NR-Infested Caves - Clear the Caves, Min. Gold, Nightmare

[peanut]

Hi, this is my first post on the Wesnoth forums.

Today I discovered that it IS possible to clear the caves in Northern Rebirth's "Infested Caves" scenario with minimum starting gold (350) on Nightmare level.

Infested Caves is, by far, my favorite scenario of all time, and after seeing some posts on this forum on the lines of "you need at least X amount of gold in order to beat the scenario" (where X is a big number), I figured this would be a fun challenge to do (and prove them wrong!). I edited the save file to give me very little starting gold, and it automatically gave me 350 gold, which I will assume to be the minimum. I've beaten the scenario with minimum gold on nightmare with the easier "Move Tallin to the dwarven keep" objective many times already, but never have I succeded in clearing the caves.

Disclaimer: I cheated *a little*: Around turn 30ish I reverted back to turn 24 because I falsely assumed the brown trolls took out the northern skellies, but when the skellies starting coming out of the northern chamber, I realized I was pretty much screwed and had to change my game plan. Also, I saved/reloaded about 15 times on the last turn in order to kill the last troll; however, if I had just gotten there 1 turn earlier, I wouldn't have had to. Besides these 2 cases, I didn't do any save/reloading.

Basic Strategy:

Spoiler:

1. Send a few footpads + some units (I used poachers + woodsman) to find the mage in the upper left. Hide in that corner and level up the units. When the blue troll is not guarded and your units are stronger, come out of the hole and surprise attack him (this happened to me around turn 21-23)

2. Otherwise, recruit mostly footpads with all the gold you have (it helps to calculate precisely how much gold you are using in the first few turns to get that extra unit or two) and do the traditional strategy of moving all the forces east to take over the brown troll keep. I usually recruit a few thugs in order to take out a troll rocklobber (if one is blocking the way), but I try not to attack the trolls if I can get hurt in return. I've found the best way to make it east safely is to surround the forces with healthy footpads on good terrain as much as possible. I usually am able to make it to the brown troll keep by turn 11-13

3. This next step is probably the hardest part because many things can happen (based on AI and luck). If you kill the brown troll leader, you'll have to hold your ground against the skellies coming from the south and west, and you won't be able to recruit (due to negative gold) for many turns. It's very possible to achieve the "Move Tallin to the dwarven keep" objective this way, but from my experience, I'm unable to regain/maintain control of the brown troll keep (so I can recruit) until turn 20s. So if you want to "Clear the Caves", the best option is to let the brown troll leader alive and hope he goes to the main chamber to continue recruiting. Fortunately, this happened for me.

4. What is even more fortunate that happens sometimes is the brown, blue, and green trolls defeating the skeleton leader in the north and/or in the south. I've had this happen to me a few times, and it would make clearing the caves MUCH easier. Unfortunately, it's really up to AI and luck, and this time I was not that lucky.

5. The rest of the game is sort of standard play and a little improv. Once I noticed that the brown trolls weren't going to defeat the northern skellies as I hoped/assumed, I reverted back to turn 24 and took my group of characters in the northwest and attacked the northern skellies from the secret entrance. On reviewing the replay aftewards, I noticed that the brown trolls were close in beating the northern leader around turn 21, but then got destroyed.

At first, I pushed down south with some forces and maintained position at the keep. As things started clearing up and I started getting more income and stronger characters, I pushed west and brought my leader to the main chamber to recruit.

If I had gotten to the last troll leader just 1 turn earlier, I would have won for sure . I would say that I was being a little too safe in some turns, and I don't think my last 10 turns or so were as efficient as they could have been (it's my first time "Clearing the Caves"). I also wonder if I would have been better off if I had sent extra units to the villages in the northern skeleton chamber for more income, at the expense of fewer attacking forces.

Here is a link to a video of the replay: https://www.dropbox.com/s/alngmgh6gd7jq ... t.mp4?dl=0

Anyone else here a big fan of Infested Caves? Let me know what you think!

[Maiklas3000]

I beat it with min gold on nightmare, no save-reloads, version 1.9.4:
http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... 15#p477500

Northern Rebirth is my least favorite campaign, suffering from too much "counter pushing". Clear the Caves involves stalemate lines and long treks to villages for healing, so it is tedious, but if I recall the statemate lines are brittle, which makes it more interesting.

[peanut]

Nice replay!
I was referring to the "Infested Caves" scenario though, not the "Clearing the Mines" scenario. You know, the one where you get Camerin. (You can look at the dropbox link I posted)

I like Infested Caves better than the other scenarios in Northern Rebirth. I think it's because it allows for different types of larger-scale strategies and is very challenging due to being attacked from every side.

On the wesnoth wiki page for Infested Caves, it mentions that clearing the caves might not be possible for higher difficulty levels, so I took that as a challenge

[Maiklas3000]

Sorry for the brain fart. I called Infested Caves the hardest scenario of any mainline campaign, and I had more than minimum gold, so good job.

[sylph]

The term "expert" has little relation to tactical prowess for this campaign. It should be "memorized" and not on mainline.

There are other campings that I didnt finish because I re-installed my operating system and lost the saves or I didnt upgrade to the new version. By upgrade, I mean I didnt see a, "click here to upgrade to the new OS version which transfers the saves to the new Wesnoth version". (I started studying IT in January 2012. ) I will probably play the main line campaigns I have not beaten on the next stable version of Wesnoth, except for Northern Rebirth.

Spoiler:

I started playing Wesnoth in the end 2009. So, I was playing this Wesnoth campaign for many hours. I struggled for a while: teleporting, respawning dead bosses, throne room attacking... (just in that scenario) Then, eventually, I found this chest with 10,000 gold. I quit immediately. That was mid of 2010. In 2012, I started playing Wesnoth (the other campaigns) again.

...and Under the Burning Suns comes with a warning!

Other things in my life occurred that lead me not to play Wesnoth. But this was a major factor.

[darla]

I like Infested Caves better than the other scenarios in Northern Rebirth. I think it's because it allows for different types of larger-scale strategies and is very challenging due to being attacked from every side.