HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

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Anonymissimus
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HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by Anonymissimus »

Now that replays work quite well in 1.8 it's time to boast a bit about my accomplishments on this level, too. I did saveload one time in turn 9 because I originally didn't aim for killing all three liches, only wanted to get experience and sent only two armies to the northern and eastern lich. Note that there's no point in killing the liches since the gold bonus doesn't make up for the negative current money. I lost a level 2 thief gained in this scenario. Well, that's an army you get when milking every scenario for experience (and money). Luck was on average. Takes me lots of time to play so thought out, but I really hate loosing leveled units.
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projects (BfW 1.12):
A Simple Campaign: campaign draft for wml startersPlan Your Advancements: mp mod
The Earth's Gut: sp campaignSettlers of Wesnoth: mp scenarioWesnoth Lua Pack: lua tags and utils
updated to 1.8 and handed over: A Gryphon's Tale: sp campaign
Ineluki
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Joined: June 17th, 2010, 5:15 pm

Re: HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by Ineluki »

Well played, very nice, but to be fair there was still 2 dark adepts alive :P
Anonymissimus
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Re: HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by Anonymissimus »

Ineluki wrote:Well played, very nice, but to be fair there was still 2 dark adepts alive :P
Well, the actual fight is over after my turn 8 anyway. Never finished it so early. After that there's no danger of loosing units that I don't consider expendable and I could have killed those 2 adepts if I had aimed for it, but could not in this situation since the three dead liches ended the scenario...
projects (BfW 1.12):
A Simple Campaign: campaign draft for wml startersPlan Your Advancements: mp mod
The Earth's Gut: sp campaignSettlers of Wesnoth: mp scenarioWesnoth Lua Pack: lua tags and utils
updated to 1.8 and handed over: A Gryphon's Tale: sp campaign
kaminariwan
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Joined: June 13th, 2010, 11:11 am

Re: HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by kaminariwan »

That's really well done, the level 1 units do some neat work sacrificing themselves for the team.

Here's another example of wiping out all 3 liches, The strategy is pretty similar to Anonymissimus', but the unit mix is a bit different. I'm not sure there's any other good way to beat them all: The North lich's attack tends to develop a lot more quickly than the South's, so it needs to be dealt with first. Even good players might fail if the North lich takes a slow line of play, or the East lich does nothing but spam walking corpses.

It's a touch scenario!
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All 3 liches wiped out
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Anonymissimus
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Re: HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by Anonymissimus »

Well, but to be fair, you loose Elrian, he's loyal. (You know that his loyal trait is most useful when he's a Great Mage ?!) You kill the liches one turn earlier than you need to, maybe you should have waited and healed a bit. I maybe wouldn't have recalled some of the elves and recruited some more cannon fodder instead, although they're good when used against the walking corpses.
The thing with the mermen is that you can't retreat from the southern lich then because they're too slow. Or from the northern one, depending on in which way you go, although on hard all of the three armies are so quickly there that you can't really apply the "defeat in detail" strategy - defeating them seperately.

Btw in my replay I don't try to get the holy water in the southeast; whenever I did that the rider ended up being not able to catch up with the rest of the army without getting killed, and I had no other knight or leveled scout this time. If I have a level 2 scout, or if I mainly attack the southern lich, I try to get it.
And I actually started leveling in Elves Besieged with only this scenario in mind...and army focused on anti-undead can still fight well against almost any enemy.
projects (BfW 1.12):
A Simple Campaign: campaign draft for wml startersPlan Your Advancements: mp mod
The Earth's Gut: sp campaignSettlers of Wesnoth: mp scenarioWesnoth Lua Pack: lua tags and utils
updated to 1.8 and handed over: A Gryphon's Tale: sp campaign
jonadab
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Re: HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by jonadab »

Anonymissimus wrote:I actually started leveling in Elves Besieged with only this scenario in mind...and army focused on anti-undead can still fight well against almost any enemy.
Yeah, I sort of noticed that. I may have to rethink my strategy. I've been operating on the assumption that this campaign is mostly about fighting orcs, with some undead on the side, and so I've been going for shydes as healers (due to their superior mobility) on the theory that white mages are mainly good against undead and not so useful against orcs, but ... with this level having been revised to have wraiths on all three fronts since last time I played HttT, I'm having trouble with this level and starting to think I need to gear my early game more toward it. Previously I was gearing my early game mainly toward Elensefar, where you have to cure poison, which druids can do, and the Fords of Abez, where shydes' mobility on water is really nice to have, but now I'm thinking this scenario is harder than either of those. On top of that, your replay makes me think I've been underusing and undervaluing attributes that help adjascent units fight better -- leadership and light. If I can learn to use them as well as you do here, the MoL line could indeed be useful against orcs.

I also haven't yet got used to the "arcane" changes -- I hadn't played much for a while there and recently got back to it -- so maybe white mages are better than I think. I'm catching myself still thinking of their attack as "holy" and "of no use whatever against anything but undead", which may not be entirely true any more.

Huh. Back to the first scenario I go, it seems.
I write Bible School materials:
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jonadab
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Re: HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by jonadab »

I may need also to rethink my stance on the ranger/avenger line. I've been considering them a key mainstay of my fighting force, because they're highly effective against orcs, but they're kind of not so hot against undead...
I write Bible School materials:
http://bibleschoolmaterials.blogspot.com/
ayearhasgone
Posts: 56
Joined: October 28th, 2010, 5:36 pm

Re: HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by ayearhasgone »

Man, I wish I had that kind of skill.

I surrounded Konrad with thieves and my entire level 2-3 army and ran for the southeastern hills, and I still barely survived. I lost Morimu (or whatever his name was) but didn't care, as long as I just beat the level. And this was after numerous save-loads.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm great at leveling archers and fighters, but mages just escape me. I have a mage perform a kill and then their low HP gets them killed on the enemy's turn. All i have is a Shyde and an Enchantress...

Well, hopefully by the end of the campaign I will be a little more proficient at this game, and will be able to get to the point where I can take care of the liches. I've beaten several Intermediate campaigns so I'm not sure why this one is giving me trouble.
monokli
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Re: HttT Valley of Death on hard - all dead

Post by monokli »

Restart!

On easy with the proper leveling and chosing isle of dead for a toolbox army (this was my second attempt) I steamrolled through this map. Haldiel (knight) goes north for holy water, elf rider goes for SE one. Everyone else goes east against green.
Thanks to two lightbeams, kalenz and enchantress, the east wraiths fold, and then green lich comes out of his castle, which becomes his last mistake.
Haldiel meanwhile distracts purple wraiths by grabbing villages, and looking threatening, so northern undead come in piecemeal. Also I forgot one elvish leader in the eastern village outside my starting castle, who attracts bats.

At this point I split my forces: some of my elves stayin the forest, delfador goes north of the green castle to grab the village, and konrad gets to reassess the situation, and recall a footpad (I already had my loyal fugituve and assassin on the field) and a magi.
Then I sent the rest of my guys southwest to the village on the north side of the hills, and used outlaws to screen my weaker units.
It just worked. I defeated the remaining forces, haldiel assassinated the north lich, and the south one was dealt with my main army in turn 11.

A decisive victory. I'll post army list and everything else tomorrow.
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