Champion of the Arena thread

[Zhuangzi]

So I started a Hard Mage game to have a look around, and I like what I see so far. The guild business seems interesting, and there's plenty of stuff to do with the Bounty Hunter missions as well. But with the Mage, I've got such low leadership that the first Bounty Hunter mission seems too difficult presently.

I did manage to beat the turtle without losses though. Here's how I did it.

Royal Snakes, Demonologists, Undead Spiders (which weren't used), Beholders, Repair Droids. Not the best team but I had nothing better.

The Mage has a Demon Portal scroll which is very useful, so I learned Chaos I and scribed it. Fire Arrow 2 is also nice early on.

The strategy for the turtle is pretty simple. Spawn Demon Portals near the turtle, first of all being the square directly in front of him. This is important. Hopefully your portals will get you Imps, but if not it will be Cerebuses. Imps are better because of no retaliation. The Demonologist can spawn some Demons as well. You need to make sure that you always have a unit directly in front of the turtle, as he'll always attack this square if it's filled. Also, NEVER attack from the back corner squares as he'll do a mass attack in response. Bad. The Royal Snakes were useful here because of no retaliation, and the other ranged units just keep hitting the turtle for low damage. You can also use a Calm Rage scroll to get some more mana for Fire Arrows (only 5 mana - useful here). So hopefully you've got some Imps whacking the turtle, plus your snakes, and some ranged stuff. No losses is easy here, meaning that you will get the Grand Strategy medal (+200 leadership).

I really want Demon Portal 2 for the extra leadership, but currently I am 3 Might Runes short....

[DGDobrev]

The turtle is as easy as in King's Bounty - the Legend. I tried it with all classes on impossible and one and the same tactic works all the time.

The Knight you start with - your tank.
Archmagi - for Magic Shield (in all my games there were archmagi, necromancers and druids in the shaman tower, so I can only assume they are always there)
Demonologists - for damage and summoning
Druids - for damage and summoning
Any unit, preferably ranged - I had beholders, elves, and whatnot available.

The idea is that all of the units have high HP and can take an initial hit from the turtle. It will slow all of them in the first round (guaranteed), which makes things a bit harder. However, there is still a way around it. Put your knight in the middle of your lineup, so that the distance between him and the turtle head is the shortest. Have your Druid summon a bear and be ready to move it as close to the turtle's head as possible, using his run ability.

Now you'll take a mass hit, but that's nothing to worry about thanks to the high HP of your units - as long as it is the only such hit you'll take. What's more important is to move the bears in front of the turtle's mouth, even if this means using the Archmagi's Telekinesis ability to gain an extra hex. The Knight will move 1 square and should be right behind them - if he's not, have the bears defend till he gets there or till they die.

Have the turtle kill the bears and have the knight take their place (use "wait" if necessary). After this has happened, the battle is won, as now things get very simple.

Knights get healing from the hero + magic shield from the archmagi and all they do is defend. As a mage, you can do Magic Spring + Wait + Defend so that you don't lose a charge and gain more mana than you spend - this way you get 10 mana, which is equal to magic spring cost + 1 healing, in essence, gaining a free heal, which frees mana for an occasional flaming arrow. The rest of the troops will slowly drop the turtle's HP and that's it :)

The question is what do we do afterwards. I have a feeling that a bounty should be next, but doing that without a loss will be quite a challenge. 1c definitely made the game harder this time - well worth the money paid for it, as it will provide us with lots of hours of enjoyment.

[rancor26]

The turtle is as easy as in King's Bounty - the Legend. I tried it with all classes on impossible and one and the same tactic works all the time.

The Knight you start with - your tank.
Archmagi - for Magic Shield (in all my games there were archmagi, necromancers and druids in the shaman tower, so I can only assume they are always there)
Demonologists - for damage and summoning
Druids - for damage and summoning
Any unit, preferably ranged - I had beholders, elves, and whatnot available.

The idea is that all of the units have high HP and can take an initial hit from the turtle. It will slow all of them in the first round (guaranteed), which makes things a bit harder. However, there is still a way around it. Put your knight in the middle of your lineup, so that the distance between him and the turtle head is the shortest. Have your Druid summon a bear and be ready to move it as close to the turtle's head as possible, using his run ability.

Now you'll take a mass hit, but that's nothing to worry about thanks to the high HP of your units - as long as it is the only such hit you'll take. What's more important is to move the bears in front of the turtle's mouth, even if this means using the Archmagi's Telekinesis ability to gain an extra hex. The Knight will move 1 square and should be right behind them - if he's not, have the bears defend till he gets there or till they die.

Have the turtle kill the bears and have the knight take their place (use "wait" if necessary). After this has happened, the battle is won, as now things get very simple.

Knights get healing from the hero + magic shield from the archmagi and all they do is defend. As a mage, you can do Magic Spring + Wait + Defend so that you don't lose a charge and gain more mana than you spend - this way you get 10 mana, which is equal to magic spring cost + 1 healing, in essence, gaining a free heal, which frees mana for an occasional flaming arrow. The rest of the troops will slowly drop the turtle's HP and that's it :)

The question is what do we do afterwards. I have a feeling that a bounty should be next, but doing that without a loss will be quite a challenge. 1c definitely made the game harder this time - well worth the money paid for it, as it will provide us with lots of hours of enjoyment.

Thanks for this strategy i might actually try to play champion of the arena without cheats now ;) but i still have a lot of difficulties when it comes to K'tahu and driller... kraken is pretty easy though atleast if u have red dragons which i did get from demons guild and as a mage demon portal helps A LOT. As a warrior champion of the arena campaign looks very hard.

[Zhuangzi]

Well, DGD, I'm certainly not thinking about no losses at the moment. :) Hard is hard enough at the present time. I was having terrible trouble with my Hard Mage game - couldn't beat the big spider or the first Bounty mission. Got close to killing the spider but always overwhelmed. In earlier KB games you would just go away and level up for a while, but here?

The solution, as it turned out, was to die. :-P

If you die in the Bounty hunter mission, you are reborn as part of the Undead guild. Then of course you have access to some awesome units like the Black Knights, Necromancers, and Ancient Vampires. There's a follower that buffs the undead too for a mere 5000 gold. Needless to say, I went back and did the first Bounty fight easily, and then the Spider in like 6-7 rounds too, losing on 2 Black Knights and 6 Skeleton Archers

So I am Undead this game. :cool:

[DGDobrev]

COOL!!!

This might turn out to be a new tactic - become undead - because right now, I can't see a way to win the next battle without losing a unit - the bounty puts you against a hero who has 2 stacks of demonesses, who easily swap your weakest units right into the heart of the enemy army, which equals a lot of lost units.

[Zhuangzi]

COOL!!!

This might turn out to be a new tactic - become undead - because right now, I can't see a way to win the next battle without losing a unit - the bounty puts you against a hero who has 2 stacks of demonesses, who easily swap your weakest units right into the heart of the enemy army, which equals a lot of lost units.

Yeah I can't see any way of doing no losses here, DGD. Unlike earlier KB games, you have few fight options, and they're all quite hard. :cool:

[DGDobrev]

That is so.

I have tried the turtle with Warrior on impossible. It can easily be won without losses even without healing. All it takes is to work carefully and plan carefully.

I used this lineup:
Demonologists
Archmagi
Druids
Assassins (put near one of the legs and hack away)
Beholders

These generally can withstand the initial turtle attack, unless it hits very powerful. If they do, then you surely won without a loss. Put the Druids in the middle, so that the bears they summon get to the turtle quickly and shield them.

Now all you need to do is keep 2 bear stacks up (one tanks, one walks around it, so that it doesn't fall asleep and subs when the main tank dies). I am worried that multiple stacks may provoke the turtle to do the mass attack - so take it slowly and the win is in the bag.

[DGDobrev]

Double post time, bringing some new info.

Dying is not a good thing... It does give you a lot of undead units, but it also cuts any access to human/orc/elf/dwarf recruiting and quest completion, as well as any items and spells that may spawn there. So for example, if Eviln is supposed to spawn in one of the orc buildings, and nowhere else, you may find yourself with absolutely no option to resurrect your beloved black knights/bone dragons and do a no-loss or minimum loss victory.

Once again, the Troll is an awesome unit. They can spawn pretty much everywhere - dwarven lands are a good spot for them. If you manage to lay your hands of some, a lot of victories are in the bag (spider, frog at night, several bounties).

Also, be aware that allying with the humans alienates the demons. You can still fix it though - by paying 50k gold. It sounds a lot, but it isn't, if you spend it carefully. Get everything you need from the humans/orcs/dwarves/elves before going for the undead army and you'll be just fine. The undead army also has a chance to spawn a number of Black Dragons as well, which will win a few bounties without a loss and with complete ease.

In general, trolls/black dragons is the key to victory on many occasions - if you lay your hands on some, you need no other armies. If you get some +% resistance items, they are wonderful to have as well.

And here's a nice little troll after the spider battle on hard :)

[axelle]

i got the game, where do you get champion of the arena mini-games?

[mare911]

Any tips how to defeat metamorph guy?
I am unsure about AI behavior there, is it guarantied that he will transform units from weakest to strongest always, or transforms are random?

Anyway, in my game, i got some funny sized black dragon stacks against me :grin: check out pic below

http://img2.imagetitan.com/img2/small/41/41_screen_100918_001.jpg (http://img2.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=41_screen_100918_001.jpg)

[Jaedar]

Any tips how to defeat metamorph guy?
I am unsure about AI behavior there, is it guarantied that he will transform units from weakest to strongest always, or transforms are random?

Anyway, in my game, i got some funny sized black dragon stacks against me :grin: check out pic below

http://img2.imagetitan.com/img2/small/41/41_screen_100918_001.jpg (http://img2.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=41_screen_100918_001.jpg)


He seems to always transform to the 3rd creature in your lineup the first round. Personally, I bought a snake and put it there, and then wiped all his snakes before he got a chance to transform again.

[DGDobrev]

i got the game, where do you get champion of the arena mini-games?

It is on the main menu screen. Simply click on that campaign, he game will prompt for a re-start, click yes and you'll be all set.

I haven't gone that far yet, but it looks like a ridiculously hard battle. If that transformation can't be dispelled, maybe you need some very fast, fire resistant units to minimize the losses while the units are transformed into black dragons. I'm grasping at straws here and assuming what I read from your post and saw in your pics. Red dragons or Archdemons with good level adrenaline skill and haste level 2 should outrun the black dragons he creates till they revert back to their regular state.

Another option... does he transform units based on the ones present on the battlefield? If so, making an army of decent level 1-2 units will be an interesting idea, as you will probably have the upper hand.

Maybe this battle requires a different approach... I'll see when I get there. So far I'm still working on optimizing the early battles.

EDIT: Here's some more info. I decided to spend all my money on black dragons. My paladin has only 4.7k leadership, but that's all the same, since it allowed me to test Lew Klisan's "I need money" line (Requirements: Less than 5000 leadership, less than 50 gold).

He gave me a potion to drink. I drank it, and got +5 mana and +5 rage, along with 20k + 10k "tip" from him. If that is a built-in event, it will be a great option to both earn some money and get a boost to your rage and mana values.

[vicheron]

You can beat the metamorph guy by having a bunch of level 1 creatures so that when his army transforms, you can wipe them out easily.

The boss battles get really easy when you get access to stone skin and divine armor. Cast those spells on a tough creature like Paladins and they can pretty much solo the bosses.

[maxakapsa]

Hi all, i found accidentally very brutal combination of units, companion and item on the beginning of this campaign. This combination helps me finish campaign in two hours without problem on hard difficulty.
I bought from first NPC three royal plants, diploma in botany (+10 att, +10 def for thorns, ents and dryads ) and as companion choose gardener Hagrid. This companion is really overpowered because my plants were indestructible, he has huge hp boost for plants but what is really strong that he can ressurect plants every round.I won 90% fights without loss thanks to ressurect from gardener.
But be warned there is no chalenge with this combination, but i was very lucky on the begining. POWER OF PLANTS :-).

[Jaedar]

EDIT: Here's some more info. I decided to spend all my money on black dragons. My paladin has only 4.7k leadership, but that's all the same, since it allowed me to test Lew Klisan's "I need money" line (Requirements: Less than 5000 leadership, less than 50 gold).

He gave me a potion to drink. I drank it, and got +5 mana and +5 rage, along with 20k + 10k "tip" from him. If that is a built-in event, it will be a great option to both earn some money and get a boost to your rage and mana values.

When I drank it I got -3 Attack. I still got 30k gold though.

[DGDobrev]

Hmm... so it is random. Well, in that case, it pays off to save the game and try doing the no-money trick from time to time and see what you get. I'm positive anyone can get a positive outcome.

[Jaedar]

Hmm... so it is random. Well, in that case, it pays off to save the game and try doing the no-money trick from time to time and see what you get. I'm positive anyone can get a positive outcome.

Yup, I just did it and got +2 defense. Same save file to, so it seems you can just save right before talking to him and then retry until you get the bonus you want.

[mare911]

I gathered some info on available companions:


Sirius Dark [+3 attack/+1 morale of undead]

Lucius [+100% attack and defense of dryads, feries, demonesses]

Almaran [double crit chance against demons and undead]

Kulukhan [+1 initiative and speed of orcs]

Captain Kidd [+300 leadership/+1 speed and morale of pirates,sea dogs, marauders, robbers, devilfish]

Torburn [+20% crit chance for archers]

Illiar [+4 intellect/mana restoration after battle]

Artang [+3 defense and +1 initiative and speed of humans/summons orc stack equal 1/2 hero's leadership]

Hagrid [+50% health and 10% resistance of thorns and ents/summons plant stack]

Amber [+1 initiative and +50% dmg of assassins/+10% crit chance/attacks enemy during battle]

Torre [+50% lightning damage/+5 defense of mages/summons magic sword for 9 rounds]


:grin:
I hope I didnt missed someone

[DGDobrev]

BTW, all you need in the fight with the metamorph is a single stack of black knights, stone skin, magic spring and Eviln. 200 of your knights (even as a mage) will own 5000 of his :)

Get to the edge of the arena where only 2 enemy units can hack at you, kill them, port away so that you always have 2 fresh corpses for eviln, get to another edge of the arena, kill some more, use magic spring and calm rage to recover mana and the metamorph goes down easily.

[demos]

Hi all, i found accidentally very brutal combination of units, companion and item on the beginning of this campaign. This combination helps me finish campaign in two hours without problem on hard difficulty.
I bought from first NPC three royal plants, diploma in botany (+10 att, +10 def for thorns, ents and dryads ) and as companion choose gardener Hagrid. This companion is really overpowered because my plants were indestructible, he has huge hp boost for plants but what is really strong that he can ressurect plants every round.I won 90% fights without loss thanks to ressurect from gardener.
But be warned there is no chalenge with this combination, but i was very lucky on the begining. POWER OF PLANTS :-).



Here is my imp/mage result with "0 loss" against Giant Spider..



Used only 4 Royal Thorns...

Do Not intersect the Royal thorns...
Do Not spawn any plants during the fight bcz of Hagrid random heal skill..

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/4820/spider1o.jpg

After 193 rounds..
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/5051/spider2g.jpg

[DGDobrev]

That's a very imaginative strategy :) Well done.

[demos]

Same stragey against Giant frog ....

Impossible/mage "0 loss"...

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3705/frog1.jpg

After round 156...

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/3665/frog2d.jpg

[DGDobrev]

Would you elaborate how Hagrid works? His description is a little vague. The bonuses for plants and such are nice, but there is no mention of healing a plant.

[maxakapsa]

Same stragey against Giant frog ....

Impossible/mage "0 loss"...

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3705/frog1.jpg

After round 156...

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/3665/frog2d.jpg

Yep. i did this similar way whole game, but i made it faster with another plants and ents from elves, i was higher level and warrior class ( i got levels from contracts) ...but this is absolutely ownage. I demolished all bosses and head hunter contracts with this strategy (only demon enemy from head hunters on the beginning was a little fire ouch to my plants :-) ), in the late game i used stack of normal plants (up 8k at the end, 47% damage), ents, dryads, faeries and dragons for bigger variety. LV61 hard/warrior at the end.:)

[maxakapsa]

Would you elaborate how Hagrid works? His description is a little vague. The bonuses for plants and such are nice, but there is no mention of healing a plant.

Maybe his Special: Calls forth a random troop of plants, really don't know, but he is really nice gardener ;)

[Zechnophobe]

BTW, all you need in the fight with the metamorph is a single stack of black knights, stone skin, magic spring and Eviln. 200 of your knights (even as a mage) will own 5000 of his :)

Get to the edge of the arena where only 2 enemy units can hack at you, kill them, port away so that you always have 2 fresh corpses for eviln, get to another edge of the arena, kill some more, use magic spring and calm rage to recover mana and the metamorph goes down easily.

That's still gonna be a long boring fight, just use like a stack of fairies. You'll have 5000 or something, and he'll have 2000. Battle ends in 30 to 40 seconds :P.

[DGDobrev]

That is absolutely right, Zechno, and I coudn't agree more with your assessment, but it guarantees a no-loss fight :)

[b1274506]

No one here seems to talk about doing the first quest (school of gloom ) :
4 boss battles without joining any guild

well i managed to defeat 3 bossed (turtle was easy , spider was hard , frog very easy) but K'tahu or the lord lizzard is driving me insane i really don't know how to beat him , i've tried every strategy i can think of but he still kills me with that summoning of his t-rexes

i play with the mage on normal dificulty. (level 26)


the troups i can select are rather limited : snakes , demons , wolves , tanks ,barbarians. (remeber i have to get by without joining any guild )

i've lost like 10 battles against the lord lizzard and nothing seems to do the trick. help

[DGDobrev]

Well, since the quests do not count in this campaign, you may as well skip that. I have never tried doing that "task" (in champion of the arena, there are tasks, not quests) because in my opinion it looks impossible to beat the game using only those units provided by the school of gloom, especially on higher difficulty.

Maybe one can try to play with a tough tank unit and use the stone skin + magic spring + healing + teleport in k'tahu's weak spot tactic. However, once some gorguanas appear, you're bound to take some losses, and if they are not quickly disposed of, the game will surely be lost.

Another tactic might be - put your tough tank unit in a corner, stone skin, magic spring, healing and flame arrow at K'tahu.

Problem is, there are few to no decent physical resistance units in the main area.

[demos]

My impossible/mage score "0 loss" :cool:

http://yfrog.com/0fvictoryuxj


http://yfrog.com/afscore1uj


http://yfrog.com/ndscore2fj

[DGDobrev]

Good work :) I guess that's the best possible achievement + score in this campaign - around 1090 (I had 1091, but that's nothing and possibly due to the level).

Good work with the red dragons win - it is a most peculiar choice of units for the last battle, especially since most of the enemies are fire resistant - and for that, you deserve the congratulations.

You still didn't say a thing about the royal thorn + hagrid tactic. How does it work? I can live without it, but it certainly sparked my interest, as royal thorns are a rather commonplace units, unlike trolls.

[bladeking77]

Hi, I just recently crushed Archdemon Baal (Or Champion of the Arena, as he's named here). First of, I played with Paladin on Impossible and second, I did it all in one Go, which means I didn't suffer defeat even once (In any battle). It was all luck though... Here is how I did it: Playing with Paladin you get one Inquisitor's Blade, plus Bounty Hunter's guild was kind enough to offer me another one. Combining that with Archmage Skill I got 65% Leadership Discount on Inquisitors and Priests, and 40% on Paladins. Combing that with Holy Warrior's Reward, I got 40% damage to those 3 units. Long story short, I dealt 6000+ Damage with Priests and Inquisitors and 9000+ with Paladins, which resulted in no loss victory within several rounds. Previous battles were somewhat tougher, though.

My Score(1092)

[Zhuangzi]

Hi, I just recently crushed Archdemon Baal (Or Champion of the Arena, as he's named here). First of, I played with Paladin on Impossible and second, I did it all in one Go, which means I didn't suffer defeat even once (In any battle). It was all luck though... Here is how I did it: Playing with Paladin you get one Inquisitor's Blade, plus Bounty Hunter's guild was kind enough to offer me another one. Combining that with Archmage Skill I got 65% Leadership Discount on Inquisitors and Priests, and 40% on Paladins. Combing that with Holy Warrior's Reward, I got 40% damage to those 3 units. Long story short, I dealt 6000+ Damage with Priests and Inquisitors and 9000+ with Paladins, which resulted in no loss victory within several rounds. Previous battles were somewhat tougher, though.

My Score(1092)

Fantastic! Not your fault if you get dealt an excellent hand. Well done on knowing how to exploit it. :cool:

[onepiece]

Now that's what I call luck.
I remember once having 2 Shield of S'Karrash and 2 jade belts. Never tried it in battle but those spiders must have been doing damage like crazy (add a Whip of Pain and an Assasin's Dagger and their damage like triples or cuadruples)

[karabaja]

here's another one impossible mage. even though i bought the game right when it came out, due to almost no free time at all, i managed to finish only this small (but great :)) campaign last night.

[demos]

My Impossible/warrior score "o losses"

The Power of the Royal Thorns :grin:


http://yfrog.com/mtscore1oj

http://yfrog.com/5yscore2gj

http://yfrog.com/n0victory1j

http://yfrog.com/16fighthqj

[Esteral]

I have a question for you all who uses the scanner for the Arena ?

In the scanner it mentions an "tavern_2" in the main area
( main_arena.embryo_21 ) does anyone know where it is.
I can not find the place. Do you need to unlock it or something ?

[DGDobrev]

Well, that might be the bounty hunter building or the shaman tower with the necromancers/archmagi/druids troops.

I doubt it's the companion building - although it does look like a tavern,but it sells no troops.

[Esteral]

Nope it is not one of those buildings.
This is what I know for sure


Scanner .........................................> Building or NPC
npc_klisan [1308012080]........................> Lew Klisan
castle_ruins01 [932934310]....................> School of Gloom
building_demon05 [1882651939]..............> Bounty hunters
building_towerwizard [1068183016]..........> Shaman Tower
building_dragon [2003734218] .................> League of Dragons
tavern_2 [1043677434]..........................> ???
? ? .................................................. ..> Mercenary guild

In the scanner tavern_2 holds 4 types of Troops and 5 items.
I don't believe that tavern_2 is the mercenary building because it only sells companions.
I have no clue where this missing building is.

[axelle]

in my scanned file, it keeps saying the companion shop sells troops...but in fact it doesn't!!!

[Esteral]

With the editor I found out that the Mercenary building is tavern_2.

The question now is how do you unlock the troops and items he is able to sell.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

Started with normal Warrior and well....there's a big turtle in hte way and i can't heal my knight! lol

here we go again...

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

No one here seems to talk about doing the first quest (school of gloom ) :
4 boss battles without joining any guild

well i managed to defeat 3 bossed (turtle was easy , spider was hard , frog very easy) but K'tahu or the lord lizzard is driving me insane i really don't know how to beat him , i've tried every strategy i can think of but he still kills me with that summoning of his t-rexes

i play with the mage on normal dificulty. (level 26)


the troups i can select are rather limited : snakes , demons , wolves , tanks ,barbarians. (remeber i have to get by without joining any guild )

i've lost like 10 battles against the lord lizzard and nothing seems to do the trick. help

I've given up after the turtle lol this mission may be possible on easiest level I suppose. I'll get back to you.

Same problem really regarding units without joining the mercenaries guild I dont see how it's possible.

EDIT

Just keep getting overpowered with spiders and starting to really piss me off tbh

[loreangelicus]

For those having problems with the Turtle Boss, I modified a tactic from this link:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=16499&page=2

Just replace the Knight with a full stack of Druids; see screenshot below. This is a guaranteed no-loss win in around 30 turns (not too long), and you don't even need to cast a single spell from your spellbook. Tactic has been tested on Impossible Paladin game.

For those having problems with the Spider Boss, see 2nd screenshot below. You are not guaranteed to have all the components for a sure win. Druids and Archmages are always there; same with the Repair Droids (dwarves unlocked after the 1st boss battle). What is not guaranteed is the Phantom spell that I kept casting on the Repair Droids to keep it at full stack. Also not guaranteed are the Demonologists. I'm just showing a way of making the best of what you've got. This battle lasted 30 turns as well, btw.

Honestly, if you really want to have a guaranteed win against the Spider boss as the second battle (3rd if you count the single assassin battle) then just restart the game till you get "killer" units from Klissan, the tavern, or the School of Gloom (and you could check these quickly even without using the KBScanner); I've seen these shops spawn ancient vampires, ents, and royal thorns.

After the spider boss battle you get to unlock the elves... royal thorns, thorn-hunters/thorn warriors, ents, ancient ents + Hagrid = game over. :) Crown of Blackthorne always seem to spawn, btw; it's only the location that seems randomized.

[plin500]

No one here seems to talk about doing the first quest (school of gloom ) :
4 boss battles without joining any guild

well i managed to defeat 3 bossed (turtle was easy , spider was hard , frog very easy) but K'tahu or the lord lizzard is driving me insane i really don't know how to beat him , i've tried every strategy i can think of but he still kills me with that summoning of his t-rexes

i play with the mage on normal dificulty. (level 26)


the troups i can select are rather limited : snakes , demons , wolves , tanks ,barbarians. (remeber i have to get by without joining any guild )

i've lost like 10 battles against the lord lizzard and nothing seems to do the trick. help

I'm struggeling with the same problem. Mage/impossible, 639 Thorn Warriors + Hagrid. Turtle, Spider and Frog were easy and so far no loss. Lizard lord however is truly impossible :) I have only 13% phys res. so although i'm hiding my thorns in the corner, T-rexes are doing more damage than hagrid can ress. Not to mention gorguanas with their mark of blood :mad: Plus i haven't got even stone skin in my existing game.

Maybe the solution is to start over, get both thorn hunter and warriors in main arena or prefebly Royal thorns and with luck, some psyh res items. I guess it would be foolish to hope the crown would spawn in main arena:-P

So basicly i need thorns, phys res item(s), crown to get things going and they must all spawn in 2 places - what are the odds:rolleyes:


EDIT!

DG post got me thinking that maybe it would be possible to use Trolls and their self-healing ability at night. They've got tons of HP and should survive T-rexes, while i'd flame arrow Lizard lord. Again, has anybody seen Trolls in main arena..?

[DGDobrev]

I, personally, haven't seen any. Royal Thorns are easier to "sprout" in the bounty hunter ot klisan's shop. I also have a feeling that those thorns will do better against the Kraken rather than K'Tahu.

You should try the kraken as the next boss battle. I remember beating him up rather well with only 4 royal thorns (and did that before K'Tahu). I also didn't have stone skin and used magic spring exclusively (had to beat the Kraken to get stone skin, as it was in the human lands after the troop upgrade, but the 4-battes quest was already impossible since I found the 4 thorns in the dwarven lands, nowhere else). You can use the following tactic: hide the thorns between 2 tentacles and start using flaming arrow to drop all of them down to 1-hit. Then simply drop them down one by one, hide the thorns in a corner so that they take damage from only 2 stacks of devilfish at the time, and with the ever-running magic spring you'll never run out of mana.

With more than 4 thorns the battle will be much faster, and you will do well to avoid killing any tentacles before the time is right to do so. If you kill a side tentacle and hide in that corner, you will still take damage from the kraken (posted that already, rancor did as well).

[plin500]

Already ahead of you;)

Tried Kraken and i think it is doable, but since my int is only 28 and fire arrow does 420 damage, it's going to be a looooong battle. So, doing the quick math, 17K each side tentacle + ~34K center one, we got over 250 turns and i'm not counting mana spring casting. The problem is, that those devilfishes are attacking me constantly and with every slayed devilfish pack the kraken will spawn a bigger group... Or am i missing something here?

[DGDobrev]

My battle took 354 turns, but I won it :) So will you.

The thing is, if you remain between the tentacles, you will fight only 1 stack at the time, which gives you some time before the stacks become really big. If I recall correctly, in my battle the stack went just a tad above 1000 before I dropped the kraken down, and your thorns should survive that.

[plin500]

Well, tried and failed. My problem is, that if i stay between tentacles, the kraken is doing about 600-1200 damage and that kills ~50-100 thorns. At the same time, if i have a 700 devilfish group attacking me and doing ~600+ damage, i'm losing more thorns than Hagrid can ress and eventually i die.
So, tried again with 300 thorns, hoping that smaller group kills devilfishes slower. Sadly, the outcome is the same.

I think, that with Royal Thorns it's easyer, because they're damage is smaller and defense is higher, thus they just survive longer and not killing devilfishes so quickly.

I think i'll start over and try to get a favourable setup and items.

[DGDobrev]

Sorry to hear that. It seems it all boils down to how much defense your unit has. Kraken is doing 300% damage to it and it hurts. Royal Thorns are better because they get normal damage from the kraken and 1/3 from the devilfish stacks.

[loreangelicus]

You could try ents and ancient ents. Sure, they don't get the double damage that thorn warrior/thorn-hunter/royal thorn get from the Crown of Blackthorne, but they still get all the benefits from Hagrid (+10% all resistance, resurrect, and more importantly +50% health).

I had the same problem with thorn warriors. I have 1 troll and 4 archmages, and they could definitely take out the Driller (as the 3rd boss to take out) by themselves, but it would take FOREVER. I added Hagrid, Crown of Blackthorn, and a full stack of thorn warriors (close to 900), they did a lot of damage, but even with the Driller dividing his attacks between magic shielded/stone skinned troll and thorn warriors Hagrid simply couldn't resurrect them fast enough (even if you make them move away the Driller still attacks them with range despite the Troll standing in front of him). I replaced the full stack of thorn warriors with less than half a stack of regular ents (11 initially available, leadership cap allowed 25) and they did quite well simply because Hagrid could res them to full stack whenever the Driller damages them (just keep stone skin and magic shield on them).

The big difference is the high defense stat, and resurrect works better on higher defense units since it restores on a fixed hit point amount (as opposed to say Eviln which restores based on a percentage of the stack's leadership size).

[DGDobrev]

Well, ents and ancient ents have even lower chance to spawn in the main area then royal thorns I think... And since he's doing the 4-bosses quest, things are going to get tough for him.

Have you found ents in the main area? I'm also interested to know, since ents should kill the bosses faster than royal thorns and they have a nice amount of armor for their level.

[plin500]

No ents so far.

I guess, that finding royals in main arena should to the trick. 4th battle is the only hard one, so i'm gonna focus in finding the best possible start for a imp/mage game. Boots or armor to raise psyh ress or just royal thorns.

Well, just checked the stats. Thorns have a Def of 3 as for ancient ents 60 :) And 1400 HP!! Heh, i guess there's a reason that they don't spawn in main arena, because with Hagrid, this would be too overpowered.

[loreangelicus]

Well, ents and ancient ents have even lower chance to spawn in the main area then royal thorns I think... And since he's doing the 4-bosses quest, things are going to get tough for him.

Have you found ents in the main area? I'm also interested to know, since ents should kill the bosses faster than royal thorns and they have a nice amount of armor for their level.

I have seen Klissan sell Ancient Vampires, Ents, Repair Droids, and Thorns Warriors (in different save games, of course).

4-bosses quest for the School of Gloom? Hmmm... why not kill the Turle and Spider, then join Humans/Orcs/Dwarves/Elves (which always have Ents and Ancient Ents), then take out Toad/Driller/Kraken/K'Tahu? Doesn't that count as taking out 4 bosses in a row without joining a new guild in between boss fights, or have I misunderstood the quest completely?

[plin500]

can't check right now, but as far as i remember, the quest says "take out 4 bosses without joining any guild"...

[DGDobrev]

I have seen Klissan sell Ancient Vampires, Ents, Repair Droids, and Thorns Warriors (in different save games, of course).

4-bosses quest for the School of Gloom? Hmmm... why not kill the Turle and Spider, then join Humans/Orcs/Dwarves/Elves (which always have Ents and Ancient Ents), then take out Toad/Driller/Kraken/K'Tahu? Doesn't that count as taking out 4 bosses in a row without joining a new guild in between boss fights, or have I misunderstood the quest completely?

The quest is to kill 4 bosses WITHOUT joining any guild. This is why there's so much ramble about units in the main arena area :)

This is why in my opinion, the best thing to get is ents, encient ents, royal thorns, trolls and such and do the Turtle-Spider-Toad-Kraken kills in order to complete the quest.

[loreangelicus]

The quest is to kill 4 bosses WITHOUT joining any guild. This is why there's so much ramble about units in the main arena area :)

This is why in my opinion, the best thing to get is ents, encient ents, royal thorns, trolls and such and do the Turtle-Spider-Toad-Kraken kills in order to complete the quest.

Wow... that is some insane quest. :)

[axelle]

from the looks of it, plants are just too overpowered in this little campaign.

any legitimate run through should NOT involve them.

[DGDobrev]

Everything in this game that involves some type of strategy is legitimate. Otherwise we'll have to ban plants, vampires, trolls, black knights, paladins, knights, rune magi, inquisitors, fairies, dryads, droids, dragons... Am I forgetting something?

[loreangelicus]

from the looks of it, plants are just too overpowered in this little campaign.

any legitimate run through should NOT involve them.

That is so mean. :) This is the only official campaign that has Hagrid in it. :)

Anyways, going (royal thorns + Hagrid + crown of blackthorne) suffers the same issue as the more overpowered (black knight + black helmet + eviln) strategy: it takes a LONG time to kill some bosses. And besides, it is rare that the game generates enough royal thorn spawns to hit your leadership cap.

If you want overpowered for this campaign I suggest going this route:

1) use (royal thorns + Hagrid + crown of blackthorne) AND (black knight + black helmet + eviln) for the tough bosses; throw in repair droids (single-stack + phantom or split stack, depending on the situation) if you like

2) use royal thorn combo/black knight combo/split stack repair droids/bone dragons for hero and suppression battles; phantom bone dragons engage the enemy, repair droids and royal thorns attack, black knight sits back and relaxes (so it is easier to "top up"); use sacrifice on repair droids to keep royal thorns/black knights/bone dragons at full stack

Btw, I've tested fighting Metamorph. If you use a full lineup of troops he actually goes with a regular assortment of troops. But if you fight him with "classic" single stack strategies his army seems to be composed of mainly that unit type BUT has the same unit count as his regular army. So for example you just bring a single stack of trolls his stack of 900 bears becomes 900 trolls. So do you guys have any suggestions as to the army composition to bring to this battle to MAXIMIZE the XP gain while still making the battle doable without any losses?

[plin500]

from the looks of it, plants are just too overpowered in this little campaign.

any legitimate run through should NOT involve them.

Apart from any other overpowered tactic, plants do have a -100% fire ress, so using them in battles, where the enemy lineup is focused on firely units, isn't that great an idea. Not to mention 0% psyh ress (Hagrid will boost this to 10%).

[loreangelicus]

can't check right now, but as far as i remember, the quest says "take out 4 bosses without joining any guild"...

This is confirmed. I took out the turtle and spider, then joined the humans/elves/dwarves/orcs, then I killed the driller/lizard lord/kraken/toad. I checked the school of Gloom, it did not unlock the new units. So this quest is indeed very hard to do. :)

Speaking of unlocking the new units, I killed K'Tahu for the elves and while I did get new units/items/spells from most of their buildings the living tree DID NOT give me new units. KBScanner says I should see a ton of thorn and plant units from there, not to mention the diploma of botany... lucky for me the orc lands unlocked 22 royal thorns, so at least I could increase that to full stack with Sacrifice. But with no diploma of botany? Sigh... good thing I was going for royal thorns/repair droids/black knights/bone dragons, so its not that big of a loss.

So did anyone else experience this problem? Should I be doing something else aside from killing K'Tahu to unlock the living tree higher tier units?

[plin500]

Restarted many times, until i got ents. Turtle went down in turn 18, spider and the frog in turn ~60. I was optimistic and tried K'tahu. I got lucky, because he summoned 3 brontos and as i was cornered with one hex between them, they burried and blocked everyone else from attacking me:) I was able to bring his health down to 4000 and then he decided to move next to me. Because he pushed me with his attack near brontos, they unburried and with the help of couple gorguanas 'mark of blood', i was defeated. Maybe i would have survived with teleportation, but who knows.

So, tried Kraken next. I used flame arrow, magic spring, stayed between tentacles and attacked directly with ents. To cut a long story short, fight ended in turn 155. And of course no-loss.

[DGDobrev]

There you go :) You have proven that ents can also cut it. So far plants and trolls take the cake for the 4 no-guild boss battles quest.

[Elwin]

mhh i didnt know about that quest before i joined one already ... it sucks ;)

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

restarted many times, until i got ents. Turtle went down in turn 18, spider and the frog in turn ~60. I was optimistic and tried k'tahu. I got lucky, because he summoned 3 brontos and as i was cornered with one hex between them, they burried and blocked everyone else from attacking me:) i was able to bring his health down to 4000 and then he decided to move next to me. Because he pushed me with his attack near brontos, they unburried and with the help of couple gorguanas 'mark of blood', i was defeated. Maybe i would have survived with teleportation, but who knows.

So, tried kraken next. I used flame arrow, magic spring, stayed between tentacles and attacked directly with ents. To cut a long story short, fight ended in turn 155. And of course no-loss.

omg

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

There you go :) You have proven that ents can also cut it. So far plants and trolls take the cake for the 4 no-guild boss battles quest.

Don't encourage this ffs lol

He didn't say what was to be gained from the school of gloom either btw

pity

[plin500]

He didn't say what was to be gained from the school of gloom either btw



It doesn't matter. Already had completed this little campaign with that strategy, so it was the last thing to achieve.

[DGDobrev]

I have yet to achieve that either - in all my games so far the main area provided nothing of consequence and I was forced to choose an ally in a hurry.

Kings_Bounty_Hunter, don't OMG just yet. My 4-royal-thorn strategy against the Kraken ended around turn 350. This goes to show that a battle should take as many turns as necessary.

[loreangelicus]

Finally finished this one, Impossible Paladin game, no-loss. Level 70 with a score of 1190.

Attached are the screenshots of the highlights pages, as well as the "Baal" fight (20 rounds battle).

Also attached is my quickest boss fight ever; took out the Toad boss in ROUND 1. :grin:

[DGDobrev]

Well done, Lore :) It's good to see people still caring for the high scores and the friendly competition that will drive others forward to do the same themselves :)

[loreangelicus]

Well done, Lore :) It's good to see people still caring for the high scores and the friendly competition that will drive others forward to do the same themselves :)

Thanks! I actually like CotA and DotC since they are both short campaigns, and this would elicit more attempts at the high score since its relatively easy to play the campaign multiple times; more so for CotA since you could try different play styles and tactics while you're at it. :)

[DGDobrev]

I totally agree. I'm doing OOTM with the new quests and it's going really, really slow. Heck, in a week I barely cleaned half of Rusty :) This is why I totally agree with you. For the people whose time is short, COTA and DOTC campaigns are precisely what they need.

I for one, salute 1c for adding them. They are both challenging and they suit the person who needs to work in the meantime ( :P ) really well :)

[plin500]

Is the max level 70? I just started a new paladin/imp game and undead land spawned 2 hand of necropolis as well with paladin hero i can get learning 3 pretty quickly. Maybe with 2-3 ancient knowledge scrolls level above 70 and a score of 1200+ is doable...?

[DGDobrev]

There is no max level :) After level 60, the levels contunue in the same progression as before. I surmise the max level should be attained by getting at least 1 ak scroll in the main arena that should be bought asap, and at least 2 more in the various areas. Level 3 learning ASAP, anything else that provides xp is a bonus. Dying is ok if it will open up more hands of necropolis (only if necessary), but it does give a -1% bonus to the score.

You know I have never seen a game so far with 2 hands of necropolis. I thought that was disallowed in the expansion.

[loreangelicus]

I finished the game with 2,912,699 XP; for level 71 you need 2,943,000, just a 30,301 XP difference.

I had 8 suppression battles, the initial single assassin battle, 7 heroes and 8 bosses; total of 24 battles. Klissan spawned 4 AK scrolls and another shop sold 1 AK, so 5 AKs total good for 25 battles. Note that the only battle that I fought without an AK scroll on was the initial single assassin battle. Also note that there is no dragon digging chests in this campaign.

I took paladin to fast-track level 3 Learning, and also had 2 Hand of Necropolis spawn, one at the guild with contracts (so I was able to buy that one at once) and one at the undead (veteran's guild) lands. This one I wasn't able to get at once since dieing was not an option (it is like subtracting half a level worth of final score points); this also means no black knights/bone dragons since you only get the high tier undead units if you die.

Suppression of level 4-5 items would give 12k-25k of XP (this estimate is already with AK/Learning 3/HoN), so given the exact same setup as above PLUS 2-3 more level 4-5 item suppression battles then level 71 IS possible. :)

This is a rare setup to generate:

1) 5 AK scrolls (most of which should be sold by Klissan)
2) 10+ suppression battles, most of which should be high-level items
3) 2 Hand of Necropolis, one of which should be accessible almost immediately

Good luck to all!

[amyndris]

Any advice on how to no loss the Arena Grand Champion? I've tried solo plants with Hagrid but he seems to murder them faster than Hagrids rebuff.

I've tried a lineup of Red Dragon/Paladin/Inquisitor/Repair Droid/Guard Droid, but their DPS isn't fast enough to down him before his "spawn enemy" attack grows too much for me to take down in a single turn, even with Level 3 Demon Slayer can't do plants because he murders them too fast.

I'm Mage/Impossible. Thanks for any help you can give me! I've managed to no loss my way here, but now I'm stuck :/

[amyndris]

After banging my head against the wall, I managed to beat it :)

Last boss I single stacked Paladins with the Crit to Demon hero. Stoneskin reduces losses to no more than 2 per "dancing blade" spell. I spent the first half of the fight running around building up my kills (I had the ability that gave me +2 attack for every kill). Since I single stacked, I could use level 2 Demon Slayer @ 10 mana instead of level 3 @ 25 and that would 1 shot every stack unless it was the Tier 5 Demons. Even then, I would 1 shot them if I crit. Also, since it was only 10 mana, I could double cast. Everytime 2-3 turns, I'd Phantom myself to resurrect my lost Paladins.

After I built my Attack to 150+, I just beelined for the main demon.
Turn 1 = Cast Phantom, Attack with main, Second Wind from phantom to main, Second wind from main to Phantom, Attack with main, Attack with Phantom.
Turn 2 = Attack with main, Fit of Energy, Attack with main, attack with Phantom
Turn 3 = Attack with main, Fit of Energy, Attack with main, attack with Phantom.
Repeat Turn 1.

I was critting for over 14,000 damage on the boss after I built up my ATK and took him down after 5 or so turns of serious damage (interrupted my spawns of course)

[plin500]

Because of thorns -100% fire ress, you need some fire ress items and divine armor to beat "Baal". Although with crown of blackthorn and botany diploma it should not be a problem.

One slot plant army isn't a good idea, because you can't get to Baal with them easily. Try with both thorn hunters and warriors or ents. Ancient ents would be perfect, but i have not seen more than ~4 spawn at elf land.
You can cast twice stone skin in round one, divine armor next 2 rounds and with mana spring and calm rage Baal will go down eventually.

[DGDobrev]

You can get them to baal easily :) All you need is to cast stone skin/divine armor + teleport on round 1. As a paladin or warrior, stone skin/divine armor on round 1 is a must, so it will have to take one more turn to get to baal with them.

In the Champion of the arena mini-campaign, I found teleport to be a wickedly overpowered and downright amazing spell on a vast humber of occasions, well worth having it.