Parrhesia and Integrity's Guide to Surviving Wesnoth

[Integrity]

i'm posting twice within 24 hours because i'm glad to have incursion done

 

Spoiler

There's no fanfare here, we're just shot into the last mission.

 

Hey, it's the last scenario, and they tell us how to approach it. It's actually a decent plan, and we're going to do it.

 

Mostly because they literally give us four rangers and a rider for free. Christ. This campaign wants to be over.

 

It's a straight shot down the middle. We don't want to overextend the front, since the hills are good for them and forests are bad, but we want to pull all the guys out of the castle and hills so that the rangers can gank the boss. If necessary, we'll open up a leftern front. It's not a hard plan to execute, but this is Wesnoth.

 

With decent unit preservation, you can pretty quickly hit the point where you're just recalling tier 2/3 units exclusively in these easier campaigns. One last outing for the boys.

 

This guy can recruit tier 2 units out of nowhere, but doesn't always do that, which means we just have advantages in quantity and quality. Also, he's pretty, ain't he?

 

Rualsha is the ultimate form of the orc version of the leader line, and campaign-exclusive. Fortunately, because holy shit behold those stats.

 

We're able to recall every single remaining unit, with enough cash left over to recruit a single fighter. I name him Dave.

 

In the north, we're forming up pretty well. The knight on the left is gonna come full in and leave no reason to open the left front, so one concentrated fight and sneaking rangers.

 

Despite what the game says, adding 4 rangers to your central front means you can probably just punch the enemy in the fucking face and forcewipe him repeatedly, but let's play fairish.

 

Let's see how this goes. The rider is at the vanguard.... mostly because I don't really care how he fares.

 

Ouch. I said I didn't care, but I was still rooting for the guy.

 

Mike starts the cleanup, and nets a last-minute promotion!

 

Marshals are bigger Captains. That's it. Also, they literally own at warfare so hard it's impossible to fight them.

 

End of phase is pretty much ideal. I absolutely overextended after saying I wouldn't, but we've got good lines.

 

No casualties, baby. One guy is absolutely gonna bite it, retreat, or promote - but whatever. We've got local numerical and firepower advantages and his entire force is committed, so here goes.

 

The RNG was the opposite of last map. Our poisoned friend becomes a Hero, fully healing and curing the poison. I think it's fair to say their backs are completely broken. That was a lot easier than expected.

 

Surprise!

 

In the dark, this guy still hurts bad, but we trade pretty favorably. What's he gonna do, kill a ranger? I have a spare and no emotional attachment to them.

 

no he's gonna do this instead okay.

 

You idiot. You fucking moron.

 

We sweep the map for fun and leave the last kill open for our boy:

 

Yeah.

 

Quote

But Rualsha overestimated the will of his troops. With their leader dead, they scattered, and fled from the elves back to their fastnesses in the far north.

Erlornas: It grieves me to take life, even of a barbarian such as Rualsha.

André Gomes: If the orcs press us, we shall need to become more accustomed to fighting.

Erlornas: I fear it will be so. We have won a first victory here, but dark times come upon its heels.

That's it.

 

No, really. The next screen is the credits, then it yeets you to the main menu.

 

"Novice level" is a fucking lie, I'll tell you what. Time to switch tracks!

 

Final stats:

Spoiler

10 losses for 84 kills, pretty good ratio. We inflicted about twice as much damage as we took.

 

4/10 losses were on the swamp. That's nearly half. Jeez.

 

Final unit list. See you later, dudes!

 

so

 

Who has suggestions for names/naming schemes to use for the next campaign? We'll be using mostly humans and later grab bags of other shit like elves. Anything goes.

[Punished Dayni]

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

You idiot. You fucking moron.

I mean, they're not tactical geniuses, those sovereigns.

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

"Novice level" is a fucking lie, I'll tell you what. Time to switch tracks!

I mean, it's like some maps fit the term novice.

Others though..... Fuck those maps, they are not at all.

(I'm kind of curious if you're doing any route splits or not?)

[Integrity]

11 minutes ago, Dayni said:

(I'm kind of curious if you're doing any route splits or not?)

i was gonna say no but then i thought about it and fuck it i'm doing every single one

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Integrity said:

i was gonna say no but then i thought about it and fuck it i'm doing every single one

Honestly I was willing to volunteer if you didn't.

[Laura]

put me as the cute healer chick or the zombie guy

[Parrhesia]

DESCENT INTO DARKNESS 1

hi it's me from the future because i play these a few maps ahead and descent into darkness lowkey blows what's up

Spoiler

So. We're been loyalists. We've been elves. We've been criminals. The original plan was that I'd leap into more elves, and that Ike would also leap into more elves and loyalists, and, well, it became suddenly obvious you would all get tired as shit of elves and loyalists.

Everyone look at this wall-eyed motherfucker. Guess who he runs?

We're also entering uncharted territory; I've made it like, maybe one full map into Descent, ever.

The Incident Count: 1

The Incident Count: 2

And, uh, yeah, that's... abruptly, how it ends.

The Incident Count: ... 2? Anyway, we get a Several Weeks Later thing.

You will note that Drogan, a sergeant, is outranked by one of his own fucking daves.

Two days, remember, is twelve turns.

So, okay! We can go on the attack. I'm... not sure how feasible this is. Let's see what daves ya boy Keshar can recruit!

hm

Well, Drogan apparently is okay to go with it for this turn, at least. Also, early discoveries about this campaign - the writer knew how to write One voice.

Keshar's a loser right now.

But he's not the lowest-powered idiot baby on the map anymore! Hey, at least Drogan has someone to lead now?

Neutral human units: red mage (and upgrades), this idiot. By far the least bad tier 0 human, probably the second-least bad tier 2 unit. But then, they cost 10. Bowmen and poachers cost 14. There's a reason they aren't a multiplayer unit. Still, they're neat - and I think make bowman the only class that is advanced from two different classes!

We set up our defensive line, and a wolf rider obligingly annihilates itself on it. I'm... not sure if we get to keep our three homies. I suspect not, but I'll try and feed them some experience anyway.

We mostly exhaust our spearmen here. I'm... going to make a confession here. I. Don't. Really know how to play the undead. When we played multiplayer, Ike would generally go random and I would select one of the five factions that is not undead. What exacerbates the issue is that, uh, zombies have exactly no favourable trades against orcs! Even the crossbowman can potentially one-round in melee.

There is... not a lot to say. Green slams into blue, Keshar snipes three kills.

What a riveting trial map.

Oh no! Even Longevity Mullen??

So, uh, yeah, that... happened. I guess. Next time, hopefully we get skeletons?

 

[BrightBow]

Did somebody say "Skeleton Warriors"?

Spoiler

 

Anyway, it's possible to beat this map without summoning any zombies. If that happens Malin will receive news about his sister Dela getting seriously injured during the orc raids. In that case Malin will decide to leave on his own accord to punish the orcs. You're still doing the same maps though.

Unfortunately while the game does keep track of whether Malin got banished or not with a global variable, there is still plenty of dialog that suggests he got banished either way.

Edited March 20, 2019 by BrightBow

[Parrhesia]

DESCENT INTO GAME DESIGN 2

Spoiler

Lads, I'm sensing this may be more Two Bros than South Guard.

That is a pointless ellipsis.

Well, that's not very on-brand. Surely it should be "... Subduing them will give us... souls upon which to call in our... fight, against the ... orcs."

Anyway our absolutely not evil master starts right next to a village-

i-

what-

Well, no guards here. I duly hire Pop, Six, Squish, Cicero, Lipschitz and Clyde to do my scouting - we can use bats now, but that's it. I'm gonna guess the swamp gives us ghouls.

shut up darken ... volk

HE'S FUCKEN EVIL BRO

Despite all this, it turns out you can't summon ghouls yet. I summon some zombies instead for... some... reason? The wolves ignore our ghouls and swam us, and Lipschitz dies.

I sense he won't be the last. Um. What... exactly are we meant to do here?

Hope they pull back, I guess. Which they do.

This is... just kinda a clusterfuck.

Keshar promotes, I guess!

Also, cowering in that top village, the goblin promotion to pretty much become a spearman with strictly negative traits, +1 to all melee attacks and 10 fewer HP.

Not one, but two new pokedex entries!

First, we get a goblin zombie. It's a zombie with -5 health.

Second thing, I don't believe we've shown off rousers yet! Goblins can promote into sergeants, except sergeants have crossbows and promote to tier 4, and rousers lose their throwing spears and can't promote.

I'm running out of things to say about this map. We have a... weird layout for fighting chaotics. We're sort of de facto lawful just because our non-bat forces are fearless and theirs aren't.

Bye rouser. Happily, one of our ghouls poisoned their leader; unhappily, the leader's got a village in the northwest to cower in. Time is on our side; I'll let him, rather than putting a guy on his base to challenge him.

He comes down anyway to kill a gobbo zombie. Six promotes in the west...

... and Cicero in the east, finishing off the leader. The crux of this map basically turns out to be that you have two unstoppable killing machines in your necromancers, and everything else is basically just something for enemies to attack that is not one of them.

I hope the reward is we get to summon goblin walking corpses for free.

On the whole, we come out of that looking pretty good!

 

[BrightBow]

Malin is already on lv2 and you got a Blood Bat. Sweet.

I suppose playing undead is kinda fun just for how macabre it is to add the enemies that you kill to your forces and have them murder their former comrades.

Edited March 22, 2019 by BrightBow

[Punished Dayni]

17 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

Also, cowering in that top village, the goblin promotion to pretty much become a spearman with strictly negative traits, +1 to all melee attacks and 10 fewer HP.

So easier to kill, but does more damage.

I'm beginning to wonder if this lot are worth it.

18 minutes ago, Parrhesia said:

Second thing, I don't believe we've shown off rousers yet! Goblins can promote into sergeants, except sergeants have crossbows and promote to tier 4, and rousers lose their throwing spears and can't promote.

A level 1 unit with leadership.

That can't promote.

Guess he'll be with the other goblins. In the trash.

[Parrhesia]

Goblins themselves are honestly pretty good grist - happening to get an impaler is just a nice bonus. Rousers are joke/flavour units that I guess could be handy under extremely specific circumstances - it'd turn other goblins into violent glass cannon.

It's a shame there's only one orcish campaign, and it's really hard - or, at least, is listed as Expert and I never got past like the second mission when I was a kid.

[Punished Dayni]

2 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Goblins themselves are honestly pretty good grist - happening to get an impaler is just a nice bonus. Rousers are joke/flavour units that I guess could be handy under extremely specific circumstances - it'd turn other goblins into violent glass cannon.

It's a shame there's only one orcish campaign, and it's really hard - or, at least, is listed as Expert and I never got past like the second mission when I was a kid.

I know I was trashing them quite a bit there.

It's just that I can't see them getting much traction and being easy prey. On the other hand the orcs don't have much pierce options, barring bows. Which still means they lack piercing melee.

[Parrhesia]

DESCENT INTO CAVE LEVEL 3

Spoiler

e x p o s i t i o n

f i l l e r  m i s s i o n

You know, I might be overly critical, but it would be quite nice to have basic infantry available to us by the third mission. Or primary ranged attackers. Good news, though! We get ghosts. The undead have two scout units, really - bats are cheap as chips, ghosts are premium. And weird, and really annoying to fight, and I'm bad at using them. They have 50% resistance against physical damage, 70% against cold and essentially none to arcane or fire, which melt them. They also have 50% dodge, everywhere.

Dwarves! You didn't think a setting like Wesnoth would go dwarfless, did you?

malin you are a dumb bitch

The dwarven units are... a mixed bag, and I've never been much fond of guardsmen. They just lack punch, really conspicuously. But on the defence, they take 1 less damage per attack. As a whole, dwarves generally have slight resistance to all damage types, 4 movement, and the 'healthy' trait in their pool (+1 HP, +1 HP/level, +2 regen per turn).

shut... up

Roving forward, by far my favourite basic dwarf unit - fighters! Fighters are fucking lit. They have a ton of health, 21 blade damage with axes, the excellent option of impact for flex, and very solid promotions.

There aren't many dwarf units. In multiplayer, they get supplemented by the outlaw units for flavour reasons that... I assume get handled in one of the really hard campaigns. Except for thugs, since, I mean, fighters make them basically redundant. I do think it's really cool that Wesnoth has a bunch of units like thugs who appear solely in the campaign to fill gaps in factions that make IC sense.

Speaking of outlaws... fortunately, we're in caves. I say fortunately because cave levels are terrible in their usual context, of your loyalists or elves taking on trolls or undead. Most footsoldiers and especially cavalry can't move for shit in caves, and it always counts as night.

Cicero is going to spend the next five turns collecting this little cash enclave.

I get impatient. Can you blame me? Look at this log-jam. Anyway, Darken Volk's... death, is unsurprisingly a reload.

Sure, whatever, they all fail to kill a ghost. I decide to start naming villages. Meanwhile, in the east we find-

what the fuck is your name

Fighter+. Also their physical resistances are a little better.

Going here, we find the worst unit in the game. Fuck Thunderers. Their tier 3's gun is 40x1 though which is just kind of insanely dope, but 18? Miss me with that. Which they frequently do.

uh

So in a good strategy game, when you get a new unit, that unit will be introduced in a context where they're built to excel. A great example is Starcraft 2 - Wings of Liberty in particular. Say what you will about its gimmicky missions, they were built so that you wanted to build more of whatever unit it introduced. Armour-piercing move-and-fire hovertanks were introduced on a mission where you had to hit and run armoured convoys; when you needed to move quickly and collect a bunch of fuel on a map full of ridges, you got fast guys with jump packs; when a bunch of zombies needed incinerating, you got firebats and hellions.

Punishing the player for using the new unit on their debut is a fucking galaxy brain experience. My entire advance stalls another turn - it's already fucking turn 7 somehow - as we wait in this logjam for our only two damage-dealers to kill a guy.

The world's most boring advance continues.

We get a soulless! Sadly undeadifying tier 2s doesn't turn them into soulless, but it still gives nice experience that I'd... rather have had on one of the necromancers, but whatever.

Now the necromancers really really really need to come north because I don't have anyone else that trades favourably with fighters.

I pull back to slightly open up the front.

And then poison everyone. By the absolute bitch of God, these three guys - AND the fighter I killed earlier - are all healthy, meaning they only take six damage per turn from poison.

It's turn 19.

EP 22. By this stage, my zombies can't actually get to the end of the level before time runs out at turn 34.

Turn 25. The ghost flubs the chance at promotion. I'm. Capturing a lot of thunderer knives, huh.

Start of Turn 28, as the steelclad resolutely refuses to be baited. On the bright side, we have every village on the map - so we aren't losing out on money, since the early finish bonus is just what you get for having every village and no upkeep.

Fuck it. Let's get the boy his promotion.

Tier 3. Unsurprisingly, we can't force him into suddenly being a lich - and this appears to be where his path ends. This class blows, though! Compared to a necromancer - the tier 3 dark adept, not actually in the bestiary yet, but whatever - he loses out on melee (5x3 vs 6x3 plague), frost (15x2 vs 17x2) and shadow (10x2 vs 12x2). Oh, and three health. He has one more movement, but you know, a given necromancer could... just be quick. And resilient. For instance. Also, he officially turns chaotic for the first time.

Ah, whatever. Fuck it. A bat eats the thunderer, a ghost caps the steelclad and turns into a wraith. Imagine ghost but damage potential.

No end dialogue. Just. This.

Fuck you, Descent.

 

[BrightBow]

I really gotta disagree that the game punishes you for using a new unit here. Ghosts utterly destroy this map. No enemies on the map can do shit to them thanks to their resistances and night-boosted life drain. They also deal cold/arcane damage, which dwarves have less resistance towards.

Edit:

Also Dwarven Guardsmen have double resistance on the defense. So damage is not necessarily reduced by just 1.

Edited March 24, 2019 by BrightBow

[Parrhesia]

I'm not disputing that they're still a good choice to train for the map, given your paucity of other options, but if 'the first ghost to die turns against you without warning' (possibly others?) isn't punishment, I don't know what is.

[Punished Dayni]

9 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

The dwarven units are... a mixed bag, and I've never been much fond of guardsmen. They just lack punch, really conspicuously. But on the defence, they take 1 less damage per attack. As a whole, dwarves generally have slight resistance to all damage types, 4 movement, and the 'healthy' trait in their pool (+1 HP, +1 HP/level, +2 regen per turn).

Yeah, steadfast is a bit better than that.

It doubles their resistances when attacked. The real stinger? It's a maximum of 50%.

9 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Roving forward, by far my favourite basic dwarf unit - fighters! Fighters are fucking lit. They have a ton of health, 21 blade damage with axes, the excellent option of impact for flex, and very solid promotions.

Pretty solid all things considered.

9 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Going here, we find the worst unit in the game. Fuck Thunderers. Their tier 3's gun is 40x1 though which is just kind of insanely dope, but 18? Miss me with that. Which they frequently do.

Worst? I'm not so sure, considering that their damage output is pretty good if they can get their attacks in. Definitely a poor unit, it'd be better if they dealt fire damage, it being pierce does them no favours.

9 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Punishing the player for using the new unit on their debut is a fucking galaxy brain experience. My entire advance stalls another turn - it's already fucking turn 7 somehow - as we wait in this logjam for our only two damage-dealers to kill a guy.

It's such a bizzare way to do it though.

Though I think the suggestion of making it so they turn near the end of the map is worse.

9 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Tier 3. Unsurprisingly, we can't force him into suddenly being a lich - and this appears to be where his path ends. This class blows, though! Compared to a necromancer - the tier 3 dark adept, not actually in the bestiary yet, but whatever - he loses out on melee (5x3 vs 6x3 plague), frost (15x2 vs 17x2) and shadow (10x2 vs 12x2). Oh, and three health. He has one more movement, but you know, a given necromancer could... just be quick. And resilient. For instance. Also, he officially turns chaotic for the first time.

I mean, why wouldn't they buff him to that level? Necromancer's not so OP that an extra move would make it godly.

9 hours ago, Parrhesia said:

Ah, whatever. Fuck it. A bat eats the thunderer, a ghost caps the steelclad and turns into a wraith. Imagine ghost but damage potential.

The promotions: Ghosts but actually terrifying opponents.

[BrightBow]

When I first played the campaign, I merely used ghosts as scouts and mobile meat shields. That turned out to really limit their potential.

Edited March 24, 2019 by BrightBow

[Integrity]

OKAY DID CO-OP JUST FUCKING TALK SHIT ABOUT FUCKING THUNDERERS

 

FRIENDSHIP

 

ENDED

 

EDIT: HEY BITCH YOUR FUCKING PRECIOUS BOWMEN [Parrhesia: cries in agincourt wah bowmen are so cool] ONLY DO 6x3 THAT'S 18 YOU GAMER LOSER THUNDERERS JUST HAVE THE HONESTY TO ROLL ONCE INSTEAD OF THRUNCE

Edited March 24, 2019 by Integrity

[Parrhesia]

more like blunderers haha

[Integrity]

so i'm gonna do something parrhesian DESPITE THE FACT THAT I HATE THE STUPID MOTHERFUCKER NOW and paste a lot of dialogue images individually because HttT throws a lot of new pictures at you really fast. caveat reador. if you're not reading for the plot, skip the entire first spoiler.

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

Anyway, here we are in the real world. Hey, heads up, I was completely fucking wrong, and Heir to the Throne is all about controlling elves for now.

 

Meet Konrad. He's our lord for the next twenty-

checks

twenty-seven updates.

 

This is Delfador. He's an ancient wizard now, but he's also the protagonist of his own campaign I'll do later.

 

Portraits change every fucking line. Galdrad is the tier 3 elf fighter I never reached.

 

OPs ain't lying, they will fuck us up.

 

Another new shot, the tier 3 elven healer.

 

Finally, we have control of .....honestly one of the shittest designed maps in Heir to the Throne. I will preface this with a general statement: Heir to the Throne is a good campaign. It is dragged the fuck down by a few things:

1: The first map is one of the worst maps in SRPG history.

2: The route splits are completely arbitrary and lead to massively different completely untelegraphed difficulty spikes or troughs.

3: In the final third of the campaign, the enemy will just fucking yeet tier 2 / tier 3 units at you en masse, so fuck you if you lost any of your highly promoted dudes ever I guess.

4: Your starting contingent is elves.

5:

Konrad is fucking awful to begin. Take an elven fighter, give him one fewer strike and one more damage, take away a chunk of his dodge and his HP, take away his bonus movement through forests, and make him lawful. Behold: Konrad. Note: if this sack of slow shit dies in the flight through an entirely forested area, you lose the map. Fuck you!

 

Delfador, on the flip, is obscenely strong, and if you told me he wasn't inspired by Jagen I'd disbelieve you. He cannot promote from where he is, and he fucks off with all his experience in a few maps, to reappear much later. Kills on Delfador are essentially wasted, but holy fuck he does 14x4 at a fixed 70% Jesus Christ.

 

Our mate the elvish shyte has a generic non-elf-wank description and pretty mundane abilities. She's a bigger druid.

 

Our mate the elvish promoted hero has really dumb art. Look at this dumb motherfucker's shrug, or whatever the fuck he's doing. They also lose all the coolness of the hero's description and just delve into a really generic 'elves will fuck you up' set of lines. 9x5 melee and 9x3 ranged is an incredibly good offensive statline, though, so if you have a champion, revel in it.

 

I'm not gonna draw a diagram for this map because it's a complete shit house. We're in the bottom center; our allies are in the other two heroic-looking castles. Two of the orcs are in the northeast and northwest, and we need to get Konrad to the northwest corner,

and way down in the south is another orc leader meant to create pressure. All told, this is shaping up to be a fine map design!

 

We have the same recruit list of the basic Incursion lord, which is a great nod to the tutorial.

 

We recruit a bunch of elves, and so do out allies, and Konrad sallies forth.

On his 6 movement.

Without forest bonuses.

 

 

I'll shoutout to this map at least: the enemies recruit a bunch of overleveled units to make you feel like you're gonna be fucked the hell up and want to get Konrad to safety. It almost works.

 

The problem is here.

The entire path to the exit is forest, and Konrad moves as fast as any other man or orc in the forest, despite being raised in them among the elves.

 

So you get into an absolute slugfest with the northwestern guy.

 

The southern guy spreads the hell out and captures everything, as he's supposed to - you can actually kill the top two dudes, but you will run out of turns long before you chew through this guy. He's your fail condition.

 

Of course, your western ally will... send some people to their doom. Of course. Rest in piece.

 

Anyway, we array in some form of a formation while Konrad struggles to keep up.

 

 

We chew through them while the brown AI tries its hardest to snag kills off us. And,

 

Konrad has his own dialogue when he attacks, in which he reverts sprites!

 

When they occupy the houses near where we started, they destroy them, to create pathos I guess.

 

It's a really weak and cursory job at best.

 

f

 

Yeah, anyway, Konrad only has a 50% in forests, same as orcs, and nothing like the elves he fucking grew up among, so he bites it attacked by 1.5 enemies, because he's a fucking loser.

 

Thus we do that whole map again but different, and Konrad doesn't die.

 

Delfador has a fuckin' lit attack portrait and line.

 

Anyway, we do our various punchings and end up here. I'm gonna kill the northwest leader for no overall gain besides experience, except to prove to you that I can.

 

Galdrad has his own line when he's attacked. Not when he attacks, mind - he's already done that.

 

Our boys do a great chip job for the mage. She secures the kill.

 

Fuckin' nice.

 

With that kill, it just takes three more turns OF COURSE to get fucking Konrad to the signpost and thus win.

 

Quote

Delfador: We must travel north, and try to make it to the Isle of Alduin. Hopefully we will find refuge there.

Konrad: Of course you are right, Delfador. But what will become of the elves here?

Delfador: The elves will fight. They may even prevail. But I fear things do not bode well for them. Let us not speak of it now. Onward!

Chantal: Good luck, Konrad! Don't worry about us, we will fight back as best as we can!

We just left a bunch of the elder race to die!

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

*Deleted due to an unintended appearance of racism in the original post.*

Edited March 24, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Integrity]

2 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And who calls their weapons "thundersticks" unironically and is not a poor native being decimated by an imperial power?

this is uncomfortably racist op

[Laura]

at least im cute

[Interdimensional Observer]

Just now, Integrity said:

this is uncomfortably racist op

I'm sorry. I did not intend for it come off as racist. I was being sympathetic to the indigenous peoples. I can understand why someone would compare a firearm to thunder. 

[Parrhesia]

Yes, as so many unenlightened third-worlders such as checks notes Ray Bradbury have done