NEW: Elvish Dynasty RPG

[RECKLUSIAK]

Help, I have played the game and can't seem to win, the last battle, is it winnable? If it is, can someone please give tips. Note that I prefer to play with Elves alone.

[Sadaharu]

Elvish Dynasty is a strange campaign in which you never really get to build up a massive force.

So, here's what I usually do:

Spoiler:

You have four choke points and you can recruit and recall at all of them.

You just have to strike a mix of veteran units. Since the entire battle is about survival again, you needn't kill even a single one leader of the enemies', although I usually kill the ones at the top and bottom.

Counting from the bottom (south) upwards along the river:

The southernmost is the easiest. Go for quality units. If you have a hero or marksman (or higher, because all recalls cost the same) with the quick trait plus an outrider or two and a Shyde/druid you're set. Send a freshly-recruited fighter or archer in order to relieve them if necessary, but if you have Briony's unity magic those three can rush out and seize the village at <33,59>. The humans within range are either Lv.1 foot units that can be nullified by entangling or Lv1. horse units who can be peppered with arrows without fear of retaliation. Then you take the village at <37,59> and you can hold off the humans who will always have 40 def. at best. Attack the archers with your swords and the rest with your arrows.
Remember that even if the AI recruits soem horsemen they'll be stopped by the swampland around their spawning point.

Second-southernmost is the second-toughest. You'll be attacked at two different points so you need two different teams to man the walls. Zone-of-control is your friend: as long as your units stay on the wall they'll have a 60% defensive bonus while the humans will stand on the ford or on the riverbed itself so it'll be 40 or 20 defence at best for them. Here you'll need at least one healer for each team. Rangers are best here.
At <33,46> specifically there will always be a human who, if you play your cards right, will be the target of arrows or blades (whichever he can defend against the worse) in a 3-on-1 fight, so along the other, straighter stretch of wall that faces the ford at <32,42> you can just play the waiting game and just entangle all units. Two Druids standing side-by-side here will heal each other and entangle anyone the AI sends at you.

The third one is the toughest.
You'll be attacked on the first turn.
The outjutting hex at <36,21> is one that can be attacked by three enemies in a turn. And here your defensive bonus is nullified by not one but three mages who have 3× attacks that deal 11 damage each at day (and the battle starts at dawn!) and have a 70% chance to hit regardless of terrain, while, if you are forced to wade out and strike them down with warrior-line units the spearmen and archers will now be able to hit you. This one's tricky, so what I recommend is that you recall your very toughest units here. And, if you lose any units, it's likely that it'll be here.

The fourth one, finally, is comparatively lighter.
If you have a captain you'll send him here. This is a place that you can defend with fresh recruits alone, so a captain would be a boost (promote an intelligent warrior to one if you can!). A few shamans to immobilise everyone and archers and warriors to start taking them down.

In the northernmost and southernmost battles you can kill the leaders if you manage to stop the first waves.

Be careful with recruiting. You'll start with a lot of gold and a high income that will allow you to recruit/recall a few units later. I don't know what your available recalls will be so I cannot give you definite instructions, so the above is a rough guideline.

So don't bring all your units out on turn 1! At the northernmost ford the humans are too far away to even attack the walls, so just don't recruit until turn 2!

Remember that Shydes (and Sylphs if you have them) actually have a 40% defence on water and don't suffer a movement penalty; also, Kirielle returns after some time and all your units gain both ambush and nightstalk from her unity magic; that's when you can really start playing the ambush game.

Also remember that units fully heal upon promotion, so be sure to properly place them.
From Wesnoth 1.14 onwards the AI feels compelled to attack units if it can force them to promote so that's one attack you can goad it into wasting -and blocking up their entire column of attackers.

This specific battle is one in which the one that has to win before a time limit is the AI instead of you, so just turtle it and fight defensively. As long as you don't let them climb your walls you have a definite advantage.
And remember the day-night cycle: humans will lose at least a third of their attack damage by dusk and worse by night. When a spearman takes more damage from a Druid whom he attacks, you know he's in trouble.
Stall by day, entangle and ensnare as much as needed, defend the walls.

I could write more but it'd be repetitive.

DEFEND FLORIA!

[Konrad2]

Final scenario:
There are a lot of enemy units on the that are not supposed to move towards me, but on 1.16 they do just that. (The generals and the units protecting the towers.)

In general:
I'm sad that you removed the evil path.

[Sadaharu]

*peeks in after some time*

What's this about an evil path?

[Konrad2]

*peeks in after some time*

What's this about an evil path?

Spoiler:

Just liie in Ooze Mini Campaign, you had the option to turn everyone into Oozes for the last scenario.

[Sadaharu]

Oooohhh!

Spoiler:

for a second you made me think that maybe there was a special dark side ending to the Elven Dynasty campaign itself. Well.

[Luckylia]

Build massive elvish unit, and add one ulfserker each front—tgere are 4 front. Ulfbserker is very special, he can destroy the enemy artillery like chopping wood with frenzy attack. Wait for opportunity to attack (on night turn) then that is your chance to break through enemy since all empire troops is lawful (-25%). Assassinate enemy leader at north keep and south swamp keep at night since you have ambush trait on all terrain •∆•, thanks to Kirrilean magic after turn 5.

I can barely finish eliminate enemy at turn 23 with very good luck. My berserker rapidly hit the enemy general without miss at 40% with 8 hit in total.

But it seem there is no difference dialog/event even if you defeat enemy or just hold the line. It just same.

Hold enemy at river is pretty easy than kill the enemy leader since he had many body guard at his keep. Make sure sacrifices and recruit swordman elf because it cheap and impenetrable by all human attack.

[Sadaharu]

and add one ulfserker each front—tgere are 4 front.

Yes. The thing is that you need to accept the once-in-a-game opportunity to hire dwarvish warriors or else lose this possibility. Still, in this weekend's replay I've managed to get all three of Celadine the Shyde, Shevash the Snake and Kyrandi the Gryphon and the amount of units that are diverted to hunting them back into the swamps behind them *or* into the middle of the river around the deep water is amazing. Easily the best ‘gift’ is Kyrandi, even if it means losing out on some possible combat experience, which you'll get anyone in The Misty Swamp (you should finish that map with 4-6 druids).

Edit (7/7): this can also be done, a bit more sneakily, if you have any spare Shydes with the quick trait and Bryony's unity magic OR you can hold the southern island long enough for a rider-line unit to sneak across the water in the first night and then repeatedly reappear at the back of the human lines.