How to Play Isar's Cross

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Lim-Dul
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by Lim-Dul »

AI - yeah, I've thrown gobs into the mix. They were a nice way for the DAs to get a bit of XP. ;-)

The thing with the "blunt force trauma" must be an insider joke since I'm not getting it. ;-)

P.S. On a side note - why is the weapon category in Wesnoth named "impact" and not "blunt"? I rarely hear anything about "impact damage" or "impact weapons". ;-)
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Velensk
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by Velensk »

Blunt foce tramula is an injoke (look up the user profile known as "higher gamer")

The reason it's called impact damage is because that is what is causing the damage, not the bluntness of the weapon. A book is a blunt weapon, but it does not have enough impact (under normal circumstances) to be an effective weapon in a combat situation.
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Lim-Dul
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by Lim-Dul »

The reason it's called impact damage is because that is what is causing the damage, not the bluntness of the weapon. A book is a blunt weapon, but it does not have enough impact (under normal circumstances) to be an effective weapon in a combat situation.
I see - sounds reasonable. So the "impact" part is rather the name of the damage type, not the weapon type. Got it.
Blunt foce tramula is an injoke (look up the user profile known as "higher gamer")
Ah - I found the topic in question. His nickname was/is Higher Game.

And no, I'm not saying that Northeners "lack blunt force trauma" (he, he) - it's not a problem I'm having with the Northeners, it's a problem with ghouls. I'll have to run several tests though. The first thing that would spring to my mind is giving ghouls at least a weakness (not a 0% res) to e.g. impact and/or fire. A unit with so many resistances and no weak points (e.g. Dwarves have, by comparison, less MP, crappy EV anywhere but in mountains and no magical/poisonous attacks (except for the lvl3 Assassin and the unattainable Runemaster)).
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krotop
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by krotop »

As far as I know, Isar's cross doesn't observe the balance quality standard of the other default maps. So if you're proposing to rebalance the ghoul stats based on your experience from Isar's cross, your opinion will much likely be ignored by devs, or, for the worst, will annoy them and lessen your credibility.
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Lim-Dul
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by Lim-Dul »

Yeah, that's why I need to confirm the ghoul's overall viability. From what I know ghouls usually aren't the most popular UD units as in most cases going for skeletons at least to a certain degree is a good strategy.
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Nebiros
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by Nebiros »

After the match, I had a couple more thoughts about it. (I was one of the loyalists, the northerner's partner. I know I made several mistakes, but since the L v L fight was pretty even for most of the game, I don't think they were decisive to the main issue being discussed.)

The first is that in N v U, the northerner is usually (IMO) better off retreating at night and pushing at day; you can stand an endurance fight better than they can, while increased damage leads to the "kill the front line, then cover all the adepts" dynamic.

Retreating for a better ToD doesn't work very well on Isar's, of course, one of its many flaws.

The second thought was that the undead player used his leader a lot; leaders have a disproportionate impact on Isar's and the dark sorcerer's huge damage output was very important in making sure you didn't have enough units to hurt and/or nowhere to swing at adepts from by the time you got a turn. (The northerners can't practically get the first swing in this matchup, because they would only get to swing at ghouls; but the adepts can kill whatever they shoot at, because there's no northern unit that can tank ranged magic cold. Putting archers up front for retaliation doesn't work either, the undead just poisons them and sits behind his ghouls another turn.)

The third idea is to outflank - ghouls and adepts aren't that fast. Of course, outflanking isn't possible on Isar's, but on a reasonable map you could get a few wolf riders to finish off retreating wounded adepts. Any kind of flank guard would weaken the overwhelming force the adepts need to be sure to have a ghoul in front of them before clicking end turn.


So, in summary, if it doesn't also happen on a reasonable sized map, then it's not a problem. (Although I do wonder how long ghouls have had all those resists and 60% village def - I seem to remember them being much bigger punching bags in previous versions.)
Lim-Dul
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by Lim-Dul »

Yeah, Nebiros - your analysis is dead on. I repeated the experiment a few times today and guess what - you CAN outflank a setup like that with Northeners. Remember how neither I nor the UD player occupied the water village at first (not recruiting a naga in the first turn was a mistake on my part)? Today some guy outflanked me with nagas, lots of nagas - like three of them. :-D
You don't get too favorable attack positions on the village and since the adept/ghoul lineup isn't quite cheap the Northeners can still hold the line in center while you have to waste your time on the nagas - since the game starts at dawn the nagas are pretty much safe in the beginning and you have to break your line to NOT let them slip by and take e.g. your swamp village.
Several other games weren't quite that conclusive for me because the Northener players insisted on recruiting Orcish Assassins even though they KNEW that I went UD - you can imagine how these games ended. ;-)
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chains
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by chains »

I've added more material for the guide on the first page titled How to Fight in Isars. This post is mainly for the players who are new, and have a lot to learn. If you have a style of play for isars that you feel fits into a third category lets add categories!
Lorbi
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Re:

Post by Lorbi »

chains wrote: Always respect time of day. If your team is chaotic then you must attack at night to win, this is the most basic strategy in wesnoth and is No different in Isar's.
It is! Because you can't help of being forced into battle at unfavourable TOD.
At larger maps you can at least avoid some fighting by moving back your frontline some hexes. On isars ... move back to where?
You will have to fight at bad TOD or you will get screwed.
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alpha1
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by alpha1 »

I think he means obvious stuff, like: don't stay in the way of UD at night if you are drake, don't attack a lawful faction with chaotic at day etc. It's true that you cant avoid all fightings at bad ToD on such a small map as Isar's, but you can at least try to minimize them.
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Mabuse
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Re: Re:

Post by Mabuse »

Lorbi wrote: You will have to fight at bad TOD or you will get screwed.
no, you dont have to. If you fight at bad ToD THEN you will get screwed. thats the way it is. not otherwise.

you can take some damage at bad Tod and then cycle your Troops next turn, but you dont HAVE to fight back. Only fight/strike back at bad ToD if it pays of. it makes no sense to lose all your units wile dealing low damage and at good ToD only a small amount of your units can deal full damage because your other units are killed or heavily wounded

thats an extremely important point - of course dont mistake it wit "i give all cities to the enemy without fighting". no, of course not, you HAVE TO hold ALL your cities (with exception of water village perhaps). but you only need to hold (and cycle), not to fight/strike back.

many noobs dont get it though and think the "center" of the map has a special meaning that must be occupied with units for some reason no matter what ToD, then cry for help if they get rolled over

as usual - exception make the rule here, if theres a good opportunity then use it
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Lorbi
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Re: Re:

Post by Lorbi »

Of course you will have to fight at bad TOD. You said this yourself:
Mabuse wrote:you HAVE TO hold ALL your cities (with exception of water village perhaps). but you only need to hold (and cycle), not to fight/strike back.
Don't mistake "fight" with attack. I never told you have to attack at bad TOD. But you can be forced into fight any TOD on Isars. ( or lose villages witch is even worse )
and it would be just stupid to sit on the village watching the enemy come and kill just because you its day/night.
When there is some mage/adept next to my village cause ha attacked me i will use my melee unit to hit him cause:
1.) i have to stay in the village anyway with some not-easy-to-kill unit
2.) on bad TOD it is even more important to take any chance you get to do some retaliation when yu can't retreat

of course it is a bad idea to attack enemy on bad TOD
on Isar the prob is you reach yor "last defense line" within 1 turn when retreating and when the enemy continues to push you'll have to stand ground or you will be grounded
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Nebiros
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by Nebiros »

That's good advice against some factions, but it won't work against undead. Two adepts at night will instant-kill most level 1 units, regardless of terrain (including villages). There's no cycling to protect your wounded then. Adepts are cheap and fast, and most factions don't have any units that can reliably not die instantly against them.

So if you try to defend your villages you die, and if you try to run away they probably catch you and you die anyway. Either way, when dawn finally comes there are 60% def, resist-everything ghouls in your villages.

Losing the small number of villages that are in the middle, especially if you lose them for only a few turns, isn't really that bad, *if* you can hang on to enough units to take them back when the ToD changes; but Isar's is so tiny you'll either lose your base villages too, or be adepted to death trying to hold them.
chains
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by chains »

Village stealing in Isars Cross.

I see a lot of players stealing villages in Isars cross and I cringe. Even players with a lot of practice sometimes do it. They see an open village and they steal it. In all most every case this is a horrible idea. You never want to steal a village within range of an enemy leader thathas no other attacks to make except on your village thief. You just give the enemy free strikes with his leader. You also never want to steal a village BEHIND a retreating army. The army will retreat over the top of your unit and get a free kill.

The only time you want to steal a village is when the time of day is in your favor. (First watch or dusk for UD and Northie). Or when you are certain you have a huge chance of holding the village, AND retreating the wounded unit. This only happens late in the game when one side is almost completely exhausted.
chains
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Re: How to Play Isar's Cross

Post by chains »

Random start time is widely considered imbalanced because most maps are balanced with a dawn start time in mind. Careful work has gone into village placement and starting locations to make Wesnoth as balanced as possible. Many maps can function decently with a dusk start time, as its the exact opposite of standard. But start times of other degrees lead to extremely imbalanced situations. Small maps like Isar's Cross are affected more than larger maps. Drake rushes in Isar's are fierce, but imagine a drake rush against nonlawful targets... with a start time of second watch. Instead of 2 full rounds of attacks... the drake now gets 1 more turn to move all his nasty dragons into perfect position. So when the fight breaks out, he has three full turns to hammer on you with, Dawn, morning, and afternoon. Imagine the same in reverse, two chaos players on the same side with a morning start time... lawful has No chance to push chaos back before the game begins... Loyalist will be lucky to even claim their center village before undead is on top of them with adepts.


Moral of the story, don't use Random Start Time for Isar's games, unless you want some unbalanced games.
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