Best Class for Race-Based Games via Editor

[Helios]

Since I learned that the KB Scanner and Editor for AP work on TL, I've been thinking of creating some basic scenarios in which I play through the game with units/wives etc. that I never normally use, so that I really need to apply the best tactics that I've learned and to add more challenge to Impossible difficulty. I'm simply going to replace King Mark's supply of humans with whatever race I'm playing with, and make some of these troops available in each major continent/area of the game so I don't have to run back to him for everything. Also, I don't want to break the game, so I'm not going to put a ton of Dragons for an all Neutral game, and only make them available later on like a normal KB game. Also, I'll be editing in equipment sets that boost particular races.

I have only had preliminary thoughts on most of these Race-based runs, so I'd love to hear advice on which class would be the best match for each race to enhance or make up for various deficiencies. Here are my 9 ideas, for which I'd like to divide between 3 Warriors/3 Paladins/3 Mages if possible:

Undead: Doing this first since I almost never have used them. They have great variety, so I don't think they have a huge weakness. I'm thinking a Warrior would be the best match for quick access to the Dark Commander and Onslaught skill in the Might tree, and obviously marrying (eww) Zombie Rina for the speed and initiative bonuses, but possibly switching her out for Xeona (or even Mirabella if I get an early Poison Dagger) to add the Dagger and Isshara's Whip to the Skeleton Archers, and when I think I'll have Onslaught high enough to get in that crucial first turn of initiative.

Human: Pretty good variety of units here, too, but I think it will be harder since they don't have any no-retal melee units. I think a Warrior would be best here, too, to make use of his Iron Fist skill and easy access to Bowman Commander. I'll probably swap wives, making Rina a baby-maker for the early bonuses when I lack equipment and cash, and switching around if I get good enough items to warrant a switch to someone like Feonora until I can equip 4 weapons with Xeona.

Elves: Probably the easiest of all the classes to play with Anga's Ruby making the girls awesome. Not sure on the class here. Paladin or perhaps a Mage. No skill jumps off the page to me that is buried in one of the trees that desperately needs to be reached. Wife seems obvious to be Neoka, but with the girls, would Xeona (yawn, again) be the best for a Poison Dagger and Isshara's Whip?

Demons: Not many units, but I'd imagine this one won't be hard, since Demons and Demonesses have such useful abilities and talents. Anga's Ruby will nullify a need for Onslaught, so Warrior isn't a priority, and Sacred Anger doesn't work for allied Demons and Undead, so I'm thinking a Mage would be the choice here. Obviously, I'll end up with Xeona as the final wife for the morale boost.

Dwarves: Ouch. Miners and Dwarves have no useful ability, and I can just see them dying in droves later on with such a lack of unit diversity--there's only five of them! I may let myself have Giants from the start just to diversify the army. I'm not sure about the class either. They may need massive nuking spell support from a Mage to make up for their lack of magic damage, but their Dwarves, and possibly (?) the Miners would get a bonus from the Battle Hammer, and Axe of Craig the Destroyer, but they also need a weapon slot for the King's Hammer (leadership requirements lowered) and the Mithril Shield, so I don't know which class to choose. Perhaps they would benefit from the Steam Armor and Drill? I'm not sure. The wife seems a no-brainer with disgusting Gerda, but with all those weapons, a Warrior and Xeona might be necessary I don't know.

Neutral: Great variety, and with so many units to choose from, I think any class would do fine. Frog Feonora would be the wife of choice with the bonus to snakes and spiders early on. Perhaps the Paladin would be a good choice for balance to compliment the wide array of strengths this army will have.

Orcs: Have barely thought on this race, since their units are usually few and far between. They may have similar problems with a lack of variety in types of damage they can deal, but they have some good units in the Shamans and Veteran Orcs. Since Shamans are key, perhaps a Mage would be best to open up different damage types in spell damage, and quick access to Archmage skill, but maybe a Warrior for sheer numbers as this group is damage oriented, and has a unit that can cause distraction without spells with totems. Not sure here. Wife also seems completely open, though when that's the case I end up using Feonora followed by Xeona.

The last two aren't really races, they just have an item set or wife that would help them:

Archers: Yes, an army of all Archers to benefit from the Sight + Ale Barrel bonus. And I'd make sure the Elven Bow was in the game. I'm not sure which units I'll use, as the Dwarves and Elves would suffer morale for being together. But I think it will be: Bowmen, Skeleton Archers, Elves, Hunters, and Goblins. I hate to miss out on Cannoneers, though. A Paladin would probably be the choice with a charge through the Mind tree to get Tolerance for the Skeletons, or a Warrior to get Bowman Commander immediately. Wife is completely open and likely end with Xeona. This could be tough when enemies inevitably do reach them.

The "Outcasts": A group of the humans that don't go with the other Human run--Robbers, Marauders, Pirates, Sea Dogs, Barbarians, and (puke) Berserkers. This army would likely be the hardest to deal with: all physical melee damagers, and no ranged damage, except for the one-space biting strike of Robbers and Marauders. They will die in droves trying to attack later mobs. I thought of this group considering the equipment that specifically boosts these first four units, and Mirabella's 100% Attack bonus. Also, I *think* the battle axe that boosts "cold steel" weapon users boosts this group, as would the Battle Axe of Craig the Destroyer. I think a Mage or a Paladin would be necessary to try and add some spell damage to a group that has no other ways to damage an enemy at long-range. This is the only group that seems to jump off the page as perhaps not possible to me.

I'll edit this as I think about it more, and hopefully get more input from other KBTL vets. All commentary is welcome!

[ShuiMienLung]

Remember that there are more Elves than just the girls, so don't discount everything but the Fairies/Dryads/Sprites. How about Neoka plus some Silver equipment (horn?) in an all-Elf army [== +3 Morale], telescopic sight with Elf & Hunter to sit back and plink while your (possibly Ancient) Ents get teleported to the front to tank?

Play around with different things, rather than getting yourself closed into one specific way of looking at what's available.

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On your "outcasts" army I would rather take a blank stack than include Berserkers: after the first time they killed the army that I was keeping alive to farm mana, I decided I'd never use them again.

Sea Dogs, on the other hand, are one of my favorite units of all time. It's true that Cerberus will *always* get the three-way attack... but I typically don't get access to them until later. Knights take a lot of skill development to get their circle attack--I have *never* played a game where I trained up to it--but Sea Dogs are a unit that I can get fairly early, lead a lot of them, they're low enough level to be able to use Ressurrect/Time Back on fairly early... just not enough good things to say about them.

So much so, that I was interested to see in my KB:AP game that I just finished (first time through, finally!) where I shifted to single-stack Black Knights at the end--dishing out 30K+ damage in single hits to dragons & bosses & whatnot--that the Sea Dogs from earlier in the game had *still* inflicted 28% of the total damage whereas the the Black Knights only did about 23%.

[Helios]

Thanks for the input, ShuiMienLung! That's a great idea regarding teleporting Ancient Ents to tank. These were my preliminary thoughts on the races, so I hadn't thought of good ideas like that! I'll bet the Elves end up being the easiest with their variety of good units. I also forgot to mention here that I'll be using the sets that I think will benefit each race, like the one for the Elves that you indicate. I've set up a spreadsheet of all the sets and useful equips for these playthroughs in this topic: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=25853.

I've just started my Undead army, which is rolling along.

And thanks for relating your experience with Sea Dogs. That's just the sort of thing I was hoping to discover with some of these units I haven't used. With Mirabella's bonus, I'll bet they'll be the MVPs of that Outcast team. And I'm in agreement on the berserkers--no control over them = impossible to use tactically. Having a reserve of Sea Dogs would be better than them. They might be the worst unit in the game.

[Vulture]

In an all-undead army, neither the Whip nor the Dagger are a choice, mate. Only for one unit (Skellies) that is a terrible waste of slots. Any +Atk weapon greater than 3 (Dwarf hammer, Demetrius, Dragon Slayer, Equilibrium) will perform better in the long run.

Btw letting Ancient Ents tank is a terrible idea since you can't ress them.

As for the Human playthrough. Depending on if you count Sea Dogs and Marauders to them you can have a fairly decent team (Biting Strike and Fury Attack are beast) until you get to boss battles :> I'd NEVER play Warrior with humans. Ever. Reason: a Paladin can easily (!) get Bowman Commander and Onslaught. My Paladins always have so many might runes left I take Tactics 2, and Dark Commander and have still might runes left. It's not like it makes sense to take Destroyer or Chaos 3 with a Paladin, is it ? A Paladin is a warrior with more runes and less ldr and atk. A warrior can never sustain enough mana and spellpower to keep them all alive. Unless you don't care for losses and give yourself "Horde" for everything. but that's kinda pointless. Impossible isn't a challenge if you keep restocking everything. Every beginner can do that. Marauders btw only cost 30 ldr. Fairly priced for a lvl 2 unit. Compared to Priests with 50 ^^

As for the Animal/Neutral playthrough I agree on the Snakes. With Feonora and the Snake King Ring (maybe even two) you might even bring regular snakes, too (No Swamp Snakes, tho, as their damage is poison only. Royal and Snakes have physical damage. The poison is an after effect as a bonus)

As for the archer playthrough. A: it is completely impossible. You WILL be wiped on all major bossfights. And in order to not get your ass handed to you, you MUST play mage in order to Phantom + Teleport early on (which both you won't get before the Islands), else everyone will just swarm you in melee. Imagine Dragon fights, fights against Lake Flies/Fireflies, Griffins and heroes with the Lightning spell. You can't spread out 5 troops on the left part of the battlefield far enough so he would refrain from doing so or doesn't hit more than 2 of them. Also you'll always need rage before the battle to drop a Wall/Icy Thorns/Ice Orb against otherwise fast melee units with "Running".
Next problem will be the range penalty. There is no mass Dragon Arrows. Skeleton Archers and Bowmen suck donkey balls when it comes to range; 5 or 6 tiles. 5 tiles is also what many units can bridge to get into melee in one turn, the rest in 2 turns.
Elves suck in general. The leadership/dmg ratio is dreadful. You should replace them with Thorns. I don't think the Telescopic sight works with them but it doesn't matter anyway as it only works with the base Atk of the unit which is pretty much nonexistent ^^ Just like with the Bowmen and Skellies.
Next thing is that you need Cannoneers. There's no way around that. You didn't honestly suggest Goblins, did you ? Crappiest archer in game ^^ To compensate for the morale loss you have the Ale Barrel and the Elven crown. That'll bring them all down to +/- 0.

I don't want to burst your bubble there but an all-archer playthrough on impossible is... impossible.

As for the Dwarf playthrough: not impossible but you'll run out of money in the late game as you will never have first strike except in round one and only if you play Paladin or Warrior and get Onslaught early. The best initiative will be 6 with the Cannoneers. Idk but you'll get stomped in Ultrax, Demonis and the Labyrinth so much that you'll go and restock your troops after every other fight.

As for the "Outcasts": lol :> We don't have to talk about that. Not a chance. But if you urgently need to, do yourself a favor and take Human Rina over Mirabella. You'll need the init and speed, believe me :>

[Helios]

Thanks for the thoughts, Vulture. How many units would you think you'd need to warrant using the whip and dagger? Just the Elven girls?

And what do you think of item sets--pointless given how much you have to equip for the bonus? I'd love to get the Knight set for the human playthrough (plus I was thinking of Iron Fist so I'd have an insane amount of troops), but devoting five pieces of equipment to get the bonus doesn't seem as good as just equipping the best equips. What do you think? Maybe viable early-mid-game, then ditch it? I imagine it would be hard to keep the Bow equipped for the Elves for very long, even if I carried both Elves and Hunters along. Combined with Neoka, there's no way to even use the whip and dagger with that set.

Noted on the Ents. I hate units I can't heal/ress unless I absolutely have to use them: Royal Thorn + Blackthorn Crown.

I should probably just junk the idea of the archers and the "Outcasts". Like you say, there's no way to keep the enemy from reaching the archers, and the outcasts will get slaughtered worse than the Dwarves. If I did try them, I'd probably end up trying to max Int as a Mage and Fire Rain everything to death since I couldn't stop the hordes from reaching my units. And if I end up doing that, the troops I choose wouldn't really matter that much then, so what's the point? I was just trying to come up with ways to make the Archer set and Mirabella usable for once. I'll probably be too bored by the time I get that far down the list and want to give AP a whirl.

Sounds like a Paladin would be best for the Dwarves. The more I've looked into the weapons I thought were good for them, the less I realize that they are good. The axe of Craig the Destroyer is useless due to how few units it affects.

If I scrap the Outcasts, then I would just lump in Sea Dogs and Marauders with the humans, despite the morale penalty from the latter. I had been thinking of the humans game as "King Mark's Army", but it's probably for the best to lump these units in together.

Thinking all this over, I may trying using that "Ultimate Hero" mod that lets a Paladin get Iron Fist (to actually make use of the skill) for a human army. I may mod the wives a little myself to make Gerda actually hold a weapon, too. I'm not sure. I don't want to break the game too much, but I want to try different approaches with armies, sets, classes, and wives.

Also, is there a way to keep Vampires/Ancients in bat form so that they start a battle in that form? I really miss that initiative point for the first round.

[ShuiMienLung]

@Vulture: There was a (lengthy) discussion about Ancient Ents tanking in another thread; that was what I was thinking of when I mentioned them.

Also, with one of the boots (Pilgrim? +1 speed to slowest) and some of Lina's boosters--KB:AP makes it even easier with dragon to give +2 speed--they can actually get nearly halfway across the map on turn 1 even if you use your cast for a buff spell (Stone Skin, Magic Spring) to boost their defenses.

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@Helios: Take advantage of the fact that they are not subject to retaliation from the flanking units (the bonus damage hexes). So if you KILL the unit they are targetting directly, they face no retaliation and stay undamaged heading into the next turn for Time Back.

Also, militaries all over the world are built on the premise that Speed. Kills. Run away from a tough spot, get to an opponent that thought they were safe, whatever. Particularly if you're using them to mop up after (you 'Wait' on their turn, with them out of range of the opponent) you've done distance damage from other units, and then dart in for a quick mop-up so they stay undamaged.

The very first game (non-Sega Genesis version of 'King's Bounty') that I played I found multiples of everything: 3 silver rapiers, 2 snake boots, 2 jackboots, 2 dwarf hammers, two or three of a bunch of things. Unfortunately Royal Snakes were *not* that thick on the ground, so those boots didn't help much... but that was when I fell in love with Sea Dogs.
+ 2 base speed
+ 1 bonus (wife: Rina)
+ 2 wear two boots (Rina can have the other...)
= 5 base speed before adding in Lina's chargers, Haste, or their built-in Running talent.
AND Rina gives them +1 initiative as well as the speed.

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Would I have preferred to use froggy Feonora with two snake boots for Royals? Sure, but sadly she can't wear boots. So I can either stick with one of the double-boot wives and have fast movers, or I can increase the attack but slow down the movement. If I'm fighting Haas with two Dragon Slayer swords equipped (yes, I had one show up in addition to the one from the tourney) then mobility matters more to me than raw attack.

[Helios]

I take it that AP has bonuses for flanking units? Interesting addition.

And it seems that with certain equipment, units can become quite useful. That much speed on a Sea Dog is killer.

[Vulture]

Certain equipment to boost a flaw is always inferior to increasing an already amazing feature with even more of it. What's the point in equipping utter crap to make up for major flaws of your arm composition when instead you can just get better units and then have no obligations equipment-wise because you don't have to make up for anything ?
Except of course, if you don't care how you perform and just zerg through with Hordes of your 5 troops edited into King Mark's castle.

I don't see the point in equipping 3 items with speed boost and nothing useful otherwise on them just to correct speed problems. I mean, wearing Anga's Ruby just for one unit is even borderline wasted and I sometimes wonder why I do it but 3 to everything including morale for them is way better than just +1 speed.

The Human set is just bullcrap. You'll end up with 12 Atk and 35 Def, killing exactly nothing past Elinia. Until then, tho, you'll have decent fun with the increased morale through Knights and Guardsmen.

About the Whip/Dagger: if those are your ONLY weapons you will wear (aka you're not a Warrior or your wife has no weapon slots) then you'll have to go with 4 that benefit. That means girls, Skellies and Bowmen/Thorns with a random supporter (Shaman because you'll probably need the totems to keep the damage off the girls). If you can wear 3 or more weapons so you'll have some atk, too, you can probably only go with anything you want but should use the girls at least.

[Helios]

No argument there about enhancing a strength rather than compensating for flaws. My interest in using these different units is to get some more variety out of the game and try some things I haven't before with some added challenge.

The sets in general don't seem to add enough bonuses to warrant taking up the equipment slots required. They could use a boost.

Thanks for the advice on the viability of the whip and dagger. I'll keep that in mind as I play. The Undead don't seem like a good choice for those equips, and it seems highly dependent on class + units when to use them. I still haven't completely settled on the class for each race I'll play with either--I'll leave that open to advice, as I'll have plenty of time between each lengthy game!

I can't believe I didn't make an effort to get the two kinds of vampires into my playing style before! They're great, and would be well worth investing in Tolerance to get into a typical game. I'm going to be spoiled by their ability to replenish themselves. I'm not enjoying the ghosts as much, though. They get out of control very easily, and I find it impossible without loading to get through battles without losing one or a few when getting them back under control when I inevitably lack the leadership to control them. I'm hoping to find some other gems of units that I've missed like the vamps.

[Vulture]

I understand your desire for some change and all that. In the end you'll play whatever you want to play and whatever provides you with the fun you wanted to have :> I'm just poop shooting terrible ideas xD In the end, you decide.

If you want challenge: play no-loss :P With a Mage. On impossible diff. Have fun :> If you make it through Demonis and the Labyrinth without losses, you can still start 5-melees-with-crappy-stats games ^^

[Helios]

I think a no-loss Mage on Impossible would make me cry, (as will 5 melees--I'll likely ditch that game and the archers, but I'd like to give the rest a shot). As I mentioned previously, I don't feel like I have that good of a strategy to playing the Mage period. I think I ended up with like 14,000 losses my last time with him, but I was sacrificing thousands of miners to make my initial Sprites into a huge unit and not bothering with Resurrection back then, saving my mana for nuking the enemy. I thought nuking would be fun, but it was brainless and boring when I went all out for it. I think I'd rather have a dual-casting Distortion Mage now with some equips to make his troops not fall apart. Fighting one of Haas' incarnations that had Demons and something like 20+ defense was a horror story for me. I could barely scratch them!

And I've been thinking about the archer game--I had decent success with an all ranged army with a Mage and redirecting traffic with stone walls and 2x Demon Portal spells, but that wouldn't work later on, would it? Bats can fly over the portals, can't they? I know I've seen ghosts go by them. And of course nothing would stop the dragons from getting to them, but 2x Traps would at least make things a bit easier. If they just had one decent unit they could Phantom and throw into the fray to distract some of the melees coming their way they might have a chance. Maybe I should develop an MVP approach to the archers and the all-melee army where I instead choose four of each of those, and one of the awesome regular units to supplement them and in effect be the most valuable player of the team. Four archers with one demon stack might be able enough to keep the heat off of them to plink away. Or not. Phantoming every turn probably wouldn't be mana-viable without green dragons restoring the mana. How many ways can you poop-shoot that idea? :p

[Vulture]

Not at all ^^ I will just let you see how far you get without having the freedom to chose what to do your spells per turn when you already know what you have to cast in order to keep Dragons from fire breathing through your defenseless archers :> Because if you're a mage that can pull off so many Phantoms and Traps, where do you get the atk and ldr to cause severe damage with your archers if you can't cast Dragon Arrows, Dragon Slayer, Helplessness or Precision :>

Just do it and report in. I am very curious as to how far you get with that. I'm sure you'll have fun until at some point. Like... Karador :> I can already see you nuke and fire from range, chopping down the stacks and then having nothing to stand on the corpses with except two fragile Phantoms :>

Please take screenshots of the big battles. Because if you prove me wrong I wanna play with 5 archers, too !

[Helios]

I'll let you know when/if I get to the Archers. I'm not sure which order I'm going to play in, but I might make it my game after the Undead, as I have an itch to get back to a Mage. I can imagine my horror as I send a Phantom of 30 cannoneers in to take hits and perish in the first exchange. Maybe if Higher Magic let you cast 3 spells per turn ... Nah. There are just so many holes to plug in the sinking ship that there isn't enough to patch it with! Maybe a Paladin with a buffed version of Higher Magic, able to equip 4 weapons, and with the leadership of a Warrior could pull it off, but I'm not willing to break the game that much. ;p To be able to win the boss fights, I can't even begin to imagine how to beat Karador, Baal, or Haas. Those units just aren't strong enough to deal the kind of damage necessary or take the hits boss-boosted units can dish out. I bet I end up dead in five turns or less against each of those bosses. I'd hate to invest upwards of 40 hours and then have it go totally kaput.

[Helios]

LOL, just had to post that I think the Undead are overpowered. :p What a fool I was for not using them before! Cursed Ghosts don't care about getting mobbed with Target, and as long as I keep my eye on their leadership to know what to nuke them back down to, I just munch on the rest with the bats, and the skeleton archers deal out massive damage. I haven't gotten two good weapons but got a Bow in Marshan Swamp and it boosted the archers to 3-4 damage. It's nice to be on the opposite end of those arrows.

[Vulture]

This forum needs a "like" button ;>

That's how I felt, too, when I got undeads the first time. And yes, as soon as you know how to manage their losses and their morale problem, and don't feel like it's annoying to do so, they are overpowered. Their strength was designed to counter their harder management and for them to pose a real threat to the player facing them. Guess which kind of player has the most fun with them ? Right, the one who knows wtf he's doing :>

Big thanks to people like Bucasaurus, Nike-it, loreangelicus and others I am forgetting that convinced me to use them and forced me to get Tolerance which I have done ever since :> It's just nice to bring whatever the **** you want along with your Demons and Undeads.

[Helios]

Yes, it needs the dislike button that FB won't add, too. Well, thanks for the advice on the Undeads. I'll be using them in the future when I'm not playing some strange constrained race/units game. Maybe when I finally go for no losses. :)

[Helios]

I've been thinking about these playthroughs, and since this game is *so* easy to edit, I've been wondering about minor edits to balance out different play-styles:

Like opening up each wife's equipment slots so they can equip four of anything, and thereby making them a consideration instead of focusing on Xeona for weapons. (I'd use the honor-system and not equip more than two weapons on each wife, to not break the game.) And maybe some edits with the babies, so they are actually part of the game. The mod that exists still isn't enough imo to make the gamble of having a child worth it.

And perhaps adding a second bonus to the sets in the game, so they are actually worth taking up to five of your slots (!). Maybe adding a bonus or two to the wives, like something not too overpowered, like a 100% Defense bonus on Mirabella to Robbers, Pirates, and Barbarians. I'm also thinking of something like -10% Leadership requirements to the race/group of units the wife benefits. Wouldn't more elves trust to follow you if you married one? :P

I'm not too sure on the skill trees, but there are a couple of things I'd like to rearrange in the hierarchy of the trees, like having Higher Magic buried at the bottom of Magic, and ditto with Inquisition and Tolerance in Mind. The Might tree is better, but it still sucks you have to invest in Combat Readiness and Tactics to get to Onslaught. And doesn't Glory just scream for a boost given the number of runes you invest for the return? How about +300/600/1000 Leadership?

Hero changes? I'm not sure, but it seems silly that a Paladin and a Mage couldn't drop whatever and hold a second weapon like the Warrior.

The only other change I would consider is in the realm of Spells. Perhaps boosting the Phoenix spell so that is actually useful outside of Darion on Normal difficulty? ;) That spell could use a huge boost. The only other ones I can think of, but have real potential to break the game, are to have level 3 Slow be a Mass spell, and have level 3 Dragon Arrows give one arrow to all allied archers. The spells seem pretty balanced already.

This all should probably go under modding, but these are some of the ideas I'm tossing around for my subsequent racial/unit games.

All opinions are welcome. Would any of these break the game? Too much?

[Vulture]

The Glory thing is definitely too much. A smart move would be to change the benefit of the first level of it to 200 since 100 really is wrong. But 300/600/1000 ? That goes way too far. Especially since you can get the first one at level 2 if you want where you have like 500 ldr. That would be an increase of more than half if your ldr ! Idk, I'm not really for modding and I don't want to doctor around at all ^^ If you have fun doing that, however, go ahead, knock yourself out :)

[Helios]

Thanks for the input. That would be too much for Glory. And I've definitely changed my mind about moving Higher Magic up in the skill trees. What do you think of the mass Slow and Dragon Arrows? Too broken? I was trying to think of a way to make the all-Archers more viable.

[dainbramage]

Both of those would be broken I think. Dragon arrows is absolutely amazing for what it does, a mass version would be way too much. And mass slow, especially with boots of the mystic, is going to mean that anything other than dragons and archdemons will never reach you.

I think it could work if you put a lot of emphasis on skills like ice ball, stone wall and glot's armour. Maybe throw out phantoms to also tank. But this strategy is going to go out the window once you hit mass dragon stacks... hopefully dragon arrows will be enough to handle them.


Also, how are you planning on dealing with bone dragons (and skeletons/skeleton archers). They only take 30% damage from arrows, they'll be an absolute pain to kill.

[Helios]

Yeah, I figured it would be too much of a good thing, dainbramage.

I'm not sure which unit to Phantom! None of them have good mobility, and would likely need to be Teleported to be useful. I expect enormous losses against mass dragon stacks. I don't know how I'll survive Haas, if I make it that far.

Bone Dragons? I'll be nuking them with Fire Rain, if possible, or the super-wasteful Lightning if other non-Black Dragons are in the fight.

[Vulture]

Or just bring Cannoneers and/or Evil Beholders to fights with significant numbers of Bone Dragons. With Sight/Barrel Cannoneers will one-shot any stack. That's the good thing about them. They profit from the items, yet they aren't arrow users :>

[Helios]

Good, thanks, Vulture! I'm sure I'll be hard pressed for every decision with my spells and Mana later on.

[Helios]

Man, the Undeads are just tearing through the game. I've never gotten to Ellinia so quickly, and I've even won the Dragon Slayer Sword Tournament, cleared the Gremlins' Castle, and Mehgard, just for the heck of it. The Undeads would be great even without Dark Commander. Round 1: Dragons Arrows--Kill most dangerous stack in one shot, send the vamps out to draw the attention of nearly all the units. Even the Necromancers' Plague is very useful for dropping the health of all the enemies (except those immune units). I could probably hold my own in Demonis with this crew right now. It's funny, but I've brought the Black Knights into almost every battle until now that my leadership is high enough to get 11 Bone Dragons. The morale boost the BKs give the entire army was better than the few BDs I could field, even though I didn't even use the BKs that much, except for mopping up or against lots of plants and undeads.

As I'll probably be through the game by the end of next week, I've been thinking of ways to help out the all-Archer team and have a few editing ideas I'll toss out here that I don't think are too egregious. I haven't decided on implementing any of them yet.

A wife that grants one or more of the following (all to just Archers): +1 Speed; +1 Initiative; -10% Leadership requirements.

An added bonus to the Archer set that either gives +10 Defense or 100% Defense to Archers (though the Cannoneers would be pretty better tanks than all but dragons then), or a 100% HP bonus, so there will be fewer corpses on my end to try and resurrect when the mobs reach them. If I don't buff their defense, I may end up broke. :p

I'm not sure how to buff the Phoenix spell--even with outrageously high statistics, there's just one in the stack, and I can't foresee it surviving in the late game if 2000 Lake Fairies hit it. Or even 130+ Demons. I thought the Phoenix might make for a great distraction (can use cast Target on it?) for these stiffs so they won't have to rely on the Ice Ball to draw attention. (Need Lina for Ice Thorns instead, likely.)

I've also thought of buffing the Battle Cry spell to be mass on level 2, since this group will be pretty low in initiative otherwise and Order 3 will be hard to reach quickly with all the skills this group needs to augment them.

As for a typical game, the skills to get are going to be pretty hard for a Mage: I need 1 level of Tolerance for the Skellies; 3 levels of Bowmen Commander; 3 levels of Onslaught; and 3 Dark Commander couldn't hurt for the Skelly Atk and Init boost, but I doubt I'll have enough Might runes to get that on top of Onslaught. This is going to be very hard, if it is indeed possible. I don't want to edit the Attack or Damage of the Archers--I'm going to make sure there's at least one Elven Bow in my game.

Any thoughts?

[Vulture]

Undeads are the #1 team to clear early and mid-game as their damage stats are significantly stronger than those of any (or most) living creatures. But you will be put in your place in end game. Especially when it comes to Dragons and Undeads (Karador will be fun, I promise). The fact that Undeads don't like fire so much and they don't really have an abundance of HP or Defense will become a problem. Against other Undeads you'll end up cursing your playstyle. Geyser spammers like Dragon Wirz, Drrum and Reige will be a pita and impossible to restore losses after. But then again, you probably edited Hordes of your units into Kronberg, so...
I can't really argue with casualty games. The game is too easy if you restock. You can "just win" with whatever you want if you can play. No challenge there really.

About the archers. Well, I don't know if you can 'Target' a Phoenix but you can Target Phantoms and summons so I don't see why you couldn't. But it makes no sense since a Phoenix drops like a fly...

Giving Archers 100% Defense bonus breaks the game clearly. Archers have lower Defense because they are rangers and can attack from afar. If they were as durable in close quarters as melees are nobody would ever use a melee unit...
"Distance is the only defense I need."

[Helios]

Yes, there will bound to be casualties later. I lost over 1,000 units in the second Double fight already. I don't know if I can just win with the Archers or Outcasts, even if I put hordes of them into the game.

And yes, the Defense boost is probably too much. I just don't know how to keep the distance as defense for more than two turns. I guess I could try Higher Magic with level 3 Slow repeatedly. I'm going to tweak around with a super-buffed Ancient Phoenix and see if I can get it to behave more like a tank (doubtful).

[Helios]

Actually, I think I can win with the Archers with 90% of the battles not incurring losses (my general approach to the game). I'm only going to boost the Phoenix spell so that it is a tank, not a damage dealer--plus, I don't think it will break the game later, as I'm testing on the fly with my Warrior in the Land of the Dead--it's fiery attack will be useless against dragons, and even giving it 5000 HP won't make it survive more than 1 round if some enemy stacks aren't greatly reduced.

I'm going to mod Feanora into the "Archer Wife": giving +1 to Initiative and Morale of Archers. And I'm going to add +5 Defense to the Archer Set, as an added bonus. (Beer makes people feel impervious enough to the elements to go shirtless at football games in sub-zero weather, so I find it a bit funny to add that bonus to the set :P)

The Undeads are insanely powerful. I just beat Karador in five turns, though his army sucked much more than last game, as he didn't have any stacks of 1000+ Skeletons, and only one stack of Black Knights. I'll be done with the game in a few days at this rate. Using the "Animate Dead spell Mod" has made things too easy, I think, removing the Undeads' weakness of not being able to resurrect them. I didn't lose any units to Karador. For some reason, it only recorded one of my screenshots of the battle when I was ressing.

[Vulture]

Gee, that's insane amounts of ldr. And oh, you used the easy win mod ? Meh... That's not real undead play but well, as long as it floats your ducky xD Undeads are incredibly strong by default. With resurrection it really is too easy.

[Helios]

Yes, it's really easy. Those two batons really helped me out for the leadership, plus I was on level 26 or 27 when I fought him. (I invested in maxing Learning and KoL early on.) I eventually run out of Mana to ress all my Undeads--I used the mod to try and keep my losses low as I build up to an eventual run at no losses to polish my skills at those techniques and not have to just buy hordes of Skelly Archers.

I still had a hard time with Baal. All those Demons with Domination beat the hell out of my Vamps. And I started getting careless, sending my two Vamps in with level 2 Tactics to attack in the first round before the enemy moves. I got a rude wake-up call in the start of Haas' Labyrinth as one of his heroes killed both Vamp stacks in one turn. I had been running wild that my leadership so high that I was stronger than most of my enemies until Demonis.

---

Also, I have some interesting information I keep forgetting to share on level-up attribute choices. When I started my current game, I began 7 games as a Warrior, and used the cheat code to level them all up to level 30, selecting leadership for the first time with each different character at different levels four times. Shockingly, every game that I waited to take leadership with the Warrior past level 6 (480 leadership) my base stats of Atk/Def/Int in all eight games always ended up worse or the same than if I waited and didn't take leadership until later. (Also, as one would expect, my base stats were worse if I took leadership at level 2.) The only higher stats I got if I waited on leadership was more Mana and Rage at the cost of usually Atk, and usually Int and a point of Defense.

I'll try the same with the other classes when I get to them, but I was shocked that taking leadership so early gave me better or the same Atk/Def/Int every single time I tried taking it at level 6. Maybe it's just a quirk of my games, but I think 7 games with attempting 4 different intervals for each gives enough data to possibly point out a trend. Or maybe it's nothing, and just a big coincidence.

[Vulture]

Well that's why I take it past lvl 6 only. I've heard of that years ago and since then sticked by that. It made sense when I read it but I forgot what it exactly was about and what the reason is. I just go by math. ldr below 400 is just inferior to ANYthing you can be offered except Def ^^

[Helios]

Good to know, I won't put a couple of hours into doing that for every character I create!

I beat the game today. That SOB Dragon Feir (sp?) knows Armageddon! I've never seen him use that before. I had him beaten down to the last turn with no losses and then he pulled that one on me. What an ass. I tore through the second half of Haas' Labyrinth and all of Murock during the evening/night, then waited for night against Haas. I thought I would miss Dryads putting half the armies to sleep, but I didn't miss them at all. With the Morale bonus from Black Knights, my Bone Dragons had over 100 Attack (!) at night via my Attack, Dark Commander skill, and Sword of Darkness.

The final battle was a joke. I won in turn three, but with losses to my Vampires--I just wanted to see if I could win before he used Armageddon. He didn't use Armageddon. Evidently, he will relentlessly Sheep Skeleton Archers once their stack gets large enough. In retrospect, the Undead didn't need any added editing of the game to be great. Sure, they can't be resurrected if you don't have Hypnosis with valid targets to then Sacrifice, but they have three of the best units in the game: Skeleton Archers, Vampires, and Ancient Vampires.

And for the record, the game glitched on me with that "fight the same battle immediately again" four times during my game. And it froze every time I fought Ambrosius and he tried to Raise Undead with his Necromancers on his dead stacks of Inquisitors--I had to kill the Necros first to beat him.

On to my all Archers game next.

Edit: Nigh unreadable font in some spots of my screenshots are due to me doing a global edit on all the fonts in the respective file so that all text was readable, and not going through the 13 or so fonts individually so that they all fit the fields any longer. I'm using an old 53" projection screen on TV-out as my monitor, and couldn't read a thing with the default fonts, or even the font mod I found on the forums.

[Vulture]

Congratulations !

That's a nice record really. Almost 29k ldr is pretty neat. I wonder why you had so much money left, tho. Was there nothing in the skill trees you wanted to have and buy runes for ? Or was the amount needed bigger than what you could buy with those 1.7 mil ? Just curious :>

The damage stats are nice. 31% Skeleton Archers is massive. That's probably the thing if you don't use Demons because they dish out so much "Furious"-retaliation damage that the Skeleton Archers have nothing to take down after their first Dragon Arrow shot ^^

I wonder the font and font size tho. Seems a little odd.

And well, 40 atk and 20 int... that's why editing items in is a mixed blessing. It's nice to have and fun to play but it is a HUGE difference between playing with 40 Atk and playing with 27 Atk ^^

Yes, Dragon Ferr does Armageddon, too. Had to reload the fight with him and after the third attempt killed him without him using Armageddon. Btw you can edit your screenshots with Paint and save them as jpg files. Just as a tip. 150 kb jpg vs 2.5 MB bmp xD

[Helios]

I was trying to set my best record for days, and actually made about half of that money in the Labyrinth and Murock. I bought a ton of runes, too. I'm not sure how many I bought, but the cost was over 1 million per Mind Rune and nearly as much for Magic. This game was somehow a full 20 hours shorter of gameplay time than the other games I've played.

And yes, 40 Atk vs. 27 Atk is a huge difference. Too huge, and boring with units that were that good. This was so easy that I'll back off editing for the future so there's more challenge. Skeleton Archers were one-shotting nearly half the stacks with Dragon Arrows.

[Vulture]

They do that at 27 Atk, too xD Even below ^^

[Helios]

I'll just give myself a big fat "Well Duh" for that about the Skeleton Archers. I should have known by now that their Atk doesn't matter with Dragon Arrows. Sheesh. And btw, I chose my game because of the insane base stats my Warrior would get via level-ups and upgrades on the adventure map. His base stats were: Atk 17 Def 6 Int 11.

I was friendly to myself with his equipment, but I didn't think it was too egregious, (I added a Gladiator Sword and a Dragon Necklace in Haas' Labyrinth for the only Atk boosts the game didn't give me) and if you recall I let Zombie Rina be able to equip two weapons, so it was like I had Xeona with me. My last three unedited games had equipment to put them at Warrior Atk 37, Paladin Atk 33, Mage Atk 33. Maybe this game just likes me. :D

If I had it to do over again, I'd restore Zombie Rina's equipment slots, since the Undeads didn't need two extra weapons with all the after-dark bonuses they get.

[Vulture]

Ah well, with human Feanora and her three artifact slots I'm currently at 36 Int as well and I'm just level 16 ^^ But only 13 Atk so far. Altars Of Combat hated me in this game. I didn't care to calculate that to be honest.

The funny thing is: I really don't know what to do with all that int. Who cares about 200 more damage on an ice snake really ? I'd prefer more atk and ldr :s

[Helios]

I've been thinking that in preparation for playing with all Archers that the spell Hypnosis might be their salvation in most battles, but I imagine it would take really high Int to take control of a stack immediately in turn 1. But maybe with Onslaught or a Higher Magic Dragon Arrow followed by Hypnosis, one could whittle down a huge stack and then use it, if one didn't have enough Int to take over the stack at the start. Give them baddies something else to beat on for a bit.

Have you come across Hypnosis in your game? You might be able to make use of all that Int with that spell. I'm interested in finding out.

[Vulture]

Sure Hypnosis will work. And I have it in my game (Pendant Of Iron Will ftw :>)

But you just don't have the Might Runes to get to Onslaught early on. Not if you want Higher Magic 1 or 2 out of 3 first. Maybe I was wrong in wanting that early on (I just did it so I could beat Bogacho right away).

But it's not only the initiative problem I worry about, it's also the pure lack of damage to be completely honest. Idk what obscene amounts of Atk it requires to equate the lack of utility with damage but 15 definitely aren't. Not even in mid-game. And more atk will come at the loss of int. Sure you can give yourself the gear of awesomeness with 30 Atk and 40 Int giving yourself 3 skulls or whatever and it'll work better.

About the spell choice. Idk, I think mass Precision makes more sense than one Dragon Arrows (except if there really is one large stack of something fast and dangerous aka Dragons).

I'm ignorant of that atm, Thorn-Hunters do physical damage but their "spit" isn't considered a projectile, right ?

I just wondered about a new idea about a lvl 1 Dagger+Whip team. I was thinking Sprites, Lake Fairies, Skellies, Bowmen (ok they're lvl 2) and Thorn-Hunters. Might be fun to try that.

[Helios]

Yeah, I don't know whether Onslaught or Higher Magic will be my first priority. I haven't started my game yet, or even done the planning yet. I'd imagine that I'll go for at least one level of HM first, as Cannoneers will be fast enough for the first parts of the game along with some strategic use of Demon Portals. Maybe I'll have enough for Onslaught before I run into some of the real problem units like the Dragons. I must have done a poor job of selecting skills with my last Mage, because I didn't ever get enough runes for Onslaught.

The damage is going to be a big problem, which is why I was thinking of Dragon Arrows first. Precision would probably be the better choice most of the time as long as it's mass. The only items I'd edit in multiple of are ones I've seen the game put in: like Elven Bows. No way on the Pain Skull.

Thorn Hunters and Royal Thorns don't qualify for the archer-boost from the telescopic sight or bow. That would be easy enough to change, though. It's just one line each to change for each of those items inside the ses.kfs items.txt file. I thought about changing it and allowing the thorns for my game, but with the Blackthorn Crown, their damage is already great.

[Vulture]

Wow, no Onslaught at all until the end of the game ? Oo How the hell ? xD I'm 18 and have it (well ok, I snatched map goodies everywhere but in the Labyrinth and Murock, logically), so there are 8-10 more might runes guaranteed to come from levelups plus extra loot, quest rewards and runes from Castle Bogacho.

Changing the effect of the Telescope so the Thorns benefit seems like a good idea. But wearing the Blackthorn Crown on top of it I think is gonna break it, don't you think ? I think you'd be better off wearing the Elven Crown (assuming you go with Hunters+Elves) or a neutral solution with the Battlemage Helmet.

[Helios]

I purposefully didn't go for it last time as I knew Demonesses with Anga's Ruby would go first.

I thought you were asking about the thorns for your game. I don't plan on using them this time. I think it would totally break the game to add them to the Sight and/or the Archer critical bonus set. The Blackthorn Crown alone carried my Paladin on Impossible.

I just realized that until I get Tolerance that the Skeleton Archers are going to cause critically bad morale with the Elves. I'll need to get that quickly or be stuck with Catapults.

[Vulture]

Well, only Demonesses first and the rest of the team going after the quicker ones isn't exactly desirable. For me, that is. I want to act first and control the battle right away and most desirably not only in round one but throughout the entire battle.

When you play no-casualty, you have no other choice, you just CANNOT have the opposition make it halfway through the field and be able to reach every unit they please in the second turn, and the opponent just CANNOT fire at will at your support/ranged units with their archers right away. Your melee/tank has to be in their face first, incl. a phantom or an ice ball for those you cannot block. See, your tanks will have their asses beaten and you need time back for those. If the enemy archers just randomly fire one at the Demonesses and two at the Skellies you're doomed to play this battle to round 10 or further to get all the mana to restore the tank and the Demonesses (both lvl 40 --> 60 mana, maybe 90 if you're not a mage and lack the spell power and must ress the tanks twice) you otherwise just had to Time Back once which you couldn't because you had to Time Back the Skellies.

You see the importance of high init.

€dit: think of Dragon battles for example. It is just a MAJOR advantage and changes the outcome of the battle GREATLY if you're able to lure Dragons into an ambush by lining up your two Vampires and the Demons behind each other. No Red or Black Dragon will ever NOT go for that and instead attack your Skeleton Archers or Inquisitors/Shamans/Demonesses w/ever. If only your Demoness act first you're at the Dragons' mercy and they'll just fly in, no matter what. Not to mention the fact that you could easily take out two stacks of Dragons before they even move with your whole team going first.

[Helios]

Point taken on high Initiative. I can see how it would be necessary to a no-casualty game. Tactics, too, given the ability to set up Traps for Dragons and avoid area-effect spells when necessary.

I made up a plan for my Mages skills given the amount of runes I'm going to get in my game (I don't think I overlooked any of the extras like +8 Might total for the Tournament battles). My wish list needed over 200 Might and Mind runes, and I'm only going to get 136 Might if I don't miss any, plus however many I can buy. My wish list was obviously just a starting point, and I started looking where I could save some runes. Which Might skills do you go skimpy on? I don't see that I'll have the runes for Dark Commander (would have been gravy for the Skellies) or Night Ops. Do you skimp on Rage Control or Master of Spirits? I was thinking of skimping on the latter and spamming to try and compensate. I'll probably have to ditch a level of Frenzy since I have to get 2 Training for the Archers.

Maybe only get 1 level of Chaos Magic (!) to save on some runes, too? That probably won't go well if I plan on using Demon Portals very often. I absolutely have to get the skills in the path for Tolerance, which is a minor drain. Any suggestions?

Of the skills I definitely want, I'll have an excess of 70 or more Magic runes, since I don't really need Destroyer, and no more than 1 level of Archmage. I guess I'll get 3 Alchemy since there's almost nothing to spend those runes on outside of the Magic Tree. I may even get 3 Necromancy just because of the glut of runes.

I've just got to do a little more tweaking (editing in the units) before I start. I've been making some changes to child bonuses to see if they could be viable this game, too, so it should be quite a different experience.

[Vulture]

Master Of Spirits 3/3 is a must for me. There's no way around it, with any class.

Who the **** needs training, mate ? xD It's not like you'll be using Bowmen without Dragon Arrows anyway. And it's not like the fire arrow does any significant damage. And when you face the opponents where the maximum possible damage is crucial... they're fire resistant/immune anyway xD I don't see the point.

Well, if you only use Skellies from the Undeads then I suppose Dark Commander and Nighttime Operations aren't really important. A nice to have but no must.
Frenzy for me is just a prerequisite as a Mage. You don't have the Might Runes to get +6Atk which only then the skill actually does something. Considering the fact that you have 5 damage dealers in your setup and most of the game no more than 8 targets you won't get far with that. I think Destroyer would be the better Alternative.
Everything in the Might tree you'll need to get to Onslaught3 + 3/3 Master of Spirits and 3/3 Bowmen Commander is what I'd recommend. If you have Runes left still, nothing speaks against Destroyer.

Chaos is vital at least on lvl2. You'll want to have the opportunity to take care of a few damaged stacks that are threatening to come to your base line with a Fire rain or an Ice Snake or a Geyser.

[Helios]

Thanks for the input, Vulture. Getting one fiery arrow is pointless for the latter part of the game, so that point in Training will save me some. And Frenzy is quite expensive for such low returns. I won't have enough Atk for it to make much of a difference to get +6 anyway, and will free up some runes for Rage Control (?) since I didn't have the runes for the last level of it.

To see the effects, I cheated (and then removed) to give myself two Elven Bows, and it ups the damage nicely (doesn't work on Cannoneers, as it shouldn't)--5-6 base on Bowmen.

Having to go all the way down to Tolerance with this squad was painful. I didn't need several of those skills. I decided against any Reserve. I'll just have a stack of Catapults garrisoned at Kronberg and bring them to Gremlin fights.

I think I'll have to get Chaos 3 to set up Demon Portals to block my front line against Karador, Xeona, and Baal--I doubt I'll have enough Int to Hypnotize the latter two's Demons. I've been quite disappointed how low the leadership cap is on the Hypnosis spell, and my Mage already has insane Int--15 at level 7 (the base will be 25 Int due to all the level-up bonuses, altars, and Intellect Ring permanent bonus!!!). This guy is going to crack the high 40s when fully equipped at level 30. I wasn't planning on any of The Destroyer this game, but it would always be nice. I'm wondering if slapping Kamikaze on a unit I use Hypnosis on will be a nice way to set up a bomb in the midst of the enemy's ranks. Thus far, the buffed Summon Phoenix is holding the troops away from my Archers, but I'm still only in Darion. It still gets killed by the end of the second round.

I just found out that you can fight Xeona as soon as you meet her. I didn't know that before. I'm not using her as my wife, but it's good to know for the future. How low a level do you think you could take her down at? With Mass Magic Shackles, she is a lot less dangerous than other "Boss" type battles.

And I found a new bug: the werewolf in Darion didn't drop his blood, and the game won't let me edit it in no matter what, so that quest is bugged. The hunter just has an empty text box when I go see him. Oh, well. It's a drop in the bucket.

[Vulture]

Yeah, you can fight her right away. Agree with the mass Magic Shackles. Using that she really is less of a nuisance. Imho the easiest castle fight in late game. Compared to Baal she's a joke.

I never thought about what level you can take her first. I'm mostly in my 20s when I do but then she's mostly an easy bite. I'm 18 or 19 now, maybe I'll go and see. I want her as my wife anyway. Got two Archmage Staves I can't use right now xD

[Helios]

I'll be interested to hear when you take her out. With a Paladin and 3x Sacred Anger, I bet she could be taken down in the teens. With no losses, I don't know. Still no experience there. :p

[Vulture]

Probably, but Holy Anger includes 15 Might and 24 Mind Runes you just cannot spare, not even as a Paladin ^^ So I guess we'll never find out without editing ^^

[Helios]

I managed to get 3x Sacred Anger with my last Paladin pretty early on (at least by level 19), but I wasn't using Undead or Demons that time around, so I saved a ton of runes from getting to Tolerance 2 and Dark Commander. All I gave him was a Banner of True Faith to give him 10 more Mind runes.

Edit: You were right about the lack of damage output on the Archer team. Even with all five units shooting one stack they usually can't even kill it, and I'm only at the IoF. This could get messy. Battles are already a grind. I desperately need Mass Precision, and Level 3 Order to get a better Phoenix. This one dies in the first turn every battle now.

[Vulture]

Tried Phantom'ing the Royal Thorns or their Sowing yet ? Adding Target to that should compensate for the failure that is the Phoenix ^^ But you'll need Teleport II at the very least I suppose. I really don't see a way that could work to be honest but I can#t stop giving you advice because I want it to work, too xD

[Helios]

I'm still going with the Bowmen, Skellies, Elves, Hunters, and Cannoneers. It's actually going really well since I got my buffed Ancient Phoenix, which I should be able to use as a tank until Land of the Dead/Demonis and beyond--in my editing, I left the Phoenix magic immune, so I can't use Target on it, but it's getting the job done for the most part. Getting Mass Precision was great, too. Hunters doing 16-19 base damage (!) with the two Elven Bows. Actually it might be 13-19, I'd better go check. I was curious, so I didn't go straight to Bogacho like I thought I would, and was struggling because I was playing normally through the IoF. But by the end, I was doing much better. Kraken with no losses in turn 6.

[Vulture]

Sweet :> Round 6 on impossible is very impressive. But then again, you got yourself 2 Elven Bows ^^

[Helios]

That second Bow plus Mass Precision really helps! My damage output is Archers: 6-7, Skellies: 3-6, Elves: 8-9, Hunters 15-19, Cannoneers 10-16. These guys are taking down everything pretty easily. I lost no units in three hours of play yesterday. And only lost 100 units to my second Double fight due to carelessness. (I forget to Ress some of my stacks sometime. I have horrid short-term memory.) I bet I don't get tested until the last 1/3rd of the game, and then it will become really brutal.

Here's some more screens. First is no losses against Enemen. For some reason, enemies love attacking the Phoenix. He never even reached my troops. The second is the spider boss, but I was way overleveled in both battles. It took awhile longer--maybe 8 or 9 turns. I don't remember. I've been rocking a 30% Exp boost from very early on plus another 5% KoL on the Undead enemies. I feel like I'm on a higher level than I ever have been before at this point. I've cleared chronologically all of Darion now, Upper and Lower Hadar, and expect no problems with the Underground Sea, Taron Mines, Ardan's Peaks, and Mehgard before I leave for Ellinia. I may wait to do the Gremlin's Castle until then, as I expect problems with dragons, and the extra stats I acquire will be of great use for when they descend on me.

[Vulture]

Clearly the insane dmg output and the immortal buffed Phoenix break the game ^^ But it's quite the only way to play this setup.

Can't wait for Demonis/Ultrax/Labyrinth and the likes. I still have no idea how to make up for the initiative problem against Dragons and Archdemons and the nonexisting distance they create by their speed. I mean if you can start first you'll be able to put 3 troops behind Icy Thorns and maybe two in a line so Dragons will go after them of which one you can Time Back and resurrect the other. But you'll lack 2 damage dealers as they will be swarmed with Dragons and only be able to melee them. Placing one trap on each end of the line will spare you some incoming damage. Against Green Dragons, however, I'm stumped for an answer as this is beyond me. You can't guess where they're gonna use their Capture Target from as it doesn't necessarily have to be from the front. They can just break up that line and then other Dragons will choose a different angle diagonally and all of a sudden hit the 3 behind the Icy Thorns.

[Helios]

Well, a sign of things to come. I cleared those above areas with no losses, then went back to fight Dreddho, the boss of the tournament. I tried 3 times, and he killed me every time! I'm going to have to try and figure something out, if I can't even win against him! I only managed to kill 2 of his 4 dragon stacks, and he just sat sent the Fire Dragonflies right in with them, and I was continually decimated by his 3 ranged units: 2 Evil Beholders and a stack of 16 Cyclops. Mass Precision doesn't do enough damage, whichever unit I put Dragon Arrows on usually ended up with a dragon in its face and unable to fire, and of course, the Phoenix is of absolutely no use in holding back any of his troops. When I actually did get Dragon Arrows off, they weren't doing enough damage, due to the Mage's bad leadership.

I'll have to come up with a new strategy before I try again. My Traps are almost strong enough to kill 5 Black Dragons (the size of both these stacks), but still, even when I figure out this battle, I don't know how I'll deal with 100 Dragons in one battle.

[Vulture]

100 Dragons ? Glad there's no such fight that features 100 Dragons ^^

Well, as I said, without Icy Thorns and a 2-in-a-row bait for the dragons there just is no other way to keep the Skellies unharmed and able to Dragon Arrow away. There just is none ^^

[Helios]

I thought I fought over 100 of them in one Ultrax battle last game? There were eight stacks, at least two stacks were over 20 Emeralds each, and the rest were between 10-19, I thought. Maybe a couple of stacks were Fire Dragonflies and I forgot. I hope I'm wrong!

Well, I beat Dreddho. It came about in a way I never expected. I didn't use Ice Thorns, I didn't try to kill the dragons first. Some screens are attached, and here's what I had to start with casting: Turn 1: Summon Phoenix (to send at the Fire Dragonflies to hold them at bay and give the Cyclops something to target) and a Trap. Turn 2: 2 Traps. Turn 3: Trap and Mass Precision. I got pretty lucky, that all of my traps were landed on, and I barely had to shoot the dragons at all to kill them. I even whittled down the two Evil Beholder stacks with a shot apiece before turning full on the dragons, and just kept eating their attacks those first three turns with Glot's Armor, and Time Back blunting part of it.

In the end, I ran out of Mana, so I couldn't do it without losses, but I did ress all but 11 units. (10 Bowmen and an Elf.) I could've waited until a higher level and won without losses, but I can always beat him at level 20ish, and this won't resolve the problems and inevitable losses that I'll face later, so I just went with it. I don't see how no losses with this group even with all my edits could pull off an entire game of no losses.

[Vulture]

Congratulations on that :> Well, without Inquisitors it's indeed very tedious, if not impossible, to resurrect everything anyway when you take that many losses. You just don't have the rage. And without a summon you can cast Magic Spring on and put Poison Cloud over you don't have the mana past turn 10 anyway.

I agree, it's virtually impossible to play no-casuatlies with that setup. Especially when you face Geyser, Armageddon and the likes in the Labyrinth. You just don't have the mana, nor the mana recovery skills. At least not as long as your Phoenix is magic immune ^^

[Helios]

Thanks, Vulture. I forgot to mention the pivotal change in strategy also required I unequip a Bow for Rahha's Shield, so I could eat those dragon attacks much more easily. I haven't had time to play since.

[Helios]

Well I ran into an unexpected problem. I can't enter Death Valley. My game crashes and exits every time I try to go there. This game has been weird from the start, with the hunter and wolf quest bugged, the werewolf that bit the guy in Darion didn't drop the blood. Now this. From looking at the savedata.txt files, it seems that Karador's Castle, his face file and a whole lot more, about 200 pages, isn't there. Every save file seems to be a different length, so I can't just do a simple copy and paste even if I can find which data is missing. Those files are so unintelligible, I'm not sure I'll be able to copy and paste from a different playthrough to make it appear, and I don't even know what all is actually missing from Death Valley that's breaking the game.

I'll search the tech forum here, but my guess is that this game of mine is over--the save files are so complex that I don't know how I'll be able to sift through it all. :( Super disappointed.

Edit: It appears others have had problems with areas not ever loading in different places, but no one as yet (page 8 of tech forums) found a solution. Ugh.

[Vulture]

Yeah, I've heard of that a lot in my time here on the forums, back when there were more people playing. I never heard about a solution either. Sorry to hear about that, mate :/

[Helios]

It sucks, but I think what I'll do is start a new game, try and copy and paste my combat statistics into it so as to save that, and then just avoid all battles except the Plugens fight, the Turtle, pay Lucky James, and fight Bogacho, then just zoom back to Death Valley in a new game, editing the save file to give myself the same leadership, stat, equipment, etc. and just not pick up anything from any area I had visited in the corrupted game. It won't end up exactly the same as I had planned. I won't bother editing the remaining runes to pick up to be the same as what this corrupted game had, etc. But it will be close enough statistically that I don't think it will really make a difference, and it will keep my combat stats and losses for the final tally to be accurate.

I think I know how to edit all that in a save file. I think.

[Vulture]

Yeah, I was about to suggest you do that. I just didn't know whether you can pull it off or not. Don't forget to let me know if it worked the way you planned it.

[Helios]

It's more complicated than I thought, with the character stats spread out in at least two different areas. I may just copy the battle data and cheat to change the rest, as I know the latter won't corrupt the game. My first attempt at this corrupted my file. There's so many lines of code in there, I'm not sure which all should be copied, e.g. what the heck is heraldric, and why does it have an entry (?). I'll have something working soon, though.

I may have to re-unlock the spirits, wife, and kids (I had four since I modded them) so I can find exactly where the spirits levels and whatnot go. Interestingly, the wife is considered an inventory item, which I should have realized from modding. I wonder if there's a cheatcode: item wife_feanora?

When I've tried to insert code into the save where I think it should go in a new game file, something seems to be going wrong. At least it's not hard to unlock the four spirits, and wives, if I have to do it that way.

EDIT: Vulture, I think I found at least a partial predictor of the error so it won't ever happen to me (and you) again. Looking at the save report of the corrupted file, the Actor Dragon Skaar was not in the file either. I would guess Haas' Labyrinth is missing too. Perhaps that dragon is a marker of this error? I remember now thinking, "what, no dragon cloak this game? That's weird."

Hooray! It appears that I transferred everything over to a new game flawlessly. I just wonder if I'll get a crash since I already have my spirits in the training center. Now, I'll just use the dev code to delete enemies in regions blocking my way and not pick up anything in any areas I had been to before. I doubt it will take long with a level 26 Mage to get through the obligatory battles.

EDIT 2: OK, it mostly worked. Giving myself the spirits did break them once I got the chest, permanently locking Zerock. I didn't bother checking the others. But I'm in Death Valley, and retro-edited myself out even the Turtle and Bogacho battles so my stats are identical to what they would've been in the corrupted game. I'm glad to be back where I was! I'm really looking forward to Karador.

[Vulture]

So much work just for this one game ^^ You really are dedicated !
Thanks for the advice on the corrupted game thing. I'll look for the Skaar entry next time I start a new game.

[Helios]

I absolutely hate losing progress toward goals. Sinking 30 some hours into this game and losing it really irked me! I'm just glad I'm back to where I was.

EDIT: Karador is dead. He was boringly easy. The easiest ever. He didn't even break down the walls in front of my troops! The archer set plus morale boosts have my army dishing out criticals way over 50% of the time. I didn't think I made my Ancient Phoenix too powerful, and he did manage to kill it once, and nearly a second time, but my turn 2 Demon Portals gave him two more juicy targets: 8 Archdemons and over 130 Cerberi. Maybe I made the game too easy? I'll attach the screens to the boring fight.

On the other hand, I got my ass handed to me by the enemy hero Nehty, who had a stack of 41 (!!) Giants plus another 17! He was much more difficult. I guess from here on out, my Phoenix isn't going to be able to keep the enemies at bay.

I'll have to post another message for all the screenshots.

[Helios]

I should have realized it going in--Karador's wooden walls were an awesome boon to this army, since my five shooters didn't need physical contact to kill the enemy. I just fired away. With my Int, my Mass Precision adds 50% damage to my already pumped up units with the two Elven Bows. If the enemy can't close the distance on me in a hurry (like Nehty's 3 Speed and 2 more running Giants) and kill my Phoenix and Demon Portal units, they can't touch me.

Despite the ease of Karador, I wonder if this army will be able to kill Haas. Being surrounded is this army's worst nightmare.

[Helios]

Oh, and here's Nehty's setup. I took over 4000 damage from the two Giants stomping in round one.

[Vulture]

Ok, that's a nasty setup with Nehty, really. And I knew Karador would be a piece of cake ^^ The fight is just predestined for an archer-based setup and the use of Demon Portal. He just keeps raising the handful of Bone dragons that do little to no damage while you can fire away.

[Helios]

Now I'm holding out hope for a severe test from Baal. No challenge = no fun! I don't know if I'll have the Mana to keep summoning Demon Portals and the Phoenix for long enough to hold off all his Demons.

Some screenshots of Xeona. It got dicey with her--I couldn't cast all the spells I needed. No chance for Mass Demon Slayer or Precision, as I *had* to keep her from reaching me, so turn 1 took Mass Magic Shackles plus the Phoenix. Then a Demon portal to soak up a spot. She decided to Sheep me every turn until she was out of mana. Then she used Fire Rain on me twice, just to make Ressing difficult. No losses, again. But I just realized I got used to using the Animate Dead spell from my Undead game for Ressing, which the creator made over twice as powerful as without it. If I'd been using Resurrection all this time, I'd have piles of corpses. And for some reason, my computer didn't record a shot of the end of the battle, so you'll just have to trust me that I didn't lose any units after the last screenshot.

[Helios]

Vulture, you were right there aren't 100 Dragons in any of the Ultrax battles. But there was 99 in this one! I had to slaughter them as fast as possible in order to achieve no losses. But again, this was before I realized I was using the uber Ressing spell. There's no way this battle could have been won with this army without major losses. It was fast and furious, so I took some screens of it. Mass Precision and Dragon Slayer in Round 1, then Ressing and Time Back to make up for the losses.

[Helios]

And there were 98 in another battle! I thought my run of no losses was doomed here with so many Black Dragons in this setup, but I managed to Ress everyone back due to a little luck (my Cannoneers didn't crit the last stack when they retaliated). More screens.

[Vulture]

The Xeona Battle must have been a pita. Did I see a 254 stack of Demonesses there ? Without myriads of Elven Bows and other knickknack I'd say there is no way you could have even won the battle ^^
Least of all the Dragon Battles there. Holy ****, 99 and 98. I've never had this many Dragons in Ultrax. I mean I've had huge stacks of 30+ but I really can't recall an overall count of 99. I'll pay attention this time in Ultrax and count them. Sadly, I barely have the time (and motivation) to play my mage game atm. I've arrived in Ellinia and it's incredibly boring because now that my Skull is upgraded I'm just way too overpowered. Enemy troops are match mostly and I annihilate them and I'm just playing around with my Spirits to level them equally. And of course I'm failing at that. Zerock is trailing behind so badly... narf.

[Helios]

A part of me wants to try a completed unmodded Archer game now and see if they can even survive these battles. But I'd probably end up angry and frustrated when I found out that they can't, which is why I modded the game in the first place! Btw, 2 Elven Bows isn't all that uncommon. I had it happen twice in the last five unedited games, and in one of those, there were 3!

Still, my Int is insane for this game 48 with the final upgrade, so I'm dealing out tremendous damage with Mass Dragon Slayer and Precision. The base for this game was 25 Int. I've never seen a base stat over 18 before.

I thought I had a similarly difficult Dragon battle on Ultrax with my Undeads. I must had somewhere over several hundred casualties even with the ridiculous Animate Dead spell mod.

Do you have any strategies for no losses when it's just a battle of that many Dragons? How do you distract the final stack to attack something else while you Ress your troops? Granted, you can Time Back a stack, and if you had Ancient and normal Vampires, you could suck blood to restore those, but it seems like with Dragons, the best way to avoid losses is to end the battle as quickly as possible. (Mine were 2 and 3 turns.)

The distance was the only thing that gave me a chance to win those battles with no losses, as just with Karador, being able to hit over a distance was invaluable.

Dragons close range so quickly that trying to distract them away with an Ice Ball or Totem hasn't ever worked for me--if I place one in the first turn, it gets ganged up on and killed too quickly, and later, the Dragons are in my face and would rather gobble one of my units instead.

Yes, that was over 250 Demonesses. Luckily, they can't evade Skeleton Archer attacks, and I got lucky with a few other shots connecting. One stack made it to my troops, but I was able to replenish the losses pretty easily with the spell and Xeona wasting her mana on Sheep.

I understand getting bored with your game. I was bored for awhile with how ridiculously easy some of the battles were until I got to Death Valley. You use Zerock often? I almost never use him unless I desperately need a wall to redirect the battlefield. It seems like I'm constantly using the Reaper and Lina with my Rage.

[Vulture]

No, I actually don't use Zerock. But this game I really want to get him and Sleem at least to level 27. I have actually never seen any of their spells upgraded to maximum. I would like to see a max level Underground Blades only once in my lifetime ^^ I gave up on thinking I could have a 4xlvl30 game. I just don't have the patience for that. It would require me to keep as many opponents alive as possible until I used each spirit at least once. Too much mana and too many losses to restore afterwards. If I did that in every battle I'd just play for 50 hours. I usually just use Chargers and time Back and by that point usually everything is dead and all I have to do is drop a poison rain over the last unit and put Demon Summons with Magic Spring next to them. Then just wait until mana is full while using Holy Anger everytime it's off reload. If necessary, Charm a male humanoid unit and magic spring them, too ^^

No losses strategies for Dragons I've put down repeatedly in thos forum. As long as you have two Vampires and Demons you basically cannot leave the battle without losses, provided you have some considerable amount of attack and/or a Dragon Slayer's Sword and/or the spell. Archers behind Icy Thorns, offer the Dragons a line of Demons and one Vampire kind at best and give them hell. Demons because of their insane Defense/ldr ratio and their fire resistance and you know why Vampires ^^ There's not much more you can do than to have superior damage and resilience. At least that's what it boils down to :)

With 5 archers you have none of these options which is why you will inevitably lose an unedited game in Ultrax at the very very very latest, if not earlier. Especially when there are no 48 (wtf?) int...

[Helios]

Oh, I forgot about your post on dragons. I even printed it. Sorry about that.

OK. I'm finished! I had to fight Haas four times in order to win, and managed to do it without any losses and just using the traditional Ressing spell, not "Animate Dead". The first two battles, Haas killed me! I wasn't too surprised--he had 137 Dragons, 25 Ancient Ents, and 20 Giants. The two Elven Bows had to go. The winning combination turned out to be a Dragon Slayer Sword and Rahha's Shield. Turn 1 was Mass Battle Cry and Mass Dragon Slayer. I managed to clear out one stack and whittle down the others. In Round 2, I think I used Time Back, and cast Mass Precision, but I'm forgetting the other spell. It might have been Dispel. By the end of this round, I'd cleared all but the Giants and Ancient Ents. After that, it was just a matter of eating a couple of Armageddons, and summoning my Ancient Phoenix for the Ancient Ent to spew wasps at (luckily, he didn't target my other units), and waiting for Haas to run out of mana and slowing Ressing everyone back.

So, I'm pretty shocked, but I could have done this modded game without losses if I'd done your minimalist approach of the Plugens fight, Turtle, Bogacho, and kiting every open area, and if I'd had the patience. I take that back about needing Animate Dead to make it with no losses, too.

That is because, just for kicks, I went back to an old save and booted up the copy of KBTL on my HD that is unedited, loaded my save with Feanora not giving a Morale or Initiative bonus, and even with her normal equipment slots, no buffed Phoenix etc. and I managed to beat those two Ultrax battles and Xeona with no losses.

The caveat with Xeona is that I forgot that I'd opened Sacred Anger to the Mage, and had it at level 3, so I had +15 Attack on the Demons. Plus, it was utterly impractical to beat her or attempt beating the game with no losses with this army, as it took me 2 hours to beat her with no losses due to how depleted my Mana got by having to make a wall of Demon Portals and then sit there with a stack of Scoffer Imps kicking my demon summons with Magic Spring on them. I kept using Rage Draining endlessly and had Chargers at max.

Without Sacred Anger, I might not have been able to beat her, but I think I could have substituted Dragon Arrows to make up the difference. Regardless, even with optimal equipment and the game I selected only because of the incredible base 25 Int, and the evidence of beating the Dragon battles and Xeona, I don't think an unmodded no-losses game with Archers is possible. I'd have to do more testing which I'm not interested in right now--I'm thinking of all Dwarves next--as I can't remember if Soaring creatures can fly over Demon Portals to replace the Phoenix tank. I think some of the battle arenas are just too small to set up the necessary Demon Portal and Zerock's Wall choke points to keep the melee stacks at bay. Plus, it would be difficult to make up for being able to send the Phoenix tank to park in front of a ranged enemy stack or two to avoid the damage from them. I don't really know. Before playing this, I thought the Archers couldn't even beat the game. After going back and winning that Ultrax battle and Xeona, I think there's a slim chance of it, provided you give yourself optimal equipment.

That said, as a summary of this game: with 40+ Int and the Elven Bows for all but a few Hero battles, the Archers are as deadly as any army setup. Mass Precision adding 50% to their damage is devastating. Adding another 50+% with Mass Dragon or Demon Slayer plus the Ale Barrel and Telescopic Sight is a massacre when adding in the Critical Chance bonus. But this army has to have Mage support to get those huge spell boosts plus 3 double casting turns. (Interestingly, I didn't realize that Hypnosis was based off your Leadership, not Int, so it is a better choice as a distraction for a Warrior or a Paladin instead.)

Since I modded my game, rather than posting a ton of messages with screenshots, I've made a tree part zip file of shots that shows the fight with Bagud, Haas, the final game stats (my score sucks because I couldn't copy over the number of quests I completed), and everything about my character, Feanora, and the babies I edited. I'm going to remove a few bonuses from what I dubbed two super babies, since the 50% base Int boost ended up 13 instead of the 8 max I had expected. I also added 1 Mind Rune per level up for the Mage to be able to have a chance to get Sacred Anger.

(Since I introduced some mods to my game, I guess this topic should be in the mods forum now :p)

[Vulture]

What have you actually not edited ? ^^ I completely lost track of everything and I have no way to put this in perspective anymore. But I'll say congratulations for finishing this huge task ^^

[Helios]

Thanks, Vulture. I suppose it was a lot in retrospect and somewhat comparing apples to oranges. I overdid the modding because I thought the Archers would suck far worse than they actually did. Here's an exhaustive list of all the changes:

In total, I modded the Phoenixes, the kids while leaving enough randomness that one might be mad they had a kid but not ruined (I got lucky this game--my next game with Gerda I've already checked and I got bad kids for all Dwarves, but I'm going to deal with the hand I was dealt and the decision to have three kids anyway), Feanora, the right hand of each hero to be able to hold a second weapon, the right side of each hero's body to allow for artifact/regalia, added 1 Mind rune per level (per the Sacred Anger boost which I'm now removing). I switched around the Mind skill tree so Reserve was no longer dependent on anything (I always thought it silly to bury it beneath such a worthless skill as Diplomacy), the same for Inquisition (which I thought silly to bury at the bottom of the skill tree to make you have to invest that much if there weren't many Inquisitors in the game)--neither of which I used, anyway. And I did the same for Onslaught and Higher Magic, but decided not to make use of the earlier access after all.

For all my future games, I am reverting the skill trees to normal except for the Reserve and Inquisition edits, and locking all the class skills again. I am debating how many bonuses a wife and baby should give, and have removed one from each of the super babies, with most babies giving 3 bonuses or less, and four super babies with 5 bonuses or less. That still may be too much, but given the randomness, my "Tank" baby that gives +7 Def and some other bonuses to defensive-related stats isn't great to have with all Archers, for example.

I'd planned on attaching a +1 morale bonus and/or a +1 Speed and Initiative to each wife for each of my playthroughs (if they didn't already have one), but I didn't realize how much just 1 extra morale makes in terms of critical hits. The Archers were insane with Feanora's +1 morale, in addition to the morale boosts from the Elven Crown, Ale Barrel, and the critical chance boost with the Archer set. They didn't need it. So, I'm reconsidering that on some of the wives like Mirabella giving +1 to Humans.

The Phoenix was the most important edit. I changed the Young Phoenix to 35 Atk, 30 Def, 6 Init, 6 Speed, 400 HP, and 80-110 damage. The Adult Phoenix to 50 Atk, 45 Def, 7 Init, 7 Speed, 800 HP, 120-140 damage. Both of these were worthless by the time of the pirate ship battles in the Islands of Freedom.

The Ancient Phoenix I got creative with. The base stats were 65 Atk, 60 Def, 10 added Def when defending, 8 Init, 8 Speed, 2000 HP, 150-300 damage. But I knew that Ancient Phoenix would be toast by the end game, so, since I don't know how to make a Phoenix that scaled based off your Int score, for every 10 Int points I had, I modded the atom file to add +5 Atk and Def, for every 5 Int +500 HP with a maximum of 5000 HP, and for every 10 Int +25 minimum and maximum damage.

Once I'm done with the other games, or bored, I may give the Archers another shot with a much more traditional game. I figure it will be a continual refining process with each game of the mods I want to include in the game and which are too much (I definitely want the kids to be of use--it's a worthless factor in the original game).

[Helios]

Dwarves are slow. I'm just realizing how key it is for the Dwarf and Miner units to be used close together so the Dwarf takes the hits, (as best as possible) and the Miners don't get retaliated on. I'm also pairing the Alchemist to the Giant stack for when the Alchemists need to run into the fray in turn 3. Messy.