A brief update on faction Guides? (For 1.12.5 onward)

[Crimson_Conure]

Hello! I'm brand new to Wesnoth. I just started playing the game about a week or 2 ago. And, I joined the forums today.

I'm requesting that some wesnoth veteran/developer/etc. creates an updated faction guide for 1.12.5, and later versions?
So far, I 'main' the Knalgan Alliance (not hodor), and I also have a very deep interest for the undead, which is somewhat ironic haha, because they appear to almost have the opposite play styles..

Anyway, it would be greatly appreciated if someone would create a new, updated faction guide, especially if you could do a guide dedicated to undead, or knalgans >:). When I say 'guide', I picture JW's guide; his series. This is the context i'm referring to.

[Gyra_Solune]

Here is the guide I primarily use in most instances!

https://wiki.wesnoth.org/How_to_play...

It's fairly up to date - only major omission is lack of Khalifate stuff. Which I tried to shore up at least partially!

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=43612

[Crimson_Conure]

Ooh, neat.

I thought those guides were like 7 years out of date? Who is the author of them?

[Gyra_Solune]

Ooh, neat.

I thought those guides were like 7 years out of date? Who is the author of them?

They're a touch old? But the thing is, almost nothing has changed radically in terms of multiplayer balance in a long time. Arguably the biggest change in recent years was giving an Arcane attack to the Dark Adept so as to make Undead mirror matches less abysmal while affecting almost no other matchup, and that was before these guides.

[Horus2]

Here is the guide I primarily use in most instances!

https://wiki.wesnoth.org/How_to_play...

It's fairly up to date - only major omission is lack of Khalifate stuff. Which I tried to shore up at least partially!

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=43612

This guide is not hopelessly bad, but still full of naive idealism, especially over damage resistances, and also other severe misconceptions. In your place, i would not rely on a writing that claims that:

• Dwarvish Fighter is your core unit - in the majority of cases, Dwarvish Thunderers are superior
• not to recruit Thief when fighting against undead, with a rating of "F" - i actually bursted out in laughter when read that, Thieves are your third most important units after Footpads and Dwarvish Ulfserkers
• Footpad are merely a scouting units against undead - where should i begin with this
• Drakes will "burn and freeze you" as knalga just because your dwarves happen to have 10% only on those resists - the usual script is mass Drake Fighters ruthlessly outmoving your entire army
• Poacher being very good against drakes, because drakes are pierce vulnerability hand in hand, wheee - drakes do not give two cents about your Poacher, because the way rounding works, the -10% does not increase your damage output, so a Dwarvish Fighter, which they have 10% resistance against will outperform Poacher (except when they simply outmove both like stated above and che-che-checkmate)
• wishes you to pretend that loyalists does not move you out, and you can get away with purchasing only one scout - honestly, you hand yourself on a silver plate in both case, but one or two extra gryphons is still the lesser evil
• Dark Adepts are your "meat" against loyalists - this is the only matchup where you should refrain from buying too many of those, otherwise horses will horse them
• Skeleton Archers have any fair use against knalga - buy zero of them
• Walking Corpses are good against northerners because it circumvents a 20% resistance of one certain unit - both statements are true, but that is not the logical connection between them; they are good because northerners rely on quantity and they tend to sacrifice their units, which here is an open invite for plague
• against rebels Vampire Bats are preferred over Ghosts - this might be an ancient relic of the past, because eight years ago the Ghost did cold melee damage, so chances are good that the maintainer of this text completely overlooked it (furthermore bats are pathetic since their nerf)

To sum things up, if you are brand new to this game, you can read it once, but be prepared to discard a good third of what is written there in the long run of getting better at the game. Regrettably, i cannot direct you to a better guide. I learned the game the hard way and i am not familiar with the other articles lying around.

[max_torch]

I'm not a a very active multiplayer player, however I observe a lot so take what I say with a grain of salt:

Be prepared to lose more than you win, don't feel bad about the losses, submit your first few replays for analysis and criticism, go to replays.wesnoth.org to look at ladder matches by the official wesnoth and weslife, I would also suggest watching replays of 'The Grand Tag'. Download the old versions of wesnoth that you need to see those replay (it's worth it). Don't quit right away when you're losing. Know by heart the defenses, movements, possible traits of each unit etc. Find good players of the game who don't mind playing against a noob. And be prepared to get insulted by people for sucking or playing slow, just suck it up and keep pushing forward.

[rjaguar3]

And be prepared to get insulted by people for sucking or playing slow, just suck it up and keep pushing forward.

In my view, insulting players "for sucking or playing slow" is completely unacceptable for anyone on the server. We should enforce more appropriate behavior, especially towards newcomers.

[Horus2]

And be prepared to get insulted by people for sucking or playing slow, just suck it up and keep pushing forward.

In my view, insulting players "for sucking or playing slow" is completely unacceptable for anyone on the server. We should enforce more appropriate behavior, especially towards newcomers.

Sounds like something that isar spammers would say; judging by the game titles, they are the ones obsessed with these qualities. The obvious workaround is not to play 2v2s, where the fate of an other player depends on your actions.
What a shame, that was a very laid-back mode 8 years ago...

[Crimson_Conure]

Here is the guide I primarily use in most instances!

https://wiki.wesnoth.org/How_to_play...

It's fairly up to date - only major omission is lack of Khalifate stuff. Which I tried to shore up at least partially!

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=43612

This guide is not hopelessly bad, but still full of naive idealism, especially over damage resistances, and also other severe misconceptions. In your place, i would not rely on a writing that claims that:

• Dwarvish Fighter is your core unit - in the majority of cases, Dwarvish Thunderers are superior
• not to recruit Thief when fighting against undead, with a rating of "F" - i actually bursted out in laughter when read that, Thieves are your third most important units after Footpads and Dwarvish Ulfserkers
• Footpad are merely a scouting units against undead - where should i begin with this
• Drakes will "burn and freeze you" as knalga just because your dwarves happen to have 10% only on those resists - the usual script is mass Drake Fighters ruthlessly outmoving your entire army
• Poacher being very good against drakes, because drakes are pierce vulnerability hand in hand, wheee - drakes do not give two cents about your Poacher, because the way rounding works, the -10% does not increase your damage output, so a Dwarvish Fighter, which they have 10% resistance against will outperform Poacher (except when they simply outmove both like stated above and che-che-checkmate)
• wishes you to pretend that loyalists does not move you out, and you can get away with purchasing only one scout - honestly, you hand yourself on a silver plate in both case, but one or two extra gryphons is still the lesser evil
• Dark Adepts are your "meat" against loyalists - this is the only matchup where you should refrain from buying too many of those, otherwise horses will horse them
• Skeleton Archers have any fair use against knalga - buy zero of them
• Walking Corpses are good against northerners because it circumvents a 20% resistance of one certain unit - both statements are true, but that is not the logical connection between them; they are good because northerners rely on quantity and they tend to sacrifice their units, which here is an open invite for plague
• against rebels Vampire Bats are preferred over Ghosts - this might be an ancient relic of the past, because eight years ago the Ghost did cold melee damage, so chances are good that the maintainer of this text completely overlooked it (furthermore bats are pathetic since their nerf)

To sum things up, if you are brand new to this game, you can read it once, but be prepared to discard a good third of what is written there in the long run of getting better at the game. Regrettably, i cannot direct you to a better guide. I learned the game the hard way and i am not familiar with the other articles lying around.

Thanks bro.

Question: Currently I main undead (I feel like poison can REALLY intimidate in a lot of matchups, especially loyalists and knalgans).

My question is: What is the best counter for woses when playing against rebels? Woses beat skeletons 1v1 even during the night. I've done a little testing and ghosts overall beat woses 1v1 because their speed allows them to capture villages faster, and their speed allows you to pick what fights u want therefore it's easy to attack during the night with ghosts. But, people say ghosts aren't a real counter because they're 'expensive'.

So, what's the best counter against woses when playing undead?

[Oflameo]

Thanks bro.

Question: Currently I main undead (I feel like poison can REALLY intimidate in a lot of matchups, especially loyalists and knalgans).

My question is: What is the best counter for woses when playing against rebels? Woses beat skeletons 1v1 even during the night. I've done a little testing and ghosts overall beat woses 1v1 because their speed allows them to capture villages faster, and their speed allows you to pick what fights u want therefore it's easy to attack during the night with ghosts. But, people say ghosts aren't a real counter because they're 'expensive'.

So, what's the best counter against woses when playing undead?

You are barking up the right tree. The best counter to woses are ghouls in my opinion. They neutralize the healing factor and don't take a huge amount of damage from woses when attacked. I would cover my units with ghouls doing the day and attack with adepts or skeletons doing the night. Don't have one on one fights with woses.

[Velensk]

To defend against woses it's ghosts and ghouls.

To kill woses it's skeletons and adepts at night. That at night is important. 1vs1 is a bad metric; don't be afraid to use the skeletons. Two skeletons at night don't have a great CTK against a wose in the open but you'd be surprised how often it happens anyway. A wose that's been weakened can be somewhat reliably focused down by skeletons and you're fully willing to trade 1 for 1 with woses (though if you have adepts around you shouldn't have to).

The reason ghosts aren't a real counter is more to do with the fact that there'll be other elves and/or mages around and the fact that they can't kill the wose quickly enough to neutralize their fighting potential. Woses won't ever get the upper hand on ghosts that are willing to run away at day but having ghosts on the field doesn't nullify the strength of woses the same way having mages on the field nullifies the strength of ghosts.

[Horus2]

Thanks bro.

Question: Currently I main undead (I feel like poison can REALLY intimidate in a lot of matchups, especially loyalists and knalgans).

My question is: What is the best counter for woses when playing against rebels? Woses beat skeletons 1v1 even during the night. I've done a little testing and ghosts overall beat woses 1v1 because their speed allows them to capture villages faster, and their speed allows you to pick what fights u want therefore it's easy to attack during the night with ghosts. But, people say ghosts aren't a real counter because they're 'expensive'.

So, what's the best counter against woses when playing undead?

Ghoul is very situational, even just buying one of it. It does not fit into the usual undead approach of shooting things first and only asking them later. Furthermore, while they are indeed intimidating atop a village, the opponent might just ignore it and go for another village. That, assuming the unit composition of the opponent currently lacks the diversity and did not bring a Mage of Dwarvish Ulfserver, in which case they go down just as easily as the rest. A Ghoul cannot even leave it during defense to get a kill, and poisoning a melee unit on flat is an almost guaranteed suicide move, ending up with poisoning only that single unit. Ghouls for me are mostly to poke units i cannot outright kill with adepts, mostly when i have only one hex to attack from. Years ago, people were able to play an effective undead lategame with Ghouls and Walking Corpses, but the meta shifted toward more expeditive strategies and hardly anyone uses that ever since. Of the top players, Dreadnough is one of the few who is still able to pull it off, so he has the right to lecture me in this particular subject.

Against Woses the key lies in "mathing them out" (to find a combination of different damage attacks which will likely reduce the target's health to zero, but without an overkill). Just do the usual adept plus axe spam, and add 2 or maybe later 3 ghosts to the mix (not more, else rebels can shift to mass-mage), they are mandatory for outmathing and gaining access to extra hexes to attack from. Ghosts have important tasks in 4 out of the 5 non-mirror matchups, so whenever possible (depends on village distances), drop bat entirely and buy ghost instead, you will be grateful to your past self half hour later (some might call it personal preference, but it is damn fine of a preference). Aside that, on most maps, rebels are still superior in this matchup, so do not be hard on yourself for the defeat.