Valley of the Trolls!

[dawn-tracker]

Okay, I would really like for someone to tell me that this scenario can be beat! Now before you start asking; what difficulty level, answer fighter(easy), or level up a couple of units; Elornas was a High Lord, I had an Elvish hero, an Elvish Ranger, an Elvish Druid, two fighters about to level up, and three shamans. My strategy was to defeat the blue Troll leader on the left, recruit a few more units, and then assault the green Troll leader.

But how am I supposed to defeat guys with huge hammers that do 20 plus points of damage, two hits and my guys are almost dead, plus they regenerate, I don't see how I can get at the leader kill him in less than 15 turns then go after the other one, this is were I have complained before about the AI's target selection, because the trolls will go after the shamans rather than fight the unit thats in front of them which I think is bull*&^$, they will even pass up other units just to attack them, and that
is total crap, give me a knight or two and I could make mince meat out of them!

Suggestions are welcome, and thank you!

[chaoticwanderer]

I played this scenario back in 1.4.3 on normal mode, so I don't remember exactly and I'm not sure if it's changed at all but-

Honestly, I didn't make a head on assault. I had two seperate parties camp outside the entrances and kill them one by one as they came out slowly wearing them down and getting some nice XP all the while. Then when the turns starting running low and they had little gold I went in and finished them.

As far as recruiting, you'll need a mix up of high level units who can take some hard hits and live and will be able to do some good damage as well, as well as some fodder. Remember that trolls are weak to arcane, so a sorceress/enchantress would be very useful. And have plenty of shamans to slow the trolls. And also keep in mind that trolls will be much weaker during the day, so when you're trying to take out a leader, that's the ideal time.

Hope that helped some.

[Caphriel]

give me a knight or two and I could make mince meat out of them!

Give me a suitably large army of the units I would like, and I could beat anything The point of Wesnoth, and what makes it fun, is working with what you've got and conversely, making sure you have what you'll need in the future.

To start with, you could reread replies to the last topic you started about this scenario. I'll summarize the previous set of responses:
slow the trolls, use terrain, use their slow speed against them, and get to the scenario with more higher level units.

The AI in Wesnoth prioritizes killing your units. So yes, it's going to go after the weak, low-counter-damage shaman rather than attacking fighters that have more HP and will deal more counter damage. It sounds to me like you don't want an AI, you want an artificially stupid opponent.

Use your shamans and the druid to slow the trolls and position them to heal your units, the Elvish Lord and the Ranger to deal damage, use the fighters/shamans to deal finishing blows, use the fighters to provide ZoC cover, and use the hero as a tank. Position your forces so that they can't gang up on your units and cycle the wounded ones to the back. Use the fact that your fighters are close to leveling and will get a full-heal when they level to soak off some extra damage. See you if can level one your shamans into a sorceress.

I can't speak for everyone, but I'd be more willing to help you if you took a less aggressive tone and phrased your questions as polite requests for advice, rather than angry complaints about fundamental principles of Wesnoth

[Turuk]

To start with, you could reread replies to the last topic you started about this scenario. I'll summarize the previous set of responses:
slow the trolls, use terrain, use their slow speed against them, and get to the scenario with more higher level units.

Agreed. Do not make threads about the same topic, particularly when you received tips and advice in the last topic that you did not heed.

[Cloud]

Scenario 4 – Valley of Trolls

Largely regarded as the first truly difficult scenario by many beginners, this has stumped many by either waves of troll whelps or truly scary adult trolls, depending on your difficulty. What may not be obvious to you is that the troll AI has been set up to NOT USE the two mountain hexes that border their caves, but only the path through the middle. Once you realize this it is far easier to setup a nice bottleneck for them.

Good luck! Try to eliminate the blue troll quickly so that the teal one will be a sole target.

I played this through recently, and found it particulary easy (it was on easy, but I'm not brilliant). Be bold and strike out early. I think I used: 1 Scout, 1 Druid, 1 Shaman, 1 Hero and 1 Lord to attack the nearest troll, and sent: 1 Marksman and 1 Sorceress to tie up the other. It got a bit hairy with the further troll so I sent the Hero to aid. (I did position the Druid foolishly once and lost her, for which I did reload, but with a quick bit of thought didn't make the same mistake again. I was finished by turn 11 or something, having struggled to turn 30 a long while back.

If you have Shammans, it won't matter if you loose one or two, you have to make certain sacrafices in order to win .

[Skrim]

Last time I played this on 1.6.1 Medium, I went in with 2 Heroes, 2 Marksmen, 1 Ranger, 1 Druid, 1 Sorceress, 1 Lord(Erlornas) and a half-leveled Scout, not counting fresh recruits. My general Elves vs. Trolls strategy involves Slowing them with Shamans/Druids/etc. and then plinking them with ranged attacks. For this mission, I camped out near the entrances to the Troll dens and killed them as they came out, and then went in with Slowing and Arcane units to take out the leader.

[Joram]

I stayed out of the trolls reach till they were out in the grass during the day, slowed them, and proceeded to make hash out of them with my leader, an Elvish Sorceress, and various assorted elves.

The important thing is to slow those that you don't kill in one turn, and to keep them from going 2 vs 1 on any of your units (unless they are slowed, or unless that unit is in a village and preferably also a good melee unit). This is assuming that you are fighting grown trolls. I haven't played on lower difficulties where, I understand, the AI recruits hordes of level 1s.

As for the leaders, march in and slow him first thing, then proceed to bash him with arcane ranged attacks. If he musters while you are in there, then things might get a bit dicey, so just hope he doesn't.

[Elyssaen]

[on Difficulty: Fighter (Easy)]

I'm new to Wesnoth, having started playing two days ago. I beat Valley of the Trolls earlier today, and it was one of the first scenarios that defeated me before I changed tactic. I'll describe my winning strategy here, which took 10 turns in total.

Turn 1
I used recall so that I had an an elvish lord (Erlornas, L2, 77/120), elvish hero (L2, 50/90), elvish ranger (L2, 26/90), elvish archer (L1, 40/44), elvish shaman (L1, 0/32), elvish scout (L1, 22/32) and elvish fighter (26/32), and had the hero – who I started the scenario with – take the village to the west.

Turn 2
Moved the ranger, archer, shaman, scout, fighter and lord northwest in no particular order.

Turn 3
A blue troll rocklobber left the orc camp, and ended its turn on hills. I had my lord attack it, followed by the ranger, archer and scout. The lord ended at 38/51 HP, and the rocklobber at 37/56. I moved the other units closer.

Turn 4
Before I took my turn, the blue leader moved out of the camp and he and the rocklobber killed my scout. Green began to send out a troll, and behind it the green leader and a troll whelp. I had my ranger (Ryn), hero (Vebrion) and lord all attack the rocklobber again, and sent my archer against the blue leader, doing some damage and levelling it up to ranger (Eowiel). My fighter finished off the rocklobber, levelling up to hero (Vebrinildor). I finally moved my shaman in behind my hero to heal him on the next turn.

Turn 5
Both blue and green leaders changed their minds and retreated. Green had its troll and troll whelp continue on, with the troll now in range. With the shaman's healing, I sent my lord into blue's camp to attack, leaving blue leader at 38/70 and my lord at 42/51. I had Vebrinildor (hero) sidle up to my lord to back him up on the next turn, and my shaman stood adjacent to both. At the same time, my archer, Ryn (ranger), Vebrion (hero) and Eowiel (ranger) took out the troll all together.

Turn 6
Other than calling in a new blue troll and green's troll whelp not managing to kill anyone, nothing happened. Vebrinildor (hero) + my lord attacked the blue leader, and my shaman slowed the blue troll. The others destroyed the whelp and moved on the green leader.

From here it was straightforward fighting. The blue leader and his troll couldn't beat the ranged/arcane attacks from my lord and a hero, and green couldn't take on two rangers, a hero and an archer (who ignored green recruits).

Ultimately, it was just a case of moving very quickly, being a bit lucky and focusing on ranged and arcane attacks. Yes, I was fighting them in the dark after the first few turns. This may not work above easy mode...

[mwic]

I'm kind of having the same problem as the original poster here, but i'll be nice about it.

There are a couple of differences between my experience and, for example, that of Elyssaen. Turns 1 & 2 I did the same, with comparable units

At turn 3 I generally see now fewer than *4 trolls come out to start fighting. On turn 4 there are usually 2-3 more, and a few from the first batch gang up on one of my guys, who generally survives this turn. Generally by the end of the first nightfall there are 8-10, sometimes more, and I'm down to 5 units if that.

If I go into the blue leader's cave *before the first nightfall, I'll usually find myself fighting 3 whelps in the keep, not the leader. I can usually kill 2 of these before I'm down to my last 3 units.

I start with 100 gold, recall 5 guys, and have -6 per turn. Elyssaen doesn't mention anything about grabbing villages, so I assume skipping it is ok? Someone else in this thread talks about recruiting more after killing the blue leader, so maybe I'm wrong...

I know the basics of zones of control containment, but It's fairly tricky with so many enemies out. One thing I noticed is that Elyssaen got a couple levelups (inc. healing) early on. Is that critical? Somewhat-important?

[Lyrax]

Do NOT attack the trolls at night, if you can avoid it. That 25% extra damage is really painful when they start with 15-20!

Do NOT attack trolls in the mountains, if you can avoid it. They have decent defense on hills and mountains - lousy defense everywhere else.

Do not spread your damage, they regenerate. Try to focus on a few different units at a time.

[Browncoyote]

I am new to this game. I played through the first scenario twice, the brothers once which I found easy. Knights rock. Anyhow, this level "Vally of Trolls" gave me a challenge. So much so that I searched out a good thread with some sound advice. It turned out to be this one. A captain giving 25 percent, shamans slowing which I was skeptical of but works well and a bunch of her fighter and archers ready to level. Make a group with your character leader and one with the captain and hold down villages and Day or night matters a bit but formations which keep everyone covered and protected are more important. The first Orc leader was done by the end of turn 7. He will try to run. Now... I'm going to win this. Just got happy to be this far, saved and wrote half of this. Yep other Orc leader was defeated at noon on 14 turn. I had one druid, a marksman, a couple of heros, the captain and main character. I don't recommend scouts for this maybe a rider to grab villages.

Thanks for the advice.