Problems with LOW-Hostile Mountains

[santi]

This is another replay from scenario 2 on hard, where I start with 100 gold and the dwarves do not help much. Scenario 2 is hard to balance because luck is important; I do not mean hit of miss player luck, (the usual meaning), but simply AI behavior. I have 3 replays and each time the ai played differently; It is clear now that the AI instead of rushing to attack first waits for all its forces to arrive, so it can strike in a coordinated fashion; although storywise this may make the trolls too intelligent, this is the most challenging strategy on the ai's part, so it is good. But when the trolls step on dwarvish land is completely unpredictable; in one case this was done early and I won by round 16 or so and in one case it was done much later and the dwarves were not much help(though they did kill 3 trolls, but by that time
the battle was won). As a result I won on round 22/24. The difference between winning in round 22 and winning in round 16 is important goldwise and this is the difficulty in balancing the scenario. This is why I'd like to make the enemy gold in the nexy scenario dependent on the gold the player has
For Scenario 3 I want a tougher fight, so I am giving the enemy more gold(60 each)
On the other hand 0 agression for Galtrid's side makes galtrid's troops patrol the Kalian while
Kalenz's troops are fighting like crazy at the entrance. I commented this out, yet still Galtrid's side is not fighting much, which is good on hard. At any rate, this is good because it gives a good fight. Gold in subsequent scenarios is ok(tested up till scenario 6).
I want to increase enemy gold on scenario 7 on hard. I am posting replays

[santi]

Just to add the previous and subsequent replays were all on 1.5.10

[santi]

The key in this one is do notoverrecruit

[santi]

This one could be harder if the guardian troops had fled and one had to chace them to get a win; luckily they do not. Using a scout to draw away some of the saurian troops is interesting idea(yest, it is playing the ai), but it is also sound military tactics(called a diversion)

[taemyr]

The key in this one is do notoverrecruit

2 castles including some level 3 recruits?
I call that severe overrecruiting unless the scenario have been made way much harder between 1.5.9 and 1.5.10

[santi]

Elvish treasury...or at least do not overrecruit too much
Starting with scenario 6 until including Cliffs of Thoria, I am posting replays. In particular scenario 7 I added an extra 50 gold to each enemy; still El Isomithir was a bit smarter and managed to survive, while Galtrid's troops were not doing much fighting, but the did delay the grey and purple orcs. If anything should be changed is the grouping of Mordrum(purple) from defensive to offensive, so they can help the trolls instead of letting them get massacred.
Also, I changed the names of keeps and places on that scenario, since the map was inverted, but the names were not.

[santi]

here is elves's last stand replay with the changes detailed

[santi]

here is bounty hunters

[santi]

and here is cliffs of Thoria

[santi]

and here is a zipped file with the changed scenaria(with respect to 1.5.10)

[fabi]

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.

In order to fix that bug a savegame from exact that situation in which the orc leader does get stuck during gameplay is needed.

It's not possible to load the situation from the replay that is attached, replays are only some sort of a movie.
I could try to recreate that situation by hand but only as a last resort.

Please post a savegame as soon as possible.
Greetings, Fabi

[santi]

Just a note that this scenario has been changed on hard so that the user gets no early finish bonus. This means that you may get to start the next scenario with 100 gold. Still everything is fine and the scenarios are quite beatable.
Some replays starting with scenario 2:

[santi]

and this is how this affects scenario 3:

[santi]

and the next scenario

[santi]

up to scenario 5; after that with the treasury gold there is no problem