my Outpost hurts Hard

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frod

my Outpost hurts Hard

Post by frod »

Eastern invasion - first mission - The Outpost

Medium
130g
<20 enemies

Hard
80g
>40 enemies

I'm sure i'm missing something, so if someone can enlighten me, i've got no clue how to do this campaign's first mission on hard. My best try was actually the first but.... when my buddy mage came back i was in the upper left corner of the map with ~20 undeads between me and the trap door, ~5 running after a horsie, and some more partying about their imminent victory.

I've tried various formations of heavys/spearmen to keep evil away, fighting or slowing, tried some leader run arounds, and so on, but if i want to be alive by turn 12, i haven't been able to have my guy anywhere close to the keep...

So.... anyone got clues for this confused boy?
Blarumyrran
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Post by Blarumyrran »

i agree its a really gruesome level.

when i played it on hard, i went to the immediate west of the river (not north) with my leader and all my army (almost all HI, 1 or 2 mages too, dont remember. i couldnt afford hiring other units since while i might have got villages with cavalry, the undead reach the castle too early for you to see the benefit of that). the skeletons reached them during beginning of day. (if you stay in castle, youll be down before night's over) and skeletons attack from the river. which does get you some kill score. but even then you probably need a load of luck.

try to get the enemies concentrate on HI, so you might get to the trapdoor with leader with a small way around them.
frod

Post by frod »

Thanks for the tip, i'll try that... again, but i did try something like it and the sheer number of badies overwhelmed me in the end. Heavys are 19g and mages 20g and with an initial gold of 80g and income of 14g and the undeads getting to my units on turn... 5 or 6....

Anyway, i'll try that later..........

Actually quickly tried it and got rather close, thanks for the tip... i wish i had 20g more for one more trooper, with so few i think i'll need to either get lucky and need to almost never miss or save/load like crazy (yuck :( ).
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zookeeper
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Post by zookeeper »

Well, it's entirely possible the hard difficulty just hasn't been balanced properly, resulting in it being too hard in some places. Specific suggestions (gold of enemies mostly, I guess) on how to fix these are welcome.
frod

Post by frod »

Hum... i don't know really, this is actually my first game on hard. Since last year i've done most other scenarios on medium (wow at burning suns btw, by far my favorite, i'll probably want to do it again on hard later on) and i thought i had become proficient considering how handily i beat the orc/undead ones recently, so i thought it was time i moved up, and that scenario with a potential level 4 leader with leadership seems like it could be reaaallllyyy fun.

So anyway, this scenario, with no showing enemy moves and fast attacks, takes <15mins if you want to quickly look at it. Seems to me that with 20g extra it might be possible to get a not luck based win (i'd likely finish with max 3 units alive besides the 2 leaders if i dont save/load), with 40g i might actually be able to defend the keep (really not sure but perhaps), and with something like 100g extra there would be WAR!!!

Moving the exit point to the western edge of the map would make the scenario possible to win on first try for someone like me who hasnt played it before. Also making l2/3 units available for recruitment later on at reasonable prices would make troop deaths less campaign breaking and reflect the improved status of the leader i suppose, that might be a suggestion for later on if it seems alright.
tobbe
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Post by tobbe »

I agree with frod, that mission is really tough, but this is true for the next missions,too...

After a couple of tries and reloads I finally managed to complete, with a strategy like syntax used it, maybe a bit diffrent:

First four rounds, i didnt recruit anything and grabed another village with my hero and ran back. With this extra money I was able to recruit 7 HIs and ran west to use syntax "kill them in the river tactic"...you have to move some HI a bit north and south, to keep most of the undead from reaching the bridge. Dont be afraid to lose some HI, their only purpose is keep the undead away. Around turn 10/11 Fokus on killing undead near the bridge, so that your hero can run to the trapdoor immediately, once the mage arrives.....
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Post by tobbe »

I agree with frod, that mission is really tough, but this is true for the next missions,too...

After a couple of tries and reloads I finally managed to complete, with a strategy like syntax used it, maybe a bit diffrent:

First four rounds, i didnt recruit anything and grabed another village with my hero and ran back. With this extra money I was able to recruit 7 HIs and ran west to use syntax "kill them in the river tactic"...you have to move some HI a bit north and south, to keep most of the undead from reaching the bridge. Dont be afraid to lose some HI, their only purpose is keep the undead away. Around turn 10/11 Fokus on killing undead near the bridge, so that your hero can run to the trapdoor immediately, once the mage arrives.....
tobbe
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Post by tobbe »

I agree with frod, that mission is really tough, but this is true for the next missions,too...

After a couple of tries and reloads I finally managed to complete, with a strategy like syntax used it, maybe a bit diffrent:

First four rounds, i didnt recruit anything and grabed another village with my hero and ran back. With this extra money I was able to recruit 7 HIs and ran
west to use syntax "kill them in the river tactic"...you have to move some HI a bit north and south, to keep most of the undead from reaching the bridge. Dont be afraid to lose some HI, their only purpose is keep the undead away. Around turn 10/11 Fokus on killing undead near the bridge, so that your hero can run to the trapdoor immediately, once the mage arrives.....
Dreamteam
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Re: my Outpost hurts Hard

Post by Dreamteam »

I beat it on hard (no reloads, v1.14.7) after trying various unsuccessful strategies (defending the castle, advancing E to defend the towns, kiting the enemy w/ cavalry, using spearmen, etc). Once I had honed it down, it took me 2 attempts, but the strategy is solid allowing a win even if you get a bit unlucky. Here's what I did:

Strategy: Take refuge in the western forest and kill undead as they cross the river during the daylight hours till turn 10 (dusk), then punch a hole through the enemy at the bridge on turn 11 (night 1), so Gweddry can immediately exit the trapdoor on turn 12 (night 2).

Some observations:
  • Take note of Dacyn's starting position. He disappears on turn 7, but on turn 12 the trapdoor exit appears in his starting hex, while Dacyn himself reappears 1 hex N of there. He will heal any friendly units who happen to be in adjacent hexes at the beginning of turn 12, so you might use this to your advantage.
  • If you try and defend the town, the HI defend at 50% the undead defend at 40%. Worse, the attack starts in the middle of the night, which is the most brutal.
  • If you defend on the W side of the river, most undead can't reach it till dawn, so you get to fight off the main attack during daylight. HI defend in woods at 40%, but undead crossing the river defend at only 20%. You want every hit to count during daylight, so this advantage is huge.
  • If you can manage to hold on to at least 2 of the 3 villages to the E/SE of the city till the start of turn 5 (ie. keep a total of 12+ villages), you will have just enough cash to recruit a total of 7 HI and 2 Mages before having to pull Gweddry back W of the river.
  • Mages can sometimes tank nicely inside a city/village if they don't get mobbed by enemies, and recruiting them seems to discourage the AI from spamming bats (bats can really ruin your day in this scenario).
  • Gweddry acts like a magnet for enemy units being the primary 'target' of the AI. This means wherever Gweddry goes on the map, the AI will swarm most undead in that general direction. You can use this to your advantage (somewhat) to kite the majority of undead to where you want them to go. In our case, we want them to try and cross the river where/when they are most vulnerable.
Turn 1 (dawn): Recruit 4 HI and 2 mages, Dacyn heads SE.
Turn 2 (day 1): Slow HI start moving across the bridge. Quick HI can move SW to the river/village there. Magi/Dacyn occupy the 3 villages E of the city to defend them from bats.
Turn 3 (day 2): HI take up positions in the woods W of the bridge. HI to the SW start crossing the river. Gweddry recruits a 5th HI.
Turn 4 (dusk): Having done their job protecting the villages from bats, the 2 mages fall back on the city. Dacyn stays to keep at least one of these villages in friendly hands for 1 more turn. Gweddry recruits 6th HI.
Turn 5 (night 1): Magi fall back to the river bridge. HI are now mostly in place W of river. Having done his job, Dacyn retreats W along the safest route. Gweddry recruits the seventh and last HI (gold now = 0) to delay undead near the city, then he falls back to the village SW near the river too (to kite the AI towards the river S of the bridge).
Turn 6 (night 2): Dacyn disappears. Our forces now defend the entire forest on W bank of the river. The first undead reach the bridge, but most of our units are still unreachable.
Turn 7 (dawn): Counterattack at the bridge. Hold the river bank. Undead start crossing the river in force.
Turns 8-9 (day): Make every attack count. Kill anything crossing the river. Heal up badly wounded HI in the villages (if there are no targets left).
Turn 10 (dusk): Start shifting your defenders N towards the bridge in a fighting withdrawal. Clear the bridge and move some units to reoccupy the city. Keep Gweddry safe, but within 1 move of the bridge.
Turn 11: (night 1): Get Gweddry into the city if you can, or protected by HI at the bridge if you can't. Move wounded units into a defensive ring round where Dacyn appears and/or protect Gweddry's flanks in the city.
Turn 12: (night 2): Dacyn reappears, healing any nearby units. Farm some final xp by killing badly wounded enemies. Move Gweddry to the trapdoor. You win!
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josteph
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Re: my Outpost hurts Hard

Post by josteph »

Dreamteam wrote: July 11th, 2019, 7:33 pm I beat it on hard (no reloads, v1.14.7) after trying various unsuccessful strategies (defending the castle, advancing E to defend the towns, kiting the enemy w/ cavalry, using spearmen, etc). Once I had honed it down, it took me 2 attempts, but the strategy is solid allowing a win even if you get a bit unlucky. Here's what I did:

Strategy: Take refuge in the western forest and kill undead as they cross the river during the daylight hours till turn 10 (dusk), then punch a hole through the enemy at the bridge on turn 11 (night 1), so Gweddry can immediately exit the trapdoor on turn 12 (night 2).
Thanks for sharing that.
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Dreamteam
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Re: my Outpost hurts Hard

Post by Dreamteam »

josteph wrote: July 12th, 2019, 9:18 am
Open if you have met the Red Mage:
TBH I think all scenarios in all campaigns on hard depend on meta-game knowledge, especially if you are trying to do a no-reload run. If reloading is allowed, you can just keep reloading to correct your mistakes till you win, which isn't that difficult to do at all. The fact that it CAN be beaten on hard without reloading I feel shows the scenario is balanced (but still brutal).

That said, in the reply above, two of my HI died just before they were about to level-up, and those were my only quick HI. That's a ton of xp lost, plus quick HI are nice to have in the Escape Tunnel scenario, so I might have problems later due to lack of lvl 2 units. We'll see...
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Re: my Outpost hurts Hard

Post by josteph »

Dreamteam wrote: July 13th, 2019, 2:56 pm TBH I think all scenarios in all campaigns on hard depend on meta-game knowledge, especially if you are trying to do a no-reload run. If reloading is allowed, you can just keep reloading to correct your mistakes till you win, which isn't that difficult to do at all.
:hmm: I've only played about half the mainline campaigns so far, and I've been wanting to do unseen, no-reload playthroughs of the remaining campaigns at the highest difficult. Sounds like I should do the those playthroughs at medium difficulty....
Dreamteam wrote: July 13th, 2019, 2:56 pm That said, in the reply above, two of my HI died just before they were about to level-up, and those were my only quick HI. That's a ton of xp lost, plus quick HI are nice to have in the Escape Tunnel scenario, so I might have problems later due to lack of lvl 2 units. We'll see...
One or two losses shouldn't matter in the long run...
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Re: my Outpost hurts Hard

Post by gnombat »

josteph wrote: July 15th, 2019, 12:28 pm
Dreamteam wrote: July 13th, 2019, 2:56 pm TBH I think all scenarios in all campaigns on hard depend on meta-game knowledge, especially if you are trying to do a no-reload run. If reloading is allowed, you can just keep reloading to correct your mistakes till you win, which isn't that difficult to do at all.
:hmm: I've only played about half the mainline campaigns so far, and I've been wanting to do unseen, no-reload playthroughs of the remaining campaigns at the highest difficult. Sounds like I should do the those playthroughs at medium difficulty....
Some games will actually block access to the hardest difficulty level until the player has successfully completed everything on an easier difficulty.

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnlockableDifficultyLevels

I'm not saying that Battle for Wesnoth should do this (personally i think it's kind of a gimmicky feature), but nonetheless it suggests that the hardest difficulty level is usually designed for replay value, rather than something most players will want to try the first time through.
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Re: my Outpost hurts Hard

Post by beetlenaut »

Strangely, this campaign is only called "challenging" on the hardest difficulty level. It should at least be called "difficult". I haven't played it in years, so I'm not sure, but maybe it should even be "nightmare".
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Re: my Outpost hurts Hard

Post by Gweddeoran »

By the way, the campaign is now called a novice level campaign for some extremely bizarre reason.
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