I think I may have got myself stuck

[MasqueradeCry]

I realise this will definately be a laughing matter to those of you more familiar with the game, but I'm prepared to sacrifice myself to humility in order to receive any advice.

After many hours as a Warrior, Normal Difficulty, I've come to a point now where it seems it's simply no longer possible to win any of the battles that would allow me to progress.
I'm level 27 and up to Haas' Labryinth - have managed to defeat several dragons but am now out of money and can't afford to raise any troops that won't be crushed within the opening turns of the remaining dragon battles (even if I were to sell most of my equipment).

I submit my most recent save to your assessment and anticipated ridicule:

http://www.2shared.com/file/5944896/128f3f1b/Greenwort.html

I'd appreciate being enlightened to just how many horrible and idiotic mistakes I've made.

Matt

[Elwin]

Running out of money on normal wow I thought thats not posibble at all ^^,U really had to scew everything if u get it that state, with not so impressivve game you should have around 2 milions gold by that time

[DGDobrev]

It depends. Maybe the guy lost quite a bunch of troops in order to get to that state. Having to constantly replenish your troops does take a lot of money even on normal.

Maybe you should try selling some artifacts, maybe do some quests you may have missed or avoiding some enemies in the labyrinth.

[MasqueradeCry]

It's as DGDobrev says. While clearing the Undead island and Demonis I was constantly having to go back and forth to restock my army.

I'm not blaming the game however - I guess I just wasn't anticipating it to be quite as restrictive as it is. I made a lot of haphazard choices in the levelling up tree and on occasion lost an expensive amount of troops in one or two consecutive battles without being quite aware how important preservation was (Karador nearly wiped me out and I only triumphed in the end through spawning Thorns to deprive him of anything to raise the dead from).

I know it's hard to conclude certain details from my save but I imagine anyone who's familiar with the game could say where I made bad decisions on the trees or any other elementary mistakes that are equally obvious to those knowing what to look for.

[Edit : I'm actually not 100% sure about the Normal difficulty, I had to start over several times due to crashes (Steam version) and could well have chosen Hard instead. I'm sure there's some way to tell but I don't know what that would be.]

[DGDobrev]

I would not recommend hard until you've gotten the hold of this game and got used to playing with minimal losses. I agree that's it's sort of hard to get used to the long battles and multiple resurrections.

On armored princess it's even harder, because you're pretty much deprived of any mass ressurrecting tactics save for magic spring, so the sooner you get used to playing with minimal losses, the better :)

That means no blindly charging into battle, don't waste units so easily just because you've won the combat and so on and so forth. Sometimes it's much better to avoid a battle and do it at a later time.

[Elwin]

Tough i didnt look at your save, just one save will not tell us much, first things i might ask what is your playstyle in battle, do u use crowd control spell ? slow,target, phantom etc? or u just rush blindly into enemy ? with such situation i guess its the second one ..

And information about difficulty level is provided in load menu so u can check it every time ~~

[Akimbo]

If you havn't done so already you might want to try treasure hunting. When I first go to a new area I take a boat along the coast and hop onto all the beaches / islands, even if there's seemingly nothing there, and then: Walk a little, hit dig, walk some more, hit dig. The range on digging is pretty big and I've picked up some significant hauls from it. ( I seem to remember a 50k chest somewhere, probably in dead land. )

[MasqueradeCry]

@ Elwin : While my battle tactics weren't mindlessly rushing I didn't use anything along the lines of sacrifice/magic spring and so on and didn't come across any resurrection scrolls until I got to Kordar, and even then I only found one by sneaking around in Demonis.
I'll admit I was careless in cases but I wasn't ENTIRELY unaware of how to use my units effectively, however it was a long time before I was able to start bringing them back to life mid-fight.

As for the load screen showing what difficulty I'm on - it doesn't in fact. If it does in your game then I can't explain why, but I assure you it's not obviously stated anywhere.

@ Akimbo : I've dug up some nice chests over the course of my exploration and it has helped a lot. There's a good chance I've missed some as well, so your advice could possibly be what I need to do in order to somehow rescue my game. All that said, I get the feeling that even if I can get enough money to raise a decent army it'll be too little too late and I would be better off starting from scratch, my lesson learnt.

[Elwin]

AH i wrongly defined load screen i bet, dont know why but i cant load your save to check it.

But u can check it by yourself as on this screen :

[MasqueradeCry]

Ah, it is there as you say. It turns out I was on Hard afterall. I'm not so sure I'd like to begin again on Normal, that being the case - even though I've got myself stuck I was careless in some battles, couldn't revive for a long time and made some bad choices in the levelling tree, so I imagine if I played on Hard again but without those mistakes I'd do better than I have. On the other hand, I'm worried that I'll now find Normal too easy by comparison.

[Vilk]

@ Elwin : While my battle tactics weren't mindlessly rushing I didn't use anything along the lines of sacrifice/magic spring and so on and didn't come across any resurrection scrolls until I got to Kordar
There's no need to use sacrifice/resurrect/magic spring/time back tricks to do the game, those are useful only if you try do a time record.

That said if you have Sacrifice and magic spring that could be a way (not that fun) to save money.


All that said, I get the feeling that even if I can get enough money to raise a decent army it'll be too little too late and I would be better off starting from scratch, my lesson learnt.
There's no need to finish the game in less than 100 days. For the first game I finished (not even my first game but the third with two unfinished) I did it in 169 days! Yes plenty travels, but you can do it too, anyway your score won't be that good and there's no need to worry about it.

As Erwin I cannot load your save file, I'm using retail version updated to 1.7.

Forget time and check any quest not done in all previous area, check and do any easier fight not done yet and sell items and scrolls, yes you can sell scrolls in case you didn't quote it. Also for saving troops and in same time learn the game, it's good to replay any battle where you had too heavy lost.

[Elwin]

I suggest gremlin's castle if u hadnt done it and still want to try finish that game.
If u wanna start from scratch remember basics :
- always explore land first before fighting etting everything what is posssible
- to not loose much use crowd control spells slow,phantom, or target on tank
- you hadnt written what units you have used and what tactics for them so basic most powerfull ones : sprite/lake fairies/dryads with anga's ruby; no retalation unit ( griffon,demon) sent into enemy on the begggining of the fight and timebacked on the end of 2nd round

[MasqueradeCry]

The loading problem is probably caused by my game being the Steam release. There's been a lot of fiddling with that by Katauri so it's no great surprise my save is incompatible with your games.

Unfortunately I've been very thorough and there aren't any quests left to do. It's literally the Labyrinth or nothing, or so it seems.
I haven't been through the castle however, so there probably is a chance I could rescue my current game. I'm kind of set on starting over though, I'd rather finish the game in a non-sloppy way.

As for tactics, there is one detail I left out - when I chose to be Warrior I did so because I normally go for magic users and wanted a change. I stubbornly stuck to the idea, for much of the opening part of the game, that I wouldn't cast spells and thought - wrongly - that my choice to be a warrior instead of a mage would make up for that approach. I didn't expect spells to remain crucial to a Warrior, despite there being two other class options better suited for casting.

[Akimbo]

I didn't expect spells to remain crucial to a Warrior, despite there being two other class options better suited for casting.

If anything spells are more important to a warrior than any of the others, since his are usually weaker and you can only cast once. Making choice and timing more important.

[MasqueradeCry]

There's one thing I'd like concrete advice with that should be fairly easy to answer and explain - with your wives, is it generally better to go for children or keep the equipment slots? (and why, of course)

[Akimbo]

There's one thing I'd like concrete advice with that should be fairly easy to answer and explain - with your wives, is it generally better to go for children or keep the equipment slots? (and why, of course)

Items all the way, they tend to give significantly better bonus' than the children, remembering the children are also "randomly generated" ( lol :!: ) my current wife is providing me with:

+1 morale to demons ( sad because I'm not using any at the moment :rolleyes: )
+5 attack +50 %vs dragons ( dragon slayer sword )
+5 attack (+10 in the day) -20% defense from demons/undead ( Sword of Light )
+1 speed to flying units/+2 defense ( depending on if I have my dragons with me, sadly my boot finds have been awful )
+5 attack +5 Intellect ( Dead Skull )

Compare that to these: http://www.gamebanshee.com/kingsbountythelegend/children.php

[jake21]

Ack - Did I miss somethign? I've played the game several times and I nkow about the treasure (based off of treasure maps) but are there also random treasures buried everywhere ?


If you havn't done so already you might want to try treasure hunting. When I first go to a new area I take a boat along the coast and hop onto all the beaches / islands, even if there's seemingly nothing there, and then: Walk a little, hit dig, walk some more, hit dig. The range on digging is pretty big and I've picked up some significant hauls from it. ( I seem to remember a 50k chest somewhere, probably in dead land. )

[MasqueradeCry]

There are - everywhere the pillar of light shines there lies a chest. They can be dug up with the spade icon near the mini-map or by pressing D - this element to the game is explained during the tutorial I believe. Did you skip it?

[Edit : Also, I'd like to throw another question out there if I may. What use is there for bonuses to scroll slots? Surely there comes a point where you no longer buy any scrolls as the spells you need are learnt permanently (and above the first level of the spell). As I understand things, you can pick up as many map-found scrolls as you like and the limit only applies to actually buying scrolls - so is it as useless a bonus as it seems to me?]

[Ryastar]

Scrolls are mostly only useful for warriors since they allow you to cast the first level of a spell at no cost in mana. As a warrior, I always buy every scroll of gift I can find since you never know when you will need more res from your inquisitors. A few other spells are useful at first level too. So you only need to buy scrolls afterwards if they are useful at first level. In other words, the skill is only semi-useful, but since it comes with a bonus to mana as well, it's worth getting.

[Elwin]

There's one thing I'd like concrete advice with that should be fairly easy to answer and explain - with your wives, is it generally better to go for children or keep the equipment slots? (and why, of course)

Answer is easy, take items. I think even creators realized that children are pointless by removing them in sequel

[jake21]

Bleh been too long since I played. Now I remember - in fact the tutorial at the start shows this - oh well I should play again fairly soon (when I have time).


There are - everywhere the pillar of light shines there lies a chest. They can be dug up with the spade icon near the mini-map or by pressing D - this element to the game is explained during the tutorial I believe. Did you skip it?

[Edit : Also, I'd like to throw another question out there if I may. What use is there for bonuses to scroll slots? Surely there comes a point where you no longer buy any scrolls as the spells you need are learnt permanently (and above the first level of the spell). As I understand things, you can pick up as many map-found scrolls as you like and the limit only applies to actually buying scrolls - so is it as useless a bonus as it seems to me?]

[Vilk]

[Edit : Also, I'd like to throw another question out there if I may. What use is there for bonuses to scroll slots? Surely there comes a point where you no longer buy any scrolls as the spells you need are learnt permanently (and above the first level of the spell). As I understand things, you can pick up as many map-found scrolls as you like and the limit only applies to actually buying scrolls - so is it as useless a bonus as it seems to me?]

Perhaps you haven't quote yet you can sell scrolls, in your current game if you never sold any you have a big amount of money to get from selling those.

The bonus to scroll slots is very minor but not vain. That's typically the item you wear only when you want buy a scroll and don't want sell or learn some.

You can delay learning spell for many reason like to delay your choice or like to wait if you are a mage that you have increase the skill that reduce crystals costs.

About that take care even in normal mode that you'll get a crystal shortage if you try learn too many spells.

[Vilk]

There's one thing I'd like concrete advice with that should be fairly easy to answer and explain - with your wives, is it generally better to go for children or keep the equipment slots? (and why, of course)
In the beginning of the game and during a long time you won't have so many good items to use so the wife slots aren't that important. On another way at each children you get, you also get a sum of money. Additionally it could worth take your chance with children because few can bring some rare bonus.

Later you'll just quit the wife with baby to use another during later parts of the game. And for those later wifes, free slot will be a much better choice because at this point you'll have plenty good items.

[Elwin]

not far all, for example xeona's boots slot .. there are no good boots at all

[Akimbo]

not far all, for example xeona's boots slot .. there are no good boots at all

Haha, I thought I was just being unlucky with my boots. The "best" I've found so far are "Heavy Bronze Boots", which give +5 defence but -1 speed. Counts most melee units out, which is why over half my army is archers. The other half varies, but it's usually "soaring/flying" units after I found a pair of boots with +1 speed for them which counters the penalty from the other boots nicely.

[Metathron]

I would say there are at least two boots that I would say are solid or just plain good:

- Boots of the Mystic: +2 intellect, +1 to the power of slow and haste; slow is one of the most useful spells around, great to almost completely paralyze slow walkers and soften them from afar with your shooters

- Snake Boots: +1 defense (who cares, right?), +1 to the speed and initiative of snakes; royal snakes are already one of the best, if not the best, troops in the game. +1 might not sound like a whole lot, but believe me, it makes a world of difference, because the snakes' initiative will enable you to go first in many battles against pesky opponents such as necromancers, and the speed bonus will make them even more mobile.

[Akimbo]

Boots of the Mystic didn't appeal to me much, but I had a whole set of snake/spider based items which I used to great effect earlier in the game. I also picked up a lot of pirate/robber based items but never really tried them out :(

Looking at the list of boots ( funnily enough the Bronze boots arn't on there :-/ ) the "best" are probably:

Kerian Shoes - +3 defense ( meh )
Knight's Boots - +300 Leadership +5 to the Defense of Swordsmen, Guardsmen, Horsemen, and Knights ( would make me consider humans in my army :S )
Twinkling Boots - 15% physical reduction

[Ryastar]

The ogre sandals are pretty good. +2 def is ok, but the real bonus is +1 speed to ogres and giants. This doubles the speed of giants, turning them from a slow tank that doesn't die but also can be tough to actually get into combat to one that is easy to get into combat. It also means that you are one square closer to enemies, so earthquake does more damage.

[Thisismyusername]

MasqueradeCry just press shift and ~ when the screen comes up type money <#>. So money 100000 should give you 100k gold.

[Elwin]

but thats cheating ...

[Akimbo]

MasqueradeCry just press shift and ~ when the screen comes up type money <#>. So money 100000 should give you 100k gold.

I get that much from 2-4 ( possibly 5 ) chests.

[N3MES1S]

Running out of money on normal wow I thought thats not posibble at all ^^,U really had to scew everything if u get it that state, with not so impressivve game you should have around 2 milions gold by that time

2 millions??????????

¿How???? I think thats impossible. Even killing all the monsters, collecting all treasures and all the quests, u can get 2 millions. Plz, explain yourself -.-

Omg, im level 25, and i am near the same situation, im on the labyrinth, but im running out of money. On demonis u get almost nothing of money (better to avoid fightings cuz u lose a lot of your troops and we are on the same situation again) , and its sad when u realize that u gain only 80000 on combat and u need to retroop, and it cost more than 200000 or something. So u lose money, and u need to recruit cuz u can no longer win a match against dragons witout recruiting all of your troops.

I dont think we should not re-start again everytime we run out of money, troops or something. Maybe the devs should think on this.

¿Any tips that doesnt include to restart again?