For Power (0.6.5.3)

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James_The_Invisible
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by James_The_Invisible »

Well, there is a precedent about the new mage's journey in Delfador's Memoirs (a mainline campaign), though it has the protagonist (just graduated) wandering the land with a teacher. There were probably some changes in the Academy after the events of Heir to the Throne so we might be able to justify that there is no teacher now but it would contradict another campaign of mine (which is developed in secret). But of course, we can make this a one time thing (which would help define Clare's character). Actually, it would not be so illogical, given her talent and reputation.
Anyway, it is quite late here so I will think about later. Jakub
denispir
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by denispir »

Hello James,

I have seen your bug requests on github. (Note that very few non-programmers would even dare approaching such an alien thing ;-), and even if they did everything is so unwelcoming in such corners of the web... ; I used to have account (I do program, but mostly on my own) I guess but if so lost memories of it.

Anyway, the point is, about Clare's backstory:
It can be partially done in introduction of Chapter 1, partially in some dialogues.
I guess that it is a good thing to deliver bits of story, situation, etc..., and especially events or anecdotes of Clare's past, now and then along the campaign. This avoids overwhelming the player/reader, builds up the story as an harmonious whole progressively, contributes to deepen the amosphere... This, over all is you intend to add or develop more than 2 or 3 elements, and if so you know I wholly support this choice.
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by James_The_Invisible »

James_The_Invisible wrote:Some insights into development (for whoever is interested):
I feel like Glacyn's title/position should be changed, his current one is somehow weird in my opinion. I have created an issue on GitHub for feedback.
I am also considering changing Amiwen's traits. Again, there is an GitHub issue for this.
If anyone has an opinion on these matters, please, tell me. Either here or on linked GitHub issues.
Currently I am not working on new scenarios but my current progress is on GitHub on branch 6x04-shadow-mages.
Updates:
I have changed Amiwen's traits to loyal and healthy but I can still change it to something else.
Most of the dialogues for Shadow Mages are written, I just want to add 1 more event to the scenario.
denispir wrote:Note that very few non-programmers would even dare approaching such an alien thing
I guess that this is true. But such a platform is useful also when you usually work alone (like me). It helps you organize your ideas/roadmap and keep track of changes.
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by denispir »

As you said it would be a good thing, here is a review of my playing the initial scenario "Defend the village", possibly interesting for other players, possibly providing some raw material for a future walkthrough. Once again, I cannot be brief...

[Note: you should write the version in the text shown in the campaign menu, as well as other info like for whom the campaign is intended, number of scenarios, etc.]

version ?, Wesnoth 1.12, difficulty level normal (medium) (my true level usually), very first time playing, no save-load, no debug cheat; also no restart, but I may have done that (as you'll read below), 1 turn reload (see below as well)

Here are the statistics at end of scenario, turn 19/26, as shown by the in-game table:
* 8 recruits for 74G
* 3 advanced (Clare, Lemyr, and a peasant with bow advanced to poacher) (plus other survivors very experienced)
* 5 losses (all L0 recruits, did not lose a mage despite agressive tactics with some luck as you'll see)
* damage (compared to probable expectation): inflicted +6%, taken -11%
I was lucky, then!

I would like to have an idea of future recruit lists, so as to chose what type to advance to. Hope they are not loyalists (dislike them!). I also would like the game to make it worth preserving, recalling, advancing L0 units, but this is another story... (make their recall cost = recruit cost) (idem for L1 units with few XP)

I like the difference and challenge of playing mostly with L0 units, against "normal" sides (except for the remark above), when scenario design is well done, and here it is in my view & experience at playing (read on for more). However, in a rather uniform landscape except for the river side, what sort of tactics may there be? (I really ask.) I ended up trying one main tactical option of flanking the ennemly, with behind the mind the idea of restarting from scratch if all goes badly as I feared --but it did not happen. Said tactical option was, in detail:

* Send most of the forces north to attack the ennemy western flank. I know by experience that this is quite efficient, read destructive, expecially with an AI ally: they take most damage, you kill very much.

* Send a few recruits (2 bows, 2 forks) with my ally to try and avoid or delay their losses of the few level 1 initial units, as well as for common overall ally help. This worked, albeit not hat much in preserving units but rather the opposite in participating to kills during daylight turns: L0s are surprisingly efficient helpers, they make the diff between kill or no-kill (and one more loss on your side on next turn).

* Send Lemyr, against the story that asks for you to have him protect Clare --yes i have been a bad boy-- full north in order to pretend taking villages there, actually to try and lure part of the ennemy forces after him (scouts indeed, but especially orcish bowmen, the real threat in my view). This did not work (he's too strong to lure them?), since ennemies have no scouts (author setting probably?), and other units ignore him and this corner of the map. But it was still a good choice, as it allowed Lemyr not just attacking on their flank, but in fact nearly from the back, which I intended when possible, meaning once fights are started and ennemy units are busy/distracted/weakened.

* Keep Clare in the keep to have 2 more recruits after first round. I thought it would be a tough battle where 1 unit +/- even L0 can make a diff. This proved to be true, actually I used all units with profit each turn, to attack or to attract attacks (lure) or to heal, except 1/2 units at some night turns. In addition, I did not need all strong attackers early on the battle front, since we would meet at start of night and I would have to be "shy" initially. But Clare one more turn on keep would certainly have been too much (too late to help others when needed, and all consequences following in a snowball effect typical of tactical games, their weakness imo).

All in all, this was a typical but quite good and fun scenario where one should sacrifice units without further reflexion, to allow others (heroes, loyals, a few recruits) having a better chance to survive, kill, and complete the objective. After a first round of fight, their time to attack then mine, all went very well somewhat surprisingly, but after the second night I thought all was lost because they looked stronger in terms of sheer unit force. But no, we had much better tactical position and our time to attack came --and we proved to be pitiless! Thank you James, as well as previous helpers, for the excellent balance I experienced (albeit it's only my case, and a single play).

The map is actually good, I mean a good base. My previous remarks however still hold, except maybe for the distance from our camps to the actual battle zone: having first engagement around first dusk, their time to be dangerous, is actually good here I guess, if quite common.

A few events or anecdotes (the first one is worth reading I guess):

* Just before the second dusk, at turn 10, I (not my ally) stood right south of the river, after having killed, say 2/3 of the ennemies having dared to engage us, the "gang of magic". Then, I had a choice of camping here with the hold on both houses (villages) there; or play wisely and retreat as worked so well for the first night. A point that troubled me was that no unit of my ally's was around there, all still fighting remaining ennemies in the center east of the landscape (indeed, the AI does not know how to keep or send just enough units for the task at hand). Another point was that ennemies just spawned 4 fresh units (!) (2 bows 2 swords) (does the AUI keep money to recruit more before night?), in addition to the ones already around my troops, while mine where rather wounded... I still chose to try the bold, temerary, tactical option, counting a little on the river to help by hindering their moves (could not camp on the bank itself, and trying to block the bridges at night with so few forces would have been suicidal; actually, that's what the ennemiy did 3 turns later on daylight time! ;-)). I just noted the turn number (10) in my little head, in case all went wrong. But no.

I think this bold choice during the 2nd night was wrong even if it worked. I noticed some luck, as the stats above show, which I guess happened mostly during these 2 crucial night turns. Chosing to wisely retreat would certainly have added 1 or 2 turns, but would have been "luck-free" tactics, and certainly allowed for even XP (3 ennemy units not killed as said above). Anyway I wanted to try, ready to maybe reload, and it eventually worked...

* As is common, we met at first dusk (turn right before night), and I wisely retreated, mostly at wood borders, letting a couple of units reachable by their soldiers, just to make them vulnerable when my time to attack arrives[*]. It worked well, with a single L0 killed then and one half dead, and a mage weakened to the point of being nearly useless for the next daylight time. I did not especially notice how my AI ally did, but losses were not dramatic on its side neither, somewhat helped by my own L0 units sent precisely for that.

* Lemyr died once, after which I reloaded to start of turn. He was killed in one turn by a single happy bowman, in a house where I parked him for healing, at start of night and after a kill, with 25 HPs (2/3 of his max health). As for him killing in one turn, I was pretty surprised. After reload, I placed a poor peasant as easy prey nearby, but the same bowman still attacked Lemyr (!), however this time he missed one strike, Lemyr survived, and I played on...

* I lost one turn of potential attack by Lemyr: actually, I did not realise at all he could kill in one turn (thought he was a sword-bearing rider rather than a cavalier with the charge attack?), and half forgot him in that NW corner where I sent him. Lemyr was actually terrific, killing I guess 3 ennemies in such a short scenario, despite having to heal, plus 1 more at the very last turn (I nearly forgot him before killing the 2nd leader with Clare, see below).

* At the last turn, after having seen the western leader kill stolen by my ally, quite lucky then, I stole them the 2nd leader kill by Clare herself! Just before that, Lemyr had a moderately lucky last kill, but I could not finish the last 3 ennemies, having no unit able to do so. My ally would probably kill them before me, so I chose to end the scenario since Clare could do so.

* Astonishingly, my level 0 units killed at least 4 ennemies (thus one levelled, and another close to, but one heroic assassin of orcs nearly advanced is dead), without me doing anything to favor that. My ally also had kills by L0s.

This is it.

[*] I noticed that the AI seems to play with daytime cycle much better than it used to, actually very aggressive when their time comes, and quite shy otherwise ;-). But it's the only point where I have ever noticed any improvement; and one can still see an L1 loyalist bowman attacking an L3 outlaw huntsman in the woods, at night and from a flatland hex, lol!
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by James_The_Invisible »

you should write the version in the text shown in the campaign menu, as well as other info like for whom the campaign is intended, number of scenarios, etc.
This is a good idea in general (and many other campaigns do this). Though in the case of version, it would require additional work during release process.
I would like to have an idea of future recruit lists, so as to chose what type to advance to. Hope they are not loyalists (dislike them!).
The recruit list will change multiple times even just in the first chapter. It often includes some loyalists. I can tell you details if you want.
I like the difference and challenge of playing mostly with L0 units, against "normal" sides (except for the remark above), when scenario design is well done, and here it is in my view & experience at playing
Thank you for the compliments :).
However, in a rather uniform landscape except for the river side, what sort of tactics may there be? (I really ask.)
Well, I am not really good at strategy/tactics. Usually I just over-recruit and rush at the enemy :D. Of course I take terrain into consideration.
since ennemies have no scouts (author setting probably?)
Yes, this is intentional (the reason is diversity in scenarios). But they will recruit wolf riders in some later scenarios.

About Lemyr, in my play I keep him out of the fight in this and the following scenario. Horsemen are a bit hard to use and he is too important to die. Second reason is that he will be promoted to level 2 automatically after second scenario.
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by denispir »

This post is on the story of scenario 02_Flight, which I have just played. I first thought I would group all comment since there is much fewer to say, in great part because the first scenario is an introduction to the whole campaign, so that there may be much less to say now about the story, characters, atmosphere... But once again things grew out of control, so this post is only about the story around that scenario (note that I don't touch at all in-game dialogs).

The story part of the scenario is very short! A single sentence:
"The orcs were defeated, but Glacyn’s scouts quickly discovered that the orcs they defeated were a mere vanguard."

This is an oppportunity to place new bits of text contributing to enrich the story or make it harmonious, a lively and immersive whole, which I won't do here. The same applies to all further scenarios (I saw all [story] parts are in a single, separate file), thus I'm preparing another post on the topic.

I also think, and this also holds for further scenarios, that elaborating even a little bit on that bit of story, on the way villagers discovered and realised that frightening & threatening fact ("a mere vanguard"), would help very much; especially *concretising* it. Your words are so brief, vague, or in a sense abstract, disconnected from the concrete world, that we barely have a chance to "image" and "live" this part of the story. Please give our fantasy mind some stuff to feed on ;-).

Below an example, which may not be good in itself, but just tries to illustrate what I mean:

<<<
Thirty-three villagers had passed on the other side of living, of which eight women of the kind that hate being held as weak creatures, may love-and-grace rest with them. The whole village however, after our happy if deadly "victory", breathed an air of trust and maze weirdly mixed together. None of us had ever lived that. Still some kept a cool mind, I must say, not me.

On the night after the battle, a couple of shepherds came to Glacyn and proposed to go scouting the foothills that border our valley northwards, toward the more mountainous orcish lands. As one of them said, "we don't know what else roams up there, we need to know it". Indeed they are the ones who know the landscape better, and pathes or passes that would allow them spying orcish troops with less risk, if there are. I was not the only one to guess that they felt shameful, after having remained up there in pastures along with their herds, while the rest of the village suffered the attacks. Maybe some could think further for the same reason. Three pairs of shepherds left the village on next dawn by three trails, and thankfully they did so.

Lemyr also went scouting, albeit uphill along the river, together with the only other villager that had a mount, namely our miller's widow on her mule, how good a woman she is; or was. They saw nothing.

But shepherds did, and what they told us... This time was the one in my life where I saw all faces turn white around me, I mean all, and I could feel the blood flee my own face. They saw not a plain raiding band like we had fought, they saw a whole group of orcish hordes, they saw hordes marching in order, they saw hordes marching southwards, they saw what we folks of the North had not seen for ages. They saw, what a shepherd's mouth could only call "army"; an orcish army.

Oh, not a mighty dreadful orcish army of the legendary times of the Big Horde, when orcs under the rule of a great leader of theirs swept the most powerful human or elvish forces off the northern lands. And did so, if I may say, for good reason if the tales hold any bit of truth, if they truely suffered the shameful treasons, ghastly slaughters, among other evil deeds we were told of by our elders and still tell our kids, from the Wesnoth king and a heinous elvish highlord of the time; who also fought against each other, ha, ha! Not such an army, sure, but an army still, an army marching southwards...

...where our home valley lies.
>>>

Oops! That is not at all what meant and expected. I meant just providing bare facts: things that are there, things that happen, people, traits, changes, reasons, words said, etc... While this is in fact bigger and more creative than thought before trying to write sth. So, don't take that as an example of what we may need in my view. For a better understanding, think at kids listening to people telling with everyday words and popular style what happened to them last night. They love it, their imagination flows and loves it, and they don't need any kind of poetic style or funny words, do they? (They also don't need much *told* emotions or sentiments, only reasons or evocations, they provide them themselves as soon as they have a chance to do so; actually they will animate a rock if they can. On this point I may force much above, or what?)

But I think it's a good base for you to "remold" according your view of Clare's adventure, and for english native speakers to correct and improve the language. Hope you like it and this helps :) .
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by James_The_Invisible »

There are definitely good ideas here, maybe I will use some of them.
In other news, I have added number of scenarios, overall difficulty level and add-on's version into campaigns' description as you proposed. It will be a part of next version.
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by denispir »

This is a report on playing scenario 2 Flight.
How to play this escape action? It seems obvious, even if maybe wrong, that Lemyr can just rush out of there, not even a pair orcish archers dreadful for riders could stop him, he's too fast and also deadly when charging:
"Lemyr hurled toward the pass leading to the earl's stronghold, bumping a temerary orcish archer off his way. Done. Turn 5 (if I counted well the numbers of hexes ;-))."

To spice up the play a little, take some more XP, and have sth to report here, I did so instead:
* recall/recruit one turn: 2 mages indeed, my poacher advanced from peasant, another peasant nearly advanced just for fun, 2 ew peasants
* run after Lemyr who slowed down by taking villages, mostly of my ally's
* when approaching the ennemy (just at start of night indeed) (ally already fighting, I mean "lossing") prudently expose 1 or 2 units to allow easier killing on next turn, with more units of mine in range
* kill, 2 L1 units, in a single turn of fight ; Clare missed the opportunity to gain 4 XP by killing a level 0 goblin with 17 HP who roamed in range, because she missed 2 strikes, and one of them deals only 8 points of damage (mages are neutral, I always forget that because they often wander along loyalists)
* my well advanced peasant levelled to pikeman
* stop here, because it's already dangerous with a couple of L2 orcish warriors, and my ally could not be in worse position, even just to prevent several of my own units from being funnily cut into slices

All this is just shameful cheating, indeed, since I control the end of scenario with Lemyr, so that poor victims don't even have a chance to revenge my slaughtering them; thus indeed, no loss.
End of scenario on turn 9/15.
Nothing interesting in the stats table, except the anecdote that damages inflicted & taken were high: +31% and +52% above expectations, albeit indeed it was a single turn of fight.

Still not a "funful" scenario even with the little spicing up. How to better spice it? Do other players feel it so as well?
No idea, neither, how to improve the design, if needed. Or maybe yes:
* Since you speak of moving the castles for diversity, why not have ennemies, who are now stronger, or just one side, camped on the other (southern) shore of the river? (moving our alliance sides is less justifiable storywise) Then try...
* The point is Lemyr, supported by a "flight commando, having to force the passage across a limited group of ennemies,
* So there is a kind of "geographical balance" to find
* Have AIs parameterised to send their units, or a group of them, where needed for player fun & challenge
* Maybe we would have to sacrifice 1 or 2 recruits; or maybe it would just help, to make the rest easier
* Think at the HttT scenario where they flee in between ennemy sides
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by James_The_Invisible »

mages are neutral
Level 1 mages are lawful. When they choose to become red mages on level-up, they become neutral. White mages remain lawful.
Since you speak of moving the castles for diversity
The current plan for rearranging positions of enemy castles is described on GitHub. What do you think about it?
The point is Lemyr, supported by a "flight commando, having to force the passage across a limited group of ennemies,
Maybe we would have to sacrifice 1 or 2 recruits
These ideas sound good to me. Maybe I will implement them (not necessarily together).
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by denispir »

Hello James, 2 quick questions about the second battle scenario, Repelling the orcs iirc:
* Is it intended that Glacyn mostly does not recruit? By me, he only recruits a single pikeman or peasant now and then (every nth turn?). And how does this happen? I cannot see any AI setting in scenario code. In any case, if not a bug, the story should tell us so (too many losses and wounds before we arrive in the militia?) because tactics must be totally different without an AI ally to take most damage. I had a quick desastrous first play dues to that. :lol:
* Will the loyalists (4 free riders, recruits by Lemyr) remain by us later? Again, the story should tell us (by the earl or the lieutenant) in my view so that we know how spread XP and advancement. :eng:
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by James_The_Invisible »

Is it intended that Glacyn mostly does not recruit?
His side is persistent so he should recall his units from previous scenarios (if he has enough gold). You know, recalling is more expensive than recruiting (most of) level 1 units so this probably results in him having just a few units. Maybe I should kill all his peasants/woodsman at the end of a scenarios so he can recall/recruit better units.
Will the loyalists (4 free riders, recruits by Lemyr) remain by us later?
Nope. That is why are not the same side as Clare. Actually, I do not see a reason why they should stay. They are Earl's soldiers and he said that they should just "save the village", not stay there indefinitely.
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by denispir »

Is it intended that Glacyn mostly does not recruit?
His side is persistent so he should recall his units from previous scenarios (if he has enough gold). You know, recalling is more expensive than recruiting (most of) level 1 units so this probably results in him having just a few units. Maybe I should kill all his peasants/woodsman at the end of a scenarios so he can recall/recruit better units.
Well, actually, it's not what happens, himself (the unit) and his side (the AI in fact) have a very strange behaviour. And since this obviously seems not due to AI control by WML (I read the scenario code), there may well be some Wesnoth platform bug behind. I also thought at an incompatibility due to you coding on a dev version and me/us rather playing on a std one, but your code looks too simple for that. I have no replays (user params, I never watch replays), but if useful for you to better understand, I will change this setting, (pretend to) replay the scenario and post a replay.

What I expose here is a general impression because I had other things to pay attention to, especially once I had understood he would of no help:
So, what he does if I'm right is wander around his castle aimlessly and once in while jump on his keep to recruit a single unit, either a pikeman or a peasant (of either bow- or fork- weapon flavour). Typically, he'd rush forward on one turn as if he came and help in the battle alone, then move somewhat backwards into a village, then jump on the other side of his castle, finally rush to his keep and recruit a (single) unit. This seems to repete similarly along the whole scenario, but in fact as said I did not watch him constantly. The units he recruits however behave "normally" :lol:, meaning run to the ennemy and suicide (none of them alive at the end, except maybe 1-2 fresh recruits that have not had the time to reach the front, or just came too late to meet an ennemy ;) ).

I now understand that all this is not planned at all, and yourself play and balance another scenario design, as well as other players, which explains the difficulties I met and led me to a rather extreme tactics (very similar to playing against another human), see next post to come soon.

Thank you for paying attention, Jakub,
Denis
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by James_The_Invisible »

That is his strategy! He is trying to make the enemies die from laughing. But jokes aside now.
Maybe he has too less gold so he does not recruit every turn. How many gold does he have at the start of the scenario and what is his income per turn?
Well, but he is not able to recruit pikemen, they must come from his recall list and it should be the case for other units.
Also, I have remembered that I am manually transferring his gold from scenario 2 to 4. I am completely what kind of effect does it have, I will look into it.
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Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by denispir »

This is a report of playing scenario 4 Repelling the Orcs. Other comments on the scenario design will be in another post, because this report is big due to difficulties I met.

As evoked before, and more in detail in the comments to come, I first had a disastrous strategy because I did not know that Glacyn and his side would not engage in the battle at all (except for a single unit recruited now and then). The tactical plan would be similar to the one I used with success during the first battle (scenario 1):
* Send most of the magic gang (Clare's side) north to have it later flank the ennemy by the west.
* Send a couple of sacrifiable recruits to help allies, mainly in the hope of reducing or delaying their losses.
* Here, the free loyalist riders, after having killed the last poor isolated grunt and taken villages, would remain central to help where best used or needed.
* Lemyr's side would move forward without haste and stand during the first night on a frontline using the eastern woods and the villages nearby.
This quickly proved to be catastrophic and I restarted from turn 3, ie once recruitment done, without even playing the second daylight period when I could have attacked. The core issue was that I did not know Glacyn would just watch us fighting and dying...

My second trial was also a partial failure. I still advanced too much before first night, and did not join my 2 sides enough to form a strong and diverse force and frontline. I lost 2 riders quickly, plus one more and an loyalist archer, which is far worse for me (I dislike riders in general). And I was in bad state and position to well profit of the daylight to come. I nevertheless went on playing just to see, and won without major problems but the ones resulting going on from my initial errors.

The main error was to vastly underestimate the huge help an ally AI provides by just "sucking" most damage with all it's suicidal or otherwise badly placed units, and this whatever their health or resistance; plus us playing with that by hiding behind or next to them. Another deep error was, and this is related to the absence of a suicidal ally, not taking enough into account the rather uniform and mostly open terrain landscape. Which potentially causes much more damage and loss due to overall low defense and fast move of ennemy units (eg a centrally placed ennemy may reach either of your frontline ends). My 2 sides' frontlines formed a kind of V with a hole between 2 branches, looked good but did not work well. Also, still I advanced to much before the first night, so-to-say naturally, so that the ennemy could again attack at start night with many units, more than one on each chosen victim.

I was sure one could do better so I gave it a third try. This time, I moved both sides even more toward each other, Lemyr's side in fact moved few and Clare's also slowly, to form a single frontline oriented NW-SW. And the front remained rather distant from ennemies at start of night. (I would have provided a picture, but no way to printscreen with Wesnoth running.) My frontline mixed units of different kinds and levels, sacrifiable ones placed here to preserve valuable ones, and the mix of range and melee fighters facilitating reply on my turn, then counterattack at dawn, but that is nothing new. Additional units, of which both heroes and a rider stood right behing the line, ready to engage for help or damage/kill or replace an injured unit. (I often also place heroes in front of ennemies, since they are often stronger, but here it did not look useful.)

This was very efficient and proved to be winning tactics, actually devastating on the long run. A single rider quickly died, a peasant and a mage severely wounded. The mage was the one close to level up (to healer white mage, precisely), so no issue, it should heal by advancing, but Clare missed too many strikes against a grunt so that this did not happen and I had to heal the mage. I was pretty unlucky during this playing but the tactic was good enough that all went smoothly fine nevertheless.

Globally, this looks more like playing against another human (which I did very few , and only long ago, because of distate of competition), an opponent who thinks really and intuitively, thus will exploit each and every weakness or error of mine.

When daylight came with my counterattack by both sides (again, Glacyn's side was not here to help), I could first kill partially wounded annemies without any risk taken, then the rest of them except for a couple of ennemy units lately recruited by orc leaders. So that not only the ennemy was weakened to the point of me able to win with eyes shut, not only my position was strong to avoid any other loss during next night except for 1-2 level 0 recruited for that role, but i could go on pressing, advancing, and killing a few ennemies. I intentionally mixed the 2 sides when possible for the advantage of unit variety, ending with 2 mages, of which Clare, on the eastern side of the front, and a few loyalists on the western side, not to mention riders wandering around as they like. My healer, then quickly 2 healers, started to give me their usual strongly unfair advantage (even more here, since with such a strong position and many ennemies without any ranged weapon, they could even attack on most turns!).

A key time happened at start of next day (thus around turn 15-16). I had reached the proximity of the river's southern shore, next to both bridges, and could actually cross it at this favorable time-of-day after killing 2-3 remaining ennemies one the way. Problem is that I then had to face the 3 level 2 guards of the western boss and 2 fresh recruits by the eastern one, plus my units couldn't avoid standing in their range: they attacked on their turn. However this worked, without luck, with units strong enough to suffer these attacks, albeit in daylight.

I could quickly assassinate the bodyguards and their leader (maybe a little luck), but the eastern leader refuged in the village north of his keep, in the mountainous range, so that I probably lost 2 turns to finish him, but this gave me more XP by killing the 3 remaining orcs.

I forgot to save the final situation, thus cannot have access to the statistics table of global scenario playing. Well, I must have finished around turn 19-20 (since I crossed the river at start of day as said above). I lost only a rider, thus, and 2-3 level 0 cannon flesh. Killed all ennemy units, but only because the end of scenario was delayed by the last leader refuging uphills. A few turns before the end, after having missed 2 easy kills in a row, I looked at this stats table and noticed a rather slear unluck (for a nearly finished scenario, more than 15 turns, all fighting except a few at start), with -11% damage given and +6% taken, IIRC.

My outlaw bowman, advanced from a level 0 huntsman, advanced again to level 2, and the pikeman I got from a peasant advanced to hallebardier. Both of Clare's friend mages became healers (would never do that if I knew what I can recruit or recall later, but without knowing that, it is certainly best to have at least 2 healers, a really out-of-proportion advantage). One loyalist rider advanced, just so, with no intention of mine for this (riders are boring to play for me). All surviving units got strong XP from kills.

All in all, a pleasant and interesting battle scenario, again well balanced --once you find a viable tactic.
denispir
Posts: 184
Joined: March 14th, 2013, 12:26 am

Re: For Power (0.6.4.1)

Post by denispir »

That is his strategy! He is trying to make the enemies die from laughing. But jokes aside now.
Maybe he has too less gold so he does not recruit every turn. How many gold does he have at the start of the scenario and what is his income per turn?
Well, but he is not able to recruit pikemen, they must come from his recall list and it should be the case for other units.
Also, I have remembered that I am manually transferring his gold from scenario 2 to 4. I am completely what kind of effect does it have, I will look into it.
Forgot to speak of gold, indeed. When I first noticed his behaviour, or rather wondered what the hell my ally was doing, I looked at his data in the status table and indeed, he could well recruit much in theory, having a little more than 100 gold (88 at the very start, as you know). He would have well above 200, despite his few recruits, at end of scenario, if I did not still him all his villages. Poor gnetle ally :D .
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