portrait and Autumn Shyde sprite	Campaign	Diplomatic intervention
Familiar portrait and unit	Campaign	Jevyan surveillance
Elvish and dwarvish factions, fleet ships, terrain and music	Core/shared	Most tactical and visual content
`ca_aggressive_attack_no_suicide.lua`	Campaign AI	Scenario-specific no-suicide combat behavior

Scenario WML · Map source · Lua candidate action · AI index

Lessons for campaign authors

Pattern	Reuse lesson
End on the first death	Build a battle around restraint rather than conquest.
Custom AI matching the objective	When ordinary combat logic would undermine the premise, replace only the necessary candidate action.
Unlimited time plus escalating income	Create pressure without a hard deadline.
Repurpose early-finish bonus	Manipulate the final turn limit to reward survival duration.
Initialize an entire branch state in one transition	Keep the following hub file focused on presentation and routing.

← 14 — Rough Landing 16 — The Ka’lian →

Release 1.0.0. Source snapshot: Wesnoth 6ab3fc1, accessed July 12, 2026. This site has no external runtime dependencies and can be opened directly from disk.