Panther Lord (EoFM campaign)

[Velensk]

I hope nobody minds me double posting but I cannot look back through what you've edited into your posts in edit mode.

[Edit: Normally I would restart upon loss of a loyal, but I'm playtesting, and I figure if I can beat the campaign without such a valuable loyal, then less experienced players should be able to beat it with that loyal.]

I would rather that you go back and get the unit back, as this is supposed to be an expert level campaign and I would generally expect any expert level player to restart on the loss of a loyal, especially a loyal that can reach level 4.

I have no problem with the viper being cursed on recall (though that said I don't see it as being benefical so I'll probably change it in the next version of EoFM) but I don't consider it a bug, unless it cannot be cured (as was the case of previous posters in this thread).

Zebras standing on the bridge doing nothing is quite common in that scenario. Zebras standing on the bridge with 85% defense is however a bug and a rather odd one. I've looked at the replay file and I cannot find out what's causing it from that, I suspect it's a logic flaw in the curse ability, thanks for pointing it out.

As for stratagies that make scenario 4 easy: I don't really have any that make it easy, only duable without requireing excess luck or pushing the time much. I start by moving out of the wall toward the bridge with the ruined towers and using the River Dragon to poison the guard on the far side of the bridge while my mercenaries bash the first one. I pull back behind the walls for the majority of the second day. Knowing the way the AI works, it's fairly easy to get them to cluster in a way that makes them easy to flank on the second night which if you have a decent number of hurlers will allow you to start killing at a very rapid rate at which point it breaks down into a messy melee but if you can minimise the effects of retainers (through focusing on them, slowing them, and/or feeding them sacrifices) you can come out on top of the enemy force. However, you will take hefty loses going this route, and I suspect that it relies on the player having far more gold than you likely had at your disposal. Dropping the gold of the enemy who recruits the retainers, or alternately liminiting the amount of retainers he can get (but allowing him the level 1 form) seems like it might be a prudent change.

EDIT: I did want there to be many possible strategies in this scenario though, in many ways your technique is more sophisticated than mine which was mostly just a strait forward sally from the castle with some harass.

EDIT: I somewhat question the wisdom of making Daklo a guerilla rather than a militia as he cannot advance to level 3 this way. If this happens to be another thing to test for 'normal' then I would point out that you can tell whether or not a unit can advance by whether or not their xp is marked in purple in the advancement menu. If not, it's your choice and an interesting one (ambush on leader might be useful) but I figured I might as well check.

EDIT2: Another interesting thing though, much of your strategy is dependent on luring enemies to the wall. I specifically tried to design the scenario so that that was not possible. I wonder if the AI works differently on your computer somehow. EDIT3: Not that I think that this is overmuch a problem, I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to remove that potential, it's just different than I had intended and the code shouldn't allow it so I am curious why it is happening.

EDIT2: Sapper description is now fixed. They were originally a unit made for multiplayer and I think it shows in how they are used here. Sappers do not necessarily represent explosive suicidals however that is how I choose to represent them because it is funner than any of the alternatives.

[humanressource]

Good day.

Usually i dont play other eras than default, but your campaigns got me every time so far. As always I enjoy the dialogues and the style of storrytelling a lot. No bugs encountered so far and I had no problems with the difficulty. Until now.

At this point I'm desperatly stuck in the Raid scenario on normal dificulty (11th scenario if I recall right, so I guess it's quite near the end). Either my budget of two keeps full of recalls is too small (ca. 300 gold) or the lost company is not the most optimal choice as a backbone for this scenario.

Here be Spoilers!

Basicly everything runs smooth until i assasinate the leader at around turn 10 and then get overrun by the highlanders. Either the perimeter breaks and everything goes FUBAR or some loyal unit gets ganged. I understand that this is one of the last fights and is supposed to be hard, but maybe you could elaborate on your tactics for this particular scenario. Can't figure it out by myself. Could really the gold be the issue?

Thanks in advance.
HR

[Velensk]

I don't recall much about that scenario as I beat it on my first try but I don't think I had much more than 300 gold. As I recall I blitzed the imperialist leader and took him out rather quickly. I then harassed and generally attempted to disperse his forces while a powerful core held the fort against the enemy wave. I'll go see if I can get a replay.

[Maiklas3000]

I would rather that you go back and get the unit back, as this is supposed to be an expert level campaign and I would generally expect any expert level player to restart on the loss of a loyal, especially a loyal that can reach level 4.

M'kay, done.

I somewhat question the wisdom of making Daklo a guerilla rather than a militia as he cannot advance to level 3 this way. If this happens to be another thing to test for 'normal' then I would point out that you can tell whether or not a unit can advance by whether or not their xp is marked in purple in the advancement menu. If not, it's your choice and an interesting one (ambush on leader might be useful) but I figured I might as well check.

I have not done ":reveal", and I didn't know that Daklo would be stuck at level 2 if I chose Guerilla. (I guess it would show if I hit "profile" once I'm making the choice, but I didn't do that.) I was kinda miffed about it, but he does have an awesome ranged attack, which is why I chose Guerrila. Daklo is "skilled", so the 12-1 ranged attack becomes 12-2. I don't like melee attacking with my leaders, for obvious reasons.

Another interesting thing though, much of your strategy is dependent on luring enemies to the wall. I specifically tried to design the scenario so that that was not possible. I wonder if the AI works differently on your computer somehow. EDIT3: Not that I think that this is overmuch a problem, I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to remove that potential, it's just different than I had intended and the code shouldn't allow it so I am curious why it is happening.

I think it's great now. The enemy stays away annoyingly often, but not predictably so; if you let your guard down, the enemy will attack at your weak points. It has some imperfections, though, in that a Retainer will step forward to the castle, fatally wound a weak unit, and then all the other Retainers just stand around, not going for the killing blow. I also get the impression that they are reluctant to set foot in the castle. Maybe you should tell the AI units to be reluctant to set foot next to the castle, but once a unit is there, it can proceed into the castle, subject to the usual caution.

[Velensk]

What I meant was that even if you don't have -reveal or look at the profile, in the advancement summery window if the XP: is purple, the unit cannot advance, if it is white or any shade of blue it can.

EDIT: Human Resources, I have a replay of that scenario but when I attempt to open it (to check it for corruption) it crashes immediately. I'm going to post it here so that you can try it but if it does not work then tell me and I'll go through the scenario again.

EDIT: As a note, I came in with almost 400 gold but I recruited less units to make up for it.

[Maiklas3000]

I'll edit this post as I play more scenarios...

Scenario 5: Forward Position
(1) What difficulty and version? Normal, 1.9.8, 1.0.1
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 9, difficult tactically and time-wise
(3) How clear? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Good.
(5) Challenges? Where to hide? What, no time to hide, I have to banzai charge?!
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8
(7) Changes? Maybe add one turn on normal.
(8) Restarts? I lost once due to time, with four level 2 cats in the enemy's keep, but unable to kill the leader. I restarted from start.
(9) WML?
(10) Game summary? I sent cats running in all directions to village grab. I sent my main force to the dune to the west of the keep, intending to put the dune to their back. My troops wound up on the west side of the dune in a curved line that followed the edge of the dune, a very odd sight. You'd think it wouldn't be good, with all the possible 3-attacks, but it worked. Occasionally an armadillo would get around the back side, but that's where Siskite was hiding, and she would fry them. I renamed her "Siskite, Slayer of Armadillos". After that, it was a relatively easy walk to kill the leader. Although some cats had rejoined the main army, others kept village grabbing right up to the end, which helped keep the enemy numbers under control (compared to my earlier play.)

Scenario 6: Deep Wood Warriors
(1) What difficulty and version? Normal, 1.9.8, 1.0.1
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 7
(3) How clear? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Disjointed. I didn't follow it. Maybe shorten it.
(5) Challenges? I was ill-prepared to fight a 100% level 2 force with my mostly level 1 force.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 6, suffers from the most common flaw in Wesnoth. You just hole up in good terrain, let the enemy banzai charge into your fortified position, and then have a boring march to kill the enemy leader.
(7) Changes? Change it to use the full recruit list. The recruit list is: "recruit=EFM_Malice,EFM_BeastMan,EFM_DarklanderMilitia,EFM_Stalker"
However, it only recruits Militia and Stalkers. See my post about this general Wesnoth bug. Making the change I suggested there will make it recruit Malice, but not Beast Men (shrug.) Part of the reason the end was so boring was that the enemy leader went negative on gold due to all the level 2's and so couldn't recruit in the mid-game despite the huge income (all the villages but one.) On turn 9, she had -100 gold. On turn 18, due to being reduced to just the enemy leader and a (wounded) Stalker, the enemy finally went positive with 7 gold (not yet enough to recruit). My forces were in the mountains/jungle at the far right, so it was a long uneventful march to the leader. The fact that my units killed her on the last turn didn't really make that long march any more interesting. I do like that your scenarios tend to have a cluster of villages around the enemy fortress, which both makes sense and helps support the enemy's income at the end. However, I would change this scenario to make the enemy focus on village grabbing and to make them fairly cowardly and staying in groups. Time is on their side, as they will get most of the villages initially and there is a turn limit.
(8) Restarts? None.
(9) WML?
(10) Game summary? Like I said, I holed up in the mountain/jungle area just northeast of the keep and let the enemy banzai charge through the swamp into my prepared position. Because I had recalled/recruited mostly level 1's and the enemy recruited only level 2's, I took a lot of losses. I used poison and slow to try to make up for the troop disparity. Towards the end of the battle, my northern flank was on the verge of collapse. I thought of pulling back to a smaller area, but then I realized the enemy was in also in bad shape, so I attacked and then there were only two enemy left on my northern flank, so they couldn't do much. Then came the boring cleanup.

Scenario 7: Vanguard
(1) What difficulty and version? Normal, 1.9.8, 1.0.1
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 9.2, the hardest so far
(3) How clear? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Excellent.
(5) Challenges? Velites, Shock Troops, and Bolters can pick off an important unit.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 9, very challenging, different, cleanup not boring
(7) Changes? More Velites. Description is vague. To be historically accurate, they should be weak level 0 units, I think. They are the penultimate cannon fodder. Or maybe they could be level 1, but with no advancement. Or the level 2 Velites you have now could be renamed "Elite Velites", though I doubt there was ever such a thing.
(8) Restarts? Several losses, restarted from start each time.
(9) WML? Fine, but no comments.
(10) Game summary? I maximized income by recruiting/recalling loyals and level 1's and a Doctor and then waiting to recruit more. I recruited a wide range of units, including a Boatman. The first recruits went south and secured the bridge area, so the enemy would have to attack through marsh (or bridge.) The AI recruited more Velites than usual, which infiltrated and came close to defeating me, but level 4 Siskite is even more effective against Velites than armadillos and prevailed. Meanwhile, the enemy was approaching my keep in the north, so my leader spent the rest of the gold on a handful of mostly high quality units. It was touch-n-go, due to the threat of Shock Troops and Bolters, but this small force performed admirably, retreating by day, then picking off the lead enemy troops by night. The enemy's northern thrust reached my main army just when the enemy's southern thrust had been eliminated, so I didn't need to fight a two front war. Detachments were dispatched to kill the leaders, while the enemy's troops in the north were exterminated. All in all, not a costly victory, but I did lose a just leveled Warlock to a Shock Trooper due to not using planning mode.

[Velensk]

Somewhat interesting receiving your feedback on scenarios you have done in a completely different fashion than I did. Part of it makes me want to tell you that you not having fun is your fault (which isn't quite true but it's an amusing accusation) because you did not try attacking from two directions and spend most the level focusing on leveling boatmen while holding off a split enemy force much closer to the enemy leader than you appear to have been fighting (Of course, that does not make the clean up any less boring just shorter).

I do know how I could make it recruit both malices and beastmen. I don't think that I even remembered that they were supposed to be able to recruit them when I tested through this scenario. I could also make them shyer, but I'd have to see how it tests out.

EDIT: As an irrelevant note, the priest units are all he's not she's.

EDIT: Historical accuracy is not a major objective here. The factions represent nations in a fictional world. The imperialist military is very much based off the roman one however it is not quite the same. In our world, for much of their history the velites were indeed cannon fodder skirmishers the imperialist pelites (and their leveled forms the velites and equites) are a trained and disiplined force. Slingers would be the closer equivalent to the old velites to how they are recruited and the amount of money spent on training and arming them but I used the names of the old velites because the unit I wanted to put on the faction used very similar equipment and was also used as light infantry (compared to the legions) and skirmishing. The name implies how you use them compared to your other infantry and that was why I choose it.

The level three form is also somewhat misused as the equites were in our world simply citizen soldiers or a kind of wealthy militia (IIRC it's been awhile since I've read about the roman military). In the culture I am representing though they merely are the provincials who earn citizenship (but keep fighting anyway because this is wesnoth). In theory, slingers should be able to become them as well but I didn't think that it would fit the mechanics. I choose it because it felt was a step up from velite.

I made up the term pelite because it fit the naming scheme.

I could shuffle/change names around if you feel there may be confusion, but I am not particularly inclined to change the units themselves or rewrite the descriptions to depict out history rather than the culture they actually represent which would look a lot less like the romans (and quite a bit more Chinese actually) if it weren't for the fact that I was using it in a wesnoth campaign which emphasizes their military tactics and expansionist policies which were heavily based on the romans.

[Maiklas3000]

I am stuck on Into the Deepwood. I start with 256 gold. In addition to my Guerilla-Leader, Panther-Spirit and Level 4 Siskite, I have:

L4 2xGranite Spirits (which I bench, because plants are impact resistant)
L3 1xWhisper (which I bench, because plants are pierce resistant)
L3 1xMerchant Lord
L2 1xRetainer (which I bench, because it's slow in jungle)
L2 2xMilitia
L2 1xGuerilla
L2 2xSerpent (which I bench, because plants have regeneration)
L2 6xRiders of all 3 sorts
L2 1xShaman
L2 2xDoctor
L2 1xWasp (which I bench)
L2 2xCatamaran
L1 1xWitch Doctor
L1 1xSapper (which I bench)

I can recruit the usual, including Malice. I can also recruit Alchemists and Regimenteers, but they have mobility problems here.

I first tried my usual charge into disaster up the middle, and actually had initial success, but by the time I got to the first enemy castle, there were 7 Diseased Herbs (L3) within striking distance, and that's only counting the ones I could see. I tried to run, but by then the swarm of Snappers and Armadillos had closed in, and my troops could hardly move.

I next tried holding various lines, where I could be in jungle and force the enemy into dirt (20% defense) or swamp (30% defense), like so:



That line lost 3 units on the enemy's turn, and it wasn't even night.

Then I tried an end-around run, banking on the fact that these plants aren't very fast. I thought I might be able to run counter-clockwise and leave most of them trailing. The problem is that the Entanglers still attack, and then your unit is slowed for the next turn. This makes it hard to keep the whole army moving fast.

[Velensk]

This is going to be tough without more militia/guards and the amount of gold seems low (my save records me as having 319). I had trouble with this one with about 60 more gold and a more ideal unit set (including some malices that were close to leveling). You may need to go back some.

My approach was to begin by sending two squads with cats and a malice each to either side to grab villages (securing/denying income very important here). The malice is to make the ambushes easier to deal with (incidentally, I don't know if you noticed but any hex marked with a great tree starts with an enemy on it). I then spent the rest on elite tribesmen types, priests(malices), leaders, and healers to blitz the close leader with a focus on getting xp to priests (who are tree bane once leveled). Once the wave of black diseased trees arrived I fell back picking them off as I did. I eventually reversed the tide and pushed forward to the enemy castle, recruited some more priests and set about cleaning up cautious of ambushes.

[humanressource]

That one was fun.

If I might suggest a strategy: Get yourself as many Malices and lvl 1 Warriors as you can get and figure out where the Entanglers and other surprises are hidden, to lure them out with some more durable melee units. Then block advancing units with warriors, which are expendable, and slow every heavy hitter before finishing some of the elemental units off with your ranged arcane.

Had a similar starting budget as you, which was even enough to send a pack of three units village grabbing to each flank while the main force went straight north. Made me win the game, and loose a bunch of level 1 units.


Thanks Velensk, I will check that replay as soon as I get my crashed system running. Lost all data but really am looking forward to start the campaign over again

[Velensk]

Malklas, are you still stopped cold or is it just that you havn't had time to play?

[Maiklas3000]

I went back and played the previous two scenarios. Now I start Into the Deepwood with 360 gold, though with only two Militia, two half leveled Tribesmen, one Wrath, and no semi-leveled Malice. I'm still stuck. The best I have done is to survive until turn 24, when my beleageured forces got hit with three Entranglers on one turn.

Edit: Well, the "problem" is that I had turned on the full recruit list that's in the WML. With unchanged files, the enemy never recruits Entanglers, so it's much easier. It's the swarms of Entanglers that was making it hard before. I'm in the middle of a game in progress with the default configuration, and I have assassinated the first enemy leader on turn 6 with a Panther rush, I still have 269 gold, and I assume I will have easy sailing. By the way, your sentinal plants (the ones on the Great Trees) can see nightstalking Panthers (at night). That's a bug, IMO.

[Velensk]

I'll edit this post once I've got a replay in the most recent development version.

[Maiklas3000]

I'll edit this post as I play more scenarios...

Scenario 8: Into the Deepwood
(1) What difficulty and version? Normal, 1.9.8, 1.0.1
(2) How difficult? (1-10) 4, childsplay, unless you modify it to use the full recruit list, then 9.9
(3) How clear? Clear.
(4) Dialog? Excellent at start. At end, this player is too fatigued to listen.
(5) Challenges? Need to learn to not modify it to use the full recruit list.
(6) How fun? (1-10) 8,very novel, good job
(7) Changes? Modify it to use the full recruit list, but with max 1 Entangler per turn. And Entanglers should cost at least 150% of their Dark Herb relatives.
(8) Restarts? I lost every time until I switched to the original config, letting it recruit no Entanglers.
(9) WML?
(10) Game summary? I recruited Panthers and ready-to-level Jags the first round and rushed them to the closest enemy leader, who was dead on the sixth round. Unfortunately, one cheetah blocked my leader from reaching the enemy keep, and due to overwhelming enemy in the area my leader had to retreat back to his original keep, still loaded with 269+ gold. A fairly bloody conflict ensued in the southwest, but once it was over I was able to march on the last two enemy leaders. They fell on the second to last turn.

[Velensk]

Glad I read that post before I continued onward.

I had thought that I'd removed the entanglers from the recruit list entirely as they made it too hard to keep malices alive and much the point of this level was to give you a chance to level a few of them up. I don't really feel inclined to add them back in.

For what it's worth, I didn't have much trouble with Vanguard at all but I had a ton of trouble with that level even without the entanglers. Shows how much styles differ.