Troll debate

[Higher Game]

So you just sit behind buildings and blast them until the battlecruisers are ready? Try beating 7 terran opponents as a zerg. THAT would impress me.

[Glowing Fish]

Maybe this Starcraft thread could go somewhere else?

[JW]

So you just sit behind buildings and blast them until the battlecruisers are ready? Try beating 7 terran opponents as a zerg. THAT would impress me.

Yeah....that probably wouldn't happen. I'd really have to practice to do that, if it is even possible. Like I said, I've never beaten 1v7 as Zerg, only Protoss and Terran - Terran being the easiest.

[Jetrel]

I'm talking about whelps. Sorry for the confusion.

As for multiplayer, I'll play the next stable version, as I've said for a long time, since the current dev version is too slow.

1.1.12 is very fast on my dual 1.2 Ghz G4, with a radeon 9600 card. That's a fairly low-end system these days.

If you can't afford a system that doesn't suck, then don't [censored] at us for making this for free. We don't owe you anything.

And while the AI doesn't OWN me 60% of the time, it's able to kill off 2-3 advanced units without a problem. I only continue a campaign if I only lose 1 advanced unit per stage on average, maybe 2-3 or so on a larger stage, and that's when I use mostly fodder. I usually expect half a dozen level 1 losses, at least, and it isn't a problem because it's usually not worth recalling them unless they get loads of experience. It's when they take out that many level 1's AND level 2's that I restart the stage.

You're obviously doing SOMETHING horribly wrong. Let's recap a couple of "common sense" strategies about wesnoth that wesnoth doesn't share with other games:

In wesnoth:
• When a unit falls below 60% health, and could, theoretically, be killed by enemy units on the next turn, get him the heck out of there! This isn't Warcraft III, where a few Elven Priests/a Paladin behind the front line can perma-heal your entire army into de facto invulnerability. When a unit is wounded, it needs at least a few units to recover, or it's making a serious gamble with it's life - even if it's on good terrain.

That last thing is the caveat that most people don't get - good terrain ≠ wounded unit being safe. Putting a wounded unit on good terrain does not equate with that unit suddenly not being wounded; it becomes something very different.

Only being out of the enemies' reach altogether, or having more hitpoints than the enemy has potential damage, guarantees survival.


• Never, ever park normal units (in reach of the enemy) on grassland, unless you _know_ your enemy is not going to kill them, or you are willing to sacrifice them. Use tanks on the vulnerable spaces, and cycle the tanks out after 1 round of abuse, or they'll die, too.

The only tanks that can survive indefinite, multi-turn heavy abuse are units with really good defense AND resistance, who are also backed up by some healing mechanism. Examples (some moreso than others):
- Wose in forest
- Troll on mountains
- Heavy infantry (in village or other good terrain w/ healer)
- Dwarven Guard (in village or other good terrain w/ healer)
- Drake Clasher (in village or other good terrain w/ healer)
And given the right conditions, these too will fail! (Ex - arrows against clasher, magic against most others).

[Jetrel]

So you just sit behind buildings and blast them until the battlecruisers are ready? Try beating 7 terran opponents as a zerg. THAT would impress me.

Yeah....that probably wouldn't happen. I'd really have to practice to do that, if it is even possible. Like I said, I've never beaten 1v7 as Zerg, only Protoss and Terran - Terran being the easiest.

So far, I can do 1vs5 AIs in Warcraft III, (with a bit of luck in being able to "divide and conquer" them - if they hit you all at once, any player is finished, because the only "multi-unit-damage" units in WC3 are at tier 2). Don't have a film of it, and can't do it as undead (the one race I'm really not good at in WC3). I could probably provide a film if someone cared bad enough to see it.

I suck at starcraft though - same reason I sucked at Warcraft II. I just can't do the micromanagement fast enough, and the interface isn't good enough at control of mass numbers of troops (something WCIII improved greatly on). Autocast is probably one of the biggest factors that made WC3 so much better for me.

Let me correct your statement:

MP vs. the AI never translates well into true multiplayer.

1) the AI recruits too many scouts
2) the AI always attacks when it can
3) the AI does not account for factional TOD advantages
4) the AI attacks units it can kill first

But the AI is still fairly sharp, compared to so many other games. It can be tricky.
I guess what I meant to say is that a strategy that DOESN'T work against the AI will not work against a human player. But a strategy that DOES work against the AI will possibly work against a human player.

In simple terms, wesnoth's AI has only one strategy. A simple, reasonably effective, but not too difficult to overcome strategy. Before you learn the trick, and while you still apply other game's rules to wesnoth, it can be very difficult, but after you stop doing that, it actually becomes reasonably easy to beat (so long as they don't have a considerable economic advantage over you).

[Higher Game]

I'm a secure player in that I have my units protected in such a way that there's only a 10% chance or so of one dying in a given turn. Here's the catch: after 20+ turns, that 10% chance results in 2-3 deaths. There simply isn't a way to get the death chance much below 10%. Even if tactics reduce the probability of death, the possibility is always there.

Simply having 2 spearmen in hills exposed to 4 orc grunts gives about a 10% death chance, assuming 2 grunts/spearman. The spearman dies if all 4 hits connect, which is 6.25%. That gives about a 10% chance of death every turn, even if fresh spearmen are used to replace the injured ones. Over 20+ turns, there are going to be some deaths. Granted, this isn't happening on the same 2 hills, but the same general situation will be repeated many times in a battle.

Now, replace spearmen with pikemen, but replace the orc grunts with orc warriors. Death becomes more common. Advanced units gain damage more than they gain hit points, so the kill chance is higher. The AI also gets to recruit level 2's from the start. Put these facts together, and you have a couple advanced deaths in every battle, and maybe enough promotions to either break even or gain 1 new advanced unit, on normal difficulty.

The AI does NOT go for weak units first. It knows the player is planning long term, and it will sacrifice short term strength to hamstring the player in the long run. If it has a 20% chance of killing a level 2 and a 70% chance of killing a level 1, it will go for the level 2 every time. I've used cannon fodder enough to know that only ZOCing the AI will work, since they are naturally drawn to the long-term units. Simply throwing a level 1 in their way won't work. You have to make lots of them and make a wall.

I can't even beat 1 AI in Warcraft 3, even though it's tactically terrible. It just has superhuman micro abilities, and Warcraft 3 emphasizes micro far too much. Thinking fast is more important than good strategies, and with random damage, luck becomes a big factor, unlike in Starcraft, where damage is set (and, granted, cliffs are important in many maps like Lost Temple ).

[Elvish_Pillager]

I'm a secure player in that I have my units protected in such a way that there's only a 10% chance or so of one dying in a given turn. Here's the catch: after 20+ turns, that 10% chance results in 2-3 deaths. There simply isn't a way to get the death chance much below 10%. Even if tactics reduce the probability of death, the possibility is always there.

Not always.

Certain people (including me) like to play campaigns with the restriction that you aren't allowed to lose a single unit; thus, if you lose a unit, you basically lose the game. It really doesn't take me very many tries to win most scenarios with this restriction.

[unsung]

I had typed a reasonbly long post about how the ai actually goes about doing things, but decided on short and sweet.

The AI crunches numbers well.

It has the planning capacity of a two-year old.

If you are losing this many levelled up units, you are doing something wrong.

The AI attacks whatever it thinks it can kill first. If it kills enough, it will win. Go play a multiplayer game against it. With age of heroes get a mix of levells, see what it does- oh, the same thing, with more or less agression, depending on how HttT is set.
Thats it.
Well, it also heals, and goes to find a village every now and then.

If you keep getting swarmed- stop spreading out like someone who's been watching scooby-doo all day and thinks its a good way to cover more ground, and start using sense.
Isolated units die.
Clusters of them don't, unless very badly handled.

[commanderkeen]

I've noticed that. In some scenario's you can just recruit high leveled guys and the AI units avoid you. They just circle around you the whole time. Unsung, you stil have that long post somewhere? I'd like to read it
I like to learn about how AI's work, in the hope that someday I can make a capable AI.

[unsung]

I don't know the technical things- just a few settings and the like.

IE the agression setting and that it chooses targets it can kill.

Most of it was me going back over these things for higher game .

( I find that if you repeat something enough, people eventually get it.)

[F8 Binds...]

this topic used to about someone who thought thought that troll whelps were invincible to just describing how much this guy sucks (he does ) and trying to explain strategies that he cannot understand, nor carry out. (he can't ) how many games have you played? only 40% win ratio? i feel like this is a wasted post... atleast change the title...

and starcraft and warcraft aren't wesnoth...

[Yogibear]

Yes, i feel like there are a lot of wasted posts and this thread is no exception .

In short:
Opinions are opinions, nothing more. Even if people have wrong opinions and are too proud (or have any other reasons) to change them, that does not give anyone around here the right to start picking on them. I have read this whole thread and i didn't find anything that justifies the amount of insult Higher Game is facing here. I have also read other threads of him and although i don't agree with everything he says i regard this to be a completely improper reaction.

Now to the topic:

Higher Game, you found troll spamming to be an efficient strategy for playing Northerners. When i started playing, i tried that, too. It works quite well: Not because it is a good strategy in itself but because many people don't know how to counter it (especially on the 1.0.2 server).

But believe me, if someone knows what he is doing, he will beat your trolls real bad (and he will do it all the time). This holds for the stable as well as the development release.

If you don't believe me, lets meet on the server (i don't care which one). My intention is not to kick your ass but to show you the limits of your strategy. We can make this a private game and i promise i won't post the replays.

[peet]

It occurs to me that the Troll Spam technique might work if you also added some high damage-dealing units to the mix. Trolls are good in many ways - high HP, resistances, regeneration - all these make them tough to kill. But the main problem I see with them is that trolls have a pretty weak attack - only 7-2. Even 4 trolls will be unable to kill many units.

So if you have some units that deal high damage, which you keep behind your line of trolls, you could bring them up to deal enough damage to make the unit killable by the trolls. Once you get a troll whelp to level up things are looking much better for you.

Peet

[Glowing Fish]

I had a theory about a line of trolls, combined with some low, low cost Goblin Spearmen. Or better yet, upgraded to Goblin Impalers. I haven't tried it yet.

[Xandria]

Let us say that often, it is favourable for a troll whelp to sit tight during the day, as the possible damage is not worth the retaliation - a strong goblin spearman has a biger punch...