What seperates the best players from the newbies?

[player]

If you mean how long have they played, I think you are wrong. IMO, time doesn't matter.

[La_vie_en_Wose]

Time ?

What do you mean?

Time to understand how the game works and to get experimented.

If you mean how long have they played, I think you are wrong. IMO, time doesn't matter.

That's right because I didn't mention that a good player read the rules instead of the bad one.

[Dave]

Every instance you guys describe as seperating a "newbie" from an "expert" is, quite frankly, pretty obvious. And by "pretty obvious" I mean "halfway through their very first campaign obvious".

"Don't use a lawful archer to fire his bow at a chaotic skeleton at night."

Right. This is the sort of thing that a 'decent' player knows. (Actually the cited example is something that anyone who has played almost any fantasy RPG knows. ).

If it was easy to cite simple rules that 'great' players know, then it would be easy to be a great player. That's why most experienced players presented fairly abstract answers.

David

[SmokemJags]

Experience.

[Spam]

Right. This is the sort of thing that a 'decent' player knows. (Actually the cited example is something that anyone who has played almost any fantasy RPG knows. ).

If it was easy to cite simple rules that 'great' players know, then it would be easy to be a great player. That's why most experienced players presented fairly abstract answers.

David

Aye

Having played a lot more since I first began posting here and introducing 4 of my friends to the game at different times and watching them develop, I think clearly you can identify two elements at play in this game (as in almost all turn based games). Strategy and tactics.

Most of the "specific" instances, such as Archer vs Skellie at night, are evidence of "tactics". Any intelligent player picks up tactics fairly easily. Some nuanced tactics are more difficult to discover then others but by and large players will learn these on their own or through simple observation of other players.

A firm grasp of tactics makes a bad player a good player, and anyone with a decent amount of intelligence I believe can become a "good" player in short order.

What differentiates a "good" player from a "great" player and "the best" is the second element, strategy.

Strategy is a lot more nebulous then tactics. While a firm grasp of most elementary tactics can be gotten simply by checking resistances, dodge rates, and other stats before an attack, strategy largely defies explanation. At least brief explanation. Now I will attempt to do it anyways =P

Nathan Bedford Forest said war came down to "get(ing) there fustest with the mostest"

Getting there with the "mostest" and using it is tactics. Applying superior force correctly. Knowing where "there" is is strategy. "Good" players playing "Great" players will consistently find that, despite having the right units, despite equal footing, despite even initially equal income, they consistently dont have the right units in the right place. They "seem" to know everything they need to know (and as a result far to many of them put their loss on "luck" =/ ), and yet, somehow, always are out of position, always lose.

That's the difference between a "good" player and a "great" player. As best as this "newbie" can describe at least =P

[Ansbach]

Having played a lot more since I first began posting here and introducing 4 of my friends to the game at different times and watching them develop, I think clearly you can identify two elements at play in this game (as in almost all turn based games). Strategy and tactics.

Most of the "specific" instances, such as Archer vs Skellie at night, are evidence of "tactics". Any intelligent player picks up tactics fairly easily. Some nuanced tactics are more difficult to discover then others but by and large players will learn these on their own or through simple observation of other players.

A firm grasp of tactics makes a bad player a good player, and anyone with a decent amount of intelligence I believe can become a "good" player in short order.

What differentiates a "good" player from a "great" player and "the best" is the second element, strategy.

Strategy is a lot more nebulous then tactics. While a firm grasp of most elementary tactics can be gotten simply by checking resistances, dodge rates, and other stats before an attack, strategy largely defies explanation. At least brief explanation. Now I will attempt to do it anyways =P

Nathan Bedford Forest said war came down to "get(ing) there fustest with the mostest"

Getting there with the "mostest" and using it is tactics. Applying superior force correctly. Knowing where "there" is is strategy. "Good" players playing "Great" players will consistently find that, despite having the right units, despite equal footing, despite even initially equal income, they consistently dont have the right units in the right place. They "seem" to know everything they need to know (and as a result far to many of them put their loss on "luck" =/ ), and yet, somehow, always are out of position, always lose.

That's the difference between a "good" player and a "great" player. As best as this "newbie" can describe at least =P

I'm going to have to disagree with you there Spam - the implication that tactics are easy and strategy is what makes a good player great is not true as a general rule that applies to everyone. Strategy and tactics require different skills sets and present different degrees of difficulty to different people. It kind of boils down to the question of "What are you better at - managing the big picture or the small details?"

From your post, obviously you are naturally better at tactics than at strategy. While I'm sure your scenario applies to you personally as well as many other players, there are plenty of people who will say the opposite - that the strategic elements of this game are easy and the tactics are what require mastery, while others will find them both equally challenging. There is even a post in this very thread from a player who mentions that the strategy is very easy for him and putting it into tactical action is what is challenging.

Think of history - there are plenty of examples of generals who were excellent at one aspect while not that proficient at the other...

[Elvish_Pillager]

Well, there's low level tactics (attacking a Wose with a Goblin Pillager at night) and there's high level tactics (destroying enemies one at a time while maneuvering a ZOC wall to prevent your attackers from being destroyed the following turn by the enemy).

The higher level can involve a single engagement or it can diffuse and affect multiple small battles, e.g. by moving units back and forth to reinforce the needy front; it's very close to strategy.

Low level tactics, in part, end up just being knowledge of how the game works. Time and care can make anyone good at that kind of thing.

However, high level tactics are not easy to learn. It's a huge jump from hearing "Cycle your units so the undamaged ones are in front" to being able to put it into practice. High level tactics are a major part of what lets human players beat the AI: it's the difference between going 1-for-1 in any engagement, and playing a whole campaign with no unit losses.

[Ansbach]

Agreed. Technically, I would make the argument that there is very little strategy in Battle for Wesnoth - it is mostly tactical, by scale and of course - by design.

I think the only real strategic decisions in the game are related to purchasing and upgrading your units (although getting them the XP is even tactical). Maybe how you shuffle units towards the front overlaps into strategy a bit...

[Tippsey]

Hmm strategy yes I'd have to say this game has little of that. Well unless you talk to most likely although perhaps not, Noy who keeps swearing strategies are not cut and dry, but are giant and complex. They seem easy enough though like I am undead seeing drakes...go get some dark adepts,and maybe some ghouls, or skelly archers, and I musn't forget a bat or two. Oh yes and attack at nigth retreat at day. As Pillager says it's the tactics that are hard. Doing a good retreat so your experienced units don't take the hits can be quite hard at time. Most of tactics though in this as what makes a newb a great player is, practice and a somewhat dedicated brain. If you don't apply yourself to know your units abilities and the general strategies out there You won't know what tactics you should be working on. I said you need a brain as well if your not intelligent to notice certain things and understand them you'll never be a great player. Sad fact but it is true. Lastly in order to do such things as 0 casualties for a campaign you need not only grand tactics in order to make walls for weak units, and making sure no unit gets trapped. But luck as at any time Wesnoth odds could swing bruttaly against you.

[Sapient]

A few things I haven't seen mentioned:

A great player:
-knows how to guide his opponents into poor decisions
-know how to best manage the exp he must grant to enemies.
-knows how and when to protect/use his leader

I think three of the other not-so-obvious things deserve repeating:

A great player:
-knows the best unit(s) to recruit (the best unit changes based on many factors, not just enemy faction)
-can maintain concentration for the entire game (as MCP said)
-"understands that there are exceptions to every rule." (as Dave said)

[drachefly]

I think the only real strategic decisions in the game are related to purchasing and upgrading your units (although getting them the XP is even tactical).

All strategy has a tactical implementation. That doesn't make it not strategy.

[Mangudai]

Using a modern interpretation of strategy-operational art-tactics. Wesnoth is almost entirely tactical.

The strategy is typically just "kill the enemy leader". Operational decisions involve things like dividing your forces in two, executing feints, having different plans for different flanks, etc. Tactics is almost everything else.

I'm a newb at Wesnoth, but I play lots of other strategic games including chess. I agree with other posters that average players understand terrain, resistances, time of day, etc. An expert is one who can anticipate several moves ahead.

[Thrawn]

The strategy is typically just "kill the enemy leader". Operational decisions involve things like dividing your forces in two, executing feints, having different plans for different flanks, etc. Tactics is almost everything else.

I'm a newb at Wesnoth, but I play lots of other strategic games including chess. I agree with other posters that average players understand terrain, resistances, time of day, etc. An expert is one who can anticipate several moves ahead.

1)the goal is to kill enemy leader--your strategy is planning out how, and tactics are what you resort to in an effort to folow strategy in order to achieve goal.
eg, you have the strategy to divert units into attacking you, and slipp gryphon riders around to assassinate the leader. To do this you use various tactics to get the enemy actually diverted, and to ensure the safe passage of the Riders.
Tactics is also what you use whn your strategy fails and you are left to wing it.

2) i agree about expert players--that is the one most challenging thing to do, as well.

3)'Go' rocks, on the strategy topic (OT)

[Ansbach]

I think the only real strategic decisions in the game are related to purchasing and upgrading your units (although getting them the XP is even tactical).

All strategy has a tactical implementation. That doesn't make it not strategy.

Sure - in the long run. But individual strategic decisions will have different "distances" (for lack of a better term) before they reach that tactical implementation so I think one can be more strategic than another.

What I meant by that is that I hesitate to even call upgrading your units strategic in this game because of the level of tactics required to actually advance them...

[Flametrooper]

For playing against the AI(usually in campaigns) I like to set up a distraction force of scouts and send them reaping mass amounts of villages somewhere, which greatly distracts the AI, and then rush the leader with my best units. I put the unit I want to advance 1 wave behind the best units that are rushing the leader, so that when the good units nealry kill everyhting, the stuff I am leveling up can come in and take the kill. This tactic seems to work great on campaigns, but not so well on multiplayer.

Does this make me newbie, good, or somewhere in the middle?