Drakes verses Undead

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TruePurple
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Drakes verses Undead

Post by TruePurple »

I'm wondering, how can one properly deal with mass of dark adepts, & ghosts when your drake? ALL their units are very cold weak. Even saurians which its less but still substatial with -20% weakness. Even during the day dark adepts can simply tear up your drakes with their -50% weakness.

Granted you can destroy them if you get up close with a few of your own. But its not like dark adepts even have weaknesses and ghosts not much (just a bit to arcane and drakes don't have arcane) either and both can usually survive a assault from one or two level 1 drake units. So a simple troop rotation can allow the nasty cold punishment to continue. Especially since ghosts have good defenses over most terrain.
Velensk
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Post by Velensk »

Quite simily you don't let them attack you with adepts at night, and attack them with fighters, clashers and burners at day. You run, monuver, abandon villages, anything at all to make sure that when you fight it will be at day, and if you fight at day then you can quickly munch through armys of adepts, and burners kill skelotons and ghosts.
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krotop
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Post by krotop »

These advices are useful.

As it was already pointed, the keys are to avoid battle at night and make enough kills at day to avoid hard retaliation. Let the units come closer to you recruit point and they might get trapped at day as their mobility is poor compared to yours.

Something I always forget to do is to think about concentrating xps harvest on a unit. This is easier to do in this match, and, obviously, a good way to gain great advantage over your oppponent. This applies also to him : he can kill easily if the drake player isn't cautious and a lvl2 adept or ghost can be a real pain.
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TruePurple
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Post by TruePurple »

Burners arent that good against ghosts, ghosts are mildly resistant to flire and burners are still very weak against the retaliation cold. Granted ghosts don't have much HP while burners and other drakes do and ghost range is weaker then burners(but then they are just guards for the adepts anyways, that their range is 50% more effective is a nice bonus though).

As far as skeletons, pfft. The undead player just wouldn't bother making them if they were smart I think, not to fight drakes. I know the articule says otherwise, but it doesnt make sense. Drakes have much more cold weakness then pierce weakness. Saurians have cold weakness too, but not pierce weakness. & most all drakes have fire, except for slashers(and Saurians of course) and the skeletons are fire weak. Adepts are clearly the better range no matter what drake your enemy is using. And ghosts are the better meat shield then skeleton warriors.(though ghouls could be used as meat shields in certain circumstances)

That articule is like a year and a half old anyways, I wonder how the balance has changed since then. Perhaps ghosts use to have fire weakness instead of resistance?

I mean undead could hold ground with adepts and ghosts during the day and advance during the night.

Seems to me the only way drakes could win against undead is if the drake player is simply more skilled then the undead player, or just more lucky. That its a uneven matchup, the drake player simply has a handicap in such a match up.
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krotop
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Post by krotop »

TruePurple wrote:Burners arent that good against ghosts, ghosts are mildly resistant to flire and burners are still very weak against the retaliation cold. Granted ghosts don't have much HP while burners and other drakes do and ghost range is weaker then burners(but then they are just guards for the adepts anyways, that their range is 50% more effective is a nice bonus though).
A burner does 7-4 to a ghost at day, that's more than 30% chance to kill a ghost with a single burner. You can hardly find a better way to waste 20g than putting a ghost in reach of a burner at day.

TruePurple wrote: As far as skeletons, pfft. The undead player just wouldn't bother making them if they were smart I think, not to fight drakes. I know the articule says otherwise, but it doesnt make sense. Drakes have much more cold weakness then pierce weakness. Saurians have cold weakness too, but not pierce weakness. & most all drakes have fire, except for slashers(and Saurians of course) and the skeletons are fire weak. Adepts are clearly the better range no matter what drake your enemy is using. And ghosts are the better meat shield then skeleton warriors.(though ghouls could be used as meat shields in certain circumstances)
I agree that a skeleton warrior would be a bad recruit choice in that match-up but :

1. The factions are balanced toward maps and settings (and more particularly fog and random choice faction). That means that your opponent isn't supposed to know that he's facing drakes and is likely to recruit a skeleton warrior that he will try to use to defend his adepts. In that case the burner will be extremely useful.

2. The skeleton archer is a good recruit choice against drakes. What will the drake player use to kill the adepts when will come his time to attack ? Certainly drake fighters or clashers, and eventually skirmishers for the finish. The skeleton archer is resistant to all of them while the adept is not. So if you choose to stand on a good position instead of threatening to freeze any drake coming close, this unit will be a lot more useful than an adept. As undeads can have real problem to retreat due to their lack of mobility, this case is actually quite probable through a whole game.

As you said, the ghoul is the most survivable unit. Still, that doesn't make the skel archer useless, as it costs 2gold cheaper, retaliates against distant fire, and can kill, while poison 'just' weakens. The ghoul is great, but doesn't cover all the uses of a skel archer.

That's to say that yes, you can meet skels in that match-up.

TruePurple wrote:That articule is like a year and a half old anyways, I wonder how the balance has changed since then. Perhaps ghosts use to have fire weakness instead of resistance?
When you have 18hp, having 10% resist for 20gold actually is a relative weakness. It can be compared to a unit with 36hps with -80% resist.
For that match-up, the writing made by JW remains quite useful, and certainly not obsolete, in my opinion.
TruePurple wrote:I mean undead could hold ground with adepts and ghosts during the day and advance during the night.
Mmh... really hard, not to say almost impossible, to do that if the drake player has the appropriate units.
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TruePurple
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Post by TruePurple »

I typically don't buy skeletons as my first recruits. Too many factions with fire attacks. Just like woes are generally a sparce recruit for me. I wait till I know what I'm facing before I risk making skeletons(or woes)

True ghosts have like maybe ~40% less health and costs notably more, but they can also gain health when attacked and can range retailate, as well has have better vision and decident dodge on any terrain(as well as great resistance to anything except arcane and fire) I think it might be good to mix up both ghosts and gouls for protecting those adepts. Though its undoubtable from my testing etc that ghouls should be the majority. Especially during the day like you were saying. (and depending on what the enemy is building)

You mean to use skeleton archers instead of gouls & ghosts to protect your adepts against certain enemies?

"It can retailate against distance fire as well" Yeah and crumple under it with its fire weakness. Where as a goul is almost the same price, slightly more hp, poisons melee attackers (even with drakes higher hp, definitely not something to overlook) is resistant to fire, as well as some other stuff as well. Just not like skeleton archers when it comes to the physical damage. 30% pierce, 10% blade and 0 for impact for goul compared to to 60% 40% blade, plus the-20% impact weakness (which applies to a few units) for archers and 30% less fire protection then gouls.

And as far as damage, the damage skeleton archers might do in response to a firey blast is nothing compared to what adepts will do, night or day. Since its suppose to be a meat shield anyways for the freezers, gouls seem the clear winner. I mean I suppose if the enemy was only making slashers who haven't ugraded yet & fighters archers might make a little sense, but who plays drakes and doesn't make a few flamers?

I did some tests on drakes verses undead battle. I suppose holding the ground was a bit too strong of language, but still..it seems the edge in such a battle goes to the undead, all else being equal.
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Post by enclave »

krotop wrote:
1. The factions are balanced toward maps and settings (and more particularly fog and random choice faction). That means that your opponent isn't supposed to know that he's facing drakes and is likely to recruit a skeleton warrior that he will try to use to defend his adepts. In that case the burner will be extremely useful.
if developers have such politics, then they are very wrong.
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Post by Doc Paterson »

Funny stuff here.

Come on the dev server and request this matchup with any of the known-to-be-good players. Save the replays. Post them, like this:
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1v1_-_truepurple_vs_reloc_UD_Drake.gz
(39.23 KiB) Downloaded 213 times
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TruePurple
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Post by TruePurple »

I said all things being equal. I'm not as skilled of player as others. I've been playing weeks against players, you've been playing 2 years. You'd have likely beat me no matter what unit I used. (though with some experience against your tactics I'd probably get better against you)

Also it was a test, which the first time taught me that more gouls were needed as guards instead of ghosts and not to be too aggressive. And you won the second one by sneaking around and getting my leader. Which goes back to your better skill and experience.
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Post by Velensk »

If you acknolage then other players are better than you because they've been playing ten times as long as you, then why won't you acknolage that they probably know what they are talking about better than you.
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TruePurple
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Post by TruePurple »

Well I might not have been as good as him/her with manuevering, but I found the tests of combat of the units themselves to show what I am talking about.

Ghosts during night could often survive 3 hit and do a fair bit of damage in return. Ghouls survived well too(well reasonably so, on good terrain even better then ghosts at night) and adepts, just tear apart units.

The adepts during night left drakes within a hairs breath of death if both of a single adepts range hit it.(enough for the ghost or goul to finish it off) During day, 2 or 3 are required for the same deadly effect.(but it being day didn't effect it by too much) And that adepts could easily survive a attack or two by even the mighty slashers on decent ground.

I also wonder if more gold on both sides wouldn't have been better for the undead. Since it was difficult to afford both the guards for the adepts, and enough adepts for the critical mass of being sure to destroy a drake so that the guards can then go in front of it. To afford that in a timely fashion. I have further seen in other games where enough adepts for rotating out damaged ones can be devistating. And that was against me as elves with lots of fighters, not fire weak drakes.(my loyalist allie had some heavy hitters as well)
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Post by Yogibear »

Again: Nobody here knows of a single good player, that complains about the balance between undead and drakes. If the best players say "this is balanced", i'd assume they have good reasons for it.

Find out what those reasons are. If i were you, i'd play against a good player, doing what you described. If you are right, after gaining some experience you should be able to win.

But you might also find some surprising answers to your tactics. Possibilites in wesnoth are manyfold and there may be things you just haven't thought about before.

That's why we always say "prove it and show us the replay" instead of discussing air bubbles.
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TruePurple
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Post by TruePurple »

But you might also find some surprising answers to your tactics. Possibilites in wesnoth are manyfold and there may be things you just haven't thought about before.
Like? (the specifics like that is a big reason I made this thread)
Last edited by TruePurple on February 5th, 2008, 1:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Velensk
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Post by Velensk »

I extend public appologies, what I said was unnessisary, that post has been erased.
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Post by anakayub »

TruePurple wrote:
But you might also find some surprising answers to your tactics. Possibilites in wesnoth are manyfold and there may be things you just haven't thought about before.
Like? (the specifics like that is a big reason I made this thread)
Well if he's talking about tactics, then you need replays (do you want comments regarding that replay?). If he's talking about strategy, then there are myriad of them, depending on the map.

Example: On Weldyn Channel, some people with drakes may try to play both channel banks (and thus needing clashers for higher per-unit strength). Some people (esp. IB), trick the player into overplaying one bank, and then with one big swoop, you're looking at a combined group of drakes at your underplayed bank. :twisted: Of course, that was before the 2 MP for flying drakes over deep water (and I'm sure it can still work to an extent), but my point is just to show you how possibilities in Wesnoth are manyfold. The better players can surely tell you more.
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