I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

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Elder2
Posts: 405
Joined: July 11th, 2015, 2:13 pm

I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

Post by Elder2 »

So here I will praise myself for finishing Northern Rebirth on nightmare, I know people have done it before but I will share the replays anyway.

It took me a long time to finish and some scenarios were quite hard. I would say that the hardest 2 scenarios were Infested Caves and Setting Disputes with Settling Disputes being the hardest I think. The Eastern Flank took me a long time because I didn't take the early finish gold bonus from the scenario before but in the end it turned out to not be that hard (inb4 I got lucky there, I had to load that scenario quite a few times for certain reasons, I don't think getting less luck would change the outcome).

On Infested caves you just need to have a good unit choice that is to recruit exclusively thugs early game, well maybe except a few early footies to get villages quickly and take good positions, but aside from that go full thugs, every unit you recruit has to be a thug, thug life, every other unit is underpowered on that map and you should get rid of underpowered units. xD Though in late game underpowered footies can be helpful, but still, they will not do much.

On Setting Disputes I had to sneak with my dwarf lord with rod of justice and Abhai to assasinate the lich, it is tricky and if you get really unlucky you will fail, but I think that like 9/10 times if you sacrifice abhai and then attack with dwarf lord you should be able to kill the lich.


Replays:

1. Breaking the Chains https://mega.nz/#!no8U2TaZ!CpuoszcYfnjQ ... NBDoE6KuM8

2. Infested Caves https://mega.nz/#!rhUwlJZD!b5NcF1KhRZzl ... jLBfOfeons

3. To the Mines https://mega.nz/#!asF3xC4I!Gn5LDxVMxQHe ... xfRObIJOKI

4. Clearing the Mines https://mega.nz/#!z4cnGB6J!52oOmgX3HkW4 ... V9rqeu3Rl4

5. The Pursuit https://mega.nz/#!GlFnnRgQ!LOGWcKoj5VbD ... s6lmvAKXIg

6. Old Friend https://mega.nz/#!v4djSSyA!mcyvvZhgJURq ... Wl-t1LuRpE

7. Settling Disputes https://mega.nz/#!780kDTgA!plh6ULm--UEd ... p2ETHIwRpE

8. Elvish Princess https://mega.nz/#!35swiAIL!I6DtW185ltWh ... x04hKfySBo

9. Introductions https://mega.nz/#!6wd2XAgL!o3fCffQAl0j5 ... OfKajcmsvo

10. Stolen Gold https://mega.nz/#!r4UxCbyK!BIgevtCK8xb7 ... k_JidfCEdQ

11. The Eastern Flank https://mega.nz/#!i19z3ZSa!yPMSzs7GqffG ... Zq2IHrBsbA

12. Get the Gold https://mega.nz/#!rhlWRaaK!ONX1xAbiP1kW ... Tvn4CqlxxQ

13. Showdown https://mega.nz/#!GskDkb4Y!um3NX3S3T_vE ... QIzftXHHus


I apologize if I posted in the wrong board
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CalculusKing
Posts: 58
Joined: April 5th, 2016, 9:20 am

Re: I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

Post by CalculusKing »

Congratulations. I'm incredibly impressed. My Northern Rebirth Nightmare run (and I thought XCOM: the Long War on max difficulty was hard - sweet summer child that I was) still gives me the chills (I'm ashamed to only have a couple replays left, and they're corrupted - It's great you were careful to preserve your work.). I HATE the mission where you save Stalrag from the liches - the time constraint is not hard, just stupid. The others are just stupidly hard instead of totally stupid. It is a huge achievement to win any of the Nightmare-available campaigns on Nightmare. I myself am working on completing Son of the Black Eye on Nightmare, but the level of difficulty there (I'm on 1.13.7) has passed to stupid and beyond and I'm too ashamed of my extreme save-reloading on a few missions to post my replays.
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Elder2
Posts: 405
Joined: July 11th, 2015, 2:13 pm

Re: I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

Post by Elder2 »

Yeah, the mission with starlag I considered the hardest because the only way to finish it is to use cheese, and get a bit of luck too. What I mean by cheese is to send your dwarf with staff of justice (lets just assume you didn't give it to tallin, because that is actually a rather stupid idea and waste of the staff), you flank all the enemies, the fact that it is so strong enemies won't atatck it helps, and then assasinate the lich, maybe send the ghost to help.

I haven't played XCOM but I have played the old Silent Storm and I have to say that game is painful at times, I haven't seen anybody mention it anywhere but I think it is bugged at times, there are problems with line of sight, sometimes i could stand in front of an enemy and not spot him, but during his turn an invisible enemy in front of me killed me, so annoying. Well, the missions were sometimes hard as well overall, even without the bug
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CalculusKing
Posts: 58
Joined: April 5th, 2016, 9:20 am

Re: I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

Post by CalculusKing »

I started playing Silent Storm several weeks ago after Steam had it for <$3. Its not as fun as XCOM LW - but it is surprisingly close for over a decade before XCOM LW. But neither is as fun as Wesnoth right now - so I'm focusing on my pet projects here.

Regarding NR on Nightmare - I fully endorse save-reloading to any degree necessary on the Stalrag mission. It is all luck and almost no strategy on Nightmare (besides the cheesy AI exploits and troop positioning that any Nightmare player should know).

As to the Rod of Justice - a dwarf lord is definitely the best pick. Although on non-Nightmare I make a point of giving it to Tallin for thematic reasons. You don't need the staff on those.
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Elder2
Posts: 405
Joined: July 11th, 2015, 2:13 pm

Re: I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

Post by Elder2 »

CalculusKing wrote:I started playing Silent Storm several weeks ago after Steam had it for <$3. Its not as fun as XCOM LW - but it is surprisingly close for over a decade before XCOM LW. But neither is as fun as Wesnoth right now - so I'm focusing on my pet projects here.

Regarding NR on Nightmare - I fully endorse save-reloading to any degree necessary on the Stalrag mission. It is all luck and almost no strategy on Nightmare (besides the cheesy AI exploits and troop positioning that any Nightmare player should know).

As to the Rod of Justice - a dwarf lord is definitely the best pick. Although on non-Nightmare I make a point of giving it to Tallin for thematic reasons. You don't need the staff on those.
Well yeah, for thematic reasons, but to me a dwarf with staff still looks better xD

It can be a bit luck dependent but actually I do not consider it much luck dependent compared to some of the other scenarios, the trick is to find the right strategy and position your units properly, and do not lose your army in the process, I think it would be possible to play completely safely with your army and at the same time sneak up on the lich with ghost and the dwarf, then killing it if not a matter of time, is a matter or reloading the game maybe a few times, the odds or it being killed by staff are pretty good anyway, 19-4 attack + 17-4 from ghost, ghost will die but sometimes it is a necessary sacrifice, though, probably with some luck there is a way to not sacrifice anything.

I think soon I will try playing hammer & sickle, it is an unoficial "Silent Storm 3" From the same developer if I remember correctly, I hope the los bug is somewhat fixed there
17229_walker
Posts: 5
Joined: October 13th, 2021, 5:40 pm

Re: I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

Post by 17229_walker »

I, today, am proud to add myself to the list of galiant Tallins who completed Northern Rebirth on Nightmare. The hardest were definitely Infested Caves and Settling Disputes, Followed closely by Showdown. In all 3 scenarios I had to use extreme tactics following Sun Tzu's Art of War, and many saves and reloads to avoid bad RNG. Due to the extreme stress and pressure, along with time consumed on this daunting challenge, I do not recommend anyone playing casually to attempt this. This campaign is, quite literally, the mother of all battles.
wesnothpoet
Posts: 23
Joined: March 26th, 2020, 3:34 pm

Re: I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

Post by wesnothpoet »

I also played through Northern Rebirth on nightmare. My only rule was no reloads during a scenario, so dying meant I had to start the scenario from the beginning. After playing entire campaigns without reloads I actually did not find the campaign that difficult, though some scenarios are a bit random and others take a very long time to play (The Pursuit, Eastern Flank, Showdown). I did however abuse the invincible mages in some scenarios, particularly in Stolen Gold.

Some observations I made while playing:

- Dwarf Lords are absolutely amazing in this campaign. I think that during the absolute onslaught of enemies in The Pursuit, Stolen Gold and Eastern Flank, I lost something like 3-4 Dwarf Lords in total. In the two scenarios To the Mines and Clearing the Mines, I exclusively recruited Dwarvish Fighters, which makes the latter a bit harder but pays off later.

- Possibly because of the no-reload policy, the scenarios I struggled most with are not the same as those mentioned by other posters. Most of my restarts were in Clearing the Mines (possibly due to recruiting only Dwarvish Fighters), The Pursuit and Get the Gold. In Clearing the Mines, I first tried to send troops in both directions, but later decided to swarm the leaders to the north, and only defend to the east. The Pursuit is not necessarily that hard, but very long, and in my version (1.12.6) the Rod of Justice (which you need) is behind 20-25 spiders that are not easy to beat if you are not careful. Moreover I realized that you need *all* loyal troops at full level to have a good chance at beating Settling Disputes, so I went back and played The Pursuit again after beating it the first time. Finally, Get the Gold is very random, since you win when the leader jumps at one of your troops and you manage to lock him down to stop him from recruiting more. With so many other troops there is little you can do to lure out the leader except wait for random to happen.

- In no other scenario did I have to restart more than 10 times. Infested Caves is rather random, since the trolls and skeletons may decide to attack you instead of each other, and in that case there is little you can do. I gave up the western caves almost immediately, after fetching the mage who I think is necessary to beat the final leader to the southeast. Somewhat to my surprise, I beat each of Settling Disputes and Showdown on the second try. Showdown does not seem very difficult with so much gold, though you have to protect the AI ally to the west.
shevegen
Posts: 497
Joined: June 3rd, 2004, 4:35 pm

Re: I finished Northern Rebirth on nightmare.

Post by shevegen »

There are always some campaigns that are quite hard. One of the most confusing
one to me was a cave scenario where the hints showed one should use footpads
due to them being so evasive. Even then I failed to beat that scenario. It's quite
interesting how complicated some scenarios can become depending on how you
play it. (Without reading the hint I would not have even known that it is possible
to win in such a scenario.)
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