Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

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shevegen
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by shevegen »

Props to that - I'd never have the patience to do so. Sometimes I just make silly mistakes and
then I get annoyed and ragequit as-is. I do, however had, also accept the death of units, so
I don't always reload either. :P

Sometimes you may notice you went the wrong way or wasted too much time somewhere, so
reloading may be necessary to avoid getting stuck. Knowledge about the map for example;
it gets much easier when the map is known to the player.
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Atreides
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by Atreides »

shevegen wrote: May 16th, 2021, 5:39 am Props to that - I'd never have the patience to do so. Sometimes I just make silly mistakes and
then I get annoyed and ragequit as-is. I do, however had, also accept the death of units, so
I don't always reload either. :P

Sometimes you may notice you went the wrong way or wasted too much time somewhere, so
reloading may be necessary to avoid getting stuck. Knowledge about the map for example;
it gets much easier when the map is known to the player.
Sometimes my old and shaky fingers fumble and I send a unit where it will die needlessly. That of course is always a valid reason to go back and redo it.
Somedays too I start a saved game and play, well, stupidly. I rush or don't bother to aquaint myself with the situation as I left it. Also a valid reason to quit and load the save again.
wesnothpoet
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by wesnothpoet »

Atreides wrote: May 8th, 2021, 8:42 pm Permadeath. Ah that's what you call it. It's the only way I know to play. :) I've pretty much forsaken campaigns as a result. Not because I believe it impossible for me to get through a campaign but because I don't have fun playing with that much stress.

Curious about that mod now. The name makes me think it is something completely different!
Indeed I did not invent the term, I took it from here (along with inspiration for my quest):

https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?t=47709
wesnothpoet
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by wesnothpoet »

shevegen wrote: May 16th, 2021, 5:39 am Props to that - I'd never have the patience to do so. Sometimes I just make silly mistakes and
then I get annoyed and ragequit as-is. I do, however had, also accept the death of units, so
I don't always reload either. :P

Sometimes you may notice you went the wrong way or wasted too much time somewhere, so
reloading may be necessary to avoid getting stuck. Knowledge about the map for example;
it gets much easier when the map is known to the player.
Of course I played through each campaign at least once completely before clearing it on permadeath, and often several times. This means I knew about all the maps, possible surprises, challenges etc. so most of my strategy was mapped out beforehand. Still it is not easy to do it without reloads...
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Atreides
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by Atreides »

What would be interesting is to make a list of campaigns that are not designed to require cheating to play.

The novice/beginner mainline quests I think just qualify. I played them while still a newbie so they did seem too hard at the time. But I suspect they qualify.

Also these addon campaigns I found winnable without cheating:
Sand in the Wind
In the Ring
Beastly Tale
Merry Christmas
Price of Capture
wesnothpoet
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by wesnothpoet »

Atreides wrote: May 18th, 2021, 3:17 pm What would be interesting is to make a list of campaigns that are not designed to require cheating to play.

The novice/beginner mainline quests I think just qualify. I played them while still a newbie so they did seem too hard at the time. But I suspect they qualify.

Also these addon campaigns I found winnable without cheating:
Sand in the Wind
In the Ring
Beastly Tale
Merry Christmas
Price of Capture
What do you qualify as "cheating"? Reloads, knowing the maps beforehand, borrowing other ppls strategy, etc.? I guess I showed that the intermediate campaigns *can* be done without reloads even on the hardest difficulty, but some of the expert campaigns appear too difficult for me. I've been trying to do Son of the Blackeye without reloads on the *easiest* difficulty (though it's called "Challenging") but even that is proving hard.
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Atreides
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by Atreides »

wesnothpoet wrote: May 19th, 2021, 1:10 pm
Atreides wrote: May 18th, 2021, 3:17 pm What would be interesting is to make a list of campaigns that are not designed to require cheating to play.

The novice/beginner mainline quests I think just qualify. I played them while still a newbie so they did seem too hard at the time. But I suspect they qualify.

Also these addon campaigns I found winnable without cheating:
Sand in the Wind
In the Ring
Beastly Tale
Merry Christmas
Price of Capture
What do you qualify as "cheating"? Reloads, knowing the maps beforehand, borrowing other ppls strategy, etc.? I guess I showed that the intermediate campaigns *can* be done without reloads even on the hardest difficulty, but some of the expert campaigns appear too difficult for me. I've been trying to do Son of the Blackeye without reloads on the *easiest* difficulty (though it's called "Challenging") but even that is proving hard.
Reloads, walkthroughs is what I count as cheating and what I won't do personally. What I do allow myself is to play a scenario more than once if I can't beat it on the first try. I'm not "happy" about that but some campaigns have 20 scenarios! Also I guess once I pass a scenario I consider it as in the can. Of course I am free to go back several scenarios and start further back if I realize that I failed to achieve some critical thing somewhere back.
Ideally... :) being able to get through a campaign in one go (only ever going forward) would be what I consider perfect. It is pretty stressful though and I don't really enjoy campaigns much as a result.
wesnothpoet
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by wesnothpoet »

Atreides wrote: May 19th, 2021, 9:28 pm Reloads, walkthroughs is what I count as cheating and what I won't do personally. What I do allow myself is to play a scenario more than once if I can't beat it on the first try. I'm not "happy" about that but some campaigns have 20 scenarios! Also I guess once I pass a scenario I consider it as in the can. Of course I am free to go back several scenarios and start further back if I realize that I failed to achieve some critical thing somewhere back.
Ideally... :) being able to get through a campaign in one go (only ever going forward) would be what I consider perfect. It is pretty stressful though and I don't really enjoy campaigns much as a result.
Something I really enjoyed while playing campaigns many times was to try different strategies on different maps. Sometimes a strategy that you think is decent turns out to be not nearly as good as some other strategy that you have yet to discover ;) That said, occasionally when I was really stuck did I look for replays by other players (whenever available, mostly on HttT I think). The campaigns that I'm most proud of are those for which there was basically no strategy available at all, or I had to think of completely different strategies, so the strategy for the entire campaign was basically "my own".

A big part of my exercise is to discover risk-free strategies that allow you to minimize losses (and stress) while playing campaigns without reloads. However, on some maps there simply isn't any risk-free strategy and the only option is to be aggressive or take your chances anyway.
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max_torch
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by max_torch »

Atreides wrote: May 8th, 2021, 8:42 pm Curious about that mod now. The name makes me think it is something completely different!
There are examples of the term "hardcore mode" meaning permadeath in the context of computer games. In Diablo II, if you create a "hardcore" character that character is a permadeath character and will not respawn upon death.
shevegen
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by shevegen »

> - Unlimited number of restarts, which I sometimes exploited to get unit traits that I wanted (quick
> being the most common).

I also like quick, in particular on units that are already quite fast and useful such as elven ranger.

I think the reload trick should ideally not be necessary though. Either make the other attributes
a bit more useful; and/or give some way to change the traits during a campaign before a scenario
begins, against some hefty gold investment or something. Perhaps traits should be renamed to skills
and become more learnable. But I guess the devs want to keep the game super-simple at all times.
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max_torch
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by max_torch »

wesnothpoet wrote: March 26th, 2020, 3:57 pm Though very frustrating at times, I also learned a lot of new strategies, and I've saved all replays in case anyone is interested, even though there is no way to prove that I did not reload. For HttT I borrowed strategies from other users for several scenarios, but for most intermediate campaigns I had to come up with my own strategies.
Interested in those replays, can you share them?
Zrevnur
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by Zrevnur »

max_torch wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:51 pm
wesnothpoet wrote: March 26th, 2020, 3:57 pm Though very frustrating at times, I also learned a lot of new strategies, and I've saved all replays in case anyone is interested, even though there is no way to prove that I did not reload. For HttT I borrowed strategies from other users for several scenarios, but for most intermediate campaigns I had to come up with my own strategies.
Interested in those replays, can you share them?
If you are looking for "permadeath" (no reload or scenario-restart during campaign) replays: All my replays in the Gameplay Feedback forum are from such playthroughs.
wesnothpoet
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by wesnothpoet »

max_torch wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:51 pm
wesnothpoet wrote: March 26th, 2020, 3:57 pm Though very frustrating at times, I also learned a lot of new strategies, and I've saved all replays in case anyone is interested, even though there is no way to prove that I did not reload. For HttT I borrowed strategies from other users for several scenarios, but for most intermediate campaigns I had to come up with my own strategies.
Interested in those replays, can you share them?
Sure can, here are a few of the intermediate campaigns. Remember that the version I played is 1.12.6.
DW-hard-perma.zip
(444.26 KiB) Downloaded 58 times
DM-hard-perma.zip
(1.02 MiB) Downloaded 57 times
DiD-hard-perma.zip
(641.02 KiB) Downloaded 63 times
LoW-hard-perma.zip
(1.91 MiB) Downloaded 62 times
EI-hard-perma.zip
(632.07 KiB) Downloaded 54 times
THoT-hard-perma.zip
(475.04 KiB) Downloaded 56 times
wesnothpoet
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Re: Novice+intermediate campaigns on permadeath

Post by wesnothpoet »

max_torch wrote: September 15th, 2021, 3:51 pm
wesnothpoet wrote: March 26th, 2020, 3:57 pm Though very frustrating at times, I also learned a lot of new strategies, and I've saved all replays in case anyone is interested, even though there is no way to prove that I did not reload. For HttT I borrowed strategies from other users for several scenarios, but for most intermediate campaigns I had to come up with my own strategies.
Interested in those replays, can you share them?
And here are Scepter of Fire and Heir to the Throne, though I guess the latter has been played to death... I can also share the other novice campaigns, though they are significantly easier and even intermediate players should be able to do them on permadeath with a little practice.
SoF-hard-perma.zip
(410.25 KiB) Downloaded 61 times
HttT-hard-perma.zip
(1.56 MiB) Downloaded 56 times
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