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I've played through this campaign (well, most of it) on the highest difficulty before. This level and the next few are a big jump in difficulty from Normal, because you're facing many more enemies, but you have straight-up fewer resources than on the lower difficulties. A little later, you'll have more experience from having killed so many enemies in these early levels. The first time I tried both this level and the merfolk level, I tried to use defensive line tactics and found out those didn't work well, especially on the merfolk level.
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Iainuki Wrote:I've played through this campaign (well, most of it) on the highest difficulty before. This level and the next few are a big jump in difficulty from Normal, because you're facing many more enemies, but you have straight-up fewer resources than on the lower difficulties. A little later, you'll have more experience from having killed so many enemies in these early levels. The first time I tried both this level and the merfolk level, I tried to use defensive line tactics and found out those didn't work well, especially on the merfolk level.
What did you use if you did not use defensive lines? 
We do not have to defeat the orc leader on this map, only survive. So if we have to we can always withdraw and flee to the east and north. But if we are to develop some promoted units, then we have to fight and keep at least some of our units alive.
We should be very defensive early on, keeping our units tightly massed for mutally-supporting ZOC and using the forest for defensive terrain. We are going to lose units, but hopefully we can make the enemy pay for attacking us and kill some of his units on the counterattack.
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haphazard1 Wrote:What did you use if you did not use defensive lines?
Assasinate - send groups of units around to kill king
hit and run - if description needed read the title again
CHARGE - just charge right at them and throw everything you have against their troops
those are the others that I know of. I like defensive line tactics becase it gets you the best xp per unit usualy
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Hit-and-run and sacrificial units. I discovered there was no practical way to hold the flanks of the forest at night, so I retreated valuable units (like horsemen) and planned to lose some elves on the corners where three or more orcs could hit them. If there's a better way to do it, I'm looking forward to seeing it  .
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Iainuki Wrote:If there's a better way to do it, I'm looking forward to seeing it .
I can send you some replays if you want but keeping everyone alive and killing opponants
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Yes, we are going to lose units. There is no way to avoid it at this difficulty level. But if we are careful, we can lose mostly rookies while keeping the units which are accumulating XP alive. All we can do is make as many matchups as possible as favorable for us as possible (by terrain, by time of day, by melee/ranged), position what healers we have to help our damaged units, and hope the RNG is not too cruel.
As for specific tactics...I don't think we can get anyone around the main orc force to try an assassination. Their keep is tucked into that angle of the coastline and the western map edge, leaving little room for manouvre, and all it takes is a wolf rider or two to exert ZOC and pin down an assassination squad. And that's assuming we could spare enough units to even try without the remaining force getting overwhelmed.
Hit and run...is this really even possible in Wesnoth? Attacking ends a unit's movement, so the "run" part isn't really an option. I am not quite sure what you are advocating here.
Charge...will be a quick way to end up dead. The enemy is going to outnumber us and have stronger units (some level 2). Charge is not going to work here.
Sacrificial units...this we will need to do at least some of. At corners of our formation as mentioned by Iainuki, and maybe even as decoys to cover retreating units (either due to damage or if we get generally overwhelmed). Fortunately we have an allied AI which will send an occasional horseman to die stupidly, distracting the orcs a bit.
Line tactics...well, some variant of line tactics is essential to any game using ZOC rules. We are not likely to have enough troops for a simple defensive line, and will probably have to do more of a square or horseshoe formation in the forests. This leaves some units on the corners vulnerable to multiple attacks (3-on-1 or worse), but we just have to deal with that as best we can. Do not put valuable units in those positions if at all possible.
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I think for this level, the main thing I did was spam horsemen because the AI often gets really really really strung out and Orcs are actually quite vulnerable to horses due to their speed and lack of pierce. Capture every village and put your elves in the trees to support the horsemen. Shaman are great for their ability to weaken counter attacks for protecting other units.
I think my strategy and the 'run' part of the game revolved around letting the orcs come to you out of the tree-line, hitting everything with horses and then running elves into the trees to cover them.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
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antisocialmunky Wrote:I think for this level, the main thing I did was spam horsemen because the AI often gets really really really strung out and Orcs are actually quite vulnerable to horses due to their speed and lack of pierce. Capture every village and put your elves in the trees to support the horsemen. Shaman are great for their ability to weaken counter attacks for protecting other units.
sounds good well when are you playing your three turns or do you want a skip
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I just got back, how about I grab the next set on Sunday?
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
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Did no one play saturday?
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
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