Against the Wall feedback

[R0GERSHRUBBER]

I finally had time to play this again, and won (Noble). Domingo's tips are pretty solid, especially if you don't have access to copper. I teched Bronze Working also, and didn't pick up Archery until I started seeing Champions. I would also add that you should place your cities closer than you might normally do so, because this allows you to move emergency troops around more easily.

I also did something unusual with the Khazad and completely neglected the vaults until I had Runes. It basically meant that my cities had a very low happy cap, but because I was building Mines anyway, the cities had no shortage of production, which helped churn out quick Settlers, Warriors, and a couple Workers.

The most important tip is to not waste time getting your five cities up (and starting the 100 turn counter) because of the increasing difficulty.

Just won on Prince without any copper .

A few tips:
- buy 3 cities at the beginning
- place all your cities on hills
- put all your expansion cities at chokepoints (once again, on hills by rivers)
- tech towards archery and festivals as early as possible
- get hill defense and first strike upgrades first
- get Runes after fortifying your cities
- cast your world spell when you have plenty of mines and want to upgrade old warriors to slingers

Easy!

Also, Go Boks said:

1) The map lacks that hand crafted feel. It seems like a regular highlands map, with maybe a couple manual modifications. It could use some TLC, imo. Also, the random resources in most of these scenarios doesn't do it for me. If you want randomization, at least fix the type (food/luxury/strategic) so the scenario author has more control over how the map plays out.

I completely agree. The map is OK, but it could be much better. I'm split on the random resources; I don't like them, but they at least add replay value.

 

[Breunor]

Wow, it was odd reading this thread. I had recently finished Barbarian Assault. I probably lost that about 7 - 10 times before winning (maybe partly because I reloaded the original save from turn 1 and had a bad location). I told my son, a better player than I, to try it, and he won easily the first time. I was so embarrassed!

Then we came to Against the Wall. My son tried it first, and had a very tough time; He is an Immortal/Emperor player, and moved down to starting on Monarch. He finally barely won.

And guess what -- I started on Emperor (my normal level) and won easily. Before reading this thread, I was ready to post, 'this scenario is too easy, especially relative to Barbarian Assault.'


Why did this happen? The simple answser is, I don't know. My suspicion is that the answer is simply that there are a lot of variables in FfH and scenarios, and I found it easy and others hard most likely because a chain of circumstances in our particular game attempts.


However, in comparing notes with my son, where it is VERY rare that I did better, we did notice a few things that may have been important. I'm not arrogant enough to say that these are tips for winning the scenario, I'm simply saying these may help.

1. As others have said, getting the cities out fast is really important. Buy 2 or three with the intiial start. My son got one and tried to build it up and that may be harder. You wan to get the 100 turn clock going as fast as you can.

1a. In my game, I won around turn 190, that is, I had my 5th city in about 90. In my son's win, it was a good 100 turns later. With the computer building troops at deity at that point, fast is really important.

1b. I was barely break-even on gold at a 0% slider by turn 190. Not only do the barbs get tougher, but you start losing too much money to build enough troops; they get deity rules, you don't!

Therefore, speed is probably my most important tip!

2, Don't worry about the fat cross or potential city development that much. Far more important is mutual defense, defensible terrain, and the first ring.

3 It is really important to get and guard resources that give gold early. It is real hard to de[end on cottages becuase they grow slowly and they are easy to plunder; gold mines are worth their weight in gold! (Uh, I guess that is obvious!)

4. I did get a great man, I built an elder council. I think he helped. I used him to get a golden age.

5. Don't mess around with beginning techs that won't directly help. I got agriculture, ancient chants, mysticism (God-king), crafting, mining.

6. I worked with melee units and archers. If you get a chance, construction is good. Your trebuchets are very strong, but the AI will build assassins. Therefore, hit them using your roads. Of course the Hippus are a pain since they use your roads, but a few trebuchets on defense can help late game.

6a. After getting these techs and archery, most others are optional, the gold may mean more.

7. After you get about 4-5 guys per city, maybe even fewer, build a palisade and walls.

7a. Since your cities are on hills, you gets hills + palisade + walls + big fortify. WIth axemen or warriors, consider guerilla 1; it adds 40% to the defense! Your defensive bonuses are really really high.

8. Archers and axemen should be mixed. Archers are real good for city defense, but axemen can be really good too. You will often counter-attack, especially withdrawing Hippus horsemen.

8a. Don't be afraid to counterattack those guys with 17 city raider pormotions. The AI is quite good at having its city raiders protected by guys with huge strength promotions. When the city raiders kill your guys, but the strength guys or longbowmen are killed by your defenders, counter-attack, especially if you have a trebuchet left to hit first.

9. I built one wonder, Form of the Titan. I had bronze of course. this one was real good, I doubt I would build anything else though.

When I was attacked by the Orcs, I thought I was reading The Hunter's Blade trilogy! I looked at my stats, I killed about 5:1 or 6:1. I didn't ahve Drizzt, though.

Believe it or not, the most dangerous foe for me was the Lanun! Why? They build catapults. Everyone else was banging against my huge defenses.



Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Go Boks]

Where are the Lanun? I never saw them, and they didn't show up on my history replay (unless they were right next to the other blue Hippus player and I couldn't tell them apart).

 

[Breunor]

Where are the Lanun? I never saw them, and they didn't show up on my history replay (unless they were right next to the other blue Hippus player and I couldn't tell them apart).

Maybe there is some randomness? I thought they were Lanun, they came at me from the NW.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Go Boks]

I had contact with them, so they were in my game some where.

The blue Hippus player is to the west too, so they probably were next to each other and I couldn't tell them apart of the replay.

 

[Kenjister]

Building your cities on Hills is definitely the way to go. Hills + Slingers + Guerrilla = Dead Hippus. Lots of dead Hippus.
On my last game I did that and barely lost any troops. If you get your Slingers out early enough, they'll have lots of strength promo's by the time Champions arrive. The Drill line is also definitely worth pursuing. Defensive strikes are awesome.

 

[Bad Player]

The first two games I played on this I thought were IMPOSSIBLE!! But after reading this thread and founding 5 cities early and getting one city linking up copper the game was TOO EASY!! I didn't even need RoK or anything much. I was playing noble start on epic though. I only had a few axemen and scouts attack near the end of the game...

 

[Mesix]

I finally got back to the scenarios and played this through a second time. Getting five cities early on really is the key. I started with a city and two additional Settlers from the Advanced Start. I built 4 warriors, 1 worker, and then 2 more Settlers. I slow played a bit so that my Vaults would not fall below the "stocked" level. In hind sight, this may have come close to costing me the game. The stacks were beginning to take out my defenders toward the end, but I had so many defenders that it didn't make a difference. Looking at the stats in the game recap, I only lost 10 Soldiers of Killmorph (my main units in the game) and I killed over 300 units combined between the AI opponents.

 

[megamanx06]

I have one comment on this scenario... I CAN'T DO IMMORTAL!

I got to around 28 turns left, when Rohanna sends an uber stack at me, somehow gets almost NO losses, and captures all of my cities.

 

[Broken Hawk]

I just lost my first attempt at this scenario and decided to read the thread. I've never played an advanced start before so I made some mistakes there. I think the instructions are clear enough. I gave it up with about 30 turns to go. The Hippus that came from the east had plenty of horse archers. Too many for me to handle. I like the increasing difficulty mechanism. It adds to the sense of urgency.

@Breunor: It's great that your son plays with you. Here at my place, everyone thinks I'm weird when they see me playing FfH.

 

[Breunor]

I just lost my first attempt at this scenario and decided to read the thread. I've never played an advanced start before so I made some mistakes there. I think the instructions are clear enough. I gave it up with about 30 turns to go. The Hippus that came from the east had plenty of horse archers. Too many for me to handle. I like the increasing difficulty mechanism. It adds to the sense of urgency.

@Breunor: It's great that your son plays with you. Here at my place, everyone thinks I'm weird when they see me playing FfH.

Thanks Broken Hawk! I just wish I could OCCASIONALLY beat him! Every time I finish a scenario and win, I look at the board, and he has a higher score!

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[GoodGame]

I thought this one was decent, but really it's just Defense with a focus on quick REXing. Without the increasing difficulty, it'd be dead boring at the end though.

Pretty much found every city on hill, rush for God-king, then Archery, then Education, then big stacks of slingers with hill promotions, followed by first strike promotions. Don't move any settlers without a stack of 4 warriors. Consider founding 6 cities as long as there's no chance of a army unit-strike. I'd also consider going for a religion for a healer, or warfare for garrison promotions, but research is pretty much impossible once you hit 5 cities, thanks to horse raiders ruining cottages..

 

[AAA]

Has anyone completed this scenario on deity and if so how? I can't figure out a way to do it, by turn 150 (normal speed) the champions arrive along with a host of other units, 4-5 each turn all with at least three promotions...

Just squeezed out a deity win start to finish. You see your first champion a little after turn 100, it was the assasins at the end that were most worrying. I wasn't going to last much longer. It was OK, but the scenario was too relentless. Not enough room for a creative response. The Black Tower is also very nasty at deity, but you can approach many ways. In the end it was just speed to five cities and lots of slingers.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

Managed a very intense win on first attempt, Emperor, turn 167!

Advanced Start-up Purchases (510gp):
- 2 Cities (Settler's cost 220gp!)
- 2 Warrior's
- 2 Scout's
- 1 Worker
- 2 Palisade's (only 12gp each)
- 1 resource improvement (winery)
- 1 culture expansion (2nd city)

Had worker wait around 10 turn's before first tech (exploration or agriculture), then he went hard-out. I purchased him as I did'nt want to be diverted early on in the game with 2 cities, as other thing's may need to be prioritized.
The 2 Scout's paid for themselves with gold popped from tribal village's and a couple of 1st Lv Disciple unit's (one even stole a stack of 3 Worker's) before being slain in various horrific way's!
The capital got the 3 extra cities out ASAP. All 5 cites were built on hill's (at choke point's) with palisade's and wall's. Spoiler show's where you can place cities, with a few troop's completing nearly an entire block of the inner 'breadbasket' where all my improvement's were initially being built. Nothing could break this 'egg' to get at the gooey centre.....until much later on.

Spoiler :

The AI (Artificial Incompetence) blatantly washed up against the defence's most strongly from the east and west, and weaker from the south. Next to nothing came from the north. Ended up slaying some 170 enemy; mainly Archer's, Axemen and Horse Archer's (at one stage there were 30+ stack's hitting simultaneously from the east and west). I was literally praying and counting the turn's down to victory when the Assassin's and Champion's were starting to grind me down!

I took Breunor's advice and built an Elder Council early on to pop a Great Scientist, which I used for a Golden Age. This allowed one of my cities to build Deruptus Brewery in 9 turn's, so I did, to help the happy cap. I also built Form of the Titan later, which helped near the end, as I was getting overrun. At this point, when the dam was bursting, I merely withdrew everything into my cities and just knuckled down to hold out, as the infidel's had broken through and started a pillaging binge. A nail biting time indeed! A very important thing was to mine all you safely could, then cast your Motherlode world spell. This money boost is vital, as the -2 unhappiness from the Vault was killing me!

All in all, another great defensive scenario with a tight finish. No bug's, only bloodshed!

p.s. Breunor, it is the Lanun indeed, to the north-west....

 

[Breunor]

Good stuff Kiwi Tyrant!


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Grakor456]

I'm with the guy that said that this was easier than Barbarian Assault. At least you don't get a 22 strength ape thrown at you. *shudder*

Is there a 'reward' for completing this one? I haven't been able to find one, so I'm guessing that this and Gift of Kylorin are just in there for fun and not any real benefits for the main arcs.

 

[dyx]

The Lanun have only one city to the NW, the rest is on a separate island furhter west. In my first attempt I popped an Azer (I think, or 2?) from a hut, which destroyed it. I guess you could also try to rush them, that way the NW-N ist completely safe.

 

[Manamus]

I hated this mapfrom the very start, horribly city building spots and an ever increasing difficulty. I started on settler one time and managed to wipe out some enemies quite quick by massing axemen. One enemy defended his cities with scouts. I still got wiped out by champions on monarch because i built my 5th city a bit late. After reading all these posts Im going to try again. I completely forgot about dwarven slingers.

Update:

I started with 3 cities all with 2 scouts in each. I ened up gettin 4 more settlers from tribal ruins, I had my 5th city on the 8th turn. I won by turn 108 and I was only being attacked by stacks of scouts. 1 slinger can kill 3 really really easy. It became too easy with 7 cities, at least 1 slinger in each with walls and being only attacked by warrior led scouts. I had a few siege pieces too. With soo many scouts I was able to get lots of free technology. I had to focus on making the first warriors in each city but that was the only real threat.

 

[Rasta69]

Bah diety is ruddy impossible (i know its supposed to be but still this is what i norms play at) oddly enough I got to turn 180 (promptly dying on 190) and hadn't seen hide nor hair of champions, and only one or two long bow men...

 

[F-F]

Difficulty: Deity
Speed: Epic

The main thing to understand about this scenario is that it is all about survival (= WARRIOR SPAM ). You can forget stuff like technology, attacking and building actual troops.

I lost three times in a row before I understood how to play this, and in my experience this is what you need to do:

1. EARLY expansion. Start with as many cities as possible (=two at deity)
- Build only 1 warrior to protect your cities in the beginning and hope for the best; get those settlers out asap.
2. MASSING warriors.
- The only military unit that I built. You will not have the time/economy to research any real military techs.
3. SCOUTS.
- After getting cities from advanced start get scouts with the rest of your points and send them immediately out. The map has many huts and in my last game I got about tree techs out of them.
4. COTTAGES.
- You will need the cash, and there is no time for aristo-agr.
5. EDUCATION.
- The most useful tech you can get. Cottages will support your masses of warriors and with the apprenticeship civic you will get lvl 2 warriors (= Guerilla I).

When looking back on things I wonder if placing cities near chokepoints would allow me to get non-pillaged inner-areas; I built my cities fairly close to each other so sending reinforcements back and forth was easy. But building them close will open you up to pillage.

Not sure is there anything else to say; get 5 cities asap and fortify them with walls and warriors. From there on it will be a waiting game; attacking would be suicidal. As I stated before the biggest mistake you can make is think that this is a normal scenario: you will not have time for religion, teching, etc. Survival comes first.

Oh, and to all who are bothered by the increasing difficulty... play deity! It won't get harder