I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar...

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teleosus
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I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar...

Post by teleosus »

I have been playing BFW off and on for over ten years. Recently I started to pick it up again after not playing it for several years. Of course I started on Heir to the Throne normal, built up my units, saved my loyals so I could have what may be needed in the later scenarios. Is it just me or has the "randomness" taken a turn for the worse since what I remember. When I arrived at The Siege of Elensefar, I have 12 level 2s, many of which have high experience points, still have all my loyals and no matter what I made previously, only have 248 gold and no income. Now I remember winning this scenario years before but here's my point:
It's the morn of the first day, the only loyal units available are a going to be basically fodder without support yet by the time I recall/recruit my first batch I am already in the negative income. On my next turn, I must acquire villages so that's the only plan for now, I acquire more units, I am now below 100 gold, and even more into negative income. On my next turn, I have the 7 villages that are safely available but because I have had to buy units at the same time I am still in the 0 to neg income so cannot safely recruit/ recall any more units. By the 4th turn, the orcs are crossing the water to attack and the undead are preparing to enter Elensefar. I have tried many options, all have proved useless by turn 12 or less because the next turn 5 is now dusk and with nothing but the end of the playing field behind me all I can do is run to the woods and hope for good randomness. I have tried splitting forces but the orcs just focus on one inevitably killing 3. If I try the ford, the orcs will focus on my leader and just kill me with their leader who has control of more gold, villages, ZOC. By the 7th turn I have the undead to deal with too but by then there is no use in continuing when I am losing villages and am at -6 or more income and no chance of reinforcements. I even tried using some of my numerous loyal mermen to save income but by the time they can get to where they will be of any use, the undead have infiltrated Elensefar. The thieves are worthless with support.
I suppose if I just keep going back to turn (), over and over I may get lucky with the die but why not just have auto pilot and watch the randomness and not bother with strategy? Defeats any purpose of playing the AI. I even broke down and read the walkthrough but it doesn't say anything I do not already know, mostly says try this , try that, maybe you will get lucky.
I think I will stick to human opponents if possible.
teleosus
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... stick to topic...

Post by teleosus »

the thieves are worthless without support
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Sapient
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by Sapient »

Please post your replay.

Also, Siege of Elensefar gets discussed fairly often on here. You may be interested to search and read some of the past comments in the meantime.
http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/User:Sapient... "Looks like your skills saved us again. Uh, well at least, they saved Soarin's apple pie."
teleosus
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by teleosus »

Thanks, I appreciate the reply, I am sure it does get discussed, but I have lost interest, there are other ways and other games to play. What I do not have time for is the many hours of finding out the silly little idiosyncrasies and not actually enjoying playing the strategies.
teleosus
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by teleosus »

BTW this is what I have at the beginning of Elensefar:
248 Gold, 0 villages, 0 income
Konrad Level 3 61/150
Captain Level 2 7/72
Ranger Level 2 88/90
Captain Level 2 81/90
Merman Warrior Level 2 59/80 Loyal
Druid Level 2 53/80
Druid Level 2 36/64
Elvish Rider Level 2 44/75
Druid Level 2 8/64
Captain Level 2 8/72
Mermaid Priestess Level 2 22/106 Loyal
Knight Level 2 29/120 Loyal
Knight Level 2 1/120
White Mage Level 2 1/136 Loyal
Mage Level 1 34/43
Elvish Archer Level 1 31/44
Elvish Shaman Level 1 19/32
Elvish Fighter Level 1 24/40
Merman Hunter Level 1 Loyal
(5) Merman Fighters Level 1 Loyal
Last edited by teleosus on August 4th, 2017, 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Pentarctagon
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by Pentarctagon »

So are you still looking for help, or have you, as you said before, lost interest and moved on to other games? Because as Sapient said:
Sapient wrote:Please post your replay.
Doing so is the single best way to try to get an answer to these types of questions.
99 little bugs in the code, 99 little bugs
take one down, patch it around
-2,147,483,648 little bugs in the code
teleosus
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by teleosus »

Again thanks..., but it takes all the fun out of playing when it all depends on luck or someone else's help.
I mistakenly forgot my Konrad is level 3
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zookeeper
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by zookeeper »

It has already been made easier in 1.13. There will probably be no more 1.12 releases. And no one knows what version you're on, anyway.
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by Velensk »

EDIT: I'd like to apologize slightly for the below post. I hadn't realized that this was moved in from the user forum. It seemed rather rude to me to post in the strategy forum and then say that you don't want help. As you didn't some of my comments are not as relevant. I will say that I believe the advice I give is still relevant so I leave the post as it was.
Again thanks..., but it takes all the fun out of playing when it all depends on luck or someone else's help.
In other words, it’s rather pointless for you to be posting here. If you don’t want help and you don’t care if it’s actually not that difficult if you know what you’re doing then there’s actually very little to be done that actually makes anything better. There is no secret strategy or single path to success in this mission, any number of approaches can work and there’s no way that we can tell you what you should be doing if we have no idea what you are doing.

On the chance that you aren’t just trolling I will give two general pieces of advice:
—First, you’ll find that wesnoth is to a large extent a game of tactics. Two players with the exact same resources, taking the exact same approach to a scenario can have extraordinarily different results and it won’t be just be because one got luckier than the other. This is because the little micro decisions have such a great influence on how things turn out that the actual strategy can become almost irrelevant (though no amount of tactics will salvage a truly terrible strategy). Now luck does play into this quite a bit, however just because things are random does not mean that they are idiosycranic. Paying the odds and managing the potential outcomes is a genuine skill to itself. If it’s not a skill you care to master, I’d suggest that you play another game and don’t bother the local problem solvers by presenting them with a problem and then telling them not to solve it.

-Second, you seem to place a massive emphasis on your leveled units. Leveled units, particularly leveled loyal and leaders are useful, but generally if you’re struggling the answer is more gold except in certain scenarios. Getting more gold frequently means using less leveled units as the upkeep for leveled units adds up surprisingly fast. HttT is of the difficulty bracket where it’s not too difficult to beat most scenarios without recalling any units at all. You may wish to practice just reaching that stage without recalling any non loyal troops at all.
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teleosus
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by teleosus »

zookeeper wrote:It has already been made easier in 1.13. There will probably be no more 1.12 releases. And no one knows what version you're on, anyway.
Thanks for the input, on Linux BFW V1.12.5
IMO, I never asked for it to be easier, I was only wondering why the randomness didn't seem so random like there are other parameters involved.

Just for conversation...

Well, last night, a friend and I were wondering what would happen if I kept going back a turn whenever I was losing a piece because since there is no hope of reinforcement, if I don't that is the end. So I started, didn't bother to get the villages first, unless they are on the way to the water but recalled my elvish rider to obtain the other villages. While at the water I managed to keep the orcs then also the undead at bay until the 16th turn promoting 2 units to level 3 and sneaking my elvish rider onto the island but since it and the thieves were only ending up dying there, managed to get 2 thieves and my elvish rider north to the undead territory. While there, I managed to eventually lose one thief and obtain 8 (15 total)villages. Although no more than one unit at a time attacking me, the undead just kept marching due south. After turn 7 never once got out of a negative gold supply. After turn 16, no matter how many times I went back a turn, even with 5 healers, I would lose a piece. I tried moving west and east but no difference. So I had to retreat to the woods whereupon I started to lose villages. No matter how many turns I went back that was the beginning of the end. I gave up after turn 22.

Hmmm...
teleosus
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by teleosus »

Thanks for your reply, I realize it is a game of strategy and there has to be some random luck, that's the point. If you have read my previous post it seems even luck is not enough. Thanks anyway.


Oh yes, I have tried using lower level recruits, I still end up in the negative income, negative gold situation. Maybe the Luck may work out differently eventually but they just die quicker without leaders. When you say do not put so much emphasis on higher level unit, yet the point of the game should be getting higher level units then using lower level if it is cheaper yet it seems you are telling me I shouldn't do that so much. Isn't that an counterintuitive idiosyncrasy?
Velensk wrote:EDIT: I'd like to apologize slightly for the below post. I hadn't realized that this was moved in from the user forum. It seemed rather rude to me to post in the strategy forum and then say that you don't want help. As you didn't some of my comments are not as relevant. I will say that I believe the advice I give is still relevant so I leave the post as it was.
Again thanks..., but it takes all the fun out of playing when it all depends on luck or someone else's help.
In other words, it’s rather pointless for you to be posting here. If you don’t want help and you don’t care if it’s actually not that difficult if you know what you’re doing then there’s actually very little to be done that actually makes anything better. There is no secret strategy or single path to success in this mission, any number of approaches can work and there’s no way that we can tell you what you should be doing if we have no idea what you are doing.

On the chance that you aren’t just trolling I will give two general pieces of advice:
—First, you’ll find that wesnoth is to a large extent a game of tactics. Two players with the exact same resources, taking the exact same approach to a scenario can have extraordinarily different results and it won’t be just be because one got luckier than the other. This is because the little micro decisions have such a great influence on how things turn out that the actual strategy can become almost irrelevant (though no amount of tactics will salvage a truly terrible strategy). Now luck does play into this quite a bit, however just because things are random does not mean that they are idiosycranic. Paying the odds and managing the potential outcomes is a genuine skill to itself. If it’s not a skill you care to master, I’d suggest that you play another game and don’t bother the local problem solvers by presenting them with a problem and then telling them not to solve it.

-Second, you seem to place a massive emphasis on your leveled units. Leveled units, particularly leveled loyal and leaders are useful, but generally if you’re struggling the answer is more gold except in certain scenarios. Getting more gold frequently means using less leveled units as the upkeep for leveled units adds up surprisingly fast. HttT is of the difficulty bracket where it’s not too difficult to beat most scenarios without recalling any units at all. You may wish to practice just reaching that stage without recalling any non loyal troops at all.
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by Inky »

teleosus wrote: I realize it is a game of strategy and there has to be some random luck, that's the point. If you have read my previous post it seems even luck is not enough.
A good strategy can work despite very bad luck, and similarly a bad strategy can fail no matter how lucky you get. For me the whole fun of Wesnoth is figuring out a good strategy, which sometimes takes some experimentation and a few failures. :) If you search the forum you can find lots of informative replays which show how it's done without relying on luck.
teleosus wrote:Oh yes, I have tried using lower level recruits, I still end up in the negative income, negative gold situation. Maybe the Luck may work out differently eventually but they just die quicker without leaders. When you say do not put so much emphasis on higher level unit, yet the point of the game should be getting higher level units then using lower level if it is cheaper yet it seems you are telling me I shouldn't do that so much. Isn't that an counterintuitive idiosyncrasy?
Managing gold is actually more important than leveling your units. Having a ton of veterans is not going to help if you can't afford to recall them, but on the other hand more gold always helps. Managing gold means recalling only the veterans that you need, grabbing villages as soon as you can, and not necessarily spending all of your starting gold.

It seems like you're trying to keep every single one of your veterans alive, which is only going to lead to frustration. You're supposed to regularly lose veterans, that's why it's important to use some lower level units in every scenario to level them (or if you are me, just cannon fodder them :whistle: )

edit: p.s. you have 3 druids and no sorceresses? The sorceress advances to the most awesome unit in Wesnoth! 8)
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by Elder2 »

I haven't read all your posts but you seem to care too much about income and villages. If you are using more or less standard approach and recall all of your high level units if you have a lot of them it can be impossible to not go into negative or very low income, it is not too much of a problem, later you will get more villages on the map and so your income may increase but fighting hordes of ai with your relatively small army of higher level units is rather standard in campaigns. Also, if you are losing so many important units that you can't finish thr scenario no matter what it is very likely you are losing them not because of the luck you have but because you employed a wrong strategy. Losing a few high level units is not that big of a deal if you have a lot of them, but you can't lose too many of them. Also, don't bother with loyal thieves, they are a bad unit anyway. Overall I think loyal units aren't as strong as you or some other people may think, they save you only a few points of income, and in the later scenarios when a significant part of your army is lvl 3, your income will be so high in the negative so that loyal units' influence is minimal. Also, loyal units are usually are slightly weaker than normal units because they have 1 less trait. It can be important if the strength of your army is what matters and the income is not.
Last edited by Elder2 on August 5th, 2017, 10:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
teleosus
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by teleosus »

I agree with your advice but yes you have not read all my posts, thanks though.
ElderofZion wrote:I haven't read all your posts but you seem to care too much about income and villages. If you are usig more or less standard approach and recall all of your high level units if you have a lot of them it can be impossible to not go into negative or very low income, it isn ot too much op a problem, later you will get more villages on the map and so you income may increase but beaking hordes of ai with your relatively small army of higher level units is rather standard in campaigns. Also, if you are losing so many important units that you can't finish teh scenario no matter what it is very likely you are losing them not because of the luck you have but because you employed a wrong strategy. Losing a few high level units is not that big of a deal if you have a lot of them, but you can't lose too many of them. Also, don't bother with loyal thieves, they are a bad unit anyway. Overall I think loyal units aren't as strong as you or some other people may think, they save you only a few points of income, and in the later scenarios when a significant part of your army is lvl 3, your income will be so high in the negative so that loyal units' influence is minimal. Also, loyal units are usually are slightly weaker than normal units because they have 1 less trait. It can be important if the strength of your army is what matters and the income is not.
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Re: I know someone will say it's easy... Siege of Elensefar.

Post by Elder2 »

If you wanted some more direct help you can always upload your save. I or somebody else could finish it and you could try to replicate some of the chosen strategies (I bet there would be a few strategies). It is nothing bad to learn from sb else's play.
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