Orc Warriors aren't even the highest variance in the game though! That's just... typical Wesnoth. Really, Orc Warriors don't have much more variance than Elvish Heroes.
When we start talking Horsemen, Lancers, Thunderguards, Ulfserkers, Griffons, Wraiths... these are the real "high variance" units of Wesnoth. (Wraiths have self-healing on their hits. So its very "sharp" when they hit. If they "get lucky", a Wraith may be at full health after killing 3 units, because they self-healed). EDIT: Oh yeah, and Trolls too have way more variance.
That's the thing: the default level of variance in Wesnoth is really damn high. Far more variance in this game than pretty much everything else I've ever played. And when we get into the lol "variance as a strategy units" (aka: lancers/wraiths), its pretty much like playing against a slot machine.
> The solution is to avoid fighting them full powered at night with your valuable units -- sacrifice some T1 units if you have to, hit the orc with a bunch of archers, slow them with a Shaman to reduce their damage.
2x attacks from the Shaman is pretty low accuracy. Assuming your typical 40% evade chance, there's a 16% chance that your shaman misses both slow-attacks. If the Orc is standing on its advantaged hill or mountain terrain, you're basically screwed (slow probably will miss more often than hit).
No T1 unit has a chance of killing an Orc Warrior. None at all. Slow is probably your best bet (-50% damage), but its really not that reliable of a strategy.
Well, it is possible that this just isn't the game for you.
I don't really think it is an issue that there aren't any T1 units that can easily beat this T2 one. Depending on where in the campaign you are, a T2 unit might be a set-piece encounter that you have to spend multiple turns wearing down. Of course the map designer can do a bad job and throw too much at you, but that's the cost of having mostly community designed maps I guess.
But I also think that reducing the variance significantly would help the game severely. I fully disagree with the forum post here.
There's room for luck in strategy games. But I'm not sure if some units (see the Lancer) have a role in this game aside from forcing the player to hit the "restart from last save" button over and over. When the luck-engine is unavoidable (due to high movement), you simply can't "plan" around it. Your best plan is the restart from save button if you get unlucky.
A good game shouldn't have situations like that, where the best strategy is just hoping for the best and rolling with the luck.
I haven't encountered too many Lancers lately, although I guess it could just be a campaign design issue. I've mostly been playing the World Conquest map lately, maybe they just avoid them because of this. It is a difficult campaign -- I haven't managed to beat it yet -- but I dunno. I enjoy rogue-likes and rolling with the punches, so if a run gets impacted by RNG it doesn't really bug me too much.
When we start talking Horsemen, Lancers, Thunderguards, Ulfserkers, Griffons, Wraiths... these are the real "high variance" units of Wesnoth. (Wraiths have self-healing on their hits. So its very "sharp" when they hit. If they "get lucky", a Wraith may be at full health after killing 3 units, because they self-healed). EDIT: Oh yeah, and Trolls too have way more variance.
That's the thing: the default level of variance in Wesnoth is really damn high. Far more variance in this game than pretty much everything else I've ever played. And when we get into the lol "variance as a strategy units" (aka: lancers/wraiths), its pretty much like playing against a slot machine.
> The solution is to avoid fighting them full powered at night with your valuable units -- sacrifice some T1 units if you have to, hit the orc with a bunch of archers, slow them with a Shaman to reduce their damage.
2x attacks from the Shaman is pretty low accuracy. Assuming your typical 40% evade chance, there's a 16% chance that your shaman misses both slow-attacks. If the Orc is standing on its advantaged hill or mountain terrain, you're basically screwed (slow probably will miss more often than hit).
No T1 unit has a chance of killing an Orc Warrior. None at all. Slow is probably your best bet (-50% damage), but its really not that reliable of a strategy.