I'm absolutely Garbage

[rayhaku]

Garbage with a capital G. I played the entire tutorial. Read some stuff up on forums and stuff. But I just... completely suck. I'm terrible.

I like this game, but I just can't get the hang of it!

http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100903 ... _(5189).gz
http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100903 ... _(4855).gz
http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100903 ... _(4873).gz
http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100903 ... _(5054).gz
http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100903 ... _(5111).gz
http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100903 ... _(5153).gz
http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100903 ... _(5189).gz
http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100902 ... _(3430).gz
http://replays.wesnoth.org/1.8/20100902 ... _(3342).gz

If you saw at least one or two of these replays, you'll know how bad I am..... I hate it when he's constantly rubbing victory in my face and telling me to surrender. I mean, he gives me some advice and stuff, but can still be a jerk. Annoying and I'd like to beat him at least once. As you can see I normally use Drakes and that's my problem. I just started using Undead. He's trying out some other new factions. I really don't know what to do anymore. Please. Someone help me.

[Reepurr]

I haven't looked at any of your videos because A, I'm not one for trusting internet stuff and B, I don't want to because I might be horrified by your Garbageness (although I think you might be exagerrating a bit).

The thing is, Drakes and Undead are fairly hard to play. Start off with the Elves - if you just leave your elves in forest spots, you're bound to win every time.

Here are some interesting tactics that might help you:

1. (Using elves) When on forest, elves have 70% dodge chance...sparing the elvish fighter. You can place elves at the edge of a forest and wait for a really, really stupid enemy to attack you. With your 70% dodge chance, your elves will easily dodge most of the hits...and then you can strike back!

2. Close formations: Elvish shamans, saurian augurs, white magi, etc. - they have Heals +4/+8. This means adjacent units gain 4HP at the start of their turn...or 8 if you have a level 2 healer. Make a close formation with your units to make them easier to heal. However healers are really really rubbish at attacking...

3. Zone of control barriers: Each level 1+ unit has a zone of control barrier. If a unit (which is not a skirmisher) walks next to a unit with a ZoC barrier, it can physically go no further. Highly useful when protecting your leader/villages.

4. The charge: Use chargers (horsemen for example) carefully. They can deal high damage but it's best to use them so that they can kill a unit in one blow.

5. Making a hero: If you caress an intelligent (lower XP needed to level) unit so that they almost always get the killing blow on enemies, they will gain XP quickly. And before you know it, he's level 2.

Also, were you playing against other players? They've probably been playing longer than you. Play a novice campaign (I started out doing A Tale of Two Brothers) to hone your skills, and then do multiplayer.


Hope this helps, even though I have no idea what you were doing in the replays.

[hhyloc]

In addition, you might want to take a look at this and this The later is a bit outdated though.

[Velensk]

When I have time I'll break these games down for you. My analysis tends to take awhile and there are many games here so don't expect it to come very quickly.

EDIT: your links are broken, also I find it best to break down standard 1vs1 under typical conditions for the purposes of this kind of instruction.
EDIT2: I know how to get at the replays anyway and will go through all the standard games but in the future try to post your links properly.
EDIT3: Or not, I did download them but when I try to open them up they register as 'invalid'. Next time you want a replay broken down please save the replay and post it to the forums directly. Also, that sort of thing is what the strategy/tips section is for and this topic should probably be moved there.

[Iris]

By the way, your replay links were broken since the forum's auto-linkify code got confused at the ".gz" extension at the end. Fixed it for you.
EDIT: oh, Velensk noticed that too.
EDIT2: I'm moving this to Strategies & Tips as well.

[fenny]

Hi, i played the first multiplayer-scenario with the standard random settings, and i'm playing undead vs orcs. I don't know if this is easier than your tries, i didn't watch them all. Since i'm playing in german i still have to find out which scenarios are the others.
Here's my replay:

[Yoyobuae]

Some quick issues I saw in the 1v1 replays:

• In several occasions you took too long to capture your villages. Your opponent just moved in and stole village after village. Plan your initial recruits to gather as many villages by turn two and all nearby one by turn three. At this point villages should be half yours and half for you opponent (if map is well made)
• You also tended to use your leader to capture and hold villages/ground, putting him in harms way and slowing your recruiting. You can recruit before you move him and after moving also (you can even move/recruit/move). Use this to keep recruiting, always.
• Be careful where you place your units. In many cases you put your units where several enemies could easily reach them. Of course, your opponent took the opportunity to attack and kill those units. Use "Delay Shroud Updates" feature (right click to activate it), it lets you undo moves (pressing U key). So you could place your unit, then see which enemies could reach it, if too many can then you undo the move and try a different one. You can't undo recruit/attack commands though.
• Use fast moving units (scouts) to reach those villages that are further away at the start of the game. If you capture one village one turn earlier that means 2~3 gold extra you gain, paying for some of the cost of the scout. Scouts are very useful to see what the enemy is up to (they see as far as they can move, ignoring blocking enemies).
• It's very important to keep your units alive (and with good HP when possible). If your gonna move into the enemy unit's reach, do it with many units at once and when the Time of Day (ToD) is in your favor. Hiding in good terrain can't always keep you safe. But threatening any would be attackers with your own units, will simply keep them from attacking in the first place.
• Make use of ToD. Move forward in favorable ToD (specially against opposite alignment opponent, ie. lawful vs chaotic). Retreat when ToD is against you. Occasionally that means abandoning villages, you need to learn to compare the advantage of keeping you opponent from a stolen village. By keeping the village you gain 2 gold per turn and possibly reduce your upkeep by 1 gold per turn. By losing a village your enemy gains 2 gold per turn and possibly reduces his upkeep by 1 gold per turn. Add the loss your village and the enemy gaining instead thats 4 gold to 6 gold difference from one stolen village. Therefore, it's not viable to lose one drake unit to try to protect a village the enemy can keep for 1 or 2 turns. You'll lose less gold by just giving it away.
• Like said above, learn to use Zones of Control (ZoC). Each unit has an area around it in which any enemy unit is stopped from moving further. A ZoC wall is when a line of units is arranged with preferable one hex space between each unit at most. Enemies cannot move thru that line (unless they have skirmisher ability).
• When you make ZoC walls, make them vertical or diagonally. This way at maximum two enemies can attack a single one of your units. It makes it hard for your opponent to gang up on a single target and kill it.

And the most important advice: Don't let defeat make you feel bad. It's only natural to lose in Wesnoth. It's a necessary step to learning. Just keep playing. If your opponent gloats in his victory, just laugh a bit and congratulate him. You'll feel much better. Then keep playing. Don't get mad or give up.

I always say to myself: I'll continue playing Wesnoth, even if I lose every single game. It's a game I like, I play it for fun. Losing won't keep me from having fun in it. Also, it's very unlikely you'll get worst by playing more, in fact it's just the opposite that happens.

I invite you to my humble ladder profile, as proof I trully do believe this :
http://ladder.subversiva.org/profile.php?name=Yoyobuae
Also I play drakes exclusively, you might wanna check out the replays in there if you want to learn them. Not exactly the best examples of drake gameplay but maybe you can pick something up from them.

[Velensk]

When I try to watch the replay the game tells me that the orc player recruits 'stork riders' and 'orc raiders' which causes oos in a replay somehow. I can see only two wolf riders and an assassin but the replay obviously thinks other units exist. I can only conclude that this must be a translation bug but if so it's a very weird one.

If someone will post a version of the replay that my comp will read, I will get around to breaking it down in detail.

[fenny]

Ah sorry, this is my fault. I think i have choosen archaic era by accident. I downloaded this for Bad Moon Rising and there are some special units for the orcs. I think you could see the replay with archaic era addon, but i can play it again with normal units.
- so here's a new replay with normal era, this time i'm playing orcs vs drakes (i think drakes are normally a disadvantage, so it's far easier for me to win).

[Velensk]

Turn 1: That was more scouts than you need to capture your villages efficiently. Scouts tend to not be cost efficient in terms of fighting capability. Normally I’d comment that the troll and the archer are un-needed as it is generally better to recruit slower units at the second keep and recruiting them now merely increases your early upkeep for no real benefit however due to the way forces move on this map you occasionally need to send extra troops to your weak side so you can hold it longer. Assuming this is your intent you’d probably get a bit more staying power if you replaced either the troll or the archer with a grunt but this is a stylistic choice.

Turn 2: Your movement this turn was sloppy in the sense of efficient village grabbing. You move two wolves left of the river and one to the right. You only need one wolf to grab all the villages on the left side (your leader can grab one after) whereas there are two villages on the right side and only one wolf that can reach them.

Your opponent moved back to his original keep which does not bode to well for him. He is also playing a very saurian heavy strategy against northerners which I find generally ends poorly for the drakes especially if they play aggressively.

Turn 3: Not much to say on your side. Your opponent is killing himself and probably doesn't know it.

Turn 4: I’d think you’d get more milage from a grunt at this point. The only unit he has that is good to attack with an archer is the clasher but the two augers and the burner will be doing much more damage to you and a grunt would be more useful for taking those down (and would have more hitpoints)

Turn 5: Again I’d think you’d get more advantage from getting a grunt. The augers are healers and can nulify poison damage to units next to them whereas a grunt gets most of its damage up front and can attack augers/burners for minimal retaliation.

Turn 6: This game has been over for awhile. I am going to just conclude here.

Overall: As much as I don’t like to say this your victory was far more the result of your opponent playing poorly than you playing well. He failed to grab 2 of his villages and he tried fighting orcs at night with saurians without even taking special care to keep them in terrain where they get 60% defense (the only time saurians have any sort of chance against orcs). On your side I think that your unit composition could have been more ideal and your village grabbing a touch more efficient however it is hard to say anything more because all you had to do to win this game was take advantage of your opponents faulty strategy.

[rayhaku]

Thank you all for your constructive criticism. I understand my flaws and I've been working on being able to use other factions until I get much more experience. But I did use Drakes a couple times inbetween and I utilized everyone's advice to the best of my understanding. Thanks again. I've improved greatly with just slight tweaks to my playstyle!