Campaign testing method, when balancing and squashing bugs?

[ReadyMaryCury]

Hey, im new to this. Lets say, you have your campaign done. Your maps, your terrain, your triggers, your data, your AI, your custom assets. How do you test individual maps, balance, difficulty?

You cant do it from the editor, cause it doesnt load campaign assets and in custom campaigns you have to start from map 1. Like every time you change anything in a map? Whats the process there?

I can easily find tutorials for individual stuff, like terraining and custom AIs. Are the any from the broad strokes of campaign development?

 

[Footman16]

Just set all the maps to be visible and only set them not to be once you're ready for release.

 

[Ravager16829]

You can simply make all chapters in your custom campaigns visible by using the Campaign Editor. It's in "Loading Screen" section.

 

[ReadyMaryCury]

What about Campaign Game Cashe and Hero Data. Is that kept, after making map changes. Does altering map/campaign file, not treat it as new campaign and erase your cashe. How does that work?

 

[Footman16]

What about Campaign Game Cashe and Hero Data. Is that kept, after making map changes. Does altering map/campaign file, not treat it as new campaign and erase your cashe. How does that work?

It depends but usually not. Instead you can just add test triggers that when you type in a chat message gives your hero some items or whatever you wish and then disable the triggers for release. What I would say is that for most campaigns, if you can't beat a mission without items on your heroes from previous missions then there's every chance it's too hard, that's just a rule of thumb though and it depends on the mission.

 

[Chaosium]

The only thing that's busted when testing different campaign versions are save files, everything in the cache is set in stone until you clear it via trigger

Even if you store an unit that you then completely remove from your campaign and try to load it, it generally just does nothing (i.e. doesn't outright crash the map)