From rags to riches: amazing advancements

[Maiklas3000]

I advanced a raw recruit from Peasant to Royal Guard during one scenario (The Rise of Wesnoth: Rough Landing), in the space of 15 turns from the time of his recruitment on turn 3. Not only that, but he was quick and strong, not intelligent.

Turn 6: The Peasant killed a Naga, then on the enemy's turn he was attacked by two Nagas and a Sea Serpent. He not only survived, but he defensively killed one of the Nagas, which was critically injured previously and had suicidally climbed onto the beach to attack the castle-entrenched Peasant backed by level 3 leadership. The following image shows the aftermath at the start of turn 7:


(Click for full screen.)

Turn 7: Left with just 2 hitpoints, he was also just 3 points away from leveling, so he only needed to toss a pitchfork at the Sea Serpent. Hit or miss, he would advance. I chose Spearman over Bowman, because it seemed like he would need the hit points. A Naga nipped the Spearman on the enemy's turn.

Turn 9: The Spearman killed the Serpent, after it was wounded by the Storm Trident and the Ruby of Fire, held by two of my leaders. Then, already wounded, the Spearman was attacked by another Serpent and survived.

Turn 10: The wounded Spearman killed the second Serpent (already wounded by the Ruby of Fire) and advanced to Swordsman. I renamed him Oweollyn the Serpent Slayer.

Turn 11: The Swordsman killed a Naga.

Turn 12: The Swordsman attacked and wounded the third and last Serpent, but failed to kill it.

Turn 13: The Swordsman killed the last Serpent.

Turn 16: The Swordsman killed a Naga.

Turn 17: The Swordsman killed a Naga and advanced to Royal Guard.

Replay attached. No save-reloads at any time, or it wouldn't really be amazing, would it?

Got any stories of your own amazing advancements?

[HomerJ]

Cool story. Definitely Hollywood material. Which BfW version btw?

Greetz
HomerJ

[Maiklas3000]

It was version 1.9.3. The campaign difficulty was the hardest, Lord (challenging.)

The AI of course shouldn't suicide a unit like this. It might make sense if it were an isolated pair of units. Then the Naga might have like a 80% chance of killing my Peasant versus an almost 20% chance of getting himself killed, and since the Naga costs only 14 gold versus the Peasant's 9 gold, it would be cost effective. Another way it could make sense is if the AI were going to totally overrun my lines, killing unit after unit, so the wounded Naga would no longer be on the front line by the end of the turn. But in this case, the Naga has a 99+% chance of getting killed on the next turn even if he survives. His best move is to run off and heal himself. I think the AI's caution value was at the default for this scenario. Maybe it needs to be higher or maybe a different system needs to be used.

[Astoria]

Wow, you were extremely lucky! That was a really, really fun replay.