Drakes beat Northerners: Replay wanted

[Yogibear]

One thing you should always be aware of (to answer the question why you should retreat at all):

If you play lawful vs chaotic, at night you are off by 50% considering potential damage (-25 for you, +25 for your enemy). So roughly, even if you have 1.5 times as many units as your opponent, you are just on par[/] with him strength-wise. This is only a rule of thumb because there is getting the right counters, resistances, front lines etc.

But in the beginning, when you have approximately the same number of units, you are considerably weaker at your bad time of day (almost half as strong as your enemy). Not retreating in such a situation is simply suicide.

[englandschorsch]

OK, thanks a lot guys. That makes things a bit clearer.

One question left, though: What if I'm unlucky and the enemy already is on my half of the map when night is coming. How do I retreat then? Leaving the villages in my own half as well in order to keep my units now instead of securing my money source for units later.

Still I find it difficult to follow those advices on a small map like the Freelands. Should I try to avoid enemy contact at all when retreating over the river which marks the line between the two halfs? Or should I rather position my units just behind the river, so that the advancing enemy units have to fight them while standing on the the river hexes? What's better?

[IB]

Try playing on Isars before complaining the Freelands is small.

[ElvenKing]

One question left, though: What if I'm unlucky and the enemy already is on my half of the map when night is coming. How do I retreat then? Leaving the villages in my own half as well in order to keep my units now instead of securing my money source for units later.

Well if your opponent is deep in your territory at dusk then you've made a mistake because you should have forced your opponent to retreat during the day.

If your opponent is player 1(If your opponent is player 2 it's a bit different, they will probably try to attack at dusk.) they will aim to one turn away from your outermost villages after the dusk turn, so they can attack units on/or take the outermost villages at first watch.

When this happens abandon the villages that your opponent can reach(Well don't abandon it if only a single bat can reach it or something like that, abandon it if it will result in you losing units.), losing a village only costs a few gold a turn, whereas losing a unit costs you the cost of the unit and gives you opponent 8exp.

Still I find it difficult to follow those advices on a small map like the Freelands. Should I try to avoid enemy contact at all when retreating over the river which marks the line between the two halfs? Or should I rather position my units just behind the river, so that the advancing enemy units have to fight them while standing on the the river hexes? What's better?

Well most of the river hexes on the flanks are fords, the only part of the river that is all water is centre, besides no human player(Well no good human player.) will send their units in to the water so they can be easily be picked off.

You should be retreating just far enough so you avoid any combat at your unfavorable time of day.

What you need to do practice against a good human player and watch some of the top level games on the MP server, correct usage of time of day cycle really only comes with practice.

[englandschorsch]

Try playing on Isars before complaining the Freelands is small.

Who's complaining? I like Freelands. I merely asked a question.

Well if your opponent is deep in your territory at dusk then you've made a mistake because you should have forced your opponent to retreat during the day.

I kind of assumed that. But yeah, how do I react on such a mistake?

Well most of the river hexes on the flanks are fords, the only part of the river that is all water is centre, besides no human player(Well no good human player.) will send their units in to the water so they can be easily be picked off.

You should be retreating just far enough so you avoid any combat at your unfavorable time of day.

As I usually play against friendes who are beginners as well, that might happen. Attacks might advance through the middle of the river in the centre of the map. So in this case, which strategy should I prefer? Waiting on the shore hexes for the enemy on the water hexes or retreat alltogether?

What you need to do practice against a good human player and watch some of the top level games on the MP server, correct usage of time of day cycle really only comes with practice.

What's the MP-Server? Is that what's called "Official Server" in the Multiplayer-Menu? And how do I know which game is a "top level game"? Is there something like a ladder or a ranking?

Thanks a lot once more for all the insight. This seems to be a friendly and frequently visited forum.

[ElvenKing]

I kind of assumed that. But yeah, how do I react on such a mistake?

Well if you make that mistake and your opponent knows what they are doing you've pretty much
lost. I guess the best thing would be to retreat so you lose the least amount of units as possible, then hope your opponent does something very stupid.

As I usually play against friendes who are beginners as well, that might happen. Attacks might advance through the middle of the river in the centre of the map. So in this case, which strategy should I prefer? Waiting on the shore hexes for the enemy on the water hexes or retreat alltogether?

Well high level players do attack through the centre sometimes, they just never leave a unit vulnerable in the water when they do.

It would depend where and what your opponents units were, if there was no chance that the unit you put on the shore would die and you had the units in range to kill the enemy in the water next turn, then you might want to consider it; your opponent would have to be very bad to take the bait though.

What's the MP-Server? Is that what's called "Official Server" in the Multiplayer-Menu? And how do I know which game is a "top level game"? Is there something like a ladder or a ranking?

Yes that's correct by MP server I mean the Offical Server in the Multiplayer-Menu.

Well you can generally tell a top level game by the way it's played, if there is lots of backwards and forwards with no combat, then there is a good chance that it is a fairly high level game. A better way to tell is by player names, if you want I can pm you a list of good players to watch out for(I'll probably miss some of them though).

There is a unofficial ladder/ranking system for 1vs1 wesnoth, it has quite a number of good players on it(It also has a lot of bad players on it.), most of the top 20 are fairly good I'd say and a couple of the top ten are amongst the best on wesnoth.

[englandschorsch]

A better way to tell is by player names, if you want I can pm you a list of good players to watch out for(I'll probably miss some of them though).

That would be great! Go for it.

[englandschorsch]

OK guys,

I've been playing a game with a friend of mine for the last couple of days, as we play via e-mail. During the match I tried to apply your retreat tips plus tips from other forum posts.
It was our first multiplayer game, so it's pretty noobish I guess. We've both made many mistakes. However I'd be interested in your opinion. What could I improve with my beloved Drakes?

fs_replay.gz

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This is a bit off-topic as my friend wasn't playing Northerners. Still, it's all about Drakes, isn't it.

Thanks a lot for your never ending willingness to answer my questions.

[Velensk]

I'm writing my critique as I watch.

So far: Your inital recruit is horible for fighting loyalists. All the units you pick die very easily to loyalists basic unit (spearmen are a very good unit even if their enemy isn't weak to peirce). For loyalists you want mainly saurians and clashers. Burners make a good auxillery at times, but are expensive, and die under loyalist pericing firepower easy. You want to try to attack at night with saurians (and clasher support), and then defend at dat with clashers (and saurian support).

Your inital recruit could have been calabrated to get villages slightly more effecintly, but not a huge deal.

I will not critique your oppoenent because he has not asked for it, but I will say that so far he's making many mistakes as well.

Your move on the left side was fairly risky, however fairly well conducted for that.

His responce was incredibly poorly implimented.

Your follow-up had a couple minor tactical mistakes. However the gist of it amounts to that you should have focused on killing, rather than weakening multiple units. A weakened unit is still an asset to him, a dead one is not, and the process of weakening units exposed your units.

Next time you see your friend. Advice him not to do all his moving then attack. It is better to see the results of the attack, so that you can react to them, this allows for more efficent use of units.
His counter attack could have been more efficent. Also, for some reason he used his mage on your drakes instead of the saurians (drakes very resistant to fire, saurians are weak against it). Also a bit strange that he gets a cavalry at day when he would be fighting drakes.

You do retreat, the problem is that your retreat still leaves you almost just as exposed as you were before (less units can reach you). If you had had a clasher or a saurian skirmisher up front to take the hits (though a skirmisher would probably die to the mage) and to be a seriouse threat to any horseman trying to attack, then this may have been a better this simply gives him another oppertunity to attack you in melle with units good at killing you. (as another minor note: it would help if you choose to recruit at the hex infront of the castle, it may be nothing, but sometimes those extra 2 hexes are critical)

He chooses not to follow up (may have been a good idea on his part), however his positioning isn't very aggresive, so he denies himself the opertunity to press you as his time of day comes on.

Your retreat makes sence and looks like it would be effective.

Again, you need to focus on killing units, not weakening multiple. (this is your counter attack)

the way your freind moves all his units then attacks drives me nuts watching it. Also the fact that he hasn't picked up that you don't want to stand units next to unoccupied villages that your enemy can reach is annoying. His move in the middle dosn't make any sense it puts him where you can wail on him without damaging you.

Instead of finishing off the spearman after the horseman, you go for the fencer (which you were very lucky to kill), if you leave units allive like that that gives them the oppertunity to do stuff like grab your villages heal, and then return in good condition. You were very lucky on the attacks vs both fencers, (this isn't a problem, it's a coment).

He still hasn't figured out yet, that mage vs burner just isn't a good idea, but at least he was smart enough to retreat in the center.

Around this point the match is already decided.

EDIT: As a note: it would be quicker to play your freind on the offical multiplayer server than by email. Simply set up a game with a password, put 'private' in the game name, and tell him the password.

[englandschorsch]

Thanks a lot Velensk.

OK, a few comments from my side:

We're not playing on a multiplayer server as we don't have that much time. So we make like three turns a day and send it via e-mail.
That's why the match almost took us the whole week.
It was our first multiplayer match. And one of our first Wesnoth match in general. I guess you could see that.

Although it was hard to follow your explanations without turn numbers, I could get the main points. Thank you once more.
I have three questions, though:

1.) You write "You do retreat, the problem is that your retreat still leaves you almost just as exposed as you were before (less units can reach you)."
You're talking about the retreat on the left, right? How was that leaving me exposed? He couldn't reach any of my units. What could I improve at that point?

2.) After commenting on my risk move on the left, you write about my opponent:
"His responce was incredibly poorly implimented."
What could he have done better? Apart from me learning from that, it would also be helpful for him. I will tell him to visit the forum.

3.) What do you mean with "recruit at the hex infront of the castle"? I have to be in the keep to do that. Or do you mean the hex which my units appear on? I didn't know you could control that. All I do is hitting "ctrl-r". ^^

Cheers,
Schorsch

[AI]

If you hold your mouse over a certain hex when you press ctrl-r (or you just right click on that hex and select recruit), that's the hex the unit will appear on. This allows you to place your units closer to where you want them to go.

[englandschorsch]

If you hold your mouse over a certain hex when you press ctrl-r (or you just right click on that hex and select recruit), that's the hex the unit will appear on. This allows you to place your units closer to where you want them to go.

Yeah, I just figured that out. ^^

[bert1]

Well you can generally tell a top level game by the way it's played, if there is lots of backwards and forwards with no combat, then there is a good chance that it is a fairly high level game.

[csarmi]

And if you see 0 damage for 25+ turns, guess for ElvenKing

[ElvenKing]

Well I guess I exaggerated a bit.

I was perhaps thinking of lawful/chaotic and mirror matchups a bit too much.