Having trouble with Warrior on Impossible

[Evermind]

This is my first play through, need some tips...

I'm about 80-90% through level 8, almost level 9, and I have already cleared all but just a couple units in Darion. Done all of the quests, except for one which is way too hard (Emenem in the cemetary)....

I have about 77,000 gold right now, which doesn't appear to be much since I know I could deplete that very easily. Especially considering the challenge rating of the enemies on the Western and Eastern islands (Strong and higher to me).

I've already bought a boat and picked up most of the items that I could around the Western islands without getting into any fights. Going to do that also for the Eastern islands now too, but I don't see how that is going to get me past the challenging enemy units that I'm going to have to face.

I'm running a Warrior with just about 3100 leadership, 6 Attack, 7 Defense, 2 int and using Decaying Zombies, Skeletal Archers, Cursed Ghosts, Royal Snakes and Polar Bears.

Only notable skills are Level 2 Dark Commander and Level 2 Distortion magic. I'm using the Rina zombie lady as a wife with +10% combat experience artifact. My hero basically only has the starting artifacts that you get from the tutorial, with the exception of a +5 mana ring.

I haven't seen any particularly good items to invest in yet, most everything is Int or mana, which as a warrior I'm not too excited about.

The only items I can think of are:
Helmet (I already have a helmet with simply +1 defense though)
10,000 gold
+1 Defense
+200 Leadership

Two Belts (one for me and the wife)
6,000 gold (total 12,000 gold)
+2 Defense each (Total +4 defense)

Painting
16,000 gold
-3 Attack to Enemies

So, for 38,000 gold I can get +200 leadership, +4 defense, -3 to Enemy Attack.

I guess my question is, are these items worth investing in for the money? I have a feeling that I'm going to taking heavy troop losses on the Islands and may need the money for buying units and it doesn't seem like to me that these items are going are going to minimize those losses. Am I wrong? Should I buy them?

Any help, insight, or ideas would be helpful... Thanks!

[Zonc]

1) get the skill from mind tree that increases gold income
2) I would stick with human units since warrior has two skills that decrease leadership requirements (switch zombies to bowman)
3) in the beginning choose stats on level up instead of leadership, cause stats do not scale with level on level up where leadership does. I admit on impossible it's gonna be harsh...
4) for a warrior I would stick with order magic (dragon arrows, battle cry, bless) but it's just me (im quite surpised you managed to level 2 dist. magic so early)
5) if you can get to Hadar, go to dwarven necromancer and get some Vampires, they are excellent units
6) stick to the main quest as long as possible, exp rewards are greater and some new units appear at vendors. Islands quest isn't very challanging, you should get to the point where you have to Korodar)

[Stepsongrapes]

Given where you're at already (e.g., in game advancement and rune use), it may be that certain strategies are going to be hard to adopt, but here goes:

1) Gold issues: use marauders (maybe even two stacks) to gain more gold using their special ability. Earlier and frequent use of this strategy can make gold a non-issue surprisingly early into the game.

2) Magic: related to gold use, good use of magic (even as a warrior) should reduce your gold expenditures on replacements to almost zero. Ressurection (spell or inquisitors) and the summoning of meat shield units can save you a lot of cash and make fights easier.

3) Buying of artifacts: Roughly speaking, each point of defense raised or attack decreased from the enemy will decrease damage by 3.3%. So +4 defense and -3 enemy attack equals 23.1% less damage (and consequently losses that need to be replaced). It's up to you to decide whether that's worth the cost.

[Evermind]

1) get the skill from mind tree that increases gold income
2) I would stick with human units since warrior has two skills that decrease leadership requirements (switch zombies to bowman)
3) in the beginning choose stats on level up instead of leadership, cause stats do not scale with level on level up where leadership does. I admit on impossible it's gonna be harsh...
4) for a warrior I would stick with order magic (dragon arrows, battle cry, bless) but it's just me (im quite surpised you managed to level 2 dist. magic so early)
5) if you can get to Hadar, go to dwarven necromancer and get some Vampires, they are excellent units
6) stick to the main quest as long as possible, exp rewards are greater and some new units appear at vendors. Islands quest isn't very challanging, you should get to the point where you have to Korodar)

1) I think I might have some left over mind runes to do this
2) I'll give this a try, although I think they will suffer morale loss from my Skele Archers and Cursed Ghosts. But another ranged does sound useful.
3) I've been doing this. I think I've only chosen leadership twice because it was between that and int.
4) I do have Lv 1 order magic, and recently started using dragon arrows, working pretty good so far.
5) How do I get to Hadar, can I get there without doing anything on the Islands of Freedom?

Given where you're at already (e.g., in game advancement and rune use), it may be that certain strategies are going to be hard to adopt, but here goes:

1) Gold issues: use marauders (maybe even two stacks) to gain more gold using their special ability. Earlier and frequent use of this strategy can make gold a non-issue surprisingly early into the game.

2) Magic: related to gold use, good use of magic (even as a warrior) should reduce your gold expenditures on replacements to almost zero. Ressurection (spell or inquisitors) and the summoning of meat shield units can save you a lot of cash and make fights easier.

3) Buying of artifacts: Roughly speaking, each point of defense raised or attack decreased from the enemy will decrease damage by 3.3%. So +4 defense and -3 enemy attack equals 23.1% less damage (and consequently losses that need to be replaced). It's up to you to decide whether that's worth the cost.

1) Like you said, I don't think I'll be able to adopt that strat now. Maybe I was doing it wrong earlier in the game as well, but it wasn't working for me. Even with the gold recovered in battle, I was still outspending afterwards to replace troops.

2) I probably should have gotten Order Magic level 2 earlier then. I don't think that I have the runes for it now, maybe I can find them when I sail my boat around the Eastern islands. With my stacks of armies before it didn't seem useful, they were all either undead or above level 1-2 units.

3) Hmm, after I equip these items - will this affect the challenge rating that I see when I right click on a troop? If it does and the +4 def, -3 Enemy Attack alone can reduce them to a Match of Slightly Weaker, I think I can reduce my losses significantly.

[Stepsongrapes]

3) Hmm, after I equip these items - will this affect the challenge rating that I see when I right click on a troop? If it does and the +4 def, -3 Enemy Attack alone can reduce them to a Match of Slightly Weaker, I think I can reduce my losses significantly.

My understanding is that the challenge rating is not so finely tuned. Rather it's a course comparison of something probably as simple as total leadership value. I'd be surprised if switching out items has any effect on the challenge rating.

A rating of "strong" or higher doesn't mean that you will automatically take loses. More experienced players commonly no-loss battles with high difficulty ratings, usually through rage and spell use, along with judicious mana regeneration strategies.

[megajon]

I totally agree with inquisitors if they are available to ya.

You coulda got vamps from the graveyard coffins pretty easily, but I guess ya prolly had a full army and got the "no room" message.

IMO you should be using less bruisers and more support units... perhaps drop the cursed ghosts and decaying zombies, pick up inquisitors and archmagi. loose the zombie wife and grab the pirate wife.

turn one
-cast slow lvl 2 on thier biggest stack.
-wait with snakes
-charge with bears
-shield bears with arch magi
-shoot ranged stack with skelees
-holy anger snakes with inquisitors
-flank attack with snakes whatever unit your bears baited out.

turn two
-mana shield or stone skin bears/snakes
-pew pew pew
-res the fallen

turn three
-pew pew
-gift/res fallen


something like that... cursed ghosts are a damn good unit, but I just don't think you have the support to back up your live side units, which are much more effective when they have support.

[megajon]

I know ya took ranks in dark commander, so perhaps keep the zombie wife... for later game when you can get the ideal undead units. ancient vamps/bats, black knights, necros, cursed ghosts.

My only reservation when I look at late game undead is, what happens when you take heavy losses and have no necro call/timeback available?

Can't see warrior ever getting enough mana/skill to make necro call halfway effective... and it's damn hard getting time back up to the point where it can target the upper lvl units AND recharge at a decent rate.

I wish you luck with the undead army, I am plannin on doing the same thing soon... just torn between mage and warrior... thinkin it will need chaos magic for necro call and/or sacrifice... but maybe it will banter well enough as a warrior to compensate.

[Evermind]

Megajon,

Thanks for your suggestions.

After sailing around the Eastern islands and picking up items while avoiding fights, I earned quite a bit more gold than I expected (quite a few chests with +4500) and a bit more leadership from the flags to boot. I made it up to 132k, but I spent 38k of that on the items from my first post.

I was able to win a couple fights oddly enough, by removing the zombies and polar bears, and not replacing them, thanks to the cursed ghosts soul drain ability. However, I don't think this is as effective an army as it could be as you pointed out.

So, I think that I'm going to give your suggestion a shot. I'm kind of just flying by the seat of my pants here as this is my first play through. Sounds like I need to reconsider my army for now and wait until I can get the better undead units or start over without going for Dark Commander....hmm

[Zonc]

I wish you luck with the undead army, I am plannin on doing the same thing soon... just torn between mage and warrior... thinkin it will need chaos magic for necro call and/or sacrifice... but maybe it will banter well enough as a warrior to compensate.
I play mage lvl 28 (chaos magic lvl 3 other schools 1 lvl) and for most of the game my entire army was undead.

However, in late Demonis and dragon's labyrinth Ghosts started to lack power, so I had to replace them. Later on even Cursed ones became weak and I had to replace them as well. Of course I thought of Black Kinghts, but the problem is that they're avaible only in Korodar castle in very limited numbers, so I keep them in reserve in case of very tough battle.

Still, I think Undead is great choice (I have Vampires Ring, zombie form Rina, lvl 3 Dark Commander and some great boosters during night fights) and every character will be able to finish the game depending mostly on undead units.

[megajon]

I have distortion III, chaos III, and higher magic III myself.

and the might tree up to the first rank of +1 initiative first round.

lvl 20, 30 int, 160 mana, 57ish rage

I have ancient vamps, ancient bats, black knights, and necromancers all available to me... and considering making the change, scribing necro call up to lvl 3, and start focusing on dark commander. It does look attractive... I just don't know if with my VERY limited attack/defense I can afford to switch to so many melee units.

also, using the frog wife.. think my zombie wife quest somehow bugged out on me.

Right now I have red/green dragons, shamans, inquisitors, and evil beholders.

Still no Dryads available.. but sprites/fairies are available... was thinkin of tryin them out as well... definately if I can get dryads later on.

[Stepsongrapes]

I'm kind of just flying by the seat of my pants here as this is my first play through.

On the topic of armies, I'd suggest only one real tank unit (e.g., designed to take hits and retaliations). The rest should be geared to range (or non-retaliation) striking, or special abilities. It's tough to upkeep several stacks that are consistantly losing units.

Warrior on impossible as a first play through sound punishing. Good luck to you.

[Evermind]

On the topic of armies, I'd suggest only one real tank unit (e.g., designed to take hits and retaliations). The rest should be geared to range (or non-retaliation) striking, or special abilities. It's tough to upkeep several stacks that are consistantly losing units.

Warrior on impossible as a first play through sound punishing. Good luck to you.

Makes sense. I may have to put this guy on hold for now. Impossible mode probably wasn't the smartest choice for the first play through. This game is a lot more challenging than I thought it was going to be, unlike most games today.

I think I'm going to give a Warrior a shot on normal, and hopefully with the tips everyone has contributed I'll be able to scoot through that. Then I'll try a mage on Impossible for a change of pace, and then back to the Warrior on Impossible to see if I can finish it out.