Woses vs UD

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Yogin
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Post by Yogin »

skeleton: 7-3 chaotic, 34 hp, 15 gold, -20 impact resist

At Night vs Wose:

9-3, 34 hp vs. 10-2, 52 hp, poor defense.

If you keep your skeleton in good defensive terrain, it will kill the wose.
Hell, if you keep them both on grassland, the skeleton has 40 def, the wose has 20 def, and the skeleton has a chance to win. On good terrain, he definitely wins. Add in a dark adept or two, and it's a good fight, even in dusk/dawn conditions.

You also recruit 4 skeletons for every 3 woses.

Oh, not to mention, the wose are SLOW. You don't ever have to risk engaging during the day.
Last edited by Yogin on January 9th, 2006, 3:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
Becephalus
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Woses vs UD

Post by Becephalus »

Editted for annoynymity, and to tone things down as I was tying to be diplomatic, but I was also tired and crabby.

I am just trying to get people's input on this and understand what they think works. I am not trying to upset anyone.

Situation

I am playing 1.1 vs a new but decent player on a charge like map. I am random and draw UD he is elves. I do a rather standard recruit and soon discover he went basically all scouts. I tell him this is a bad idea and that he should mix it up between Woses/Mages and a few shamans and fighters. Meanwhile I am slaughtering him and have maybe a 12 to 3 kill ratio or so (although he is winning slightly economically with all those scouts). Since he went all scouts early on I had recruited maybe 2 skeletons 4 archers, 2 ghosts, 2 adepts 2 gouls. By turn 10 or so things are looking pretty grim for him and a developer comes in as observer and tells him to go all woses (a little later he tells him to get mages too, which the player ignores and just gets like 1.5 woses a turn).

Well when the woses come up the middle I retreat there and hit his flanks hard. I push south pretty easily and level up a few units, but the woses are just anihiliating anything I leave anywhere near them in middle.

With maybe my 3rd large recruit I get mostly adepts and gouls and maybe a ghost. I figure this is UD best shot against woses and I need somethign to stand in between them and my leader. Well the woses anhilate this force rather easily (maybe it was just bad luck, but for the whole match the luck was rather even). Luckily I manage to distract them away from my castle, but I am forced to resort to gimickie things like harrassing him from water with my wraith. Slowly more and more villages become unappraochable because of woses and I am economically starved (and starved for a way to kill woses).

Well it was a fun and good game and I didn't feel like I made many bad mistakes. EDIT: on further thought there are defintely a few things I would have done differently, but I think that is true for most games if you think about them enough.

Moreover I was close to doubling his dmg and killed way more of his units than he killed of mine (as you would expect since I am much more experienced).

I tell the other player gg and that I am not sure how UD is supposed to handle woses as adepts/gouls/ghosts seems best and these got hammered by the woses.

After not saying anything for at least 10 turns the developer (who may have been afk or something) suddenly says A: why didn't you recruit mages like I sugggested you to the other player. and B: adepts and a few skeletons at night are the way to handle woses.

I politely express skepticism and am told I am wrong.

Hopefully I can play an adept vs Wose game in the future so he can show me (not saying he's wrong just that I don't understand/don't believe).

Here is how I look at it (I admit this comes from limited game experience (this 1v1 and a 2v2 where I basically switched enemies with my ally becuase my UD were so ineffetive against massed woses).

Adept has high 20s low 30s hp and does 10-2 cold/magic normal def stats.

Wose has high 52hp 13-2 impact dmg regen/ambush.

Wose bad point low def doesn't matter against the adepts magic attack.

Wose other bad point low movement is a liability, but on a charge sized map doesn't matter too much as they can mass around villages.

Wose also has 10% cold resist

So you have 9-2 magic attack with say 30hp on average vs 13-2 with 52 hp. Now the adepts are a little cheaper. So I think the average ratio of Woses to adepts would be something like 8/10.

TO ME this does not seem like a recipe for success as 2 or 3 adepts will often wound the woses badly. They then retreat/regen while 2 or 3 woses often kill the adepts. Given skellies low resistances I would also think gouls might make a better compliment to adepts, but they just get thrashed too. Not to mention if the elf player throws a few fighters in the adepts fare even worse.

Now obviously all these calculations in the abstract don't mean much if adepts actually kill woses in game, but like I said from my limited experience they don't. At best the UDs best option is an even fight (and one which will leave him open to counter recruitment).

Or maybe I just suck at this game all of a sudden.
Last edited by Becephalus on January 9th, 2006, 5:55 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Sapient
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Post by Sapient »

I agree that dark adepts are not the solution.

Woses are excellent undead smashers, there's no question about that. You might say it's their main purpose in life. Once I was able to chop down some elder shrubs using my leader, a skeletal Draug. Even with skeleton axemen, though, it's going to hurt a lot. That's the price for getting through the mountain rather than going around it.

Try to finish them off with Walking Corpses, but that goes without saying.
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Dragonking
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Post by Dragonking »

Sapient wrote:Try to finish them off with Walking Corpses.
Uh.. better not :P

Yogin wrote:skeleton: 7-3 chaotic, 34 hp, 15 gold, -20 impact resist

At Night vs Wose:

9-3, 34 hp vs. 10-2, 52 hp, poor defense.

If you keep your skeleton in good defensive terrain, it will kill the wose.
Hell, if you keep them both on grassland, the skeleton has 40 def, the wose has 20 def, and the skeleton has a chance to win. On good terrain, he definitely wins. Add in a dark adept or two, and it's a good fight, even in dusk/dawn conditions.

You also recruit 4 skeletons for every 3 woses.
Exactly. Fighters, on good terrian and at night or even at dawn/dusk are really good wose-killers (even with '-' to impact). It is obvious that they have to attack from 50%+ def terrian, but it shouldn't be so hard due to woses' limited movement.

Also advancing ghost to wraith is good solution - blade + drain + low defense of wose.... :-)
Shadow isn't bad option as well.

Only advantage of adept is that they don't get any damage while attacking wose - but they also don't deal any when they are attacked by them.
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Post by Becephalus »

Hmmmm...have any thoughts on gouls vs skellies. Less dmg, but no regen and no impact weakness.
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Post by Dragonking »

Becephalus wrote:Hmmmm...have any thoughts on gouls vs skellies. Less dmg, but no regen and no impact weakness.
Ghould deal onlt 4-3, sceletons deal 7-3. At night it is 5-3 and 9-3. It is good to have some ghouls around, but I would just chose skeletons + some adepts + ghost which I would try to levelup.
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Post by JW »

I don't play Undead very much, but I imagine that using 1 Ghoul to poison the tree would be a huge benefit as it would be an effective +8 damage.

It's exceptionally hard to kill a wose in 1 turn with level 1 units (non-mage).
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Post by Becephalus »

Well i played that game and well played mix of skellies and adepts sure did well (kicked my wose ass) , although i think the skellies and ghosts are almost a better combo. Skellies to weaken ghosts to turn ito wraiths.
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

Don't use Ghouls. At 5-3 vs. 9-3, the difference is an average of 12 damage time chance-to-hit, which is more than the 8 effective damage from poison if the Wose is anywhere but Forest.

In the twilight, Ghouls are slightly better, but only 1 per wose, and there is also the chance, albeit low, of not hitting at all.
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Post by Yogin »

Don't use Ghouls. At 5-3 vs. 9-3, the difference is an average of 12 damage time chance-to-hit, which is more than the 8 effective damage from poison if the Wose is anywhere but Forest.

In the twilight, Ghouls are slightly better, but only 1 per wose, and there is also the chance, albeit low, of not hitting at all.
Hmm... curiosity has gotten the better of me:
-------------------------
Night Time

20% def:

51%: 3 hits: skeleton: 27, ghoul: 23
38%: 2 hits: skeleton: 18, ghoul: 18
10%: 1 hit: skeleton: 9, ghoul: 13
EV: skeleton: 21.5, ghoul: 20

30% def:

34%: 3 hits: skeleton: 27, ghoul: 23
44%: 2 hits: skeleton: 18, ghoul: 18
19%: 1 hit: skeleton: 9, ghoul: 13
EV: skeleton: 18.8, ghoul: 18.2

40% def:

22%: 3 hits: skeleton: 27, ghoul: 23
43%: 2 hits: skeleton: 18, ghoul: 18
29%: 1 hit: skeleton: 9, ghoul: 13
EV: skeleton: 16.3, ghoul: 16.6

-----------------------

Dusk/Dawn

20% def:

51%: 3 hits: skeleton: 21, ghoul: 20
38%: 2 hits: skeleton: 14, ghoul: 18
10%: 1 hit: skeleton: 7, ghoul: 12
EV: skeleton: 16.7, ghoul: 18.4

30% def:
EV: skeleton: 14.6, ghoul: 17

40% def:
EV: skeleton: 12.7, ghoul: 15.6

----------------------------------

Ghoul is almost equivalent or better than skeleton damage in all but one case: 20% def @ night. However, the skeleton can KILL with it's damage, whereas the ghoul cannot: at most 8 damage is taken at the beginning of opponents' turn, and cannot go below 1. This means that if you want to kill a wose THIS turn during your attacks, the skeleton is much better.

OTOH, during daytime, if wose are attacking, the ghoul is clearly better.

Conclusion: It's not a bad strategy to mix in a ghoul with every 3-4 skeletons. Don't attack a wose you want to kill with it. Using it as a defensive unit is best (if you must be attacked at day, let wose attack a ghoul). It needs to be recruited sparingly, however. The great majority of undead offensives will result in units dying at night, so skeletons are better. Also, ghouls are more expensive than skeletons. And it shouldn't need to be said, but, poisoning an already poisoned unit is pointless.
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Post by JW »

You forgot to mention that the +8 damage comes from the Wose NOT HEALING. It doesn't actually lose the hp. But yes, those numbers are awesome. Thanks for the workup. The can't-be-poisoned-twice effect is why I suggested at most 1 Ghoul - but I believe Ghouls got boosted in 1.1?
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Post by Doc Paterson »

Becephalus wrote:Well i played that game and well played mix of skellies and adepts sure did well (kicked my wose ass) , although i think the skellies and ghosts are almost a better combo. Skellies to weaken ghosts to turn ito wraiths.
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Post by Sapient »

Dragonking - why not finish them with walking corpses? The wose has low defense so you have a good chance to hit it. If it misses, the WC will probably die, but another unit can step into its place. The wose is powerful but it is slow... an extra minion in the way serves as a nice obstacle.
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Post by Mythological »

You are not taking into acount the defensive aspect of fighting woses...for instance, skeletons do more damage to woses then adepts or ghouls but they also take more damage because of their vulnerability on the woses retaliation (and their next attack if the wose survives )....woses were always problematic for the undead to handle with and I believe thats why their resistance on cold have been reduced in 1.1, so the undead have better chance of killing them.
The undead's units that can fight woses are : adept,skeleton,ghoul,ghost with drain and even bat but ONLY as a finisher, but the wose has an advantage against and will kill every one of them separatly so to kill a wose you'll propably need 3 units to attack a single wose what gives the oponnent a chance to have an advantage in numbers somewhwere else. I am not sure that the undead can always choose when to fight a wose because althow slow, woses can 1st hide in forest, and even the most experienced players can sometimes be taken on a suprise by a wose poping out of the forest in the worst possible moment or running on them while advancing and 2nd woses can regenerate, so when fighting them undead must risk and attack an injured wose even at day, because otherwise it'll just pull back, regenerate for the day and night and come attacking next day as a brand new wose.
When I play elves vs undead (my experience from 1.0) I recruit more woses then mages cause mages are inadequate for fighting certain undead units like skel archers at night or adepts and die easily, while woses can fight everything and dont die so easy. If they hade more movement you'll propably be able to defeat undead with woses only
Last edited by Mythological on January 11th, 2006, 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dragonking »

Sapient wrote:Dragonking - why not finish them with walking corpses? The wose has low defense so you have a good chance to hit it. If it misses, the WC will probably die, but another unit can step into its place. The wose is powerful but it is slow... an extra minion in the way serves as a nice obstacle.
Because wose has 40% resistance to impact, so WC can deal 2-2 (day), 3-2 (dawn/dusk) or 4-2 (night) damage. And if you will 'step into' with too many corpses you will kill wose, but lose economically.
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