Colosseum - first round buy discussion

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gorgolok
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Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by gorgolok »

What I see a lot in multiplayer are people who buy regeneration/feeding before the first wave comes out. I argue that this is stupid for the following reasons:

The general aim is to finish waves quickly, for a good reward. The way to do that is to kill quickly. Quick kills are achieved by doing damage. Therefore, extra strikes and damage should be the main concern for round 1.

Going into detail, here's why. If on average setting you're able to kill the first-round opponents in 3 rounds (1 round per opponent should be possible), you get 80 gold each. That buys you some decent upgrades, which in turn makes you kill faster in the next round. However, every round you add is costly. Now, with some units, if you buy feeding/regeneration, you cannot conceivably kill all 3 first wave critters in 3 rounds, it's just not possible. This means you willfully cost all your teammates money, if you did buy an ability in the first round.

Sometimes, bad RNG happens. It's bad if it does, but it's also excusable. Making sure everyone dies by denying them money for upgrades on purpose is not excusable. Therefore, don't buy abilities. Just don't.




Any different opinions?
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Araja
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by Araja »

Hmm.
In my experience, buying an ability on the first round just means your a newbie, not that your being malicious.
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Thrawn
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by Thrawn »

Araja wrote:Hmm.
In my experience, buying an ability on the first round just means your a newbie, not that your being malicious.
I have actually had conversations with people that do it, and they are convinced they are playing properly by buying an ability round 1. They usually then don't help work as a team, die quickly, and leave >_>

The way I see it, on newb-average, you do have enough money to buy an ability, so if you want feeding, and are playing on a lower difficulty, you should get it then.

My first round, I usually try and get my person strong enough to have reasonable chance to kill bats on the AI's turn, or turn 1.

A bit of advice, specially for those who use shamans/other units with generally weak ranged and melee--concentrate on improving 1, not both. @16 gold, you can only improve the damage 6 times (so 3-2--> 9-2) whereas improving just one gets you 10 (3-2-->13-2) also, you can get 1 strike, which allows you to get 3-2-->8-3, but as you can see, it does less.

Sorry to now go OT, but related to this, I find people's obsession w/ matching units to their most favorable terrain a backwards idea early in the game. Let's take the shaman again. Most people seem to think that the forest section is the best for her. That is not the case. There, although she is harder to hit, the enemies range from 40%-60% defense, and even a 13-2 attack isn't that impressive, and suffers from having misses be very devastating. So why not put her somewhere that she has an 80% chance to hit, or a 70% chance? Snow/Sand are excellent choices (snow more than sand, as there is forest there >_>) and putting your weaker/units with less strikes there is often faster than keeping them on "their" terrain.
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xbriannova
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by xbriannova »

I think what you said makes sense. The first time I played this scenario I knew right away that abilities are not as important, partly because I know my attacks will make the most important and also because I was informed.

I would usually increase the number of strikes I can make by 1 for both my melee and ranged attack for 56 gold, and then I'd move on to upgrade my health and movement points with an option of either increasing my resistance or my damage. With this scheme using the Dwarvish thunderer, I became the last man standing despite being a new player.

I mean, the start is pivotal for the rest of the match to go well and my starting purchases were a huge contributing factor to my success.
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dvormann
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by dvormann »

On Noob/Amateur difficulty buying feeding on wave 1 can work. Average or pro, it does not.

Some units have to buy HP. A Dark Adept without extra HP will not do well.

I agree that everyone has to buy damage and/or strikes.
Thrawn wrote:Sorry to now go OT, but related to this, I find people's obsession w/ matching units to their most favorable terrain a backwards idea early in the game. Let's take the shaman again. Most people seem to think that the forest section is the best for her. That is not the case. There, although she is harder to hit, the enemies range from 40%-60% defense, and even a 13-2 attack isn't that impressive, and suffers from having misses be very devastating. So why not put her somewhere that she has an 80% chance to hit, or a 70% chance? Snow/Sand are excellent choices (snow more than sand, as there is forest there >_>) and putting your weaker/units with less strikes there is often faster than keeping them on "their" terrain.
I agree to that. Once the shaman levels she can move to forest as magical attacks are great there. You need someone who can start in forest and switch to snow later. Which unit would that be?
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csarmi
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by csarmi »

Colosseum is a very poor map because no strategy is involved and there is a strictly optimal way of playing while most of the others are unplayable on higher levels, that is:

1) do not buy abilities
2) use a mixed fighter
3) improve both strikes/damage (unless in some very special cases maybe on start)
4) buy moves when needed, when damage is high enough
5) magical goes to mountains/forest, flyer/water goes to swamp, sand/caves/snow for units with low strikes or relatively low damage (for example elves are usually best on snow)
6) move up to lure every enemy to be able to attack you, kill them on retal (as you have melee+ranged you can), if smth stay alive, kill them on your turn

All or most of this is a nobrainer too.

ah, and the characters are completely unbalanced and so are the abilities
for example feeding is completely useless, too long payback time... shouldn't have been so hard to figure that out
not even gonna mention the rest of the abilities
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by Pentarctagon »

feeding is not completely useless, on average it is not that useful, but on the lower difficulty levels it pays itself back very quickly. once got an ulf to almost 2k hp :twisted: (+85 feeding pwns all :lol2: ).
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Thrawn
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by Thrawn »

the only useful ability is having 2 units getting cure/healing, for later in the game, in case you have to start huddling together--even though w/ the best units and optimal play you don't need to, healing has, from my own experience, allowed worse units to survive, through teamwork.
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Mystery
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by Mystery »

Healing is ridiculously strong for its cost, making it strictly optimal for the entire party to just sit on their starting Castle hexes with everyone using it even if it means taking a 30g end-wave reward for the entire game. Unfortunately, that's no fun. (...after the first time!) Since the optimal strategy is so passive, and requires a level of teamwork that you'll rarely have unless playing by yourself anyway, I get my jollies in Colosseum seeing who all I can outlast and then seeing if I can still beat the final wave with whoever remains. Alternatively, see how well you can do with some weaker but still decent units, like an Orcish Archer or a Saurian.

Keep in mind that Feeding also adds to Current HP the same amount it adds to Max HP, so it's slightly better than a straight comparison to buying raw Max HP shows. It still takes too long to show its worth and it cripples your early-game damage, though, making it difficult to justify on Senior and unusable on Pro. (I prefer playing Senior anyway because it's simply more fun, Pro basically guarantees a 30g reward every round past the first no matter how fast you beat the wave. :augh:) Steadfast is actually good for units that have high innate resists, such as Cavalrymen and all Dwarves, and the benefit is immediate so you don't have to skimp on crucial early-game damage upgrades. For units who lack the resists you're usually best off never buying any ability.
2) use a mixed fighter
All the most dangerous enemies are the ranged units with +accuracy attacks, i.e. the range-heavy wave with almost all MM/Magical units; Great Mage, Runemaster; Fire Dragon, Ancient Lich, Sylph on final wave. I find using a pure ranged fighter as good or even slightly better than a strong mixed unit. It allows you to kill the strongest enemies faster (via mass retaliation), while the melee units struggle on your upgraded 80% Defense, and also allows you to dump more gold into raw HP. In contrast, Ulfserker is the only pure melee unit that even has a chance of finishing the game and even it rarely does so.
silent
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by silent »

Odd. Whenever i play colusseum, I always get feeding second round as that is the general consensus as to a good ability, and as pentarctagon has stated, units with ridiculous HP are hard to take down.

And csarmi, there is some strategy involved because you can't just wander around expecting to win. The key to colusseum is always how you use the money allocated to you in buying abilities. This is a DIFFERENT strategy to that normally seen in the standard 1vs1 maps

The mixed fighter idea is probably the best one I've heard, given the possibility is there to kill at any time.

Oh and while units are mentioned...Mage of Light is godly if you can get the other players to help you through the 3rd and 4th waves.

generally this is how I'd go about buying upgrades, assuming i've remembered the number of waves correctly

1st: a little health, strikes, attack
2nd: feeding, attack or health depending on gold and unit
3rd: lots of health
4th: attack, increase feeding
5th: same as 4th
6th: same as 4th
7th: resistances and terrain def
last: as much health as possible
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Pentarctagon
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by Pentarctagon »

kind if off-topic, but has anyone else had the last wave lag for an ungodly amount of time?
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dvormann
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by dvormann »

Thrawn wrote:the only useful ability is having 2 units getting cure/healing, for later in the game,
Steadfast (30 gold) is very nice on units with good resistances. Like Dwarf Fighter or Thunderer.
Pentarctagon wrote:kind if off-topic, but has anyone else had the last wave lag for an ungodly amount of time?
The AI takes long against all those high HP high retaliation units.
"m" is the key used most in Wesnoth.
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Araja
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by Araja »

Units like Mage, Dark Adept, and Shaman do require a helpful team, or your almost destined to be swarmed and crushed.
Dark Adepts in particular have a serious problem with being surrounded by flyers.
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The1exile
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by The1exile »

Pentarctagon wrote:kind if off-topic, but has anyone else had the last wave lag for an ungodly amount of time?
I've never completed colosseum because no-one will stick out the hour long turns towards (what I presume is) the end.
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Gaiyamato
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Re: Colosseum - first round buy discussion

Post by Gaiyamato »

Thunderer with feeding can solo on any difficulty.
1000hp Thunderer with 10-5 melee 40-7 ranged, 80% hills def is pure awesome, he laughs at the final round.

But I agree.
I've tried all sorts of ways to make feeding useful on round one, even in solo it isnt with the exception of thunderer.
In multiplayer? I wouldnt buy it on round 1.
It is however probably the best ability as a general vague rule (though not always in some specific cases).
Round 2 is another matter. Feeding is useful for most strats with some units on round 2 (and visa versa).

Extra strikes is how you survive the game though. Lots of strikes to reduce luck dependancy then ooooooodles of hp.
You can survive anything with enough hp because you can level fast with all the high level critters you fight, so long as you survive enough attacks.

Aside from that.. there isn't really any extra strategy to the game. I'd say there is far less than most other wesnoth maps.
Easily the easiest to defeat survival game, unless it gets completely bolloxed by some fool(s) in round 1/2 in a multiplayer game. :P

Still trying to get the damn bat to work solo. :(
I don't think it can. :P
Pentarctagon wrote:kind if off-topic, but has anyone else had the last wave lag for an ungodly amount of time?
Always. I just sit and be patient. It gets faster as they all die.
Araja wrote:Units like Mage, Dark Adept, and Shaman do require a helpful team, or your almost destined to be swarmed and crushed.
Dark Adepts in particular have a serious problem with being surrounded by flyers.
Very true. Though I worked out a strat that works to get the elvish sorceress to final round solo and multi.
But it is touch and go. I cannot get her to beat the game without serious help however.
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