Campaign Recap and Observations

[Gwynplaine]

SE seems to have toughened up campaign again with the last update. Instead of bemoaning however I've been trying to figure some general things out. Campaign has been around for a long time now but there doesn't seem to be much more than a vague, unacknowledged understanding of how it works. Even the wikis pretty much parrot the old info SE produced. This is info I've taken from reading the campaign threads and my own experiences. Please tell me what seems right or wrong and share any info you may have.

Campaign Battles:
Campaign battles are carried out according to their army's weekly policies and strategies. A single campaign unit has a time limit of one earth hour, however having campaign tags and fighting multiple overlapping units can last hours longer. Not many people seem to know that the intel npc actually lets you know which battles are being prepared if recon level is high (select the "latest intel" option). Battles are waged by players and the participating armies and their specific units. Every army is comprised of 15 different units. There are 5 offensive units that can be freely sent to any zone in its region. Every zone also has 1 specialized unit divided between the 5 regional zones which only focus upon attacking or defending their unique area. Lastly there are 5 units for reconnaissance, ally support, or technological weaponry.

Unofficially there are 5 types of battles. They are:
1: Offensive: Players attack a beastmen fort.

2: Defensive: Players defend an allied fort.

Reconnaissance battles: Usually reconnaissance units are sent out during a longer already occuring battle, however they can take place as their own individual battles (and it's quite annoying). Note that recon units always approach from their corresponding areas. They cannot spawn at a fort even if their army owns the zone.

3: Reconnaissance sabatoge: A recon unit is sent to damage an enemy fort. 6 mobs make their way to the areas fort. Once they reach it they quickly plant a bomb (at this point they are immune to attack) and warp. All 6 recon enemies must be defeated in order for their unit to "retreat" instead of being "victorious".

4: Reconnaissance fort repair: A recon unit is sent to a greatly damaged fort to make instant repairs. If a fort becomes seriously damaged (usually about 50~60 levels of damage) a recon unit can be sent out which instantly recovers a large amount of fortification with every successful recon NPC that is able to reach it. Recon beastmen do not aggro they will move along unless acted upon. Once they have been claimed they will engage like a normal enemy, although if too much hate is lost they can still return to moving toward the fort. Effective ways to slow them down are sleep/gravity/bind which should stick easily. The "goal" area for the recons to reach is a somewhat large radius around the fort, so if you are trying to prevent them from reaching it, keep that in mind and stay a distance away. All 6 recon enemies must be defeated in order for their unit to "retreat" instead of being "victorious".

5:Repair sessions: Between battles, areas are continuously subject to long rounds of repair sessions. Usually when a fort reaches a certain amount of damage (around 1~45 damage) units will be sent out to stand guard and repair it during an event less campaign (the unit will be "victorious" upon finishing, but no actual campaign battle begins). At these times the fort regains 10 fortifications per tic. The unit can (and usually seems to) repeatedly respawn over long drawn out hours to repair a fort until it is at full HP once again. Occasionally units will spawn and stand guard at forts even at full fortification. The reason I include this as a type of battle is that it does award influence (see below). What's more, it seems to be a kind of Campaign filibuster that bleeds small gains in influence out of an area.

Zone Influence, Victory or Retreat:
Influence decides who owns the zone for the week. As Kuno pointed out, the strongholds become subject to attack when all zones are owned by a single army. If the allies control all zones in their region, the beastmen stronghold will become subject to campaign battles, and vice versa. While allied cities are subject to campaign battle they may be under constant attack, making NPC teleportation, Campaign Ops, Sigil, and other functions very impractical. It is not yet known what occurs if beastmen control an allied city. It is speculated but not yet known that unique Campaign Ops offering BC awards becomes available if the allies can either own all regular zones in it's region, or take over the beastmen stronghold.

Zone influence depends upon battles being won or lost, each unit being victorious or retreating. This needs emphasis because some seem to think that lowering the forts HP to 0 is the ultimate goal which is not true at all. Repair session "victories" do seem to count towards influence, as I have witnessed repeated rounds of fort repair slowly diminish a nations influence. It appears as though influence points can be gained from both forcing opposition into retreat, and defeating an enemy leader. Both award a point of influence. However, influence points during a single battle seem to cap at two points per entire battle. For example, if a battle lasts for hours, with multiple units joining, enemies retreating, and leaders being defeated, the award for the most successful side will still be the modest one or two points instead of a large sum of influence. This is roughly what I've observed so far but I'm still confused on how influence is decided across long complex battles.

Morale and Prosperity:
Seems to affect overall strength of the NPC's or enemies for an army and also how easily that army can retreat from a battle. Presumably lowered when a leader is defeated, or a unit of their own retreats. If leaders dying does effect morale, a good place to start for nations having a rough time is to repeatedly defeat the weakest NM of a region. Alternatively, tougher leaders can simply be kited to allow for the regular mobs to be defeated easier and hopefully eventually result in retreat. Supposedly, beastmen are subject to lower morale by means of defeating appropriate beastmen in their regions zones. I am not so sure if this true or just a rumor.

Prosperity is separate and effects funding for things like technology, and weapons development. With high prosperity and the right weekly policies things like Mantlets, and Belfries are encouraged.

Resources:
Temporary items available to you from an NPC. They appear to be provided directly as the result of Campaign Ops. The process starts with Resource Procurement, obtaining raw supplies. Then onto Supplies Manufacture to have the items synthesized. Last the Supplies Transport Ops deliver the actual items to the forts where players can use them during battles. 1 resource is literally equal to one item for one person to receive.

Fortifications:
While attacking a fort, you may notice that once the HP reaches 50% instead of declining it will refill. Presumably this is to reinforce the idea that the forts HP bar is impractically too large to use a single bar. So instead, one half of an hp bar = 1 fort point. 150 HP units is the default standard for a fort. Fortifications can be added above that by completing the "steel resolve" Ops to a maximum of 300. After a campaign tally the beastmen can inherit the higher level fort HP from when it was player owned. In addition to players attacking a fort during battle, recon NPC's can sabatoge a fort with bombs, as well as players doing the "Slaughterhouse" Op. During fort repair downtime they regen at 10 fort hp per tic. Recon units can also restore a greatly damaged fort for huge amounts. If a fort takes a great amount of damage in one battle it's possible for the owners to retreat (not sure how much is required). When a fort reaches 0 fortification it is said to reduce the maximum HP and the fort once again regains full HP albeit at the lowered cap.

Unanswered Questions:
Red zone bars: What the fuck are they?
Physician NPCs: What causes them to cast higher/lower tier spells? (Simply # of zones controlled or is it the zone they appear in?)
How much fort damage is required before a unit retreats?
How much do forts repair from recon units?
How much do bombing units damage forts?
How long are the mobs/npc respawn time?
Fact or myth, engaging enemies while under fort repair can cause campaign to start? (has no effect in my experience)
Fact or myth, defeating normal enemies can lower morale?
Does defeating regular beastmen NM in strongholds lower morale?

[arshesney]

Kudos for the recap, lots of useful information.
About the "repair missions" mobs: they DO aggro, but lose hate instantly unless engaged, and they will aggro thru sneak/invisibility...
not really a problem, but normal mobs in zone will link to them.
I learned it the hard way getting to La Vaule [S] once, orcish tranporter popped, aggroed me (invisible) and the 4-5 orcs around linked to them, convoy deaggroed and resumed route,

[Gwynplaine]

Are you talking about the Recon mobs, or the Transporter/Guard mobs for the search and seizure ops? They do "aggro" (to the extent they acknowledge you and move faster) but I don't think recon mobs do (fairly sure). Recon mobs have unique unit names that are all the same.

[arshesney]

yeah, I mean the Transporter/guard x2 groups, do they influence fort repairs or are just Op mobs?

[Gwynplaine]

Only the recon mobs and units standing guard during repair will regen forts atm. The transporter just brings resources and are used in that Op mission.

[Rocl]

Physician NPCs: What causes them to cast higher/lower tier spells? (Simply # of zones controlled or is it the zone they appear in?)

The best theory I can come up with currently is that it is directly influenced by the nation's skill rating, and that the skill rating is raised by completing various Campaign Ops.

Hence, when a nation is under constant siege, and few Campaign Ops get completed, the Physicians "delevel".

[Not Kuno]

Excellent post, though as someone who does campaign alot I've noticed similar things. Most notably, I think SE lowered damage on Fort to make people not want to attack it, because it's really not important for winning. I'm not even sure what lowering it really does.

Anyway, killing the leader does not make the enemy retreat or lower influence. You need to make the unit retreat to do that. Of course if morale is low they will retreat after you kill a bunch of regular mobs w/o having to kill them all.

Also the red bar seems to empty every week and slowly fill up by the end of it. No idea what it's supposed to mean though, as I never see it go down.

Rocl covered the point about the healers. Windy is always under attack on Bahamut so they cast crappy spells, while the Sandy ones cast high level spells.

[Gwynplaine]

Excellent post, though as someone who does campaign alot I've noticed similar things. Most notably, I think SE lowered damage on Fort to make people not want to attack it, because it's really not important for winning. I'm not even sure what lowering it really does.

Anyway, killing the leader does not make the enemy retreat or lower influence. You need to make the unit retreat to do that. Of course if morale is low they will retreat after you kill a bunch of regular mobs w/o having to kill them all.

Also the red bar seems to empty every week and slowly fill up by the end of it. No idea what it's supposed to mean though, as I never see it go down.

Rocl covered the point about the healers. Windy is always under attack on Bahamut so they cast crappy spells, while the Sandy ones cast high level spells.

It's becoming more apparent that forts are useless as any kind of goal. They just seem to be an inherent advantage that pumps out influence to the defending army.

I don't know if defeating a leader lowers influence, but I think it provides influence to the opposing side. I can explain how I came to thinking this now I guess since the OP was already too damn long. Basically Bastoks abysmal fail makes for good grounds to test stuff out, because the stats are almost all maximized. Bastok influence in all zones is consistently 0, Quadav morale and influence is almost always maxed, etc. So any change is very easy to observe.

I would show up at a campaign hardly anyone attends, like Grauberg while Bastok Markets is having campaign. Then wait a few till it says the armies NPC's have been sent out. Grab the NM out of the crowd and just kite it a long ways out into the path of the incoming NPC's until they take it from you, gang up on it and kill it. After that usually there's still hardly any players in attendance so the NPC's will inevitably go get themselves killed at the crowd of mobs. This is during a simple 1 unit vs. 1 unit campaign with no recons sent in. All they ever accomplish is defeating the NM before retreating and campaign ends. You can see that the influence bar will go from nothing to a very slight amount.

You can do something similar and just kite the single NM at a campaign with good attendance until enough mobs are killed off and they retreat. Then (assuming the battle ends after with no more units) check influence and there should be a slight amount.

If they manage to do both defeat a leader, and force retreat before it ends they will get an amount that is a bit more. So I am assuming it is the sum of 1 point for leader + 1 point for unit retreat that is the result. Complex battles with several units, recons, and fort beat-downs makes this a lot more hard to grasp. I'm not sure how those work, if the score for each side is weighed at the end or what. All I know is that it doesn't seem like time spent or amount of total "victories" will make the influence gained skyrocket. After a 3 hour campaign with several NM deaths and "victory" messages they still received the same amount as 1 leader + 1 retreat.

All this term usage is making my head spin It's hard to draw anything definite from Campaign however because of the complex nature of it, which is why I posted here though to see if other people see the same or different things.

[Melios]

Any idea what causes a leader to be "gravely wounded?" Although I've seen plenty of leaders, on both sides, taken out, I've seldom seen it mentioned that they were gravely wounded.

[Gwynplaine]

Is there two different wordings for leaders being defeated? I guess I never noticed.
Edit: I think beastmen have "gravely wounded" while allies get "suffered grevious wounds" its just different wording for either side.

[Ivana]

All they ever accomplish is defeating the NM before retreating and campaign ends. You can see that the influence bar will go from nothing to a very slight amount.
.

Then killing the NM must be worth more than 1 point for that to be true, because otherwise the influence bar would be zero since:
1 point for defeating NM
-1 point for Altana forces retreating
= 0 points of influence

[Gwynplaine]

Right, I hadn't considered that. Maybe I should try it again to make sure I wasn't seeing things or getting mixed up. That might be. The thing that makes it so difficult is that the stupid bars are just "more red" or "less red" instead of having numeric values. So it's basically just eyeballing.

[Almalexia]

Any idea what causes a leader to be "gravely wounded?" Although I've seen plenty of leaders, on both sides, taken out, I've seldom seen it mentioned that they were gravely wounded.

I think you can only get a campaign message about a particular leader's status if your recon guy can tell you the most information about that leader. There are many messages about the deployment, retreat and victory of different battalions, but this could be basic reconnaissance whereas leader condition is more advanced. Let me give an example:

One time, I asked for the whereabouts of Bartholomaus. NPC said Pashhow, and on my way to the teleport NPC I got a campaign message about Bart suffering severe wounds on the field of battle. Later, I asked for the whereabouts of Bo'Dho Hundredfist. NPC didn't know. I went on to do a supply transport op, found the Bo'Dho at low health in Grauberg mid-campaign, and returned to Bastok before the battle ended. There was no message about his death and I'm certain the swarm of allied NPCs defeated Bo'Dho soon after I left. Bastok must have had insufficient recon about the state of Bo'Dho to report his defeat in town.

[Gwynplaine]

Concerning recon I noticed something the last few weeks. For whatever reason, an army can have their recon level penalized and lowered. Bastok was 10 and lowered to 2, and Windurst as well I think. Quadav recon wasn't affected so probably ties into their overall success somehow.

[LD]

Recon penalties usually happen a little after the retally, during the course of a week I have never seen it dip down again after this. Either it's a natural reset or it has something to do with Security. If it does have to do with Security, it probably has to do with the general resupplying that takes place after every retally, and I guess it could technically be possible for a nation to strenthen that during the week (but people don't dop enough delta strikes).

[Deegan]

yeah, I mean the Transporter/guard x2 groups, do they influence fort repairs or are just Op mobs?

I have found that they do indeed repair the fortifications. I will also go with Gywn's comment on the amount of fail that is Bastok.

The same thing is happening on Asura. Since no one does campaign for Bastok on Asura, outside a few ppl, it has been easy for me to test a few things and find out exactly why bastok continues to fail, one thing being the fortification problem.

The Quadav have become relentless for sending the Quadav Transporter and the Quadav Guards about 3-5 times per single campaign battle. One battle for example was one recently i had in Pashlow. I was able to do the same techinque Gwyn talked about, where you basically keep pulling mobs to the npcs instead of waiting for the npcs to run in and get raped. I was able to allow Sonia's dancers to wipe out Gi'Gia and his BSTs and then begin attacking the fort. Since they killed the leader and made the Quadav retreat, Bastok gained a sliver of influence. They were able to get the fort down to 140/150. The campaign battle kept going, no messages no nothing. Sure enough, here comes the Transporter and his Guards. I pull the Transporter, who preceeds to ignore me, run to the fort, then warp. I check the campaign map and after a while, the fort returned to 150/150. Nothing else happened to the fort besides the DNCs still attacking it. There was no wave of reinforcements or repair units sent besides the Transporter. After that happened, they got it down to 145/150 again then the "Bastok's Dancer unit has retreated" message came and the campaign ended. All the influence that was gained was gone because they "retreated"

This has happened MULTIPLE times that I have seen. Seen it in basically every bastok zone. Currently Asura's Bastok strategy is preemptive strikes so NPCs attacking the fort before quadav waves come happen alot. So the fort goes down, Transporter shows up, back to 150/150, Quadav wave shows up, Stupid NPCs attack fort and get picked off 1 by 1 and end up in defeat. Nothing is gained.

The 2nd reason I have seen for fail with Bastok is the amount of helper imps that show up per wave of Quadav. Each wave/units of Quadav on Asura are 6 imps per wave. Im not sure if thats normal or not but 6 is a fucking lot. So if there are 2 waves, there are a total or 12 helper imps; blinking, stoneskining, cure 4ing, and buffing already buffed to shit quadav. The NPCs even when they outnumber the quadav 2 to 1, always get wiped because there are just too many imps to deal with. They also have a problem with going unclaimed and unaggroing and back to healing even when you aggroed them to stop them from curing. Its annoying and I cant even kill 5 imps before the NPCs get totally wiped out. (on PLD btw).

PS. In the 10 minutes it took me to write up this post, I participated in a campaign for 1/2 and the 1/2 i was resting outside the fort. 3 Transporters showed up during campaign and another 5 with no campaign going on. Talk about fail.

[Lordwafik]

Bastok sucks harder deeg because there's nothing worth getting in AN gear Story also sucks, OPs suck, SE really are going out of their way to make us know they hate bastok. Hell even the 2008 Piano collection CD hasn't got a single bastok track, but it has sandy and windy ones. Rawr!

[Gwynplaine]

Hmm does each individual unit get it's own 6 imps? Hadn't noticed, sounds right though. Mob # is definately static, although people had originally thought the amount differed depending on different things. Theres always a leader + 9 soldiers, and any supportive or misc units have 6, imps, seige turret spawns etc. Last week Grauberg on my server got turned into Beadeaux-2. The fort was constantly bloated with 2 or more units. I didn't even bother going out there because it was deadly just pulling a mob out of the crowd. Seems Quadav strategy changed this week because it's back to normal again this week.

Are you sure that the fort was damaged, and then healed mid battle without Recon units? To my knowledge the Transporter and Guards are only for the Search and Seizure Ops. They come on a set path every 12ish minutes. I remember because when it first came out I thought I was providing some dutiful service by killing them, until I realized they come non-stop 24/7. They deliver resources in increments of 5 or 10 (not sure, haven't paid attention for long time). But I'm not sure what role beastmen resources even play.

I think that if a nation is struggling (usually Bastok, sometimes Windy), simply regaining one zone is the hard part. If that could be done though I think the situation would be much better already once people could travel easily and do Ops more often again. On my server Bastok will occasionally have less influence than beastmen in their own city. They retreated from town twice last nite. It's rarer, and usually only happens in off times when players are low, and attacks are endless. Ultimately I think they will just have to get lucky with a good combination of weekly strategies, and a lot of players being available to play that week. That or SE would need to take the nerf bat to campaign.

[Deegan]

Yea the fort was damaged for sure and I saw no other quadav in the area except for the Transporter and his 2 Guards. I found it weird as well because I know they are used for the quest and all but I cant find any other explaination. Ive seen it happen in mutliple zones as well, at least in Bastok zones.

[Deftscythe]

I don't know if this is precisely the right place to ask, but I can't think of a better one and didn't want to make a new thread. What happened to the "Has Bastok lost on any server" thread?