This game forces you to change your strategy!

[Zhuangzi]

...on Hard it does at least. How many games have I played where I genuinely had to think of new ways of doing things over the course of a game. Not many. Not many at all. An example:

After cleaning out most of Kordar and heading over the Elinia, I had a serious cash flow issue. My bank balance kept going down, from its high point at about 300,000 gold to as little as 33,000 at one stage. I was worried. I thought I might actually *lose* the game due to lack of money. This is a real issue on Hard because there are more enemies and less money. It's not enough to win fights, you need to win without losing many troops.

Prior to this I had been using an entirely dwarven team for some cool morale modifiers. I think I had a team of Cannoneers, Giants, Alchemists, Dwarves and Miners (like 700 of them). A pretty tough team but basically a direct fire team. They kept taking a pounding from all the nasty demons in the Underground Sea etc.

So I needed a new strategy.

I thought - 'how can I assemble a team that DOESN'T lose this many troops?'

This is where you have to use what is available to you. I had a couple of artifacts that I hadn't used at all - Anya's ring (which gives insane bonuses to 'she fighters') and a dwarven telescope thing (which gives 100% hit bonus to archers).

My new team looks like this, with about 15,000 leadership:

80 Horsemen
400 Swordsmen
210 Elven Archers
400 Archers
1800 Sprites

Sprites? WTF? Well, they're 'she fighters' which means that Anya's ring gives them +3 Attack, Defense, Morale and one other thing. They cost 20 gold each which means you can have a stack of 1800 at my level.

Then I made use of two spells I had rarely used before, Dragon Arrows and Phantom. At level 3, Phantom creates a stack 43% the size of the original that lasts for three turns. I had been having some luck with phantom horsemen (about 30 in a stack) but even better is the phantom stack of 800 Sprites. So you move the sprite forward a bit, create the phantom stack which runs straight toward the enemy. Meanwhile, you use sniper to take out the biggest threat on turn 1 with your elven archers, and on turn 2 you give him Dragon Arrows. Turn 3 you create another phantom stack of 800 Sprites, and turn 4 you do the same again. So you are fighting with Phantom troops and sniping with arrows at the same time. Meanwhile the original Sprites, plus the Swordsmen and Horsemen are hanging back waiting for an easy kill.

What do you think of my new strategy? :-P

[fell]

Depending on the army you are facing if they lack range units. block off half the battlefield with rockwall and Daemon gates. Round 2 use Direct damage spells on their ranged units if they have some. If they donot open 2 more daemon gates. Use remainder of rage to summon the gizmo dealy for the ice lady.

When daemons are summoned put a mana shield on one or two. Then just let your summoned pets fight.

[Zhuangzi]

Just as a follow up - I've now completely scoured Elinia (with the exception of a walled off area) and killed everything without much trouble at all. I went from 33,000 to over 500,000 gold with this strategy, because I just wasn't losing many troops at all. Now I'm up to 1700 leadership with a team of:

2100 Lake Fairy
2200 Sprite
260 Elven Archer
420 Archer
210 Ancient Bears

Off I go to the Land of Death. :cool:

[Saridu]

Zhuangzi, that is such a cool idea! I also have anya's ring, (is it a set quest item? Remember receiving it from the cursed pirates.)

Just hit the elven islands (on normal, I'm not that crazy!) Been trying very hard to minimize my losses (Resurrection and Inquisitors really help) but my army was massacred at the dwarven castle seige (It was rated "match" but I was in a "what the heck oh crap I have work tomorrow mood"). Those damn demonesses teleported their bears next to my archers and my cannoneers in the midst of his troops and then the clear devil surrounded them - legitimate cheese! ... I like that in an AI

So my gold is down to 55k I was thinking turfing the dwarves and starting an elven army. Found a spawn of Fairys but sniggered, hmm maybe I won't snigger anymore! Also just picked up the phantom spell, the game is trying to tell me something.

Yeah I love the way this game keeps you on your toes.

[Bonar]

Wait till you get to General Karador's Castle. That is the longest fight in Land of Death. Waiting to hear on your tactic report Zhuangzi, after defeating him. :-P

[Shd]

Nice strategy! :)

My strategy there (spoiler in white):

I used maximum female troops in army just because of Anya's ring (2 types of spirits, dryads, demonesses). Such army kills everything till the dragons easily. Most important: rings gives +3 init +3 speed (!!!) +3 att +3 deff +3 morale (!!!). Spirits and dryads doesnt recieve retaliation and spirits with such speed going to enemy troops in 1st turn and hit them (just place them in 1st row :) ). Dryads have mass sleep ability for 1-3 lvl creatures and you can put them in permanent sleep by using "gift" every 2 turns.

Such army works fine even in "impossible".

[ThyrsaM]

Nice strategies, I hope to get such itms too when I advance.

I also like the way this game forces you to change. Even on lower levels it forces you to make choices between units, Sometimes units are juts no longer available and you will have to switch to something else.

[kennec]

as a mage i change tactic all the time

for each area i change mobs to save run around time. reserve skill saves hours and i wish i had bought that one earlier. i barely looose any units and at one time i had saved up 2.9 millions when i got to elven lands. at that time i realeased i had to spend the money so i bought mage runs from the dwarfen kings son in the mines for 300000 each.


i agree about phantom skill. very usefull on giant stack of archers. i have the archer skill so i can have many archers even if i am mage with low leadership.

i tend to go for as sturdy and big mobs as possible to avoid losses, for a long time i had cyklops and giants with archer units like cannoners,shamans and human archers. all that changed in end of elven land quests. red dragons and black dragons have huge hit points and are very mobile.

i have concentration skill for +6 mp and 130mp with 28 intelect and fire based +% artifacts. so basicly i just avoid all melee and nuke the shit out of ai. for example when i am upgrading items i use only lvl 4-5 mobs in my stack otherwise my melee units run around like sheeps all the time hehe.

atm in the game i have upgraded an item that gives demon units -20% leadership cost so i am looking forward to see whut i can buy later in the game and i will combine it with resurection and demongate summon skill. if its not working i will go back to old kite and nuke style. it saves alot of running around and money. my rage skills are at 15 or so. gotta love the gizmo!

[kennec]

Wait till you get to General Karador's Castle. That is the longest fight in Land of Death. Waiting to hear on your tactic report Zhuangzi, after defeating him. :-P

agreee was a fun fight. he summons lots of stuff :)

[ThyrsaM]

When I read this I can't wait to get to the higher levels.

[stupidface]

What she-fighters are there besides the Sprites?

[Zhuangzi]

Okay, I am gearing up for my assault on the Necromancer's castle. I decided that I needed some more female warriors to make use of Anga's Ring, but I had pretty much used up all the Sprites and Lake Fairies.

And then I remembered the Demonesses. :-P

Really, Anga's Ring is probably overpowered. It gives +3 to Attack, Defense, Initiative, Movement and Morale. Basically, it turns your female units into death on legs. I went for a jaunt in Demonis, doing my best to avoid the enemies (which were listed as Very Strong or higher) and I got myself a stack of 130 Demonesses. Then I realised that you can have TWO stacks of them, providing that one is in reserve. Oh, I should say that you must have the Tolerance skill in the Mind tree before you do any of this.

There is a castle in Demonis where you can get a Demon wife providing you can defeat her army. I had been reluctant to divorce Mirabella because her kids were all providing leadership modifiers - this is how I had over 20,000 leadership already. But I gave Xeona a try and now I don't regret it. Even though my leadership went down to 16,000, Xeona could equip all sorts of nice stuff that had been sitting in my inventory. I had a special Dwarf axe (+4 attack) and an upgraded demon staff (another +4 attack) to give her. All of this leaves me with about 28 Attack, 28 Defense and maybe 8 Intellect.

Then I went back to Kordar to finish up a few small quests like the Map of Farndor quest (the one where you have to light up all the obelisks). I had been missing one obelisk for ages and it was driving me mad. Turned out I hadn't clicked the one next to the magic school in Greenwort. :rolleyes:

So I got a Mithril shield from the Dwarven king, picked up a stack of Dryads in the elven lands (another female fighter), plus a stack of Black Knights. Now I'm clearing out the rest of the undead land in preparation for my assault. I'm up to level 25 now... :cool:

Edit - Female Fighters -

Lake Fairy
Sprite
Dryads
Demoness

Can't think of any more...

[Kolorabi]

I discovered the phantom image spell yesterday, and have been using it heavily ever since. I've mainly used it on my griffins (also very good movement, and extremely good initiative, meaning they're almost always the first unit to move on the battlefield), and in addition to extra damage, there are basically two very nice things that I accomplish with it.

First, I put the phantom units in harm's way, and make them more tempting targets for the enemies. They disappear anyway, and each phantom unit killed is a real unit saved from death. Second, I use them as to attack targets that have dangerous retaliation strikes. When they've retaliated on my phantom units, I bring in my real units to hit them hard, without fear of retaliation.

[ThyrsaM]

Nice story so far Zhuangzi, can't wait to hear how you will fare with the attack on the necormancer's castle. Looks like you don't use dragons?

[Zhuangzi]

I did it! I beat the Necromancer, first time too. :-P :cool:

I can't believe I won - the fight was nuts, too much stuff going on for me to be in control of. I just had the idea that if I kept grinding them down with Evil Shoal and Underground Spikes, as well as Phantom images, then I might have a chance. Even so, it looked like I was a goner when I was down to 100 Black Knights, with the obelisk still with 17,000 health. :eek:

But I had whittled down most of the Necromancer's forces, and he was out of mana for casting. So I hasted my Black Knights and charged. Can you imagine my surprise when I saw that the Knights (now down to 60 or so) were doing 3000 damage to the obelisk per turn?

I won with 44 Black Knights to spare. I love this game. It's starting to look like I will be able to win on Hard in the next few days :-P

[Shd]

Gratz!

Though your looses was heavy. :(

Anyway, most important, you did it :)

What army was in Necro castle (on hard)?

In impossible enemy had (as i remember) 2 stacks of 1.5k skeleton archers, 2 stacks of 5 bone dragons, 25 necromancers (i was surprised about such weak stack), about 140 old vampires and large stacks of undead spiders and skeletons. Edited: Ahh, remembered, about 180 death knights too.

My army was 4 female and inquisitors (leadership about 17k-18k). I played as mage.

[kennec]

wait till u fight bhaal man

i tryed 3 times and he owns me every time on normal.

i have taken break to think out a strategy.

hint : he summons like loads of archdevils in your rear troops :evil:

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

...on Hard it does at least. How many games have I played where I genuinely had to think of new ways of doing things over the course of a game. Not many. Not many at all. An example:

After cleaning out most of Kordar and heading over the Elinia, I had a serious cash flow issue. My bank balance kept going down, from its high point at about 300,000 gold to as little as 33,000 at one stage. I was worried. I thought I might actually *lose* the game due to lack of money. This is a real issue on Hard because there are more enemies and less money. It's not enough to win fights, you need to win without losing many troops.

Prior to this I had been using an entirely dwarven team for some cool morale modifiers. I think I had a team of Cannoneers, Giants, Alchemists, Dwarves and Miners (like 700 of them). A pretty tough team but basically a direct fire team. They kept taking a pounding from all the nasty demons in the Underground Sea etc.

So I needed a new strategy.

I thought - 'how can I assemble a team that DOESN'T lose this many troops?'

This is where you have to use what is available to you. I had a couple of artifacts that I hadn't used at all - Anya's ring (which gives insane bonuses to 'she fighters') and a dwarven telescope thing (which gives 100% hit bonus to archers).

My new team looks like this, with about 15,000 leadership:

80 Horsemen
400 Swordsmen
210 Elven Archers
400 Archers
1800 Sprites

Sprites? WTF? Well, they're 'she fighters' which means that Anya's ring gives them +3 Attack, Defense, Morale and one other thing. They cost 20 gold each which means you can have a stack of 1800 at my level.

Then I made use of two spells I had rarely used before, Dragon Arrows and Phantom. At level 3, Phantom creates a stack 43% the size of the original that lasts for three turns. I had been having some luck with phantom horsemen (about 30 in a stack) but even better is the phantom stack of 800 Sprites. So you move the sprite forward a bit, create the phantom stack which runs straight toward the enemy. Meanwhile, you use sniper to take out the biggest threat on turn 1 with your elven archers, and on turn 2 you give him Dragon Arrows. Turn 3 you create another phantom stack of 800 Sprites, and turn 4 you do the same again. So you are fighting with Phantom troops and sniping with arrows at the same time. Meanwhile the original Sprites, plus the Swordsmen and Horsemen are hanging back waiting for an easy kill.

What do you think of my new strategy? :-P

I agree it does. I was doing fine with my hypnotise level 2 characters then sacrifice them to make up for losses in my army (good way to get free units but it will cost you 50 Mana) and i've just arrived at the beautiful Elven part of the game so bought some ents and fairies plus Elven Archers and i'm thinking will I have to change my strategy? Might pop out and by some dragons next!

Excellent game with long playability value.

EDIT

Just finished reading the whole thread and that is what I love about this game. There are SO many different tactics/variations of troops you can use!

[Zhuangzi]

Gratz!

Though your looses was heavy. :(

Anyway, most important, you did it :)

What army was in Necro castle (on hard)?

In impossible enemy had (as i remember) 2 stacks of 1.5k skeleton archers, 2 stacks of 5 bone dragons, 25 necromancers (i was surprised about such weak stack), about 140 old vampires and large stacks of undead spiders and skeletons. Edited: Ahh, remembered, about 180 death knights too.

My army was 4 female and inquisitors (leadership about 17k-18k). I played as mage.

I can't remember exactly what was in the stacks, but it was similar to as you describe. Looking at it, I thought the fight looked surprisingly easy. I think there were about 50 Necromancers summoning things plus 200 mana from the global enemy. So there is much more to kill than it appears. Plus there are those annoying wooden boards in front of you which stop you from engaging the enemy straight away. I could probably do better a second time around, but I am just happy to have won. Plenty of money for a new team, plus I had a second stack of Demonesses in reserve. :cool:

[ThyrsaM]

Nice nice well done, it is great to rad these stories, can't wait to back into action too tonight.

[Gatts]

I can't remember exactly what was in the stacks, but it was similar to as you describe. Looking at it, I thought the fight looked surprisingly easy. I think there were about 50 Necromancers summoning things plus 200 mana from the global enemy. So there is much more to kill than it appears. Plus there are those annoying wooden boards in front of you which stop you from engaging the enemy straight away. I could probably do better a second time around, but I am just happy to have won. Plenty of money for a new team, plus I had a second stack of Demonesses in reserve. :cool:

Hmm. I wonder, as it was possible to recruit both black and red dragons (to be honest I didn't want to lose them in this battle, but rather save them for later on, but honeslty, later on are more and more dragons, so I used dragons agains undead castle, but undead army gainst dragons:))

Why?
Red Dragon can from the first round bombard the necro castle dark crystal + damaging the barriers and everything in the way, while the black dragon will risk a little bit and fly over the armies (sadly that this skills needs reload time :mad:)
Undead army has no special mass damage effects (necromancers use their turns for casting plague or death call, and if they fire, it is not so much damaging)
I tried to fill up my army with archers/shooters first, then Imps (no retaliation + 2 fireballs was something I wanted to try on the undead scum) but after all the best combination was PLANTS :) Royal thorn summons normal thorns, and the ents deal like huge damage - all are resistant to poison and vamps nor ghosties can not steal their lives :) My losses were the lowest with this combo.

On the other hand - when fighting enemy dragons - they are scattered all over, any tactics like hide your archers behing strong units or walls is not working, and even strong units suffer (as the game end leaves you far away from castles) this way one will grow weaker an weaker, so what to do?
take vamps and ghosties : wamps are fast and strong, so any damage thay may suffer at the start of the combat, they can replenish ending with zero/nada losses. Ghosties are much weaker, but their numbers are the trick: when you are on your way, you fight not only super strong armies but even matching (or weaker on lower difficulty level) so this are opportunities to suck over your leadership level cap ghosts in you army (in my rest-slot where I stored the over-cap ghosts I had like 20x more than my leadership cap was, so anytime I lost some or all ghosts in difficult battles, I replenished it right after the combat from my own repository and yes - I used more then filled at the end of game, but still I didn't used it up fully) - just keep some less then max in you active army- this way you have control at the first one or two rounds over the ghosts, then you don't need to care what thay do - as if they don't attack they will suck their losses back in counterattack. (Best point is that they are mind immune what gives them great advantage.
This still keeps 3 slots empty - well, you can use here anything - even humans if you like sniping, there are plenty artifacts that will keep your morale up:) + one skill, whe all know which. I used Demon - is not specially good, but has Fire resistance, can summon and has Furious skill. I tried Necros and dragons (red, black, green and undead - are strong but hard to get)
Biggest minus of my strategy was that vamps and gosties don't have any fire resistance and when the enemy dragons had lucky criticals and I didn't do good job in the defence strategy, all can go down to vain. (Luckily there is at least one artefact that gives 20% FR)
Another minus is that undead can't be ressurected (call death works on DEAD stack and can raise random undead, not the type you had) and ressurection works of course only for living.
But good news is that DARK commander skill will have it's usefulness proven :grin:

[Shd]

At fights when there ir many stacks of dragons scattered around i used a bit cheat tactic, but from other side absolutely legal (and used it only when there was more than 2 large stacks of dragons).

I putted all my armies except dryads in garrison/reserve.
In 1st turn (because i have points in +init skill from warrior tree) i casted 2 armageddons. Dryads used summon. In second round black dragons went 1st, at dryads turn 1 or 2 armageddons then "wait" (to let them hit my dryads) and then skill "Time back" (3rd of 4th spirit skill). So situation at the end of 2nd turn was: my dryads ar absolutely unharmed and there is minimum 15-20 less dragons in each stack. :)

[Bonar]

Clever use of the reaper "Time Back" skill I must say :D

[Gatts]

At fights when there ir many stacks of dragons scattered around i used a bit cheat tactic, but from other side absolutely legal (and used it only when there was more than 2 large stacks of dragons).

I putted all my armies except dryads in garrison/reserve.
In 1st turn (because i have points in +init skill from warrior tree) i casted 2 armageddons. Dryads used summon. In second round black dragons went 1st, at dryads turn 1 or 2 armageddons then "wait" (to let them hit my dryads) and then skill "Time back" (3rd of 4th spirit skill). So situation at the end of 2nd turn was: my dryads ar absolutely unharmed and there is minimum 15-20 less dragons in each stack. :)

That gives me a solution on "how to resurect undead troops" ... THANX!

[Zhuangzi]

Okay I have nearly finished the game now. I'm in Murok, which I presume is the end.

The demon lands were a breeze after beating the Necromancer. I defeated Bhaal losing about one quarter of my stacks, then did all the demon quests and closed the portal. The only issue I have in my game is money. I was getting quite worried during the labyrinth because I was down to under 200,000 k at one stage, with no end in sight. I find that I am spamming Phantom pretty much every turn, and using the Drain Soul rage spell (kills 40% of stack with 35 rage, with only 1 turn rest :cool:) I'm sure there are better ways of doing this but it is working just well enough to win the game on Hard. I'm sure Impossible is another matter though - I've no idea how you Russian guys were able to win like this. ;)

I think the Ragebox is capped at level 30? The red demon seems to have stalled there. Interestingly, my electricity demon is still on level 16 or something. I don't have much of a use for her at all (Gizmo is good, but too weak in the end game).

[Shd]

It is :)

Good luck with Haas (when i played last time, i hoped he will be stronger than he was)

Ragebox is capped at lvl 30. In middle of game Lina's spiked ball is nice ability. It works like cavalry (more places to speed up=more damage).

P.S Try at impossible, IMHO, its worth it. And if you are interested in "hardcore" game then try to complete all game at impossible without looses (there will be combat statistic screen when you will complete game (including how many units you loose)). Believe me, it is possible (completed in such way as mage. Now working as warrior). Hint: units ressurected by nercromancy talent(!!!) after fight counts as "killed". To achieve 0 looses you need that after every fight left side of casualties screen be empty :)

[Zhuangzi]

That sounds nuts, Shd. :-P I might give Impossible a go, but I think I would like to play on Hard as a Mage first.

I just finished my first game on Hard. I didn't have too much trouble with the 7 manifestations of Haas, but the final battle was tough. In fact, I had to reload an earlier save and assemble a team full of dragons. My strategy of using Phantom on my Horsemen etc just didn't work for the final battle. So my final team was something like:

14 Green Dragons
12 Red Dragons
9 Black Dragons (these guys are the best :cool:)
130 Horsemen (I still love them)
14 Giants (cancels out the negative morale modifier for Green Dragons with a positive one of his own)

Even so I only had 8 Black Dragons and a few Horsemen left at the end. That final battle is tough, certainly it was the way I played it. I know that there are more efficient ways of playing, but my strategy was JUST good enough to finish the game on Hard. I say just good enough because I was really struggling to find enough money at the end. I must have wasted too much earlier on.

Here are my final statistics:

Hard Paladin
Level 29
49 days of game time
97 completed quests, 2 failed, 1 unfinished (the freaking find a Cyclops quest)
Leadership nearly 24,000
20 Attack, 22 Defense, 16 Intellect
464 Battles
427,000 enemy kills
37,000 my kills (better than a 10:1 ratio, nice :grin:)
Score 890

I think I could score over 1000 easily with a Mage, especially seeing as you lose points for taking too long. I think about 40 game days should be enough to do everything. Also, I could have killed more enemies but I ran out of money. I think I could have got to level 30 fairly easily, which is interesting because I only took 1 level of the extra experience thingy.

I played this game solidly for eleven days to finish it. And when I say solidly, I mean at least 4 and sometimes as much as 7-8 hours a day. So I would say that it certainly took 70 hours of my life away. Game duration was apparently 50 hours, 49 minutes.

If you haven't bought this game yet and are thinking about getting it, don't delay any longer. This is enormously enjoyable and addictive. No sooner that I have finished I am wondering whether to start my Hard Mage game yet or not. :eek:

[Darkhon]

I don't get why the game is so stingy with garrisons. They really should let me have:

FIVE SLOTS GARRISON, so I can trade my entire army in, so I can switch strategies without having to remember where the other two in that set are.

And back at King Mark's Castle, hey man..how about a Bank to leave some of my items...I'd really like to hang on to some things "Just in case". I won't have them in my investory for adventuring but I can travel home and get them.

[Zhuangzi]

Yeah, you should be able to garrison units in King Mark's castle. It is rather annoying that you can't even sell troops, simply disband them. The unit reserve helps a little, but not much. I found myself using unwanted troops as cannon fodder so that I could get a stack of something else, rather than simply disbanding them.

About garrisoning items, that'd be nice too, but you can just keep them in your inventory, so I'm not too bothered about that. What does bother me is that if you sell an item it seems to disappear from the game. That's annoying. It should stay wherever you sell it.

[ostwind]

One thing that pwns me more when i have crossbowmen or elf archers is that round 1 they focus everything on them so i lose about 30-40 before even starting. What should i do!

[Kolorabi]

Make some more tempting targets. For instance, get a unit with high initiative (like griffins, sprites or dryads) and send them to cause havoc. Dryads can make thorns, which the enemy AI is often very keen on killing first. You can also use the spell which makes a clone of one of your armies to create what's basically a kamikaze troop, that hurries into the enemy's rank to prevent them from attacking you.

Also, there's a might-skill that gives you higher initiative during the first round. It's quite useful, as it allows you to get the first hits (and often your elf archers will get their turn before any of the opponents has a chance to do anything).

[ostwind]

thanks very much

[Shd]

Addition to what Kolorabi said:

And don't forget about spell "Target", because, as i understand, enemy archer units causes you damage (and they are mostly not lvl 5), so put target spell on your "tank" unit and enemy will attack him instead of your archers.

[LiveInABox]

Im finding it quite easy on normal as a warrior (it was pretty hard at the start..)..i just done the whole elven lands with just polar bears, royal snakes and shaman with two slots free! only cos i didnt want to waste cash on any of those pansy units they sell.. level 3 phantom is just too good and with rage maxed and beserk, the snakes and bears do like 10k+ damage! might have to beef up a bit for the land of the dead tho..

yeah i wanna find that target spell as well, the ai archers/spellcasters ALWAYS go for my archers...

[Zhuangzi]

In actual fact I am finding Hard to be not much of a challenge now. In elven lands, level 20 and I have avoided the money problems I had in my first hard game. I just upgraded my mage's staffs (2 of them) to I think Archmage staff (+5 intellect and 20% better lightning) and now I am cleaning up in Magic Valley. Off to the Land of Death soon.

I am going to have a break from King's Bounty soon. I have got work tomorrow, as well as The Witcher: Enhanced Edition of which I have only played through the prologue. But I will finish my Hard Mage game first. Ultimately, I think only Impossible will provide a suitable challenge. :cool: