Stuck on infested caves

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olale
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Joined: August 11th, 2007, 1:32 pm

Stuck on infested caves

Post by olale »

Hi!

First, I'd just like to thank you all for a great game, I've been playing the main campaigns for some time now and really enjoy the gameplay. RoW and HttT were both great fun, and I played them at middle difficulty without more than a few casualties total.

Recently, I decided to try the Northern Rebirth campaign, and I must say I was impressed when the first scenario took me every one but the very last turn to complete. With only ten level 1 units, I proceeded to the infested caves scenario and got beaten. Badly. From every single direction.. I tried to stay out of the way and just have a few units around me in the middle of the map until the battle had subsided enough for me to go looking for dwarfs, but instead I got chewed up by both trolls *and* undead. Obviously *I* was the easy prey javascript:emoticon(':?'), being in the middle and between them both.. Another tactic I tried was trying to push directly north and south from the starting position in the west, but that got me stuck since I couldn't kill enough trolls per turn to advance and they just regenerated and came right back, whereas I only had one village to recover in per tunnel.. Also, the undead from the main chamber came after me before the trolls were defeated and were obviously bored from lack of opponents or something..

The walkthrough on the Wiki at http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/Northern_Rebirth doesn't mention the dwarfs at all, though finding them seems to be the main objective of the scenario..

Is there anything I've missed, or is it simply an expert level campaign I need to spend some more quality time on learning? javascript:emoticon(':wink:')
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Elvish_Pillager
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Post by Elvish_Pillager »

I tried playing that campaign at the highest difficulty level. I won the first scenario, but the second is basically impossible. (granted, the enemies have three times as much gold at the highest difficulty level than at the lowest.)

The dwarves are in a maze of twisty little passageways, all alike, starting at the east end of the main cave. You have to first get past an army of trolls, then an army of skeletons in a single endless choke point.

If you have perfect luck, you should be able to complete the scenario in about half the allotted turns.

An interesting point is that the AI is sometimes stupid enough that a single Footpad can bottle up the entire north undead army in its own cave.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
Edward V Riley
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Post by Edward V Riley »

First thing: Don't recall any units from previous scenario. In this scenario, they're not going to do much except die

Second thing: Recruit mostly thugs, with a handful of footpads. Be ready to be expendable with some of them, but try to level up as many as you can.

Send the first summoned group, half north, half south. Be ready to alternate units back and forth between the front and the nearest village once they've taken damage. Don't advance too far yet, but if you happen to get lucky at the north, get into that village in the grassland area. There's a Red Mage there that'll be a huge help to you, if you use him right.

The second summoned group, send 1/3 north, 1/3 south and start the other 1/3 east. Your job at the east is to stay near the "entrance" to the main area, but not enter it until after the skeletons and trolls have beaten each other up a bit. Keep your units healthy as possible for the big surge into the cavern(About 3 turns after you establish yourself defensively to the cavern is when you should make for the middle, there's a keep there for you to keep summoning.

The Third summoned group, bring them east and have Tallin go with them.

If you rotate your units at the north and south positions, eventually they'll break down the large amounts of skeletons there, be ready for that moment to zoom in for the kill, but be careful.

At the east, once you move into the area, try to clear the skeletons to the north out of the main area, then bottle them up at the entrance to their keep. Play as defensively as possible with the ones coming from the south and the trolls. After that, you shouldn't have too much trouble. Keep recruiting thugs and footpads and resist the urge to recruit poachers.
olale
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Joined: August 11th, 2007, 1:32 pm

Post by olale »

Edward: I take it you managed to beat all the enemy leaders before finding the dwarves then, if you charged for both the trolls and the undead before pushing east?

How much gold did you have when entering the caves? I've only got 400 gold right now, so I feel there's not very much room for heavy recruiting.
Edward V Riley
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Post by Edward V Riley »

That's about what I had.

Seriously, thugs and footpads are all you should recruit for this scenario. Don't even look at the other options. And for every group you recruit, only 2 footpads at the maximum, the rest thugs.

Yes, don't even bother looking for the dwarves til you've got some stability. By that I mean where you have the units where the enemy isn't swarming you and you have a chance for winning. The place where the dwarves are located means they won't be much help anyway.

At the north and south are secret walls leading in the north to the white flagged skeletons, and the south to the gold/brown flagged skeletons. The doors are right beside the keeps.

Learn to rotate units back to the nearest villages once they've taken damage in the front line. That means rotate a fresh unit back in it's place. That way you don't give ground, and can level up the units slowly without losing them.

If you're careful enough, by the time you move to the keep in the eastern part, you'll have enough gold to recruit there, albeit sparingly. Truthfully, the way I did it, I had 6 thugs and 2 footpads go north, and the same south. The rest went east.

While your units are waiting for the trolls and skeletons to kill each other off, resist the urge to charge in and finish off weakened units unless they happen to be extremely close to you.

I'd killed all but one enemy leader by the time I 'found' the dwarves. The location they're in means they can only send one unit at a time to help as they're bottled in, but they did help kill the last boss's troops.
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olale
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Joined: August 11th, 2007, 1:32 pm

Post by olale »

Yeah, I think I tried to follow those tactics but still, since I can't really enter the main chamber before the skeletons clear out, I'm kind of stuck. Half-way through the game I'm nowhere near to beat them, let alone level any units or advancing in the middle. Soon I may reach the the wizard though, but at turn 21, it seems I'm making little progress. Attached a saved game at turn 21 just to give an idea. Well, I'm not really complaining since other people have obviously made it, but it's darn tough keeping those units alive. *And* level them up...
Edward V Riley
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Post by Edward V Riley »

Infested Caves was a dungeon crawling learning experience for me. I know it's frustrating when it looks like you're about to break through only to watch fresh enemy units fill the gaps you just opened.

I didn't say wait til the skeletons and trolls die off completely, just let them kill each other a while, about 3 turns, then move in and immediately finish off as many enemy as you can as quickly as you can. Once you're in there, try to get the white flag skeletons contained til they're stuck back into their 'cave". Then use 3 units to cover that side: Two by the doors on those good castle defensive positions and the third to rotate in to whichever one takes damage. You can remain there practically the whole game, but eventually you'll break through the north and be able to come at them from that side via the secret door.

The Gold flagged skeletons, for some reason, were extremely slow about moving into the area. Seems they're drawn to the villages you left behind in the beginning of the scenario, but actually they're going after the trolls on that side. If you leave them some space, they'll go around to the trolls on that side. I managed to have my southern attacking force reach the village room(where all their villages are located) by the time these skeletons came to attack the trolls. Having all my units healed up while they damaged each other made it extremely easy to get through, plus my units were healed and ready to assault thru the secret door.

When you're in the eastern chamber, use the castle hexes to defend from and send a footpad to "range" a troll, then follow through with a thug or two. The point being, don't let the trolls live another round. Kill off one at a time, then move to the next always being conscious of leaving your units on the best defensive position possible.
Who Knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
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olale
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Joined: August 11th, 2007, 1:32 pm

Post by olale »

Alright, I'll give it another go tonight and weed out those skeletons in the main chamber. However, I'm not sure what good it does trying to wait them out a few turns before breaking into the main chamber. They seem to swarm towards me as soon as I advance and prefer me over them trolls so I get stuck. Since they can take out any healthy thugs or footpads with just two attacks if you're not lucky, they're extremely dangerous in just about any terrain.

*embrace the challenge, embrace the challenge* :)
Edward V Riley
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Post by Edward V Riley »

The point is to make yourself an "unattractive target". By this, have no weakened units in the front lines. Rotate them to the back and keep fresh units at the front. Keep about one space inside the hall, not 'right at' the entrance. Any skeletons that attack you there can therefore be ganged up on without you having to step into the chamber itself.
Who Knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
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Truper
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Post by Truper »

One key to beating the scenario is to recruit 2 footpads in the northwest corner of your starting castle on the first turn, and send them toward the Archmage as fast as possible. You will find that you can get one of them to a postion to be able to reach the mage before the trolls block the passage - the other footpad can prevent more than one troll from being able to attack the first (which might kill it and prevent it from getting the mage).

I also disagree with the idea that all you should be recruiting is thugs and footpads. I found having a few poachers to be handy in pushing the trolls back, although you have to be careful with them.
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santi
Lord of Wesmere
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Post by santi »

I also use poachers to hold the north and south entrances(and did get Camerin btw). The problem on had is that endless hordes of skeletons arrive to strike at your base. So advancing east and waiting on the entrance to the big opening is no good-you merely have to fight further from base and with no villages to heal. In some cases you can advance to the middle, but by then the trolls have won the duel and
your thugs are not especially good against trolls.
mccoyn
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Joined: September 9th, 2007, 8:30 pm

Post by mccoyn »

I've been playing this map on Difficult for a while, I finally beat it.

I had to replay the first level so that I started with about 550 gold.

I found it was too expensive to hold three fronts at once. Instead I recruited two groups and sent them up into the northwest tunnel. I figured recruiting any more would waste a lot of gold because it takes a long time to get through the tunnel and I would have a negative income.

I killed the first troll leader around round 20. Then I went through the passage and killed the north skeleton leader quickly since he was weak from fighting the brown trolls.

Finally, I just swarmed the passage on the east side and eventually found the dwarves. I figured I didn't have much chance in the south passage because the southwest troll (now very strong) was in there fighting the south skeletons.
Attachments
Infested_Caves_replay.zip
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zarak
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Joined: September 10th, 2007, 11:36 pm

finished on hard

Post by zarak »

I finally finished this scenario on hard. It took lots of time and many attempts.

The trick was to take out the trolls both north and south of the start in the beginning. Leave a group of thugs defending your main base with the leader. After you take out both sets of trolls, there are lots of flags to capture so that you start generating income again. Keep the remaining troops from both troll attacks where they are and open the secret doors. The northwest group will distract the white skeletons. The southwest group will be able to take out the orange skeletons. Once you generate enough to have some money to spend, start hiring more thugs and pushing east with the main force.

I captured the center castle at about turn 23 and recruited more thugs from there. The eastern trolls had been wiped out by the skeles near the dwarves. I blocked off the entry for the white skeles and after wiping out the main force of the dwarf skeles headed that way. I was able to take out the white leader on turn 35 and the last leader on turn 36.

Replay is attached in a zipped file.

I also tried viewing the replay before this, but it would not load in 1.2.6 and appeared to be done in normal instead of hard.
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Infested_Caves_replay.zip
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olale
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Joined: August 11th, 2007, 1:32 pm

Post by olale »

mccoyn: Could you try to re-post your replay? I constantly get "file is corrupt" when I try to run the replay. I'm using 1.3.6 as I believe you did.
Wesnoth Player
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Post by Wesnoth Player »

I'm finding that scenario well nigh impossible, i managed to kill north and south trolls, but the eastern trolls got mentally powerful after killing the white undead (i killed the orange)

I ended up with about 4 level 3 units, the fire mage, all defending against an army of stone throwers and level two trolls. This is my second try, both times I have failed due to there being far too many trolls from the east, and not enough room to move in the north and south caverns.
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