Blitzkrieg! (the value of speed in Wesnoth)

[donkey_noob_trash1]

It has been asked for, and it shall be given...

Loyalist blitzkrieg on the Freelands (against a reasonably good player):

Loyalist_blitz_(1).gz

(11.39 KiB) Downloaded 347 times

[Velensk]

I realy hope I don't have to tell you that he was not responding in a very good way. He made several mistakes, and with better recruiting/placement he could have severely reduced the effectivness of you tactic. I'm certainly not going to argue against this kind of thing, I like to do it myself, however I must say that if your opponent truely knows what to do, that kind of thing is more likely to blow up in your face than work.

[ElvenKing]

Velensk, I think your signature is a nice summation of this thread.

[donkey_noob_trash1]

I realy hope I don't have to tell you that he was not responding in a very good way. He made several mistakes, and with better recruiting/placement he could have severely reduced the effectivness of you tactic. I'm certainly not going to argue against this kind of thing, I like to do it myself, however I must say that if your opponent truely knows what to do, that kind of thing is more likely to blow up in your face than work.

The thing about blitzkrieg, though, is that it is supposed to take the opponent a little off guard. The turn 1 recruit I made could have run into serious problems if he had recruited pierce heavy units. Also, yes, he certainly could have positioned his troops better. Having said that, though, I think he reacted in a way that many Wensoth players do- he moved some of his troops, and his leader, to the side that was being threatened. That opened up the other side for my guys to slip in and take his villages.

I don't know exactly what he was thinking with that archer that tried to steal one of my villages. Not a great idea, to say the least. But anyways, this is just an example of what one type of Loyalist blitzkrieg would look like- and honestly, I don't think Freelands is the best map to blitz on. If you could have seen the game with me vs tiboloid (a decent player), you would have seen how I used the gryphons, once I realized that I wouldn't be able to blitz into the villages on the left side. I just flew them over to the other side and took what was available. That's the idea behind blitzkrieg, and why the title of this thread is "the value of speed." With speed (and in the case of gryphons, the ability to fly as well), you have many more options.

More replays to come. I am going to throw in some Knalgan replays as well. And I will probably have to start doing ladder matches, considering the quality of players that I have been getting in these non-ladder matches (tiboloid excepted).

Anyways, may the HODOR be with you... always...

~donkey

P.S.
Elven- are you calling me a foolish general?

[Eskon]

If I may ask a provocative question, what else is there to Blitzkrieg than hoping to catch your opponent off guard?

[donkey_noob_trash1]

To me, "blitzkrieg" means fighting in a fast-paced and non-traditional way. You don't have to have a crazy recruiting scheme to do blitzkrieg. It depends on your philosophy. Rather than build up a gigantic force and assaulting the enemy troops directly, the blitzkrieg aims at the indirect approach- just as the Wermacht did in WW2. It may take the form of village stealing. It may take the form of slipping fast moving troops around the back of the enemy leader and assassinating him when he is exposed. This happened to me once in a ladder game on Weldyn. I'd happily find the replay and attach it when I get the chance. Basically, my leader died on turn 4 (ish) to a gryphon which seemed to pop out of nowhere (he was over the water) and a thief who was able to backstab me. He was a little lucky in that attack, but it completely caught me off guard and I learned a very harsh lesson that day. I could cite several other encounters I have had on the ladder against aggressive and fast-moving opponents. Probably my most memorable loss to the blitzkrieg was against HODOR. Species 8472 also does a mean rush.

But back to your question... as I am sure you know, blitzkrieg simply means "lightening war." Using speed as your weapon, you out-pace your opponent's ability to respond in an optimal manner. The goal is to throw your opponent off balance and take advantage of sub-optimal recruiting or positioning. Now, that's not to say that other standard units do not have their role to play. I am a strong advocate for combined arms. As you would have seen in my replay vs tiboloid, I used gryphons, footpads, thieves, guardsmen, and fighters. But the standard units come in to support the blitzkrieg. Grunts, trolls, and guardsmen all make terrific village holders, and can do a bit of retaliation damage when you get them into the villages. You shall see what I mean when I upload more replays... which I shall do later today.

Yours in HODOR,

~donkey

[Skrim]

The Wehrmacht in WW2, in Poland, France, Africa, and Russia(at least up until the defeats at Stalingrad and Moscow), used "blitzkrieg" tactics. The idea behind blitzkrieg was to use the combination of mobility and firepower of concentrated armor forces to encircle and crush an enemy force(a "pincer" maneuver), with tanks and dive bombers as the spearhead and infantry filling in the ground they gained. If they found a strong defense fortified in a rather non-critical location, they'd just flank them and target more important things like ports/cities/supplies/etc.

Now that can be interpreted however you want when you translate it into Wesnoth terms.

The last point is pretty clear though - when you find elves or dwarves entrenched on a rather non-critical patch of high-defense terrain, and you have the mobility advantage, you can just flank them, threaten high-value targets(villages, keep, leader) and force them to engage you from the open. Again, this is particularly easy to do with Drakes.

[Yogibear]

I really, really wish that damn replay of me vs tiboloid wasn't corrupt It would help make my point. Knalgans can do a great rush too. Probably better than orcs.

Don't worry, the master of replays is with you, your prayers have been answered .

Knalgans_blitz.zip

donkey_noop_trash (Knalgans) vs tiboloid (Elves) on Weldyn's Channel

(20.72 KiB) Downloaded 337 times

Enjoy and have fun .

[jmegner]

I get a message about the file being corrupt when I try to load the Knalgan blitz in Wesnoth 1.6.

[donkey_noob_trash1]

Don't worry, the master of replays is with you, your prayers have been answered .

My hero! Thank you so much! It is a replay I shall cherish...

[NarajinX]

Seems like a nice idea which might work on some maps. I doubt it will work against decent players.

I don't get why you are praising tiboloid too much. I played him once and he was ok but not that good.

Ranked 135 in the ladder.

[Yogibear]

I get a message about the file being corrupt when I try to load the Knalgan blitz in Wesnoth 1.6.

Ah, i forgot to add that you have to check the "show replay" checkbox when loading the replay. I only focused on recovering the replay, it is not possible to load this save normally to play on.

Edit:
I just watched the replay a little more in depth and i noticed that there are still some flaws: Villages are already taken at the beginning (which screws the gold calculating) and it starts at turn 4. I adjusted for that so that my former post now contains the correct replay.

My analysis:
Apart from some minor mistakes (for example not recruiting fighters in the beginning), or leaving the archer in the village at 6,20 where he can't actively take part in fighting, i see the main mistake of tiboloid at turn 6.
After pushing back your first attack by killing two of your units with most attacking power (gryphon and thief), you decided to fall back for a moment with the exception of your footpad stealing another village.

If i had played blue, i'd do this:
- wounded merman to village (tiboloid did that, too)
- leader heading back to keep (recruiting next turn)
- archer Celemir to 5,16 (block the footpad from stealing a village)
- taking back 24,15 with scout
- moving fighter to 21,16 (take over 24,15 from scout next turn)
- moving second merman into the middle (possibly secure 11,16 next turn)

That would have fortified his position, probably killed another unit (the footpad) soon, leaving you in a pretty bad position. Instead he decided to attack the footpad (which for a strong resilient unit with statistical hits and healing next turn is pretty much a waste, he was lucky to hit so many times), and opened way to steal another village on the left side. I'd dare to say that did cost him the game.

Looking forward to see more replays .

[donkey_noob_trash1]

Seems like a nice idea which might work on some maps. I doubt it will work against decent players.
I don't get why you are praising tiboloid too much. I played him once and he was ok but not that good.
Ranked 135 in the ladder.

Yah, I've had a great deal of success against average to below average players with the blitzkrieg approach. I've also had a couple defeats as well, to good players. Really, I'm still developing some of the specifics. The question for blitzkrieg is how to use speed to supplement your main troops. It isn't how to carry out a successful rush (although sometimes it may be a feasible option).

Also, Yogi, I agree with your assessment of that game. After having watched the replay a couple times, I realized that he played a little less optimally than I remembered. Thank you again for fixing the replay. There will be more replays to come... I keep forgetting to save them!

[manored]

Velensk, I think your signature is a nice summation of this thread.

Nice observation

I think whenever blitz is a good strategy or not depends from the map and forces in play. Kinda obvious, but some people forget the obvious

I think we can say its always a risky tactic though. For example I sometimes scout the enemy to have an idea of his build before building much of my own... while this, its true, makes me have a slower start, its oftenly worthwhile due to the better recruits, and I suppose it would be especially effective against a tactic like this.

[appleide]

I've tried recruiting more fast units after reading this thread, and the speed does provide alot more flexibility so I can quickly overwhelm a position and then pullback. I haven't tried this against really good players yet, though.

When my opponents manage to form a single front quickly and attack towards my keep, however, I have a some what harder time fending them off, because my units are weaker as they're scouts. I can only try to sneak troops around and capture his villages.... But its hard to do against drakes, and I have lost a game because of this. (incidentally against tiboloid too)