Outriding the Outriders

[nightrider]

In the outriding the outriders scenario, I'm having trouble finishing the scenario. I'm not complaining about any bugs but could someone just tell me how to finish it. I'm still learning the game, so it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Firense]

If you want us to help you give some more information to start with.
A general idea of your levelled units, difficulty you play on, starting gold in the scenario, the problems you encounter, what do you think youre doing wrong etc.

[joshudson]

Firense, you obviously have no clue.

In this scenario, you have one unit, either a dragoon or a caviler (if you leveled it already), no keep, and are pursued by four elvish outriders. Your objective is to reach the keep on the south end of the map.

Nightrider: Enter a village, get a spearman. Move south to the farthest village you can reach each turn. Leave any surviving spearmen in villages on your path.

[hjwn]

nightrider: Yeah, no more information needed

If you search the forum, you'll find out that you're not the only one with this problem. I played this campaign a few months ago and it took me 5 or 6 tries, even after reading the hints in the forums (just search them). As joshudson said, ride as fast as possible to the south. As far as I remember, I entered a village near the top of the map that was on my way and used the spearman to delay the outriders.

Then, nightrider, ride your horse - without remorse!

[Zachron]

Which campaign does this scenario occur in?

[Kens_Mom]

Which campaign does this scenario occur in?

Scepter of Fire

[zookeeper]

I just tried this, on 1.3.9+svn and probably on the easiest difficulty. And I found it rather impossible, or at least completely dependant on luck (the first two speaman can get killed immediately on the second turn, for example, and one outrider can in one turn deal 30 damage, if not dextrous, to Alanin).

I'll see if I can find ways to rework the scenario to actually make some sense.

[thespaceinvader]

One way to do this (which takes a LOT of prior planning) takes advantage of a weakness in the AI - get Alanin to within 3 XP of levelling, and the Outriders won't actually attack him. That way, you get a free run. But it takes a bit of luck or serious planning, to engineer that situation.

[Aethaeryn]

This was easy when I tried it because my character had the quick trait and so the outriders could theoretically never catch him. I still stopped at villages for spearmen and playing them smartly actually killed all the outriders before getting to the end. And no, I didn't cheat.

[joshudson]

The first two spearmen can slow them down enough if you
move them into the snowy trees.

[zookeeper]

The first two spearmen can slow them down enough if you
move them into the snowy trees.

The two spearman can easily die on the first turn, and that slowdown isn't nearly enough. For now, I think I'll just make every village spawn two units (instead of two from the first and one from all others), that should work as an interim solution of sorts.

[shevegen]

i like this scenario
but i think its a little bit too simple

how about adding an ambush encounter or something... troll on a bridge
that could intercept... or some other that makes this scenario a bit more challenging after you already know how to solve it

[zookeeper]

i like this scenario
but i think its a little bit too simple

how about adding an ambush encounter or something... troll on a bridge
that could intercept... or some other that makes this scenario a bit more challenging after you already know how to solve it

The problem is that surprises like that often make it unfair for the player who plays the scenario the first time; a surprise requires you to plan for it in advance, and the newbie player cannot know there's a surprise coming, and thus tend to lose because of it. One way would be to randomize things (the map layout, positioning of villages, etc) a bit, but the problem with that is that randomizing them in a way which is guaranteed to be fair is very hard (with pure randomization you could end up being completely unable to win, or have only a 1% chance to do so, regardless of what you do; obviously, this would be incredibly annoying and bad). Puzzle-like scenarios like this are hard to make so that they're both manageable for the newbie player and challenging for the experienced player.

Of course, one could argue that it doesn't matter if the scenario doesn't have much replay value: how many people actually play the same campaign several times? Not all that many, I'd guess, especially now that we have a lot of mainline campaigns. And still, it's just one scenario that you can play through in 2-3 minutes if you know what you're doing, so it's not a big deal.

[Enough said]

I can't finish this scenario either, but when I land on a village I don't get any troops and even hacking the saved game file - giving myself lots of movement range and health, I can't trigger a win. I've even tried killing everything that moves and luring all the opposing troops down the screen to the fort and I'm still defeated after 12 moves. Where is the magical win square for this scenario?

[zookeeper]

I can't finish this scenario either, but when I land on a village I don't get any troops and even hacking the saved game file - giving myself lots of movement range and health, I can't trigger a win. I've even tried killing everything that moves and luring all the opposing troops down the screen to the fort and I'm still defeated after 12 moves. Where is the magical win square for this scenario?

Well maybe you should tell what Wesnoth version you have.