Problems with LOW-Hostile Mountains

[AgentTBC]

I agree with Taemyr: I'm not trying to be a pain but the problem is starting the second scenario with only 100 gold. If you're planning to revert to a 100 gold minimum I hope you'll play it through to make sure it's possible to win at that level. (And share the replay!) I'm fairly sure you would have lost with 3 fewer veteran units on your replay.

Are the trolls less averse to triggering the dwarves in the new version or was it just luck that they stepped on dwarf land so early and drew off some units?

Has anyone at all won this scenario on HARD difficulty under the current conditions? (50 gp for killing the orc, 100 gold minimum in second scenario). Any help at all would be appreciated!

[santi]

About the 100 gold: Yes, it's coming(I mean the playtesting). I have done that many times before, but it has to be done again for the current version.
About hero vs captain(or ranger vs marksman): I prefer the higher HP unit
for these units because they need to survive the initial scenarios where they may not have
much of a choice in picking their fights
About the water: Very astute observation. I try to playtest using slightly less than optimal
play to offset bad luck and to avoid making it a chess game where you need to calculate everything correctly(at least when your pieces are in contact with the opponent)

[AgentTBC]

Thanks santi! I am banging my head against the wall on this one. My current best strategy is to forget about the first scenario and just rush the leader to the signpost; this lets me start the second scenario with 230+ gold or so. I think if I could get the trolls to engage the dwarves with a couple units like you did in the last replay I would have a shot, but I just can't seem to do it. It seems a matter of pure luck whether they step on troll land. Mostly they don't.

[AgentTBC]

Ok I got it. The key for me was what I said a bit earlier: getting veterans in the first scenario was a red herring. I didn't buy any troops at all and just ran my leader to the signpost. I got a teenie bit of XP with a few guys in the upper left city by killing a unit on the turn I won, before moving leader onto the post.

I had both good luck and bad in the second scenario; twice I didn't lose a unit that I was deliberately sacrificing and a couple times I did lose a unit that had a good chance to survive. I bought one too many elvish scouts, I think, and would have done better with another archer instead. And I made a major error late in the game that could have really cost me but luckily it didn't: I miscalculated and left a sorceress hanging where she could get double teamed and killed, but they didn't get her. I still would have won but it would have hurt me later in the campaign.

This was very frustrating for a few days but I'm feeling pretty good about it now.

[AgentTBC]

oh yeah, no need to point out that sacrificing the first elvish scout on the second turn of actual fighting was useless and got me absolutely nothing. I thought the second level 3 troll would attack it instead of the archer in the water, but the AI was smarter than I gave it credit for.

[taemyr]

this lets me start the second scenario with 230+ gold or so.

Using Landar to draw the orcs of in scenario 1?

[AgentTBC]

The southern orcs seem to just kind of mill aimlessly if you skirt the edge. There seems to be a bit of an AI glitch on this one; the orc leader should always retreat and hire more units, but instead if you position Landar so that the Orc leader can just barely get to him it seems to freeze the orc leader in position and he just sits there.

The only hiccup is if there are a lot of those goblin riders because sometimes they can move far enough to attack Landar and then he's in trouble.

edit: is this too close to being an exploit? Hiring one scout might be enough to draw off the enemy even if they act more intelligently and shouldn't affect the starting position for next scenario much at all.

[santi]

I am attaching 2 different replays of scenario 2 with 100 gold(with the scenario 1 already posted)

[santi]

and here is the second one: I am pretty confident of beating the scenario with 100 gold because I have done so repeatedly in the past with the difference that I was only facing 6-7 lv3 trolls, no lv2 units(which also means no rocklobbers). I am not sure if this or the current situation with lv3 and lv2 units is preferable. The key was to spawn one archer per turn who rushes down. To this end it helps to get the two scouts to grab as many villages as possible and as fast as possible(they are also useful as cannon fodder). Make no mistake about it, there will be losses, but it looked heroic at the time to keep spawning and sending archers to their death just to reduce the lv3 troll monster hp by a little bit. I first recruited ordinary archers and got the lv2 units to join the fight when there was enough cannon fodder.

[santi]

AgentTBC wrote:

This was very frustrating for a few days but I'm feeling pretty good about it now.

Doesn't that feel good!

edit: is this too close to being an exploit? Hiring one scout might be enough to draw off the enemy even if they act more intelligently and shouldn't affect the starting position for next scenario much at all.

Let me get this straight: can you win scenario 1 with just a scout? It should be kalenz reaching the signpost, not anyone else. What tactics you use is up to your creativity

[taemyr]

OK. I guess the question that remains is;
How do you get the troll to step on dwarf land? He never does that when I play.

[santi]

I think you have to get at least one kill first for this to happen.

[AgentTBC]

Let me get this straight: can you win scenario 1 with just a scout? It should be kalenz reaching the signpost, not anyone else. What tactics you use is up to your creativity

No, I can win scenario 1 without hiring anybody, because the orcs just freeze if you position Landar correctly in relation to the orc leader. I was speculating that this might be an exploit of an AI glitch, but that even if the orcs acted somewhat more intelligently, sending an elvish scout ahead to draw fire would allow your leader to reach the signpost safely with mostly the same strategy.

[santi]

Can you post a replay? If I understand you right this is not supposed to happen. The orcs are too many for Landar to survive and there is no reason not to attack Kalenz

[AgentTBC]

I posted it a couple of messages back but I'll post it again.

If you position Landar so that the orc leader is the only one who can reach him (or ties with another unit as the only ones who can reach him), the orc leader just sits still and the orc units mill aimlessly about the castle, and you can sneak the leader right down without ever being threatened. Here's the replay.