No Loss thoughts?

[Zechnophobe]

So, My first playthrough I'm just doing on Hard, without hugely worrying about No Loss. Just want to get a feel for how the game flows.

The tutorial fights will be easy, since you have the high level troops for it. But I'm pretty worried that you just won't be able to get off that first island without serious effort for no-loss. You don't get many spells, and most of your troop selection are medium health melee creatures. Slingers are very flimsy, and Berserkers can't really tank. Maybe if you limit yourself to soothsayers and Axe throwers?

Perhaps the Bear guy will sometimes sell polar bears?

[skycrow]

I like no loss,but i prefer minimizing loss .

Sometimes no-loss make me feel stressful and limit my troops types

[hotfix666]

So, My first playthrough I'm just doing on Hard, without hugely worrying about No Loss. Just want to get a feel for how the game flows.

The tutorial fights will be easy, since you have the high level troops for it. But I'm pretty worried that you just won't be able to get off that first island without serious effort for no-loss. You don't get many spells, and most of your troop selection are medium health melee creatures. Slingers are very flimsy, and Berserkers can't really tank. Maybe if you limit yourself to soothsayers and Axe throwers?

Perhaps the Bear guy will sometimes sell polar bears?

no loss is not a part for me but I shall fix it on impossibel :P

Im very happy this game have achievements :grin:
You think you can get all on finish the game first time on impossibel and ofcourse fastest you can? Some people finish CW on 7 days and me on 12 and that ok for me. My goal is finish Warriors of the North so fast I can but not 20 days.

I play first island on "normal" and that was easy.
I gonna start the game now on impossibel and see if i can fix it. I play crossworld so much so im already little tierd on the Warriors of the North :P

Maybe get all achievements its impossibel with "impossibel and no loss" first time playing?

[hotfix666]

So, My first playthrough I'm just doing on Hard, without hugely worrying about No Loss. Just want to get a feel for how the game flows.

The tutorial fights will be easy, since you have the high level troops for it. But I'm pretty worried that you just won't be able to get off that first island without serious effort for no-loss. You don't get many spells, and most of your troop selection are medium health melee creatures. Slingers are very flimsy, and Berserkers can't really tank. Maybe if you limit yourself to soothsayers and Axe throwers?

Perhaps the Bear guy will sometimes sell polar bears?

in this game you can not digg after wander scrolls so thats can be hard on impossibel?

[Loopy]

Started my first game on impossible as a mage. Ahriman is a ridiculous stone wall to a no loss game. Soothsayers just plain suck at resurrection, undead are immune to too many things that could make it easier, and your ranged abilities are just too horrible.

I have level 2 order magic and level 2 rune magic. Rune magic is the only damage spells I've gotten, Winter Dance DOES tear them up well, but with skeletons able to bone gate behind me and skeleton archers just plain tearing things up it's nigh impossible not to suffer at least two losses, and Soothsayers can only heal one. And Ahriman himself has enough mana to cast Poison Skull any time throughout the whole battle to instantly end your attempt.

Berserkers do tear things to shreds though. Rune of Attack + Berserker + Shock Shield can easily turn into two critical hits at 50 attack. It's saved my butt more than once to be able to output 400 damage to a stack in a single round. Low health kills them if someone else gets the first hit in though, and they will charge right into it on the next round.

I'm going to try loading up on bears and doing it that way. Until now I've been ignoring the neutrals for the morale bonus, but maybe they will work better.

I wonder if Warrior Maidens could be available, or if Stone Skin could appear. Either of those could make this much more doable.

[Zhuangzi]

I'm sick of no-losses, even though I imagine it's possible on Impossible here like in previous KB games. I'm just going for low losses and if 2 slinger die, meh. :)

[Razorflame]

Started my first game on impossible as a mage. Ahriman is a ridiculous stone wall to a no loss game. Soothsayers just plain suck at resurrection, undead are immune to too many things that could make it easier, and your ranged abilities are just too horrible.

I have level 2 order magic and level 2 rune magic. Rune magic is the only damage spells I've gotten, Winter Dance DOES tear them up well, but with skeletons able to bone gate behind me and skeleton archers just plain tearing things up it's nigh impossible not to suffer at least two losses, and Soothsayers can only heal one. And Ahriman himself has enough mana to cast Poison Skull any time throughout the whole battle to instantly end your attempt.

Berserkers do tear things to shreds though. Rune of Attack + Berserker + Shock Shield can easily turn into two critical hits at 50 attack. It's saved my butt more than once to be able to output 400 damage to a stack in a single round. Low health kills them if someone else gets the first hit in though, and they will charge right into it on the next round.

I'm going to try loading up on bears and doing it that way. Until now I've been ignoring the neutrals for the morale bonus, but maybe they will work better.

I wonder if Warrior Maidens could be available, or if Stone Skin could appear. Either of those could make this much more doable.


as mage u can at least cast spells:)

i'm playing impossible with a warrior

and ahriman is really one pain in the ass with his spells

i just can't kill his units quick enough meh :/

and SLINGER really are the worst sucky units ever produced lol their low hp is ridicoulous

[Bhruic]

The tutorial fights will be easy, since you have the high level troops for it. But I'm pretty worried that you just won't be able to get off that first island without serious effort for no-loss. You don't get many spells, and most of your troop selection are medium health melee creatures. Slingers are very flimsy, and Berserkers can't really tank. Maybe if you limit yourself to soothsayers and Axe throwers?

Perhaps the Bear guy will sometimes sell polar bears?

Yeah, it's extremely difficult to pull off. Even killing the 4 heroes to get the whips was difficult because of their tendancy to cast damage-based spells. The major problem - and difference from the previous games - is that you are hemmed in. You just can't go anywhere else until you beat Ahriman, but it's very easy to get to a point where he's the only fight you have left (well, barring the huge skeleton/skeleton archer stack). If you had the option of hitting up another island, doing some more fights and leveling up, or finding different troops to hire, you might stand a chance.

I'm playing Mage/Hard, and I'm almost at the point of just saying "screw it" and accepting losses on the fight. Barring a restart, there's really nothing else I can do to try and improve my chances.

[Totoro]

Maybe losses are inevitable in WoTN. Don't become too obsessed about it. Just try to enjoy the game.

[Zechnophobe]

in this game you can not digg after wander scrolls so thats can be hard on impossibel?

I did no-loss in KB:AP just fine without abusing the dig effect. That said, if you want a minimum time game, yeah... it's going to be a lot rougher.

[Zechnophobe]

Meant to ask, has anyone gotten Jarls or Maidens on the first island? That'd probably make no-loss completely doable right there, especially for a mage. Maidens are freaking amazing at this, and will only get better once you factor in phantom/gift.

As I sorta insinuated, I'm just playing through the game to start to get a feel for things. Looks like you can always get Jotun once you can fly, and they are decently tanky. I'm not quite sure how to go through the first island without losses, but 2nd island onward looks pretty doable.

Maybe get a bunch of 'call of nature' scrolls, and just spam them during the Ahriman fight to make him less likely to target your only units, and cheese the RNG? Sorta extreme, but I think it would work.

[Mystic Phoenix]

SPOILER

And there are two more fight to come. I was lucky and got three call of Nature spells which made he fight against Ahriman do-able - I only lost one berserker and might have been better in case I got snakes instead of 2x hyenas. But I'm quite sure you cannot win the next two battles without casualties (and I'm also quite sure someone will prove me wrong sooner or later :)), so I said good-bye to a no-loss game for now.

[impy]

Well, I restarted the game 50+ times to see what the conditions are on the first island. Here are the observations :

Hunter sells always 2 x basic bears +wolves. Never spells, items, other units.
Runolv sells always wolves + soothsayers only. usually 1-3 potions of both mana & rage. Only twice I've seen him sell extra level 1 item, vampire stake I think. Also always sells 2 x spells, rune magic only.
Castle sells always slingers + vikings only. No spells. items vary, but are very low level. The best I've seen is helm +2 def, boots +2def (unupgraded spike boots), Shield +3def or berserker shield (better)
blacksmith sells always axethrowers and berserkers. No spells, 2 or 3 (rate) very low level items. Mind you, it can be level 1 items which can be upgraded later on nicely, i've seen staff of herbsage there for example.

Since slingers & wolves & snakes are weak, the line-up must be made from berserker, 2 x bears, axethrower, soothsayer, viking.

you cannot dig chests hoping for nice RNG, and there is no rage spell upgrade yet either. You cannot really buy spells apart from Runolv so you have to find them.
warrior char. needs 17 magic runes for either order magic (heal..) or distorsion magic (stone skin, slow..), but acquiring 17 off is nearly impossible.
The only means of healing for warrior char. is therefore soothsayers or heal scrolls.
The gift spell to recharge soothsayer only affects units 1-2 level ( at level 1). I have not played mage char. yet, but i guess you would need to upgrade rune magic to 2-3 (to affect soothsayers), which might be impossible on initial island.

I came close to defeating Ahriman as warrior which I played (att: 8,def:16, leader:775, 2 x nature call scroll) but so far nothing. Remember there is another nasty necromancer in the lair. I guess skald or mage are better suited for this.

That brings a question : what were the developers thinking? No-loss challenge in various forms has always been a part of Kings bounty community. I find it hard to believe it can only be done as result of some extreme RNG if at all. we'll see, game has been out only for 2 days..

[zjazd18]

Skald seems to be the best - song of helheim is pretty sweet against udead, and diversions made some battles extremly easy, when 2 archer stacks dont make a move on first round you know you won the lottery :).

But yeah Ahriman seems to be only doable with heavy Call of Nature abuse. I think main problem is that you cannot level your rage spells from the start, which leads to doing dmg only from units who are mostly melee that get retaliated.

[Loopy]

SPOILER

And there are two more fight to come. I was lucky and got three call of Nature spells which made he fight against Ahriman do-able - I only lost one berserker and might have been better in case I got snakes instead of 2x hyenas. But I'm quite sure you cannot win the next two battles without casualties (and I'm also quite sure someone will prove me wrong sooner or later :)), so I said good-bye to a no-loss game for now.

I just gave up vs Ahriman and the next two bosses I no-lossed in a few tries without any special tactics. Maybe I just got incredibly lucky though. Restarting now since I want to find the way to beat this.

1). I have not played mage char. yet, but i guess you would need to upgrade rune magic to 2-3 (to affect soothsayers), which might be impossible on initial island.

Frankly Soothsayers are balls. Their resurrection spell is by far the worst in the game. You need rune magic just because Winter Dance and Magic Missile will be your only sources of damage.

I think you might have a chance of getting rune magic 3 if you manage to get to level 5 before Ahriman, which will require Gifted Warrior ASAP. Has anyone been level 5 before him? You'll still need good Might rune drops though.

As for non-mages: Godspeed.

[Razorflame]

Well, I restarted the game 50+ times to see what the conditions are on the first island. Here are the observations :

I came close to defeating Ahriman as warrior which I played (att: 8,def:16, leader:775, 2 x nature call scroll) but so far nothing. Remember there is another nasty necromancer in the lair. I guess skald or mage are better suited for this.

That brings a question : what were the developers thinking? No-loss challenge in various forms has always been a part of Kings bounty community. I find it hard to believe it can only be done as result of some extreme RNG if at all. we'll see, game has been out only for 2 days..

Well my observations are a bit more different:)

Save for the fixed things ofcourse

What i noticed what that LEADERSHIP doesn't really matter for the first island
U will get to level 4-5 in no time which will give almost any char the 620 leadership for the 3 soothsayers(which is the only semi decent u can get on this crappy island)

the point is on the starting island there are barely any HIGH level creatures to buy or units that have high HP which leaves u to get Ancient bears/soothsayers/beserkers and axethrowers and throw in some extra fodder .

you will only get 2 Ranged units. (slinger which is total crap and the soothsayer)
forcing u to get at least 3 melee stacks which is forcing u to get healing or w/e to get your melee units not dying

and the rage amulet is also quite crap with it's 70-80 damage

Which all leads to getting ORDER magic ASAP (esp for pala and warrior)
and in some games that is near impossible the ways to get to the magic abilities requires ALOT of magic runes t.t

as for beating ahriman there are quite some options i believe


1. scroll of nature and pray his damaging spells go to your summoned shit
2. healing spell (for damage , since u can damage undead with healing spells and it does decent damage for 3 mana)
3. using 2 stacks of bears ancient and normal one for tanks(and use HIBERNATION to the max) the tricky part there is the damaging spells which are a total pain in the ass.

4. U can let 1 UNIT die the soothsayer can revive one of any stack so long the HP isn't in the yellow
5. BE VERY LUCKY with the RNG and get a summon phoenix or death call spell(which i highly doubt is avaible i've only seen level 1-2 spells so far


and as for optional things u can do to max out your spell input
5. FIGHT every battle but only if there a chest in that battle that u can get! so maximing your chest find and item/gold/runes/crystals

and other than that it is quite impossible to kill ahriman xD with the crappy unit selection u have to choose from and the limited space from which u travel from


But i will find a way and post it here when i beated this boss xD

[namad]

on the first island you get enemy heroes that cast poison skull on turn1 and deal 200damage to something before you even get to act!


when people talk about no lossing though do they just mean no lossing all the non-boss non-hero fights? or even those too?

[Bhruic]

No loss means just that, never losing a single unit in your entire playthrough.

There are tricks you can use to avoid the poison skull - or mitigate it. Basically the AI will do the exact same thing every time under the exact same circumstances. So what you need to do is keep trying different things until you find a situation where the AI - as an example - casts Helplessness instead of Poison Skull. This is accomplished by varying your attack order, attacking different units, etc. Pretty much any time you perform an action that requires a random number to be generated, you'll alter what the AI will do.

If the AI has the unit with the best initiative, and casts Poison Skull right away, you have less options, but one thing you can do is alter your unit positions. The AI casts the spell on the position, not the unit, so if you swap in your toughest unit (Soothsayers in this case), you can often survive a Poison Skull without a loss.

[Loopy]

Even then, there is a lot of praying that the spell doesn't get cast on the wrong unit mid-battle. Summons can help, but you'll need to burn scrolls for that.

Gift can give soothsayers extra revives, but you'll need to both heal and gift, which is very expensive if cast from mana. Not sure how many Gift scrolls can show up.

[namad]

Even then, there is a lot of praying that the spell doesn't get cast on the wrong unit mid-battle. Summons can help, but you'll need to burn scrolls for that.

Gift can give soothsayers extra revives, but you'll need to both heal and gift, which is very expensive if cast from mana. Not sure how many Gift scrolls can show up.

I had one gift scroll show up on my first island, but before I went back and bought it.... the store STOPPED EXISTING WTF>>> no fair! i thought stores never stopped existing randomly without warning in the king's bounty series :( oh well

[Sooty]

I decided to live with the fact that impossible noloss cannot be done in WotN, and it seems hard enough that an actual impossible completion is good enough for myself. I'd like to try hard no loss though.

[Fatt_Shade]

Playing on impossible is interesting and chalanging and gives highest score on end (along with lowest time played and high hero lvl). No loss was always personal choice and in no way effect end game score, except if you lose any units that are not available anywhere else in game and you REALLY want that unit :-)
Did high score formula got changed in WotN, or is it same as in Legend or AP/CW ? It was really simple in earlier games with no regard toward lvl`s of spirits of rage/pet dragon, and losses player had during game, or amount of dmg made by troops/rage/spells and other things accounted in end game screens. Only thing important for that score is hero lvl,quests,difficulty and in game time. This strikes me as odd, considering randomness and whole game world with lots of possibilities that final score takes as most important thing game time (rounded in DAYS, not hours ffs). Hero lvlv and quests make sense because player used his time developing that character during game and played for certain storyline, to be in the end rewarded if he skip certain quests and many battles just to finish game with lowest time spend possible to get higher score. It really is weird.
But all in all, no loss never was important to finish game.

[skycrow]

I had one gift scroll show up on my first island, but before I went back and bought it.... the store STOPPED EXISTING WTF>>> no fair! i thought stores never stopped existing randomly without warning in the king's bounty series :( oh well

Nice info.

I have bought it after seeing the info .:lol:

[Bhruic]

Even then, there is a lot of praying that the spell doesn't get cast on the wrong unit mid-battle. Summons can help, but you'll need to burn scrolls for that.

Gift can give soothsayers extra revives, but you'll need to both heal and gift, which is very expensive if cast from mana. Not sure how many Gift scrolls can show up.

True, if you get hit with damage spells mid-fight, it can often mean a restart.

The Gift scroll is mostly useless, unless you put the points into Rune Magic to get it up to level 3. Even then, the amount of healing you get from Soothsayers isn't really enough to handle any but the most minor of losses.

[BB Shockwave]

I kinda stopped my No Loss HARD paladin on Crossworlds, because after 3 no loss walkthroughs of previous KB games, it was just... boring and repetitive. So I go for low loss here. I am more interested in trying a Viking-only playthrough. The bear rider women and the Jarls seem sturdy units for Level 4 with great abilities (even if the Jarl is kinda ripping off the Paladins and Knights there), the Soothsayer has interesting spells, and I wonder if the vikings have any level 5 unit that could tank.

[dudex]

if u manage to do no loss in the first island u are either really good or really lucky..

there are just too many hero fights early on and u dont have any decent tanks to take hits or ways to counter magic/deaths

[Zechnophobe]

Spiders and snakes are also available via eggs on the first island, if I recall correctly. I seem to recall also getting fear... which doesn't work on undead.

Has anyone found a wanderer scroll in a chest in a battle... at all yet? I'm thinking they may no longer spawn there. A good unit summoner early on would no doubt make this all completely doable.

[ckdamascus]

as mage u can at least cast spells:)

i'm playing impossible with a warrior

and ahriman is really one pain in the ass with his spells

i just can't kill his units quick enough meh :/

and SLINGER really are the worst sucky units ever produced lol their low hp is ridicoulous

Just beat Ahriman no-loss with warrior/impossible. :)

I had to use my 3 Call of Nature scrolls though.

[Razorflame]

how the hell did u do that?

get to lvl 5 and then roflstomp him or what? what skills u used and what unit selection?

[ckdamascus]

how the hell did u do that?

get to lvl 5 and then roflstomp him or what? what skills u used and what unit selection?

Nothing about that fight as a roflstomp. Nothing.

Hero Level 5, Level 1 Runic Rage (for extra rage damage) (might tree, the right column). 798 leadership.

Berserkers, Axe Throwers, Soothsayers, Bears, Ancient Bears.

I'd wait for them to come to me, and keep summoning monsters every round. I'd use the summons to "burn" a counter attack and then wail on the enemy.

Ahri would burn spells on the summons like blind, sheep, fear, and poison skull.

I'd time the berserkers to enrage, so they would one-shot the 20 skeletons from the necromancer summons.

I honestly don't think I could have won without the summon scrolls.

[dudex]

let us know if u manage to get by the next couple hero encounters with no losses with no scrolls left..

[Pilnystudent]

I have done first island with 1 loss on impossible. I have done it with mage and 4 units. Maxed rune magic on lvl 3. If you can find some items which give you intelect then its definitly possible to have 0 losses. I had only +1 intelect from one item.

I use Slingers. They do atleast something and what unit can survive single spell anyway... Destroy enemy archers in first turn and Sligers are safe. Also bosses cast fear on them sometimes instead of damaging spells which is very helpfull.

If you take +700 leadership as paladin it should be peace of cake even with 0 losses.

[Gle55nn]

Perhaps the Bear guy will sometimes sell polar bears?
http://www.rdox.info/01.jpghttp://www.rdox.info/02.jpghttp://www.rdox.info/8.jpghttp://www.rdox.info/04.jpg
http://www.rdox.info/9.jpghttp://www.rdox.info/0.jpg

[Razorflame]

I have done first island with 1 loss on impossible. I have done it with mage and 4 units. Maxed rune magic on lvl 3. If you can find some items which give you intelect then its definitly possible to have 0 losses. I had only +1 intelect from one item.

I use Slingers. They do atleast something and what unit can survive single spell anyway... Destroy enemy archers in first turn and Sligers are safe. Also bosses cast fear on them sometimes instead of damaging spells which is very helpfull.

If you take +700 leadership as paladin it should be peace of cake even with 0 losses.

u can try:)

i have a save with paladin only skill i invested is edda(the only thing i used) so u have spare runes

:)

on note to that no summons scrolls were found alas;)

but i did rape everything on the island except for 300 skel archers and 200 skel or somthing

and ahriman ofcourse


:D
goodluck with that :D

[Razorflame]

IMHO the skald is the only one with a REAL easy run on the first island way to overpowered -.-

those songs literrally rape undead lol
and giving the skald already the healing spell
and most leadership
is kinda unfair to me

the warrior and the mage both got to do some level uping before they can do some decent damage while the paladin can freerol right from the start

and on to that healing ftw lol

they really made the classes a bit imbalanced ( at least in the beginning)

a paladin can easily steamrol the first island while the other 2 gotta WORK hard on that one lol

[MattCaspermeyer]

I defeated Ahriman no loss on Impossible with Mage.

I was level 4 and had 16 Vikings, 29 Slingers, 10 Berserkers, 5 Axe Throwers, and 2 Soothsayers. I only had Magic Missile as my spell, since I kind of messed up and didn't have enough magic runes to get rune magic. I had Order Magic, but I haven't found any Order spells except Dispel.

It was a big time optimization problem. I basically tried the battle about 20 times slightly tweaking my strategy such that Ahriman never cast a damage spell on me. I wish I would have saved a screenie, but didn't realize it was so hard. I don't have any Animal Call scrolls, or don't even have Healing for that matter, but was fortunate to find the solution.

But now I've got Uladar Maratarius - he's level 10 and I'm only level 5! Do I have to defeat him before I can leave the island? It seems like I'm out of stuff to fight - I think there are only 4 stacks left: the Ghost stack guarding the treasure (I might be able to beat these guys no loss, we'll see...), the big Skelly stack (I'm not going to bother with these guys until later) and then the other stack guarding Maratarius. I still can't get through the magic portal blocking the shipyard, so I guess I'm stuck with what I have...

I did get Rune Magic, but only level 1 (at least I got some more damage spells than Magic Missle now) - anyone have any ideas?

/C\/C\

[ckdamascus]

I defeated Ahriman no loss on Impossible with Mage.

I was level 4 and had 16 Vikings, 29 Slingers, 10 Berserkers, 5 Axe Throwers, and 2 Soothsayers. I only had Magic Missile as my spell, since I kind of messed up and didn't have enough magic runes to get rune magic. I had Order Magic, but I haven't found any Order spells except Dispel.

It was a big time optimization problem. I basically tried the battle about 20 times slightly tweaking my strategy such that Ahriman never cast a damage spell on me. I wish I would have saved a screenie, but didn't realize it was so hard. I don't have any Animal Call scrolls, or don't even have Healing for that matter, but was fortunate to find the solution.

But now I've got Uladar Maratarius - he's level 10 and I'm only level 5! Do I have to defeat him before I can leave the island? It seems like I'm out of stuff to fight - I think there are only 4 stacks left: the Ghost stack guarding the treasure (I might be able to beat these guys no loss, we'll see...), the big Skelly stack (I'm not going to bother with these guys until later) and then the other stack guarding Maratarius. I still can't get through the magic portal blocking the shipyard, so I guess I'm stuck with what I have...

I did get Rune Magic, but only level 1 (at least I got some more damage spells than Magic Missle now) - anyone have any ideas?

/C\/C\

Yeah, I think I am ready to flip tables. I should have gotten onslaught so I could beat the initiative advantage and/or the resist shield.

Uladar just opens with poison skull or ghost sword and none of my units can resist it.

[dudex]

if u find a heal scroll u can rape undead for almost no mana cost. u can prob go to level 3 if u save all ur crystals.

not sure if its a bug but heal's mana cost goes down when its upgraded making it spammable at level 3 even with low mana pool

[Zechnophobe]

Not a bug, or at least, it has always been that way. Level 3 Heal ends up being a very good and mana efficient spell for no-loss.

Honestly, I am really really surprised that there is basically no army choice until you finish the first island. That seems like a horrible idea.

[Sapher]

I defeated Ahriman no loss on Impossible with Mage.
Yea. I did that too. With that mage
http://savepic.su/2749126m.jpg (http://savepic.su/2749126.htm)
Except for i was level 4 before the fight.
The only spell i used was healing.
First 2 turns healing to deal damage and for the rest of the fight to heal units.
Lost like 1 Axe thrower but then healed him and used Soothsayers ability to resurrect it.
Soothsayers are divided into 2 stacks so that they could resurrect 2 units.

But next hero looks unbeatable without losses at least with that mage. Ahriman coudnt kill a Soothsayers with a magic spell, so i could heal it back. Now that is not an option. Probably there is a turn sequence during fight that causes the enemy to use weak spells, but that requires a lot of time to find it....

May be i messed up a bit, so now i dont have enough runes for lvl3 magic The gift. Can it be a source of infinite resurrections? Recharge Soothsayers ability, then there is a spell, that gives runes and a spell that converts runes to mana. Would it work? Or i would run out of mana?

[impy]

There is a technique I used for defeating the whole first island no loss - but only on hard diff. last night:grin: Unfortunately have to leave town for business for few days, but if it helps anyone on impossible. diff. then that's great.

idea: use Skald, learn order magic, learn Edda, the rest is your choice. With a bit of luck you'll find 2-3 nature call scrolls and 2 x mana boosting shrines. Ideally 3 scrolls + 2 x mana boosting shrines + mana boosting items (+5 gloves..)

Upon starting a fight,cast song of Helheim then cast nature call using mana. Since it costs 20mana, you'll be left with 10-15mana. Song of Helheim recovers mana - nicely positioned ice storm attack by soothsayers recovers 5mana. Bit of skirmish enables to cast nature call again in second round. Note : Mana 30++ to start with is not strictly necessary. you should be able to get your second Nature call casting during second round somehow. Advantage however is to be able to cast it at the very beginning of round 2 - give enemy units & hero more targets. In third round I did not manage to get 20mana out of it, however if desperate, you can use a stock scroll of nature call. This way, if you had 3 x starting nature call scrolls, you can : - 3 x nature call casting against Ahriman
- 3 x nature call casting against lvl10 Necro below
- 2 x nature call casting against Eric and any other tough stack

Hope it helps.
Someone asked earlier if wanderer scrolls can be found on the first island. I found Gift of stones in the chest during battle. It raises runes of troops to 3..

[windezz]

Just ran into an orc hero that spammed Armageddon 4 turns in a row, wiping out his remaining troops and ending the fight with heavy loss on my side.

No idea how to counter that other than reloading and hoping he'd cast some silly debuffs instead.

[Colbert30]

Well...there's an achievement to defeat Runorm with no more than 30% troop loss. For an achievement to exist with that high loss expectation, I imagine this version of KB is not meant to be won with a no-loss victory at higher levels of difficulty.

I wonder if it's even possible to advance in the "Grand Strategian" medal at higher difficulties.

[zjazd18]

Well past first island everything seems super easy, i agreed upon having minimal loses on those 3 hero fights and went ahead with the game. Even if there are some tough fights, the troop selection is gonna make them possible. On 3rd island u get 720 hp tank unit and once u can level amulet rage abilities hurt like hell. The hardest part is 1st island which is pretty silly in terms of game progression.

[amyndris]

This first island is just so frustrating. The fun part of King's Bounty was figuring out how to do a no loss; sometimes it meant kiting, sometimes it meant skipping ahead and coming back.

The problem is, there is no skipping ahead because everything is blocked by the first boss. And there's no kiting, because every single spawn you can buy on the first island is prepopulated and not RNG, so you can't even run to a vendor to get better units.

I hope someone releases a mod that either RNGs the units on vendors, or lets you teleport off the first island. This is just silly to restrict all of your strategic options on the first island.

[hotfix666]

I think no loss 100% is not so popular beacuse you get no achievement for that.

More fun get all achievement ?

[Pilnystudent]

Done it. First island with no losses. With Skald is first island so much easier then with Warrior or Mage.

Axe throwers: best unit, they do most of damage just because they can attack every turn once or twice
Slingers: are great because Uladar keep casting fear and other weak spells on them
Berserkers and Ancient Bears: they dont do that much damage because agaist bosses they cant attack every turn
Soothsayers: agaist undead kinda useless but better then nothing

And runes used on +3/+3 and Edda. Also heal spell is more usefull then anything Mage has...

[Razorflame]

yeah skald is overpowered i already noted that on my last walktrough;)

as for mage and warrior get order asap and then u have a chance

and u need to be lucky with bosses not using damage spells

or at least not using them on anything but the soothsayer

cause the soothsayer will ussualy survive and one simple heal is enough:)

[Loopy]

May be i messed up a bit, so now i dont have enough runes for lvl3 magic The gift. Can it be a source of infinite resurrections? Recharge Soothsayers ability, then there is a spell, that gives runes and a spell that converts runes to mana. Would it work? Or i would run out of mana?

lvl 1 rune magic: Runic word gives 2 runes for 3 mana. Chargers costs 3 mana to convert 3 runes into 3 mana or rage each. Casting RW x3 and Chargers x2 costs 15 mana and will give you 0-18 rage/mana. Assuming 50/50 rage/mana chance thats spending 15 mana to get 9 back

lvl 2 rune magic: Runic word gives 4 runes for 5 mana. Chargers costs 5 mana to convert 6 runes that gives 4 mana each. RW x3 + chargers x2 costs 25 mana for 12 runes. 0-48 mana returned, or an average of 24 mana per 25 mana spent.

lvl 3 rune magic: Runic word gives 6 runes for 7 mana. Chargers costs 7 mana to convert 9 runes that give 5 mana each. RW x3 + chargerx x2 costs 35 mana for 18 runes converted. 0-90 mana returned, average of 45.

So you need lvl 3 rune magic to get past break even on average. Getting that before Ahriman requires lvl 5 and lots of might runes. Even then, getting enough crystal for lvl 3 runic word and chargers might be a problem. And even with lvl 3 rune magic you risk a bad run wiping out your mana battery completely (though you can compensate by using runes that your units bring into battle with them).

[dudex]

Yea. I did that too. With that mage
http://savepic.su/2749126m.jpg (http://savepic.su/2749126.htm)
Except for i was level 4 before the fight.
The only spell i used was healing.
First 2 turns healing to deal damage and for the rest of the fight to heal units.
Lost like 1 Axe thrower but then healed him and used Soothsayers ability to resurrect it.
Soothsayers are divided into 2 stacks so that they could resurrect 2 units.

But next hero looks unbeatable without losses at least with that mage. Ahriman coudnt kill a Soothsayers with a magic spell, so i could heal it back. Now that is not an option. Probably there is a turn sequence during fight that causes the enemy to use weak spells, but that requires a lot of time to find it....

May be i messed up a bit, so now i dont have enough runes for lvl3 magic The gift. Can it be a source of infinite resurrections? Recharge Soothsayers ability, then there is a spell, that gives runes and a spell that converts runes to mana. Would it work? Or i would run out of mana?

polar bears? how?

[hotfix666]

polar bears? how?

him are playing russia version :-P

[dudex]

him are playing russia version :-P

so only russians can get polar bears on first island? :( also he had like 15 of em so it cant be diplomacy or can it..

[Sapher]

polar bears? how?
It is russia. Bears everywhere

ps. well, or it is just an artifact. It gives a few bears after fight

[baronm]

Whew, just got off island no-loss impossible with mage.

Was not easy.

I'm definitely not happy with the first island in this game compared to KBAP, they give you way too few options.

It seems like the enemies are actually easier, but you dont have nearly the resources available in KBAP early on.

PS how lame is it that the one decent ability available to you from any unit is the soothsayer take over ability which doesnt work on any of the undead which dominate the first island!?

Anyway...

There are three hard fights you have to beat to get off the island.

First is Ahriman.

Not sure why ppl had so much trouble with Ahriman, it only took me a few tries to beat him w/o any useful found spells and only rune spells lvl 1. I might have just gotten lucky tho. I used ancient bears, slingers, soothsayers, berserkers, and axe throwers. As far as i can remember his units arent really a threat just be careful, try to take out the archers early, and if you get lucky and his archers dont bash the slingers and he doesnt use poison skull it shouldnt be that hard. It will take a few tries tho, might be a good idea to use more bears instead of slingers tho.

Last hero of the three is pretty easy. I used basically the same setup as for Ahriman, except by that time i had lvl 2 rune spells. Ended up just one might rune short of lvl 3. 8-( The only useful spell i found on the entire island was a lifesaver here, i forget the name but it makes ice crystals on the field. Basically this guy has one very large stack and all the others are weak so i used the crystals to block and kite the large stack. Still took a few tries before i got him to cast poison skull on me only once, and on my soothsayers who didnt die from it. The only thing hard about this guy is that he seems to like to cast poison skull more than the others, maybe he has a smaller spell list so its more likely each cast or something.

Middle hero (Necromancer) is the hardest by a huge huge margin. If you manage to beat him no-loss don't worry about the last guy, he will be a breeze in comparison. Just a warning though, you shouldn't even bother trying (with mage at least) unless you're a masochist like me or get lucky on spells you find. Healing or Nature's Call would probably make this much much easier. The only spells i cast the whole battle were lvl 2 version of that circular ice damage spell w/e its called and 2 spare fire scrolls and a magic missile scroll. Used rage talent too every turn ofc. These things did almost all my damage. I tried many different variations of units before i beat him, but as well as strategy you need an absurd amount of luck to beat him so the setup i won with might not necessarily be the absolute best. I had ancient bears, berserkers, axe throwers, and soothsayers split into two stacks, 1 of 2 and 1 of 1. Was lvl 5 and ofc had the 20 no-loss battles leadership boost.

Anyone looking for advice on this fight the one thing that will definetely help is having at least 2 stacks of soothsayers for some tanking, but no matter what you do you'll need to be very lucky b/c the battle takes quite a while, his units are extremely strong, and a single unlucky cast of poison skull or scimitar will ruin your attempt. His units have bonus poison damage, nice hero bonus stats, and underground +50% def boost, so they way outperform their numbers. Suddenly just 10-15 skeletons are still a huge threat.

Was pretty epic when i finally won, after probably 40 attempts, the battle was going pretty badly, and i was sure i was screwed and about to start over, but i went one more turn just to make sure, and miraculously i got his last large stack of units, 12 zombies, to hoplessly chase my bears around to the opposite end of the map. Meanwhile the rest of my units were just barely able to deal with what was left. Heh. When the battle was over every single one of my units was deep in red hp, and a couple of them had like 3 hp each.

Ok, so the advice i would give to anyone attempting this, save yourself a lot of time energy and agony and asap when you make a new mage run around the island and try to see if you can find a healing or natures call scroll, as either of these would probably make this battle much less of an impossible ass-ache. If you cant' find one, you may want to restart, however, i can say after spending quite a few hours on just that one boss that it is possible to win without finding a single useful scroll, just dont expect to do it on the first try.

Or even the first thirty
;P

tl:dr

The necromancer's the hardest. Try splitting your soothsayer stack up for more tanking. You're better off if you can find healing or natures call, but i didnt have either so it's possible without.

[FromWisdomToHate]

Just finished 1st island with no loss on impossible with viking. Got lucky with treasures in combat and around the island and got 7 call of natures :)

My main dmg dealers were ancient bears and berserkers which are my favourite because of berserkers shield.

.....and now to explore the world :)

[MattCaspermeyer]

You won't believe this, but I'm literally 2 Leadership shy from getting a 3rd Soothsayer. Could use that 1% form Jarl now...

Now that I know that I need to defeat Uladar to get off the island, I'll see if I can come up with something...

/C\/C\

[Razorflame]

LMAO :)

unlucky with the ldrship flags haha
:)

[Fatt_Shade]

You won't believe this, but I'm literally 2 Leadership shy from getting a 3rd Soothsayer. Could use that 1% form Jarl now...
Now that I know that I need to defeat Uladar to get off the island, I'll see if I can come up with something...

I remember similar run, but in end game score first time i play KB-AP i read lost of pointers and strategy and since i already did KB-tL decided to go for high lvl run in the end had all quests , pet dragon 60lvl, some 11 days played, upgraded all items to max beat all enemy(some 360 battles, 84 enemy heroes and so on) and was 1 experience point less then 63lvl. I had 1799999 (or something) and 63lvl is on 1800000 :-) End game score i`m looking at screen and cant believe what happened :-D

[Loopy]

Not sure why ppl had so much trouble with Ahriman, it only took me a few tries to beat him w/o any useful found spells and only rune spells lvl 1. I might have just gotten lucky tho. I used ancient bears, slingers, soothsayers, berserkers, and axe throwers. As far as i can remember his units arent really a threat just be careful, try to take out the archers early, and if you get lucky and his archers dont bash the slingers and he doesnt use poison skull it shouldnt be that hard. It will take a few tries tho, might be a good idea to use more bears instead of slingers tho.

Units aren't really a threat? 3 stacks of skeletons with 40 in each, able to bone gate and easily take out anything that isn't soothsayer? 2 large stacks of decaying zombies, vampires, ancient vampires, and a necromancer? He easily had double the army strength of the other two bosses, which practically melted after my first two spells, while Ahriman's army still has 2/3rds of its strength left.

Did I just get a really bad spawn on him or something? Because he has 7 stacks of units who are all able to kill any unit that isn't a Soothsayer the first time they attack, and Soothsayers will lose about half their health. I can't see how people who talk about just using heal are doing this. Pretty sure Warriors/Paladins aren't able to stack THAT much defense more than a Mage.

EDIT:

Heh, loaded up a second game to check his variance. Here's what I'm seeing:

Original game:
113 skeletons
55 skeleton archers
29 decaying zombies
6 vampires
2 ancient vampires
1 necromancer

1356+770+1160+480+360+200 leadership = 4326 leadership total

New game:
46 skeletons
28 skeleton archers
15 zombies
11 decaying zombies
3 vampiers
2 ancient vampiers
1 necromancer
552+392+450+440+240+360+200 leadership = 2634 leadership total.

This is a HUGE difference. This is a 65% increase in the strength of units. Since difficulty isn't a linear increase (In the new game I could kill half their force with my first spell), this is at least a 3x disparity in difficulty due to the random spawns. Which when no-lossing is then more like a 5-10x increase in difficulty due to how much more difficult it is to avoid deaths.

Bottom line: It may be best to scan savegames for enemy size rather than items. I don't have any Call of Nature scrolls in my original mage game, but if I did I would trade every one of them for reducing their stack sizes by nearly 50%. Seems a bit odd that with the first island clamping down and offering no randomization at all in units available and very little in items that enemy stack sizes should display such variance.

[zjazd18]

Did I just get a really bad spawn on him or something? Because he has 7 stacks of units who are all able to kill any unit that isn't a Soothsayer the first time they attack, and Soothsayers will lose about half their health. I can't see how people who talk about just using heal are doing this. Pretty sure Warriors/Paladins aren't able to stack THAT much defense more than a Mage.

Well as Pala u can have 4 Soothsayers which is nice aoe dmg giving u mana and rage from then throw in nice placed aoe rage spell u can really reduce his stacks from range, add slingers - they are a bit of gamble and will be main reason of additional reload but they also do aoe dmg. Dunno how it is for warrior/mage but really with call of nature any class should be able to do it.

[BB Shockwave]

Started my first game on impossible as a mage. Ahriman is a ridiculous stone wall to a no loss game. Soothsayers just plain suck at resurrection, undead are immune to too many things that could make it easier, and your ranged abilities are just too horrible.

I have level 2 order magic and level 2 rune magic. Rune magic is the only damage spells I've gotten, Winter Dance DOES tear them up well, but with skeletons able to bone gate behind me and skeleton archers just plain tearing things up it's nigh impossible not to suffer at least two losses, and Soothsayers can only heal one. And Ahriman himself has enough mana to cast Poison Skull any time throughout the whole battle to instantly end your attempt.

Berserkers do tear things to shreds though. Rune of Attack + Berserker + Shock Shield can easily turn into two critical hits at 50 attack. It's saved my butt more than once to be able to output 400 damage to a stack in a single round. Low health kills them if someone else gets the first hit in though, and they will charge right into it on the next round.

I'm going to try loading up on bears and doing it that way. Until now I've been ignoring the neutrals for the morale bonus, but maybe they will work better.

I wonder if Warrior Maidens could be available, or if Stone Skin could appear. Either of those could make this much more doable.

Ahriman? Ohh, he is a piece of cake compared to his boss, the necromancer in the cave. The guy is... LEVEL TEN! And even if I kill all troops on the island and do all quests, I only got to level 5. I lost all my Vikings and a lot of Berserkers and Slingers in that battle... that's when I decided that hey, I am playing a viking, for them, death in battle is the most glorious thing ever. So... I just go with the flow.

[Loopy]

Ahriman? Ohh, he is a piece of cake compared to his boss, the necromancer in the cave. The guy is... LEVEL TEN! And even if I kill all troops on the island and do all quests, I only got to level 5. I lost all my Vikings and a lot of Berserkers and Slingers in that battle... that's when I decided that hey, I am playing a viking, for them, death in battle is the most glorious thing ever. So... I just go with the flow.

See my post two before yours. I found the other two bosses after Ahriman to be a piece of cake. The difficulty is highly random based on what it gives them.

[baronm]

Heh, loaded up a second game to check his variance. Here's what I'm seeing:

Original game:
113 skeletons
55 skeleton archers
29 decaying zombies
6 vampires
2 ancient vampires
1 necromancer

1356+770+1160+480+360+200 leadership = 4326 leadership total

New game:
46 skeletons
28 skeleton archers
15 zombies
11 decaying zombies
3 vampiers
2 ancient vampiers
1 necromancer
552+392+450+440+240+360+200 leadership = 2634 leadership total.



Wow, i'm amazed his troop numbers are that random. Guess i got lucky cuz i remember his stacks being pretty small and not that much a problem. Bad luck for anyone who has to fight something like that first listing.

[ihira]

I'm just wondering how you guys are going to no loss the 'first no rage allowed real boss'.
Like if its possible at all.

I'm playing Warrior on hard and a huge casualties is inevitable for me.
good luck.

[coRex]

I'm just wondering how you guys are going to no loss the 'first no rage allowed real boss'.
Like if its possible at all.

I'm playing Warrior on hard and a huge casualties is inevitable for me.
good luck.

i play warrior on impossible and i guess there is NO way that you play no loss against this boss... because his counterattacks do ridicilous amounts of dmg to melee AND ranged...
so i changed my team to some "lower" creatures, because i dont want to loose my good units.
snow bears, sea dogs, did a very good job with some buffs.

once you get to the other islands from kings bounty the legend no loss will become VERY easy, even on impossible...

just go with rune mage, royal griffin, inquisitor, paladin and Soothsayers
with this combo you can get HUGE amounts of spawned creatures - use them to block and rezz with pala and inq if you get some ranged hits or skeleton "teleport" hits...

if you want a more dmg combo you can change pala to a good ranged (acutally i have royal thorns in my lineup for even more creatures and ranged dmg). but without a pala you have to bee VERY careful with your creatures!

[Zechnophobe]

The first 'no rage boss' looks like it'll be difficult. Jotuns + lots of time might work. I think a wizard using maidens, jotuns, jarls and something else could possibly work as well. Just need to somehow make sure the Maidens never get too hurt. Once you have spells like Stone Skin and Avenging ANgel going, you can use timelessness to keep them stuck on for a long while. Use the wanderer scroll for extra runes, and that should last quite a while. Maybe get a thorn train going? I"ve not seen royals spawn in the early areas, but that'd definitely be a workable strategy since I don't *think* he uses his ranged attack offensively.

[BB Shockwave]

See my post two before yours. I found the other two bosses after Ahriman to be a piece of cake. The difficulty is highly random based on what it gives them.

I read your posts since then. But what the HECK is this with random troops and leadership for enemy heroes? This wasn't so in the previous games - there was some randomisation about what troops they could get and how many stacks they were divided into, but not such huge Leadership differences. Makes it unfair to those who - like me - got the bad luck to meet these bosses with their increased armies. In my game, the Necromancer had 2 Ancient Vampires and 3 stacks of 5 Vampires, about 5 Cursed Ghosts, and more Zombies and Skeletons then I could throw a bone at. The Bone Gate thing is the worst - it lets those otherwise slow skellies get to you on the first round, very often.

I did find that for some reason - thankfully - Skeleton archers do not use their Poison and Black Arrow skills that often.

[Sooty]

You do get more experience though, and losing troops is just losing money anyways, so it is only really a problem if you care about going no-loss for bosses too.

[zjazd18]

Ye that would explain the disproportions in my mage run in comparasion to pala, as pala i was lvl5 before ahriman and as mage not even half way thru to 5. Thought it was the xp shirnes...
The first 'no rage boss' looks like it'll be difficult. Jotuns + lots of time might work. I think a wizard using maidens, jotuns, jarls and something else could possibly work as well. Just need to somehow make sure the Maidens never get too hurt. Once you have spells like Stone Skin and Avenging ANgel going, you can use timelessness to keep them stuck on for a long while. Use the wanderer scroll for extra runes, and that should last quite a while. Maybe get a thorn train going? I"ve not seen royals spawn in the early areas, but that'd definitely be a workable strategy since I don't *think* he uses his ranged attack offensively.
Well you cant do it single unit i think coz he puts web on you and u lose turn in that way

[Loopy]

For anyone interested my first game vs the necromancer faces these forces:

94 skeletons
36 skeleton archers
12 undead spiders
12 ghosts
3 vampires
1 ancient vampire

1128+504+156+960+240+180 for a total of 3168 leadership. And since the ghosts are split between multiple stacks of 3 it's a lot easier to no loss. Ghosts simply aren't high damage like skeletons or zombies are, just high physical defense. Soothsayers can tank them all day and AoE spells tear them to shreds.

Someone who is having a very hard time vs him should total up what they are fighting so we can see how much it varies. Or if someone figures out how to get the editor to work for WotN we can inspect the distribution directly.

As for the necromancer being level 10 and Ahriman being level 5, I think Ahriman is still a tougher hero. Their stats are 3/4/7 vs 1/4/10. Ahriman hits the 7 intellect breakpoint for spell damage so his spells are nearly as tough, so both are pretty much equally going to end a no-loss run as soon as Poison Skull hits something you don't want it to hit.

[Hagbard]

Oh boy, I am trying the necromancer now for hours with several tactics but it seems to go nowhere...

I play Skald, lvl 5, 1k leadership, anything cleared on the island but unfortunatly I am missing 1 magic rune to get order magic... and I have only one call of nature scroll... sigh this sucks, I really wanna do this as no loss, but no clue how. dont wanna restart due to rnd factors...

I face these forces:

55 undead spiders
49 skeleton archers
34 zombies
12 ghosts
7 vampires
1 ancient vampire

what do u think is the best line up against these forces? I tried with so much... really wanna beat this, without restart

[zjazd18]

So any1 figured out spider boss fight? I have call of colosus scroll but i dont think any lvl5 unit would help me greatly, maybe trolls but then again u cant do it 1 troop. Really stuck in here, and it's mandatory to do this battle to move on.

[BB Shockwave]

For anyone interested my first game vs the necromancer faces these forces:

94 skeletons
36 skeleton archers
12 undead spiders
12 ghosts
3 vampires
1 ancient vampire

1128+504+156+960+240+180 for a total of 3168 leadership. And since the ghosts are split between multiple stacks of 3 it's a lot easier to no loss. Ghosts simply aren't high damage like skeletons or zombies are, just high physical defense. Soothsayers can tank them all day and AoE spells tear them to shreds.

Someone who is having a very hard time vs him should total up what they are fighting so we can see how much it varies. Or if someone figures out how to get the editor to work for WotN we can inspect the distribution directly.

As for the necromancer being level 10 and Ahriman being level 5, I think Ahriman is still a tougher hero. Their stats are 3/4/7 vs 1/4/10. Ahriman hits the 7 intellect breakpoint for spell damage so his spells are nearly as tough, so both are pretty much equally going to end a no-loss run as soon as Poison Skull hits something you don't want it to hit.

Ahriman has less mana, though -at least he did for me - so he runs out soon. Especially as he kept casting "Doom" and "Slow" on me. The... unpronouncable-name Necromancer has 100.

This is something that AP introduced and I frankly, hate it. That game started the trend that even the measliest pirate captain who had 1 intellect got 100 mana. That meant they could cast spells all day long, and that when you only got 25-30 mana tops at the early phase of the game. For no-loss this was a pain - I was forced to leave otherwise weak enemy heroes alone until later when I can crush them in 1 turn, because they might had Geyser and could wreak havoc despite their low intellect. Remember the Ghost in the castle on the first island, probably the first hero you encounter? He'd have been a pushover... if he did not have Summon Phoenix, and could cast it like, 4 times per battle. :(

[Loopy]

Oh boy, I am trying the necromancer now for hours with several tactics but it seems to go nowhere...

I play Skald, lvl 5, 1k leadership, anything cleared on the island but unfortunatly I am missing 1 magic rune to get order magic... and I have only one call of nature scroll... sigh this sucks, I really wanna do this as no loss, but no clue how. dont wanna restart due to rnd factors...

I face these forces:

55 undead spiders
49 skeleton archers
34 zombies
12 ghosts
7 vampires
1 ancient vampire

what do u think is the best line up against these forces? I tried with so much... really wanna beat this, without restart

At least you don't have any undead skeletons bone gating around, but yikes, without heal that looks really damn hard. You'll certainly want bears because they are the only units that can heal themselves. Splitting Soothsayers into 2 or more stacks to tank more damage before one dies might be a good idea. Good luck.

[Hagbard]

At least you don't have any undead skeletons bone gating around, but yikes, without heal that looks really damn hard. You'll certainly want bears because they are the only units that can heal themselves. Splitting Soothsayers into 2 or more stacks to tank more damage before one dies might be a good idea. Good luck.

thank u, well I already had the best results so far with two stacks of soothsayers 2/1, 2 stacks bears and axe thrower... will keep tryin with this combo

[Karlos]

So any1 figured out spider boss fight? I have call of colosus scroll but i dont think any lvl5 unit would help me greatly, maybe trolls but then again u cant do it 1 troop. Really stuck in here, and it's mandatory to do this battle to move on.

Afaik nobody was able to beat the spider no loss.

Btw I'm so glad I didn't go strictly no loss my first playthrough coz I'd have wasted countless hours and then arrived to the boss spider that, in my opinion, is impossible to beat no loss in that particular stage of game.

So that's a small warning for ppl trying to get through Ahriman or the Necromancer on no loss - no point.

[zjazd18]

Afaik nobody was able to beat the spider no loss.

Btw I'm so glad I didn't go strictly no loss my first playthrough coz I'd have wasted countless hours and then arrived to the boss spider that, in my opinion, is impossible to beat no loss in that particular stage of game.

So that's a small warning for ppl trying to get through Ahriman or the Necromancer on no loss - no point.
What im thinking of is - I got call of colosus pretty early on 2nd island after one of the main story quests, you could then feed it to the raven regalia and have it multiplied i dont know how many battles it takes to write call of colosus, but maybe u could have 4-5 when it's time for spider. 5x high hp units should make it doable. But i'm too lazy to try it out atm :(

[Karlos]

What im thinking of is - I got call of colosus pretty early on 2nd island after one of the main story quests, you could then feed it to the raven regalia and have it multiplied i dont know how many battles it takes to write call of colosus, but maybe u could have 4-5 when it's time for spider. 5x high hp units should make it doable. But i'm too lazy to try it out atm :(

I don't think that would work either coz high hp units like jotuns are quite bad at dealing dmg. A stack of berserkers can hit for 3k dmg easily. For the same leadership you'd get 4 jotuns at most, dishing out around 600 dmg. I bet the boss would wear you down while still being in yellow.

[zjazd18]

I don't think that would work either coz high hp units like jotuns are quite bad at dealing dmg. A stack of berserkers can hit for 3k dmg easily. For the same leadership you'd get 4 jotuns at most, dishing out around 600 dmg. I bet the boss would wear you down while still being in yellow.
Lol just figured out how to do it, split trolls into groups i went with 4x1 each in one corner. It takes a long time to do tho, and requires call of colosus - dunno if i was lucky or it is standard thing coz i got it from one of the quests.

Ok so i realized i couldve had 5 trolls if i did some fights i left behind, so the final go was with 5 trolls split 2-1-1-1, no frenzy stats 16/19/11 just kept stone skin and mana spring both lvl 3 on the 2trolls that were hitting boss, rest was mostly defending all the rounds.
http://imgur.com/CxL0Rhttp://i.imgur.com/CxL0R.jpg

[zjazd18]

Ok, so i went back abit to other islands to buy all items, make sure everthing is cleared and i discovered shop that i completly missed earlier on, and guess what, it sells trolls lol. So u dont even need call of colosus to do it, in my game there were 3 still should be doable. Dunno if i'm only blind or others also missed this one:

[Razorflame]

Oh boy, I am trying the necromancer now for hours with several tactics but it seems to go nowhere...

I play Skald, lvl 5, 1k leadership, anything cleared on the island but unfortunatly I am missing 1 magic rune to get order magic... and I have only one call of nature scroll... sigh this sucks, I really wanna do this as no loss, but no clue how. dont wanna restart due to rnd factors...

I face these forces:

55 undead spiders
49 skeleton archers
34 zombies
12 ghosts
7 vampires
1 ancient vampire

what do u think is the best line up against these forces? I tried with so much... really wanna beat this, without restart

this stack is pretty easy give me some info for your battle

I would replace the bears with vikings (for one simple reason positive morale and their mad rage to crit some enemies down)

slpit soothsayers and 1 stack of axethrowers

and depends does he use a spell first turn or not?

if he does use the edda song to get a random spell effect(at my games he mostly dispelled the bad effect he had on his units)

instead of a damaging spell so i could use slingers too:)

took me a while to figure it out but heck :D

[Zechnophobe]

Call of Colossus exists? Well that pretty much solves the spider. Just so long as you can somehow always get this scroll from that one mission. I don't know if they are randomized in any reasonable way there, and I don't recall how you get it. At some point, one guy gives you a quest to go somewhere and you likely already have a map for it, so you get the scroll instead. If you can do some RNG gaming, you should get whatever scroll you want.

Then feed to the bird so that you can summon more of whatever level 5 you want later on... and no problemo!

I just wish that cheese wasn't required so early. It's one thing at the end of a 70 level game to do a little hoodwinking, but a quarter of the way in? Meh.

[DGDobrev]

Well, I was the next one to give up on doing a no-loss. It seems you need to be extremely lucky to do it. Another option is to diminish Ahriman's stacks too quickly to force him to necro call, or force him into using weakness rather than poison skull. Unfortunately, that doesnt work on impossible, as the stacks are just too big. In both my playthroughs that I started, I only had 2 soothsayers available. A third one would have really helped... Bad luck I guess.

I also went for Axe Thrower, Viking, Ancient Bear, Bear and Soothsayer opening. It doesn't get better than that.

So that's for no-loss. I guess the developers really wanted us to feel the weight of the game this time and not abuse it. That, however, pretty much limited a number of aspects which were very viable and made for many funny and interesting challenges.

Oh well, maybe we should consider doing something else than no-loss - like minimal loss games... Say, less than 20 units the entire game.

[Zechnophobe]

Well, I was the next one to give up on doing a no-loss. It seems you need to be extremely lucky to do it. Another option is to diminish Ahriman's stacks too quickly to force him to necro call, or force him into using weakness rather than poison skull. Unfortunately, that doesnt work on impossible, as the stacks are just too big. In both my playthroughs that I started, I only had 2 soothsayers available. A third one would have really helped... Bad luck I guess.

I also went for Axe Thrower, Viking, Ancient Bear, Bear and Soothsayer opening. It doesn't get better than that.

So that's for no-loss. I guess the developers really wanted us to feel the weight of the game this time and not abuse it. That, however, pretty much limited a number of aspects which were very viable and made for many funny and interesting challenges.

Oh well, maybe we should consider doing something else than no-loss - like minimal loss games... Say, less than 20 units the entire game.

The good news, at least, is if you still want to try no-loss, it takes all of 5 minutes to quickly enter a game, and scope out the entire starting area for troop counts.

Maybe we could all agree on some minor mod that adds jarls/maidens in small amounts to the first area? Dunno. I feel this has dampened some of the spirit of the thing.

[zjazd18]

Well it's the hardest point of the game, those 3 hero battles, depending on your luck they will differ on difficulty, for me Eric was completly joke, ahriman pretty doable, and necromancer hard stuff. Next 3 island are pretty easy stuff, and spider battle being only thing that could give you a trouble, if u dont have trolls that's it. Starting area to avoid headache - paladin and secure couple of call of nature scrolls then u are good to go.

[DGDobrev]

Well, that's the thing... I have only an hour or two of play time a day cause I need to work, and I would hate to see a decent-looking game hitting the brick wall into the necromancer in the cave who spawned with 5k leadership instead of 3k. So checking everything out may not provide any accurate info in the end.

I may still do it though. I would feel much better if I see that I can count on 3-4 Soothsayers on the first island rather than just 2. That allows for splitting similar to the 4x1 Inquisitors in KBAP, which raises the odds at getting no loss a great deal.

We just need to find the way, I guess :) However, having a low-leadership count Ahriman and Necromancer, along with a Call Collosus scroll seems to be extremely tough to get.

[Zechnophobe]

Well, that's the thing... I have only an hour or two of play time a day cause I need to work, and I would hate to see a decent-looking game hitting the brick wall into the necromancer in the cave who spawned with 5k leadership instead of 3k. So checking everything out may not provide any accurate info in the end.

I may still do it though. I would feel much better if I see that I can count on 3-4 Soothsayers on the first island rather than just 2. That allows for splitting similar to the 4x1 Inquisitors in KBAP, which raises the odds at getting no loss a great deal.

We just need to find the way, I guess :) However, having a low-leadership count Ahriman and Necromancer, along with a Call Collosus scroll seems to be extremely tough to get.


Call Colossus may be cheesable is what I'm thinking. Y'know, break eggs until you get the right scroll. Not sure, just a guess. I never tried that with wanderer scrolls in KBAP, it might work.

That said, I'm still fairly sure you could do the spider without losses using Maidens, Jotuns, and Jarls, and maybe some other stuff. You just need something that can tank the spider while others kill all the spiders.

[zjazd18]

That said, I'm still fairly sure you could do the spider without losses using Maidens, Jotuns, and Jarls, and maybe some other stuff. You just need something that can tank the spider while others kill all the spiders.
What if Maiden dies from ranged attack, that boss do randomly u cant ressurect her. Only super buffed army that can dish tons of dmg in few rounds would stand a chance to do it, but then again boss retaliate on every single attack even ranged.
Don't see any other option than trolls to do it no-loss.

[DGDobrev]

Trolls were the most viable option for no-loss in the previous installments of KB too. But let's just get there and see... As things stand, there sure looks to be a way to do no-loss, but it requires a wicked game setup which I doubt we will see happening very often.

In the end, if one manages it, then it's manageable by all. KBAP/CW also had great and poor setups. Thing is, we can't tell before a scanner appears :P

[unicornxp]

Well, I tried my best to beat the black knight without call of nature(i have lv2 healing)....this need too much S/L and i cant do the same way to beat next necromancer with no loss:confused:

maybe lv3 healing could be possible?
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=11207&stc=1&d=1351646105


quicksave added

[DGDobrev]

Bad roll... As it was pointed out in this thread, the leadership of Ahriman and/or the Necromancer varies greatly, much more than in KBAP/CW. This can really turn a no-loss challenge into a hopeless one. Not easy to fight units worth about 6000+ leadership on level 4 or 5.

Since you are posting it, and you did show that you're really good in KBAP/CW and beat the game in record time, that is the only conclusion I can draw.

[Loopy]

Getting level 5 is pretty important IMO. Make sure you get the +exp medals ASAP and kill mobs to get up to level 4 before turning in quests/picking up exp bonuses. If you aren't level 5 before ahriman you should be afterward.

[unicornxp]

I got it! No loss KO the necromancer !

this game i got call of nature but no healing>_<

only mage can afford the 40mana cost ~~~ paladin and warrior may need many scrolls to make this result~~

(quicksave added)

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=11211&stc=1&d=1351675354

[zjazd18]

Great job man, doing it with mage. Make sure you have trolls on next island or call of colosus, coz spider boss is next progress block and you can still reload if necessary.

[FromWisdomToHate]

yay, just killed giant spider with no-loss on impossible

It's quite easy with trolls and stone skins, but its such a long and repetitive fight.

I have a viking so i had to cast magic spring as well, but as a mage or skald its easier to get mana regeneration lvl 2 or 3 so you don't have to cast magic spring and just focus on stone skins so all trolls can attack the spider.

I had 2 trolls attacking and 1 was mana 'regenerator' :)

http://shrani.si/f/22/CA/3fmcnEGN/boom.jpg

[zjazd18]

So can you get stuck anywhere else coz atm game seems super easy, Rune Mages are just op, even easier to do with them than with droids in previous game. Don't think this game will provide any challenge from this point on, or is there something to look forward? Think i'll just wait for patches and do impossible no-loss when things are fixed.

[Zechnophobe]

I'm pretty sure that Rune Mages are *so good* that using them basically prevents any real bragging rights, heh. Which makes me sad, because I like some of the idea behind them, just not, y'know, how they end up working.

It occurs to me that if their Runic Word built in ability actually correctly gave 6 runs with 40 Mind runes, they wouldn't even need mana or rage to fuel their infinite resurrection ability, since each luck rune spent would give 2 lucks runes, and 2 defense runes back. Seriously impossible to mess that up.

[zjazd18]

I play first island on "normal" and that was easy.


Well then you should definitely switch to impossible if you seek any challenge coz first island is hardest point of the game as it seems.

[Zechnophobe]

I got it! No loss KO the necromancer !

this game i got call of nature but no healing>_<

only mage can afford the 40mana cost ~~~ paladin and warrior may need many scrolls to make this result~~

(quicksave added)

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=11211&stc=1&d=1351675354

Are all those Griffons from Call of Nature? That's some pretty nuts stuff to see.

I'm completely exhausted with trying Uldaur on Soothsayer Impossible No loss. No Call of Nature scrolls, no spells except for stoneskin, and of course the ice circle spell in rune magic (that I think you start with). No heal.

2 Soothsayer units for sale. I've gotten the fight pretty close since his army is not particularly difficult (only 17 skeleton archers! 1 Ancient Vampire, but like 25 ghosts). It's amazing how frustratingly close you can get, and then... Ghost blade kills a soothsayer and you have to start again. Only thing I got of note was a scroll for +15% crit chance, which I'm going to use for the three final fights. (Already did Ahriman, kited through Uldaur's cave to do him next, but can't get the kill).

Anyhow, I've uploaded a save folder if someone wants to one-up me. Unzip to your $save/addon folder and it should show up as one of your quick saves I think. I'd do a full normal save of your game first though, just in case...

[McSwan]

Hey unicornxp,

Have you got the save file from just past Uladar or Eric? I want to do a no loss but the RNG is driving me nuts. I've taken down ahriman myself no loss, but it took 70+ reloads. The quick save you have is just before the fight, not after lol ;).

[McSwan]

Actually has anyone got a save file no-loss past Eric ?

edit never mind I managed to get past him with lucky royal griffin from summon creature.