Siege of Elensefar

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trescolord

Siege of Elensefar

Post by trescolord »

Im just wondering how can you beat this level. Im usually a pretty good at the strategy and have beaten the other campaigns but cannot get past this level. It seems as though by the time you can mount an attack the undead are on you with the Orcs and they are so large a force i cant reach any of the leaders. If you could reply with some strategy help it would be very much appreciated. Thankyou!
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turin
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Re: Seige of Elensefar

Post by turin »

trescolord wrote:Im just wondering how can you beat this level. Im usually a pretty good at the strategy and have beaten the other campaigns but cannot get past this level. It seems as though by the time you can mount an attack the undead are on you with the Orcs and they are so large a force i cant reach any of the leaders. If you could reply with some strategy help it would be very much appreciated. Thankyou!
a bit more info would be nice... usually, this is the information needed:

what units do you have.

how much gold.

what strategy do you use (maybe post a replay of when you lose).
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

You're being rather unspecific, but my strategy on this scenario is to recruit elvish fighters to charge at the orc, and a force of horsemen which I send down the far right of the map to assassinate the necromancer.
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Post by fmunoz »

Use day time. Horseman/knigths/lancers attack with daylight and reatreat at night behing a wall of Elvish melee units to be healed by Shamans & others healers.
3-4 elvish units (rangers are nice) and the thieves to pick western villages and kill wolrfriders there. Later use them to attack the orc leader too.
Mages (basic one, white or red) can just fry undeads... a couple mages with a few bodyguards (to block attackers from your brittle spell users) help too.
If you are really low on gold or have few leveled units (usually at least 4 or 5 at this level is ok) replay a level or two to get more resources and better units.
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Post by mlangsdorf »

In the 0.7.9 version, the computer owns all the villages on the west side and doesn't recruit very many scouts. It somewhat changes the dynamic.

I think I won by sending an elvish strikeforce (2 elf riders, 3 mixed archers/swordsmen, and a druid) through the forest, and my main strike force (about 6 mixed archers and swords, 2 mages, 2 white mages, a red mage, 3 horsemen and knights, and Konrad) south to grab the hill and force the computer to attack me out of the water. I had sufficient density of forces to surround the orc leader and let the magic wielders blow apart the undead.

Timing the attack on the undead is a bit tricky, but the AI is cautious so if you keep a large group together you should be able to scare it enough to control the initiative and rush a large force.
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Beating the Siege of Elensafar: It was Easy!

Post by Fulk d'Anjou »

Level: Medium
Gold: 374
Army: three knights, 1 elvish marshal, 2 elvish captains, 2 druids, 2 white mages, Conrad high level 2, and the usual odds and ends...
I formed up the elves and the thieves on the left and center, anchoring flank in the forest. Center and right are all horsemen and mages with Konrad in the middle. I sent two elvish scouts to take the villages to the left.

The orcs hit you and you can kill most of their assassins and fighters easily. Then you just try to get through the night and hold off the undead.

In the morning you advance on the city and kill the orcish leader.

Then you just ride down the middle and kill the undead leader. By the dawn of Day 3 there were maybe four undead soldiers left on the battlefield. Easy meat for the mages.
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Post by turin »

the last post in this thread was in June. Why do you have to resurrect it to say that the level is possible to win? :?
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Post by dtw »

i'm also completely buggered on this level!

i think maybe i just don't have enough resources. i have about 250 gold, and maybe 5 level 2 units inc. konrad but all elves otherwise.

whne i get the new version will i still be able to play this save game? i think it may be best to start over now i know what i am doing but would i be better starting over in 0.85?
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Post by dtw »

whoops
Last edited by dtw on October 6th, 2004, 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ott »

I found this was the first scenario where I really had to pay attention to placement of units.

Stay out of the range of enemy troops until you can win each skirmish. For instance, keep your mages back until dawn, then attack en masse, supported by elvish fighters. Aim to keep a solid formation, so that only two enemies can attack any of your troops at once. If the orc has recruited lots of assassins, make sure your frontline is supported by healers. Draw off some of the enemy troops using scouts to the north-west and the south-east.
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Post by dtw »

hmmmm - that is not encouraging! you just described my exact tactics! i was thinking that maybe i was not making the most of terrain advantages but when i try to draw the orcs into the woods with a well laid plan they run off! and i become aware that i do only have a limited time to kill that little buggers. inevitably the strength of my force is completely defeated by the time the undead arrive. it's those frikking crossbow men - tough little buggers!
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Post by Fortify »

dibblethewrecker wrote:hmmmm - that is not encouraging! you just described my exact tactics! i was thinking that maybe i was not making the most of terrain advantages but when i try to draw the orcs into the woods with a well laid plan they run off! and i become aware that i do only have a limited time to kill that little buggers. inevitably the strength of my force is completely defeated by the time the undead arrive. it's those frikking crossbow men - tough little buggers!
You won't be able to draw them in to the forest to fight but make a line accross the defensible terrain. The edge of the main forest and the patch of 2 forest. Fill those spaces with Elvish Fighters/Archers or better. Then back them with your leaders, healers, cavalry and mages so that as soon as dawn comes you can make the most of the day.

By the end of the day you should have the Orc crippled. If you have to retreat to the forest from the Undead the do so. I had a diversionary force of Knight, Horseman x3 that went south along the east edge and lost one horseman but kept the undead busy village hopping until my main force arrived from finishing the Orcs.

The key units for me here were healers. One Druid and one White Mage, without which my losses would have been much higher. I could go into more detail here but best to leave something for you.
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Post by cobretti »

My strategy (not guaranteed to work, but different from those which have already told):

First, arrive here with lots of gold. This is the first real challenge, and you don't want to face it (and next levels) with too little gold. Around 400, or 300 with some levelled units is a good starting point.
Second, at least one levelled healer (preferably too) is a must. To have good performance here you need curing, not just healing.
Third, better have some units with leadership. They are very useful here.

First rounds: Recall your healers and leadership units. Recruit at least one full castle of fighters/archers, a pair of mages and 2/3 horsemen and move all of them to the hills above the river (except the horsemen. Send one to the west, to grab villages and distract some enemies, and keep the others as support units). Forget the forest. It's too far away from where the main battle will happen, and the only use it has is to close your zone of control to protect your flank if you ever need it. Make a formation of a first line of fighters next to the river, supported by healers (each healer should support at least three fighters). Keep the mages in this second line to quickly kill assassins if they ever get a good defensive position. Keep also two fighters/archers to fill holes.

Hold your position against the first wave of orcs. If you ever have a fighter below 1/2 HP, retreat it to a village (or next to a healer) and use another fighter to fill the hole. If you have done the above correctly, you are mostly being attacked from the river, which gives you a big advantage. Recruit some more fighters and horsemen, and move them south just behind your flank. Once you get the thieves, move them to the west and grab the villages that close orcs' path to this side of the map.

Whenever you feel the orcs' pressure is going down, make a surrounding movement in the east (preferably at dawn). Use your horsemen to quickly slaughter any enemy standing on grass, close the clamp against the orcs' castle, and make a new front facing south to withstand the arrival of the undead. Use the same trick as above (first line of fighters, second of healers, some support units nearby). Remember you don't have to make an horizontal front. In an hex-based game, diagonal is better. :)

Attack the castle with all you have (but don't suicide your remaining horsemen!). It is vital you defeat the orcs before the night falls, because you don't want to face a two-front battle at night. Occupy all the castle hexes you can meanwhile, so the orc leader can't recruit anymore (even if he has enough gold).

If you manage to resist this first wave of undead while holding your position, the rest is a piece of cake. But if you feel you will have severe losses, retreat to the eastern forest and the orcs' (now yours) castle, and wait until day, then retaliate.
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Post by Kirdan »

I have a suggestion for an easy way to beat SoE on medium. You need >$200, and a relative experienced army, but then you can be lucky to finish in turn 16.

To kill the Necromancer: Send 2-3 horsemen (depending on you gold) south along the eastern and southern edge.

To kill the Orch. Start by rushing to the norther forest and (important) sending Konrad the the northwest corner as bait. The Orchis army will no run to the north west and you can start retreating to the eastern forest letting them chase Konrad clockwise around the map. Hide in the eastern forest for the night and charge at daybreak to kill the Orch with lots of ranged firepower. I you have done the bait-trick well the orchish army will not have arrived to defend him very well. Use the thieves to delay them.
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Post by Jahannan »

Things I have discovered whilst playing this level:

- They don't really care about Konrad, and if you think you can get away with sending him off to the Northwest, you're probably wrong. If you want to recruit a decent number of troops then they'll have begun sending assassins over to the northeast, who will continue to sweep upwards to capture villages, so when you run Konrad back east they'll give him a good beating. Best solution I've found so far is to retreat him into the forests behind the elves, where he can continue to be generally useless for the rest of the match.

- The personalities can get annoying. Most of the times I've played this level, the ogre was very aggressive... meaning that I could take him out very easily with a well-placed knight strike (okay, about 5. And they all died. Marksmen seem like my most efficient option, but I only have two, so can't sacrifice them) after breaking up his lines with my elves. In this game, the necromancer sat in his mountain fortress the entire time, blocking off my sneaky horseman attack simply by having a few undead that gave him enough ZoC to close me in, thanks to the small width of the level.

- Counterpoint: The game in which the necromancer ran out into the open and was impaled upon my horseman's lances. However, they died soon after due to the swarms of undead in that area. In this game though, the orge sat in his fortress, and then ran out the back when day broke, leaving me a line of about 15 assassins to deal with. And I'm not going to say assassins are too powerful, but I hate that only horsemen seem to be able to reliably beat them. I also hate that this campaign seems to be dominated by horsemen.

- 2/3 horsemen is not enough. I found 2 horsemen and a knight worked, using the two horsemen as decoys while the knight closes in for the strike, but not long after, the knight died due to the undead hordes. 3 horsemen and a knight might work, but leaves problems with recruitment.

- As far as I can tell, mages are virtually worthless in this level if the undead don't reach you, and if they do you're probably dead.

I think there may have been more annoyances in my last attempt at this level, but that's it for now. I have around 680 gold (though I want to win through finesse in this level, not flooding the enemies with my troops... which doesn't work anyway, due to their hordes of assassins). I also have 1 Outlaw, 2 marksmen, 3 knights and a Slyph, plus a level 2 Konrad (I found it very easy to achieve this when I used a bit of careful planning in Bay of Pearls)

Oh, and the really annoying part is that this is only on easy difficulty. I'm sure there must be some simple strategy to beat them, but I can't for the life of me figure out what that may be.
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