Northern Rebirth

[Draciron]

This campaign is BRUTAL.

The first scenario tripped me up right way my first try. I attempt every scenario with a zero casualty goal. Of couse you have to lose some folks here and there. When it comes to peasents fighting Orcs I had to completely rethink things and against every Wesnoth instinct I had to throw away unit after unit in suicide attacks. Eventually I would kill enough enemy and by saving off those who have any experience level some bowmen and spearmen. The first time I found the trolls by accident. After that I would intentionally get them loose soon as I had the Orc leaders isolated. Then I'd kill the trolls to level units. This always left me with way too little starting gold for the next scenario "infested caves". There have been a few scenarios that have challenged me. Only one other like this one. My first attempt I tried to send a force north and succesfully bottled up the trolls there. I also succesfully bottled up the trolls due south. Then promptly got massecred heading east into the open space. So I figured heading east was a big mistake. Instead the next try I allowed the Northern Orcs and undead to battle it out. I concentrated on fighting my way carefully into the Troll nest to the South. I then after much loss of life wiped out the troll nest and got the undead leader that the secret passage opened up too. I was able to fend off the undead waves coming at me but consistantly ran out of turns before I could clean up the rest of the enemy. Pity since there was so much gold out there I could have had if I had some more turns. I had more than enough troops to wipe out the waves of undead. In this attempt I even got to kill the last troll king.

So back to the drawing board I went after several tries running out of turns each time. I decided to be more aggressive. I replayed the first scenario making sure to skip the trolls thus giving me more gold. I then sent several units North and took the rest South. I discovered the mage up North and the secret passage into the other undead keep. I however did not have enough troops to do much against him. I also decided that all the spearmen and bowmen I had were complete wastes of gold except against the trolls. So except to level a spearman into a swordsman and to recruit a couple archers that I leveled into bowmen fighting trolls I didn't waste gold with much of anything but thugs.

Finding the Dwarves was always easy. I had a huge army of thugs each time ready to take all that massive quanity of villages and to destroy the Northern undead. I always ran out of turns. Finally I lucked out and the last undead kiing pretty much suicided. Despite having about 50 other units the enemy king attacks my first units who enter his domain and I easily kill him.

So then I'm fighting wolf riders. Easy enough scenario despite all the level 2 units thrown at me. Problem is I can recruit units like bowmen and thunderers who do a great job killing the wolf riders but are utterly useless against the undead or I can use thugs who take forever to kill the wolf riders but are priceless against the undead. The inability to recruit mages or heavy infantry against the hoards of undead is crippling. Then facing literally hundreds of them. Man this scenario is killing me. The lack of nearby villages means I am in the hole once I recruit enough to kill the nearest enemy leader. If I go North I can kill that guy easy enough. Problem is by then Blue's forces have arived and I just can't cut through to Brown before the other 3 undead leader's forces trickle in. If I kill off purple and take the village field behind him I am quickly out of the negitive in gold but I am just plain overun by undead. It takes 7 or 8 turns just to get my army over to Purple. Once I do it takes a turn or two to cut through and kill Purples king. By then Green, Black and Blue's forces are upon me. The best units I have are the Dwarven fighters and Thugs. Both of which are at best so so against the undead. The enemy by turn 10 already has 200-250 units deployed and incomes of 50 or more each. Waves of zombies , ghosts, skeletons and skeleton archers overwhelm my units. Dark adpets come in waves and kill off my Steelclads and bandits. The villages to heal with are so far off that healing takes too long.

Anybody beat this scenario? How much gold did you have when you did?

[Sly]

Anybody beat this scenario? How much gold did you have when you did?

I found this scenario easier than the second one ("Infested caves") thanks to the wolves scenario, you should have enough gold to recall your lvl2 bandits and hire a lot of dwarves (dwarves are the best here : more movement and better defense).

Personnaly I first split my forces in 2 but that was a mistake, my 2 half of an army was overrun.

The best goal is the south-east undead camp, coz there's a lot of village behind, than you can head to the lich and clean up easily with your leveled dwarves and your pretty mage

The next one is also a pain, don't make the same error as me : connon fodder doesn't last and is a waste, immediately recall lvl3 dwarves and highwayman to block the east and west undead while you free she southern prisoners, then you have an advantage

[Angry Andersen]

I'm currently stuck on that one (where you have to finally find and kill the Lich). I managed to meet him in turn 71 or something like that, had a huge negative amount of gold by then and got my leader killed.

Is it possible at all to 'clean up' this level or is holding off the enemy while freeing the prisoners and then making a run for the water the only viable strategy ?


On the level before that one I initially split my forces, killing both the leader to the north and the one to the east in a fair amount of time. I did spent TONS of gold to get enough units and was almost at -300 gold by the time I started capturing the villages in the south-eastern corner. But the map has a large bonus for finishing early, so I was able to take 1000+ gold to the next level.

[LoneWolf]

[quote="Angry Andersen"]I'm currently stuck on that one (where you have to finally find and kill the Lich). I managed to meet him in turn 71 or something like that, had a huge negative amount of gold by then and got my leader killed.

It is quite important to visit all chambers in the dungeon. There is prison, treasure chamber (the chests here contain HUGE amount of money) and lots of enemy leaders to kill. At the beginning of the scenario you should recall your most experienced units (Highwaymen, bandits etc.). It is also useful to have Camerin (archmage) on your side.
You shall progress slowly and carefully. Beware the large groups of draugs (ranged attack and impact are the best against them.)

[Sly]

Is it possible at all to 'clean up' this level or is holding off the enemy while freeing the prisoners and then making a run for the water the only viable strategy ?

The goal is to clean up the level :
- First free the prisoners in the south-west tunel
- then with dwarven lords (or steelclads if you haven't lords) you can block all tunnels but the one wou wan't to invade, the enemy will hesitate to attack them.
- storm one tunnel at a time with your grand mage and one of you white mage to clear the way

there is more than 10000 gold in the treasury

[Angry Andersen]

The 2nd try on that level went much better: I only lost a handful of units and now have some 10+ dwarven lords on my recall list.
Has anyone else experienced bugs with the lvl3 poacher (ranger) ? It seems noone is allowed to defend when he attacks...

[Sly]

The 2nd try on that level went much better: I only lost a handful of units and now have some 10+ dwarven lords on my recall list.
Has anyone else experienced bugs with the lvl3 poacher (ranger) ? It seems noone is allowed to defend when he attacks...

Yes : the .cfg files for lvl3 outlaws are bad

for each [attack] tag you have to replace "type=short" by "type=melee" and "type=long" by "type=ranged"

[Tanis Half-Elven]

I started the campaign on easy, seeing as its my first time playing this campaign I wanted to try it out and see what it had in store for me.
Man, it was CHAOS. you should've seen my statistics, out of the hundreds of Thugs that I recruited, 108 of them didn't make it to lvl 2 (partly cause I used them to distract the enemy while my main force took their sweet time getting there ) Still, I've made it to (probably) the last level.
Ok, getting sidetracked here..... for the level that you guys are talking about (the one where you have to find and kill the Ancient Lich Malicor) I would suggest that you block off all the tunnels except for the those going south (the one you just came through), southeast (ignore it for now, there won't be anything coming out there), southwest (where the prisoners are held) and north (the Revenants there aren't likely to move away from their guard posts, and they can't recruit anything) with Dwarven Lords/Steelclads and Bandits/Highwaymen. Then, with your Great Mage (you should've leveled him up by now) and a few spare dwarves and Thugs/Bandits/whatever, head down the south western tunnel to rescue the White Mage couple, an Elvish Druid and a Drake Burner.
The tunnels heading west contains nothing of interest unless you really want exp or 2 villages, the tunnel east, however, has a nice little surprise for you (I'm not telling what it is, but it can make this level a LOT easier). To find Malicor, you can either storm the north-eastern tunnel OR take a detour around the side through the southwest tunnel. Both lead to Malicor...... eventually.
Well, I'm not gonna sit here and spoil the rest of the level for you, so if you have any more help, drop me a message and I'll help you out.

[solmyrian]

I am playing at hard difficulty and am currently stuck at Infested Caves scenerio.
1)I cant find the dwarves.Where are they?I couldnt find them even though I have only 1 more southern undead lord to kill.

2)The map is brutal.How is it possible to kill all the leaders?I barely reach the lair of the southern undead lord at turn 35.

Any help at all would be deeply appreciated.Been playing the same scenerio for over 3 days.

Thx.

[Sly]

I am playing at hard difficulty and am currently stuck at Infested Caves scenerio.
1)I cant find the dwarves.Where are they?I couldnt find them even though I have only 1 more southern undead lord to kill.

You answered your own question

2)The map is brutal.How is it possible to kill all the leaders?I barely reach the lair of the southern undead lord at turn 35.

Any help at all would be deeply appreciated.Been playing the same scenerio for over 3 days.

No magic trick : manage well and throw everything you have, took me about 4 try, and a week

[solmyrian]

Thx for replying.

I always reach the southern undead lord last.In the one time 1 managed to kill him,I didnt see any dwarves.Are they hidden in the villages?I ran out of time and still had at least 2 more leaders to kill.

I have played this scenerio like 7-8 times for 12 hrs a day and hardly catching any sleep for 3 days...lol

I started with 375gp,i had 2 swordsman,1 spearman and 1 archer that I could recall from the last scenerio.
My strategy is to recruit a "quick" thug at the back of the fort so u can run back up north and recruit the arch mage before any trolls block.
Half my army always go for the trolls 1st and kill them only at turn 18 or so then go thru the secret door to kill the northern undead lord usually at turn 30.This is what half my army does.

The other half goes to the central area where the citadels are and beat on trolls and undead while always maneuvering to try make them fight each other.When the area gets infested with monsters,i retreat back to my keep.

I always have 1 swordsman and 1 more thug to hold the narrow south passageway where the south west trolls are.When the undead start to near my keep,i retreat the swordsman(sometimes he is a royal guard by then)and try and make the south trolls and undead fight each other while I stay back in defensible villages.

The undead tend to win cause they have so many troops,when I notice few trolls coming from the north

When I see almost no no trolls coming from the south,I make a break for the south passage and after some struggle manage to kill the South troll leader.This is usually about turn 30 as well.I find that the eastern troll leader is normally killed by the undead hordes.

Sad to say,i have never had enough time to kill the South undead lord,the one time where i clearly was winning with 53 villages,my turn 37 expired right in front of his castle(although he still had a ring of guards about him) and I still found no dwarves.

Sorry for the long post.But I am so frustrated,i feel like ripping my hair off.Anyone has any tips to help?or are my starting resources and experienced troops too little for hard difficulty?

[solmyrian]

I won the scenerio by killing all the leaders.Didnt find no dwarves though.
If they were there,it means they were hidden in the only part I didnt search before but to avoid spoilers,I wont say where.

[Angry Andersen]

I would suggest the following for that map:
- Use poachers against trolls
- Use thugs against undead
- Don't recruit anything else (unless maybe later on for levelling)
- Recruit like mad most of the time
- Run for the south and north trolls as fast as you can, ignore the center area until both troll leaders are dead (just defend your keep)

In the north, getting the mage before the passage is blocked is the main thing. In the south, try to gain as much ground as you can. Getting to the passage which leads to all the villages is the key! Once you get in there, you've almost made it.

The Dwarves are in the south-east corner.

[solmyrian]

Thanks mans for helping.

your tips are great btw.

I beat that level(infested caves) and figured the dwarves were in the South East.
Now i am at the N S E W NE NW SE SW dungeon scenerio(the pursuit).Is that the last map?...thx again if someone replies.

[mlangsdorf]

There's a long way to go after the Pursuit.

The trickiest part of Pursuit is knowing that you need to break into the Dungeon first in order to rescue the prisoners, and then figuring out how to break through the defenses on the E and W sides, which are hard.

It's a very touchy, luck based level with too many chokepoints. Most of the rest of the campaign is interesting, though.