Multiplayer Replay Analysis

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Jozrael
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Jozrael »

Undead vs Northerners, both preselected.

I shouldn't have gone for that village with my ghost when I saw that archer there. A key mistake I made was allowing my Wraith to die midgame. I figured he wouldn't hit every strike/the drain would outpace, so he killed me with an extra hex leftover. Other than that, I'm curious as to where I can improve.
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

Turn 1: For knowing what your opponent is playing your opening looks fine. Perhaps each of you recruited one more scout than may have been strictly necessary (particularly you as player 1) but ghosts have their uses in this matchup.

Turn 2: Normally I don’t favor ghouls in this matchup unless you’re planning to also add corpses which is a pretty defensive play. That may be a decent way to go on this map but I’d normally favor having more adepts so that I can punish enemies who go too heavy on trolls and prevent the map from going into stalemate mode.

Turn 3: You made what I’d consider a mistake however your opponent did not punish it. If he’d scouted with the wolf first, he’d have seen that you had no support in the middle for that skeleton other than the ghoul who isn’t threatening that much damage, he could have then trapped the skeleton with the grunt and the wolf (though probably not attacked it, maybe attacked with grunt). As he could be certain that he could get an archer and two more trolls into the fray on the next round any counterattack by you would likely be favorable to him but if you don’t then he’s likely have snagged himself a free skeleton.
—Though this would pull his forces away from guarding the villages your ghost will be threatening soon and without a bit of luck that can be hard for a northerner to chase off efficiently.

Turn 4: The merits/risks of that engagement could be a lengthy discussion but I’ll simply say I feel that overall it’s a pretty good one for you given your leader. His response to it seemed far less ideal, particularly as his villages are now vulnerable to plunder so even if he can come out on top of the fray (and I’d say the odds of that are decent but not great), he’ll likely be hurting in the aftermath.

Turn 5/6: No comment.

Turn 7: This turn you do pick up a wraith but I’d say you’re still in a precarious situation. Nobody want’s to be in the position where they’re forever chasing orcs off their villages but never winning any ground which is what that position looks like it’s going to turn into to me. With that said, I again find the ghoul to be an interesting choice as of all your units it’s the least effective at chasing units off villages.
—Worth noting that the only thing he has that can really threaten skeletons well is that troll and because you saw his leader, you know no reinforcements will be showing up anytime soon. The troll would already be a tactical priority as you want to prevent it from leveling up. It’s not fearless so you could probably isolate it with skeletons fairly safely.

Turn 8: I didn’t think he’d go all in on the ghoul. Of course, the disaster scenario for that engagement was extremely bad for you but I’d say that the average case was still decent as you were fairly certain to poison all the grunts which isn’t a horrible outcome even if he levels his troll.

Turn 9: No comment

Turn 10: No real comment for this turn but looking at the future: you see that wolf but also see that you aren’t going to be able to get anyone into the cave fast enough to block it. Now you can either just accept the temporary loss and gear up to retake it or you can try to carry the momentum you have in the middle and try to lever the power of the wraith to try to break through the enemies core. I suspect (haven’t looked ahead yet) that you’re going to try to break through the enemies core as I would too, however I’d like to take a moment to point out that the other approach is probably ultimately the safer route. You’d still have a significant advantage and I’d say that unless we’re looking at the complete troll wall-off (which is viable on this map), lategame I’d consider the undead favored in this match.
—As a side note, wow is your opponent aggressive.

Turn 11: No comment

Turn 12: That was unfortunate. The odds of him taking down your wraith were pretty darn slim and the average case for him trying favored you immensely. I wouldn’t say that using your wraith in that way was a mistake, I’d say that him trying to break it was a bad idea that happened to pay off. What -was- a major mistake was putting your leader on a village instead of sending him strait back to his keep. If you’d been tracking that wolf from a couple turns earlier, you’d know exactly where it’d be this turn and in this situation where your forces are being pulled in three directions, you can’t afford to delay your reinforcements to restore a bit of health to your leader.
—As a side note, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t choose to level the other adept. Granted, two dark sorcerers are better than one and you needed to send someone toward that flank but still, a bit surprised.

Turn 13: Again, I don’t think you can afford to delay your reinforcements, even to kill a wolf that needs die. You’re about to have a bunch of pressure coming from the front, you’ve slit off one of your adepts that’s about to level to pin the wolf, you’re bleeding forces off to deal with another wolf. You’re spread too thin everywhere to effectively block an orc push. Orcs win by spreading their enemy out too thin to properly defend villages and counter attack. Even if those forces can’t really threaten your units effectively it’s not going to matter.

Turn 14: Same as before, also I’m going to note that from this position, he can easily deny you access to your keep. If he goes for that maneuver this game is pretty much over.

Turn 15: The game is pretty much over.

Overall: You both played pretty aggressively. The general quality of play seemed pretty decent on your side. I’d say you played better than your opponent. The moment with the wraith was a turning point and very bad for you however I’d say it wasn’t a mistake on your part. I’m not particularly fond of ghouls in this matchup (again except when using corpses) but if your opponent is that aggressive it can pay it’s dividends (and in this match that second one certainly did).

To improve on: The main point I’d suggest that you work on, is looking for your opponents best moves. Your tactical play seemed rather good however some of your higher level choices seemed to either give your opponent opportunities or settle for lesser odds than you could have given yourself.
—As a side note, be cautious about overextending when you have limited vision and try to track where enemy forces will be in the fog. Generally it isn’t that hard to figure out if you spare it a thought.
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
Jozrael
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Jozrael »

Thanks! I did have the wolf roughly tracked - I knew he was there, and could threaten the left, and made my mistakes anyways :(. Thank you for the tips, much appreciated. I was worried about lucky leader assassinations too much.

EDIT: Also, thanks for the tips on ghouls :). I just looked up the how to play series and went with their recommendations :).
OdysseusL
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by OdysseusL »

Loyalist vs Northerners on Freelands, both selected with blind pick addon.

I came out ahead in the end, but I felt it was much closer than it had to be. Not sure if I played things right, insight would be welcome.

By the way, is this kind of gobbo-heavy tactic viable as a way to play orcs?

edit: guessing I shouldn't have left the village with fencer on turn 5. should i have put the cav in the rightmost vill, or just left fencer in there? also, should i have tried to save up for a mage to clear villages with?
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Velensk
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Velensk »

As a forenote: I have never played with the blind pick mod. I assume that it’s one that lets you choose your faction and leader without your opponent getting to see it. As a second forenote, it is genuinely a lot easier to learn from loses than successes.

Turn 1: No Comment

Turn 2: This village grabbing pattern you choose is what I’d describe as a ‘greedy’ play. It is actually the fastest you could possibly grab villages, however it puts you in a position where your reaction to any pressure, especially that coming on the right flank will be slow. Your leader won’t get back to the keep until turn 4, which is right around the time the pressure from a rush will be hitting. Even if your opponent is just poking in with a scout you won’t have enough units to cover your villages unless you swing your cavalry around from the other side. Basically, if your opponent has even a modicum of aggression, he’ll be able to reliably steal a village against this opening.
—That said, the goblin recruit doesn’t suggest a very aggressive opening from him to me.

Turn 3: You noticed that you needed to swing one of the cavalry back which is good. If he positions aggressively on the left side, he could still be in a position to automatically steal a village but he’d have to do so close to your reinforcements. Granted, that’s not a horrible position for him anyway, if it pulls all your troops away from another front he is pressuring and you your other troops on that front can’t help chase the wolf off without opening another village for theft by a unit much more costly to remove. If orcs can just keep you busy and sap your income, the inherent efficiency of their troops will frequently win through. It’s still better to move the cavalry back and force him to make the lower gain play though.
—Actually looking at his actual moves, he doesn’t act anywhere near as aggressively as he could get away with. He’d force you to spread your troops thinner if he positioned more units where he could in theory steal villages just as night is falling. That said, it’s not as though he necessarily needs a highly aggressive opening to have a chance in this match.

Turn 4: No comment on your side. On his side, I’d say he’s posturing a bit more confidently than his ability to follow through warrants, though admittedly the cost of doing so is pretty low.

Turn 5: Again no comment on your side really. On his side, he’s pushing the envelope on how late he can make a play and have it still play out to his benefit. It’s my inclination to say that you should just be able to isolate all the hostile units on the left and pretty much leave them for dead while focusing on the pressure on the right. Next round it’s dawn and you could actually fight them in earnest. That will tie up a decent portion of your forces for at least 2 turns and probably 3 but if you do it right you shouldn’t lose even one unit and he’ll only keep that village for a few turns.

Turn 6: The spearman on that village on the left could have been used to pin the assassin and grunt in so that it’s impossible for them to retreat. Practically guaranteed kills for later. There’s nothing that can threaten the village at the moment so it’s not that important to be sitting on it. I think it probably would have been better to commit your leader to the other side as that is the area where you’re actually being threatened. A reinforcement spearman could be left on the left side to secure the win over there.
—He’s really committed to this aggression, particularly on the left. That should come back to bite him really soon.

Turn 7: During this turn, several things could have been done better. I could knit pick on details for awhile but I feel that it’d be better to describe your tactical priorities. The most important thing at the moment is actually not to kill enemy units as once the day starts, all orcs other than assassins do rather pathetic damage to your forces. As such, you can afford to have a prolonged conflict without difficulty. As such, the following priorities should take seat in the following order:
1: Do not let your enemy retreat. Any enemy unit you can stop from getting away will die as the fighting moves to day.
2: Do not let your enemy steal more villages: Stealing villages is a guaranteed way for him to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat. The income he’ll make and deny is actually probably more useful to him than the units he has on the field right now as they’re all marked for death anyway.
3: Keep your forces alive/keep them healed and in fighting condition. This isn’t to say that you can’t afford to lose anyone or take damage (far from it) but keeping your forces alive is still more important than killing his (though killing his units is a good way to help the survivability of your own.
*: Kill the specific enemies you need to do the above 3 better. I use an asterix as the priority of this is equal to which of the above priority it is supporting. It is this last priority which makes it essential to kill assassins as quickly as possible.

Turn 8: Again, I could nitpick tactics for days but I’ll just say that you did well enough for the situation and that if anything will kill you it’s likely strategic level decisions.
—I’m going to note here, that committing as heavily to this continued pressure is actually his best play at this point. Even little things like delaying your leader from getting back to the keep and stubbornly milking his units for attrition value are all he can do to keep himself in this game. The odds of this working against a loyalist player with the lieutenant are not that great though. You have just a bit too much raw power at your disposal.

Turn 9: No Comment. Well, other than that you’re lucky your leader has avoided retaliation damage so he’s still in a fit state to use.

Turn 10: No Comment

Turn 11: Would have been a good idea to block that back path on the right. It would have felt like leaving a unit in the open but it’s better than the village steal and if he wanted to overrun the village he would have had at most one grunt to actually attack the spearman.

Turn 12: No Comment

Turn 13: I’d been wondering how long it’d take for your leader to take some damage.

Turn 14: No comment.

Turn 15: With the droid taking over and your position established, I’ll consider the game finished.

Overall: On your end, it felt to me like you would probably be benefitted from playing as the orcs a bit and getting a feel for what it’s like to rush so you could understand better what stymies it. With a few differences in tactical priorities, you may have found that you’d have been under a lot less pressure that second night. Other than that, a slightly less greedy opening and a few differences in strategic commitments would have put you in a better position to respond to his aggression.

Other notes:
—I feel that overall, your opponent’s play was actually a bit better and that the dice and situation happened to favor you more. There may have been a few optimizations he could have made to make your situation worse but he played quite well. I get the feeling that he did not want to play a lategadme loyalists vs northerners which is perfectly understandable.

Since you specifically asked about gobos I’ll give some thoughts about goblins in this match. Goblins are definitely a staple of the match-up and give the northerners a tool to pressure loyalists into spending money during a banking situation but they occupy an odd niche where northerners really don’t want to use them while using their favored strategy. I actually think that for this opponent in this situation most of the goblins were a mistake but that doesn't mean that it's a mistake to recruit goblins.
—By and large, northerners win by attrition, by being tough enough to outlast the loyalists and wear them down, particularly while the loyalists are having to constantly chase them off their villages. Once you have the loyalists always having to fight you off just as day is closing and then face your new army with their still weakened one, you’ve frequently won. Goblins are horrible at attrition. They do spectacular damage for their cost but it comes on a body that simply doesn’t last. Goblins also have a chance at being slow or weak and otherwise being a spectacularly bad unit for applying pressure hard and fast and then wearing down your opposition.
—On the other hand, because goblins do amazing damage for their cost, especially against one of the best aggressive units loyalists have vs northerners (cavalrymen) and do not cost upkeep. Goblins a good way to increase the overall damage of your army (note though that this doesn't increase your damage per hex side except against cavalry, it just lets you get more grunt level attackers even cheaper). In an assault position, their fragility can actually be an upside, allowing you to have them die as they attack leaving room for another orc to take their place. If the goal of the orc army isn’t to outlast but to actually overwhelm, goblins have a solid place as an auxiliary and as a ward to boring banking games (though in those situations, you still need to be very careful to not go overboard on them and to bank a little yourself before investing in them). They can also punish an enemy for using too many bowmen/mage/cavalrymen/horsemen
"There are two kinds of old men in the world. The kind who didn't go to war and who say that they should have lived fast died young and left a handsome corpse and the old men who did go to war and who say that there is no such thing as a handsome corpse."
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Elder2
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Elder2 »

Your opponent has made some quite serious tactical mistakes during the attack, you got a deserved win.

Your fencer got needlessly poisoned, spears in villages were the correct move, just retreat everything else from the range of the assasin, the rush was quite weak. The worst that could happen is your spear gets poisoned and damaged, then preferably you would switch it with the other prepared one.

I know quite some about gobos. In this matchup? No, mass gobo is not a viable strategy, although middle to late game limited use of gobos is absolutely fine.
WurmD
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by WurmD »

(May I ask for improvement tips on campaign games as well? Well, here goes :D)

So, things I think are OK/good-enough (please correct me if this is a too strong assumption)
- I'm starting with one lvl3, two lvl2, two almost lvl2 units
- I plan on holding the line at the bridge and swamp (swamp with poachers)

But the Orcs are starting with +90 gold than me and even with terrain advantage of the poacher-swamp, plus the lack of retaliation from the majority of the Orc troops they still overwhelmed me.

On this particular replay, I think perhaps I should have retreated with the injured almost-lvl2 poacher, but I feared losing that terrain advantage

What else jarrs your tactical visions :) ?
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Poison
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Poison »

WurmD wrote:- I'm starting with one lvl3, two lvl2, two almost lvl2 units
You should generally start with expendable units and bring your strong forces later. Especially the trapper is bad because he kosts upkeep, is expensive to recall and you haven't even seen what the AI will recruit, if it doesn't even have lv2s why recall him.

WurmD wrote:- I plan on holding the line at the bridge and swamp (swamp with poachers)
You can hold the line at bridge and forest with as low as 3 units and backup behind which will rotate and heal to the 2 villages. But why the swamp? There's no benefit there, you can't heal and all you get is a lousy village, abandon it. If the AI tries to sneak through the swamp hold a second line with fast units between 39,21 and 36,23, all forest tiles getting hit by swamp, and you can heal at the villages directly north (You can put the leader there too).
WurmD wrote:But the Orcs are starting with +90 gold than me and even with terrain advantage of the poacher-swamp,
On the contrary, you are rich in this scenario, there are so many villages to grab to give you a steady stream of reeinforcements, there are way worse scenarios than this. Regarding the poachers, you should generally have more melee units than ranged ones, ranged units can't tank very well and have poor retaliation which is very important, especially with the terrain advantage.

WurmD wrote:plus the lack of retaliation from the majority of the Orc troops they still overwhelmed me.
Well the same applies to you, that's how you lost, the trolls destroyed your poachers and the 3-2 they received doesn't even beat their regenaration amount. Trolls fare well at bad defenses because of their resistances. In general at wesnoth you should play defensive and not try to kill many units at once as this is very hard, put melee against melee and ranged against ranged so that you always retaliate hard, that will ensure you the victory. You should have recruited more thugs and less footpads mainly for village grabbing, thugs are cheaper and can hit trolls and saurians hard.

Other notes: Because of the steady income, your leader should probably stay at his keep for this scenario and maybe defend at the near forest or when someone comes near your ally. Don't tank with Harper ffs! Your ally needs strong reeinforcements, even if you were winning against the orcs, the saurians were ready to attack her, I'd like to point out that if she dies you lose :P Grab her villages too, you can use the gold better. You have a footpad named Delurin! Now we know what he was doing before meeting Konrad :D

You can post directly at the Strategies and Tips forum for SP, no need to use this sub - forum.
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Elder2
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Elder2 »

Look I finished it from your replay, I dont remember that scenario very well but it was decently fun to play it.

Its by no means perfect run but should give you an idea. Vs orcs just recruit mainly poachers and also dont send foots or other units around early to take villages, you just spread your army and get negligible benefit, send all or most of the units after orcs, saurians shouldnt have time to catch up. And if im fighting in swamp and forest why not go mass poacher? You need only a few melee units to deal damage to archers and if you really want you can even do without them, poachers have 60% forest and 50% swamp, no wonder your thugs got destroyed in the swamp, you didnt have enough units and too many thugs. Just keep in mind to switch to thugs against saurians.

edit: Actually the replay is bugged eh and any attempts at saving or playing it fail, maybe because of my version, whatever, the most i can do is attach the last autosave then.

The replay even goes to turn 27/25, funny, did I accidentally found a new bug? Maybe somebody can shed some light on it.
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beetlenaut
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by beetlenaut »

This shows one of the reasons why I like Wesnoth: You just got two different suggestions that are almost completely opposite, and both are correct! Which one you follow just depends on your style of play.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
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and WML Guide
WurmD
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by WurmD »

XD!!
Thanks guys!

Before reading I played again using almost the same tact:
- poachers in swamp
- 2 foots to grab far away villages (I understand now that indeed the benefit is negligeble, these 2 units should have joined the fight immediatelly)
- poachers and thugs on not-swamp

and this time for some reason I won "easily"
(I actually lost on turn 24 XD, the Saurian chief killed Harper; but I reloaded, put Harper in the sam location but gave him another target, and he went for YET another target.. so random)

Txs for the input!!
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Crimson_Conure
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Crimson_Conure »

Hey guys! I'm a beginnerish Wesnoth player that comes on from time to time. I've played since 2006 but I have no place for competition :P.

I would like to test if I can upload one of my replays to make sure it works. But also I would like the game to be analyzed. It was against AI.

In this game, is there any advice you can give in terms of recruits, and the map, and unit positioning? Also, I'm still trying to decide what faction I want to main. Thank you in advance, and as a beginner, anything will help!
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Elder2
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Elder2 »

Its hard to give an advice against 100g AI because you won easily.
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Crimson_Conure
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Crimson_Conure »

ElderofZion wrote:Its hard to give an advice against 100g AI because you won easily.
My bad!

Okay, I played a multiplayer game today (first game in a year or so), and I would like some advice for this game (I got crushed). I was loyalists and my opponent was northerners.

I think the specific advice I'm looking for is how to position my units better? Thank you in advance!
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Elder2
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Re: Multiplayer Replay Analysis

Post by Elder2 »

I think a single best advice I could give you is to retreat at night against orc and attack at day. Defense there was entirely possible if you put spear in village instead of cavalry, actually it would have been the best, but considering your play I think retreating and attacking at day might have been better for you.
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