Questions about spells

[Fardaza]

First timer to KBTL...playing on normal.

After reading many posts here, I'm concerned that I may have difficulties at end of game because of spells I scribed and lack of crystals.

Here's where I've got so far:

Mage level 10, Att 9, Def 8, Int 13, Leadership 5075, Gold 156K, Rage 40, Mana 53, Order & Distortion at level 3, Chaos at 2. I've done almost all of Darion and Freedom Islands.

Army: 50 inquisitors, 3 cyclops, 84 royal snakes, 96 guardsmen, 24 archmagi.
Zerock is at level 7 and Sleem is at level 5.

My spellbook reads 19/11, and I have 6 crystals left.
Level 3 spells: helplessness, dispel, precision, battle cry, haste, slow, stoneskin, bless, berserk, magic spring, shroud, trap, ghost blade.
Level 2 spells: healing, flaming arrow, fear, poison skull, magic pole axe, magic shackles, pain mirror, hell breath, dragon slayer, invisibility, phantom, fireball, resurrection, fire rain.
Level 1 spells: last hero, plague, gift, book of evil, sacrifice.
Unscribed spell scrolls: dragon arrows, fit of energy, weakness, and 10 loose ones already scribed.

Here's are my questions now. ;)

1) Which of these spells should I have not even bothered to scribe or upgrade?

2) Which of these spells should I upgrade?

3) Are there enough crystals left in the game for me to upgrade necessary spells and spells I haven't even seen yet? I've got the skill that gives crystal discounts up to level 3.

4) Number 3 implies, should I continue or restart with the great suggestions I anticate getting here? :-)

Thanks for reading this long post and for your replies/suggestions.

Fardaza

[Sir Whiskers]

I feel your pain - it took me a couple games before I realized that the hero never gets enough crystals to scribe everything he comes across. And until you've played quite a bit and found your own preferred style of play, you can't be sure which spells you'll want and which you can do without.

General tips:
1) Try to always keep some crystals on hand for upgrading spells in a pinch, or adding that shiny new scroll you just found.
2) With that in mind, unless I expect I'll never use a particular spell, I always add it to my spellbook at level one.
3) I only upgrade spells when I need them upgraded, or because I really want the upgraded level. Keep in mind, you can upgrade a spell anytime you open your spellbook (assuming you have enough crystals). This means you can upgrade a spell during combat, so if level one isn't sufficient, upgrade that spell, then cast it. By not immediately upgrading your spells, you'll tend to have enough crystals on hand for when you need them.

Since different play styles and army composition use different spells, I find very few are completely useless. That said, let's look at your spells.

"Level 3 spells: helplessness, dispel, precision, battle cry, haste, slow, stoneskin, bless, berserk, magic spring, shroud, trap, ghost blade."

You have no archers, so you don't need level 3 precision - level 1 would be fine until you do add archers. I don't like beserk, as the spell causes the target unit to become uncontrolled, but others have recommended it, so YMMV. Most of the rest of your spells are very good at level 3, especially the ones that have mass effects. I find dispel at level 3 is incredibly good, and cheap in terms of crystals.

"Level 2 spells: healing, flaming arrow, fear, poison skull, magic pole axe, magic shackles, pain mirror, hell breath, dragon slayer, invisibility, phantom, fireball, resurrection, fire rain"

Once you get units with more base hit points, you'll want to kick healing up to level 3. You'll likely upgrade fear, magic shackles, phantom, and resurrection at some point.

The damaging spells are interesting - each has its strengths, which do not always overlap, so it's tempting to upgrade all of them. However, I usually get them at level one, them upgrade only when I specifically need that spell upgraded (usually in the middle of a fight).

The others depend on your strategy. I rarely use invisibility, but others swear by it (usually combined with a solo stack of emerald dragons and damaging spells). Dragon slayer is so limited (it only impacts fights against dragons) that I rarely spend crystals boosting it. Pain mirror and hell breath have their uses, but I rarely use them.

"Level 1 spells: last hero, plague, gift, book of evil, sacrifice"

I never found a good way to use last hero, and usually I would use phantom instead of book of evil. Sacrifice is good for gaining extra units when you can't find more to recruit, and works well combined with hypnosis (which you apparently haven't found yet). Plague is mostly useful for affecting black dragons, as it's a disease, not magic, so it affects them. Gift is a must have, especially with your inquisitors.

"Unscribed spell scrolls: dragon arrows, fit of energy, weakness, and 10 loose ones already scribed"

Dragon arrows will only help when you have archer units that use arrows (I'm uncertain exactly which units are affected, but I know archers, the two elven archers, and skeleton archers are included). Fit of energy can be useful at times, when you really need a specific unit to act twice in one round. Likewise, weakness can be useful in the right situation, though I find I rarely use it. Upgraded to level 3 (mass effect) can make it a useful spell to cast at the beginning of a battle, especially if the enemy stacks can attack your units right away due to speed or having ranged attacks. Usually though, I just seem to always have something else more important to cast (magic shackles, haste, phantom, geyser, etc).

There's still a lot of area to explore in the game, so you'll find a lot more crystals before the end. I don't see that you've gotten yourself into a bind where a restart is required. That said, I restarted my first game of KB:TL just to take advantage of a few things I learned, correcting things like skill choices, spell upgrades, and army composition. Basically, up to you if you'll have more fun restarting or continuing from where you are.

One last tip: it's good to pick up ideas from these boards, but don't get too hung up on them. There are quite a few players who challenge themselves by attempting impossible, no loss games, but usually such play requires very narrow, specific strategies. I personally have more fun playing a looser game, which allows me to try out different strategies, troops, spells, etc. YMMV.

[yaang]

You're just level 10 no need to restart. It is true there aren't many crystals but i managed to find enough of them to scribe every spell i could find and upgrade the ones i needed to level 3.

It is very difficult to give spell recommendation to a mage as spells you're going to use maybe very different based on your play style. Try to scribe every spell like i did and when you're in battle and you feel like you need the upgraded version of a spell, upgrade it while you're inside battle. This really worked great for me and i haven't regretted anything i've upgraded.

When in battle i usually open my spellbook and think "let's see what we can do with these and try to come up with different combos."

[Fardaza]

Thanks guys!

I decided to keep on going. I'm level 14 now and finding more crystals. Looks like I'll just plug on along.

Fardaza