"Mountain" is too difficult!

Gameplay
#1

Now I’ve only played a single game to the “Mountain” event, but when I reached it I had divested myself of all of the items that player is supposed to use to repel the Mountain. There was no way to get any more of those items after I was told they would be important, and as such the Mountain invasion simply overran my town, even with a decent military. I had to dev console my way past.

As cool as it was to have a proper invasion it’s currently not a fun “progression gate” if you haven’t got the solution to it, and hours of nurturing a town go down the drain. Would be nice to see the event be beatable by a strong military (for the place in the game it happens, so perhaps 6 or 7 soldiers would be strong for that time) instead of purely the story method of doing it. Maybe I just got unlucky, and youare able to find more of the item needed after you’re warned about it, but if the player doesn’t get that chance it seems like an instant lose.

#2

What do you describe as a decent military? I was able to repeal the invasion on hard mode without the chimes.

#3

I had 2 max level of everything, no problems. (Footman, Archer, Cleric, Knight)

#4

Can you explain me how the dev console works? I found myself in a similar situation and wasn`t happy with the idea of losing everything, so i stop playing this savegame.

#5

Press Ctrl+C, this will open the console.

Clicking an object and entering destroy into the console destroys that object, or kills that monster, or what have you. ib instantly builds a selected building, im instantly mines a selected mining area. Use help to find more commands. You can also check out my post here if you want to add your own console commands.

#6

Well as any battle goes preparation and tactics is key.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

As you pointed out this was the first time that you faced this opponent and were without the material to provide you an option other than direct confrontation.

I imagine you will be much better prepared for this now that you have seen it.

spoiler Tactic I use for mountain.

The battle with Ogo Skullbonker and Mountain is a balance of using combined military strength and makeup, and proper preparation of the battlefield.

As you have seen Ogo forces is divided into three enemy types:

1. Mountain (who can bash down your gates and doors) is tanky but is easily manageable with a lv 2 Knight with a support healer.

2. A horde of goblins, not strong individually but can overwhelm your Soldiers if not controlled.

3. Wolf pack, these are fast so you want to keep them from flanking your formation and isolating your archers.

Tactics that I use on Hard mode. After defeating the Goblin Chieftain I begin preparation of the battlefield. I construct wall and prioritizing which direction I want Ogo forces to attack from. This is done by sealing off access to you settlement with wall or other solid obstacle except for one location where you leave a gate or opening. This will be the avenue of approach that Mountain will come for. Also this strategy is to prevent flank attacks by ambient spawns on your villagers. I configure my forces to include two Knights, one for Mountain to keep him pinned down and one for Ogo. two footman supporting the Knight on Ogo with Cleve AoE damage to handle the goblin hoard and the other ready to break off and defend archers or clerics due to their increased speed. Two archers one with sticky arrows and one with fire. Their main focus is Ogo as he can put out some dps with his bonker then finishing off the goblin horde. Two Clerics one to support the Knight on Mountain and one with the main task force, if I can I like to have a third cleric to mitigate the hoard damage or to move to the archers location in case the archer gets isolated. If I can not get the wolves to bunch up with the goblins I use the archer with the sticky arrows to slow their advance and then take them out as opportunity arises. The best case is if Ogo army spawns a distance far enough away that they do not immediately attack in this case I use the bait system (commonly used in RTS games) by moving my forces up, putting them in defense mode and then having a footman move just close enough to agro a portion of Ogo forces. Taking them out piece meal is much simpler.

#7

Well i took him out with 12 soldiers, Still bit hard and i didnt lose anyone. But i had to let the hearth do there job w/o interfering with them as in attack this target and that one.

Now here is some suggestion of what i did. 1 i waited to start the campaign, as let it set in my quest log till i felt i was rdy. (yes you can do that). 2 i made sure all my soldiers clerics and archers and knights was fully geared and lvled

#8

The provlem of having Mountain join the firgt instead of only fighting the goblins is that Mountain gives them a courage buff, so they wonmt run away like they would if they didn’t have him around

I managed to get a attack with no mountain(maybe a bug, or just that my wind chime was early enough) the goblins hardy manage to hit my soldiers as they were too busy beig scared and running away, so cutting down mountain might trigger all the others to flee in frear

A couple of knights and footem sith suppoert of archers and clerics is usually enough to take all of them down, just make sure that not all your soldiers are attacking mountain, he will not die quickly and your soldiers will get attacked my a swarm of goblins while attacking him, just keep him busy enough that the other soldiers can deal with the rest

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#9

Pro Tip: You can shift click on an item to bring up it’s own little debug menu, and click destroy.

#10

This is why I use two knights, one to pull Mountain away from the group and keep him locked down. " got to keep them separated"

#11

My military strength was only five hearthlings (1 archer, 1 cleric, 1 knight, 2 footmen) when Mountain showed up. By that point I’d placed wind chimes in a few places as decoration and after a couple ingame days the entire invasion force despawned and Mountain gave me some gifts because he liked the chimes.

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#12

I originally solved The Mountain as a game-ender by just reloading the last auto-save and building walls across every access point…
At the moment i am engaged in building a castle on an island that i have not left during the whole game… The Mountain was killed a few minutes ago after wandering around being attacked by Veranus spawns and Giant Zombies, etc.
Ogo himself seemed to pick a fight with a necromancer a while ago but has, alas, survived…

Even so, he cannot breach the walls of Spurgundy!

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#13

This only works if you have the debugtools mod installed.

1 Like
#14

Don’t forget that the mysterious stranger gives you a tip on him!

He gives you a recipe for windchimes that you can craft. Once the Mountain gets near them you can resolve it peacefully and I believe the army leaves. You have to place the wind chimes somewhere on the map though!

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#15

My point was that I got the tip, but before that I had no idea those items would be needed in future so I had sold them all. In the time between getting the hint and the invasion, I had no other opportunities to get the item.

My military was only three somewhat advanced footmen, which I really do think was reasonable as my town had only about 15 citizens.

So either way (again this is from a single game) it was either a misbalance of timing (not being able to get the item after the hint) or a misbalance of town size/number of citizens vs the invasion event being triggered.

As for “you learned for next time” that might be true for a faster paced game with respawning, but for a dozen hours of gameplay to wipe out your whole town in that manner just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Even if the town was razed and I was left with a couple of survivors, that would be a good situation, just part of the history of my town, but total destruction and game over in that manner is just frustrating. Maybe as enemy AI and objectives become more refined it will be possible for this to happen, and enemies to leave without slaughtering everyone like machines.

#16

That is why you lost, your military composition.
The way the military classes work is that they all rely upon one another. So the strongest 3 person military would be a footman (we can get into a heated debate later over archer or footman) a knight and a cleric.

Because you had no knight or cleric, yes you have massive DPS on the footman but you had no staying power. So when they surrounded your footmen they just got slaughtered, even if your footmen we’re dealing lots of AOE damage.
You have a mixed military and then it becomes pretty easy.
You should be fine if you have one of each of the 4 classes.

Also can I ask why you only had 3 military units?
If you have 15 hearthlings, you have 1 farmer a cook or a second farmer, 1 trapper, 4/5 crafters, 3 footmen and then what 5 workers?
You only need 2 workers at max as both your carpenter and mason also build and your weaver helps out with the scaffolding.
Meaning you could have had 6 military units. Also a cleric is so good at healing they make the herbalist redundant so you should get a couple of clerics.

It’s annoying that you lost but now you know what to expect so you can prepare for it.
Also sneaky trick if you’re not prepared, don’t finish the conversation with ogo, he won’t come and the game will continue as it was before. If you click on another notification the conversation window will go away :wink:

#17

I must agree with @Freedom

This is a hard mode play, an there should be no room for potential soldiers, a dozen hours of gameplaye and 15heathlings to most hard mode players means (or at-least for me)at least a total of 5~6 soldiers with mixed classes,

and they’re right, you’ll know better next time, because i’m pretty sure most hard mode players experience this once, and they learn that they need to focus more on millitary than they did, i did too, and it’s just a learning preogress as long as ‘you chose’ to playe Hard mode (oh, and I’m assuming you chose hard mode, but even if it wasn’t i wouldn’t expect 3sdiers to win)

Now it’s my default, as i find it to be the perfect balance between difficulty and calmness, i see it normal and comfortable

And i was wiped out within days of my first play-through

Opinions and ideals vary, for me, it’s perfect, and i actually think it’ll be the same for you soon enough

#18

Please except my apologies, I did not mean to sound flippant with that statement. I understand your investment into your village and how one factor that can turn hours of development into dust would be unsettling to anyone. I also did not want to be perceived to be belittling your experience as your continued enjoyment is desired.

I had seen the portion where you said [quote=“MajorFordson, post:1, topic:23849”]
I had to dev console my way past.
[/quote]
So, I took it that you had at least preserved your town and was able to progress further. So the only loss I was perceiving was the loss of the enjoyment of being able to be on a balanced footing for the specific Ogo and Mountain encounter. Being able to tackle it in a fair and balanced way that would be perceived as at least having a chance of success base on your actions, or not being a game ender by at least having a way to recover if a single misstep occurred .

I was really meaning to convey the sense that I had confidence in your abilities to handle this situation in any future game session due to experiencing it for the first time now. The game is still in Alpha and does lack the tutorials and guides that a more developed game has due to this ongoing development. As such feed back such as your allows the developers to adjust the encounter difficulties, and add tips or clarify current tips to better prepare player to what to expect.

The Developers have been working hard to adjust the binary feel of combat (binary in that either you win big or lose big with no options for recovery except for save scrumming or dev consoling). So with feedback from players like you a more enjoyable experience can be created.

#19

First time I did “mountain” I had no idea what to expect; so I just saved and figured I could reload the save if I have to. The enemy spawned on a hill and couldn’t reach me, so I have extra time to prepare (I could place a ladder for them whenever I felt like) and ended up beating them with nothing more than a few buff pots, 2 footman, a herbalist, and all other citizens in a militia.

Next few times it was similar, either because I was lucky or happened to have fences around my town with only one gate for an entrance; or could take out the wolves and ogre before tackling the main force, or…

This time? Nope. Something was different. Instead of the normal “2 wolves, one ogre, 10 goblin soldiers” I remembered from previous games it seemed a lot closer to “4 wolves, one ogre, 20 goblins”. With the same “only 2 footman and a herbalist” I’d beaten it with multiple times before, I just ended up with all hearthlings (military and militia) wiped. I used debug tools to “delete” half of the goblin soldiers; and still ended up with all hearthlings dead. I had to delete about 15 goblin soldiers just to make it as difficult as before.

I don’t know why. It might be that engineers were added to the game; so I was trying to get engineers sooner, so I started mining and blacksmithing sooner. Once you start focusing on “metal trades” your kingdom value seems to increase fast, so maybe I reached the “> 4000 kingdom value” quest trigger far far sooner than normal (and had more workers/miners than normal to increase ore collection, and had less experienced footman than normal because they had less time training on normal enemies).

Hard to say now; but it was “insanely impossible” for some reason.

#20

You might be onto something Brendan, as the force that attacked me had lots more than 10 standard goblins. So it seems it’s a variable number?

As for my army composition, I wasn’t up to the point where I could meet the tech requirements for cleric or knight… I just play on Normal mode, I don’t see how people can go with so few Workers, buildings build so slowly if you only have one or two!