Dev-mode

[rancor26]

Alright this is the full translation of the list originally created by spamm on russian forums i'll also include tutorial on how to make these commands to work.

To be able to use dev-mode commands you'll have to add one space and -dev to your shortcut on the "target" section after the kb.exe (OUT OF QUOTES), it's simple as that nothing else needed :-).
HERE ARE PICS OF HOW IT SHOULD LOOK:
http://i46.tinypic.com/1e155c.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/5oxrpt.jpg

Now here's the list of all dev-mode commands:

Battle map commands (these commands only work on BATTLE MAP):

I=Reduces the number of units on the stack under your cursor to 1 (also the lasts troop health is 1)
K=Kills the unit under the cursor
Shift-K=Kills all units
Ctrl+1=Doubles the number of units on the stack
Alt+A=Gives you 1000 mana and fills your rage meter to maximum
Ctrl+Z=Puts you to the position before your previous action (for example: you move your swordsmen troop then you enter the command and it'll put you to the state where you haven't moved your swordsmen troop yet.)
Ctrl+X=I'm not sure what kind of command this is i tested it on the battle map and it had no effect.
Ctrl+C=This command let's you prevent the enemy (according to google translate i haven't tested this command)
Tab=Gives you information about the units under the cursor
Ctrl+Home=Priorities moves (note: you can use ctrl+alt or press and hold ctrl without dev-mode to get the same result)

Campaign map commands (these commands only work on CAMPAIGN MAP):

Shift+L=Stops the time (you can move but all the AI controlled troops will stop moving)
Shift+T=Enemies won't attack you
Ctrl+Plus (the one on your keypad)=Speeds the time (can be used multiple times and only speeds the time it takes for day and night to change)
Ctrl+Minus (the one on your keypad)=Slows the time (can be used multiple times and only slows the time it takes for day and night to change)
Ctrl+D=Loads all the different areas of the game as a text to your screen (works on main menu)
Ctrl+Shift+K=Kills all enemies on the map
Ctrl+M=Removes the clouds from your map (use only while the map open otherwise it won't work and to select island use the list on the upper right corner because you'll be unable to just click the maps to zoom to them)
Ctrl+Q=Teleports you to the location under your cursor (works on the map that shows all the islands too)
Ctrl+1=Gives you an elven army (can be used three times for a different result)
Ctrl+2=Gives you dwarf army (can be used two times for a different result)
Ctrl+3=Gives you orc army (can be used two times for a different result)
Ctrl+4=Gives you undead army (can be used three times for a different result)
Ctrl+5=Gives you demon army (can be used two times for a different result)
Ctrl+6=Gives you an army with neutral race units (can be used three times for a different results)
Ctrl+7=Gives you human army (can be used two times for a different result)
Ctrl+8=Gives you an army with neutral race units (can be used four times for a different result)
Ctrl+0=Gives you lizard army (can be used two times for a different result)
Ctrl+Shift+1=Gives you 20000 gold
Ctrl+Shift+2=Gives you 50 crystals
Ctrl+Shift+3=Gives you 50 mana
Ctrl+Shift+4=Gives you 1000 leadership
Ctrl+Shift+5=Gives you 500 rage
Ctrl+Shift+6=Gives you 1000 experience
Ctrl+Shift+7=Gives you 100 of each runes
Ctrl+Shift+8=Gives you all spells to your magic book
Ctrl+Shift+9=Gives you all the skills and upgrades them to maximum (can only be used while on hero-screen)
Ctrl+Shift+R=Your pet dragon advances one level
Ctrl+H=Shows the cross and the radius of the game objects (can't find when this would be useful though :-))
Alt+D=Use to run debugger LUA-scripts

There's all the working commands :-).
Also notice that my native language isn't english so the translations might have flaws but i think they're all pretty good in overall :-).
Let me know if there's any problems or flaws on those commands (or on my explanations) :-)

[Akimbo]

Also notice that my native language isn't english so the translations might have flaws but i think they're all pretty good in overall :-).
Let me know if there's any problems or flaws on those commands (or on my explanations) :-)

From a quick glance through that looks to be 100x better than the google translation. Good work :)

[Lord Ludwig]

Sorry guys but I must be getting dumber than what I suspected I could get. What does "add one space and -dev to your shortcut on the "target" section after the kb.exe" mean? If I add -dev to the destination in "properties" for my shortcut, I get a message telling me the destination is invalid. If I add it to the kb.exe file it obviously ceases working. If I open the .ini files I don't even see where I should start looking.

So OK, it may be "as simple as that" but at least for me definitely "something else needed", some more detailed info...

Many thanks in advance.

I tackled KBAP straight on impossible confiding in my experience with KBtL, and indeed the last battles had become a walkover, but K'Tahu was a nightmare and Baal is proving right out impossible, so I'll have to start over but first I wanted to see the final of the damn game, thus cheating seems my only option (I tried a lot of different strategies, but never even got him below 50,000 health...)

[Elwin]

Bah. Look fir max crit thread you wil see me doing 60-70k damage to baal with one hit :> :P

[Lord Ludwig]

Elwin, your reply is extremely quick but not very helpful. I am ready to believe you daily eat 10 Baals for breakfast, but probably you have other stats/items/spells/units than I have. I have 78 Int, 16 Att, 22 Def. Mage, obviously. Almost no money left, 12 black and 15 red dragons so I have to rely on the free human army. Leadership is just above 30,000 (with flaming eyes) and distortion magic is stuck at 2/3.

If I attack with units, max dmg I ever saw is 4,000 and they get slaughtered quickly. If I relay on spells, It would take about 30 ice snakes to take him down, but after 10-12 rounds my units are all dead. I tried 7 or 8 times, toying with resurrection, using the dragons, using demon portal, swapping items trading in some int for +morale of the humans, but never even got close. So please, instead of telling me how much damage you do, either tell me how to do it with my current resources, or tell me how to use this dev mode so I cheat (I am not interested in bragging about my scores anyway), see how it ends and restart with a different approach.

[Elwin]

I strongly recommend, getting paladins and knights and use stoneskin on them, they wont die so fast, phanotming paladins wil help also

[Lord Ludwig]

OK, sorry for the double-post but it seems I recovered from my attack of dumbness. So I had to add -dev OUT of the quotes...:o

Help about beating Baal WITHOUT cheating with my current resources is still welcome.

[Elwin]

U did not doublepost i wrote post meanwhile. Btw i cant imagine how you play impossible with level 2 distortion

[Lord Ludwig]

Thanks from saving me from double-posting...:-)

How did I play impossible with 2/3 distortion? The same way I completed KBtL at impossible without almost using distortion or even order magic: I try to build up intelligence, mana and above all mana restoration as quick as possible, I pick some very resilient units (before lvl 5 becomes largely available I used droids, splitting the repair units in two separate stacks so that they could repair each other) to minimize losses, and then I nuke away with fire rain. Obviously an amulet of fire storm (or two, as I got in KBtL) is welcome. For the larger stacks of enemies I use the pet's lightning (reaper's soul draining in KBtL) and that's it. The battles on Elon and Nameless were brainless pushovers, those on Reha barely required an effort. Then, however, I had to dig quite deep to get K'Tahu down and finally, silly me not to imagine it, I find out Baal is resistant to fire...

I used the cheat to bring distortion to 3/3 but it didn't make a noticeable difference. True, with stone skin + divine armor my paladins take little damage, but that means I have nothing left to damage with. As a result, after 10 rounds I had still about 70 paladins standing, surrounded by executioners and archdemons, with Baal "down" to 140,000:evil:

I had to resort to doubling repeatedly my pals to win...

One of these days I am going to replay from the start, but honestly I don't see how a mage can win on impossible, let alone the no loss wins I read about on the forum. Mind you, I am not saying it can't be done without cheating, I am just saying I can't see HOW it can be done.

[Elwin]

Dobrev described it very in detail ... Well you ended with no gold because you didnt pay much atention to unit loses i bet. With distortion 3 you can minimilize loses realy through the game. I have completed hard no loss .. would do with impossible as well. But i wont do it, my next game on impossible is fun game so it will not be no loss :p

[Lord Ludwig]

I indeed payed little attention in the last part of the game. Once I reached level 40+ all battles were so easy I just squandered money dismissing armies to try new ones. However, even considering I should have played more carefully and come to the final bosses better prepared (it was impossible difficulty after all) I don't see how distortion lvl 3 and maybe an all-demon or all-lizardmen army would make much difference. If I can find the "very detailed" thread by Dobrev I'll be happy to read it.

The way I see it, as a mage you get two options against Baal:

1) you pound him with offensive spells the way I always did with all other opponents, including Gremlion and K'Tahu. However his fire resistance makes my best spells useless. So you can go with: a) poison skull, probably the best damage/mana ratio available against him, but since on average it does little more than 4k damage it would take about 35 rounds to kill him. Since my leadership gives me only 150 paladins they are death before round 15; b) pole axe, guaranteed damage of close to 6K, slightly worse damage/mana ratio so maybe you'll have to resort to calm rage, anyway even if you could keep casting it pole axe requires close to 40 castings, thus with higher magic let's say 32-33 rounds. Same problem as with poison skull; c) ice snake: does slightly more than 7k damage per round, still meaning 30+castings, about 25 rounds with higher magic. But as it costs 30 mana you won't be able to cast it all turns; d) death star: does on average 9k damage but costs 50 mana AND will wipe out your own troops in such cramped space. So the nuking does not work.

2) you protect your best troops (paladins and knights) with stoneskin, divine armor and phantom them. Nice, they will take little damage (but still their numbers are going down) but what's left to harm Baal with? If they attack, given they can come close to him in the first place, the most damage I've seen is still below 5k (on a critical) and with Baal's counterstrike, protection or not, I still lose 10-12 paladins per round. If I start casting resurrection mana goes down fast, and in the end maybe I can keep my troops alive longer than in strategy 1, but even if I reach turn 20 Baal's health is not even halfway down.

Now if exorcism was to work on him (why doesn't it? He's the final boss, but he's still a demon, or is he?) that could MAYBE make it doable otherwise I just don't see how a mage can do it. Maybe a warrior with twice my leadership and 300-400 paladins, but a mage... I have maybe not all the very best items, but still have staff of the archmage, 2x robe of the magess, battle mage helm, the elven companion, various +2 regalia, that ring that gives +5 int... only no good boots, best I got is spiked boots (+2 def, +1 att).

[Elwin]

I would combine both strats a little prortect and some damaging. dobrev decribed tactics in high score thread. Also there was second impossible mage no loss with black nights. But u dont have money so u cant do it like that. ...

[Lord Ludwig]

Thanks again for replying. I will look up this high score thread. As for combining them, I don't think mixing two losing strategies makes for one winning:(

Anyway, I tried it, nuking and resurrecting at times... No use. Keep in mind that my analysis in last post did not even calculate the fact he just throws in some archdemons and executioners from time to time to make the scene more lively...

[Zechnophobe]

I kept phantoming Paladin's and it was pretty darn effective. I think one main secret is to not attack with many melee units, and focus on ranged. I guess that means inquisitors and bowmen for you, maybe Archmages?. Anyone you do attack with at melee should have mana spring, magic shield and stone skin (Don't waste mana on God Armor).

Keeping the phantomed stack of paladin's behind the ones meleeing Baal will make him more likely to attack that stack when he attacks. Use the phantoms to ress your guys, and Bills guys, to keep the damage up. Stone skin on the primary Paladin attackers will make them last a long time, possibly even the entire battle with the chain ressurrections.

You can also use dragons to flame over the demons he summons. I'm guessing your ultimate problem will be lack of leadership, since you need to be able to handle the stacks he summons with any extra melee units that you have pretty easily.

[GoodPlayer]

dear Lord Ludwig

so at last you solved your problem and
you understand how to trigger on the Dev-mode?

please teach me in more details.
i can not figure it out

thanks a lot. Danke schön!

[rancor26]

dear Lord Ludwig

so at last you solved your problem and
you understand how to trigger on the Dev-mode?

please teach me in more details.
i can not figure it out

thanks a lot. Danke schön!

Do this:
http://i46.tinypic.com/1e155c.jpg
http://i50.tinypic.com/5oxrpt.jpg

[Lord Ludwig]

Dear "goodplayer" I guess rancor26's answer is more than accurate. Indeed it's simple, you just have to add the - dev line out of the quotes.

As for the final battle on impossible... sorry guys but I don't get it. I restored an old save, replayed the last two islands, this time I got distortion to 3/3 and used the inquisitor's blade instead of selling it. I played the final battles a lot more carefully than before and indeed spawning paladin phantoms opens up whole new strategies. Indeed using the singing dagger K'Tahu went down a lot easier (he still wiped out 4/5 of my army but at least after 12 rounds he was taken care of and I could start resurrecting). But Baal...

This time I had 190 paladins, 279 black knights, 300+ inquisitors, 800+ priests and 109 royal griffins. I used stone skin and phantom as advised. Result? on round 25 I was left with 100 paladins against 2 stacks of archdemons, several of executioners and imps, and Baal was "down" at 140,000 health...

I repeat, I DO believe the AP champs like dobrev do it on impossible with 0 losses, but I feel like an amateur card&coin trick practitioner trying to emulate David Copperfield.

I'll be away next week, but I think I am giving up anyway. Maybe I'll try as warrior, but beating Baal on impossible as mage just seems... well, impossible, at least for me.

[Elwin]

Well i just did it with paladin with only black knights with no problems ^^. If u have black knights, black helemt and staff of acolyty necromancer helps realy to get much numbers. I had 400 with my paladin and this 2 items.

[Zhuangzi]

Dear "goodplayer" I guess rancor26's answer is more than accurate. Indeed it's simple, you just have to add the - dev line out of the quotes.

As for the final battle on impossible... sorry guys but I don't get it. I restored an old save, replayed the last two islands, this time I got distortion to 3/3 and used the inquisitor's blade instead of selling it. I played the final battles a lot more carefully than before and indeed spawning paladin phantoms opens up whole new strategies. Indeed using the singing dagger K'Tahu went down a lot easier (he still wiped out 4/5 of my army but at least after 12 rounds he was taken care of and I could start resurrecting). But Baal...

This time I had 190 paladins, 279 black knights, 300+ inquisitors, 800+ priests and 109 royal griffins. I used stone skin and phantom as advised. Result? on round 25 I was left with 100 paladins against 2 stacks of archdemons, several of executioners and imps, and Baal was "down" at 140,000 health...

I repeat, I DO believe the AP champs like dobrev do it on impossible with 0 losses, but I feel like an amateur card&coin trick practitioner trying to emulate David Copperfield.

I'll be away next week, but I think I am giving up anyway. Maybe I'll try as warrior, but beating Baal on impossible as mage just seems... well, impossible, at least for me.

Okay, I know you said you're giving up but I literally just completed my Impossible Mage game and I'm sure I can help. You said you had over 70 intellect? That's fantastic, mine was 60. I used Geyser when Baal summoned units, but you could live without it.

I didn't use any direct damage spells on Baal except Geyser which is mostly for the other units. It's true that you don't do more than 4-5k damage on a hit. The keys IMO are not only Stoneskin, which is essential, but also the Archmage's Magic Shield and Divine Armor, which Bill Gilbert will cast on your units too. A unit with all three of these buffs will only take about 200 damage on a hit from Baal.

Bill Gilbert's units won't last long, and what you need is Knights, Paladins and Horsemen hitting Baal every turn (i.e. in different rows). All will have Stoneskin, and you'll be rotating them through Divine Armor and Magic Shield where you can. So you'll do about 15,000 damage to Baal each turn. In my game I had Guardsmen basically doing nothing, so you could replace them with something else. I zap Baal with Archmages most turns too, which is worth at least 2000 damage. Geyser when he summons units is worth about 6000 damage on each stack, and even more for you with 70+ Intellect.

This didn't last much longer than 20 turns. I think the Inquisitor's Sword is pretty much essential for more Paladins. With Flaming Eyes I had 34,000 leadership and maybe 170 Paladins. It's a pretty simple strategy and one I think you could use fairly easily with the stats you describe. And money isn't an issue as all of these units are freely available before the Baal fight. :)

[GoodPlayer]

Thank you rancor26' very much.
Your answer is more than useful.

i can use it, so grateful, guys :grin:

[Lord Ludwig]

Dear Zuanghzi, thanks for the advice. I cam back from vacation yesterday late and can thus reply only now.

I WILL try your tips, but am not very confident. The 70+ int obviously is there if I use all the gear that gives +int, for example staff of the archmage instead of inquisitor blade. So either I go with no more than 150 paladins or I lower intellect. Anyway, what bothers me most is your strategy relies on hitting Baal with at least 3 units every turn. Well, given that the pals and knights only move 2 hexes, usually I can't even reach Baal with them, and when I do he pushes them back summoning demons... I'll try the geyser strategy, but what do you do when the 6 turns of double casting run out?

Well, given the celebrations of the coming days I do not know when I'll be able to give it a try but I will certainly do so and let you know.

As for beating him with only black knights... well OK I can try that as well, but as I said the max number I got was 279 and they were wiped out in less than 10 rounds... with staff of the necromancer I could raise that number to about 350 but I don't think 70 black knights make up for the loss of 190 paladins. And that's provided I can actually find those black knights in first place.

And all this is just to beat Baal... I really wonder how someone can do it with no losses... well I saw there is now a specific thread, gonna read that as well:-)

[Elwin]

350 black knights pwn baal easy.. i did it with 400 in impossible without problem. they wont die that fast if u have stoneskin on them .. and maybe an eviln spell .. if u have level 3 eviln it res 30% of stack .. for 300 its 90!!

[Lord Ludwig]

350 black knights alone take care easily of Baal? I would really love to see it done. I replayed from the pre-Baal save I left before going on holiday. This time I wrote down some stats exactly. I had 278 black knights (1 less than max allowed, no more around), 111 royal griffins, 190 paladins, 838 priests and 419 inquisitors. Maybe "less is more" but I should think all the humans (at high morale btw) plus the griffins make up for the -72 black knights. I switched between stone skin, divine armor, phantom, pole axe and ice snake (geyser is a spell I had not built up, I'll try that as well but doubt it will make a difference). The result was that the BK managed to hit Baal three times for 4k, 2k and finally 600 dmg. They were wiped out at round 9. At round 20 I was left with the paladins alone, and they finally went down in round 42. Baal was at 98k, thus about 35-40% of his original health. I fail to see how 72 BK more would make the fight "easy".

[Urbz]

350 black knights alone take care easily of Baal? I would really love to see it done. I replayed from the pre-Baal save I left before going on holiday. This time I wrote down some stats exactly. I had 278 black knights (1 less than max allowed, no more around), 111 royal griffins, 190 paladins, 838 priests and 419 inquisitors. Maybe "less is more" but I should think all the humans (at high morale btw) plus the griffins make up for the -72 black knights. I switched between stone skin, divine armor, phantom, pole axe and ice snake (geyser is a spell I had not built up, I'll try that as well but doubt it will make a difference). The result was that the BK managed to hit Baal three times for 4k, 2k and finally 600 dmg. They were wiped out at round 9. At round 20 I was left with the paladins alone, and they finally went down in round 42. Baal was at 98k, thus about 35-40% of his original health. I fail to see how 72 BK more would make the fight "easy".

Maybe a matter of stats but possibly also a matter of items, probably a combination of both. I'm fairly sure Elwin had the set which gives huge bonusses to black knights for example, did you aswell?

[Elwin]

Tjis set is not realy required .. there was a guy who kiiled baal with 250 blackknights without it already .. stoneskin and evlin .. and just kill there is nothing else in that tactics ...

[Lord Ludwig]

nuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus baalicidium!!

Incredibili dictu, to go on with the latinorum, but I finally took down the m#th£rf&ck£r! A further trial with undead counting on the ghosts high physical resistance proved fruitless, but today I managed using the demon set. 26 archdemons, some 100+ demons and executioners, 200+demonesses and the good old black knights reduced to 224 because i had to wear the mask of hate. At a certain point it even seemed easy... the demonesses were critically striking for 10k every turn. Then however the big badass started summoning wave after wave of demons... all my troops were killed except 9 archdemons. Baal finally went down in round 23 or 24 after another round of geyser but I was left with only 3 archdemons against several executioners, imps, demonesses and cerberi. I thought the final joke would be to lose even after killing Baal and was pondering how to smash my monitor, but positioning the archi's in the corner where only 2 enemies at a time could attack them I could keep them alive long enough to go calm rage-geyser-calm rage-demon portal. The summoned executioners finished the job and I happily won the game at round 32 with exactly... one archdemon left alive.
How this could be turned in a no-loss I can't start to imagine but at least now I can say I beat the game at impossible as a mage. Final score was a not very impressive 1079 due to taking 46 days for completing it, over 50% dmg done by spell book, most effective overall troop paladins, even if in the final battle it were the archdemons (and secondly the demonesses, may they rest in peace) that brought the day home.

And now for warrior imp no losses :-)

[fable]

Very impressive to pull it off with demons, indeed. For black knights you need a physical resistance item to reach 95%, they start at 30%, 70% with stone skin, 77% with medal, so another 15-20% more to make them invincible.