WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

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ghosteclipse
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Joined: July 30th, 2010, 1:44 pm

Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by ghosteclipse »

its a long time since i played wesnoth and complete two of the mainline campaigns..

basically my strategy was to always keep your veterans alive whatever the cost, even if i have to replay a scenario.

how to keep your veterans alive?

first thing is always to keep a battle line. this makes your units limited to facing 3 attacks a turn so the enemy couldn't smother them. have plenty of healers so every end of turn they are automatically healed. infantry is always best suited for defense especially the dwarven lords, i really loved them as defensive troops when they are on hills and tunnels as the bonus kicks in.

i keep the line long enough so they couldn't be outflanked. sometimes i put up low level troops at the flanks just to make sure the veterans are safe but unless the attackers are that real smart they wont go for your flanks. dont let your fast troops too far from the main battle line unless you want them to secure an important position or neutralize an isolated enemy in a castle before he turns out more troops or before stronger reinforcements could link up.

at the worst case i used the game boundaries for my flanks :) done it many times and has worked incredibly well. the worst attackers are skirmishers as they can bypass the lines and kill your weakened troops at the rear. i really didnt like them, especially those lizards.

the stronger your troops at the end the more you can complete the next scenarios. a powerful force of veteran troops can rollover newby armies several times their size.
monochromatic
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by monochromatic »

Oh dear. You've never played NR, have you? It's impossible to play that without losing units. In that campaign you'll always need to level units because some of your leveled units will inevitably die (probably except for the Dwarvish Lords).

Also, in LoW, it's the opposite strategy: about halfway through you'll want to have your veterans to die! :D
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baldemir
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by baldemir »

orders> debug

:D and done


but if you want to do it fair... :D check strategies in forum
strategy is the art of war
monokli
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by monokli »

One very important thing in httt: Don't EVER go to muff malal: less exp and minus 2(+ dwarven doors bandit) loyal units. Of course less experience means slower finish of later scenarios-> less gold AND less versalite army in the end.
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pauxlo
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by pauxlo »

monokli wrote:One very important thing in httt: Don't EVER go to muff malal: less exp and minus 2(+ dwarven doors bandit) loyal units. Of course less experience means slower finish of later scenarios-> less gold AND less versalite army in the end.
The last some times I playes HttT, I always played with the "recruit only shamans" (but recalls of anything are allowed) route. This makes the isle route about impossible :-)
monokli
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by monokli »

pauxlo wrote:
monokli wrote:One very important thing in httt: Don't EVER go to muff malal: less exp and minus 2(+ dwarven doors bandit) loyal units. Of course less experience means slower finish of later scenarios-> less gold AND less versalite army in the end.
The last some times I playes HttT, I always played with the "recruit only shamans" (but recalls of anything are allowed) route. This makes the isle route about impossible :-)
Hmm... Thinking of it, you have lots of impact attacks then, minus one holy sword white mage, minus loyal outlaw, then minus loyal bandit at dwarven doors.

Then muff malal needs an overhaul: Loyal units, more xp and better unit diversity (units better at caves, since your experienced elven army may end up slogging two hexes per turn in missions 15-17
HomerJ
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by HomerJ »

pauxlo wrote:
monokli wrote:One very important thing in httt: Don't EVER go to muff malal: less exp and minus 2(+ dwarven doors bandit) loyal units. Of course less experience means slower finish of later scenarios-> less gold AND less versalite army in the end.
The last some times I playes HttT, I always played with the "recruit only shamans" (but recalls of anything are allowed) route. This makes the isle route about impossible :-)
Hm... gotta dig out my replays there, I was sure I did the isle back then... well you can recruit and recall merfolk, there's holy water, whitemage+outlaw so it should be doable...


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HomerJ
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Scottar
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by Scottar »

Throw your hands up and beat your head against the keyboard, then go back to Packman. No, seriously you should reanalyze the situation and go back to the play, or scenario, and try a different approach. You can hit the blogs for advice or read the walkthroughs if impatient or frustrated.

By reading the walkthroughs you will get tips on hidden objects or what outcomes will take if you have a choice on proceeding to the next scenario of a campaign.

I have found that during battles, if I don't like the outcome of a conflict, I go back to the autosave point and just run it again. The out- come between 2 opponents can vary by the random, built in nature of the program's AI. So if your horseman gets clobbered by that big thug just run it again, and perhaps by the third rerun the horseguy will clobber the thug where you can bring up a lower infantry guy and knock the thug out.

I have also found that if out a turn involving various conflicts of individuals I may have developed a poor offense strategy, so I come up with a new one that gets me a more favorable one by going back and rerunning that turn from autosave. I call it- optimizing the battle run.

My strategy is, not just winning a scenario, but carrying over leveled-up veterans and maxing up the gold for the next scenario. If you notice, each scenario of a campaign tends to get more difficult, so that if you don't endup with level 3 veterans then winning becomes virtually impossible. Don't forget your main characters. If you have a scenario that has more turns then needed to win, then milk it to level up your veterans. And if you know you are going to dealt out the 'coup de grass' to the main opponent, and you have other units engaged, then have them deal out the finals blows before clobbering the main guy and ending the scenario.

Then there are situations where you can't overwhelm the enemy and you just need to get your main guy to a departure point or last out the turns like "Valley of the Dead". In that scenario you can just take out one of the opponents and last out the turns without losing your main guys, or you can try and take out all 3 opponents before the turns run out. I managed to take out all 3 while losing a minor Elvish Scout which is regrettable. I try and retain all the forces for the next scenario. Veterans are worth the recall gold.

I usually try to get level 3 Elvish Scouts, 3lv-shaman, 3lv mages, 3lv horseman. But that's just from playing Heir to the Throne of which I am doing for the third time trying to optimize the outcome while learning from it. Some times as I progress through a turn, I may save it at a certain point where I have a favorable outcome, so if in the next few engagements if I goof on a strategy, I can return at that point and modify the battle to a favorable outcome on the turn. It's the end result that counts in leveling up and getting more gold by capturing villages if possible.

There's no one way to win and you could experiment with different forces to see what kind of outcome you could achieve. I have not had the chance to play to play the other campaigns but I guess they may require different units. So choose your forces wisely for each campaign and figure out which units you may have to concentrate on leveling up.
Kamamura
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by Kamamura »

IMO the advice "go back and level a few more units" is the greatest problem of Wesnoth (for me), since it leads to unnatural gameplay. First, you can never be sure you have enough levelled troops, because that depens on what the designer expectations and his projected gameplay style. So sometimes, you prolong scenarios unnecessarily just to level up, which does not make any sense story-wise, most of the time.

"Hurry, prince, the village is burning and the people cry for help!"
"No, we must stay and fight random frogs from this swamp to level up"

Doh...

I would prefer campaigns that, if you don't meet the perceived requirements for the level (that means it's winnable with good strategy and a fair dose of luck), that the game would give you the absolute minimum of levelled troops. It can be even justified story-wise:

"Look, prince, it's the contingent of knights from the northern kingdom who came to fight for our cause!"

And yes, if I don't like it, I can do it myself, and I will, if I ever kick myself to stitch up a reasonable campaign.
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taptap
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by taptap »

The problem usually is not to level more units, but to have a more versatile recall list. E.g. levelling only dwarf fighters in The Hammer of Thursagan will lead to problems later when you have to fight drakes. The obvious answer is to recruit more different units and recall only as much as is required (veterans cost upkeep and eat the xp away from the lower levels). In fact it is useful to consciously try to level some of everything you can recruit to explore if you don't know them or have available all the options if you do. Recalling less also helps with the gold management. However, in my experience so far most campaigns do not require you to have a terribly strong recall list.
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karede
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by karede »

I can't figure out how to beat this campaign (caverns of flame scenario). I moved all heroes to glyph, activated, and elves all died...but the lava destroys everyone. What am I missing?

I tried keeping all heroes near glyph. All elves were slaughtered by trolls. I tried looking around for an "exit". What happens is all elves die, my heroes in the middle get melted, and the gryphon goes nuts and dive bombs the lava.
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alexanderthegre
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by alexanderthegre »

karede wrote:I can't figure out how to beat this campaign (caverns of flame scenario). I moved all heroes to glyph, activated, and elves all died...but the lava destroys everyone. What am I missing?

I tried keeping all heroes near glyph. All elves were slaughtered by trolls. I tried looking around for an "exit". What happens is all elves die, my heroes in the middle get melted, and the gryphon goes nuts and dive bombs the lava.
It sounds likie you just won. :P
The dwarves die at the end of turns. Hit 'end scenario' to go to the epilogue.
karede
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by karede »

Wow. You're right. I assumed I lost and didn't even see the end scenario. Thanks!
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Ravi
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Re: WHAT TO DO if you can't beat a scenario in a campaign:

Post by Ravi »

The scenerio "The Test Of the Clans" in Heir To The Throne is somewhat very diffcult! They kill all my units with one blow :doh: . Hence I can never pass this scenerio even in easy diffculty :augh: !!
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Kirsten
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Re: Levelling up enough units.

Post by Kirsten »

jonadab wrote:
Consider if you've levelled up enough units/carried enough gold over from previous scenarios.
This one is very hard to overemphasize. If you are having trouble with a scenario, go systematically through the list of types of units you can recruit, and see what each of them can become if it levels up a couple of times. Would any of those types of units help you beat the current scenario more easily? If so, that's your problem: go back and level up your units before you get to where you need them. . . .

By the time I finally finished the Heir to the Throne campaign (medium difficulty), I'd gone back a few scenarios for better units half a dozen times, and I ended up with half a dozen Dwarvish Lords and a couple of Thunderguards, a Great Mage, an Archmage, and a White Mage, two Shydes, a couple of Avengers and a Sharpshooter, a Champion and a Marshall, three Outriders, four Gryphon Masters, two Paladins, two Grand Knights and a Lancer, a couple of Rogues, and two Merman Warriors with Storm Tridents, and all the principle characters were at level 3 or higher. Even then, at times I could have put more levelled units to good use, especially more levelled mages. It also would have been very nice to have more Avengers and more levelled horsemen of one sort or another. The only unit on the above list that I would do differently if I went back is the Sharpshooter; if I had to do over again I'd make it another Avenger instead, because those extra hitpoints are terribly useful.
When going back to a previous scenario to level up units, are you adding those units to the ones you already acquired in that previous scenario? I.e., are they cumulative, so that, when you reach the difficult scenario again, you have stacked the deck with additional resources that you couldn't have had by playing the previous scenario only once, no matter how wisely? Or do you replay the previous scenario starting with only the personnel resources you started with when you first played it, and overwrite the previous save, so that you end up with only the personnel resources resulting from that second, more deliberate play?
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