Integrity Posted June 15, 2019 Share Posted June 15, 2019 i decided to leave the worst for first Spoiler Let's gank this guy. We just need any three from four 80%s. Or, you know, take three from three. Sure. Alright, homies, welcome to the most obnoxious map in the game I forgot to take a picture of the map. Whatever. Notice the uniformity of the terrain around the fort. Notice the uniformity of the map. Well, Konrad listened a lot and then escalated very fast. Let's take a look at this fresh hell. This is half the map. The other half is nearly identical, and has our castle in the southwest corner. I didn't bother even screenshotting it because nothing will happen south of the hook-shaped hill bar in the center. Or maybe it's an upside-down question mark, as if to ask me why the hell I'm playing Snow Plains instead of the other maps. This is our movement allowance. This is the enemy straight up recruiting tier 3 trolls and base wolf riders, and not even getting a full castle, because he has like 30 free bucks a turn and has already run out of money. This is our movement at the end of turn 4. Quick humans and all dwarves can move 2 spaces; non-trapper criminals, elves, and our lords (barring Delf) can move 3. The enemy is similarly handicapped. I massively overrecruit; half these men never even see combat. This does mean that Laura is available to just decide who among their scouts to kill and when, needing three from five at 75% to just drop one from full. And if she doesn't, where the hell is he gonna run? Somebody made this map and went Yes. Good. Most of my combats are going to be bringing overwhelming force to bear on one or two guys, destroying them utterly. I do not save during this entire map. The troll gets a lucky shot in at 30%. He's removed. His friend is backstabbed in broad daylight. This brazen attack will go unanswered, except for by that other wolf who will be similarly crunched. By the way, they died one normal round of movement from the enemy keep. Both crossbowmen resist the inevitable. All the enemy can do is trickle 30 gold of units out every turn, depending on how the AI reacts. They have three villages, and I just took one more. 20% defense on everything but criminals, flyers, and dwarves, and I dictate the terms of every engagement. I'm about to take another village unanswered. No shit, thanks. There is no more text. Technically this rogue could die, because I've given up on positioning. He doesn't. In fact, the troll is killed in one round by the Scepter. I already basically posted her stats in the last one responding to euklyd, but behold her sprite honestly. My gryphon was run off of the house. Oh no, he had to fly four turns of movement away. Is my complete contempt for this map apparent yet? Mid-action sprites are weird. The final gambit: just shit out a fucking Great Troll. hell yes So the flaming sword turns its bearer into a flagrantly overpowered assassin god. 13x5 magical makes Moremirmu's sword blush, and fire is good at killing basically everything but drakes, who don't appear in the campaign except for in a different map on this very route split. Meatshield, in the woods, now has 60% cover and a guaranteed 70% hit, including against other elves. At this point I'm just fucking around. I'm stalling to get Meatshield to fight the boss. A gryphon promotes. They're bigger gryphon riders. 15x2 is reasonable considering 10 flying movement, and they have good durability behind it, but they're really just flat track bullies. Behold. Classic, selfless Meatshield. Leave it to the dwarves. Next scenario's gold literally doesn't matter, incidentally. To end on a happy note, killing that boss promoted the gunner to his final form. Behold the sprite. Behold the 40x1. Behold my favorite unit in the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair General Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 40X1? I thought the Grand Mage had a better damage output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightBow Posted June 16, 2019 Share Posted June 16, 2019 Although unleashing all that power at once means they can often avoid eating any counters. And 40 attack is enough to down most level 1 units at full HP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrhesia Posted June 17, 2019 Author Share Posted June 17, 2019 MEMOIRS 7: This is the worst trip I've ever been on Spoiler VOIP. Well, hey. Good thing we got Delf that promotion. Also, ahh, man, we're down to 102 gold. The thing straight-up lied to us; we finished last map with 128. Well... you know, at least he's philosophical about it. We go north a couple turns and meet a friend. And a village. Nobel Peace Prize Champion 2014, who else? Well, it took seven maps, but we finally found one with some fucking flavour. Okay. So, explore this map. Good to know. We spread out. So, backstab the skeletons for the artifact. There you go. The promised skeletons. Ghosts fuck up skeletons decent enough, but the issue is they can't drain them. eugh The skeleton war... well, it's more of a skeleton skirmish, really. But it rages on. The other thing with ghosts is that the village is HUGE for them. If they stand in a village for two turns, that 18 (counting the two for resting) health is a full heal. And even the 8 for one turn goes a long way, with those resists and drain. Hey, it's Sythan, of Sythan's village. Hey, it's the pass behind Sythan's village, of Sythan's village. One use only, though, I guess. Hey, nice, ambush spawns, that's fair and balanced. I'm just kind of fucking around, though, so I reload. And, to be fair, there was that warning about villages here being Wrong. Mood. uhhhh YES Oh no! (I reload again; still just killing time before Delph gets here.) yaay I figured for some reason that the houses, now leaderless and unflagged, would no longer spawn skeletons. I was wrong. Unbelievably, nobody pays for my hubris, Hereld dodging all six 50%s he needs to survive. Ah, well. We clean out both houses. May as well. Penella still hasn't caught up. bwuh ohhhh-kay. Gyazo decides to cut off my screenshot at the pass for some reason. Ohh! Oh! I know this one! No! That's a no! That's... evasive! "I serve... the citizens, and the country! I serve the humans of the nation! I serve the folk of the earth! I serve my homies in my crib!" a) blatant lie b) my man; next time, just say 'yes'. We step on the artifact, now able to be met, and walk home. Delfador now not only has his signature 16x4 wizardry from HTTT, but a 10x2 'staff of power' melee attack. And here's our cash back! Not a moment too soon. We're thrown straight into the next map... next time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightBow Posted June 17, 2019 Share Posted June 17, 2019 Wow, didn't expect Andross to show up here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrhesia Posted June 18, 2019 Author Share Posted June 18, 2019 MEMOIRS 8: Tap for black mana Spoiler What happens next is pretty dope, but also happens entirely in the top-left of the screen, so I can't pause to screencap it. But the mountains roll away, revealing... Minions stream through the gate. Niiice and straightforward. We can recruit ghouls and ghosts, and... wow that is an uninspiring loadout. Oh, and recruiting Penella was entirely pointless... unless we had to recruit her to be able to recruit ghouls now, though I doubt they'd gate it behind that. Alright, the fight is pretty transparently going to happen over the Doom WAD water. The advantage of ghouls. Adepts pulverise ghosts and can't really do shit to them. Oh, by the by, it's always night here. Which is a relative disadvantage for ghouls; one of their major selling points is their fearlessness. Each guy we can pick off is crucial. But so too does every loss hurt. Maybe another keep of ghouls wouldn't've gone amiss... It's a bitter slog in this shitty lake that we can hover over and they can't. And it's too early in that bitter slog to risk letting... any of their dark adepts get off any shots. Alright, let's do that turn over... Yeah, this is far more fit for slaughter. So here's your before... ... and here's your after. We even manage to eradicate the thug. Are we ceding some board control to bats on the side? Yes. But it's worth it for the pace we're making up going down the centre. Uhm. If you insist, random bat! And that's lured out the boss. Let's see how well it goes for him. Works out pretty excellently for me. We get three promotions just off the 3 XP for picking a fight with him! Okay, sure, he could win the map instantly by fragging Delf, but... that's not how the leader AI works. He tries to limp back to base, instead. Easy- - wins? Wait? Fuck? Well. Okay, then! FFT flashbacks of unslaughtered bosses aside, that was a fine enough map, even if that... really did not come through in screenshot form. No classic. Time your push to the moment you KNOW you can break through their adepts, and win the map. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 see again he posts so i have to it's a pissing contest Spoiler But what if... ? That was a lot less dramatic. Welcome to Swamp Land. It's much better than when we did it with elves since we actually have units capable of exploiting the swamps - namely merfolk and poachers. Much more cursory intro dialogue compared to Snow Plains. The map's a weird one. There are four death knight keeps, and the bottom-right (pink) is a lich. The death knights recruit largely tier 1 units, the lich recruits a mix of promoted and unpromoted ones. The early finish objective is to kill all five guys, but it's enough to kill the lich and wait out the turns. We won't. First up, the obvious crew. Laura, the mages, and Haldiel will each disintegrate a single undead every single round. First contact is swift - brown is pretty strategically placed to be a first anvil for your guys while the hammers pour in. I finish recruiting a little light, but I can reinforce once I take brown out. The dwarves will go east, everyone else will go southeast and kill brown; I'll recruit some thugs to bolster the charge south and split to kill the last guys. Incidentally, the death knights recruit thematically. Brown just makes a posse of dudes; blue creates only tier 0 zombies; black is able to make ghouls and the others aren't; green makes more ghosts than the others. It's a nice touch. Fully promoted, footpads are legendary against skeletons. Following up on my bit about first engagement time from the videos, the first engagement is timed to happen right as the sun is starting to fall, with the bulk of the enemy arriving around the second night phase if you rush forward. This means if you don't rush to get stuck in like I do, you give the death knights time to churn out a lot more chaff to gum you up while you're trying to shove to the lich. Weirdly for the theme, Swamp Land is actually quite a decently-designed map. Should have popped the merfolk in a wave earlier, but whatever. Night falls and we've established a firm advantage. A firm advantage I almost immediately turn into a game over. 🙂 Still, it's really hard to argue with two Mages of Light, especially when one is Moremirmu. It takes a bit of leaving guys in vulnerable positions, but we end up with a good position to weather the night. Blue is a storm. Tier 0 units don't cost any upkeep, so he'll keep doing this for a long time. The gimmick behind this map is that one of the bosses randomly has the Void Armor, which makes one dude Huge. It's like 50% resists to physical damage types. You don't know which death knight has it though. Li'sar repromotes. Oh, by the way, Dwarven Lords oneshot the walking dead with their hammers. Ha ha. Brown comes out to play with a Highwayman. Bad move, bud. The trade with the Lord is so disadvantageous that blue is literally just throwing zombies desperately in his way. It's an incredible mood. It means a lot less when all three units stationed on the east can just destroy a zombie a turn. lmao. He goes one for three, which is actually ideal. And, with some help from Adams, our initiate promotes. She went the healer path. I don't remember what it's called. Check the Dead Water section. Anyway, brown's down and out and we've cleaned out the middle of the map except for a few stragglers. Blue, uh. Blue is fucking assassinated. There's no other way to put it. I really don't remember why I took this picture, but it looks nice, doesn't it? The three dwarves now have their work cut out for them - kill zombies. They do it, with some help. The crime boys are assembled for the southwest push, and Meatshield comes into - because, hell, who better to lure a lich? When the phase changes, the zombies grow bolder, and the berzerker uh almost dies. There were a lot to clean up. Even the guys attacking green are harassed. This dumbass takes the enemy phase trade. For... no reason at all, green runs out, gets ambushed by Adams, and doesn't attack. Meanwhile my expert trap for black goes nowhere. You want something done right, you know? haha got your keep shithead Black comes out at the second time of asking. Many strong men await him. Green is an easy kill. That's two for the mermaid. Hey! I have chosen wisely. Many strong men with clubs do the needful, promoting the third guy to Highwayman. Neat flavor thing happens when you kill all four generals. The lich drops half his health! Plus some excess. The lich... drops half his health... and leaves his keep to heal... Well, map's over. w w i Fuck you, swamp map. I guess they patched it so it's limited now - none of the units in that screen could equip it. And with that extremely forced segue, Li'sar and Kalenz have precisely the same fight from the beginning of Snow Plains! Word for word. I didn't take an extra set of screenshots for it. Go back and reread it if you need to be immersed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 im just so talented. have u seen someone better than me? no? exactly. its called talent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightBow Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 (edited) Killing the Death Knights doesn't seem like much of an bonus objective to me. I mean, they all kinda stand between the player and the lich. Taking them out first seems to be a lot easier. Edit: Anyway, this seems to be the list of units that are allowed to pick up the armor: Fighter, Commander, Lord, Princess, Battle Princess, Elvish Lord, Elvish High Lord, Elvish Fighter, Elvish Captain, Elvish Hero, Elvish Marshal, Elvish Champion, Elvish Ranger, Elvish Avenger, Horseman, Knight, Lancer, Paladin, Grand Knight, Dwarvish Fighter, Dwarvish Steelclad, Dwarvish Lord, Dwarvish Guardsman, Dwarvish Stalwart, Dwarvish Sentinel Other then the Elves and Konrad, those all seem to be classes that have a decent amount of defense already. But I suppose the Loyalist Cavalry would appreciate all that Pierce armor. Edited June 19, 2019 by BrightBow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 guardsmen double their resistances on ep; if the thing gives 50% physical resist: ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightBow Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 (edited) The Steadfast ability doubles resistances up to a maximum of 50%. So if you have 50% to start with, you won't get anything. Edited June 19, 2019 by BrightBow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrhesia Posted June 21, 2019 Author Share Posted June 21, 2019 MEMOIRS 9: Which witch... ? Spoiler Alright. Let's head north. Just don't ask about the woses. Wait. I know that name- No, not quite... Not you, either. ... Who the fuck is Chantal? I definitely know the name and sprite. HTTT? Is it the chick from the prologue? Aha, that's the bunny. I guess this is before she gets her wings? By the by, Ike started HTTT on page Four. Instead of 'you're a fat cunt', try kinder alternatives, such as 'Fate is heavy upon you'. "I'm actually a fucking idiot." Wait a fucking second-- You sure do a... great job, of that... Elf cameo map, eh? Our objective changes to 'kill orc boss'. I'm not sure if we'll ever see our ghost friends again. I hope so. A scuffle! An extremely lost scuffle. Time to wade in! We recruit a bunch of fighters, a smattering of archers, a couple scouts and none shamans. Annoying thing about this being a fog of war map, apart from 'everything', is that we can't see how much cash the enemy has. Chantal seems broke, and we can (and do) jack her villages guilt-free. The enemy? Well... two keeps has been enough to date, right? Everyone tries and fails to murder Remir, culminating in this wolf getting murdered, culminating in Remir's promotion and ascension to 'Free Hugs' Remir. We stroll west, basically unopposed... Oh, hey. The enemy keep. Is this seriously all their resistance? Yet again we've basically been forced to overrecruit, just through not knowing what strength of enemy we fought. At this stage we've got five guys who haven't seen combat at all. And in this narrow chokehold, not all of them will. None of my archers rolled intelligent, but quick/dextrous is the second-best possible combination of traits for one. Fennael has been involved in four fights, and all of them have been sniping kills. Also I think the troll death is a (pitched down?) zealot death cry from SC1. Survival is immaterial. Securing a quick kill and the experience is material. Which Fennael duly gets, after some intelligent fighter with a 52% shot flunked it. What a waste of time. And, worse, a drain on my finances. And given how this campaign has gone so far, how long can I even rely on having elves? Does training them matter at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epilepsyduck Posted June 22, 2019 Share Posted June 22, 2019 There are so many named Elvish Shydes in these campaigns it's not a surprise you wouldn't immediately know which one she is. Pretty sure this one used to be a Druid even in HTTT, so I guess they gave her an upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrhesia Posted June 23, 2019 Author Share Posted June 23, 2019 MEMOIRS 10: Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ, hang the DJ; Hang the DJ Spoiler We've heard of Parthyn before. It's... ugh. Where Mal-Keshar comes from. I'm sure it's fiiine. Yes, all is well at the Great Parthyn Exclamation Mark. And attached swamp castle. Hey, good news. We can recall green homies from last map. I... assume, anyway. Underlining the point, a scout says to 'be wary' when I move him west. I skip through the line, but it didn't look important enough to bother reloading for, which is what I usually do. Wow Oh, I guess this was probably the line. It's a fucking bat. Okay, so it's clear we're meant to just approach this as a rout from the beginning. I'll be honest, I actually missed the northwest keep entirely. Let's trigger some traps anyway. For some reason, Angedd (res/strong), Bled (int/strong) and Crod (res/strong) all have traits. These guys' names do not spell out ABC. They're all resi/strong. Hm, so my initial approach would've worked after all. Even so, I want to reroll this map and give it another shot, because the distribution of villages - note the literal Two we've been able to capture have insurmountable traps - means we either really just need to recruit everyone, immediately, while we still can, or recruit nobody and rush south, trusting that there's some actual fucking reason to retake the fort. Let's try the latter. Terror at the Ford of Parthyn scans perfectly to Panic in the Streets of London. It's a shame that Morrissey's an insane fascist. Is the term for a guy with skeleton-war-induced PTSD 'skullshocked'? It should be. Anyway, we find a skullshocked guy. And now the objective changes to 'kill everyone'. We're still rushing south. Looks like this guy (loyal / intelligent) was the only fresh recruit. That said, I... think he's our only non-plot homie so far. Whatever. We keep rushing south. Alas, poor Niktor is cursed with the Loyalist Pierce Overreliance Issue. Niktor is extremely the sort of guy who is just fucking relieved to be able to hand over command. The magi are in the tower just to his southeast. Move over there, and... Uhm. Niktor IS the commander of the garrison. And given that he's the only guy who starts in move range to activate the wizards, he's the natural choice to do so. Alternative, far more charitable explanation: this guy honestly doesn't know or care what military officers look like. Poor beleagured Niktor. We get a homie halberdier and a guy who is not a homie halberdier, holy shit. And... some more guys. Oh, God. This would be fine if it wasn't a, you know, a fucking draug at night where everyone is loyal and either piercing or tier 1 or both. I stare into the camera. It is the Office. Whatever, we have all the daves we could possibly want, time to-- You are absolutely fucking joking, aren't you. Well, fine. I guess that makes the decision easy. Orcs in the NW; undead in the SE. Every heavy infantryman and mage goes east. Everyone else goes NW. I probably overrecruit. I definitely overrecruit. Probably. Again, it's so hard to tell on Fog maps. A couple of these bowmen are quick. Hey, you can see enemy's planned moves, but they'll change them as the situation demands on EP. Still, not sure what the plan was meant to be, here... Green has a perfectly-timed charge for day phase, but before our magi get here. Well, time to thud into them with what we do have, and finish the draug off with a random bowman for swag. Halberdiers are serious hard cunts, but even so, this one nearly dies. It's worth it as we sweep aside basically all resistance, leaving only the guy on the house and a slowed chocobone duelling Chantal in the north in sight. The west goes well, too. The second wave apparently includes a strong / resilient draug showing up just east of this screenshot. Named 'Axhamr'. We mop up. A perfect barometre this ain't, but, well... he doesn't have a full keep recruited. This appears to be the last of blue resista-- WHAT COME THE FUCK ON A chocobone also rocks up from nowhere and had a 25% chance of killing the snooty white mage. As I magnificently fail to convey in the screenshot, we fail to kill the (strong / resilient - sense a theme?) spectre. We had a slight chance left, with the archmage still unused, but she would've been leaving herself exposed for a 24% kill. I went for a 75% slow instead... and missed, but whatever, that isn't the point, shut up. I manage to finesse kill him into a promotion for the shaman, anyway. She becomes a sorceress so a situation like this never arises again. Okay, time's wasting - we need to bring this one home. I set up lures on each side. Blue won't accept a spearman kill I all but hand him; this guy is willing to meet his destiny in order to chip at an armour. Go figure. Nope. Well, might as well go for a stretch goal out here. Yow! An enemy ambush! Anyway, that was fun. What's Upgar? I wonder if we get the doe-eyed canon Marth Kalenz from Legend or the smug shitheel Awkward Zombie Marth from HTTT. And off goes Chantal, I guess. Good thing I wasn't trying to give her kills!! After the stuttering start, I think we can call that a crushing victory. One of the losses was a random spearman I hurled at the orc warrior to get the DPS on him to kill him, so. But look! Look at the fucking money! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrhesia Posted June 25, 2019 Author Share Posted June 25, 2019 MEMOIRS 11: Old habits, unlike elvish fighters, die hard Spoiler Just in case you forgot how fucking stupid that plotline was. And make it double. Oh, for. Well. This... sure is a map, alright. We're a whole funky fresh new faction again. 11 maps, five distinct factions. It's kind of a momentum-breaker! We have 600 gold to kill 830 gold worth of orcs. We can recruit tier 2s, and the terrain is... hilariously stacked in our favour. Is it better to recruit tier 1s or 2s? I think it... depends. A marksman is basically twice as good at shooting as an archer, but sure as hell doesn't have the durability of two archers. Shamans... basically exist to be promoted, not in their own right. Riders aren't much more expensive than scouts, get another movement point, and can actually fight. Plus, there's the added bonus; these guys will all cost 20 to recruit this map, anyway. So, the long-term benefit is to make beef. I make an exception for a bunch of fighters. The first guy to go down is, in true Kalenz fashion, a fighter. BE! AGGRESSIVE! BE, BE! AGGRESSIVE! Oh, and Sipiel, who is firing, nails all four shots, right after the guy underneath her missed all four shots. Black is a crumple zone. They are here to absorb this first night for me. It is not a night that purple will live to see. We have lost six units. All of them have been fighters. We pick off a single unit, but that's not really the point of this turn. Best to do our manuvring, like, now. Black trades so that we don't have to, and now it's afternoon. An entire night phase where we didn't even take a casualty - hell, I'm pretty sure we weren't even attacked. And now we sweep up five kills, unlikely to be answered. By red lives, anyway. Okay, unanswered by significant red lives. The unit count is now 26 (15+11) vs. 20 (7+13). Turn 8/27. We still have positive gold, barely. The walkthrough that I checked to make sure Kalenz's units ... mattered, bluntly (they do) says that you're unlikely to beat the map with more than 100 gold left. They reckoned without the fact that I'm really, REALLY good at the macro side of Wesnoth. And, I mean, it's orcs in daylight. We're carving them apart. All their best troops are in the south. I don't care about the south. I'm here to six both leaders in quick succession, leaving the southern troops stranded in forests I outrun them in by the time they've mopped up black. Just keep on shoving. Ensnare, then encircle. Two down. To their credit, black have actually mopped things up okay. A task they even eventually complete! I celebrate by jacking every village I can. Remember, the economy war is NEVER over. You'll have to forgive the lack of a finishing blow, given it was in the far northwest. I'm sure you can see all these powerful ranged units and use your imagination. Well, if you were ever wondering about the connection here, I... guess you aren't, anymore. Ahh man, can't we meet them at the Ford of Babez instead? Oh God, not the profane technique of HOLY WATER I guess it does give a bonus against elves. 'Nanna Cleo', surely. Man, I really don't want to diss Kitty's art, since she's improved a fucking lot over the course of her work for the game, but Chantal is... not her finest. It's as if she's a really minor and insignificant character in HTTT! Like you're 'just' an Elvish High Lord, eh, Kalenz? Yeah, didn't think so. 'you'll probably only be starting with the base 100 gold next map' suck my dick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrhesia Posted June 26, 2019 Author Share Posted June 26, 2019 MEMOIRS 12: “Please don’t say I’m arrogant, because what I say is true. I am wizard champion, so I’m not… one of… of the bottle. I’m a… I think I’m a special one.” Spoiler Hard same. Thrilling win-con. Alright. Bases in the northwest, northeast and south. Each one is four moves away for Kalenz from his starting position. Three holy waters, 28 turns. I have one keep's worth of goons to throw at this problem. Kalenz can still recruit Tier 2s at will, but there's no need for that. So much for 'defeat all enemy leaders'. Also, this is my unit complement. The heroes and rider will get holy water. Aha. Okay, hi there. Yeah, okay. This I can punch through. Albeit... not quite at the pace desired. Still. Next turn. Ohhh no you don't, ya cunt. We take some bad luck on our phase, then some good luck on theirs. In a couple more turns, we bring him down without preamble. Simmer down, bonelords. Okay. Well, this should be pretty easy. Unfortunately, we waste our entire day phase schlepping around the west. Goodnight, skull. Malin becomes a champion, our second guy to promote this chapter. Herbal Riwiith becomes our third in the north, an enchantress. Yeah, I get the feeling we aren't gonna have to waste this guy, objectives be damned. I have a cadre of four gamely moving east anyway because they've nothing better to do. Precarious position for our druid, but it's fine. The necromancer and his four HP are just gonna chill, since, after all, picking a fight with the druid risks getting wasted on the break. Leader AI is... very easy to manipulate. Oh, hey. Ughhhh. We get it, he's special and handsome and intelligent and unique. He brings forces with him, none of which are homies. We're shedding 18 gold a turn, and have 116 banked. Yeah, we're, uh, gonna be relying on a fast fucking clear to do this. Also, note the 'help' was spectres. We'll pull back in the west for now, ready to step on their throats in daylight. The royal guard finishes this guy off. Experience doesn't really seem to matter in Memoirs. These ghosts really need to make their first wave count. They don't. We scout more of the map. Hey, the T3 help are all named. One of the spectres is called Nameless, a gimmick they already used for one of the guys we recruited in the land of the dead. You will notice an absence of ghosts here now. And also a slightly fancier Delfador. Now, you may think his damage numbers are literally identical to what they were before! Well, as far as the one that counts goes: yes. But the staff just seems to offer a flat melee boost, so it's 14x2 now. The class' HP has not increased. At all. Which means that for the first time he's now actually behind the curve; a base great mage has 65 health flat, which Delfador only manages (exactly) with resilience. So the real bonus here is an extra layer of leadership. Not to be sniffed at, of course. The other sorceress weathers the storm. Let this serve as the before picture. Let this serve as the after picture. Hey, another promotion. Oh, look! It's the founding member of the Bad Ideas Crew, come out to play! The elves end up full circle. The rider has, in fact, managed a complete revolution of the map by this point. At which point the royal guard unceremoniously wastes the death knight on a 13%. Oops. Leaving three skeletons drifting in the wind. Hey, walkthrough, what did you have to say about this level? 'Duped'. Not only did we apparently massively exceed expectations, but we managed a 42-0 K:D and 1420 damage. I am a genius. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted June 26, 2019 Share Posted June 26, 2019 9 minutes ago, Parrhesia said: kalenz i'm pretty sure your 'inner eye' is your butthole Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightBow Posted June 26, 2019 Share Posted June 26, 2019 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Parrhesia said: *Ouch* The cringe. Those are "memoirs", alright. At this rate they'll probably continue with "And so I ended up in a nightlong treesome with the Elven Lord and his hot daughter. Once she was blessed with my seed, the elf girl grew wings and turned into a beautiful fairy." Deflfador, get yourself an editor for crying out loud. They exist for a reason. Edited June 26, 2019 by BrightBow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted June 27, 2019 Share Posted June 27, 2019 beware: exposition. Spoiler Both the previous maps end here. We're continuing from the snow map for no real reason. We're also using multiple nested spoilers for dialogue, because this chapter is over a hundred images. I'll tl;dr the dumps for your sake, but if you really want to immerse yourself in Wesnoth's exceptionally 5/10 prose be my guest. Spoiler hahahahahahaha caution and prudence tl;dr: the orcs and humans are attacking each other, we're safe if we make it to the elves, we get one round of recruits It took both my monitors to capture just how ungainly this map is. In the north-center-ish, to the left of the snow patch, is an orc keep. In the bottom right, past them bridges, is a human keep. I choose wisely. At the start of turn, uh, 3? This happens. Only Leif needs to escape, you know? You'll notice the absence of screenshots without dialogue. Anyway, Delfador's full of shit, I'm running straight up on the orcs just to show off how huge they are. The funny thing about them is that we could easily handle them, except for the turn limit. Don't let the vanguard of tiers 1 and 2 fool you, they've got a Squad waiting. Purple sends occasional dudes who don't defect, unlike the first guy. Anyway, even in full dark, we rip through this advance force that's supposed to engage the humans. Suck it, Kalenz. The Man With The Single Vowel is our first sighting of the humans, and he screams at us. This kind of belies the issue with this map, thematically, but I'll get to that later. The north pulls out the first of two Slurbows, while I realize that the turn limit is a lot more strict than I thought. There we go. Imposing, but frankly nothing we couldn't handle. Hey, the orcs and humans are fighting. This guy dies. So you see how there are three orcs fighting two humans, yeah? The entire conceit of this map is that you're navigating a pitched battle between the two, but that's the only engagement that happens. Now, nominally, you can hang back a bit and let the pathetic vanguard we vaporized smash into the humans, but there's a problem with that, too. The humans are way huger, and are busy fighting the elves. They will win. Then they'll completely gum you up with piles of promoted guys. I ain't kidding. Without a turn limit, we could still overwhelm the orcs, recruit, and kill the humans. But, jeez. But purple gums up the humans, giving us a path straight through if we only play brazenly and crush that first orcish vanguard. And thus we have a map that's incredibly easy if you don't play it like Kalenz tells you to. This is including me fucking around in the hills with Konrad for a few turns because I didn't really parse the turn limit; green otherwise wouldn't have come to the tree border. They don't even manage to kill Specter One. Update: Specter One killed the cavalryman on his way in and then got overwhelmed by more cavalrymen because he couldn't stop killing them. I didn't move most of anyone, because the win trigger is actually Konrad clearing the treeline. You just don't win until your next turn. It's kinda rude, but this is a non-canon path. It's an okay map. The map is okay. It tries something different; it mostly fails; it doesn't entirely fail. i don't remember if the elven council comes after the route we're canonizing so i'm including it here. this is nothing but text. i will summarize. the chapter is fifty one fucking images. Spoiler holy shit she's obscenely pretty yeah fight a duel with the fireball slinger this is the halfway point, are you as tired as i am? is she propositioning him a line failed to upload here. i am not restoring it. delfador: so the elven council has spoken. but which path should we take on our journey? the ford of abez will not be passable, for surely it will be watched and guarded by many men home stretch WOO tl;dr: the lady who rescued konrad as a baby is obscenely pretty li'sar agrees that she needs to kill her mom kalenz is a loser we're going back to wesnoth through a secret back path to fuck the dark queen up she's being called the dark queen now btw yeet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted June 28, 2019 Share Posted June 28, 2019 deep breath Spoiler But what if... ? We don't get into a fight! And the map ends! n't. We get into a fight anyway. Whoa, careful, Konrad, you're really close to accidentally showcasing a personality. nah j/k delfador talks kalenz down instead lol It ends after the word 'through'. We go straight down the river. So this is a weird and kind of interesting map, but it also opens with a shitload of words. Image 32 of 133. The map has not begun. This is Keh Ohn. He dies. He dies for reasons that are, frankly, appalling. Guys, you literally just talked about a bunch of wrecked Wesnoth boats. You idiots. You absolute morons. Shut up, Kalenz. Ah well, diplomacy has failed. It's genocide, then. Wesnoth did it 14 years before Fates made it cool. Image 52 of 133 is showing off the map, finally. The goal is to get Konrad to that northeast corner. Across all the water. You'll notice an absence of an enemy keep! Recruitment is obvious. Recall the merfolk, get some gryphons, Laura. So the way this map works is each island has a drake nest that shits out a tier 1 or 2 drake every 1-2 turns. Occupying the nest stops the flow permanently. It's a fun idea for a map.... but the drakes (except the scout line) have 20% defense on the water, compared to our merfolk at 50-60% for deep-shallow, gryphons at 50%, and Laura at 40%. On top of that, massive mobility ensures we can just gank nests any turn they decide not to produce. It's worth mentioning that this map's been nerfed - in its original form, every nest produced every turn, and the drakes were aggressive instead of waiting for you to aggro each island. They did not find a middle ground. Laura is inexorable. This map is amazing for training the merfolk if you've kept a bunch alive. Hell, since they're all loyal, I'm still making money every turn, with two and a half keeps of units, with several tier 3s. Shoop. Drakes and merfolk are both loyal, so the daylight is a harsh time all around. I have Laura and the gryphons as neutral to punish the night. It's still a sweep, even if I'm dangerously overextended. I love the Netcaster sprite. My overextension claims the life of a bird and dwarf. Two. F. Still, two fresh recruit casualties for like five promotions so far and they're down to one spawning nest. We're leaving the boss alone for now - he's massive during the day, but Laura will just pulp him at night. Night falls, and the optional objective appears. Gree's a legend. Not the time, dude. We can spare the troops, dude. They're down to two guys. Official new objective, too. Anyway, it's night time. Christ. It takes a swarm of birdwarves to equal the damage Laura put out casually. Note: this is the last living drake. Konrad, meanwhile, just fucking escalates to 100 instantly. Jesus. 😦 Anyway, with that, the drakes are extinct. The serpents are passive for now, and chaotic - we'll blitz in the dawn. Fearless. Warven is a solid unit, if you forgive joining as a 27/32 tier 1 leader in map 19. The morning is solid. Storm tridents are great at slamming damage into the serpents without answer. Laura barely doesn't do a job, which means... Hey, he's healed! Walk it off, baby. Looking good overall. Nobody at risk of death. The last serpent perishes. The map is over. Except Konrad isn't there yet. Ahh. Made it to the... impassable deep water. Uh. Ah, okay. kalenz, why Sorry for your immersion, I missed a turn. It was a good map, except for the little part where after every enemy was dead Konrad still had how many turns of walking left to do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightBow Posted June 28, 2019 Share Posted June 28, 2019 Oh hey, I've been wondering where the "Injured Sergeant" class was being used. Still, a Sergeant seems like a pretty paltry reward compared to the other ones. Sure, lv4 Leadership is crazy. But so late into the game, getting there probably won't be feasible. But let's see what the caves spit out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Integrity Posted June 29, 2019 Share Posted June 29, 2019 i Need to get through this fucking route split and do things that matter again. Spoiler The final chapter 20 is a weird one. press f for keh ohn oh no. oh no. they have exactly the same fucking fight as both other routes. jesus christ. i am unsurprisingly not posting the screenshots again. Seventy turns. Early finish bonus. It Is A Cave. The cave isn't randomly generated like the really cool cave, though. Clearly, I just recruit a fucking load of dwarves. First contact is made on the east. Saurians. I've never actually done this map before. I don't know what to expect, except for the optional objective. Null contact is made on the west. Anyway, the netcaster gets obliterated to three from four 40%s and two from two 70%s lol Central front, which I guess is the new west, runs into friendly wosen. i would die for you, wose My men will die for you, wose. I bolster the eastern front - remember, poachers have 50% defense in swamp! They're good for this! Once the gap is stopped I bring some real swimmers. The north reveals itself to be the invisible kind of ghosts. In a biome that's permanently darkness. I will straight-up reveal: there was a reload when a skirmishing, invisible tier 3 ghost came from some place i'd already been, ran around four guys, and the berzerker still almost killed him before dying. Wosen do not trade well with ghosts. Saurians do not trade well with assassins. Gunners don't trade well with ghosts either, but a 3x3 knife is a 3x3 knife when the thing is super damaged. Wosen probably to the northwest, undead probably to the east-northeast. Hey, it's the guy who killed the berzerker. This saurian chooses a really confusing place to hide and die to Li'sar. You know, it occurs to me. Does any other canonical human have an apostrophe in their name? I can't think of any. The generic name lists don't have any either, ignoring the Obviously Arabic faction. It's just Li'sar? Anyway, so far the map is just saurians and ghosts skirmishing from out of the shroud to punch you randomly. It's not great, but the terrain is really interesting for your unit mix. A fun fact, though, the area in the wose-land has normal day/night cycles, unlike the rest of the cave. Laura sights the undead boss. He has a really stupid name, but he's still an Ancient Lich in the permanent darkness and walking a Mage of Light over to him would suck. We also find the saurian boss. He's nothing special, but on really good terrain. Wose/undead trades are hilarious. Blades fuck wosen, but impact fucks undead right back. Wosen win the trade, but skeleton warriors are way cheaper. Anyway, I decide I honestly cannot resist. 16x5 is 80. She goes four from five and dies to his fifth. I needed to try it once. You understand. I reload. In the south, a trapper promotes! I don't remember if we've had them yet - huntsmen are 5x4 and 9x4 marksman; rangers are 7x4 and 7x4. I love both. Ghosts. Weird place to camp, homie. The saurian boss eats it. One to go. The sergeant eats a kill. I'll remember his name sometime. The final saurian causes minor issues. We're getting into position to eat the lich, bit by bit. The south is no longer relevant, honestly. The guys there are just gonna sit on ass and watch TV until the map ends. Sarge nearly bites it, but whatever. I weigh up my options and realize that I honestly hate the design of liches enough that I'm just gonna jump the gun and savescum losses honestly. So, of course, when I make that resolution, this happens instead of me having to savescum. I'm still gonna have a fucker of a time keeping Laura alive, but whatever. Hell Yeah The Sergeant hey! you guys saw this happen recently! "you know, you died before i got around to you" I kind of like the idea of the wosen being named by the sounds they like making to fill space, but I think literally only this guy ever does it. Anyway, it takes about nine saves to get Laura to dodge three 40%s and the gunner to dodge 1/3 50%s. Hm. Fuck up, Kalenz. Thanks! Bam. Now, we skip like five turns. Konrad moves northeast, and a surprise happens northwest. hahahaha So, a fun fact. I see that ghast and move to engage, and in the middle of the fight I realize that huge lit-up patch in the northeast, where I know the exit is, is probably the exit. The real questions: can Ulfdain read? So what's the book do? The reader has 70% defense, stealth, and 1 movement cost on forests. Permanently. (it's actually -3 move cost on forests so merfolk still cost 2 instead of 1, but eh) Anyway, Konrad fought the ghast off, then I realized the northeast exit was the exit, then I thought you know what? Who cares. Rout means rout. Harsh, but fair. Please note that Kalenz is shouting from the middle of the map. This is relevant presently. I will forgive the scripting of Wesnoth many things, but the assumption that this gal is explicitly talking to not only not the guy who's required to escape, but in fact your slowest guy in the caves, is a fucking stretch. This kicks straight into the elf council, which I have to click through, taking like 45 seconds. I start the next map with Sixteen Hundred And Eighty Seven Gold. We're back on track. This is the canonical route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Posted June 29, 2019 Share Posted June 29, 2019 me being the best hitwoman out there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrhesia Posted June 29, 2019 Author Share Posted June 29, 2019 i'm so hard at the very mention of that much gold, that macro MEMOIRS 13: We do not let this slip now Spoiler I'm looking forward to another opportunity to force this campaign into the foetal position. It's so, so cathartic after the humiliation of Black-eye. Hey, this guy looks fucking good. Sovereign, Kalenz. Sovereign. Alright, what's the setup? So here's Garard. You might think that level 5 deserves more than the 39 crushing damage of, approximately, a level 2 brigand. But note the leadership. Garard has a lot of health, heavy armour (heavy infantry resistances) and anyone fighting around him is going to get mad, mad boosts. I don't know what royal warriors are. But he's surrounded on four sides. Two warriors in the corners, sovereign to the north, great troll off to the east. In a minor oversight, they forgot to give black the right pennant, and he just has the generic one. I know I've been defying economic forecasts at every turn, but we are probably gonna lose all our money here. We have both elven forces united, plus the two remaining shock troopers Delfador brought with him. We can only recruit tier 1 elves. Anyway... 218, call it 200, actually call it 180 because upkeep is going to shred us. We've got nine recalls, maybe a tenth guy of some description on top of that. Let's make them good. Okay. Ten recalls, then. Just. This is useful, because I managed the difficult maths that got me to this exact figure, which was necessary because my margin of error didn't exist because for some reason I thought 5 + 5 = 9. This is the squad... as of a couple turns down the line, because I forget to screenshot it at the time. Oops. Two wolf riders attack. Okay. After two turns, basically everyone is tapped out, except the king, whose guys just... aren't moving around to free spots for him to recruit more guys. Except three guys who picked up villages, anyway. This... is not gonna be pretty. Chantal becomes a shyde. Wonder if she'll have the wings in her art again? Man, crunching these idiots is gonna feel good. This guy gives his life to fucking murder a random assassin. Respect. ... so anyway the overarching antagonist of the plotline decides to do this, for some reason. Clogrin's still got half his health left despite the haters. Bye. Achilles rises from his tent. Brings an iron mauler with him. This guy is pretty lucky to survive, but my insane healing web means the only HP that matters is the last. Meanwhile down south. I take this screenshot for Ike, mostly. Eight kills later, things are looking good. Do you notice the troll in pole position to cap one of the shock troopers? The fearless / quick one I was especially trying to level? Yeah, I didn't. He gets the right side of a coinflip. Things start to get ugly in the south. Well, flawless run ain't happening, but still. Blue picks up some huge, huge hits. In fact, pretty much everything seems to hit. They even promote a guy. And, yeah, that is 33 damage. They're holding out enough that this is... basically over, as a contest, already. Note the goblin idle animation! Were we even really needed to save them? Not in the south, anyway. Well, I guess they pick off another couple guys. Bye. Hey, we manage to pick off a couple grots. Sup king. Also, to gank a village, but. We're at -165 / -17, I think our finances are fucked. To make us feel relevant, both south corner guys get cash from nowhere, enough to recruit another keep with 90ish gold to spare. This guy becomes a champion. I want to be cautious about my approach. Splitting our forces and rushing in headlong is suicide; we can do one or the other. And, frankly, pace is not the issue, because our finances are in the sewer no matter what. These guys are really intent to just... wait out the night, huh? Black's reinforcements are squandered, and their leader murdered. Time to head west with everything I've got. Nothing even remotely fancy here. We shove ourselves into the southwest and kill everyone. Only because you took, let's be real, a fairly titchy retinue to a gunfight. I really like Garard's portrait. He looks properly regal, and just ever-so-slightly past-it. Oh, yeah. That. Kalenz starts talking about how the elves are shit against the undead (not wrong!) but they have the book of Crelanu! I click past it accidentally. Given that Kalenz's idea of a curse is eternal fucking youth, I'm not surprised he doesn't see the particularly big deal in palming off another curse to Delfador. "It would be an honour to bring our PIERCING DAMAGE to the table, Delfador," Hey, she did get her wings back. Sick. Well, we fucking demolished them. Our only death was due to failing a coinflip (two 70%s hitting) after a misplay. This map is absolutely meant to be a gold sink. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
euklyd Posted June 29, 2019 Share Posted June 29, 2019 6 hours ago, Integrity said: In the south, a trapper promotes! I don't remember if we've had them yet - huntsmen are 5x4 and 9x4 marksman; rangers are 7x4 and 7x4. I love both. i love both as well but it really is a shame that they're so much worse than their corresponding elf versions (respectively 7x2, 10x5 marksman; 8x4, 10x4, with ambush). at least the humans are better in swamps! i definitely didn't appreciate them nearly as much as i should've the first few years i was playing, though; these guys are sick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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