No losses Imp Mage high score help

[Amidamaru86]

Hi

I need help with a travel route, which would give me a time advantage when fighting monsters. For instance, Debir->Scarlet->Bolo->Rusty Anchor -> Debir -> Scarlet (killing the invincible monsers etc).

What would be great are some pointers, where what to do, or at more or less what lvl you should be, like for instance at Scarlet Islands kite the lvl 10 hero to buy a few paladins in the tent if they spawn, or at Rusty Anchor there is a free Emerald Dragon (1900 leadership required) etc.

Also, one more question: does anyone knows where trolls can spawn, besides the goblin/orc islands ?

I am aiming for a 10 day max game, with no looses, and doing all the quests.

Atm, lvl 6 at Scarlet Island, killed almost everything there, day 2 - 2 a.m.

Trapper achievement almost lvl 3

[Elwin]

Well the answer wil mostly depend if u wanna do all quest or you go for days only?? Actuay shttera and nameless are optional very much, and a lot quest needs coming back to island so you must consider to find the most optimum way .. i think only umkas is the one which u dont have to revisit (if u have necrocall)

troll spawn very much randomly .. dont know sure place .. the best is to check with save scanner(mod section of the forum)

[Amidamaru86]

Yes, I want to do all the quests, to boost the score with no losses, basically my strategy will be to block a unit with stone wall so it wont move, and use phantoms on inquisitors/paladins to ress, and use the +rage ability from inquisitors to boost mana at the end of the fight so I can use sacrifice/ressurect everytime when it is needed, and to end a battle with full mana and rage so I can instantly start a next battle, not to mention that the dragon will level really quick, due to the abuse of mana accelerator/treasure find etc.

This strategy should really pay off once I will get sacrifice, and mana regeneration each turn talent, and invincible monsters should be no problem then.

[Elwin]

Stonewall wont block them, they wil destroy it ... it worked for me with mage but on normal .. on impossible i doubt it.

And tresure hunt mana accelator wont make your dragon level up qickly .. its completly opposite, they give low exp ..they are the worst for lvling ...
i was using like that and my dragon ended the game with level 35 .. while hero was 57 ..

Abut the way .. i strongly suggest writed down all quest which needs a travel and make your journey based on it.

[Amidamaru86]

Stonewall is awsome, finished the game once already on impossible with a warrior, but there is a drawback = stone wall starts to be effective once it gets about 2000 hp, I remember that once my stone wall had 5000 hp, it could hold 250 veteran orcs for a few turns, and that is awsome for ranged units.

But what I mean by using stone wall is once the enemy army is destroyed completely, and has 1 unit left, then block it with stone wall and weaken it as much as you can, so for instance lets say 25 bears blocked by a stone wall with 5000 hp = infinite number of turns, and you can ress/sacricife all you want, so lets say you lost 80% of your army, you will be able to ress them all, although it will take some turns, the most important thing is to keep the rage/mana flowing with calm rage/the +rage from inquisitors, the good thing about that is you can phantom 1 inquisitor and he will have like 3x +rage spell :-)

Also, I think mana accelerator in my opinion is a dragon leveler, although I do not know the equasion which gives exp per rage used, but If for instance I use 1x dragon dive which has 2 turns rest, and 2x mana accelerator which has 1 turn rest, shouldn't the exp be more or less the same ? or the mana accelerator exp gain is totally low ?

Edit: Found a post with:

I have already posted it is some thread - it is for max level, but you can get a decent idea which are the most "profitable" to use. Well, with the restructuring the forum, I'm not certain where it is, so...

Crushing blow - 34 Xp
Treasure Searcher - 17 Xp
Ball of Lightning - 46 Xp
Mana Accelerator - 29 Xp
Mystic Egg - 44 Xp
Stone Wall - 39 Xp
Dragon Dive - 28 Xp
Fiery Phantoms - 37 Xp
Lava Call - 40 Xp

So 2x Mana accelerator = 29x2 = 58 exp, 1x Dragon dive = 28 exp

[Zhuangzi]

Can't help you, sorry. I can win on Impossible with zero losses, but I am on day 20 already and only about 2/3 of the way through the game. :o

[Elwin]

I am on impossible in day 12 with 2/3game cleared but i did a lot re- traveling to fight only undead stacks to free moro .. i could get down these number by few days for sure

and amidamaru : you cant realy rely on this calculation as far as i rember damage skills alos give exp for l kiling damging i think. I just know that treasure and mana accelerator abusing realy sucks for leveling. I just played like that and got miserable lvl 35 ..

[TemjinGold]

One of the reasons those skills suck for leveling is that the other part of the formula is "X (enemy total leadership / your total leadership.)" With your strategy, the main abuse phase comes when your opponent has almost no troops, hence almost no leadership. Meaning each time you spam it, you'll get less than 1 exp. If the game rounds up, you'll get 1.

[Amidamaru86]

Ohh, thanks for the info - now I get it :-)

[Elwin]

But idea finding the shortest way to do all is nice. Calinda did in 10 but said it was first run so can be done better at all. We did it in TL so think we can for AP too

I am thinking about such way, but there are so many quest traveling that it makes hard .. some realy stupid and pointles .. like the meteor one on elon ... iwas day 14 almost at the end of game but such stupid quest made me day 17 in the end ...

The first thing hmm one run island would be tekron an umkas so i would go there only if i have necrocall spell for owl, and glasses quest from dersu thats sure. Shettera is also one run. rest is ruinning back..


First i think we need gather all required traveling info so

I traveling times
no need for ontero at all, going from verona save 1-5 hours.

Debir-scarlet 3H
Debir-bolo 6H
Debir-rusty anchor 7h
debir verona - 9h
debir shettera 7h
debir dersu 9h
debir elon 12h
debir uzala 12h
debir tekron 9h
debir unkas 13h
debir nameless 16h
debir reha 16h

tthe time for scarlet isnt realy debir -3 so needs also mention.
scarlet debir 3
scarlet bolo 4
scarlet rusty 4
scarlet - dersu,tekron,shettera 7
scarlet uzala 10
scarlet elon 11
scarlet verona 6
scarlet umkas 10
scarlet rea 13
scarlet nameless 14

bolo debir 6
bolo scarlet 4
bolo - dersu,shettera,verona 4h
bolo - rusty 5h
bolo - uzala,elon 7
bolo tekron 9
bolo umkas 9
bolo reha 10
bolo nameless 11

rusty - verona,scarlet,tekron 4
rusty bolo 5
rusty - umkas debir dersu 7
rusty uzala shettera 9
rusty - reha elon 11
rysty nameless 13

tekron rusty 4
tekron montero 5 (this one is much faster from montero)
tekron verona 8
tekron scarlet 7h
tekron - bolo debir umkas 9h
tekron dersu 12
tekron uzala shettera 13
tekron reha 14
tekron elon 16
tekron nameless 17


dersu uzala 3
dersu - elon shettera bolo verona 4
dersu - scarlet,rusty,nameless 7
dersu - umkas,reha 8
dersu debir 9
dersu tekron 12

elon - dersu,uzala 4
elon - shettera nameless 5
elon - verona bolo 7
elon reha 9
elon umkas 10
elon rusty,scarlet 11
elon debir 12
elon tekron 16

uzala nameless 4
uzala reha 5
uzala umkas 6
uzala shettera 7

umkas reha 5
umkas nameless 9
umkas shettera 11


nameless reha 5
nameless shettera 10

shettera reha 12h

II Quests

debir
amulet of ilumination to bolo
revenge on lady magnet to verona

scarlet
contraband sercher to rusty

bolo,tekron,umkas,shettera none

rusty
swil antidote to Elon
sohaty - wherever you find them .. on my last game i had all on verona but on prevoius needed 3 island to that so that differs.

verona
beer - montero but it isnt realy traveling
kings bride to debir
demenion secret - to dersu

dersu
glases - tekron
pearls - uzala
temple of joy - uzala

uzala
defeat frog to dersu

elon
lew klisan soul to shettera
metoerite jelopi to montero
shenobis burial to dersu

nameless
treasure of jack albatross to scarlet
message from the dead to verona
grimiore odf darkness to elon

reha
a massage from shionis to verona and then to elon


hmm now just to make some reasonable way from that ;P

[Petwin]

nameless: treasure of jack albatross to scarlet

I found the parrot always on Rusty Anchor

[Elwin]

no, cuttlefish is not counted as quest. I mean the quest you got on nameless to dig the treasure in graveyeard next to chapel on small island, not the talking doors

[Petwin]

Having a lazy day at the office, I gave this a try. It's a well known mathematical problem called "The Traveling Salesman". Unfortunately, I'm no mathematician and can only use my common sense.

"KBAP travel quest" is a breakdown of what Elwin wrote. I'm not sure I have all the quest items correct (1=start, 2=task, 3=collect reward, but not always). I think that the challenge of the Island and the location of the navigational charts are things to be taken into account here.

"KBAP travel time" is my solution to for least amount of travel time. It's 93 hours.

No fancy pictures, just excel. Feel free to comment and I will update. If someone can make better looking attachments, feel free to do so.

[Elwin]

There are mistakes in pathing - u have to get back in demenion and temple of joy, message from the dead, grimoire of darkness and with tresure of jack albatross.

also in sum up u have to get back to reha and after that to verona.

[Amidamaru86]

Great work Elwin +1 for you :-)

I was finnaly able to get/make up/use the ultimate no loss strategy for a mage with the dragon experience working as I intended so here it goes:

With this strategy you CAN TAKE EVERYTHING (doesn't matter if it is lethal/invincible)

PRE-REQUISITES:

- Inquisitors (at least 1 unit)

- Tanking unit (Royal Griffins work the best, will use them as the example, red dragons work fine too but will get you lower dragon experience *will explain later, other high hp unit - your choice really but it all triggers your dragon experience gain)

- Turn Back Time spell

- Phantom spell

- Sacrifice spell (optional, but saves a lot of time)

- Calm rage spell (optional, but can save a reload of a battle)

- at least 30 mana

- a bit of logical thinking

- only use units which can be ressurected by the inquisitor (no thorns), undeads can be ressurected by a speciffic spell, but don't know if it works on bone dragons.

- Mana accelerator

- Higher Magic (optional, but helps a lot)

- At least 3 ranged units

- Stone Wall (the strenght of stone wall depends on your level, but from 1000 HP is gets the job done)

STRATEGY

1) Turn 1 - (cast magic spring - the spell which gives +5 mana when the unit is stuck on griffins and stone skin, if the army isnt too overpowered - won't destroy your griffins in turn 1, magic spring/stone skin may be skipped) the enemy may attack you first with a spell/arches, don't worry, just send your griffins to their army trying to block enemy archers, but not far enough to end the Royal Griffin turn (leave 1 action point left), and use the Royal Griffin ability - Summon Angelic Guards (the name of the spell is probbably different, but the spell summons a unit)

2) Turn 1 - the enemy may move, depending on their initiative - they will always choose the closest way of attacking your army, so they will go for the tank if there is enough space. You on the other use your ranged units to attack theirs (starting with enemy archers/melee units which skipped your tank and went for the ranged units = furious goblins tend to do so, because they have a very high initiative), don't worry if they do that. With the last unit in your army (if you have enough rage, use a attacking ability, the ones with 1 turn rest are preffered if you have a low mana pool = 30-40 mana)

3) Turn 2 - the enemy may cast their spells/attack the tank/move their high initiative units towards your ranged army). Look how many Royal Griffins are left, if the amount is less then half, and you know they will die when the enemy attack them cast Turn Back Time on them (try to maximize the time when they are closer to the enemy, so if you know they wont die unless 4 units attack them, and after the 3rd unit will attack them your unit will move, then use Turn Back Time when your unit will be moving). If you know they wont die at turn 2, just press wait on one of your units and let the enemy units move, then cast Turn back time.

3) Turn 2 - Depending on your mana pool/rage use either Mana accelerator (have at least 30 mana for Turn Back Time) or a offensive ability, and attack with a ranged unit (remember that 1 unit of your army may have to 'wait' for the enemy to move first.

4) Turn 3 - starting from now the enemy should be weakened a lot, this is the time where you either replenish your mana with magic spring/mana accelerator, and send your Royal Griffins at the enemy (just repeat the previous steps) or start to ressurect your army if any other unit then Royal griffins were killed by the enemy, and the enemy is pretty much dead.

5) RESSURECTION: Turn 3+ - the way to ressurect your army: let your enemy if he is a hero use all their mana, kill everything except 1 stack of units - lower the number of units in that stack to like 10 or 1 even (the lowest number you can get), and block them with Stone Wall, if that unit is a ranged unit, lets say 1 bowman, you don't need the wall


6) RESSURECTION: Turn 3+ - once the unit is pretty much dissabled, use phantom on your Inquisitors, and with them use the +rage ability/ressurection. Convert the rage into mana by mana accelerator if you do not have enough mana to cast phantoms again. Repeat, repeat and repeat untill the army is fully ressurected, you can add sacrifice to restock your army without buying units here.

7) CALIBRATION - you have to know what each unit can do - for instance a brack dragon can fly straight to your archers, demoness can teleport your inquisitor etc. try to prevent that by magic/good placement of units. So lets say a demoness will cast teleport on your inquisitors, cast magic shackeles on them before they have a chance (mass shackes are great when the enemy army consists of demoness and imps), main enemy damager does too much damage to your tank - place a trap between your Tank and the enemy or slow him as much as you can, or add an archmage to your army and shield the tank, or other example - enemy assasin's - put a trap behind your tank. Having problems with dragons ? - try positioning your units (not the tank) close to each other an enclose them with stone wall (in other words cluster them together, so 2 sides will be facing a edge of the screen and place a Stone Wall so it will block the neighbouring cells - the dragons will attack your tank and wont attack the Stone Wall)

8 ) TANK DIES - it can happen, don't worry its not that scary if you think for a while and have inquisitors. Basically what happens when a tank dies is, that enemy melee units go for your archers. What you need to do is - look which unit of the enemy army is the most dangerous/troublesome, and block it with everything you got (trap/slow/summon animal etc), and ressurect the tank with inquisitors (even when he will die again, just do it so the most dangerous unit won't move too close to your ranged dps). Repeat the steps with ressurecting the tank and try to put traps between him (the tank) and the enemy units - this will save you a couple of turns, which helps a lot, and your ranged units are still doing damage to the enemy. Remeber to to use mana accelerator/phantomed inquisitors + rage ability, its a life saver, and also remember that a phantomed unit can serve as a tank (even if just for a turn or two)

The plus side of this that your tank is getting most of the damage while ranged units do the damage, even if he dies - he can be ressurected later.

What is important in this strategy:

- You used a offensive ability with the dragon at turn 1-3 - why is that ? you had plenty of rage cause of Royal Griffin counterattack ability which is basically a enemy killer/rage builder and it gives the best possible dragon experience gain.

- Ressurected the whole army

- You never will have to buy new units (sacrifice)

- Can be time consuming if you only ressurect with a inquisitor, so it is a good idea to put a paladin also

- while your tank is getting pretty much most of the damage, the ranged units are constantly attacking the enemy,

- you can take invincible and don't worry about the losses (but don't let the inquisitors die)

- This strategy starts to be effective at level 12+, provided you have found the necessary spells already.

[Zechnophobe]

I, uh, think you are overstating the effects of this. Yes, the strategy of using a resurrect loop can regain as many lost units as you want, that isn't the same as being always effective. For instance, a Demon army:

Archdemons
Demonesses
Imps
Demons
Red Dragons

A fairly normal army in Shaterra is very likely to swap your inquisitors into the front lines. Even if not, Achdemons will dominate them, and will teleport accross the map to do so. You also seem to think that your stack of Royal Griffons is doing enough damage to the opposing 'invincible' army to actually kill it before you run out of mana/rage... not necessarily true. What if one main stack is a horde of Royal Snakes?

Anyhow, for 'no loss' games you have three different strategies you need to be ready to do:

1) Resurrection Plan (a way to get all units you lost back at end of combat with a weak enemy left over).
2) A Damage Plan. (A way to kill the enemy force, or get them into position for step 1.)
3) A Survival Plan. (A way to make sure you are still alive while doing step 2, so you survive to step 1.

For example, the Single stack of Black knights survives by having very high resistance to damage innately, and more with spells. They do damage because of increasing rage and being a pretty good stack to begin with. You resurrect them by turning all enemy dead stacks into Eviln, and just walking over one to replenish significant amounts.

You have only provided that step 1 above.

[Elwin]

amidamaru check this thread : http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=11666

[Amidamaru86]

A fairly normal army in Shaterra is very likely to swap your inquisitors into the front lines. Even if not, Achdemons will dominate them, and will teleport accross the map to do so. You also seem to think that your stack of Royal Griffons is doing enough damage to the opposing 'invincible' army to actually kill it before you run out of mana/rage... not necessarily true. What if one main stack is a horde of Royal Snakes?

Anyhow, for 'no loss' games you have three different strategies you need to be ready to do:

1) Resurrection Plan (a way to get all units you lost back at end of combat with a weak enemy left over).
2) A Damage Plan. (A way to kill the enemy force, or get them into position for step 1.)
3) A Survival Plan. (A way to make sure you are still alive while doing step 2, so you survive to step 1.


Zech this is where you calibrate, so lets say a demoness will cast teleport on your inquisitors, cast magic shackeles on them before they have a chance (mass shackes are great when the enemy army consists of demoness and imps), main enemy damager does too much damage to your tank - place a trap between your Tank and Royal Griffin or slow him as much as you can, or add an archmage to your army and shield the tank, or other example - enemy assasin's - put a trap behind your tank. The plus side of this that your tank is getting most of the damage while ranged units do the damage, even if he dies - he can be ressurected later.

[Elwin]

but u have to rember that shackless have leadership limit, big stacks on impossible wont get shackled

[Amidamaru86]

Yup, but as far as I remember from my warrior on impossible, there werent many stacks high enough to resist magic shackles, and always you can kill some of them before they have a chance of moving.

I still have some ideas which I want to test in this strategy, like for instance can you summon angelic guards on a phantomed Royal Griffin or summon demons with a phantomed Demonoligist, will definetely post them later.

One more question, will bump the post if nobody will reply in the next ~12 hours. So the experience gain is based on the enemy deaths, rage consumed, and the ability itself, but what I can see is that the egg ability gives a decent amount of exp - does anyone know if the exp gain of that ability is based on the number of enemy units/number of turns taken ? or any ideas how to check it ?

[Zhuangzi]

but u have to rember that shackless have leadership limit, big stacks on impossible wont get shackled

I found in general that Magic Shackles has exactly this problem - the enemy stacks have too high leadership on Impossible. And the mana cost is very high. So I preferred to cast Mass Haste so that the Inquisitors could walk away from the enemy after being teleported, and I sometimes used Teleport myself to bring the stack back to a safe place.

[Elwin]

Timeback is also nice if u get rid of stack exchanged for inqis ;p

[Zechnophobe]

I think my problem is that you very boldly stated:

"With this strategy you CAN TAKE EVERYTHING "

and then afterward start claiming that, it doesn't actually work on everything, and that you have to use different strategies against different troops. There really is no one strategy that always works, and is part of what makes using a variety of them so satisfying!

[Amidamaru86]

Zech, because in my opinion you can take everything, sure I cannot vouch for every monster combination possible, but what I can tell - you can take every hero/monster in game if you are plaing for a timed score, so for instance you are lvl 20 and the enemy hero is lvl 30 = you can take him without looses, just a little planing ahead of the emeny action points, sure sometimes it its complicated, like for instance ememy units consist of trolls regenerating each turm, but a simple knowing where they will move/wont move and placings traps/slow can do miracles - although it will take like 500 turns (my longest fight at lvl 12 took 446 turns, and my dragon got almost 2 levels from it around 100 of pure battle, rest for ressurection) but it is possible, just take a break and think for a while. But if you are like lvl 20, and want to kill enemies in nameless island (they are around lvl 40+ there)- this is more of less impossible, because you will be outnumbered, but still if like the enemy army will consist of melee units only - you can kite them as much if you want, if you have to, just enclose your archers with stone wall and leave a quick unit (like a red dragon) to kite them around the battlefirld (you have to know the mechanism/script of the game, then you can abuse it)

So for instance my army consist of:

1) 1 priest, 1 bowman, 1 hunter (elven archer), 1x paladin + 1 RED DRAGON (and I'm starting with full rage, and the enemy army has no archers

2) cluster all the units together and enclose them with Stone Wall, leaving the RED DRAGON out of the enclosing area.

3) the enemy wont attack the Stone wall, and will try to get closer to your red dragon - then kite the enemy/while atacking with the archers - victory.

In the end it all closes in to mathematics, so even an army of 1 bowmen 1 red dragon can take any army of melee monsters, provided that you can kite them.

[Arilian]

I cannot imagine how could i kill _every_ enemy on one island if i go in order.
Is there a pre requisit that is a "must have" for impossible max time play?

Debir can be done easily withough going to another island first with alwys provided units, but if I go to Scarlet/Bolo/Rusty Anchor and and want to kill everyone in one run i would be probably in great trouble. Especialy restocking is probably not possible so either sacrifice is a must or a lots of unit type change must happen.

In my last game i have sailed around first (i play inpossible too but i do not care with time - so far) i have found 2 red dragons on the first islands (rusty anchor probably) and the Q emerald, it became a pretty easy "impossible" start :)

[Elwin]

well if u see, you have to comeback to most of islands because of quests, so only a few are one run .. and u can leave those for late game.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

This is certainly living up to it's reputation for me :)

I can't get the Verona map on Bola as my army is weak. I have level 3 order magic and can cast an ancient phoenix and also a lvl1 phantom. My Mage is lvl 12 3/3/11 stats and any army is lethal basically lol

EDIT

Did it! 150 odd R Snakes and 4 packs of 75 Ancient Bears were the problem, but no more. I had over 100k of gold so bought the +20mana painting and R Snakes. Killed the zombie hero on Scarlet in the cave and got a mythrill shield! +8 defense and I was lvl 12 and he was lvl 20 then the fight was still very difficult but with my Magic Eggs and Ancient Phoenix I managed the crowd of Bears and chipped away at them with phantom on the snakes.

Happy Days

[Zhuangzi]

This is certainly living up to it's reputation for me :)

I can't get the Verona map on Bola as my army is weak. I have level 3 order magic and can cast an ancient phoenix and also a lvl1 phantom. My Mage is lvl 12 3/3/11 stats and any army is lethal basically lol

EDIT

Did it! 150 odd R Snakes and 4 packs of 75 Ancient Bears were the problem, but no more. I had over 100k of gold so bought the +20mana painting and R Snakes. Killed the zombie hero on Scarlet in the cave and got a mythrill shield! +8 defense and I was lvl 12 and he was lvl 20 then the fight was still very difficult but with my Magic Eggs and Ancient Phoenix I managed the crowd of Bears and chipped away at them with phantom on the snakes.

Happy Days

Happy days all right...Mithril Shield at level 12? You can use that for the entire game. Massive boost. :cool:

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

For goodness sake! :-x

lvl 20 and for hours every battle is a nightmare as the leadership is so pitifully low!

Umkas and Shettara are a no-go, no fights there can be won so it's going to be a slow crawl to lvl 40 :grin:

[Zechnophobe]

(my longest fight at lvl 12 took 446 turns...)

Oh man, how can i resist using such an awesome tactic? I think I'll just stick with Target + Timeback.

[TemjinGold]

Oh man, how can i resist using such an awesome tactic? I think I'll just stick with Target + Timeback.

Well, at least he's getting his money's worth... ;)

Amidamaru: Go beat the Marquis of Krause with that strategy. Go ahead and try. There's plenty of fights where you can't kite and that's one of them. The Marquis has FOUR stacks that can reach any spot on the battlefield when they are standing in the middle.

[lauvhk]

How long do 446 turns take in real time? The longest I have ever done was like 50-ish turns back in KB:TL fighting Karador and it takes like forever. Ok not exactly forever but still almost an hour.