The Isle of Anduin now unbalanced?
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The Isle of Anduin now unbalanced?
I'm playing a CVS checkout from a few days ago, and I'm on The Isle of Anduin. It is far too hard at the moment. I'm playing on medium, and because the orc leader has so many villages from the start, he can quickly recruit an army of about 20 units by the time I have 8 or so units in conflict, which, unsurprisingly, are quickly wiped out.
This is one of the first levels in the game. Either the orc leader should start with no gold, or with far fewer villages.
This is one of the first levels in the game. Either the orc leader should start with no gold, or with far fewer villages.
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Elvish_Pillager
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Right. Even the best units will lose to the superior size of the enemy forces. This would be okay, but it's an early scenario so it should be easier, and also you won't have good recalls.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
Actually, I'm sure the Bay of Pearls level has got harder too. Again, my mermen were totally outnumbered at sea, and because the AI now groups its units better, they were easily beaten after a few rounds, leaving me only land units that I can recruit.
Am I just half asleep today, or have things become a lot harder due to various recent changes?
Am I just half asleep today, or have things become a lot harder due to various recent changes?
Yes they have
Yes things have become harder with the new AI. I like the new AI better, but it's going to take time to get things balanced out again. I had to put off releasing TROW .4 for a couple of days to play test and twitter with the completed levels. Testing every path in the WML for 10 scenarios was a PITA.
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Elvish_Pillager
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Oh, no. The Bay of Pearls was my least favorite scenario already.telex4 wrote:Actually, I'm sure the Bay of Pearls level has got harder too. Again, my mermen were totally outnumbered at sea, and because the AI now groups its units better, they were easily beaten after a few rounds, leaving me only land units that I can recruit.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
OK - I've chatted to Dave off forum a little bit about this - I found it very difficult to begin with, but actually got through by grouping my unit a lot better and using the 'enemy move' overlay feature all the time to not leave any units vulnerable until I had the chance to have a significant number of units ready to go. Also using mounted troups to charge and then withdraw round out of range to keep fresh units in the exposed positions and using a feint north once the battle was joined at the south (which drew a few units away and got me some more villages) seemed to help.
I found Bay Of Pearls remarkably simple after this practice (Siege of Elensafar is tougher though, the orcs don't commit as quickly and so are much harder to take out before the undead arrive - it can get messy).
I 'm starting to appreciate the grouping AI and the way it it much harder to lure initial units to quick death and then get the upper hand quite early in many scenarios (it has made me decide to stick to medium level and not go up to hard - finished 0.7.6 HttT in Medium with a steadily imporving army). I think the group seem to make it much harder to make do with a homogenenous army - I find that I need the speed and shock impact of the mounted unit, the more guarenteed damage of the magic units both very important - it seem very important now to make kills when you have the chance. The bigger groups of enemy units give injured units a chance to retreat and heal, to beat it you have to able to do the same (and you have healers so can do it with more flexibility - getting a white mage early is very useful). Also use slow attacks to pin enemy units and reduce their impact (very good on the big orc units & trolls). The whole game has to be played a lot more carefully - and I prefer the fact that it no longer seems to be a matter of surviving the first wave and then mopping up (almost all single player RTS type games have that dynamic, and a large number of TBS as well - the fact that this kind of early overload to cope with a relatively poor AI is no longer a feature of playing many Wesnoth scenarios is impressive).
BTW - Bay Of Pearls :
I start with 2 elven scouts (or better if they've gone up). They go for villages in the mainland. Konrad lets out initial group of mermen - they leapfrog down the coast and gather at the third cage [now village] to soak up the first wave of bats & naga - rotating and falling back to villages as required. Horsemen follow the scouts onto the mainline, with some healing units next. Then some HP units - elven fighters/heroes/rangers will all do this job, and the missile troops next as they will arrive as battle lines solidify and can do start to soften up non-missile units and your melee, magic & horse units can start to gain a lot of XP finishing off wounded units... The merman after taking out the first wave in the sea can normally finish off the island leader without any great trouble in my experience - lure the leader to a village on the coast, and attack him from the shallows in daylight - pickling up the final mermen from the deep sea pen once the leader is more or less alone.
I found Bay Of Pearls remarkably simple after this practice (Siege of Elensafar is tougher though, the orcs don't commit as quickly and so are much harder to take out before the undead arrive - it can get messy).
I 'm starting to appreciate the grouping AI and the way it it much harder to lure initial units to quick death and then get the upper hand quite early in many scenarios (it has made me decide to stick to medium level and not go up to hard - finished 0.7.6 HttT in Medium with a steadily imporving army). I think the group seem to make it much harder to make do with a homogenenous army - I find that I need the speed and shock impact of the mounted unit, the more guarenteed damage of the magic units both very important - it seem very important now to make kills when you have the chance. The bigger groups of enemy units give injured units a chance to retreat and heal, to beat it you have to able to do the same (and you have healers so can do it with more flexibility - getting a white mage early is very useful). Also use slow attacks to pin enemy units and reduce their impact (very good on the big orc units & trolls). The whole game has to be played a lot more carefully - and I prefer the fact that it no longer seems to be a matter of surviving the first wave and then mopping up (almost all single player RTS type games have that dynamic, and a large number of TBS as well - the fact that this kind of early overload to cope with a relatively poor AI is no longer a feature of playing many Wesnoth scenarios is impressive).
BTW - Bay Of Pearls :
I start with 2 elven scouts (or better if they've gone up). They go for villages in the mainland. Konrad lets out initial group of mermen - they leapfrog down the coast and gather at the third cage [now village] to soak up the first wave of bats & naga - rotating and falling back to villages as required. Horsemen follow the scouts onto the mainline, with some healing units next. Then some HP units - elven fighters/heroes/rangers will all do this job, and the missile troops next as they will arrive as battle lines solidify and can do start to soften up non-missile units and your melee, magic & horse units can start to gain a lot of XP finishing off wounded units... The merman after taking out the first wave in the sea can normally finish off the island leader without any great trouble in my experience - lure the leader to a village on the coast, and attack him from the shallows in daylight - pickling up the final mermen from the deep sea pen once the leader is more or less alone.
Oh I'd agree that it is possible, but IMO it's much too hard at the moment, and I think that once Dave settles on a particular group dynamic, we ought to rebalance all of the scenarios accordingly.
With the CVS version I have at the moment, for example, the AI is incredibly conservative, making it very difficult to break through a large group quickly enough to complete a scenario in time.
Now that's OK for me, but it doesn't make the game very newbie friendly.
With the CVS version I have at the moment, for example, the AI is incredibly conservative, making it very difficult to break through a large group quickly enough to complete a scenario in time.
Now that's OK for me, but it doesn't make the game very newbie friendly.
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Sangel
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I'd just introduced my little brother to Wesnoth when the AI Grouping change was implemented. The difficulty level for most scenarios on Easy jumped by an order of magnitude.
He's now playing on 0.7.7 while I wait for the difficulty level to be balanced out again.
He's now playing on 0.7.7 while I wait for the difficulty level to be balanced out again.
"Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I'm starting to play through the campaign from the beginning and make adjustments to the AI as well as to scenarios as I go.
I'm making several changes to Anduin:
- less gold for the enemies.
- less villages on the island, particularly in the north-west. This gives the AI less villages to start with, and thus less income. It also makes the early finish bonus lower, which makes the number of turns you finish this scenario in less of a 'game make or break' factor.
- I changed the terrain a little, scattering more forest around, so there are more battles in mixed forest and grassland.
On a side note, this was the first time I've edited a map for a while, and I used the map editor -- it works great! Erl and yoshiki have done an excellent job on it, and I recommend it to everyone for map editing.
David
I'm making several changes to Anduin:
- less gold for the enemies.
- less villages on the island, particularly in the north-west. This gives the AI less villages to start with, and thus less income. It also makes the early finish bonus lower, which makes the number of turns you finish this scenario in less of a 'game make or break' factor.
- I changed the terrain a little, scattering more forest around, so there are more battles in mixed forest and grassland.
On a side note, this was the first time I've edited a map for a while, and I used the map editor -- it works great! Erl and yoshiki have done an excellent job on it, and I recommend it to everyone for map editing.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming
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Sangel
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A scenario-by-scenario rebalancing is a great idea, Dave. I like the sound of the changes to the Isle of Anduin; I look forward to trying it again in the next release.
It's a shame that the Map Editor isn't currently working for Mac. Then again, Sithrandel's Scenario Editor is rapidly gaining functionality, and will easily outstrip the Map Editor in power when completed, so I guess us Apple types have nothing to complain about.
It's a shame that the Map Editor isn't currently working for Mac. Then again, Sithrandel's Scenario Editor is rapidly gaining functionality, and will easily outstrip the Map Editor in power when completed, so I guess us Apple types have nothing to complain about.
"Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Dave gets the joy of a big reply. . .
Dave gets the joy of a big replay, well at least you're brave enough to eat your own dogfood. Well, with the current AI it's far more likely that the dogfood will eat you 
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Re: Dave gets the joy of a big reply. . .
... only in Soviet RusiaShade wrote:Dave gets the joy of a big replay, well at least you're brave enough to eat your own dogfood. Well, with the current AI it's far more likely that the dogfood will eat you
Okay I've rebalanced the Isle of Anduin somewhat. (and I've played that scenario enough for a while!)
See http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 9709#19709 for some new WML tricks I added in to facilitate things.
It'd be great if CVS testers could give their feedback on the new version.
When I played with the AI having 160 gold (it has 120 on normal now), it certainly had the 'not just one wave' feel for me -- it took me 16 turns to win, usually it only takes me ~12, IIRC.
David
See http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 9709#19709 for some new WML tricks I added in to facilitate things.
It'd be great if CVS testers could give their feedback on the new version.
When I played with the AI having 160 gold (it has 120 on normal now), it certainly had the 'not just one wave' feel for me -- it took me 16 turns to win, usually it only takes me ~12, IIRC.
David
“At Gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.” -- Ian Fleming