Isar guide
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Isar guide
Introduction
Anyone who at least sometimes plays on wesnoth server knows what isar is - a fast and popular 2vs2 map, in this guide I will explain what to do and what not to do on isar to play almost perfectly, if not perfectly. Since isar is a specific and simple map learning to play on it perfectly is not that hard. Obviously we play on isar in 2 players teams, so sometimes even if we do everything we can and our play is perfect if we happen to have a particularly bad ally he will still lose all his units/commit a suicide with leader/do some other stupid thing before we can get advantage and take control over the situation. You may also get a ridiculous unluck at start and lose some units which may be the cause of a quick defeat.
Im not claiming that the way of playing i presented here is the only correct way to play isar, on isar there exists at least a few equally effective strategies varying mainly by unit choice. It may also be possible that my strategy can be further improved so it's not perfect, but as for now i managed to win using it against any army with any unit composition.
First turn and unit choice
A lot depends on what units you will choose to recruit in the first turn, though there are a few equally effective ways to choose the units for each faction, first thing you need to know is that scouts are useless on isar and I don't recommend recruiting them (an exception are gryphons which you can sometimes recruit to take the water village, but I don't do that and I use a footpad instead, which is an exception on its own though it's not quite a scout)
In the first turn I always recruit the same units in the same places with each faction, sometimes with slight changes.
My units for each faction look like this:
- Drakes
A clasher and burner in front and a skirmisher and augur in the back.
- Loyalists
A merman in front and 3 spearmen.
- Knalgans
A poacher and footpad in front and 2 fighters in the back
- Rebels
A merman in front, 2 fighters and a wose
- Undeads
Here my recruitment depends on my position, if I am at west or east I always recruit a skeleton and ghost in front and 2 adepts in the back, just to take the water village with a ghost, otherwise instead of a ghost i recruit a ghoul
- Northerners
A naga and a grunt/archer in front (it depends on the situation eg the tod, but I think both options can be equally good) and 2 trolls in the back
If you can you should take the hill willage with leader, if you can't you should take the swamp one, I don't recommend taking the front vilalges because:
- Your enemy can see what leader you have second turn
- A unit you will use to take the hill village will have a longer path back to the battlefield, while your leader will have to go back to the keep anyway.
My recruitment in the later turns
Everything depends on the time of day, whether you will be able to atatck or not and the units you will have to fight against, its important to have some counter for enemy units but generally:
- As a drake I recruit more drakes because you can attack with them effectively, usually I recruit fighter first
- As loyalists I recruit a mage and a spearman in that order, later a rider can be useful too
- As knalgans I recruit a fighter and an ulf or thunderer
- As rebels I recruit fighters, later a shammy or mage
- As undeads I recruit more adepts and skeletons
- As northerners I recruit more trolls and a few grunts, goblins can be useful too
Later game, what to do and what not to do
I think this is the most important part of the guide, unit choice as long as you don't do anything crazy at start as eg 2 riders/2 mages/recruiting scouts is more a matter of personal preference, even though certain unit choices eg as the one I have just shown work well against anything you may encounter (well maybe unless eg you are undead or loyalist and the enemy has a red mage leader and 2+ woses as first recruits, you can't defend vs that)
So here are the tips about gameplay on isar and what to do and what not to do. A few things may be fairly obvious for some players but not for everyone.
- At start of the game take the swamp/hill village with a quick unit, sometimes even 1 point of movement can make a difference in getting back to the battlefield, while the other, non-quick units can already be at the front.
- If you are at the north or south position recruit a naga/merman at the farthest hex of the castle because it may give you opportunity to take water village
- If you have a chance to take the enemy water village usually you should do it, in most cases the enemy won't be able to encircle the naga/merman and even if he has a tod bonus and will use a few units to try to clear the village that means he won't take his villages, so it is a win/win situation. But you should usually retreat the merman/naga the next turn, then usually it can be encircled and killed. Even an advantage of 1 village for 1 turn is something.
- However you shouldn't take the village if there is a high chance of killing the naga in 1 turn eg a red mage leader is in range, you are facing ud with das at night or loyals at day with mage
- Don't let your enemy to take your swamp village, taking it back is extremelly difficult and requites a lot of units
- If you have dwarves and are at the north/south position a very cool and annoying trick is constant threating of an enemy swamp village, if you have a gryph it is very easy, but even if you haven't spent a fortune on gryph all you need to do is to put a quick dwarf on sand next to your village, it is extremelly useful because even if your dwarf is not in the village you can block village and most attacks with the help of 3 other units and the enemy has to worry about his village and waste units to prevent you from taking it.
- The middle village should belong to the north/south player
- Never try some weird atatcks through sand next to the water village, it can never work.
- You can retreat your naga/merman from the water village if it can be killed, if enemy take the village and you aren't in negative tod you can usually take it back
- If you are at north/south position you can use your village as a bait, it can sometimes work and bad players may fall for it, they will take the village, attack at wrong tod or with too little units and then you can slaughter their army on the open field
- Merman/naga spam works only vs noobs so I don't recommend this tactics
- Actually this tip relates to all maps but especially to the small ones liek isar: slow is deadly for you if you are attacking with leader, a slowed leader will take a few turns more to get back to the keep but more importantly during retreat you will have to waste units to cover your slowed leader, which can end badly for you, well maybe unless you have destroyed almost all enemy army in the attack (which happens rarely in initial attacks)
- If you are playing mirror vs orcs all you need to do is to spam trolls, a player who has more trolls will usually win in orc mirror, it will be a very slow victory as it is the most campy of all mirrors but a troll wall slowly moving through enemy orc lines is the best way to win as orcs don't have any unit to counter trolls except trolls (im not sure if it would work as effectively vs naga spam but im certain it would work)
And the most important tips:
- COORDINATION OF ATTACK/DEFENSE WITH YOUR ALLY
If you are playing with random people coordination can sometimes be very hard to accomplish, but usually even most noobs and not-so-good players will understand if you ask them to attack next turn, and if they don't understand what you are saying try too coordinate your actions with theirs and attack when they do, if you lack any coordination and eg the first player will attack and the second player will pull back and defend the first player in best case scenario won't achieve much with his attack and at worst he will lose all of his army, if you are attacking alone you aren't fighting vs 1 player but 2 so the units of your ally can at least be used as cannon fodder
- DEFEND AT THE HILL/FOREST LINE NOT AT THE CASTLE/MUSHROOMS LINE
I think its the most common mistake on isar, that castle isn't there so you can create a defense line one it, it is there so that if somebody tries to put a unit in it and defend you can kill the unit, take the castle and have better defense on attack
- IF CAN'T DEFEND AGAINST AN ATTACK AND YOU WOULD LOSE A LOT OF UNITS TRYING TO DEFEND JUST SACRIFICE THE VILLAGES AND RETREAT
Some players feel a strong aversion to retreating on isar, they will eg build multi-layered lines of defense as loyalists composed of mermen and mass spearmen vs undeads with 4+ adepts, they will not give up even a single village even if it meant losing many units, this is not the way to go, you can sacrifice the middle village for 2 turns, its not a big loss compared with losing units, later you can launch a counterattack, if you are at north/sout you can abandon the hill/firest line and retreat to the villages and hills line which is usually hard to break
- DON'T DO CRAZY THINGS WITH LEADER
This tip is also related to all maps but especially the small ones liek isar where you will usually use your leader to attack, if he will stay on the frontline for too long and you won't be able to recruit new units (by the way it's an effective defense strategy on isar, if you manage to bait the enemy into a long fight on your territory, especially if leader is also fighting, then through constant recruiting and trading units you will usually achieve number superiority and eventually kill more than you will lose and manage to win defensively) you will eventually lose many units and some villages before you will be able to recruit again and regain control over the situation, sometimes your leader may even get encircled and killed.
The guide is created for players who already know basics.
I translated my guide from polish to english with some small adjustments so it may not be 100% correct or sound weird sometimes (though I hope it doesn't xD)
If i posted it in a wrong subforum I apologize.
Anyone who at least sometimes plays on wesnoth server knows what isar is - a fast and popular 2vs2 map, in this guide I will explain what to do and what not to do on isar to play almost perfectly, if not perfectly. Since isar is a specific and simple map learning to play on it perfectly is not that hard. Obviously we play on isar in 2 players teams, so sometimes even if we do everything we can and our play is perfect if we happen to have a particularly bad ally he will still lose all his units/commit a suicide with leader/do some other stupid thing before we can get advantage and take control over the situation. You may also get a ridiculous unluck at start and lose some units which may be the cause of a quick defeat.
Im not claiming that the way of playing i presented here is the only correct way to play isar, on isar there exists at least a few equally effective strategies varying mainly by unit choice. It may also be possible that my strategy can be further improved so it's not perfect, but as for now i managed to win using it against any army with any unit composition.
First turn and unit choice
A lot depends on what units you will choose to recruit in the first turn, though there are a few equally effective ways to choose the units for each faction, first thing you need to know is that scouts are useless on isar and I don't recommend recruiting them (an exception are gryphons which you can sometimes recruit to take the water village, but I don't do that and I use a footpad instead, which is an exception on its own though it's not quite a scout)
In the first turn I always recruit the same units in the same places with each faction, sometimes with slight changes.
My units for each faction look like this:
- Drakes
A clasher and burner in front and a skirmisher and augur in the back.
- Loyalists
A merman in front and 3 spearmen.
- Knalgans
A poacher and footpad in front and 2 fighters in the back
- Rebels
A merman in front, 2 fighters and a wose
- Undeads
Here my recruitment depends on my position, if I am at west or east I always recruit a skeleton and ghost in front and 2 adepts in the back, just to take the water village with a ghost, otherwise instead of a ghost i recruit a ghoul
- Northerners
A naga and a grunt/archer in front (it depends on the situation eg the tod, but I think both options can be equally good) and 2 trolls in the back
If you can you should take the hill willage with leader, if you can't you should take the swamp one, I don't recommend taking the front vilalges because:
- Your enemy can see what leader you have second turn
- A unit you will use to take the hill village will have a longer path back to the battlefield, while your leader will have to go back to the keep anyway.
My recruitment in the later turns
Everything depends on the time of day, whether you will be able to atatck or not and the units you will have to fight against, its important to have some counter for enemy units but generally:
- As a drake I recruit more drakes because you can attack with them effectively, usually I recruit fighter first
- As loyalists I recruit a mage and a spearman in that order, later a rider can be useful too
- As knalgans I recruit a fighter and an ulf or thunderer
- As rebels I recruit fighters, later a shammy or mage
- As undeads I recruit more adepts and skeletons
- As northerners I recruit more trolls and a few grunts, goblins can be useful too
Later game, what to do and what not to do
I think this is the most important part of the guide, unit choice as long as you don't do anything crazy at start as eg 2 riders/2 mages/recruiting scouts is more a matter of personal preference, even though certain unit choices eg as the one I have just shown work well against anything you may encounter (well maybe unless eg you are undead or loyalist and the enemy has a red mage leader and 2+ woses as first recruits, you can't defend vs that)
So here are the tips about gameplay on isar and what to do and what not to do. A few things may be fairly obvious for some players but not for everyone.
- At start of the game take the swamp/hill village with a quick unit, sometimes even 1 point of movement can make a difference in getting back to the battlefield, while the other, non-quick units can already be at the front.
- If you are at the north or south position recruit a naga/merman at the farthest hex of the castle because it may give you opportunity to take water village
- If you have a chance to take the enemy water village usually you should do it, in most cases the enemy won't be able to encircle the naga/merman and even if he has a tod bonus and will use a few units to try to clear the village that means he won't take his villages, so it is a win/win situation. But you should usually retreat the merman/naga the next turn, then usually it can be encircled and killed. Even an advantage of 1 village for 1 turn is something.
- However you shouldn't take the village if there is a high chance of killing the naga in 1 turn eg a red mage leader is in range, you are facing ud with das at night or loyals at day with mage
- Don't let your enemy to take your swamp village, taking it back is extremelly difficult and requites a lot of units
- If you have dwarves and are at the north/south position a very cool and annoying trick is constant threating of an enemy swamp village, if you have a gryph it is very easy, but even if you haven't spent a fortune on gryph all you need to do is to put a quick dwarf on sand next to your village, it is extremelly useful because even if your dwarf is not in the village you can block village and most attacks with the help of 3 other units and the enemy has to worry about his village and waste units to prevent you from taking it.
- The middle village should belong to the north/south player
- Never try some weird atatcks through sand next to the water village, it can never work.
- You can retreat your naga/merman from the water village if it can be killed, if enemy take the village and you aren't in negative tod you can usually take it back
- If you are at north/south position you can use your village as a bait, it can sometimes work and bad players may fall for it, they will take the village, attack at wrong tod or with too little units and then you can slaughter their army on the open field
- Merman/naga spam works only vs noobs so I don't recommend this tactics
- Actually this tip relates to all maps but especially to the small ones liek isar: slow is deadly for you if you are attacking with leader, a slowed leader will take a few turns more to get back to the keep but more importantly during retreat you will have to waste units to cover your slowed leader, which can end badly for you, well maybe unless you have destroyed almost all enemy army in the attack (which happens rarely in initial attacks)
- If you are playing mirror vs orcs all you need to do is to spam trolls, a player who has more trolls will usually win in orc mirror, it will be a very slow victory as it is the most campy of all mirrors but a troll wall slowly moving through enemy orc lines is the best way to win as orcs don't have any unit to counter trolls except trolls (im not sure if it would work as effectively vs naga spam but im certain it would work)
And the most important tips:
- COORDINATION OF ATTACK/DEFENSE WITH YOUR ALLY
If you are playing with random people coordination can sometimes be very hard to accomplish, but usually even most noobs and not-so-good players will understand if you ask them to attack next turn, and if they don't understand what you are saying try too coordinate your actions with theirs and attack when they do, if you lack any coordination and eg the first player will attack and the second player will pull back and defend the first player in best case scenario won't achieve much with his attack and at worst he will lose all of his army, if you are attacking alone you aren't fighting vs 1 player but 2 so the units of your ally can at least be used as cannon fodder
- DEFEND AT THE HILL/FOREST LINE NOT AT THE CASTLE/MUSHROOMS LINE
I think its the most common mistake on isar, that castle isn't there so you can create a defense line one it, it is there so that if somebody tries to put a unit in it and defend you can kill the unit, take the castle and have better defense on attack
- IF CAN'T DEFEND AGAINST AN ATTACK AND YOU WOULD LOSE A LOT OF UNITS TRYING TO DEFEND JUST SACRIFICE THE VILLAGES AND RETREAT
Some players feel a strong aversion to retreating on isar, they will eg build multi-layered lines of defense as loyalists composed of mermen and mass spearmen vs undeads with 4+ adepts, they will not give up even a single village even if it meant losing many units, this is not the way to go, you can sacrifice the middle village for 2 turns, its not a big loss compared with losing units, later you can launch a counterattack, if you are at north/sout you can abandon the hill/firest line and retreat to the villages and hills line which is usually hard to break
- DON'T DO CRAZY THINGS WITH LEADER
This tip is also related to all maps but especially the small ones liek isar where you will usually use your leader to attack, if he will stay on the frontline for too long and you won't be able to recruit new units (by the way it's an effective defense strategy on isar, if you manage to bait the enemy into a long fight on your territory, especially if leader is also fighting, then through constant recruiting and trading units you will usually achieve number superiority and eventually kill more than you will lose and manage to win defensively) you will eventually lose many units and some villages before you will be able to recruit again and regain control over the situation, sometimes your leader may even get encircled and killed.
The guide is created for players who already know basics.
I translated my guide from polish to english with some small adjustments so it may not be 100% correct or sound weird sometimes (though I hope it doesn't xD)
If i posted it in a wrong subforum I apologize.
Last edited by Elder2 on June 17th, 2016, 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Isar guide
Nice guide Elder, I enjoyed reading its original version as well as this one 
It even brought me back to Wesnoth some time ago, and made me really like Isar's Cross games. Anyway, I have some feedback on your text.
I think that in general there are a bit too few images. Some parts of the text may be confusing to newer players if you don't add an image, such as: "hill/forest line", "hill/village line". Even more parts of text are a bit imprecise - though the experienced players who already know how to play Isar would understand what you actually mean, some newbies might be confused by fragments, for example:
There is also another option than retreating after spending one turn in your enemy's village. When for example you see that it's now day and your opponent is orc/undead/potato/anything unable to kill your naga quickly then you may recruit another water unit and hold the village with their help as long as possible focusing enemy units on that village and forcing them to stand on bad terrain.
What I liked the most about the text were your recruitment choices - I often base on them while playing Isar games, sometimes with small changes. Tips like warning swamp village with a dwarf (or why not a Saurian skirmisher?) or taking water village with a footpad are useful too.
So thank you Elder for your effort put in writing and translating this guide. I hope it will be helpful to newer players, especially because Isar is good place to train your skills as you could see.
It even brought me back to Wesnoth some time ago, and made me really like Isar's Cross games. Anyway, I have some feedback on your text.I think that in general there are a bit too few images. Some parts of the text may be confusing to newer players if you don't add an image, such as: "hill/forest line", "hill/village line". Even more parts of text are a bit imprecise - though the experienced players who already know how to play Isar would understand what you actually mean, some newbies might be confused by fragments, for example:
It wasn't mentioned that this part is about taking your enemy's water village not your own one which might be misunderstood this way.ElderofZion wrote:- If you have a chance to take water village usually you should do it, in most cases the enemy won't be able to encircle the naga/merman and even if he has a tod bonus and will use a few units to try to clear the village that means he won't take his villages, so it is a win/win situation. But you should usually retreat the merman/naga the next turn, then usually it can be encircled and killed. Even an advantage of 1 village for 1 turn is something.
- However you shouldn't take the village if there is a high chance of killing the naga in 1 turn eg a red mage leader is in range, you are facing ud with das at night or loyals at day with mage
There is also another option than retreating after spending one turn in your enemy's village. When for example you see that it's now day and your opponent is orc/undead/potato/anything unable to kill your naga quickly then you may recruit another water unit and hold the village with their help as long as possible focusing enemy units on that village and forcing them to stand on bad terrain.Personally I'd prefer it to be written at the beginning rather than at the end of the text.ElderofZion wrote:The guide is created for players who already know basics.
What I liked the most about the text were your recruitment choices - I often base on them while playing Isar games, sometimes with small changes. Tips like warning swamp village with a dwarf (or why not a Saurian skirmisher?
) or taking water village with a footpad are useful too.So thank you Elder for your effort put in writing and translating this guide. I hope it will be helpful to newer players, especially because Isar is good place to train your skills
as you could see.Polish BfW fansite | Polish BfW translation | My Ladder profile
"When I say I've been playing for 10 years people come saying they've played for 15 years and that I know nothing about this game because I didn't use to play when the TRUE pros were playing xD" ~Hejnewar
"When I say I've been playing for 10 years people come saying they've played for 15 years and that I know nothing about this game because I didn't use to play when the TRUE pros were playing xD" ~Hejnewar
Re: Isar guide
Maybe adding more images makes sense but I don't think it is really necessary, also, what is to not understand here? a hill/forest line is a line that consists of a hill and forest XDForPeace wrote:I think that in general there are a bit too few images. Some parts of the text may be confusing to newer players if you don't add an image, such as: "hill/forest line", "hill/village line". Even more parts of text are a bit imprecise - though the experienced players who already know how to play Isar would understand what you actually mean, some newbies might be confused by fragments, for example:It wasn't mentioned that this part is about taking your enemy's water village not your own one which might be misunderstood this way.ElderofZion wrote:- If you have a chance to take water village usually you should do it, in most cases the enemy won't be able to encircle the naga/merman and even if he has a tod bonus and will use a few units to try to clear the village that means he won't take his villages, so it is a win/win situation. But you should usually retreat the merman/naga the next turn, then usually it can be encircled and killed. Even an advantage of 1 village for 1 turn is something.
- However you shouldn't take the village if there is a high chance of killing the naga in 1 turn eg a red mage leader is in range, you are facing ud with das at night or loyals at day with mage
And about that part you quoted, yes, it may be misunderstood, i will add the word "enemy" then.
And yes you are right, but such situations are more rare than a situation where the enemy can actually encircle and slowly (or quickly) kill the naga/merman, also I didn't want to confuse the readers with ambiguous tip XD i think the word "usually" is enough to indicate that it is not always the case xD I can imagine that if i kept adding such little exceptions to my guide there would be a lot of them and some new people would probably get confused
Hm but is there really a point in putting it at the beginning? It may deter some people from reading the guide, also if you know what happened in my guide thread on polish forum you should know that the purpose of it is not to limit the guide to some pros or experienced players but rather it is to prevent the nitpicking of some tips on the basis that they may not be completely clear to newcomers. Well maybe I should remove that line completely then but I don't think it is doing any harm so it may as well stay there xDForPeace wrote:Personally I'd prefer it to be written at the beginning rather than at the end of the text.ElderofZion wrote:The guide is created for players who already know basics.
Yes, with skirmisher it is a good idea too, but with skirmirmisher it is actually just as hard to do as with a dwarf because of the sand forest in the way, also unless you get a skirmisher with a particularly high health in most cases even if you can take taht village with a saur it will die pretty fast to a decent leader and at least 1 more unit, also most people will keep a unit in that village anyway because it is so obvious that saurians or even flying drakes can take it, while I have noticed that not many people expect a dwarf to be able to take it xD Also because of the drake playstyle it may not always be a good idea to sacrifice a saur like taht but I will not go into it.ForPeace wrote:What I liked the most about the text were your recruitment choices - I often base on them while playing Isar games, sometimes with small changes. Tips like warning swamp village with a dwarf (or why not a Saurian skirmisher?
Thanks, I also hope it will be helpful not only to new but all isar players, and that as many people will see it as possibleForPeace wrote:So thank you Elder for your effort put in writing and translating this guide. I hope it will be helpful to newer players, especially because Isar is good place to train your skills