How am I doing? + Alternative Elensefar Strategy?

[Balis]

Hi folks,

First time poster here. Firstly let me say how great Wesnoth is... although you all already know that, right?

I've just completed The Seige of Elensefar (on medium) and then read the strategy guide for it elsewhere on the forum. Well, I did it, I beat Muff what's-his-name, and mighty proud I am too, but the way I went about it varied MASSIVELY from the strategy guide and I'm wondering whether in the bigger scale of the campaign I've actually blown it, and whether I should go back and do it again... or perhaps I've uncovered a different strategy for the Siege.
Here's basically what happened:

I started the campaign with 129 gold and recalled/recruited the following:
Konrad (lvl2)
Elvish Marshall (lvl 3)
Paladin (lvl 3)
Elvish Marksman (lvl2 - 64/90XP)
Elvish Ranger (Lvl 2 - 24/80XP)
Knight (Lvl 2 - 69/120XP)
Merman Warrior with Storm Trident (Lvl 2 - 61/80XP)
Scout (Lvl 1 - 0XP)

Pretty soon I realised that the Merman and the Scout were bad ideas: I was trying to get as many villages early on but really I should have spent the 40 gold on recalling another Captain or a Druid. Still, they worked well at providing a little distraction, and who knows, I may be overlooking how important their contribution was to my overall success. Sadly though, the Scout didn't make it (R.I.P.). I also managed to scrape together enough to recall a Druid later on.

By around turn 9 I wasn't feeling at all hopeful. Sure, I had the south fort held with the Ranger, Marshall and Druid, but the Skeletons had already entered the city and I was feeling heavily outnumbered.
On 10 there were 10 Skeletons on Elensefar island and 8 orcs, but somehow they thought more of running after my Merman (who had popped onto the west beach) than removing my trio on in the south fort. No complaints here though!

According to the strategy guide I needed to have ousted the Orcs by turn 11 and there was no chance of that. For most of the teen rounds I had a high leveled but small force holding the south fort (Sharpshooter, Marshall, Konrad, White Mage [latest recall]) while my Paladin and Knight attacked the east fort. A really pathetic attempt to cross the ford and mount a western attack with the thieves and the scout resulted in them turning tale and running south with 2 Orcish Assassins and a Skeleton in pursuit.

I was, however, beginning to feel that I had a chance. The crucial difference to the strategy guide is that I was fighting both forces from the south and east forts. Sounds like suicide but I didn't lose a unit and was killing a couple of enemy units each turn.

By turn 16 my Paladin and Knight had broken round to the South fort and were supporting my small force there. Meanwhile, those pesky assassins (with their sidekick skeleton) had broken into my territory and were chasing the thieves around (1 dead now, along with the scout) and nicking villages. The first victory was in sight though, but not before a tactical first watch retreat to the east fort for the final stand. It was on turn 22 that I finally took the Elensefar Fort and killed the Orcish leader, and only had 8 remaining undead units to contend with.

My Paladin arrived at Muff Jaanal's cave on turn 26 and with the help of the others finally killed the scumbag on turn 31. I finished the level with 150 gold (though mysteriously started 'Crossroads' with 200 - anyone know why?), 7 x lvl 3 units, 3 x lvl 2 units, and 2 x mages close to leveling up.

I really enjoyed this level (6 consecutive hours of my life!) but am curious as to what the experts think. In order to do well from here on in should I have finished it much earlier/with more gold? Should I have more levelled units?

I really wanted to watch the replay but apparently the file is corrupt - any idea why this happened?

My dilemma now is how to use my lvl 3 units. Do I bring them all out for subsequent levels (as I'm assuming my opponents will be of higher levels), or do I use just a couple and try to develop new recruits.

A grumble/suggestion:
I've noticed that lvl 3 units still level up when they reach their next XP level and this seems to give them a random number of extra HPs (is it random?). BUT when they level they don't automatically heal to this new level like on earlier levels! This seems a little unfair given that they can only heal a maximum of 10HP per turn. This means that when my Paladin with 75HP has a heavy battle (with their low defensive rating) he has to sit out for 4 or five rounds to get him back up to full strength. This seems nuts and I'm interested to hear arguements to the contrary, i.e. it isn't nuts.

Final Query: I'm playing 1.0.2 and some people are playing later versions (1.1.8?). Will I have to restart my campaign if update?

Apologies for the length of this post, I'm just really eager to chat about Wesnoth!
Look forward to hearing from you all!

[Thrawn]

6 hours!!!

at least you finally beat it! congradulations

As to your stategy, my biggest problem with it is that it relied too heavily on luck. I see no other way that you could have survived being attacked by both the orcs and skellies.

Also, I approve of getting the merman out. Especially if it is the one with the lighting trident, as he will be usefull for killing skellies as they approach. Same with the scout--getting villages earlier is better. one problem I see hinted at is that you didn't begin with enough gold: if you had to "scrape" another 20 gold up to recruit that druid, you don't have enough gold--you should have enough to easily recruit 2 keeps of units (~250 gold)

Also, this is a great level to use "meatshields"--units to absord attacks from your enemies. I'd recall lvl 1s with good amounts of xp or simply recruit new units for this--it will be cheaper than recalling

[Balis]

6 - WHOLE - HOURS!!! I know! Methinks I was perhaps a little too methodical! But this game can seriously take over your life! Any tips on how I can stop myself from turning into a Wesnoth junkie?

I think you're probably right about luck being a big factor, doubt my strategy would hold up under repeated attempts.

Re: the gold problem - I made a pig's ear of The Bay of Pearls only managing to beat the land Orc before turns ran so I started Muff Malal's Pennisula with 8gps!! I thought you always started with a minimum of 100?
Anyway, I creamed Muff, but will never start SoE with 250+gps.
I suppose I could go back and do Pearls properly but I don't want to get involved in perfecting the perfect campaign - I'm anal (6hrs) but not that anal!

[Thrawn]

don't worry being a wesnoth junkie is good

I mean that you take to long to think,I guess--takes me 20-30 minutes to beat SoE

[Balis]

I can't believe it takes you only 20-30 minutes for SoE! Even on your first attempt?

[Kel]

Absolutely not. It definitely took me at least an hour or so, though 6 is a bit much. But yeah, you'd definitely want to start with a little more gold than that, around 250-300 as mentioned before. Good job beating the scenario though!

You'll want to keep your lvl 3's in reserve as much as possible, with the exception of supporting units like your Marshal (great job on that, by the way, that'll help a lot as you progress) and curers. The reason is that they don't gain much from leveling, as you noticed, and also the last scenario of th campaign is one that you'll want/need a LOT of level 3's to recall. Just a tip. =]

[Flametrooper]

I think it took me in the region of 45 minutes. I gained the upper hand by killing the orc leader with a crazy knight+horseman charge on turn 4, which allowed me plenty of time for undead bashing, and a bigass early finish bonus. I only ended with one level 3 unit though a Paladin, but I also leveled a Horse to Knight and some magi.

[EnigmaNova]

In this map, I always zerg the fool down with Knights and Riders. If he ain't dead by the end of turn 3 it's because I'm going to feed the kill to someone else.

[scott]

In this map, I always zerg the fool down with Knights and Riders. If he ain't dead by the end of turn 3 it's because I'm going to feed the kill to someone else.

How much gold does this take, out of curiousity?



I was very interested in this thread until I learned the poster was using 1.0. I issued a challenge to beat this scenario in the dev version with min gold and a good recall list, and no one has done it as far as I know. The dev version is not much different than 1.0, but I would like to see a replay in a recent version.

[EnigmaNova]

Is the default gold 100g?
... Hmmm ...
Would you accept a victory with losses?
I'm thinking Knights could assasinate the orc leader early, but they'd die in the process.

[scott]

Is the default gold 100g?
... Hmmm ...
Would you accept a victory with losses?
I'm thinking Knights could assasinate the orc leader early, but they'd die in the process.

It's 140 on medium difficulty. Any victory in 1.1.8 would do.

[appleide]

Is the default gold 100g?
... Hmmm ...
Would you accept a victory with losses?
I'm thinking Knights could assasinate the orc leader early, but they'd die in the process.

It's 140 on medium difficulty. Any victory in 1.1.8 would do.

Write me a decent recall list. I have no idea what you mean. (When i was playing I had 3-4 knights and just rammed the orcish leader at day time, along with some cheap quick units as meat, fully controlling the island by turn 9.

[scott]

It's 140 on medium difficulty. Any victory in 1.1.8 would do.

Write me a decent recall list. I have no idea what you mean. (When i was playing I had 3-4 knights and just rammed the orcish leader at day time, along with some cheap quick units as meat, fully controlling the island by turn 9.

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 466#156466

You can try using the 1.1.2 saved game, otherwise I don't care what you use as long as you were able to level them up in the 5 previous scenarios.

The goal here is to see exactly what the min requirements are to beat this level and how far off the min entitlement is from this. I don't want to set the min entitlement = min requirement, but this scenario in particular is an important milestone that's worth checkpointing. It should eventually give us a way to describe a player's performance in previous scenarios in terms of what he should have.

[Viliam]

I'm playing 1.0.2 and some people are playing later versions (1.1.8?). Will I have to restart my campaign if update?

Yes. It is not possible in 1.2 (1.1.8 ) to load a savegame from 1.0.2. There were too many changes.

However, you can have both versions installed on your computer (in different directories), so you can finish the HTTT campaign on the old version, and start new campaigns or play multiplayer on the new version.

[pqueiro]

The assassination route can be done with a castle of horses, if you're lucky - though I usually recruit about a castle and a half just to be sure. That strategy allows you to rush the island and land a couple of blows still in daytime and kill the orcish leader before nightfall, which means you can move in with Konrad and the rest of the lads before the skellies take the island (and with some luck, a couple of horses should survive with a bit of experience, which is sound economics later on).

However, this requires decently deep pockets... Maybe if you go back to the previous scenario and try that again? It's a bit of a wasteful tactic, but I kinda like it