Campaigns: Quantity v Quality of Units

[The_great_new_thing]

In HttT, I leveled up Konrad in the first scenario, coz its easy and coz his leadership helps in leveling up other units. I level him to level 3 in Bay of Pearls.

[Elvish_Pillager]

I recently started a game of HttT hard - no recalls - blitz (i.e. playing as fast as I can without being entirely stupid.) I levelled up Konrad once at the Port (the first scenario is too risky), once on the Isle, and AMLA'd him two more times by Crossroads. Now, if only that increased his leadership bonuses...

[HomerJ]

I was just about to ask how you plan to do the final scenario, I had forgotten that Knights are recruitable then...

Also would be nice of you to post this in the campaign challenges thread if you got some nice replays gathered.


Greetz
HomerJ

[MRDNRA]

Getting more level 3 units isn't particularly useful if you already have more than you'll ever recall. If you don't recall an excessive amount of level 3 units, they should rarely be the ones that die.

After I get a lot of L3s, I've taken to feeding most of the experience to my leaders/companions/auto-recalled units (and to a lesser extent, to any loyal units that I often use.) You can sometimes get your leaders up to +15 HP over the course of a campaign, which might not seem huge numerically compared with their usually-around-60 base, but can be huge tactically.

I'm currently doing TRoW campaign, and have already levelled up many level 3 units. However, I am not usually able to recall many of them due to having to manage my gold revenue (I try to prevent my gold going into negative income at all times), but it can potentially be very useful for the final scenario of campaigns. For example, when I did the final scenario on THoT, I recalled all my level 3 units, and recruited and levelled up many more during the process of this extremely long scenario. All those level 3s were certainly well worth the money then. It took me roughly 300 turns, and I was in negative gold by a few thousand by the time I completed that scenario.

[gorgolok]

The plateau system.

Start with getting your level 1 units to level 2, as long as level 1 units are enough. Once you get to the second half of the campaign, start turning those level 2s into level 3s. That way you use the exp most efficiently: a level 2 needs roughly twice the exp to turn into a level 3, which means from 0 exp to level 3 is three times what it takes to get to level 2. So instead of leveling all troops as far as possible early on, you get more level 2s to level later. Having 12 lv2s on recall is usually better than having 4 lv3s. You can gauge the need for leveled units by the length of the campaign. In a 20-scenario campaign, you'll likely need to start recalling the occasional level 2 around level 8, and you'll need level 3s starting from 14.

1st corollary
Loyal units and leader units (and story units which are there in every scenario) are of course useful to level as far as possible as fast as possible. That is, unless you get tons and tons of loyal units of one type, like the mermen in HttT on easy.

2nd corollary
Some unit types get special usefulness when they reach level 3, for those the plateau system may not apply. For example, having a paladin early on is beneficial to horsemen, as most healers simply can't keep up with them. Mages of Light get illumination, which (depending on your opponents) is hard to beat. The shaman line starts flying, which makes them awesome for bad terrain. Those extra abilities defeat the plateau system. Also, when going from one plateau to the next, leadership units should be levelled first for obvious reasons. (In HttT, I try and combine the loyal units/special level 3 abilities - the loyal horseman gets made into a paladin ASAP, similarly the loyal mages, Elrian and Moremirmu get turned into MoLs early on. The loyal mermaid initiate should be levelled too, if she goes priestess she'll have illuminate, which is a serious boost for all your mermen.)


Another rule I adhere to is that exp is nearly always preferrable to an early finish bonus. In practice that means unless you're running negative gold, stick out scenarios for as long as possible. I consider a scenario the most successful if I kill the last enemy leader on the last possible turn, and kept getting exp before that. In some scenarios, it's possible to leave them a few villages and still run +5 or more, so they still recruit some sweet exp for you. Enemy troops trickling your way 1 by 1 aren't a challenge, and it's usually easy to ZoC them and give the kill to one specific unit. Of course, if you need money, finish it quickly.

[dvormann]

similarly the loyal mages, Elrian and Moremirmu get turned into MoLs early on.

I prefere Elrian as a Silver Mage. But that's "special usefulness", too.