EI - Evacuation: Frustration level critical.

Post by **Zhukov** » March 13th, 2006, 12:57 pm

Okay, as the new thread title suggests, this level is still giving me hell

.

My recall list is almost the same as the one one the first post, except one extra Young Ogre and one Swordsman have leveled up.
First the good: I have enough gold to recall (and thus save) every unit on my list. Also, I managed to rush the NorthEast Orc leader on the second turn, so that's one enemy out of the equation.

Now the bad: I can handle the south Orc army without to many problems, but when coupled with the trolls it's pretty impossible. If I focus on the Orc, the trolls (about 3 Trolls and 5 Troll Warriors!!!:shock:) completely massacre my rear. And the other way around, focus on trolls and the orcs rip into me. The obvious answer woulf be to split my forces. But that way, by the time I have dealt with the Orcs, I have nowhere near enough time to break through the nearly impervious troll battle line. As it is, it's nearly impossible to beak through them without massive casualties.

Flanking the enemy is not an option because it just draws them into the hills and Northeners rule the hills (Orcs with movement, Trolls with defence). Also it would seem that the time limit does not allow me to do anything but constantly attack. I can't afford a single 'slow turn'. But (as I think any decent player will say) engaging Orcs/Trolls at night with Loyalist units is virtually suicide.

This is on medium difficulty. I play with a "minimum casualties" approach (haven't lost any units so far in this campaign

) I haven't had to ask for help before, but I'm just all out of ideas for this one. No tactic I can think of will work.

In a single word: HELP!!

Post by **turin** » March 13th, 2006, 3:47 pm

Uh... why are you trying to fight the orcs when you should be running?

SmokemJags · Post by **SmokemJags** » March 13th, 2006, 8:36 pm

I'd help, but I actually gave up on this campaign at this point. Frustration factor was through the roof.

Ailurus · Post by **Ailurus** » March 13th, 2006, 10:35 pm

Well, I only did it on Easy, and this approach would violate your no-losses approach bigtime, but it worked.

Don't remember my exact recall list, but it was something like an Iron Mauler, archmage, silver mage, mage of light, lancer, knight, halberdier, maybe a few others.

Recalled all the units I wanted to save in the half of the encampment closest to the bridge, and stuffed the other half with heavy infantry. (I would reccomend using your four shock troopers for that, assuming you aren't too attached). On turn 2, I then moved most of the heavy infantry to the two closest encampments, used the knight and lancer to be an initial screen for the lower base, with the last two HIs and my Iron Mauler moving up behind them, and sent the mages and necessary units running for the bridge - keeping the HI in the encampment or on rocks is imporant, as long as they get the orcs attention - every unit they can hold helps a lot. A couple turns of orc attacks pretty much obliterated my HI fodder units, and killed the lancer, but most everyone was at or on the bridge by then. Used the iron mauler to hold the line while the remaining surivors crossed, but unfortunatly he was poisoned and beaten in the head by big trolls, so he didn't make it. End result was I saved my mages, knight, halberd and the campaign heroes.

(Note - I don't know if this is enough for the next level though, since most of my gold, and part of my already small recall list didn't make it. Run into a bug on the next scenario saying 'unit not found - Lord'. Think I found a fix in the forums but haven't had a chance to fix it yet)

kiet · Post by **kiet** » March 14th, 2006, 6:01 am

turin wrote:Uh... why are you trying to fight the orcs when you should be running?

Yeah,run for your lives!
But there are another way to win.There is a way you can cheat in this mission,the troops only dies if THEY GET LEFT IN THE OTHER SIDE,but they didnÃ‚Â´t mean the river.So fastest troops ended in the river while my slowest troops,a couple of Iron Mauler.Manage to bash all the attackers and flee to the other side.That means you must concentrate on sending your slowest troops to the over side of the river fast(including engineer)
I have a lot of gold so I bought a couple of HI to slow the north orcs down since their Goblin Pillager cause me a lot of problem(slow me down).So,you should defend your slow troops with your fast troops,saw that you had some.Then this mission will be....................Quite easy!

Post by **Zhukov** » March 22nd, 2006, 5:32 am

Still plugging away at this scenario. Still getting cleaned up.

It basically comes down to: If I flee I get blocked by trolls and slaughtered, if I fight aggresively I get hit in the rear by whichever enemy I don't focus on, if I fight cautiously I run out of turns and if I split my forces I cannot break through the enemy in time.

So...
Is there anyone out there who has a replay of beating Evacuation?

Is there anyone else out there who found this level needlessly hard?

Turin, are you open to suggestions for changes? (If so, would you prefere me to post them here or in the other forum?)

kiet · Post by **kiet** » March 22nd, 2006, 5:40 pm

Zhukov wrote: Still plugging away at this scenario. Still getting cleaned up.

It basically comes down to: If I flee I get blocked by trolls and slaughtered, if I fight aggresively I get hit in the rear by whichever enemy I don't focus on, if I fight cautiously I run out of turns and if I split my forces I cannot break through the enemy in time.

So...
Is there anyone out there who has a replay of beating Evacuation?

Is there anyone else out there who found this level needlessly hard?

Turin, are you open to suggestions for changes? (If so, would you prefere me to post them here or in the other forum?)

Well,finished the level as I meantioned before in Medium too.I had a lot of advanced troops too.But the good thing is that I doesnt have an Iron Mauler that slows you down so much.Instead I had a Great Mage which blow any troll to pieces.Plus two Royal Guards that come in handy this mission.In your situation,I think you should recruit some HI as a bait,placing them in different villages far from the brigde.Since the AI has an attitude to pick on the weak,theyll ignore all your leveled up units and chase the HI instead.Exept those Goblin Pillagers who slow down your none ranging units(Royal Guards,Iron Mauler,Horse Lord) but using that technique you should be able to get out of that mission with many of your troops alive.Or at best all of them as I had.
Anyway,4 HI or more is good.

Post by **turin** » March 22nd, 2006, 10:34 pm

Zhukov wrote:Turin, are you open to suggestions for changes? (If so, would you prefere me to post them here or in the other forum?)

Sure. IIRC, I posted an Evacuation scenario review in the Campaign Review forum - post them there.

Ailurus · Post by **Ailurus** » March 27th, 2006, 12:38 pm

Don't know if you still want the replay, Zhukov, but here is one. version 1.1.1, medium difficulty.

Two notes:
1) The iron mauler on the bridge does make it to the next scenario. On the subject of the maulers, I disagree with kiet - I think he is useful. Just sending everyone out at max speed means your first couple units get clobbered by the two trolls closest to the bridge. And you need someone to hold the bridge at the end, and who better than a mauler?

2) If I was actually using this replay to go on with the campaign, I'd probably try it again, in the hopes that the white mage gets out alive (swinging the dragoon over to that side of the box, or keeping the knight there and hoping Gweddry can take a hit or two without dying)

kiet · Post by **kiet** » March 28th, 2006, 8:06 pm

Ailurus wrote:Don't know if you still want the replay, Zhukov, but here is one. version 1.1.1, medium difficulty.

Two notes:
1) The iron mauler on the bridge does make it to the next scenario. On the subject of the maulers, I disagree with kiet - I think he is useful. Just sending everyone out at max speed means your first couple units get clobbered by the two trolls closest to the bridge. And you need someone to hold the bridge at the end, and who better than a mauler?

2) If I was actually using this replay to go on with the campaign, I'd probably try it again, in the hopes that the white mage gets out alive (swinging the dragoon over to that side of the box, or keeping the knight there and hoping Gweddry can take a hit or two without dying)

I didnt say they were useless but since i have so many quick units it was needlessly for me to have one or two

Rushlock · Post by **Rushlock** » March 28th, 2006, 11:21 pm

This one is kicking my butt as well

My recall list:

4x IM
1x Cav
And then the mandetory chars.

Now I am trying to run, infact I never attack, but I'm still losing my lvl 3 units and I'd rather not if at all possible. I recruit 4x HI's as decoys, which ties Blue up fine. But the combined forces of Green/Yellow are still enough to swarm us and kill 2 of my IM's before crossing the bridge.

My best so far is getting across with all but 2 IM's which died en route.

Suggestions?

EDIT: Ok, I've searched and read some other threads on the topic.

Turin intended the player to lose ALOT of troops, so I guess my 2 loses isn't that bad for what's expected. Can't say I care for the scenario.

Post by **turin** » March 29th, 2006, 2:06 am

Well... only 5 leveled units seems like a rather small amount. Do you have any level 2s?

If you're not playing on EASY, I would think that that's your problem.

If you're playing on easy.... well, I might make EASY a bit easier when I get the chance.

Flametrooper · Post by **Flametrooper** » March 29th, 2006, 5:05 am

It seems like playing on EASY is the only option in this campaign if you want to actually have fun and level some stuff, and even then, that's not always possible...

Big Bad Joe · Post by **Big Bad Joe** » March 29th, 2006, 1:27 pm

I am playing on easy 102 and it is not easy at all. This level is really hellish. I have the same problems as Zhukov and it seems that my problem is that I have so many leveled units. It takes me two turns to recall them all. Bottom orc is able to block my way by assasins and the troll keeps recruiting lvl. 2 or 3. trolls all the time. I finally beat it with heavy losses by killing all enemies, much better than trying to run from them. Anyway I already replied about this campaign in EI thread..

Do not want to put down what kiet is saying, but I bet that he does not have the power of units as I do ( 3 MoL, 4 IM, 1 Pal, 2 GM, 1 Dragoon, Gwed l.4, Owaec l.3, 1 Silv. M and some lvl.2s) , it seems that it is more about the computer tactics than your force.

Rushlock · Post by **Rushlock** » March 29th, 2006, 11:07 pm

I am indeed on "easy" and yes, that's my whole force. I've played the whole campaign thus far with only 5 units + mandetory ones. Perhaps thats my problem?

Regardless, I agree that even on the easy difficulty, that this scenario is still anything but