This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

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Jaykwon
Posts: 8
Joined: December 8th, 2010, 12:38 pm

This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Jaykwon »

Hello people,
First of all, I apologize If this topic is out of place or if a similiar topic exists closeby, but all I've found were general tips on how to play Undeads and not the kind of niched advice that I'm looking for.
I thought about posting this in the "Common Sense Compendium: Now with more General Advice " and it probably would've worked, but I'm hoping to get more specific advice for my problem.

I am a newbie player. I often play against a friend who is better than me, and he consequently wins almost all of our games. I thought I'd try to increase both of our fun by improving my skills a little.
He often does the same basic strategy when he plays against me, and it ticks me off that I know that but still can't beat him most of the time.

General course of the game:
Stage 1: We both recruit scouting units to claim the most amount of villages, since defending is easier than attacking. We often get basically the same amount of villages.
He often plays Knalgan, but sometimes plays undead aswell and spams the bats.

Stage 2: We both recruit more firepower, and close in on the middle like hungry vultures. Most maps have 1 or even 2 secluded passages near the side (often a mountain road or similiar) and at this point he often sends either a fast scouting unit or a sturdy dwarf guard to walk throught one of these passages and flank me later.

Stage 3: This is often the point where his Gryffin Riders emerges from the shroud. Suddenly I am forced to withdraw my scouts, bats won't stand a chance against them and I don't believe ghosts would do much difference. This results in him gaining one or two more villages than me, and the pressure is now on me to attack.
If I'm not mistaken, this is also the point where the night usually ends.

Stage 4: Since he controls the middle with his fast and versatile gryffin riders, I often cant stop him from jamming every village with dwarf guards to his hearts content. I often feel the game is at an end at this point, and further rounds are only to humor him.

Comments:
This is the most common scenario. When I beat him, it is often because we use different matchups or very special maps. But the more the match resembles this particular scenario, the greater my risk of losing is.
This is his common strategy (And most likely it's the strategy most of you are using), so if you feel that you are unable to give specific advice on the matchup then I still appreciate general advice.
At stage 2 I am forced to send a unit or two to guard against his flanking, and in stage 3 is simply feels like I can't defend against his GRs (or respective units for other teams) and as a result he gains the upper hand as I am forced to retreat.
He i often very hard on the scouts, and it is not uncommon for almost his entire starting army to consict of scouts.
I thought that would mean he is weak to a direct charge, so I tried that. In this particular map both sides had a small "wedge" in the entrance to their castle, and it was very easy for him to hold me down there.
Also, during the time it takes for me to advance on his castle he had plenty of time to recruit a few normal units and match me in strenght. Is charging a scouting enemy a good strategy, or is it more like an impending disaster such as mine? It was hard to tell since this map in particular was very anti-charge.

What would You do in this situation?


Yours truly,
Jaykwon
Caphriel
Posts: 994
Joined: April 21st, 2008, 4:10 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Caphriel »

If you could tell us which maps you've been playing on, or even provide a replay of one of your games, that would be very helpful.

Since you didn't mention footpads, ulfserkers, or dark adepts, it doesn't sounds like the strategy most of us are using.

Some things to try:
  • Do use some ghosts. They're very difficult for the Knalgans, which lack magic attacks or marksmanship, and elemental damage, to efficiently kill.
  • Use dark adepts do kill those pesky gryphons. A dark adept costs 16 gold. A gryphon rider costs 24. If you trade a dark adept for a gryphon rider, you're 8 gold ahead.
  • If he's using mostly dwarves, be very careful to engage him at nigh, when you have a damage bonus, instead of during the day, when you have a damage penalty.
  • If he's using mostly guardsmen and gryphons, the impression I've gotten, he's using very expensive units. Try countering with skeletons and dark adepts, and use zone of control with the skeletons to keep them away from your dark adepts
  • Are you using ghouls? Dwarf units are slow, and it takes them a long time to run home and cure poison. Stick a ghoul on a village and watch him struggle to remove it.
  • To work on his flanking attempts, try checking out those side passages with a bat once in a while. If you can block the passage with a single unit before his flanker emerges, that may be better than waiting until it shows up and starts stealing your villages.
Finally, if you shouldn't need to recruit more than a couple of scouts at the beginning on most maps. Before recruiting, examine the village layout and plan how to grab the villages on your side of the map most efficiently. In general, try to take the ones in the back first, and work your way forward. On most standard 1v1 maps, you should be able to take all, or almost all, of your villages on your third turn, ending with your army at the front.

If he's recruiting all scouts, you're right in thinking he's weak, but a direct charge on his leader isn't the answer. If you engaged in efficient village collection, you'll have real soldiers at the front line, and he'll only have scouts. This is especially important for the undead, because they are chaotic. You should finish your village collection and be ready to start pressuring him as the first night is falling.

If you provide a replay file of one of your games, Velensk will most likely go over it turn-by-turn and tell you what both players did wrong on each turn :)
Jaykwon
Posts: 8
Joined: December 8th, 2010, 12:38 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Jaykwon »

Caphriel, thanks for the reply!

He does use both footpads and ulfserkers, but the most prominent thing about our matches is that he wins early control because of the gryphons. By the time the ulfserkers and footpads arrive I am already in somewhat of a losing position, so I thought I'd first ask for help on how to not end up there in the first place.

Great tips though, I'll definitely try out a few ghosts and use ghouls the same way he's using dwarfs.
Would you say it would generally be better as undead to retreat when he's coming with the gryphons early, giving him a few villages advantage and coming in strong at night instead?

Uploading a replay sounds great, I'll do that as soon as I've played a typical game with him.
Caphriel
Posts: 994
Joined: April 21st, 2008, 4:10 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Caphriel »

In general, you shouldn't have to retreat early, because on most 1v1 maps, the start time is dawn, and it'll be evening/first watch when he'd start attacking with gryphons.

Gryphons are certainly hard to deal with; the most important thing to remember is that they're the most expensive recruitable unit, and trading a cheaper unit to kill one is almost always worth it. You can only recruit 4 gryphons with your standard 100 starting gold, and if he does that, you should be able to trap and kill them, although not necessarily without casualties. If he's attacking with gryphons during the first night, you should have a dark adept or two around to blast them. If your leader is skeletal, don't be afraid to use your leader to defend against a gryphon within a turn or two of your keep; 40% blade resistance will reduce the chances of a successful leader assassination.

Don't use too many ghouls; they have generally low damage and are a bit expensive. Ghouls are blockers mostly, especially in this matchup.
5dPZ
Posts: 211
Joined: July 11th, 2006, 7:20 pm
Location: Vancouver, Canada

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by 5dPZ »

Jaykwon wrote:Stage 2: We both recruit more firepower, and close in on the middle like hungry vultures. Most maps have 1 or even 2 secluded passages near the side (often a mountain road or similiar) and at this point he often sends either a fast scouting unit or a sturdy dwarf guard to walk throught one of these passages and flank me later.
Your friend's strategy is a risky one and can be easily countered.

Here, when he sends a lone gryphon or guard (why he sends guard anyway? it is way too slow to effectively flank anything if defending player knows about the game), draw back your frontline troops - all of them. Don't start a fight in mid-field while he steals your village. Instead, withdraw everything from front and trap his lone scout/guard and kill that with 3 units, or more (for the guard). Meanwhile, put a tough unit (ghoul / skeleton preferred) in your village to make sure he won't get free villages with his main force.

Your goal is to kill off his lone scout and NOT LOSING ANY of your village meanwhile. When timed right, after killing the lone stealer/flanker, your main force should arrive to rescue your village sitter and fight his main force on your soil, guarenttee your victory.

As a summary in numbers, instead of 7 vs 6units in mid-field and let his 1 steal your villages. Use 4 vs his 1 units, kill it off. Use 3 + 1 new recruit, thus 4 of your units guard your village against his 6 units (easily doable, since villages have high defence and 8-hp-heal), ZOC your own village make sure he can not have more than 4 hexes to attack it. Then finish up the game with your 8+ 2 (new recruits) = 10 vs his 6 + 1 (his new recruit)= 7 units with terran/healing/leader as your extra bonus.

Remember, mid-field means nothing. You don't have to stand your army there to guard it. As long as you don't lose any of your village, you don't lose anything. Killing off his lone unit, however, will grant you unit adventage (in terms of number and exp). And fighting on your soil, will grant your terran/healing/distance (aka, new recruit + leader) adventages.

Best.
Huumy
Posts: 293
Joined: October 15th, 2009, 9:52 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Huumy »

General course of the game:
Stage 1: We both recruit scouting units to claim the most amount of villages, since defending is easier than attacking. We often get basically the same amount of villages.
He often plays Knalgan, but sometimes plays undead aswell and spams the bats.

Stage 2: We both recruit more firepower, and close in on the middle like hungry vultures. Most maps have 1 or even 2 secluded passages near the side (often a mountain road or similiar) and at this point he often sends either a fast scouting unit or a sturdy dwarf guard to walk throught one of these passages and flank me later.

Stage 3: This is often the point where his Gryffin Riders emerges from the shroud. Suddenly I am forced to withdraw my scouts, bats won't stand a chance against them and I don't believe ghosts would do much difference. This results in him gaining one or two more villages than me, and the pressure is now on me to attack.
If I'm not mistaken, this is also the point where the night usually ends.
First of all you don't need more than 1 bat in 90% of the maps. Lets assume the map has 2 lanes: What you want to do is turn 2 take the furthest villages with your 1ghost and 1bat and move 1skeleton in both lanes (fighter) near enough the villages you took with the bat and ghost.
Turn3 Gryffin riders emerge -> You move your skeleton fighter to village where the bat was -> move bat just outside the gryffin range. Other lane you move skeleton in the furthest village and move ghost to other village that is more back. Also you should have your other starting recruits near the furthest villages the rest of starting recruits include -> ghoul, skeleton adept and something.
You should NOT lose any villages vs dwarves so early with any faction.
At stage 2 I am forced to send a unit or two to guard against his flanking, and in stage 3 is simply feels like I can't defend against his GRs (or respective units for other teams) and as a result he gains the upper hand as I am forced to retreat.
DO NOT RETREAT, simply have meaty unit in the furthest villages and have few other units near on good terrain. Also the other few units should be enough to attack any griffins who try steal other villages.

I don't know why you losing to this but, even it seems impossible just keep your units near each other and near your villages and Have the most meatiest units in the furthest villages.

I thought that would mean he is weak to a direct charge, so I tried that. In this particular map both sides had a small "wedge" in the entrance to their castle, and it was very easy for him to hold me down there.
Also, during the time it takes for me to advance on his castle he had plenty of time to recruit a few normal units and match me in strenght. Is charging a scouting enemy a good strategy, or is it more like an impending disaster such as mine? It was hard to tell since this map in particular was very anti-charge.
If hes going crazy with scouting units, just defend. Why? Because scouting units are more expensive and usually more weak than other units but have lots of mp. If your opponent gets lot of them they are only good at the beginning of the game because they are so fast and can have something like 5v2 fights. But do not worry. Here what you do ->
CHILL out in your base sit on your villages for a while (like 2 full cycles), only have 1 scout unit and actually recruit real army. Once you both get bigger armies his scouting units really suck.

In this scenario there is 2 lanes.
Take your army march them one lane, leave one meaty unit for each village on the other side. March your army and attack during time of the day that is favorable to you.
This is important in general in all matchups -> If you see the time of the day and see it's unfavorable to you don't be "Awww that's too bad I'll attack anyway"... No, no, no. You should go like "I'm gonna retreat no matter what". Then, you actually plan how move your army so you can attack JUST as the time of the day changes to your favor -> You wreck his pathetic army cause he has more scouts than you, take 1 or 2 villages during the good time of the day -> if you are not 100% sure you can hold the villages the whole cycle of day, you retreat so far that he can't attack and repeat whole time sending more troops to strenghten your army, don't get scouts just because they get there fast, get meaty units cause MEAT is good and SCOUT is bad in big battles.
Then once you can hold the 1 or 2 villages full cycle of the day you just sit on them, just defend. Heal all your units.

Also if there's less units in the other lane you can move your meaty units forward there too.

Once all your units are healed and if he didn't attack, wait for the good time of the day, slowly take all his villages and you win. Villages in this game are huge but they don't help you instantly, they give you economy every round, so if you fighting over your opponent base, the villages do absolute nothing until you ->
1. Buy troops
2. Get the troops in your army
"And the girl that you want is directly out in front, And she’s waving her caboose at you, You sneeze achoo, She calls you out and boom!"
The offspring, trolling you since forever.
Jaykwon
Posts: 8
Joined: December 8th, 2010, 12:38 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Jaykwon »

I took all your sound advice, and beat him quite easily this time.
Also, I saved the replay incase any fine gentleman fancies commenting a bit :)

He chose Rebels instead of Knalgan, but played the exact same way he always did.
First off, he massed scouts. I'd dare say all his starter units were scouts, since it usually works I guess he has gotten bold.
Later in the game he massed Woses, and used them the same way he uses Dwarf Guards. (Of course, also to counter my skeletons).

Y'all told me to keep it cool, and it really worked. Normally I try to chase after all his scouts, but this time I focused more on holding the lines.
I managed to kill his scouts in due time (like 60-80 gold disadvantage to him?) without losing too many of my houses, and focused on holding the line.
A Ghoul for tanking was great in the middle, even if his units had more movement than the dwarfs.

Anyway, I would really appreciate it if anyone could consider watching and commenting the replay, I made tons of mistakes but am blatantly unaware of most of them.
The only thing I might have to comment is that I sometimes try to lure him into stealing my villages with his trees, since the regen barely stacks and their defense gets really low.

Yours truly,
Jaykwon
Attachments
Jay_2p_-_Fallenstar_Lake_replay.gz
Replay Undead Vs Rebels, newbie level.
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Velensk
Multiplayer Contributor
Posts: 4002
Joined: January 24th, 2007, 12:56 am

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Velensk »

Watching it, this is what I got.

Turn 1: On this map filling the castle on first recruit is generally not the best idea. Every unit you recruit costs upkeep and will not be able to reach the second castle by turn 2. It is better to only recruit the units that will help you capture villages on turn 1, then start recruiting the slower units on turn 2 thus saving on upkeep and deploying closer to the front.
Red: A second scout for the southern area might be a good idea as it would help you capture villages quicker. You can get away without one if you prefer though. Those skeletons won’t help you capture villages and probably should have waited until turn 2/3
Blue: A castle full of scouts is great for village grabbing but a very poor amount of power for cost especially against undead.

Turn 2:
Red: Around that point I’d pick up a dark adept instead. You already have plenty of skeletons and a dark adept might be quick and thus able to reach the last village a turn early.
Blue: No Comment

Turn 3: No Comment
Red:
Blue:

Turn 4:
Red: You may wish to consider moving your leader to the keep south of the one you were at for greater flexability in where you recruit.
Blue:

Turn 5:
Red: Attacking the scout with the ghost was unlikely to do major damage and the position you choose would allow multiple enemies to attack you from cover. Not a major mistake due to other considerations but perhaps unnessisary. Despite the fact that you could not recruit 2 of them, I think that it probably would have been better to get a dark adept at this point. Dark adepts may be more vulnerable than skeletons but unlike them they can reliably blast elves out of forests and attack woses without extensive retaliation.
Blue:

Turn 6:
Red: I’m inclined to say you should have been more agressive against the scouts in the north. It is night and the wose is far enough away that you’d only have to worry about their swords and bows, poisoning one of the scouts would force it to retreat and you could probably win some attrician attacking the other scout with a skeleton. Again, I think you should really have dark adept on the field by now.
Blue: Very risky attacks there. Even at dawn skeletons tear up scouts without cover and you were not likely to do any significant damage to either target. Both attacks also put you behind enemy lines with reinforcements a long way away.

Turn 7:
Red: Attacking the scout with the ghost made very little sense to me. There is no point giving a unit that is marked for death with no chance to escape or kill a chance to earn its worth in gold by killing a ghost first. It probably would have been better to plop the ghost on a village you don’t want your enemy to steal to force it to go elsewhere and give you a chance to heal at the same time.
Blue: The village gold you are earnning here is unlikely to make up for the price unless you back it up with a real attack while the enemy is distracted.

Turn 8:
Red: You could have recruited before attacking with leader.
Blue:

Turn 9:
Red: I think recruiting a couple more untis would have been a better use of your leader especially considering the ToD.
Blue:

Turn 10:
Red: No real reason at this point not to attack the merman with the skeleton sitting on the keep. You can both block its way to the villages and either force it to retreat or fight as night is coming.
Blue: You need to stop advancing, night is coming and it will hurt you badly to be within your enemies reach right now. If you had pulled back you would have had plenty of great tools to destroy undead with for the next day but as it is you’re in for a potentially devistating battle.

Turn 11:
Red:
Blue: That attack is going to be the final nail in your coffin. You cannot afford to lose that may expensive units so easilly at this point. The move with the merman is risky and probably rather pointless

Turn 12: No Comment
Red:
Blue:

Turn 13:
Red:
Blue: You don’t really have the forces to push here, though I suppose there isn’t really a better option.

Turn 14:
Red: When attacking the merman, you should have attacked with the skeleton with experiance first to maximise chance of a level-up. Your push on the main flank was probably ill advised. You’re sitting on a considerable advantage at the moment you don’t get much risking it to fight the enemy at day under those conditions. Also, I’d keep the wounded dark adept down south so that if the wose does not move off the village you’ll have something to frost it off when night comes.
Blue:

Turn 15:
Red: Same precaution as before.
Blue: Try a bit more veriety in your recruits. Woses are great against undead, but they have weaknesses and a force consisting entirely of them will have a homgenous weakness.

Turn 16: No Comment
Red:
Blue:

Turn 17: No Comment
Red:
Blue:

Turn 18:
Red: Leaving the 1xp away from leveling skeleton where he could be mauled was a bit careless.
Blue:

Turn 19: No Comment
Red:
Blue:

Turn 20: No Comment
Red:
Blue:

Turn 21:
Red:
Blue: Not that it matters at this point but that was not a good moment to attack. You are critically outnumbered and dusk is coming.

Turn 22: This Game is practically over.
Red:
Blue:

Overall: I feel that you could have used to recruit/play a bit more aggressively but in this case it was not important as your foe played over-aggressively. Your strategy was adequate/appropriate for this foe. I saw many things that simple practice would help you (and him) improve.
Last edited by Velensk on December 10th, 2010, 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Jaykwon
Posts: 8
Joined: December 8th, 2010, 12:38 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Jaykwon »

Thanks Velensk, very good advice.
I appreciate you taking the time to review my replay, I'll watch it again ASAP and consider all your points.
Huumy
Posts: 293
Joined: October 15th, 2009, 9:52 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Huumy »

Grats for getting level up in wesnoth :D
"And the girl that you want is directly out in front, And she’s waving her caboose at you, You sneeze achoo, She calls you out and boom!"
The offspring, trolling you since forever.
Jaykwon
Posts: 8
Joined: December 8th, 2010, 12:38 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Jaykwon »

I just played a game against him where he was Knalgans.
I've won the last few games against him, but this one was really tough. I got a little too cocky due to my latest wins, and he killed one of my ghosts. After that he hung around with his Gryphon Riders in the water and waited to strike.
It was very annoying having them there, but I couldn't send units into the water to get them. I am very curious how a skilled player would have handled it.

I would appreciate it if anyone would do me the honour of commenting this game aswell

Yours truly,
Jaykwon
Attachments
Jay Adi Undead Knalgans_-_Fallenstar_Lake_replay - Kopia.gz
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Velensk
Multiplayer Contributor
Posts: 4002
Joined: January 24th, 2007, 12:56 am

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Velensk »

Alright, here is what I've got.


Turn 1:
Red:
Blue: Could still use to not recruit a full keep on first turn no this map.

Turn 2:
Red: Knowing that your opponent is knalgans you might have wanted to pick up a ghoul rather than anther skeleton. This is a style choice rather than a hard rule.
Blue:

Turn 3: No Comment
Red:
Blue:

Turn 4:
Red:
Blue: Guardsman is probably not what you want here, unless he lets you place it on his villages it’ll not contribute much to an offense and he is obviously playing very defensively.

Turn 5:
Red: It is nighttime and you are undead, you should be pushing unless there is a good reason not to. Remember the further back you can force the enemy the more room you have to retreat at night and the further they have to push you before you can threaten their villages again. If you had advanced more aggressively he could not have safely moved the ulfserker up, and without the ulfserker the fighter could not have moved for risk of dark adepts (though you only have on in the region so perhaps he could have risked it). Forcing your opponent to stay on defense is generally a better defense than defending is.
Blue:

Turn 6:
Red: You are retreating far too early. A skeleton on a castle does not need to fear ulfserkers or dwarf fighters attacking it from the open, meanwhile, if you retreat early this will let him bring his offense to your villages at dawn which will be a significant disadvantage. As a side note, you do not need/want more skeletons at this point, you already have plenty enough melee power to threaten the ulfserker and defend against the fighters. What you are lacking is sufficient ranged power to force them off your village if they get on or even to counter attack without getting torn up.
Blue:

Turn 7:
Red: Putting the ghouls on the forward villages is a little risky. Ulfserkers can route ghouls from villages and at day a dwarf sitting on a village won’t be easy to remove. If you use skeletons instead then the ulfserker will not get much purchase (on the other hand the fighters become a greater threat which is regrettable but the ulfserker has greater fort-busting potential.
Blue: Not sure why you got another guardsman

Turn 8:
Red: If you want to pose more of a threat to the griffons in the lake then move you dark adept sitting on the keep to a different castle hex where he can wade into the water if he needs to. Two adepts are a threat to a wounded griffon, even at day.
Blue: When you attack, be sure you know what you’re trying to get out of it and what it will cost you. The attack you just made on the main flank may not look like it was costly (especially considering that it is day) but it is likely to be something you cannot easilly disengage from and was unlike to earn you much.

Turn 9:
Red: Considering that you could not have killed the footpad it was probably not worth putting the adept where it could get ulfed. Granted: trading the adept for an ulf is advantageous gold-wise but if he kills the only adept you have your odds of mounting a successful offense (or even threatening one) go down significantly.
Blue: Not sure why you advanced the guard in the north, that looks like asking to get poisoned a long way away from home for no potential to contribute significantly. You really should focus on disengaging and avoiding conflict at this point. Night is coming and you are outnumbered and on enemy turf.

Turn 10:
Red: You want more adepts. You can defend against dwarven with poison and skeletons can defend if they are on good terrain and the dwarf is not but when it comes to blowing dwarves out of their villages/mountains, frosting elusive footpads, or warding griffons you need the magical attack power of adepts. Without them it is very easy to limit your potential moves.
Blue:

Turn 11:
Red: Be careful, the guard in the north may be poisoned but it can threaten multiple villages and you only have one unit in the area that can guard it and you moved your leader forward. If he decides to run around your ghoul towards one of your rearmost villages it will be a slight but costly struggle to stop it/get it off and that is assumeing that it does not kill the ghoul (which it has decent odds of doing)
Blue: Attacking ghosts at night with fighters tends to be an exercise in futility. Probably better to thump the skeleton archer next to it (would also allow you to take advantage of better terrain). Also, it probably would have been better to attack the northern ghoul from 16,3 so that you can threaten to run to one of his villages.

Turn 12:
Red:
Blue: Get that guardsman to healing or do something useful with it. You are not going to get very far losing 6 hp a turn so that you can throw javelins at a skeleton. Also, avoid leaving ulfs where they can be eaten by ghosts so easily.

Turn 13:
Red: You’ve brought your leader quite far away from the keep. It should not be a problem in this case but denying yourself reinforcements for 5-6 turns to get 1 additional level 2 in a fight can kill you.
Blue:

Turn 14:
Red: You know, it would probably be quicker to run your leader to his castle than your own.
Blue:

Turn 15: Always fun when leaders get to duel. Also especially fun to zombieify enemy leaders.

Overall: You get far more skeletons than you need and against a more competent opponent that will kill you. Skeletons are not cost efficient against enemies who counter them and those are not too hard to come by. I am not at all sure why you said that you were having trouble as it seemed like you handled it fairly easily to me. The griffons in the lake is a constant annoyance and it should be considering what a knalgan player pays for them. If you need to go after them ghosts are a decent bet if they are in deep and if they are not in deep then just having a couple adepts who can wade into the shallows to blast them can force them to go in deep. At nighttime you can also wade in deep with skeletons though this is risky especially without ghost support. The skeletons will do more damage than the ghosts but they’ll also be playing 10% defense against 50%. On the other hand skeletons are also 3/5 the price of griffons so it’s worth a trade.

As a final note: Under just about any conditions, dark adepts are your primary offensive unit. Their ability to ignore enemy defense%s, combined with their damage types and ranged attack give them fearsome killing power at night. It has not in the games I've observed ever been necessary for you to take the fight to your enemy because of the aggression of your enemy however playing against skilled players as undead you will need to push your enemy back or else you will invariably find yourself with force capable of breaking your defenses on your doorstep at dawn and there will not be much you can do about it at that point.
Last edited by Velensk on December 12th, 2010, 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Jaykwon
Posts: 8
Joined: December 8th, 2010, 12:38 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Jaykwon »

Thank you Velensk,
I just tried to play the file i previously uploaded and it was corrupt for me.
I think it's due to the filename being to long, so I shortened the name and it started working again.

Just in case, here is the new un-corrupt version:
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Jaykwon
Posts: 8
Joined: December 8th, 2010, 12:38 pm

Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Jaykwon »

I noticed that in all my games, you tell me to push on the first night. I've tried doing that in a few games, but it seems very risky since I already lost the "twilight" turn, and will only get like one or two rounds at the most, and if the opponent is lawful it seems especially crucial to not push to far.
Maybe it's just me doing it wrong, but as it is right now it seems quite impossible to advance further than middle ground on the fallenstar lake map.

I have a short example of what I mean below (just a few rounds of game before the opponent charges me with his king) where I tried advancing with my troops into his villages during the first night. I don't see how I could've done it much faster since if I hadn't waited for the reinfocements I would have been greatly outnumbered. (At least if the opponent wouldn't had withdrawn his king from the castle, but I didn't know that at the time)


On a sidenote, should I stop posting in this thread and continue posting in a pre-existing thread such as "How to play Undead"?
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Velensk
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Re: This is how I get beat: Undead Vs. Knalgans

Post by Velensk »

I’m not going to bother commenting on blues side for this game.

As a side note, picking your faction is a bit of a disadvantage especially if you pick undead, it tells your opponent what they are going to be fighting and thus what they should recruit for. For example, in this match your opponent recruits a mage on the first turn, in most cases this would be a foolish move(even if he wasn’t recruiting a slow unit on first keep) but since he knows that you’re undead he knows he’ll get good use out of it.

Turn 1: I don’t know if you know whether or not your foe is loyalists but if you did then it probably would have been better to get a skeletal archer. Loyalists can exert a great deal of control of their cavalrymen and having many skeletal archers will help you keep them pinned down. If you’re planning to rush replacing a ghost with a bat will help you have more money for units that can actually do damage, by the same tolken, you can save a bit of money and positional advantage by using a walking corpse rather than a skeleton in your inital recruit.

Turn 2: No comment

Turn 3: You said before that you were planning to rush, ghouls are not a good recruit in that case as they are less effective the closer the enemy is to their villages.

Turn 4: You didn’t need to run your adept backwards to grab a village, you could have grabbed it with your leader, you’re shuffling your forces mostly sideways when you need to be advancing.

Turn 5: Need some skeletal archers to deal with cavalry.

Turn 6: No Comment

Turn 7: Your rush has already succeeded in a way. You didn’t grab any land, but you forced him to stay back and on defense rather than being at your doorstep at dawn. It’s now your turn to play defensive and plot to try to be in position to attack as soon as dusk falls.

Turn 8: You do not want that many ghosts against loyalists. Unlike knalgans loyalists have no trouble killing ghosts because they are sure to have mages around. They resist ghosts already meager attacks and ghosts are expensive.

Turn 9: Now here is where you make an even more critical mistake, you try to hold your villages. He couldn’t reliably attack your villages unless you try to hold them. It’s an odd dynamic so let me explain.

If you try to hold the villages, then he can attack you at day, easily destroying whatever defense you place on them plus some other damage grabbing the villages and using them as the base of his operations. However if you simply abandon the villages but leaver your units where they can attack them next turn then if he goes ahead and captures the villages then you can attack him at dusk on relatively equal footing and if he tries to counter attack you the encounter lasts into the night where you can reinforce and he cannot and he is in trouble. So he is either forced to retreat, stay put, or make a mistake.

Odds are that if he takes the villages anyway he’ll make off with a little gold and you’ll damage some units and have to try to take advantage of this while he retreats with his generally faster army. Not ideal but you can turn a profit if you can trap or kill anything.

If you can retreat from the villages to an area where he cannot attack you effectively but where you can reach his villages early, that puts him in trouble (though it’s hard to pull off against a competent player).

As a final note: it was careless to leave your leader where it could be potentially assassinated like that.

EDIT: Overall your build order and movement could have been tweaked to present more threat earlier but you actually did all you needed to with your push.

EDIT2: As a second note, Fallenstar lake is indeed a rough one for a 1st night land-grab. Don't count on it, all you have to do is present a credible enough threat that your opponent stays back. On other maps you have more chance to actually occupy enemy villages.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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