Howling Vell

[Walheimat]

Sorry about dedicating an entire thread to a single mission in the campaign but it seems necessary.

I don't understand how this mission is beatable, let alone while fulfilling the heroic condition.

After 5 or so tries I consulted the developer's video walk-through. The conditions there hardly resemble what I find, which is: stacks of turrets that make early approaches impossible, while later on you'd have to clear fields of mines while facing an army about the size of yours.

You constantly get barraged by armies almost the size of your entire food supply's worth. There's no moment where I could possibly not use up all remaining food to build new units. I usually can hold out until I starve (not because I left a wolf too close to the mill biting my pigs' heads off, mind you) but only when spending optimally, always commanding unit factions individually so there's little to no waste. The wolf is a great advantage but it only carries me to a prolonged defeat.

It never happened that I could hold on to dear life while having 600 or so spare food like in the video, or that I discovered enemy warrens that I could take basically for free (which admittedly the developer calls "lucky"). And even if that were the case, there usually is no window for an attack because I'm always defending or still battered, regrouping from the last defense. I sometimes can gather my army to take out two turrets with the wing demons and three or so warrens with the entire force but this almost certainly means the next wave of enemies will wipe out what's left.

I was having fun until this mission and thought the difficulty curve was pretty good, continuous. I just want to give up now. I think I've tried all build orders the amount of food you can get from one mill allows.

I'd be thankful for any further help or tips. I must be doing something fundamentally wrong.

[shooflypi]

I actually find aiming for the heroic objective to be easier as you never have to attack into the enemy's defenses. The key to this strategy is using the wolf to buff your farms' food production and switch to buffing your unit's attack when defending.

I usually start by building a falcon- combined with your pigs this should be enough to defend the first attack. Next I build a wolf and use it to buff farms- doubling your income. I then build a falcon and a skunk and then one more falcon. Then a second wolf followed by another falcon and skunk. Then I just build falcons with any food left. Build a farm whenever there is a lull between attacks and you feel your army is good enough to defend the next one. Make sure the wolf is buffing your pigs and not your army whenever you are not defending an attack. Make sure you don't extend too far forward, let your pigs help you fight. Falcons have low hp, make sure your skunks are in front to tank.

[Walheimat]

Thanks, shooflypi, I'll give that a try.

I'll try again tomorrow. I lose even more quickly this way, so far. Sometimes very early, because by the time the wolf spawns, an enemy demon wing squadron accompanied by squirrels may have taken out too many farms to recuperate before the second wave hits. I've gotten to the second wolf once. But the army was too small. I wasn't commanding optimally, not sure if that can make up for an overwhelming enemy force consisting of demon wings, squirrels and boars but it might make the difference.

[Walheimat]

This mission is impossible for me, whether I follow the guide word for word, tweak it a bit, or try something else entirely. The enemy will simply out-farm and overwhelm me, hitting me with forces as big as my own, then again 10 seconds later (while mine is in shambles), then again. I'll have to quit the campaign. Have there been meaningful updates since the developer's video was posted? Has this mission been tested recently? I guess it's just my incompetence but I don't understand why this mission is exponentially more difficult than anything that came before.

Since this post sounds overly dramatic, let me add that I still had a blast with the game. Love how mechanics and theme are married, love the art.

Sidenote: I beat the mission because I got really lucky: mill on elevated terrain, one enemy mill not protected by stacks of turrets. Didn't get the heroic, obviously.

[Retrolicious]

Originally posted by Walheimat:

This mission is impossible for me, whether I follow the guide word for word, tweak it a bit, or try something else entirely. The enemy will simply out-farm and overwhelm me, hitting me with forces as big as my own, then again 10 seconds later (while mine is in shambles), then again. I'll have to quit the campaign. Have there been meaningful updates since the developer's video was posted? Has this mission been tested recently? I guess it's just my incompetence but I don't understand why this mission is exponentially more difficult than anything that came before.

Since this post sounds overly dramatic, let me add that I still had a blast with the game. Love how mechanics and theme are married, love the art.

Sidenote: I beat the mission because I got really lucky: mill on elevated terrain, one enemy mill not protected by stacks of turrets. Didn't get the heroic, obviously.

Keep in mind you will beat any heroic. The catch simply is they need time. Either they need time to improve your skill or they need abit time to get lucky. Or combo of both.
Nevertheless hard modes or heroic quests were never there to be beaten at lunch time within 15 minutes. Their very reason is to pose challenges and additional content. Btw nobody is force to ever go for the heroics, they don't give you any special rewards or drops. You can completelly ignore them and still have a blast with T&T. Why do people get so fedup with "hard" modes when they just do what they are supposed to do?

[Steppenzebra]

the problem with howling vell seems that it's too hard even without heroic. Walheimat saying he only got this by pure luck (RNG) is - probably - the way most players experience this map, me included.

Some time ago the devs announced, that they're going to nerf some maps and I don't know if this happened by now or not (i noticed some changes in the SP meta but I just can't tell how and to what degree howling vell is affected). It sure was way too hard back, when I played it.

[Walheimat]

I didn't get fed up with the heroic goals, they were an extra flavor to each map. Not sure where I indicated that I was adamant about getting them every time.

After I beat Howling Vell, I played three consecutive missions, beat them without a hitch in the first few tries and even got the heroic in one.

What I'm saying is: In every mission before and after Howling Vell, I could quickly conceive of the solution to achieve both victory and the heroic goal, it became apparent, often during the first or second try, what I'd have to build when, how to position my factions etc. I didn't always go for the heroic, but I understood that I could get it if I wanted to.

Anyway, this is not about heroic goals. I would have beaten Howling Vell in the first few tries if I had been as lucky as that one time I actually did beat it. And then I beat the next missions without any issues (and not because I learned anything from Howling Vell, other than being lucky). I don't think it's well-balanced in an otherwise well-balanced campaign (so far)

[Songbird]

This mission is actually incredibly easy (outside of scenarios where the AI starts with a bullet hive two inches from your base) because the AI never leverages its superior economy into superior forces. Build 8 farms, build a wolf as your first unit, then 4 lizards in case the AI decides to be a smartass and send an early hawk or a couple squirrels. If the AI starts close, just build the lizards first. Then build 2 skunks and mass hawks, with a second wolf after 6 hawks or so. Then just keep increasing your deathball and never leave your territory except to pick off a few individual units as they stream to you after a failed attack--you want to keep healing. Once you have 3 wolves, 3-4 skunks and 10-12 falcons, grab some lizards for meat and crush a gristmill after the AI fails its next attack wave. When the boar comes (the AI never seems to build it more than once), just order all the hawks to focus it and it dies.

If you want the heroic goal, just build 7 farms instead of 8 and build the 8th when the countdown timer gets low (just make sure you have 60 food when the last farm goes dry). You'll win by sitting in your base quite handily. Maybe reset if the AI starts so close to you that you're likely to accidentally kill their farms from within your own base (because this is actually a thing that happens for some reason).

[kantofox]

Obvs an old topic but still relevant. I had been having issues beating this level for a while. recently I took a step back from my normal method of "try the hint" approach. Also I started using random maps because i was being paranoid about the AI having an unnatural advantage with the standard map. (ill go back and try this later)

This is what I discovered, the mechanics of the campaign will always set one of your mills at the boarder of the opp. Regardless of the map, usually its the secondary mill.

The first step is to determine through recon what the terrain and perform a S.a.l.u.t.e
The easiest way to get a pass on the map is to "zerg" the closest mill with lizards then return to your closest mill, rally more lizards, add 1 farm, rinse, and repeat.

I speculate that the method could be used to get the heroic achievement by foregoing raids into enemy territory and using the wolf to buff the lizards, but not reducing the enemies production would also change the dynamics of my solution.

My solution of lizards was based on the initial 4 meat/sec and minimum number required to over run the bullet hives. Which after the initial recon dash netted about 200-ish meat.