New player seeks advice about playing a mage and the tactics for no loss

[kcwong]

I bought Armored Princess two weeks ago... I've been a fan of Heroes of Might and Magic series since the first.

I first started a game as a Mage on Normal - but soon hit a solid wall of lethal and invincible enemies everywhere. I figured I must be doing something very wrong.

I restarted as a Paladin on Easy to learn the rules properly... I finished this game without trouble (I actually forgot to visit Nameless - I found all 8 stones, restocked my troops and rushed to The Temple of Love - after beating Baal I decided to leave this mystery island for my next game).

Here are the results (so you have some idea of how I was doing):
http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/1268/screen100429006.th.jpg (http://img688.imageshack.us/i/screen100429006.jpg/)
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/2466/screen100429007.th.jpg (http://img30.imageshack.us/i/screen100429007.jpg/)

Then I read threads on these forums, picking up some tips here and there, and learned about the existence of the Gift Bag.

So I've been trying a Mage again on Normal... spells most commonly used are fireball, fire arrow, poison skull, trap. Troops are royal snake, inquisitor, priest, guardsman, polar bear. After the bears died I picked up some beholder and replaced priest with evil beholder. I saved up runes to get Glory 3 asap, plus Distortion Magic 2, Chaos Magic 2 and Transmute 1. I also took Resistance 1, and equip mostly gears adding Leadership, Defense, Intelligence and Mana (in that order).

But again I hit the invincible stone wall. I was stopped after I found maps for Rusty Anchor - I can clear the first island, clear Scarlet Winds with some losses, and some enemies on Bolo.
I started a Warrior on Normal to compare... it's a whole lot easier! The rage inflow is great even without any skills, and I can imagine how good it will be if I get the better dragon skills and some class skills to support it.

What's your secret to play a Mage with no loss on impossible?

I simply can't imagine how it's done. I read the threads and its commonly suggested to get the driods - however, I found no hints on how to get to the droids at all (since there're lots of roaming guards on Bolo), and with low leadership, even the driods' self repair won't matter since the damage output is too low. And too often I can only get as far as Scarlet Winds - Bolo - Rusty Anchor, as the maps are guarded by stationary and lethal/invincible guards.

Please share your tips on how to play a Mage's early levels...


Edit 1:
For comparison, I started a Warrior on Impossible... I've cleared Debir without trouble, though only made 4 no loss battles - they kept shooting at my thorn hunters even with thorn warriors right in front of them, and they love spreading the damage to different stacks so I couldn't heal/resurrect them all. I made it to Scarlet Winds and I can find weak and very weak stacks there... it seems easier than Mage on Normal!

Edit 2:
I have a few more questions:
1. If a chest is opened by the enemy, do I get the stuff back when I won the battle?
2. Does enemies on Impossible move faster and chase you around longer?
3. What is the point of buying more expensive ships on new islands? Do they really move faster?

[Wendigo]

Here's a couple of strategies I found helpful in my normal mage game:

- Get the first stone from the cave in Bolo. You don't need to fight any battles to acquire it. Simply kite the boss away from the chest. Turning in the stone gets you access to Paladins on Debir and they help a lot.

- There's two quests on Rusty that don't require any fighting. The first one is the smuggler quest acquired in Scarlet; the second is the message in a bottle one from the pirate on the beach in Rusty. Both give you decent EXP at that stage of the game and thus much needed leadership.

- Work on that trap medal and use your dragon to knock enemy stacks into traps. Traps can really work wonders in the early stages of a mage game.

- As soon as your leadership allows for the 50 pirates etc. quest on Rusty, do it, get the key for the orc cave and pick up the green dragon in there. Again, no fighting necessary.

- Glory 3 is a waste of perfectly good runes in my opinion. Glory 1 is more than enough if you have a decent battle strategy and do the above as soon as possible. You might want to restart your game anyway; due to the whole random system, some games can be quite frustrating in the early stages with mobs that are tough to beat and few decent creatures to recruit.

- Remember that Inquisitors can spam rage with their holy whatever ability. Use it and use that dragon as much as possible. As a mage you lack rage in the early part of the game, so don't improve the important dragon skills to the point where you can only use them every four rounds. 100 damage every round (plus knocking back stacks) beats 400 damage every 4 rounds.

[kcwong]

Thank you for your advice Wendigo.

- Get the first stone from the cave in Bolo. You don't need to fight any battles to acquire it. Simply kite the boss away from the chest. Turning in the stone gets you access to Paladins on Debir and they help a lot.
I don't know that boss can be kited away... I stood real close and it didn't make a move. I'll try again.

- There's two quests on Rusty that don't require any fighting. The first one is the smuggler quest acquired in Scarlet; the second is the message in a bottle one from the pirate on the beach in Rusty. Both give you decent EXP at that stage of the game and thus much needed leadership.
Yes, I already did them.

- Work on that trap medal and use your dragon to knock enemy stacks into traps. Traps can really work wonders in the early stages of a mage game.
I can't seem to get that medal done (it's 0 in my Easy Paladin game, and I did use traps). Must the trap deal the killing blow?

- As soon as your leadership allows for the 50 pirates etc. quest on Rusty, do it, get the key for the orc cave and pick up the green dragon in there. Again, no fighting necessary.
I tried to kite the boss away from the cave entrance, but not very successful - I entered and grabbed the dragon, and then ZigZag (that's his name right?) ambushed me when I went back out.

- Glory 3 is a waste of perfectly good runes in my opinion. Glory 1 is more than enough if you have a decent battle strategy and do the above as soon as possible. You might want to restart your game anyway; due to the whole random system, some games can be quite frustrating in the early stages with mobs that are tough to beat and few decent creatures to recruit.
I found my spells unable to deal enough damage before the enemies deal too much damage to my troops... that's why I went for Glory 3 asap. I'll try to settle with Glory 1 and upgrade my spell skills earlier...

- Remember that Inquisitors can spam rage with their holy whatever ability. Use it and use that dragon as much as possible. As a mage you lack rage in the early part of the game, so don't improve the important dragon skills to the point where you can only use them every four rounds. 100 damage every round (plus knocking back stacks) beats 400 damage every 4 rounds.
Indeed - I only upgraded the treasure finder skill, keeping the Dragon Kick at base rage cost. I only dig when it's 100% safe to do so.

I am still curious about how a mage can win with no loss, from start to end, on impossible... I may not be able to repeat this feat right away, but knowing it might help me to minimize my casualties.

[N3MES1S]

I tell u, i was the same opinion than u, when i started playing this game. Now i can say even on impossible mode its too easy once u know how to play. The first is gain leadership, glory 1 and glory 2. The second is to pick up the leadership flag on Bolo (the one right the stairs). The bolo map always appear on the coast, sometimes u need to kill monster of the abbys to pick it, sometimes not, and sometimes the map appears in the way to the robbers cave, so u need to kill the way patrol troop.

Once u get glory 1 and the leadership flag on bolo u should have a decent army. Third, grand strategy medal 1, four glory 2 (if u haven done yet). Then, u can pick the amulet of illumination on Bolo avoiding fighting if u can, and in the cave, u can pick up the amulet without fighting the droideka, if u see it doesnt move, u need to walk a bit closer.

Once u manage to do all of this, u should not have any problem to advance, specially on normal mode. I never play on normal, now i always play on impossible.

U can kite the cave entrance from Zag zag if u can make him to follow you along the coast, left to the cave, but be careful, when u exit the cave so him will be waiting for u.

As the mate said, use the bless inquisitor skill, a lot of people use inquisitors only for resurrect, and thats wrong.

I must say that i never finished the game on impossible with no loss playing as mage (its too hard and a bit boring). But with warrior is almost too easy.

About trap, dont waste efforts on using traps and raise the trap medal. Almost, not for now, do it when u have played more games. Cuz its mabe one of the hardest medals to raise. And traps do good damage along levels 1-10 but after that, level 1 traps almost useless if u dont use it on pure strategic game.

[kcwong]

I tried again and this time it went much much better on the first island. I avoided the hero fights, since their spells mean it is very likely to suffer losses, but I cleared the whole island with just one battle - the snake basement - losing two wolves.

The biggest difference I think are using Inquisitor's skill to boost rage. This alone kicked my army's offensive power up to a new level (pun intended).

The second biggest change is my choice of troops... I accidentally used an exploit - I left my starting army in the castle, taking just one peasant to the tutorial. When I completed it the game doubled my starting army for me.

With that I chose the Forest Fairies... something I've never done before. I fully expect them to die like flies - with their pitiful defense and 9HP, but it seems the AI ignores them for the most part (and I used them very defensively).

I used to go with Bowman, Guardsman, Priest, Inquisitor and Thorns/Devifish/Royal Snake. This time I went with Bowman, Guardsman, Inquisitor, Forest Fairy and Wolf. Wolf turns out to be completely useless, as there were very few level 1 enemies - just a few stacks of peasants. They are now replaced by Royal Snakes. I paid the 6K for the Snake Boots to make them more effective.

Skill-wise I chose: Glory 1, Linguistic 1, Distortion 1, Order 1, Transmute 1.

I went to Bolo first and picked up some flags as N3MES1S suggested. My army still wasn't as large as I wanted, but I guess it's not as bad as before. I'll see how I do on Scarlet Winds next session...

[Metathron]

In my opinion royal snakes are one of the best, if not the best, units in the game relative to level. Even without any artifacts they are awesome, but the boots are an excellent investment on your part, as it very often happens that the snakes need just that extra 1 point of speed to attack the enemy in their first turn.

Forest fairies -- and any other fairies for that matter -- are also very good units, but you won't be able to replenish them until you get to Elon, the elven continent, unless you use a trick wherein you leave your army behind and attack an enemy stack, in which case you'll lose the battle automatically (of course), but you'll get a new batch of your starting troops (bowmen, swordsmen and fairies, IIRC).

[kcwong]

My experiences on Scarlet Winds is indeed much better; managed to finish some weak stacks without loss. I still need to stay away from some wandering troops and ships though. In this game there is a stack of vampires roaming around - not gonna touch them for a while.

I went back and finished all heroes without loss, now the haunted castle is the only thing left on Debir.

In my opinion royal snakes are one of the best, if not the best, units in the game relative to level. Even without any artifacts they are awesome, but the boots are an excellent investment on your part, as it very often happens that the snakes need just that extra 1 point of speed to attack the enemy in their first turn.


I don't rush with the snakes though... I like to minimize my losses. So often the snakes will give me the chance to cast a spell and use my dragon, then wait on their first turn.


Forest fairies -- and any other fairies for that matter -- are also very good units, but you won't be able to replenish them until you get to Elon

Yeah, I know that from finishing the game once as a Paladin on Easy. The ladies are now sitting inside the castle chatting with the King, until I can make it to Elon. ;)

[N3MES1S]

I always used to use polar bears or ancient bears instead of wolfs, fairies, etc but the point is i never used em on battle on Debir xD. In fact, i did the glory medal and the no losses medal only with inquisitors and a 1 royal thorn lol. U dont need a hugh army on Debir. The exploit u mention on the start of the game is not such a exploit, it is the initial army given to you at the start, when u finish the tutorial, the game gives u again the same troops (on case u lost almost all of em). So, if u dont waste any troops , u will have 2x.

Royal Snakes are the best units on early game, but if u want to minimize loses u will change em to another stronger unit on mid-later islands. If u find a big stack of level 5 units, use em, they rule normal mode (and on impossible, but impossible is a bit hard for u right now). And bowman are too fragile unit, u should change em too. They are good on high number stacks, but they die too fast. If u can get cyclops on bola, use em. Only a few units will attack em, like beholders or shamans, and cyclops are a very useful units.

As u noticed, there are some units / races that the AI will not attack eventually. Elfs and Demons are one of em. I am playing now with a mod that gives me , for example, cerberus or scoffer imps at the beginning, and the AI never attacks em. But this is on impossible....

[kcwong]

I switched from the very weak wolves to polar bear - never found any ancient bears, so I kept using the guardsmen until their number became too small.

Luckily I found Demonologists! I never found any in my Paladin game, but now I found over 30 on Rusty Anchor (in the inn at the pier).

With them I managed to beat the roaming armies on Bolo with no to minimal loss, and killed the roaming driods (ranked strong to me) in the mines. Then I kite the boss driod away (turns out I need to talk to it once first before it will chase me). Then I managed to kite Zag Zag away too, so now my army consists of 1 EGD, 9/10 Paladin (that's all I can find), 22 or so Inquisitors, 10 or so Polar Bears, and 10/10 Demonologists. I have my Royal Snakes and Repair Driods stashed away for the time being.

I think I'll be fine from this point forward! :D

Thank you all for the tips. The Inquisitor rage skill tip is a life-saver.

[Metathron]

I don't rush with the snakes though... I like to minimize my losses. So often the snakes will give me the chance to cast a spell and use my dragon, then wait on their first turn.

I didn't mean that you should rush forward with them, that is hardly ever a good tactic. What I meant was to wait and attack at the end of your turn, that is where the +1 speed often proves crucial for reaching the approaching enemies at the end of turn 1 already.

Also, is there a reason why you're using the bears over the snakes? No retaliation, high initiative, poisoning,... (As you can see, I'm a huge proponent of royal snakes :-P)

[N3MES1S]

I prefer royal snakes too, but polar bears are a "support" melee unit, specially on the first 3/4 islands, after that, u can change polar bears to better units, and keep royal snakes as a high number stack melee troop. But as i said, i only played with ancient/polar bears / royal snakes on my first games, long time ago i decided to play only with all level 4/5 units (of course once i can get em). And if u like royal snakes xD, u will love my royal snake level 4 mod (celestial snake) xD.

[Metathron]

I prefer royal snakes too, but polar bears are a "support" melee unit,

What does that mean exactly? I can't imagine a single scenario where (polar) bears would be better than royal snakes.

And if u like royal snakes xD, u will love my royal snake level 4 mod (celestial snake) xD.

Ooh, what's that? :grin:

[N3MES1S]

I mean, i cant imagine someone using polar bears on Reha, Nameless island, Seterra, etc, but royal snakes, are more useful for using on later islands. Besides, polar bears die more often than royal snakes, royal snakes are faster and more resourceful.

Celestial Snake is a Royal Snake mod i made, for using on impossible mode. As i said, i like royal snakes, but on my last games never use em, only level 4-5 units (but no rsnakes) , so i did a mod for using some kind of snake, but MY OWN snake xD. I removed the poison long attack and did the same long attack, but pushing back the target and applying a slow and defenseless effect. Besides, Celestial snakes is a holy figher level 4 unit with regeneration (280 hp).

[Zechnophobe]

Polar bears are decent tanks early game, especially for a paladin. Good HP and defense is nice.

Royal Snakes are THE support unit until you can get dragons. They can do tactical damage during combat and can often keep distance from threats to themselves. Their shelf-life is considerably longer.

[N3MES1S]

Polar bears are decent tanks early game, especially for a paladin. Good HP and defense is nice.

Royal Snakes are THE support unit until you can get dragons. They can do tactical damage during combat and can often keep distance from threats to themselves. Their shelf-life is considerably longer.

Well, once u can get some dragons, i think u will discard almost all level 3-4 troops adquired on early game, like polar bears and royal snakes. But the question is easy, wat u prefer when u are, for example level 40, royal snakes or polar bears? xD.

[kcwong]

I found some nice artifacts and spell combination... and to play it differently than my first Paladin (mostly human troops and royal griffin), I switched to a single stack of Black Knight.

They are obscenely powerful... with proper artifact setups they are near invulnerable to all types of damage, and can hit/crit for just as much. Stoneskin + Hell Breath, Magic Spring, Helpnessless on tougher foes, Haste or Teleport to get them to the targets faster, Eviln to resurrect, the occasion offensive spells (Death Star, Ice Snake, Poison Skull, Flame Arrow and Fireball) to clean up.

I can't imagine how powerful they'd be if I'm not a Mage, but a Warrior with Power of Darkness 3...

Edit: Finished the game, beat all the bosses with a single stack of black knight without loss. Had to let the friendly knight stack to finish Bhaal because Eviln stops my turn... but a no loss victory is a good thing.

I'll give the game a little rest... then I'll try a demon army, or the girl power thing on higher difficulty levels...

[DeRex]

Ok. Yes, the Black Knights are most powerfull units on the game. :)

I found that one stack of Black Knigts is better than 3 stacks of snakes (green, red, royal)
with 2 Snake rings and 2 Snake boots. Or simply Black Knights are better
than any artefact-completes.

As for the Mage, the spell slow is very effective. And the spell Summon Phoenix,
if anybody is lucky enough to find it somewhere at the begginig of game (first 3,4 islands).

On impossible mode, the Droids are essential, at least in the beginning.

:)

[N3MES1S]

Ok. Yes, the Black Knights are most powerfull units on the game. :)

I found that one stack of Black Knigts is better than 3 stacks of snakes (green, red, royal)
with 2 Snake rings and 2 Snake boots. Or simply Black Knights are better
than any artefact-completes.

As for the Mage, the spell slow is very effective. And the spell Summon Phoenix,
if anybody is lucky enough to find it somewhere at the begginig of game (first 3,4 islands).

On impossible mode, the Droids are essential, at least in the beginning.

:)

I dont think so. Black Knights are great, but not the most powerful unit in the game. Actually all units are great on specific strategies. I obtained better results with a stack of knights instead of black knights (of course i used a non-undead units spot strategy). Depends on wat kind of game u are playing and wat strategies are u using. I prefer trolls instead of black knights.

And i never used droids on impossible mode, it is just a choice. I can clear the 4 initial islands only with royal snakes and polar bears xD. Once u played a lot of games (and i player a lot on impossible) it doesnt matter wat units do u use at the beginning, cuz the game turns too easy when u have player a loot of games.

[DeRex]

Well, then you are a skillful player. :)

It much depends how can you ressurect units at the end of a battle.

Black Knights can be reanimated by these elvins, very easily.

I did not played with Black Knights, but i have seen how my brother played with them.

Knights and Paladins, yes these are also very strong. My favorite.

It is also a matter of physical resistance. 30% natural + 25% in artifacts (and Guardian Angel, protector skill) + stone skin 40% = 95%.

It is max! :) With this resistance, units can figt any other units that deal physical damage.

With Snakes you cannot reach this 95% physical resistance. (only if you use stone skin + divine armor) and that costs a lot of mana.
___________________________

How you ressurect snakes/bears? If you lose some of them. Because you certainly need
the medal of grand strategist, when playing on imposibble mode.
Or you simply do not lose any of them? :)

[N3MES1S]

Well, i dont use snakes on later islands :P