SotBE: The Human Attack, Wesnoth 1.11.13, HARD

[Theron]

I think the rebalancing of this scenario has failed (or I’m not good enough).
I faced two major problems:
The sheer (possible) amount of units with charge attacks (Lancers, Knights (and Horseman)) which are able to kill even my healthiest units in a single turn.
The suicidal behavior of the allied leaders.

I someone else want to playtest: the start-of-scenario-save is attached as well as the start-of-scenario-save of the previous scenario (Maiklas3000 managed to get more carryover gold but every time I replay „The Coward“ I end with carryover gold in the 30th).

My observations so far:
It is possible to plan for an assassination: I managed to poison the the Earl with a Direwolf Rider (+Wolf Rider escort) early on. After the poison reduced his HP to 1 it may be possible to bypass the defenses with Saurian Skirmishers for the killing blow.
The problem is suviving long enough to make it work. If I’m strong enough to survive in the first place the assassination strategy isn’t necessary at all.
The strategy of my most successful wannabe tries:
Recruit mainly Orcish Archers and Saurian Skirmishers (recruits = 0 upkeep, focus on piercing attacks, level 1 = minimal loss of gold value if those ****** charge attacks are successful).
Make use of Kapou’e’s leadership during the first night.
Retreat at the beginning of the day while some of your and all of your allies’s units buy you some time (you have killed most of the riders, right?).
Kapou’e recruits (recalls) more units.
The enemy uses all of his turns during day to reach the castles.
Problem: Enemy units move into strike range of your allied leaders. They will happily attack even if they may be trapped and consequently killed next turn.


Suggestion:
While transferring the control of the allied sides to the player may work I think this would be a bad idea. All other scenarios with Al’Brock and Flar’Tar would have to be changed as well for consistency.
Instead give the player the option to use „Right click > Ask * to move here“ like with Grüü in „Towards Mountains of Haag“. This can be used as an emergency rescue as well as offering the strategic option to move the allied leaders to the recruitment spots of the main castle behind the moat (+ having limited control over the time when the allies will use their remaining gold).
Maybe limit the amount of concurrent units with charge attacks.

[Maiklas3000]

I found out the hard way that if you beat the Human Attack by lasting until the end of turns (on hard/nightmare), then you will lose the next scenario, which is the last. [Edit: I retracted this statement in a later post.] You need way more than minimum gold for the last scenario. So, assassination is the only way to go on the Human Attack. Therefore, I'm replaying this scenario to win by assassination.

A maintainer of the campaign, mattsc, told me that if it were balanced correctly then you shouldn't be forced to win by assassination. I don't think that way. I would say it's pretty common across campaigns to need the early finish bonus to beat the next scenario on the hardest difficulty.

You seem to like to recruit Archers in scenarios with Knights and Lancers. Yeah, okay, they do nice ranged pierce damage, but they are sitting ducks to charges if exposed on the enemy's turn. (And it's not like they are safe behind your lines, as the enemy can slice through even Warlords.)

You mention Skirmishers. Yeah, okay, they do nice ranged and melee pierce damage, but they can be killed in the first strike by a Lancer (except at night), and hence deal no retaliation damage. So I'd say use them sparingly, exposing them only at night.

Whelps do pathetic damage to horse units, so they are also sitting ducks to charges.

Therefore, I rely on Grunts. My motto is, "When in doubt, grunt!"

I also recall L3's (and Pillagers) up to my village support limit. By aggressively grabbing villages, it's easy to get 34 or more income, letting you have one L3 and one L1 per round, though really you should have won by assassination before that point. I only had Kapou'e dart out of his keep once, when the action got close, but with an assassination approach it might be wise to run him forward after the initial gold is spent.

Focus on your assassination squad. Direwolf Riders, Pillagers, and sacrificial Wolf Riders are key. You might be able to run wounded Grunts forward instead of backward to give some cover to your assassination squad. Remember, if the assassination fails, you've already lost the next scenario. It's all or nothing.

Do you have any tips to lure the enemy leader out of his keep? Even if you send several L3 units into his strike range, they may all die before the enemy leader has a chance to get involved, or other of his units could occupy all the hexes adjacent to your units, preventing him from darting out. Is the enemy leader totally unwilling to come out of his keep at night? If so, why do the allied leaders charge out by day?

At night, you'll see the enemy exhibit passive "sidewinder" behavior, where the troops out of range of battle move mostly sideways and keep close together. It's annoying that setting your allies to passive does not seem to generate the same behavior by day.

If your suggested "move to" option for the allied leaders would have them run back to their keeps after getting to the target hexes, then I would not like it. Moving the keeps north as you and others suggested would be nice. However, keep in mind that you can somewhat control where the enemy goes. If you spread your units across the whole outer wall, then that will bring the enemy to where your allied leaders can attack them (and hence get themselves killed.) It might be possible to use wounded Grunt treats to keep the enemy in the middle area, away from the allied leaders. Capturing all or all-but-one of your allied leaders villages will help prevent them from pumping out tasty Archers that might lure the enemy close.

If you look at how the scenario was changed in 1.11 compared to 1.10, the allies' gold was reduced from 200 each to 125 each, and Kapou'e's minimum starting gold was reduced from 400 to 300. The enemy leader's income has been increased by 50 per turn, but he no longer gets a 800 gold bonus on the reinforcement turns. The timing of the reinforcements has been changed (slightly earlier.) The enemy's passive "sidewinder" behavior by night/dusk was bumped up. The turn limit has been reduced from 30 to 25. I'm surprised that it seems so much more difficult, given that the enemy has 800 less gold on the reinforcement turns. I guess the enemy's greater initial advantage is what makes the difference.

[mattsc]

A maintainer of the campaign, mattsc, told me that if it were balanced correctly then you shouldn't be forced to win by assassination. I don't think that way. I would say it's pretty common across campaigns to need the early finish bonus to beat the next scenario on the hardest difficulty

Let me just clarify that I did not mean that as a general statement to apply to Wesnoth scenarios in general. I meant it as a: when we rebalanced this specific scenario, it was set up with the intention of the player being able to win the battle and not having to resort to assassination tactics (which, of course, always remain an alternative option).

Also FYI: Based on the comments by Maiklas3000 and Theron, we're in the process of rebalancing the last few scenarios of SotBE to make them just a little easier on nightmare. Don't worry though, they'll still be plenty hard ...

[Maiklas3000]

It turns out what I said above was wrong. I was able to win the last scenario without resorting to assassination in the second to last scenario, the Human Attack. I went to the end of turns there but concentrated on getting gold.