Quests

Good quests are hard to create.  I seriously considered removing quests from Elemental entirely (I still don't know which is the better design decision).  But at the end of the day part of what makes Elemental unique is the concept of these D&D type quests in a 4x game.  So right or wrong they are quintessentially Elemental, so we will make them great.

Which leads to the next question, what makes for a great quest?  In my opinion a great quest has to do one of 3 things:

1. Provide an interesting strategic option.  For example, a quest where the player can sacrifice a champion to a Death Demon in trade for a spell that allows the player to summon that Death Demon in battle.

2. A wild result, with quests we can have fun and make crazy things happen that we would normally avoid in a strategy game.  A bard brags that he knows a song that will summon a dragon.  The song doesn't provide any ability to control the dragon, but he's glad to play it for a few coins (the song may or may not spawn an angry dragon that runs around the map destroying people and cities).

3. Setup a long term goal (and sufficient reward) that the player can plan out and may affect her overall game strategy.  There are lots of examples of these coming.  We want the player to be able to explore the world and develop their own goals.  Opportunities should be visible from the beginning of the game and some may take hundreds of turns before the player is able to accomplish them.  Some may be combat related (trying to get an army strong enough to defeat that enemy), some may be economy based (gathering enough materials, metal, crystal, etc to be able to complete the next step), some may be exploration based (finding the things you need).  The best will mix these requirements or be able to be accomplished in more than one way.

Quests are the one area where randomness and lack of consistency is good.  We want some short and some long.  Some full of combat, and some without combat at all.  Some straight forward and some full of twists.  I also like quests that may not turn out the same way every time.  This can either be from a random chance of a twist in a quest, or two seemingly identical quests that diverge part way through.

For example the escort the nobleman's daughter quest can stay.  But we can add another quest that looks exactly like the first except that a group of bandits stops the party outside of the nobleman's estate and offers the player more gildar than the nobleman for the daughter.  The player then has the option to refuse the offer and deliver her to her father, attack the bandits, accept the offer and get gildar for the daughter or refuse the bandits and try to ransom the daughter to her father himself (with a chance for getting even more gildar).

And of course we need lots of quests.  It's one of those areas where you can't have too many.

I read through all of the quest ideas from the Design a Quest contest (https://www.elementalgame.com/contest).  The following are my favorites:

Swapped at Birth by rdkaye444

This quest starts when the player tries to marry off his first born child. The wedding ceremony is interrupted! Someone has come forward claiming that he was swapped with the heir as a baby, and the heir is actually the spawn of an other worldly being (demon or faerie, in essence a changeling). The accuser is a channeler, and the family of the other faction demands that the claim be substantiated before the marriage can take place.

The 'Advisor' to the hero (Janask I believe - he's the hero who joined ) then speaks up:

"There is a wise woman.. she lives not far from here (the location of the first born child). Go to her and she will be able to make the determination"

In a side note inform the player that he must visit the witch woman in an army that contains the first born and the accuser. Start the accuser token in the same location as the first born. The accuser and the first born must both go on this quest together.

If both the first born and the accuser move into the square containing the witch's hut, then they will get this response:

The wise woman examines the accuser and cries out "this is no child of this world!" The accuser - his lie now revealed - will kill the witch woman, and attack the player. The accuser is the changeling - and a powerful monster to boot.

If the player defeats the changeling, then he gets an amulet of persuasion (Charisma +3), and the wedding of the first born can then proceed.

I like this quest because it's tied to an important event.  I would probably increase the strategic options by allowing the player the option of standing by his heir and having the accuser killed in the beginning.  Or accepting the accuser right off, killing the heir and replacing them with the accuser.  If the player doesn't rule immediately and tries to determine the truth then there could be a 50% chance that the accuser was telling the truth and the opportunity to swap of the old child for a new hero (the accuser).

The Curse of the Slyph by Selphares

Quest Level : 3
Location: A Lake

Description:

By entering the location the armies of the Kingdom / Empire destroy by accident an important waterstone, which is used by the sylph to keep the water in that deserted region clean. No matter if the visitors are from a kingdom and feel sorry about this or if they are from an empire and just do not care about the incident, the Sylph cast a curse on them to force them to take the shattered waterstone along and find a way to rebuild it at its place of origin, which is a hidden wellspring that is because of the change of the world not any longer accessable to the Sylphs.

As long the curse is in affect the food production will be reduced by one. (Simply because their power over water and how it affects the fields.)

The other faster solution is to just eliminate the palce from the Sylpsh as a whole, which leads to experience and money rewards from the treasures hidden in the lake even an artefact if their defense forces are beaten which generates additional health generation and even destroys the curse or directly makes sure it is not casted. However this will lead to a heir and if something like that is not there champion to to turn to an enemy curse after a bit random set amount of turns. If he/she is currently in an army or city that army or city turns over to one of your enemy groups, since for some unknown reason your unit did fall in love with someone from the enemies.

The longer and let us say more good way invlves to travel to the wellspring, which is currnetly occopied by demons that got attracted by the magic nature of this place and which strenght is always equal or slightly stronger as the force that attacks or at least a challange. Which leads to experience and gold rewards equal to their strenghts and getting a new stone. As long the stone itself is possessed food production increases by 2 but after 10 seasons there is the chance that the Sylphs feel betrayed and start to curse at random seasons champions or heirs which turn to the enemy.

This of course never happens if the stone is brought back to them or if someone decides to kill them in the end anyway, which creates the result as mentioned at the beginning of units turning once against you.

Anyway if the artefact is brought back to the Sylphs in a reasonable time they remove the curse and offer as reward their hidden healing amulet. Additional to this they reveal a creature den or farm to the players in their kingdom / empire.

The thing I most like about this quest is that it starts the player out in the hole.  It's a fairly minor hole, the player can choose to ignore it if he has other things going on, but variety is always good and where 90% of the quests will offer opportunities, it's nice to have a few that aren't as standard.

I also really like that one of the options in dealing with this curse is to wipe out the Slyphs.  Player options are good and I'm always a bit annoyed when an RPG twists my arm to force me to do something that doesn't fit the personality of my character (as I imagine it).  I can imagine playing a game where I want to help the Slyphs and complete this quest.  But I can also imagine playing a game as Verga where if some dandelion eating water spirits ever tried to pull this crap on me I'd burn their lake down (I can only imagine the frightened engineer faced with the task of burning the lake down).

Forces in Exile by SinVraal

Rambling through the wilds you encounter a camp of mercenaries. The mercenaries tell you they once were a group of loyal knights fighting for King Leorg of the kingdom of XYZ.
Long ago an enemy sorcerer, named Ilgord, cursed them so that all their missions undertaking for their king were doomed. All deeds those brave knights approached following this coincidence went awry and soon the king banished them for their inabilty to protect the kingdom. If you were about to restore their standing as knights they would honour your deeds and stand aside your army.

a) "The hunt for vengeance"

Mission: You have to search for the evil sorcercer (enemy channeler of Empire XYZ) and kill him. As you enter the frontiers of kingdom XYZ Ilgord appears with his minions. Defeat all enemies.
Reward: 2 free tactical spells / map with location for "The chamber of fate"

[diplomatic faction standing with Empire XYZ slightly downgraded]

"The chamber of fate"

Mission: Those cursed bei Ilgord are magically inscribed in a tome in his chamber of fate. You have to use your magic on the thome to banish the magic and sign out the names of those cursed by Ilgord (dispel magic, e.g.?)
Reward: a chest filled with some gold and 3 enchanted items (staff, cloak + ring) / map with the location of a scroll

c) "Restauration of service" 

Mission: Find the scroll that is protected by the minions* of Ilgord (this scroll inherits evidence from a scribe about the sorcercer's deeds)
- all minions protecting the scroll must be killed / the scroll then must be taken to King Leorg
Reward: The knights* (former mercenaries (all in mid to high level armor ?) join your army

[diplomatic faction bonus* for relations with Kingdom XYZ increased]

* Number of knights and diplomatic faction bonus of objective c) can be customized according to game difficulty
so can be the numbers and difficulty of the sorcerers' minions

I like the concept of a cursed hero.  If it was me I would probably move this to a champion instead of a group of knights, then have the champion have to be on the quest and have his curse effect the party throughout (for example maybe all champions allies are -50% to defense and accuracy when in an army with the champion).

Then it becomes a cool way to earn a new champion, with his curse broken he could be really good.

Till Death Do Us Part by TheProgress

Basic outline:
Player makes deal with witch for an increase in power with fire magic as well as (potentially) getting access to 3 brand new fire related spells. The cost? The which must be the player's wife, and the player must sacrifice 200 people every 5 year from his kingdom for the witch to perform her ritualistic rejuvenation spell to become young.

The player is has the option of betraying the witch, but with each successful 5 year anniversary, the witch becomes more and more powerful.

Some technical details:
* Upon accepting the witch, the game treats the player as having +1 fire crystals but -1 of all other crystals.
* Quest introduces three unique spells that can only be gained through accepting the witch and supplying her for 200 people for 3 anniversaries (the player gains access to Flame sweep on the 5th anniversary, Summon living flame on the 10th anniversary and 3rd spell on the 15th anniversary):
o Flame sweep (tactical): Select target cell. All enemies (and only enemies) are hit up to 2 cells away from the selected center for 5 + (INT/5) + (# fire shards * 5) fire damage. When used on Living Flame summons, it actually heals them for half of the damage (as well as damaging any enemies in the selected area).
o Flame sweep (strategic): Select target tile. All enemies in tile take 5 + (INT/5) + (# fire shards * 5) fire damage. Tile burns for 5 turns. If enemy city is hit, buildings in selected tile have a small chance of being destroyed. If cast on a friendly tile, any living flames in the tile are healed for half of the damage.
o Summon living flame (tactical): Select target cell. One Living flame creature is spawned in the cell. Any units in any of the cells touching the cell where the creature was summoned are dealt 5 + (INT/5) fire damage.
o Summon living flame (strategic): Living flame creature summoned in selected tile.
o Soul burn (tactical): Select target enemy. If enemy has (16 + # fire shards) maximum health or less, enemy dies instantly (no resistant checks) and all adjacent enemies are dealt fire damage equal to 75% of unit's maximum health. Otherwise the unit takes 15 + (INT/5) + (# fire shards * 5) fire damage and if unit dies then all adjacent enemies are dealt fire damage equal to 25% of unit's maximum health.
* Living flame: the living flame creature has 20 + (# fire shards * 2) of health. I'll leave other balance to the devs, but I think the living flames should receive double damage from water based magic attacks (I also think they should have a 50% chance to avoid non-magical weapon attacks).
* Quest introduces the witch named Len'thala if player is male or a warlock named Kravyk if player is female.
* When first meeting the witch, she is old and fairly powerful. She has the equivalent stats of a level 8 sovereign (most of points put into intelligence and fire related spells). She has access to the flame sweep spell.
* If the witch is given the first batch of 200 people on the first 5 year anniversary, she gets younger and automatically receives a +1 to her level. She gains access to the Summon living flame spell.
* If the witch is given the 2nd batch of 200 people on the 2nd 5 year anniversary, she gets younger and automatically receives a +2 to her level. She gains access to the Soul burn spell.
* If the witch is given the 3rd batch of 200 people on the 2nd 5 year anniversary, she gets younger and automatically receives a +3 to her level. She gains access to no new spells. She no longer gets any more powerful from any future anniversaries.
* If the player fights the witch, the witch's strength depends upon how many anniversaries she has been allowed to complete her ritual.
* If the player is not at his capital the turn before his anniversary and the capital has less than 200 living inhabitants, the player loses the queen and a tactical battle starts between the queen and your other capital forces. If she is victorious, all inhabitants are killed (but city is not invaded / destroyed). Witch leaves forever.
* You cannot have any children with your queen until at least 1 successful 5 year anniversary.
* The queen cannot actually be used and cannot be seen / selected when "at your capital" (in reality, she just exists for tactical battles if needed.)

This is a really cool idea both to make for an interesting game and in the strategic options it opens up.  I can imagine it would be interesting to be able to look back and remember a specific game where you married this crazy witch/warlock and had to contend with her/him throughout.  This definitely fits into that 3rd option in my initial list for effecting the player overall strategy (in fact this is probably the best quest in the contest for hitting all three of the criteria from the thing I like most about quests).

Dark Rising by Kenata

Chapter 1: Rumblings on the Horizon

You come across a small farming hamlet, where the villagers greet you with frightened tales of Darkling attacks on caravans along the roads near the town. They have had trouble getting supplies, and ask you to help restore order. They give you a general idea of where to look at set you upon your way with what fresh provisions they can supply.

You come across a burnt caravan surrounded by the bodies of the various caravan guards and merchants. From under the ruin of the lead cart, you hear the weak calls of the last surviving merchant. He tells you of a brutal attack by Darklings, which were more organized than normal, and gives you information about where they were heading.

Following their tracks, you come across the raiding group, which had been attacking the various caravans. A battle ensues against a diverse group of Darklings lead by a frightful leader. Upon slaying the group, you notice all the warriors are marked with the same symbol. You can't put your finger on it, but the symbol seems so familiar to you.

Chapter 2: Twilight breaks

You seek out the home of an old researcher, known for his knowledge of the various languages and symbols of the world. Upon being told of the symbol, this wise man immediately loses color in his face and informs you of the ill omen that it holds. The Symbol is mark of Granox, an evil dragon who once attempted to overthrow the rule of the titans. Legend held that the great dragon could not be killed directly, but a great spell was cast that caused her to sleep. This spell was not cast directly so no one knew the exact location of her slumber. The sage warns that if she has awoken, thens he will also be rebuilding his armies to attack any who would deny her rule.

You set out from the home of an old researcher with knowledge of this new threat. Though you don't get far before word reaches you of several towns coming under attack from a powerful Darkling army, led by a great general of incredible skill. An army of this size is not hard to track and a great battle ensues against an army of incredible might. With his dying breath, the general laughs at you, calling his force merely a scouting party and stating that the real invasion has just begun.

Chapter 3: The Darkness Approaches

Word comes from far and wide of Darkling camps being set up all across the country side, and each lead by Darklings which fight with the fires of a demon. Each camp spawn fierce raiding groups which start attacking any thing they can find, cities, caravans, resources. They are not taking the resources, merely destroying everything in their wake with no regard for even their own lives. Five camps spawn and each holds an army lead by a demon Darkling, carrying a talisman. Each camp spawns raiding parties until they are destroyed.

Chapter 4: The Fading Light

Upon destroying all five camps, you notice that the talismans are a form of communication in themselves, but together they are beacon pointing towards a cavern in the mountains. This must be the location of Granox.

Upon arriving at the cavern, the player must fight a full group of high level Darkings clad in great armor with amazing weapons. When defeated, the player's party must fight the great force which has produced this threat, the Evil Dragon, Granox, and her lesser drake minions. Once Granox is slain, you hear a small hiss from a side tunnel, where you find the last child of Granox. This small dragon, barely out of its shell and not old enough to have felt the evil influence of its mother, takes to you as its new care giver. Along with all the gold and items of the cavern, you are also reward with this young dragon who has take up your cause.

I really like the story aspects of this quest.  Most quests build up throughout but the pacing on this one is particularly good.  And its only done in 4 steps so it keeps the player involved and moving throughout while still providing an interesting story.  I really like the darkling attacks on the cities.  In my mind that's what changes this from a RPG level character story to a 4x type story, and allows the players to see the results of their actions played out across the larger game.

Rod of Mages by Sungod79

During the war with the Titans, one of the elemental Shards was captured by human channelers jealous of and opposed to the monopoly the Titans held over the magical Shards. A circle of powerful mages was able to separate a piece of crystal from the Shard and neutralized it of any elemental bias. The crystal was then converted into the shimmering capstone of a powerful metallic wand known as the Rod of Mages. Later dubbed Titansbane in popular lore, the wand is said to have been pivotal in winning the war with the Titans and banishing them from the world. However, the shear amount of power focused through the rod during the final battle shattered it into pieces, killing those who wielded it (and, of course, those it was wielded against). Some whisper that the power of the Rod and its sudden destruction may have been part of the cause for the Cataclysm itself, but no one still alive knows if that is more truth or rumor. 

So, the Rod was understandably believed destroyed and lost to the ages. But that all changed when you, after researching into Master Quests, discovered a cave protected by four elementals--one from each element. Upon reading the manuscript retrieved after defeating those guardians, you learn that the Rod was protected by powerful magics that prevented its complete destruction. Reading the manuscript also adds a special Divining Spell to your spell book, which can be researched. Once researched and cast, the spell must be maintained with 1 mana per turn for the duration of the quest. Once cast, the location of the first piece of the metallic rod becomes visible. Three of the metal pieces constitute the base, two the holders of the capstone. Finding and defeating the magical guardians of the first piece gives your Divining Spell more power, allowing you to find the location of next piece, and so on until all the metal rod pieces are found. Once the 'rod' pieces are together, the metallic rod can be equipped as a "staff" (ie, no shield!) and used essentially as a divining rod, which leads you to the location of shardstone/capstone. The rod must be equipped in order to find and enter the final quest location to retrieve the capstone crystal, which is protected by an army of powerful elemental creatures from each element. Once they are defeated, the shardstone is retrieved and automatically joins with the 'divining rod' portion (which is dequipped and becomes the Rod of Mages, which can then be re-equipped as a "sword" (ie, you can now also equip a shield with it). Finally, the Divining Spell is automatically disbanded to regain 1 mana per turn.

When completed and equipped, you can feel the energy surging through a wand that seems light for its size (allowing greater combat speed) but that is strong enough in metal and magic to block the blow of any conventional melee weapon. The Rod gives the caster:

(Developers can play with the numbers, considering game balance, but my tentative suggestions are:)
+10 Intelligence
+5 Mana/turn
+5 power to any combat spell cast while equipped
+5 Attack
+10 Defense
+ Block
+2 combat speed
+1 Variable Shard (Set randomly to one of the four elements upon acquisition of the rod, the rod can later be dequipped and changed to channel a different element once per turn, any change becoming effective the next turn. This can be very useful if you are missing one type of elemental shard for the Spell of Making or want to otherwise emphasize a strength or help fill a weakness.)
+3 Charisma (people are overawed when in the presence of the legendary Titansbane!)
+ Magical Units Summoned while Rod equipped will tend to be stronger, with higher initial base stats.
+ Aura of magical resistance (increased resistance by unit and his army to all magical attacks)
+ Spells cast with the rod are harder to disband by any counterspell by opposing factions.

Note: There is only one Rod of Mages per game, but once found the nations of the world hear of the momentous news quite quickly. Thus once the Rod is completed by any player the Divining Spell becomes researchable by opposing factions who gain access to the quest for the Rod, which once cast allows them to "see" the unit carrying the Rod and anything visible to that unit. Also, factions with access to the quest also gain access to the Spell of Occlusion, which when researched and cast by the holder of the Rod can block the Divining Spell from allowing sight through the fog of war to see the unit carrying the Rod and anything in his visibility range, but will not block a locator beacon showing where on the map the Rod is at the present time/turn to any faction maintaining the Divining Spell. Very useful if you are the one who is going to need to mount a defence to such a powerful artifact... or attempt to take it for yourself!

There were a lot of ideas for quests that lead to powerful magic items, but this was my favorite.  I like that the player has to put the item together.  As a player I would be more motivated to seek out the pieces for an item like this than to simply go on a multi-stage quest with a magic item at the end.  It's also a throwback to D&D's old Rod of Seven Parts and helps tie the RPG and 4x questing games together.

That's it for my favorite quests.  We will have 5 finalists posted on Monday (Feb 7th) at 12:00pm ET so that you guys can begin voting for your favorite.  Be sure to check here to get all the latest information: https://www.elementalgame.com/contest