Mutilple Alps is too strong

[lucassun]

So I had a contract in a town that said ”End the nightmares that haunt ‘village name’ at night” and I was like ”nice I’m going to see the new alp creature” cause I read the Dev Update and saw the Alp that feeds on fear by doing nightmares and stuff at night so i’m like ”ok since I don’t know what they do except get me to sleep I’m going to bring my whole team” since its a contract i don’t see them and i can’t make up who is attacking me so i start the fight and there are like 6 of them and since they have initiative cause all my guys have heavy armor and stuff they just spam there sleep and all my brothers are asleep and they just shred them…

I think they are too strong in such big packs maybe like cap their numbers or something cause their sleep power is very strong…

And I had to end the contract since i can’t find a way to stop the sleep (i saw something about a night owl potion but i can’t seem to track how to make it on short notice :/ )

-Lucas
PS: this is still a very good game i can’t seem to be able to stop playing

[Rap]

Since you’ve read the dev blog, you may also remember that your men now have a ‘Wake Ally’ skill, with which to wake up adjacent allies. That’s what you use to wake up your men and ultimately overcome those Alps.

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[JoyfulRogue]

If there’s 6 alps that all get to move one after another and their sleep is AOE, each can sleep 2 people and the entire company is dead in 1 turn. No way to wake ally then. Maybe that’s what Lucas meant?

[Wanderer]

There are, I believe, multiple dimensions to the problem.

1. Alps have very high initiative (on an account of no armor penalties). This means, practically speaking for mid game and late game companies, they always go first. This means that generally speaking your first turn is lost, because you’re too busy waking people up. There’s also not enough room in the formation to keep everybody spread out to limit the number of people slept in a large enough company.

2. They only appear at night, which is appropriate. The problem with this is that range brothers are practically speaking useless, because they won’t be able to hit Alps very frequently at night. Combined with the fact that Alps have a very, very short detection range on the world map, you won’t be able to swap out the range brothers for melee brothers in time before combat is joined.

3. The Alp’s action economy is very efficient; they can either sleep twice in one turn, or sleep and move. This is an annoyance to the player, because they’re already hobbled by having to wake people up, which means they’re only moving two spaces at most per turn. Typically one if you’re caught in a swamp. Because of this, very commonly the player has to spend around 20 minutes chasing Alps around the map by cornering them so they can’t run away, and then eventually kill them.

4. One obvious counter to Alps is the use of dogs to increase the number of targets that the Alps have to sleep (not to mention, you don’t actually care if the dog dies considering dogs are only 300-400 to replace for an armored dog). The design issue with this being that, considering Alp trophies are only basically used for the trinket, a few potions, and dyes, that makes Alp drops essentially worthless, because the trinket slot is being consumed for the dog. Not to mention that the hexe trinket has higher resolve amount than the alp trinket, while hexes are in general much easier to deal with (by virtue of them not having default range resistance). In short, the alp trinket does not really warrant specifically looking for it, and does not provide meaningful resistance to the Alp sleep, compared to adding another target that can lock the Alps down by getting them caught in melee.

[lucassun]

Just wanted to update this

I recently had another encounter with 4 alps and I could use the wake ally skill since they didn’t put my whole team to sleep and I could easily take care of them
I crafted the night owl potion and obsiouly realised its not the right thing :P
Maybe add some potion to counter the sleep?

[Baine]

I just made an account to confirm this.

I had my whole team wiped out just now by 7 Alps and 2 wolves. I got ambushed by night in a forest (i know, my mistake) but what followed just left me speechless. Basically the wolves started their turns first, closed in, my guys in heavy armour having last say was to be expected. Then im getting sleeped by 7 alps, leaving exactly 1 guy awake to wake another one. That did not help me at all. Turn was done by waking someone else and next round im completly put to sleep. I basically just sat there and watched without being able to do anything. At times like that i wished for the old retreat option with severe injuries as balance back… it was E/E/I run and it wiped the whole squad in front of my eyes with me not being able to do anything. It went on with wolves attacking units, waking the guys they attacked, but immediately the alps following up with putting them back to sleep and killing them in their dreams.

I have beaten Alps when they came in smaller numbers but the Alp encounter is probably my least favourite of all. Every village that wants me to end their nightmares can just go and die in my book.I’d rather fight unholds with naked guys and fists only than this.

Alps should target one guy at most. Increase their group size but limit them to single targeting. Them having map wide vision, being spread out and making them chase you and their mass sleep + high initiative just makes it the worst fight in my opinion.

[Author]

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