Sandstalker Minigame explained

[bikeman223]

I really don't understand what is happening here. Is there some trick to anticipating where the enemy is hiding? Even when it shows where they might have attacked from I always miss. Can the enemy attack you when they're on the same tile even though you can't?

Edited June 12, 2023 by bikeman223

[bikeman223]

Is it true that the Maxima DLC makes the Sandstalker minigame easier? 

[bikeman223]

I've got a W/L ratio of 5/32 at the moment. How does the enemy AI detect you so quickly, is there a way to manipulate it or is this just all down to RNG?

[masnevets]

Yeah, it's pretty much RNG at the start so you have to make some educated guesses to win. But 5/32 means you're missing some fundamental ideas.

 

I guess you've read other posts about this, but here's the basic idea: if you see attack and get "resist" then there is at least one enemy in one of the 8 squares touching that square:

 

???
?R?
???

Here R is where you got "resist" and ? is where a potential enemy can be. Similarly, if they attack and miss then they have to be in one of the 8 squares touching where they attacked.

 

Enemies can be on the same square as one of your units! It took me a while to realize this, but you will have to move your unit off the square to attack them if this ends up being the case.

 

Enemies move if you hit them, and if you spread out your units, you can usually kill them for free because the game tells you where they moved to. There are a few good starting positions, but something like this works well:

.....
.X...
...X.
.X...
.....

So basically, you need to make some guesses and then try to combine the info you gain to see where they are. Otherwise there's some randomness to it, but if you play well you should usually win a little more often than you lose. It might help to begin by attacking a square on the edge. If you get a resist, then there's only 5 possible squares the enemy can be in (or you can even do a corner and narrow it down to 3). If you get a miss, you can just restart.

 

If you lose a unit right away you should probably just restart since you can't get the best reward and it makes the game take longer.

 

I don't know if this post tells you anything new, but I can try to answer questions if you have any.

Edited June 12, 2023 by masnevets

[bikeman223]

1 minute ago, masnevets said:

Enemies can be on the same square as one of your units! It took me a while to realize this, but you will have to move your unit off the square to attack them if this ends up being the case.

Is there no way to attack your own square? The enemies are able to do it.

[masnevets]

Just now, bikeman223 said:

Is there no way to attack your own square? The enemies are able to do it.

I don't think so, but maybe I never figured it out? It's also possible that the enemies are next to each other like this:

 

...
XX.
...

with the middle also being where you are and the one on the left is the one that is attacking you.

[bikeman223]

1 minute ago, masnevets said:

I don't think so, but maybe I never figured it out? It's also possible that the enemies are next to each other like this:

 

...
XX.
...

with the middle also being where you are and the one on the left is the one that is attacking you.

I'm at 7/40 now, I don't know if this is getting easier it still feels completely random on my best attempts. This is really confounding, I hope the other mini-games aren't harder.

[bikeman223]

Damn it, I won a game with no losses and I guess I still took too many turns to get the memento. That was the best I've played and it was 60% random guesses.

Edit: That's twice now.

Edit 2: I did it. I understand now, there aren't 6 enemies there are only three with the same hit point values as the player units. When you hit the large or medium one they flee either vertically or horizontally all the maximum distance. I knew there must be something I was missing. 

Edited June 12, 2023 by bikeman223

[ohheyitsbobcat]

The Maduin momento you get from the minigame seems to have some other trigger besides win in less then 20 total turns/no deaths because when I got it, I had over 20 turns.

 

I also had a perfect match though with no units getting hit. No idea if that changes anything or if moving pieces doesn't count but there is certainly more to it. I have a youtube video showing my win and getting the memento with 25 total turns counting both me and the enemy.

 

Either way, I'm happy to be done with that minigame and getting my plat.