Newbie questions (mainly on walking through a campaign)

[Eleazar]

First of all Wesnoth is a very deep and brilliant strategy game...

This is true, probably more true that you believe. Wesnoth is deep.

I've been playing off and on for 6 years. I'm not a great player, there are others who are many, many times better. When i started i would have said that i was pretty experienced with similar strategy games, but i ran into similar problems. I think i had a lot of trouble beating "Princess of Wesnoth". But there's a lot to learn about good strategy in Wesnoth doesn't carry over from games like HMM. Yes luck is important, but it can be managed. The secret to success in levels like Princess of Wesnoth isn't luck, and it isn't knowledge of the specifics of that level-- its plain old standard Wesnoth tactical skill. There are lots of posts in these forums and wiki articles that will share some of those secrets.

Do you use the damage calculator? It's sometimes easier than doing math in your head. My rule of thumb, never attack when there is any chance of that unit dying, unless i am are perfectly willing to loose that unit.

[Caphriel]

Is the person, skilled in the game (meaning he played some games, got all the basics, and knows his faction and opposing factions and ways to deal with them, how to counter which unit etc), capable of winning a campaign he never saw before, on normal difficulty, without a single reload (loose=start from scratch) without wasting serious amount of time of course?

My opinion is no, and not because of bad luck, but because every campaign has some sort of surprises designed into it, and until you learn the sort of surprises that Wesnoth campaigns usually contain, they'll often cost you more than you can afford to lose. This is especially true of campaigns with a low margin for error, where over-recruiting to be prepared for surprises can be just as fatal later due to gold shortages as under-recruiting. On a larger scale, you generally need to have a certain army composition to succeed in a campaign, and what the correct kind of composition is varies, and is also something that needs to be learned. This is, of course, my opinion, but I don't play the Wesnoth campaigns in part because of this issue.

[Grandson_of_Sam]

I think the questioning is valid from a player that is new to Wesnoth. I myself have started to find the fine balance between different units from different factions against different units from different factions, but it has needed a lot of practice, restarting of campaigns/scenario's and just plain experience (for the player, not the units).

The questioning of the randomness is very valid, as I myself am, and will be extremely bad lucked, and really have to concentrate if I want to best some scenario's. The game engine is not in fault, but I could think of a better way of introducing the random rolls, like for example the engine doing 5 or 10 rolls for every visible roll, and cutting out the "wild" rolls, so the 60% chance really would be a 60% chance. Too often I see my 70% defence units take 4/4 hits from an enemy, and myself missing 4/4 against a 20% enemy. It's just frustrating at times, but I know I am extremely bad in games that are based on pure luck, so I plan my attacks and defenses with that in mind.

Knowing the units, and using their strengths (and using enough of them to make sure you win) is supposedly a basic strategy for Wesnoth in general. There are some scenario's that you need to replay after your first try though in some campaigns, because you didn't know that you need for example 500 gold for the next scenario (also getting over 10 free units in the Bay of Pearls isn't something one can count on if playing for the first time). Also the surprises in some scenario's most likely lead to replaying the scenario, or in the worst case a few earlier ones.

There are campaigns where luck doesn't mess up that badly though... Delfador's Memoirs and an UMC A New Order are prime examples of this. Both campaigns do have scenario's that are more a luck fest, but most of them are more based on skill. In my opinion the need to recruit 5-10 cannon fodder units for almost every scenario is not tactics, but more a problem in the scenario development. The two examples I mentioned earlier in this paragraph are good examples against that.

All in all, I think that if I have a 60% chance to hit something, I hit it with 60% of my blows (give or take 10%, no matter what. When the random generator plays against the player, it isn't fun anymore, and WILL lead to save/loading to get better results. I am up to the challenge even though I seem to have indefinite bad luck myself, but I can imagine a lot of players abandoning the game because of that. I still love it though, even as I sound like I don't... :)