Fix AI army composition in Sunken Cost mission Invasion campaign?

[aurealismo]

There just too many AI flyers there. Not to mention that we have to divide our army into 3 separate groups, and we have to fight on a GOD forsaken swamp with annoying toxic fogs! Those AI flyers could easily gang up on one of your group resulting on heavy casualties. I get it, i'm playing on Legend difficulty, but this no fun at all!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2416266232

[Virgil-SKY]

You know, that's why we usually don't do Legend on first run, and it is meant to be difficult even if you already know what's waiting for you. :)

[aurealismo]

Originally posted by Virgil-SKY:

You know, that's why we usually don't do Legend on first run, and it is meant to be difficult even if you already know what's waiting for you. :)

Actually this is not my first run on Invasion campaign. I've beat Invasion, Empire Aflame, and several Onslaught runs on Hard. I also doing quite good in this current Very Hard run. It just that this particular mission stressed me out. Too much save scumming needed to beat this mission :|

[Shorogyth]

The screenshot shows that it is on you. You advanced with one third into swamps held be unknown forces (and you even knew that there would be dragons because you played the mission on hard). Then you got punished. Not a mistake you can make on legend. You went completely(!) into the wrong direction with no chance of joining the rest of your forced. You even scattered the deployment. Honestly, if the mission did not crush you for that on legend then the mission would be too easy (which is true for quite a few missions).

That being said: the left deployment zone should not exist imho. It is bait to make exactly the mistake you made (even though not in such a crass way). Generally multiple deployment zones serve no purpose on legend. They do not really offer additional options.

If you don't know the rough layout of the map you suffer (on legend). That is just how it works. Not perfect but feasable.

Oh: good army composition apart from upgrading the slingers and getting the heavy axemen.

[aurealismo]

Originally posted by Shorogyth:

The screenshot shows that it is on you. You advanced with one third into swamps held be unknown forces (and you even knew that there would be dragons because you played the mission on hard). Then you got punished. Not a mistake you can make on legend. You went completely(!) into the wrong direction with no chance of joining the rest of your forced. You even scattered the deployment. Honestly, if the mission did not crush you for that on legend then the mission would be too easy (which is true for quite a few missions).

That being said: the left deployment zone should not exist imho. It is bait to make exactly the mistake you made (even though not in such a crass way). Generally multiple deployment zones serve no purpose on legend. They do not really offer additional options.

If you don't know the rough layout of the map you suffer (on legend). That is just how it works. Not perfect but feasable.

Oh: good army composition apart from upgrading the slingers and getting the heavy axemen.

Yes i knew there would be Dragons but not at this ridiculous numbers. Maybe i took a third of my army to the wrong direction. I tried reloading a few turns back and moved the left group to rejoin the middle & right groups and this happened https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2416669407. I got ganged up by even more flyers :|

And what do you mean i scattered the deployment? The mission require me to separate my army into 3 deployment zones. I would really like to know if there is a way to just put my army together on just 1 or 2 deployment zones.

I think i will restart the mission again and put my fastest units on the left deployment zone, then make them running like hell to regroup with the middle group. Let's see if i have a better luck this time.

[Ronnie]

I had that happen to me in the past, Don't try to lure a bunch of mobs in one place try to keep there forces divided like yours are. Of course I was playing on ironman mode 1 try only got it right 2nd time. It was actually easy when you don't let them group up into a swarm and picking them off 1 by one it was not to bad for me . I was thinking they might of patched that mission but realized proper army tactics is what did it.

The key with these swamp missions is to use the spell to scout that helps a lot so you do not aggravate a bunch of mobs that can overrun your army.

[Shorogyth]

Originally posted by aurealismo:

Yes i knew there would be Dragons but not at this ridiculous numbers. Maybe i took a third of my army to the wrong direction. I tried reloading a few turns back and moved the left group to rejoin the middle & right groups and this happened https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2416669407. I got ganged up by even more flyers :|

And what do you mean i scattered the deployment? The mission require me to separate my army into 3 deployment zones. I would really like to know if there is a way to just put my army together on just 1 or 2 deployment zones.

I think i will restart the mission again and put my fastest units on the left deployment zone, then make them running like hell to regroup with the middle group. Let's see if i have a better luck this time.

Yeah, that does not look good. Iirc you can avoid aggro from the dragons if you keep strictly to the very (northern) edge of the map. Very striclty. Like 3 hexes iirc.

I take back what I wrote. It seems you are right - the mission needs a patch. The same happened to me with my leftern deployment zone on my first and second try. It is not avoidable if you don't know what is coming. I assumed I was unlucky and reloaded/restartet. Even though you absolutely, positively need to merge your forces before you are fighting (your midlle and eastern deployments moved away from your western one?) you should not pull that much aggro. You cannot survive that.

Oh, and ignore Ronnie. He mostly seems to post in this forum to claim that he plays Iron Man mode on Legend and how good his "tactics" are. Nobody cares if that claim is true but his "tips" and questions are not very helpful - they mostly serve to re-phrase his claim. You obviously did not "lure" any enemies and there is no need to scout if there is only one way to go.

Imho the devs should not change the composition of the enemy forces but instead decrease their aggro range. Then you have a chance to join your forces.

By "scattered" I was refering to two things: your units were not in cohesion (they are in this screenshot) and the composition seemed random. You probably scattered your Monster Hunters over all three zone. Which makes them rateher useless. Overwhelming firepower is essential and you need to be able to block hexes to avoid getting surrounded.

So: try to merge your forces asap. Drop only highly mobile forces in the west and keep to the northern edge. Maybe don't use the western zone at all. Drink 2 mana potions and spam summons. This is by far the hardest mission in the game. If you manage to join your forces and summon a couple of wind elementals or web spider it becomes doable.

[Kavabingo]

Totaly agree, the flying units spam (and longbowman spam on Iseal missions) is ridiculous and should be fixed. The swamp dragons were especially annoying, since they appear from nowhere, 5-7 units in pack. Odds are even worse, if you don't have Onslaught and eagls, which will leave you only with archers and summons do defend yourself (and if you don't have enough of them, you are screwd no matter your skill).

[Kaysoky]

I'll just drop this here :D
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2318913308

[aurealismo]

So i managed to win the mission by moving my left group eastward to join with my middle group and sticking to the northern edge of the map like Shorogyth advised. Then i make my stand in the northern-middle side of the map where there are lot of dry grounds for my units to stand. I swear i have like 5 hexes between my front liners and middle lizard hovel which make perfect sense if i trigger some flyers there. But no, it seem that every flyers on the map decided to join the party. Having lot of dry grounds around me make it easier to fight those flyers since they got almost no backup from ground lizards where they usually stay near waters.

It's doable with lot of saves, reloads, and restarts in the process (it took me 4 days) which is no fun at all. So it's up to the dev now, either decrease the aggro range for each enemy blobs or fix the army composition in this particular mission or do nothing at all. I'm not going to play this mission on very hard again anyway xD

Originally posted by Kavabingo:

Totaly agree, the flying units spam (and longbowman spam on Iseal missions) is ridiculous and should be fixed. The swamp dragons were especially annoying, since they appear from nowhere, 5-7 units in pack. Odds are even worse, if you don't have Onslaught and eagls, which will leave you only with archers and summons do defend yourself (and if you don't have enough of them, you are screwd no matter your skill).

Agree with this. People without Onslaught DLC will suffer in this mission.

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

I'll just drop this here :D
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2318913308

Is this from very hard difficulty? Man, those Shadowbeasts even nastier than Lizard flyers :|

[Kaysoky]

Originally posted by aurealismo:

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

I'll just drop this here :D
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2318913308

Is this from very hard difficulty? Man, those Shadowbeasts even nastier than Lizard flyers :|

Yup, very hard/Legend difficulty. It's also from a very late mission in Empire Aflame (2nd or 3rd last mission).

Shadowspawn have global aggro range too. As soon as one sees you, the entire flock converges X_X

[Link21002]

Originally posted by Kaysoky:

Originally posted by aurealismo:

Is this from very hard difficulty? Man, those Shadowbeasts even nastier than Lizard flyers :|

Yup, very hard/Legend difficulty. It's also from a very late mission in Empire Aflame (2nd or 3rd last mission).

Shadowspawn have global aggro range too. As soon as one sees you, the entire flock converges X_X

I've never seen anything quite that terrifying. Shadowbeasts are tanky too, so they'll hound you forever. What could you even do against that? Defensive fire and expendable flying units to stop them killing your ranged units? Who'd even have enough scorpions to make a dent?!?!