Undead campaign strategy

[quartex]

I'm having trouble with the undead campaign, partially becuase it just seems that all the undead units are so weak, at least compared to the elven units I was used to. I admit the "Valley of Death" was a pretty hard level, but in general when I fought against them in the main campaign, the undead were a bit of a pushover.

It just seems like overall, their units do less damage than orcs or elves, but I guess that's intentional. Anyway, I beat level 1 of the undead campaign pretty easily, by using bats to occupy all the towns and attacking a bit with skeletons. Though weak, I thought bats would be the best unit on that map, to fly over the mountains and costing half the price of ghosts. I find it annoying how slow skeletons are, I've been spoiled by elves (with their forestwalk) and horsemen who could cover ground so fast.

Anyway, point is that I'm puzzled by level 2. Fighting wolf riders with 40 hitpoints, it's going to take a hell of a lot of bats to take even one down with only 3 damage per attack. I guess the answer is to use level 1 to advance a few key units, maybe some level 2 skeltons or archers or even a ghost might help? Becuase against 3 orcs players, I'm not sure how the comparatively puny undead are supposed to stand up to them.

[methinks]

Undead campaign is under HEAVY development so all feedback is welcome. Also, undead race probably is a bit unbalanced, it was talked before to reduce price of ghosts, as they are not as worth buying as bats.

I thinks that Undead units have some advantages which other races does not. Easily accesible flying units is one example. This unit is not easy to hit in all terain and drains life from enemies. It requiers little experience to advance. All undead units have some nice abilities.
Against wolf riders bats may be useful, you just need to use more than one. Also try other units, skeletons are good fighters.

What other users think? I did not play Undead campaign too long, but probably it is matter of changing strategy. We do not want undead to be identical to other races, only units have different names and pictures, but also none race can be more powerful than other. Any feedback welcomed.

-Adam

[quartex]

Thanks for the response. Obviously the unded will be more powerful when more level 2 and level 3 units are added to their race (although I realize that some units like the walking corpse are probably not intended to be upgraded).

I agree that we don't want races that are exactly the same, we're not making warcraft 2 here. And the orcs, elves and humans seem to be somewhat similar, but also have different abilities. The undead seem to be the most unique race of the bunch, and that's a good thing.

I like the idea of a race of cheap creatures that can swarm over the map. I think some of the undead units are too expensive is proportion to their power. Elves have horsemen that cost the same as ghosts, can move almost as fast, and do a very useful 12-2 attack, my problem is that the highest undead attack is the skeleton's axe which does 6-2 (I think). I admit that the skeleton and skeleton archer is about equal to the elven fighter and archer. But in general i think that undead units are pretty equally priced to other races units, but there is no big attacking unit (like the horseman or wolf rider?) so it is really hard to bring down a 30-40 hp enemy (which is a standard hp for a level 1 elf or orc unit) when you are only doing 3-6 damage per hit at best.

My point is that in general undead units are comparatively priced to other races, but their attacks are much weaker. I'm not asking for an undead cavalry to match a horseman, instead I think that units should be cheaper so it is easier to swarm the enemy with lots of weak units (I'm reminded of the zerg from starcraft). I also think we need one unit that has a more powerful attack to help take down the bigger enemies, perhaps upgrading the adept (I can't remember the unit's name but it is the level 1 necromancer, the undead mage units) since I think his current attack is only 6-2 as opposed to the human mages 12-2.

I know my numbers are a bit off, wiki is down as I type this. And I know that if you making units like vampire bats really cheap could have a drastic change in the tactics, a player could cover the map with hundred of bats. In general I think all undead units might deserve to be a few gp cheaper, but especially ghosts, when their main attack is 3-2 or 2-3, even with flying they don't seem like very good attackers, and so I think they should be like 15 gold.

And I realize too that as with any race, the way to win and to get a few units to second level and make them more powerful. I admit the undead have great flyers which is one main advantage, but when the units are priced similarly to other races, and yet have comparatively weak attacks, you can fly around the enemy all you want, but actually taking one down is much more difficult.

I'm sure other people like Circon know much more about the undead race than me, but I hope that v 0.7 will see a lot of changes in the undead race and strategy.

[Kamahawk]

Ok, in the first level its not important to win early, try to level your units as much as posible, if you can get wraiths the second level will be much easier.

[Circon]

Skeletons have 6-3. Let me give an example:

Horseman attacks Skeleton, dusk/dawn, both grassland, no bonus:
12-2 60% vs 10-3 60%.

Skeleton attacks Horseman, same conditions:
5-3 60% vs 6-2 60%.

Ghosts have a main attack of 4-3.

The Undead as a whole are unfinished except as generic nasties.
I'm for reducing ghost price a little, btw, and as a whole for the undead: Let price conform to "effort required to create/summon", then let power conform to price.

Also, most of the units should have a smaller xp requirement. Sheesh, who will spend *48* xp on a Dark Apprentice to get a Necromancer? The same will get you a Boneshooter and a Blood Bat, for only 6 gold more.

All feedback is welcome, and look also at the "Feedback on Undead Campaign" thread, in the Users Forum.

[quartex]

So you're saying that a skeleton is about equivelent to a horseman, I can see that I've been underrating skeletons and archers. Lowering some of the xp requirements makes sense, dark apprentices and ghosts may only be slightly powerful, but level them up to level 2, and you get a much better unit. Thus changing the xp level can make a bigger difference in the power of the undead, especially with a skilled player. That would be a good balance for undead, have cheaper weaker level 1 units, but if they can survive to level 2, then make them much more powerful. I've read the philosophy behind the development of Wesnoth, is there an philosophy behind the development of the different races I think it would be cool to have different racial identities for the different races, rather than just collections of units. It already exists somewhat, how elves are powerful in the forest, and maybe orcs are straonger melee fighters, and undead perhaps are weaker but more numerous. I just think as we are developing these races it would help to have a background philosophy for what kind of race characteristics we are trying to emphasize and how this units fits into the race as a whole, a blueprint for the race so to speak.

Edit: I can see my math was off by a bit. Do some units get worse than others in daylight, or are they all affected the same? I thought I saw that the ghost becuase 1-3 and 3-1 in daylight, and i thought that was paticularly bad, but it does make sense since unlike other more solid undead units ghosts might be paticularly weak in daylight. So I wasn't sure if daylight affected units differently for each unit, or if it affected the stats for all units the same.

[Kamahawk]

Daylight/Nightime affects all chaotic units them same buy a % reduction/bounus.

[elseth]

I don't know about you guys, but I fear the undead. They are powerful warriors and their skeletons pack a huge punch. I disagree with quartex that they are more numerous and less powerful than other races. The revenant is a feared combatant on the field and in my opinion the skeletal warrior is also a feared adversary.

To me, the undead lack a strong archer attacker. The skeletal archer isn't the best. However maybe the dark adept is powerful, I don't know.

[Kamahawk]

The Dark Adept is weak, but gets fairly powerfull after it levels and it has a 3rd level form.

[quartex]

I admit that I haven't played undead much beyond level 1, and the valley of death scenario was a pain with the revenants and level 2 ghosts. It's just that getting the dark apprentice to level 3 is the difficult part.

[methinks]

You all have a point.

quartex: undead ARE unbalanced and their advancing path is not yet finished, it is being worked out and you are most welcome to help/suggest anything. we need a lotta playtesting so if you have will and time go and play udnead campaign A LOT, try different strategies, save replays and post those replays with ideas.
Also, about differences between races, it would not be proper to force those differences. Undead are really different from living creatures, but elves and human beings are both alive, though they have some decent differences. Orcs are good at fighting and walking through hills and mountains, are stronger but slower. Of course, if you have any ideas for giving some abilities to races or from taking something away from them feel free to do so.

elseth: thx for feedback, we need different points of view what do you exactly mean by that you fear undead? I believe they have some potential but are not really as strong as they should be, so ideas with ghost being cheaper seems nice to me, I think Dave has said it will be fixed.

Undead campaign needs playtesting, any ideas about changing it should be posted here:
http://wesnoth.whitevine.net/forum/phpB ... .php?t=432

or in Developer's Discussion forum, here: http://wesnoth.whitevine.net/forum/phpB ... um.php?f=2

-Adam

[Insinuator]

The undead campaign is extremely difficult. I'll admit, the the first level wasn't too hard, but the second... That was a different story. Three orcs to fight? I played the game for 13 hours, trying different strategies such as rushing the guy with the skull, defending to build forces, and just grabbing everything I could. I also tried a balance of the three. The farthest I got was turn 20. What has been said about the undead is basically true, they can hold their own against anyone else, but three people? The other thing is that they can't take other units down quick enough. They will eventually, but if you have three wolf riders rushing your two skeletons and adept, and you're fighting a half-way dead troll, you are past gone. I think the level needs to be fixed, not the race. Give some starting guys, make Dark Spirit better, have only two orcs, something like that.

[Circon]

Re: Insinuator

So the level 2 is way too difficult? What version are you playing? In the newest, I removed several villages in the lower-right, placed a barrier between you and the south orcs, and generally made it a little easier.
Just as an aside, try debug mode, and test-run scenario 3, it might need some testing by someone other than me.

Just back to school, trying to straighten out my priorities, will send along scenarios 4 and 5 sometime soon, that is if my trip to Costa Rica doesn't interfere.

[gbu]

I found that it's best to use the 1st scenario to try to advance as many Dark Adept units as possible, because Liches are quite useful in the 2nd scenario. The same follows for ghosts and skeletons, but I found that the adepts were the best to concentrate on.

[quartex]

That's interesting, because I remember Circon commenting that he was going to lower the experience required to advance a dark appentice from 48 XP to 36. It's still at 48, and so I have had some difficulty advancing many dark adepts. In fact I find wraiths (level 2 ghosts) much easier to get, and more useful, they can move a lot faster and have good melee and ranged attacks. But definitely playing with 0.6.2 is a lot easier than 0.6.1