Champion of the Arena - high score/highlights/combat statistics

[loreangelicus]

I figured I'd start a high score thread, one for each campaign. But instead of just focusing on the high score, I would like to make it a trend to have people post both the highlights screen as well as the combat statistics screen; and if possible, the character screen as well. I really want the high score thread to be informative as well, especially for newer players who would like some idea as to how veteran players play the game: class chosen, skills selection, units used, and items used.

Given my hope for this thread, please do post your results no matter what your score is or difficulty you played. That way even veteran players could gain some insight on other play styles and tactics employed. So please post your results! Also, it is recommended to post your images in JPEG format since it is smaller in size and you could see a preview of the attachment. The screenshots in KB are saved in bitmap format; simple right-click and "edit" it and Windows will open it using Paint. From there, just choose "save as" and select JPEG format.

My latest impossible paladin no-loss game for CotA; level 70; final score: 1190.

Highlights and combat statistics screen attached, as well as a character screen that shows the full skill selection, items and units used after the final battle.

[Lord Ludwig]

I came to this game a bit late and did not, until last weekend, have a lot of time to spend on it so I am not exposing any new grounds here, but I want to share my experience. Having some experience with TL and AP, I went straight away for impossible no loss. As usual, at first the stakes seemed impossibly high, but this game never stops astonishing me with it sheer tactical depth and its vast array of possible approaches.

I went mage and defeated the first boss with the strategy brilliantly outlined by Dobrev using the basic troops. This unlocked the dwarven area where I found a couple of trolls, which brought me victory in another couple of boss fights. Using them only at night gave me also a couple of bounties.

A peculiar fight with the trolls was against the Kraken. I failed in a very annoying way the first time: having eliminated the third tentacle by round 255 I was surrounded by stacks of devilfish up to 1300+, who took down one troll after I had thus defeated the Kraken itself. So I reloaded, having realized I had made two mistakes. 1) I shouldn't have bothered protecting my unit in the first rounds, as long as the devilfish were less than, say, 500 they couldn't do enough damage to take me out. SO that made for more fire arrows and quicker elimination of the tentacles. 2) I should have left one troll at home. Since it's better to be surrounded by low-number stacks of devilfish, counterattacks by my unit were more trouble than anything else. On the second attempt, the Kraken went down around turn 130 and the fish quickly followed.

Having thus unlocked the elven lands, I decided to see if Hagrid was really that powerful. He was indeed. I found only 4 Ancient Ents, but they basically pulled me through the rest of the game on their own (I used them as a single stack, no other units to worry about) with only three battles posing some difficulty.

First there was the metamorph guy. Going with AE meant facing some 1000+ of them and being smashed on turn 1. So for only this battle I went with TH (no TW around) which made it easy.

Second "problem" was the dirller. Not the driller in himself, who went down fine, but he left 4 stacks of RD, and they kept replenishing their ranks faster than I could kill them. Looked like a classical Mexican standoff, but I found a solution in a spell I had always considered useless before: oily mist! In the cramped space of the tunnel bridge a few OM's forced the droids to stay in the spell area, after which my fire arrows finally did enough damage to take them out.

The third and last problem I had in the final battle. Baal's ranged attack was surprisingly easy to handle, I don't know if he's toned down in comparison to AP or if it was just the huge defense rating of my AE (among other items I obviously had the botanology diploma) but a stone skin and now and then a magic spring were enough to keep damage in check without even resorting to divine armor. The problem came instead from the summoned Archdemons. Since I had only 4 AE where my leadership allowed 10 or 11, they were constantly halving my unit. THis forced me to direct my poison skull attacks from Baal himself to the Archdemons, but, even if a couple of times my unit was reduced to only 1 AE hovering dangerously in the red health zone, the unit survived and Baal went down around turn 80, quickly followed by his summons.

All in all a very nice little campaign, finished at level 61 (not many suppressable items, double hand of necropolis but no AK scrolls), score of 1121. Attached the combat statistics screen (the only one I took).

[loreangelicus]

Holy crap! You used JUST 4 Ancient Ents for MOST of the battles? Wow... I knew Hagrid was powerful and plants would rule, but I didn't think you could one-stack this campaign with less than 50% of your leadership allowance for that singular stack to boot; nice insight and play Lord Ludwig. :)

[Lord Ludwig]

Indeed I too was surprised to see how powerful Hagrid really was. I focused on defense boosting items, with a double Hand of Necropolis, Diploma in botany, Bronze boots, Slippery curass, mechanical blade, mithril shield and battle mage helmet the AE defense was up to 129, and elven crown+ all elven army gave them +2 morale. I switched some items around (fireproof boots against fire, perfect shoes for more mana, amulet of death for more INT) according to the various opponents. I have to correct myself on one point: I checked my save file and by the final battle my leadership allowed me 25 AE, but the 4 I found (the giant tree did not update after I completed the elven quest, is this a bug?) were enough.

A successful tactic, but probably not a very entertaining one. The AE just stand around defending and further raising their DEF most of the time, while the bosses fill the board with troops and you cycle through "cast protective spell", "cast mana raising spell" and "cast best offensive spell at boss".

All in all it is probably good Hagrid is not in OotM, because I guess as soon as you get hold of an AE it would be all too easy.

[onepiece]

Now those thorn & ents would be a lot more difficult to kill huh? Pure fire spells against them and R & B dragons

[Jatekos]

Mage run, impossible, no-loss, level 71, score 1200.
Having both of the Hands of Necropolis, 3 Ak scroll at the beginning, and with great luck: got the Memoir of the MArshall after the Spider.
Upgrades:
Raincoat of Magician (L2-L3-L4),
Flame Necklace (L3-L5),
Pandemonic Mask (L3-L5),
Ring of Youth (L2-L4),
Traveller Staff (L1-L2-L4),
Silver Shoes (L2-L5)

Suppress:
Burial Mask (L4),
Shaman Skull (L3),
Ring of Arianna (L4)

The hardest battle was to keep alive my two palladins (in one stack) against the Spider. Unfortunatelly there were no Stone Skin spell in this run, and without this it was pretty funny against the big Bosses.

With one more two upgrading artifact (eg. Demetrius) Level 72 could be reachable, but don't be insatiable.

Screenshots see below.