Shall we start a new high score/info thread? (Spoilers inside) [Archive]

DGDobrev

05-26-2009, 08:33 PM

I know the game's out only for the Russians, but I got it on my trip with our company to Moscow bought it and beat it. I'm Bulgarian, I've been studying Russian for 15 years and it wasn't a problem going through it.

First of all, randomness is here, and is here to stay. Wonderful. A lot of items have been added, a lot of enemies and the wickedly powerful Paladin unit is probably the best addition to the game. Actually, I stopped using Inquisitors since lvl 25 or so because of these guys. They have mass resurrect of all allies in the adjacent 6 hexes. With Time back (it's back as a spell) you can do 2 mass resurrects, which usually makes you take slim to none losses, unless the battle is really, really hard - like the battles with some of the bosses. There is no gift spell, and inquisitors' holy anger has only 3 charges, which makes the big ressing vs. bosses somewhat difficult.

The next thing to consider is the travel time. I finished in 14 days, but I can easily shave off like 3-4 days out of that. I did a lot of pointless traveling because of quests I wasn't aware of, troop replenishment or chains of quests that require you to travel through several islands and/or multiple locations. It will be most interesting and challenging to try and find out the best and shortest route with minimal travel time.

I really liked the way the AI performs. If the AI decides that it's losing the battle, it doesn't allow you much time to do resurrecting. It usually suicides the last unit against your closest one, unless it's ranged or the unit is with no retaliation trait. For example, I got extremely irritated in the battle vs. Samail (in a castle on Shettera island) who as soon as he realized that he's losing the battle began casting Armageddon each turn (he had 361 mana, I think, so he had 9 armageddons available...), effectively destroying more of my units rather than his own. I did win, and with only 18 units lost, thanks to the 2 mass resurrections, but still, it was irritating as hell. I can imagine how a powerpuff girl party will cope vs. him. The losses will be extreme :)

The final battle vs. baal was also fun. You team up with Bill Gilbert to kick baal's... ummm... backside. Baal has over 125k HP's on normal (I can imagine how will it be on impossible) and has a peculiar spell. You start on a big chunk of rock, portions of which can be destroyed by Baal from time to time. The AI that commands Gilbert's units is absolutely awful. I saw 3 of his units disappear just like that, because he didn't move them from the endangered area when the rock broke. Even worse, I think that Gilbert's units losses count as your own. If I'm correct, that can give you bonkers if you need to do a game without losses, because you have no control over his units whatsoever.

In any case - the story's good, the game's good, the good tactics and minimal losses are once again the key to victory.

Maybe it's time to try a game with a mage now. It will be fun with the addition of the multiple bonuses to the spell damage introduced in this game.

Elwin

05-26-2009, 08:39 PM

So i was right about the point that GIlbert will be controlled by AI :P

Metroplex

05-27-2009, 05:55 AM

I can't wait to play the game...
Thanks for the spoilers:evil::grin:
It would be cool if we could control both Amelie and 'Bill Gilbert' by taking turns with them instead of us controlling Amelie and the AI 'Bill Gilbert'...
Maybe the devs can make this change before the game is released in English or release a patch afterwards!
KB rocks!!!:grin:

Mandea

05-27-2009, 07:39 AM

strange, in the russian demo there is a GIFT spell. maybe you haven't found it yet.

DGDobrev

05-28-2009, 06:22 PM

I didn't find it in my entire game, otherwise I would have used it. I know gift and it's one of my favorite spells. But since the game is random, it's normal to be unlucky from time to time :)

foolstone

06-08-2009, 02:20 AM

I am a Lvl 26 Mage at impossible now.
I think AP is much better than Legend.
more replayable,more units,more .....

DGDobrev

06-10-2009, 10:42 PM

And much more challenging in terms of no-loss battle (I actually discovered that Gilbert's losses do not count os your own), quick victory (because of all the traveling) and such.

Metathron

06-10-2009, 11:04 PM

travelingoz

06-11-2009, 06:08 AM

Where did you find masses of paladins? I'm level 18 mage and i've only found 11 so far. :(

Nevermind found them.

DGDobrev

07-09-2009, 02:05 AM

Well, things are looking good :)

Just finished a game on hard with a paladin. It was a lot of fun, mainly because this is my favorite char. 13 days, all quests completed (I think they're 83, since I checked under every nook and cranny for quests) except one one - it would force me to lose 14 hours to travel to Elona and back to give away some stupid papers, which would take me into day 14.

I must say I have underestimated the Paladin's skill Resurrection. I was very, very wrong in thinking it isn't as useful as higher magic or warrior's Bloodthirst. It's wicked usefulness lies in the ability to abuse it like hell once you get it up to lvl 3. Even if you lose 100% of 1 troop, but lose nothing else, you will get all those soldiers back (100% resurrection of a random troop that suffered casualties in battle), no matter whether they are Thorn Hunters or Black Dragons, practically leaving your army intact. Still, I must warn you - they do count as losses, so that's not a no loss battle, and no loss battles are very important - winning battles without losses gives you up to 1000 leadership.

EDIT: Also it's good to note that the AI usually resurrects the troops you need the most and/or cost the most. For example, if it has to choose between 20 inquisitors and 120 horsemen, chances are it will choose the horsemen. For example, in the final battle vs baal it had to choose between 156 archmagi, 417 inquisitors and 185 horsemen. It chose to resurrect the horsemen, which in my eyes was the best choice.

As for the final battle... I'd see only 1 way that it may go without losses. Baal is killed, some imps are left alive (no retaliation, so magic spring FTW) and Bill Gilbert has lost all his units (so that he doesn't kill the imps). Way too many variables and way too many if's for my liking :)

It was a fun playthrough. I must say I got a lot of nice items early on, but the game compensated it by giving me few useful troops. I had only 4 Paladins to tank and 3 archmages (and they remained 3 up until I got to Elona, the elven lands, mid-game) to support them for quite some time till I got the shield that gives out a dragon each level. So I started abusing it. The Paladin can indeed become a natural Dragon master as soon as he gets Voice of the Dragon lvl 3 (+2 morale to animals and dragons). A dragon with +20% atk/def and increased chance to crit is a force to be reckoned with. I strongly suggest that everyone tries it out. It's a hell of a fun, and it's rewarding :)

I'm a strong supporter of high morale, even if it costs me a unit to carry around (like the royal griffins, +1 morale all humans). +30% Atk, +30% def, 140% of normal chance to crit is just uber. Top it with some items and you get something crazy. Take a look at the last screenshot. With these paladins every hit is a crit (however, there is some margin for missing, because I think everything is capped at 95%), because I even have prayer lvl 3, which adds an additional 7% crit chance. I really wanted to try it out along side the warrior's last tier skill "Retribution" (up to 20% increased crit chance when counterattacking), but it's hard to spare that much runes if you're not a warrior. In addition to that, my entire army (even the priests) had a chance to crit over 60%, which is 2 out of 3. Suffice to say, that's like having not 33k, but 50k leadership. There is only one unit that's hard to kill with this army... The ancient vampires have the uncanny knack to evade crits all the time :P

Suffice to say that once I managed to fill the army as I wanted to (Inquisitors, Paladins, Knights, Archmagi and Priests), the game was a breeze. "Impossible" enemies were dying like crazy and with hardly any losses. The priests were really doing their job.They can be considered a real scapegoat, since the enemy usually goes for your weakest unit, and with lvl 3 in resurrection, you don't have to mind if they make it till the end of the fight as long as your other units are intact. Still, they do quite a bit of damage, since the Paladin can get a medal to upgrade the damage of the Paladins, Inquisitors and Priests by up to 40%. Besides, the only place I didn't use them was in the last 2 battles - with Ctachu (very tough end-game boss that summons a lot of powerful units like T-Rexes, so strong melee units were required) and with Baal (he's got a wicked smashing ability that hits multiple units regardless of the distance for massive damage).

Hope you like the new inputs... Although they do contain a lot of spoilers. The screenshots are pretty much self-explanatory, even if they are in Russian. Note the crit rate on the last one. I just love it :)

BTW: I do realize that my end stats are low. That's because I used a ton of utility items. +20% paladin crit chance, +10% crit chance, +45% reistance vs. magic damage, +25% resistance vs. Physical damage, and so on. They did more for me than any other item would do. It was really funny seeing a stack of 3k fairies (magic damage) hitting me for under 100 damage :)

EDIT: Fixed the formula by which I counted up the "leadership" you gain by critting.
For example, if you have:
=> 189 Paladins with 94% chance to crit for a total of 33700 leadership
=> this is close to 100% chance to crit (and they did crit in pretty much every round both on defense and offense)
=> a crit is worth 1.5 of the base damage, so you can practically multiply the leadership by 1.5 and get the total value of your troop
=> the result is that this troop actually weighs 50550 leadership or 284 Paladins with no bonuses

Wicked, right? The same goes for troops that crits, say 50% of the time.
For example:
=> You have 481 inquisitors with a chance to crit 50% for 33700 leadership
=> that's a 1 out 2 crits with a multiplier of 1.5
=> so the leadership of the troop is 33700*1.25 = 42125
=> that is as if you have 602 inquisitors without bonuses

travelingoz

07-09-2009, 05:04 AM

Thanks for all the info, DG! Looks very appetizing. :grin:

Could you tell me what the two different coloured knights' abilities are? And the different coloured evil eye? Are there still the regular versions of these in the game?

The gold knights are paladins and they have a resurection ability that works on adjacent hexes (1 charge). They also have the "action points" spell (recharges after 2 turns).

The green/blue knights have "circle attack" which allows them to attack every adjacent hex (recharges after 2 turns).

Both knights also increase defence after each time they are attacked. In battles after 5 attacks on them, their basic defence rises to over 60!

Yes, the old purple evil beholders are still there and haven't changed. The new yellow ones are level 3, can put units to sleep and have +1 initiative over the purple ones but no hypnotism.

foolstone

07-10-2009, 04:19 AM

I have finished a game on impossible with a mage. 84 quests completed.

As a mage, I have only one slot army all the time to avoid loss,except several combats.
one troll:can full its HP every turn in night fighting, it has about 800HP(1xxxHP with peacefulness spell). one troll can win a combat without loss even in late game.

After I got Resurrection I change it to 1 slot of demons(the blue skin one).

I think a mage can finish the game without loss.

Well, things are looking good :)

Just finished a game on hard with a paladin. It was a lot of fun, mainly because this is my favorite char. 13 days, all quests completed (I think they're 83, since I checked under every nook and cranny for quests) except one one - it would force me to lose 14 hours to travel to Elona and back to give away some stupid papers, which would take me into day 14.
bonuses

DGDobrev

07-10-2009, 07:33 AM

How do you avoid losses in the game with baal? That's going to be interesting with trolls (or demons, but the executioners don't have that much HP), because Bill Gilbert alone can't beat him. If you plan on playing with only 1 troop, unless you're able to use double geyser every time Baal summons demons, it sounds kind of hard. In addition to that, baal's smashing sword skill that attacks multiple enemies is a pain and will force you to do quite a bit of resurrecting afterwards.

In any case, good luck with the attempt, if you plan on doing it :) It is going to be interesting to see if anyone can be successful in getting a no-loss game.

EDIT: It may be worth trying in lower difficulties and gradually going up. It worked that way in KBTL, it should work here as well.

Calinda

07-10-2009, 11:23 AM

My first playthrough on Armored Princess:

Impossible Warrior, Lvl 57, 10 days, 87 quests, All rewards, 0 loses ...

Nike-it

07-10-2009, 11:32 AM

My first playthrough on Armored Princess:

Impossible Warrior, Lvl 57, 10 days, 87 quests, All rewards, 0 loses ...

Very impressive, one of the highest scores I've ever seen.

DGDobrev

07-10-2009, 11:48 AM

It may actually be the highest one, provided there is no other way to shave off a day or 2, but in KBAP there is no travel exploit :)

Calinda

07-10-2009, 11:56 AM

It is possible to shave off a day or 2, it was my first game, I'm sure I can do a bit better if I replay it, but I'll take some rest first :)
And if you go for no loss - Paladins + Phantom/Time Back rule if you play warrior.

DGDobrev

07-10-2009, 12:10 PM

Well, I am trying to analyze the optimal travel time between the islands based on the quests, but it's proving to be no easy task. For example, so far it seems that Rehau must be done fist, because it gives out quests to verona and then elona (DeGosh's papers). Elona gives a quest to Shatterra (Liu's soul), so it must be completed second, and Shatterra must be completed last, then back to Elona, for all it seems, since a lot of quests from various areas end there (klisan's soul, the tools for the fallen alien being, etc.).

In addition to that, a lot of side quests that finally end in verona should be completed when you collect all stones and just before you speak to the turtle Theana.

Also, it is imperative to buy a boat in Montero. Travel time from montero to the adjacent islands (like Tekron, Rehau, etc.) is way lower than from verona, and besides, the travel time from verona to Montero through the bridge is 5-10 mins, based on whether you are able to fly or not :)

Well... and travel times can also be cut by using the 2x/4x sacrifice/1x time back trick, allowing no extra time to get back to restock the troops.

Any other ideas will be appreciated :)

Elwin

07-10-2009, 01:27 PM

Calinda, as you are hardcore KB player, can u say if it is really much harder than legend?

Calinda

07-10-2009, 01:41 PM

Actually I did not find it much harder. It had different rules and better balance in general. I liked that most of the old "exploits" were removed. Both games are quite like chess, and you need to actually think, to be a successful player.
Another thing that I liked was that in KB:AP I needed to change tactics sometimes.

DGDobrev

07-10-2009, 03:23 PM

I totally agree with that assessment. The game looks harder because even on hard most of the time you'll be facing way stronger armies than your own (at least that's what the description will say), but with proper tactics, you can always beat the living hell out of them. I guess the thing you have to get over actually is to get used to seeing "Very strong", "Overpowering", "Impossible" enemies and do not be afraid to engage them :)

Pyramid

07-15-2009, 01:56 PM

I passed game liked it now passing with paladin since i finished on normal with mage and warrior .With warrior it was piece a cake 52nd lvl dragon and those EGGS give you all army you need!!I casted berserker on paladins who had 63% crit it was insane!!!

travelingoz

07-16-2009, 05:20 AM

Yay finally found "time back" on the lizard island. Had to be the very last island i found the map for!
Sure makes a huge difference! Playing mage on impossible with no losses and i'm up to level 34 but it's day 14 already so i don't think i'm going to get a great score....

Favorite tactic for generating endless mana and rage so far is royal thorns with necromancers raising dead then using magic spring with the necromances area attack.

DGDobrev

10-28-2009, 05:43 PM

Reading through all the posts here made me want to do a new playthrough of KBAP. I haven't done that for a while and found that I really missed the game.

So I picked up a Warrior, selected Impossible and went for it. I must admit that the warrior gets a pretty easy time in this game, at least in my opinion. The start is dodgy, you may have to replay some battles later in order to ensure quick 50 no-loss victories (the requirement for the Great Tactician medal, or whatever they will call it) to get a huge boost to the leadership very early on which will ensure your easy-going through the starting islands. Still, compared to the start with a mage, it was a breeze. Just for a reference, the mage starts with Flaming arrow and Fireball scroll, and it is some time before she can get the fireball spell itself, and even if she does, it isn't much use early on in impossible (I also have a mage started on impossible, so I have a certain ground for reference - even with +200 leadership helm, +150 leadership belt and +250 leadership batton she struggles).

Since this was my first playthough on impossible, I wasn't much aware of the hardships at hand. This is why I can give a few pointers to the people who will decide to try it out (they work if you play through the first time as well, they will work for me from now on):

1. Have a clear idea what kind of army do you want. Do not spend money on a new unit simply because you have the money right now. You may need it later. I made the mistake to buy a ton of necromancers early on, which I used in only 10-20 battles and had to babysit them, since I couldn't resurrect them. I also made the mistake of buying a ton of Emerald Green Dragons and Assassins, which I barely used. Do not make my mistake :)
2. Read the quest info thoroughly. They provide valuable information that you will need when you do the quest. They also open up new quest possibilities, so save before talking to a quest giver.
3. Be a cheapskate. Do not spend money on items that you will not need later on - or you are unsure whether you will need them later on, for that matter. You may spend 60k on items and troops just to see on next island a piece of equipment that provides 10 might/mind/magic runes, for example, which is a must to buy and use, as it will speed up your development very quickly, especially in the early levels. You will rue that mistake.
4. A general rule of thumb that will ensure that you will never run out of cash is: never lose units worth more than 3/4 cash you get from the battle (since you will advance in levels and you will need more troops). If you must lose more units (for example, in boss battles, castle sieges, etc.), make sure you made up for that in advance.
5. Make sure you do as much victories without casualties. This will help you amass a sizeable amount of money that will help you early on.
- another way of circumventing this problem is to use scapegoat units (meaning expendable units) that are easy to recruit in each area - like Executioners (the new purple demons, always retaliates), Royal Griffins (a new type of griffin, always retaliates), Paladins (resurrection and a great tank), Ancient Ents (tons of HP), etc.
- as a Paladin, you have one great trick up your sleeve. The resurrection skill that I had so stupidly neglected and ridiculed can be used to your advantage big time. Granted, it alone costs 42 mind runes to master, but it pays off big time. With it, you can use a scapegoat troop in each battle, which, even if destroyed, will come back to life after the battle. It counts in the losses, but unless you're going for a no-loss victory, it isn't much of a problem
- as Calinda suggested, paladins + phantom spell is wicked.
6. Learn to love your dragon, especially if you play a Warrior. Use it anytime you can. As a Mage, you should be more cautious with it, as using it more often will have him gain experience quickly, which may surpass the overall rage amount you have.
7. Be on the lookout for "easter eggs" - or things that have something in common with King's Bounty: The Legend game. There are a few of those here, and they are fun to spot.

As for my playthrough, I must admit that it was riddled with mistakes, but in the end, it was fun. I didn't find some very useful spells until lvl 30+ - like Target, Sacrifice, and I never found the Time Back spell (just my luck I guess), even on Rehau island, where I found it in the last 2 playthroughs. For example, I went to Tekron island 4 times, while in essence one can do it in 1, maybe 2 tries at most. It also seems that I once again missed out on 5 quests, and for the life of me, I don't know which they are. I probably made some bad decisions in the quest dialogues, since this is my 3rd playthough with 82 quests completed. I also ended up with 230 out of 282 battles without losses. Not bad I guess. Could have been more, but I didn't buy a lot of items that can be upgraded - that improves the battle count and provides cash, but I did poor army choices on a few occasions and had to re-stock, so I didn't had a lot of extra money... shame on me. The losses are sizeable for only 52 battles with losses, but most of those were scapegoat units I had to use.
Another thing I noticed is that I get more than enough rage in combat to use the stronger dragon abilities all the time, whenever they became avaliable even with +40% rage income when troops exchange blows (there is also a +60% option).

So in the end:
Score: 1651
level: 54
Atk 36 / Def 27 / Int 23
Rage 119 (165 max with proper equip) mana 50 (65 with proper equip)
Battles 282
Losses: 4992
Enemy heroes killed: 76
Bosses killed: 6
Damage - by troops: 78%; by Spells 0%; by Dragon abilities: 22%
Final Dragon lvl: 59

And of course, I do hope I'm not pouring too much salt in the wound with this post, as people are still waiting for the English release...

P.S> It would be really, really great if the current fan manual (or at least I think it is fan manual) is translated in from Russian to English with the launch of the game. It has everything in it - from skills and attributes, through monsters, game objects, pointers to game mechanics. An it's 217 pages of content. Actually it is the best manual I have ever seen. Extremely descriptive.

BB Shockwave

10-30-2009, 08:50 AM

I'm with warrior on Normal right now, and I have had around 82 no-losses battles so far... Paladins, Droid Engineers plus the Phantom spell is need for that, of course. Mana is much easier to regenerate now then in Legend thanks to the Rage-to-mana spell and the Dragon's chargers/mana orbs.

DGDobrev

10-30-2009, 10:07 AM

BB Shockwave

10-30-2009, 10:25 AM

Actually, it's a bit harder, at least in my eyes :) Lina had the chargers skill, which at good level provided enough rage and mana that could be easily converted into more mana. Here, the dragon can transform 25 rage into 25 mana at best. Still the phantom spell works wonder, as you so rightly say :)

Yeah, I also miss that Lina's chargers gave Rage as well as mana, plus there were more then one chargers. But at least the Dragon's skill can be used every round.

DGDobrev

10-30-2009, 05:23 PM

Provided you have the rage :)

On normal, you can simply use the dragon to trample any enemy. The rage income is really wicked and you can use the War frenzy skill in the first round, combined with the multi-hit diving skill in every other round, thus seriously reducing the enemy strength. It's actually really nice that they didn't make the lava flow skill reusable in every turn, as that would simply be way too uber - you can still waste a cast to do it though :)

Well, in any case, KBAP provides a serious diversion from the usual KBTL gameplay. There are some griefs I have, and I can't bear to refrain from sharing:
(all of this said considering impossible difficulty)

like why the warrior is so overpowered once again, mainly due to the blood thirst skill, which allows you to retain enough rage, even if you wasted it all (mainly on mana for the phantoms), to start the next battle with a free dragon skill? In my eyes this puts him one step ahead of the mage (even with higher magic) because as you know, the constant exchange of blows provides rage, which can be easily transformed into tons of mana. 25 rage for 25 mana? No problem. How much did the phanton spell cost again? 25 mana at lvl 3? Wonderful!
Why the mage is so weak in the beginning and keeps this weakness for quite a while, until she can cast much better mass-hitting spells? Not to mention that stronger spells are found mainly on the islands with the hardest opponents...
why the paladin can finish the game with 100k losses and still not waste even a coin over what he has to? Scapegoat units (preferably with "always retaliates" trait) + Resurrection skill lvl 3 FTW :)

Well, I'm certain this will all be discussed when everyone gets the game :)

Zhuangzi

10-30-2009, 09:55 PM

DGDobrev

10-31-2009, 03:33 PM

loreangelicus

10-31-2009, 04:54 PM

DGDobrev

10-31-2009, 07:28 PM

No Gift, quite right. If there was the gift spell, anyone could do a no-loss victory really easy by simply gifting the paladins over and over. However,, you can master the summoning skill, which, together with Phatom, nets you 3/4 of your paladins stack as a phantom with resurrect ready to use at the cost of 25 mana. So don't worry :) Things are not as grim as they seem :)

Timeback compensates to an extent. It acts the same way as in KBTL, so if you had already used the skill in this round, you can return the unit to the previous one and it will have it. However, the next round, it won't have it if you time back it again, pretty much as it was in KBTL. Besides, Time Back costs 30 mana to return a unit to a previous state, while Phantom is only 25, so Time Back is only useful to recover huge losses on a single stack.

Quite right about the runic stone... no more runic stone. However, there is a new rune giveaway system. In this system there are 4 lines of rune giveaways. The game starts at a random line,and after the game hits the last line, it goes back to the first one it picked. As such, in each 4 levels, each char gains:

Warrior: 24 Might, 16 Spirit and 8 Magic runes - total is 48 (12 per level)
Paladin: 12 Might, 24 Spirit and 12 magic runes - total is 48
Mage: 8 Might, 16 Spirit and 24 magic runes - total 48 again

As for the ress scroll... The Pally doesn't have it anymore. It is replaced by a seemingly worthless peacefulness scroll. Still, the paladin can do a lot of no-loss battles with the skill Resurrection lvl 3 (when only 1 stack suffered casualties) - they just won't count as no-loss in the end result :)

As for the learning, you're right. The Pally can level up pretty quickly this way. There is a guaranteed Shark Tooth item that gives 5% XP and 5% more gold in battle on the second island when you take your first Sword Bearer as a companion (or whatever they'll call it, like the wives in KBTL) with you, you just need to pay him some courtesy and get amazed by his feat of saving a girl from a shark. You can also restart a few times to get the DEGosh's manual (+5% XP, can spawn in the first area) and start off with a decent +XP per battle. That means 20% + 5% +5% = 30% more xp per battle which is really nice. There are other items that give XP as well, but they're not that easily accessible as these 2.

EDIT: So... I made a small calculation concerning the max +XP per battle (something I really like as well)
Marshal's Memoirs - +5% XP per battle
The Hand of Necropolis - +10% XP per battle, +2 Attack, + 2 Defense, Living (Morale falling by 1 after each battle, rising by 1 if there were Humans or Elves in the opponent's army)
Shark Tooth - +5% XP per battle, +5% gold per battle
Learning skill - 20% XP per battle

So, maximum is +40% XP per battle. That's a really nice boost, there is no doubt about that :) Holy anger no longer gives +XP when fighting undead or demons though. It gives a fixed amount of rage and mana each time your unit hits a demon or an undead instead.

Zhuangzi

10-31-2009, 11:07 PM

No Gift in AP? So bye-bye Inquisitors? Or does Timeback make up for this?

I read somewhere that Timeback is now a spell, so level 5 units are now more viable for a no-casualty run. Could somebody post the translation of this spell, from levels 1 to 3?

Looks like they royally screwed my favorite class, the paladin. I like playing no-casualties, and if the class-specific Resurrect ability still counts as casualties... then it just turned from overpowering to useless for me. :(

And it seems that they even took out Runic Stone...

But paladin is still the fastest way to max Learning though, and I do hope it still starts with a Resurrect scroll, which I believe is the class' greatest redeeming trait.

You will own this game like you owned TL, don't worry. Instead of using Gift, you will use the Paladin unit (not hero) which is an uber-tank that can resurrect all the units around it. I didn't think of using Phantom on the Paladin and thus increasing my resurrection power, but that sounds like a great idea. The timeback spell is very nice too.

For a Warrior, I had gotten into the habit of casting Mass Haste on turn 1, rushing my knights right into the heart of the enemy to absorb hits, and then casting Timeback on them at the end of turn 2 (i.e. no losses). Royal Griffins probably do this just as well, especially with their instant retaliation, but in general they are a bit weaker than the Knights defensively.

Calinda did it with zero losses - I can see zero losses with a Warrior quite easily. In fact, guys like you have inspired me to try for zero losses in AP as well. :cool:

DGDobrev

10-31-2009, 11:37 PM

Zhuangzi - nice habbit. I've gotten used to it as well. The next habbit I picked up was to use teleport on the paladins that will put them right in the middle of the enemy lines. That works well with 1 tank + 4 ranged units though. With Dual-tank (Knights + Paladins in my case), things are different and Mass haste is better.

I also wrote to give the info on the time back spell. I sort of missed it during my last read of loreangelicus' post. So, here goes:

Time Back
lvl 5
Enemies can use it: No
cost: 50 000 gold

A unique spell which folds (commands is the direct translation) time. It returns the selected unit to its condition in the beginning of the previous round.

Lvl 1 - Works on targets lvl 1-3
Lvl 2 - Works on targets lvl 1-4
Lvl 3 - Works on targets lvl 1-5

Cost: 30 mana, al levels
Cost to improve: 10/20/30 crystals

This is the translation. It is not affected by any items, attributes or equipment. Some spells that have direct damage, duration, and so on are affected by intellect and other items. Haste and slow are a simple example, there are boots that add 1 turn to the duration.

As for the 0 losses, I agree that it's entirely possible. The 2 battles that will present some challenge are Zilgadis (the tower gremlin boss) and Baal (final boss). Zilgadis can be beaten up with relative ease - once he's down, leave one friendly gremlin tower while you're resurrecting the troops with Paladins + Phantom. I personally did it with 1/4 losses on Red/Black dragons, Paladins and Knights (and so decided to leave it like that since I had to return to Verona to restock anyway) with 2 tanking units next to his left and right feet, because the gremlin is like this:

Gremlin boss (Zilgadis)
1 spot 2 spot Middle Spot 3 spot 4 spot
RH RH RH & LH LH LH

RH is right hand, LH is left hand. Any hit that requires a RH retaliation hits every unit in the RH squares. The same goes for the left hand.

Baal is a different story. Stock up on mana items, especially if you're a warrior or a paladin (you can't summon the dragon here to transform rage into mana) and utilize them. After you're done, have baal summon a wave and kill everything but the imps. Bill Gilbert's forces should be dead by then (at least on impossible that is), which will allow you more than enough time to use phantoms to recover the lost units.

Those should be the hardest battles. I didn't bother doing a no-loss victory - although I think 232 no-loss out of 282 battles is a good example that it can be done. Calinda proved it already, so there's plenty of enjoyment in the moths to come with various challenges :)

EDIT: In the worst case scenario, I will try to translate the most important portions of the Russian guide. However, I will need some info on the English translation of the skills, spells, etc. I can guess, but people may get confused. So we'll see what happens :)

Elwin

10-31-2009, 11:40 PM

Just game need to be released ;)

loreangelicus

11-01-2009, 11:51 PM

Thanks for the info guys. :)

The difference that I'm seeing here between TL and AP is that there would be more fluctuation in the highest possible score achieved since the leveling structure is different. As such, the key to achieving the highest possible score might be to have a good game with the right class and great luck with +XP items.

Paladin used to be a shoo-in class for me with regards to maxing Learning asap and getting Resurrect. But without Resurrect... hmmm, maybe its time to experiment with a new class. :)

DGDobrev

11-02-2009, 12:23 AM

Well, the class that provides the best resurrection options right now is the warrior class. You only need as much rage as possible and 25+ mana (which is easily attainable). When you're done dispatching the enemy army and dwindled it to just a few simple troops, start using phantom and mana-accelerator (or whatever they will call it) to replenish the lost mana in the cast. For example, if you have 150 rage (don't waste it on a battle that can be easilty won) and 30 mana, and you have mastered the mana-accelerator dragon ability, this means you have a total of 180 mana, since the accelerator transforms 25 rage into 25 mana, which is extremely convenient. In my eyes, even a mage can't get this effective - not to mention that you can cast phantom while the battle rages and still get to full rage by the time you start resurrecting.

Which goes back to the simple old statement that the warrior is the easiest to play and the most powerful class in the game who can win a battle with minimum or no losses if played correctly.

Mandea

11-02-2009, 06:32 AM

the warrior was easiest in the first game too. but I loved the paladin, which provided the most balanced play of all three. I just can't wait. Thanks heaven I still have a few vacations days :)

Zhuangzi

11-02-2009, 08:15 AM

Mandea

11-02-2009, 08:34 AM

I have no pleasure with zero losses in every battle. It's completely unrealistic. I want to feel I had a tough fight. I agree with some battles, but definitely not all, no matter the difficulty level.

DGDobrev

11-02-2009, 08:58 AM

As soon as I get my hands on the English version, I am going to try for zero losses on Impossible Warrior. Yep, a few of the boss battles will be a unique challenge, but I'm sure it can be done. One of the good things is that the game is a bit shorter (less than 300 battles) so I shouldn't get so impatient. :cool:

Well, it can go a bit higher if you do some suppressing, item upgrades and such. However, in my game I had 282 fights (including suppressions and upgrades, but there could have been at least 20 more), keeping in mind I cleaned out everything and even re-did some areas for their quests. Still, this doesn't count towards the high score, so it's all the same.

The perfect start is the one you find 4 paladins + 4 Archmagi on the second island you will visit - the Scarlet Wind island. If you have these 2, you will be able to do quite a few battles without losses. The only thing left then is to have a good idea what kind of units do you need to achieve that goal and stick with those.

Right now I'm considering doing the exact opposite - I want to try a game with the paladin and see how soon I can get the resurrection lvl 3 skill and start using scapegoat units to ease the fighting. I will, of course, do 50 no-loss battles for the Great Tactician gold medal, but that particular option looks like a pretty interesting thing to test :)

Elwin

11-02-2009, 09:04 AM

Same here as Mendea , i am proud when i do It byt WITOHUT that whole crap with regaining mana and resing over hundred turns. Gettting no lose withing 10-15 round against overpowering enemy - priceless. That what makes you played well, other methods are just exploiting to be honest xD

BB Shockwave

11-02-2009, 09:07 AM

Just a quick post to confirm my thread-starting post. There is no Gift spell in KBAP. There is also a new "Forgetfulness" trait on the Lake Fairies and the Dryads which, if successfully activated, strips their target unit of any spells or abilities he/she might have, effectively removing any option to use abilities with charges.

So THAT's why I haven't found that spell yet. You can use Time Back for a similar effect, though. Bummer though that I have now gotten the map for all continents and checked all buildings and picked up all scrolls, and no Time Back spell yet. Hopefully some quest or liberated castle will give it to me.

Dryads are even more dangerous now with this "Oblivion" (I guess the translator mistranslated "Obliviousness"), don't ever let your paladins near them... But, it's Sprites who have the skill as well, Lake Faries have Fairy Dust.

I have given up zero losses with Warrior - without the Resurrection spell (which I got only after some though battles) I could only do that if I used Paladins in every fight, as well as Droid Guards and Engineers, and cast Phantom a lot. Frankly I wanted to try out all the new units and the new abilities of old ones, not use Paladins trough the full game (an all-dwarven army with the III. level Wind Axe of Elements was extremely effective, but now that I have gotten to Reha on Level 31 I am playing with Lizardmen - bummer that I have not found any good items for boosting a Lizard army).

Even so I have only lost units in 4 battles so far: 8 Assassins and 1 Paladin when defeating Hnagi (good tip for that battle: bring Royal Griffins and summon Heavenly Guardians. Hnagi will always cast Hypnotize on them as she can only has that spell on Level 2, and the Ghost Griffin's spell absorption will cancel that immediatly.) and 1 Foreman and 10 Miners in another battles.
Now that I have Resurrection on Level III I can avoid further losses - my only Level 5 unit is the Tirex and Tirexes can heal very easily by eating corpses.

Looks like they royally screwed my favorite class, the paladin. I like playing no-casualties, and if the class-specific Resurrect ability still counts as casualties... then it just turned from overpowering to useless for me. :(

And it seems that they even took out Runic Stone...

But paladin is still the fastest way to max Learning though, and I do hope it still starts with a Resurrect scroll, which I believe is the class' greatest redeeming trait.

Frankly, I don't care what the game counts. I still consider those resurrected units as no losses. Maybe a later patch will confirm this. It's easier to keep track of your 'no losses' count by checking the "Grand Strategist" medal, even after you reach third level it will count your no loss battles.

Runic Stone is not needed because in Montero, near the palace, in the dwarf treasury you can swap runes. They give 2 for 5, 6 for 10 and I think 8 for 15 runes of a different type.

EDIT: So... I made a small calculation concerning the max +XP per battle (something I really like as well)
Marshal's Memoirs - +5% XP per battle
The Hand of Necropolis - +10% XP per battle, +2 Attack, + 2 Defense, Living (Morale falling by 1 after each battle, rising by 1 if there were Humans or Elves in the opponent's army)
Shark Tooth - +5% XP per battle, +5% gold per battle
Learning skill - 20% XP per battle

So, maximum is +40% XP per battle. That's a really nice boost, there is no doubt about that :) Holy anger no longer gives +XP when fighting undead or demons though. It gives a fixed amount of rage and mana each time your unit hits a demon or an undead instead.

Don't forget about the Medal "Treasure Hunter". It's very easy to get to Level 3, and gives you +3, 5 or 7% experience in battle on Levels I, II and III (you have to find 40,80 and 120 chests for this - both adventure map and battlefield chests count, so use the Dragon skill "Digging").

Holy Anger also greatly lowers defense of Demons (by 15 on max) so essentially it still increases your damage.

As soon as I get my hands on the English version, I am going to try for zero losses on Impossible Warrior. Yep, a few of the boss battles will be a unique challenge, but I'm sure it can be done. One of the good things is that the game is a bit shorter (less than 300 battles) so I shouldn't get so impatient. :cool:

I did around 90 no losses battle with the Warrior (on Normal though) but it is tiresome, because it only works if you ALWAYS have Paladins in your army (you can also go with Level 5 units and use Droid Guards and Engineers for punching bags, the Engineer has the most powerfull resurrection ability in the game but it only works on mechanical units). But as I said, it gets tiresome after a while - I want to try out the new units, especially the Lizardmen, and I don't want to haul around the Paladins with me. I will do a no lossess game on impossible with the Paladin or the Mage - with the Warrior it reduces the enjoyment of the game.

DGDobrev

11-02-2009, 01:14 PM

I stand corrected on the 2 points. It's the Sprites (they are called Wood Fairies in the Russian version) that have this skill "Zabvenie" (which is to completely forget, but it also means to put something in complete oblivion) which in direct translation is "Oblivion", however, since it's not exactly applicable to the situation, since "Oblivion" is used in other cases. This is why I chose forgetfulness from HOMM, since both spells force the target to forget to use their skills (KBAP) or ranged attacks (HOMM), but the principle is the same. Oh, the chance to activate it is 50%, so it can go either way :)

I also stand corrected on the medal. So the best is 47% it seems. I forgot about it... Phew. Nice though... That's close to +50% XP per battle. That's a thing to try with a paladin. It will be fun, and it may get a char to lvl 60.

In any case, a game is supposed to be fun. People find fun in various ways. Some want a high score, some want no-loss, some like simply having fun, some, like me, like to disect the game and find out what works and how it works, regardless of the results. To each one his own :)

EDIT: Another interesting thing to try is this army:

Wood Fairies (Sprites)
Lake Fairies
Dryads
Demonesses
Paladins

and top it up with Agvares, the male incubus. Agvares adds +100% to the base attack of all the female troops in this army - Sprites, Lake fairies, Dryads and Demonesses, as well as another ability each 7-10 fights:
- +2 speed
- Counterattack - one unit always retaliates (there are only certain units, regretfully)
- Set in Flames - the unit will set the enemies it attacks in flames for 3 turns
- Regeneration - when the unit attacks, it will regenerate all of its lost health
- Fire resistance - adds 50% fire resistance to the target unit
The selected unit will be under agvares' control, so you won't have any control over it for the entire duration of the battle. Most of the units he can control are simple (werewolves, marauders, pirates, etc.), but he can also take control of the Knights! I suppose you can imagine what Knights + Target + Always Retaliates means. Just keep a Paladin behind them to ress them properly, use Phantom and you will be just fine.
Agvares' items: Weapon, Belt or Gloves, Armor or Robe (Dress?), Artifact.

In any case, with him at your side, the powerpuff army will rock.

Zhuangzi

11-02-2009, 11:25 PM

That male Incubus sounds great - I was wondering if there was anything to buff Sprites/Lake Fairies like Anga's Ruby. Also, with reaching level 60, am I right in thinking that you don't get runes after level 50? Does the level get used in calculating the score?

DGDobrev

11-03-2009, 12:30 AM

From lvl 2 to lvl 50, you get the full amount of runes - 48 (4x12) for each class in various combinations. From lvl 51 upwards, you get half that amount, rounded down. So, if you are a warrior and get 5 might, 5 spirit and 2 magic runes (12 total), you will get 2/2/1, respectively. 6/4/2 transforms into 3/2/1. The leadership upgrades are also halved. In essence, at lvl 51, you will get the leadership upgrade of lvl 25, for example. So, rather than getting over 1000 leadership upgrade, you will get only 500 as a warrior.

Still, it is a pretty meaningful upgrade, and one can never get enough runes :)

The dwarf, Trigger is also great - he will upgrade his special skill several times. It will provide up to +25% critical chance to all archers. This is great for everyone who likes archers.

EDIT: BTW, doubling the attack of the female chars is wondrous. It makes them act not like 4000, but like 8000 fairies. Imagine the crit they'll inflict :)

BB Shockwave

11-03-2009, 10:19 AM

Agvares's special is great, too bad I don't use any of the units he could control (from those, only Knights, Assassins and Werewolves are good anyway).

Btw, there is an awesome weapon for all-dwarven armies that you can get and upgrade easily after getting the Pegasus wings: the Axe of Elements. Depending on what order you touch the three altars in Montero with the Axe, you can get the Axe of Winds Level III. (+1 speed and initiative to dwarves - great with Giants!) , Axe of Ice Level III. (no retaliation attacks to all dwarven units!!!) and... well I don't remember what the Lightning axe does.

DGDobrev

11-03-2009, 11:32 AM

BB Shockwave

11-04-2009, 09:51 PM

Actually the no retaliation trait gained by the Axe of Ice only works on lvl 1-3 dwarven units, and they are only 2 of them - diggers and dwarves. So it's really not that great, although I must admit that Diggers (the basic lvl 2 dwarven unit) can come in the thousands, pretty much like the fairies, but have much better attack, defense and damage, and they also get a +10% Physical resistance thanks to that axe. Besides, it's stats are great:

I did play around with dwarves for a while - MIners are awesome now even without the Axe, if you use them in tandem with Foremen (and frankly, Foremen are much better then the level 3 Dwarf). Foremen increase the base attack and intiative of miners by 100% just by being in the army, and using the ability "Forward March" they give 3 speed and initiative to Miners! Making those slow little buggers very, very fast.
PLus, during the Miner's strike the Foremen get +1 speed, initiative and 100% critical chance (because he's angry, as all bosses are during a strike... :D )

Also, don't forget that Droid Engineers are level 3 too. They are ranged units, but they fly, have a speed of 4 and no melee penalty, so they could benefit from the no retaliation bonus too.

Zhuangzi - already on the first Island I found the "Fairy Dress" that gives +3 morale to Sprites and Dryads and +7 to Mana. Also I believe there is another item that boosts them, I saw it on the Elf islands. Generally there are a lot more creature-specific items, for example a Dark helm that reduces leadership of Death Knights.

I found out that there is a good Lizardmen-boosting item that you can get in every game - In Alona, you can do an exam in the Lecture Hall (the headmaster elf is a strange fellow, all courses exam's end in a big battle... :) ) - if you choose Biology (I think that is it) he wants you to show him the weak points of lizards - in battle! You get a diploma (Regalia) in biology (?) after this that gives +10 Rage, +5 Attack to Lizardmen and +10% critical chance to Tirexes!

The other two options (from what I can tell, translation is quite bad here) are Abjuration and Botany.

Abjuration pits you against a mage army (so you can show how you defend yourself against battle magic) and the Diploma gives you +2 defense, +2 Intelligence and +25% Magic resistance.

If you choose Botany (that's the funniest) Amelie says "Oh I love this, to arrange lovely flowers in a bouqet!" To which the professor says "But how to protect it? Now show me how you protect a lovely bouqet from firey creatures from hell!" and you will be pitted against an army of Demons while your army will consist of Ents and Thorns... :)
The Botany diploma Gives +10 Attack to Ents, Thorns and Dryads (so that's the other item I remember that boosts Dryads)....

Zhuangzi

11-04-2009, 10:31 PM

That's the thing I love the best about these games - the combinations of units and combinations of items. In AP they have worked on the 'sets' of items a lot too - now the item tells you what other items you need to complete the set. Nice. :cool:

DGDobrev

11-05-2009, 12:08 AM

I wholeheartedly agree with that statement. Not every playthrough must be made to show a great score. There are many combinations that are worthwhile to try. I for one, like this a lot - if you get a Call of Death Wanderers' Scroll, hang on to it - it's great in the late stages of the game. When you use it, it fills out a free spot with units worth the maximum amount of leadership you have. Try to luck out with a couple thousand Skeleton archers, use dragon arrows and drop an entire dragon stack in one blow. Priceless :)

What I really like about tKBAP is that it provides even more options to mix parties with mutual benefit than in KBTL. What I don't like is the fact that in certain playthroughs, one can get the units he wants at a very late stage, while it's much more fun to try them early on. A good example are the Demonologists, Necromancers and Druids. I like all of those, because the Necro's and Druids are great in utilizing mass attacks, and the Demonoligsts are Human Neutral, meaning they don't harm the morale by mixing up 3 types of units (humans, demons, undead).

A good question is whether you have some means to resurrect the undead armies, besides the Paladin hero Resurrection ability, as it resurrects every stack. In KBAP, Necro Call resurrects dead stacks as undead, and it doesn't work like resurrection. All you can do is sacrifice to regain lost units, and that takes quite a lot of mana and rounds...

travelingoz

11-05-2009, 04:33 AM

Demonologists can resurrect undead too! ;)

DGDobrev

11-05-2009, 10:10 AM

Indeed, but they are hard to come by :) Unless I can rush to Shaterra and find some there, I will be left with some basic 5-8 demonologists which may spawn on the starting island, or may not...

In any case, thanks for the tip :)

BB Shockwave

11-09-2009, 02:49 PM

A good question is whether you have some means to resurrect the undead armies, besides the Paladin hero Resurrection ability, as it resurrects every stack. In KBAP, Necro Call resurrects dead stacks as undead, and it doesn't work like resurrection. All you can do is sacrifice to regain lost units, and that takes quite a lot of mana and rounds...

The "Evlin" spell can resurrect a percentage of them. You need dead bodies for that, but you can get plenty of those with summonings. Also, there is time back!

DGDobrev

11-12-2009, 10:14 PM

Well, there we go :) I've completed the playthrough I've been looking forward to for quite a while.

I must admit the Paladin is a force to be reckoned with if you develop him properly. The key to the easy going with a Paladin lies in 3 skills, which should be fully developed in this order ASAP - Learning, Resurrection, Rage. Learning lvl 3 gives 20% more XP per battle, Resurrection lvl 3 lets you use scapegoat units all the time (100% of which will be resurrected in the end of the battle), and Rage lvl 3 improves the rage income in battle by 60%, which puts you on an even foot with the Warrior. I also made sure I stared with Marshal's Memoirs artifact (+5% XP) and got the Shark Tooth from Jim Crowd for 5% more XP. So I had +30% XP per battle very early on. I even found the Hand of Necropolis - +10% XP more, so I had a lot of XP to go around.

So with this build, I had learning lvl 3 and resurrection lvl 3 by lvl 18. Until that level came, it was tough as hell (still, not as tough as a mage). After I got that behind my back, the game get way easier. Achieving Resurrection at lvl 3 made me sacrifice every possible spell improvement, though. I was using only the healing spell until lvl 19. Doing that put me at a wicked disadvantage, but it was very rewarding after I got what I wanted. I'd have to admit that with Inquisitor's Sword - guaranteed drop from Thomas Torkve (Torque?) and Warrior of the Light medal (+20/30/40% to Paladins, Inquisitors and Priests' damage), the Paladin may get a wickedly powerful army, which is worth more than it looks. So there is nothing unusual that I used these 3 types of units - as soon as they became available - pretty much through the entire game. The only battles I missed out on them were the 2 boss battles with Ktahu and Zilgadis. Top that with some items that improve the crit rate and watch the carnage :)

Even with the scapegoat units, and with only 164/290 battles without losses, I was amazed I ended up with only 3326 losses. I was expecting this game to go into about 10 000, but nothing of the sort happened. This saved me tons of gold - at one point, around lvl 50, I had over 3 million gold, so I even started buying runes to complement the ones that were missing.

I also noticed why I was missing out on some of the quests in my previous playthroughs. There are contract heroes, which have a bounty hunt-type quest associated with them. It would appear that I have been missing on 5 of them all the time. Now I missed on 1 of those, because I never knew it existed until it was too late - I had already killed the hero it is associated with, which automatically fails the quest, as it cannot be undertaken. This is very important for everyone who tries to get all the quests done.

So, in the end:
Final level: 57
Final pet dragon level: 55
Difficulty: Impossible
Ending date: 13
Quests completed: 86
Follower: Moldok
Total followers: 2
Attack 28
Defense 33
Intellect 26
Rage 87
Mana 74
Runes obtained: 208 Might 370 Mind 196 Magic
Gold: 1069451
Crystals: 601
Battle count: 290
Killed enemies: 458784
Casualties: 3326
Killed heroes: 73
Killed bosses: 6
Damage: by troops: 84%, by pet dragon: 16%
Best troops: Paladins, Inquisitors, Knights, Priests, Archmagi, Demonologists, Executioners

Final score: 1729

Decent, I guess :)

BB Shockwave

11-16-2009, 09:04 PM

Finished the game today with a Warrior - got a very low score (580), but then again I was going for exploration and a (more or less) no-loss game, not calculating travel routes!

All in all I'd say Bhaal was the hardest boss - he does area damage and his dancing sword attack can decimate your troops - still you could save one of his troops with "blind" and regenerate mana and resurrect if it weren't for Bill Gilbert's troops who will kill all demons left standing. In the end, I went with only one troop, 650 Gorguls (Gargoyles) and used Phantom and Time Back to avoid losses, as well as some boosting spells on Bill Gilbert's troops.

So, in the end:
Final level: 56
Final pet dragon level: 46
Difficulty: Normal
Ending date: Day 74
Quests completed: 85 (must have missed one... dunno which one)
Follower: Moron Dark
Total followers: 3
Attack 35
Defense 25
Intellect 14
Rage 134
Mana 87
Runes obtained: 338 Might 262 Mind 173 Magic
Gold: 917'255
Crystals: 937
Battle count: 296 (during the end I let some 'very weak' enemies go to end the game sooner - it was very late)
Killed enemies: 279'416
Casualties: 18 (until I got to the Lizards, I lost a few Assassins and Paladins in the battle against Hnagi, plus one foremen and 11 Miners in a battle again - after that, Level III Resurrection and Time Back made it possible for me to not to lose a single Lizard unit, apart from summoned ones)
Killed heroes: 73 (I ran past by the Lizardman hero in the cave to get the Singing Dagger early, and later found out I cannot go back into the cave, bummer...)
Killed bosses: 6
Damage: by troops: 83%,By spell Book: 0% by pet dragon: 17%

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/BB_Shockwave/th_screen_091116_006.jpg (http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/BB_Shockwave/?action=view&current=screen_091116_006.jpg)

Most Effective Armies (note that high number of troops was achieved with the Wanderer spell that gives you +20% leadership:

-650 Gargoyles (32,7% of total damage) - They are a killer stack, especially due to the ability to attack two spaces and the "Thirst for Blood" that lets them attack a second time after killing an enemy (50% chance). With some help (haste) I have ended tough battles in one round with just Gargoyles (Demetrius II upgrade for example).
-419 Gorguanas (13,9%) - More of a support unit, they work very well with Gargoyles. Mark of Blood (doubles damage inflicted on enemy) can help you kill huge stacks with one hit. They also have "Thirst for Blood" and can clean-up many weaker stacks in one round.
-25 Tirexes (13,0%) - Although awesome tanks, I used them more for their enemy-hampering abilities like the shout that halves enemy action points, their ability to inflict fear on lower level creatures, the -30% defense reduction around themselves, and of course corpse eating - not only does it heal the Tirex but prevents Necros or Thorns to summon troops.
-524 Hyterrants (12,8%) - Great skirmishers, when used cleverly they always hit for critical, and the eggs they lay can be used for blocking archers, blocking passages and of course later the hatched troops become cannon fodder (and they too can lay eggs... and so and and so on)
-219 Brontors (10,9%) - A versatile unit, when called for can charge straight into the enemy lines blocking their shooters (and attacking three spaces when retaliating), or can burrow to become a strong unblockable shooter for prolonged fights. With haste, makes a great tank too.

My previously used best troops were: Droid Engineers, Droid Guards, Paladins, Assassins, Trolls, Royal Griffins.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/BB_Shockwave/th_screen_091116_007.jpg (http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/BB_Shockwave/?action=view&current=screen_091116_007.jpg)

Here is a screenshot of my inventory and skills - thankfully almost all Lizardmen-boosting items can always be found in the game (Singing Dagger, Biology Diploma, Ktahu's Claw) - I also found the Ancient Amulet and Gladiator Sword, and the Squamata Bracelet (+2 morale to Lizards).

Even being a Warrior, I maxed Order and Distortion magic for Resurrection, Time Back and mass Haste, also Battle Cry, Phantom and Wake Dragon were highly used spells. I wore some mana-boosting items to have enough for casting Resurrection often. "Moron"-s Armor slot was swapped between Silver Chain Mail, Hunter Jacket, or Archmage's Cape, depending on what enemy I faced (undead, animals, mages or gremlin towers).

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/BB_Shockwave/th_screen_091116_001.jpg (http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/BB_Shockwave/?action=view&current=screen_091116_001.jpg)

Elwin

11-16-2009, 10:03 PM

Gargolye is a flying creature xD The offical name is also Gorgul.

Metathron

11-16-2009, 10:30 PM

@BB Shockwave

Wait a minute, your game is in English? :shock:

DGDobrev

11-16-2009, 10:33 PM

That looks like the translation mod, because a lot of the skills names look like a simple direct translation.

In any case, it works for most people who managed to get their hands on the russian version :)

Zhuangzi

11-16-2009, 10:47 PM

Metathron

11-16-2009, 10:57 PM

Ah, I suspected it was the google translator mod.

Z, two more days? Isn't it the 20th? Perhaps it's a time zone thing my puny mind cannot fathom. :-P

DGDobrev

11-16-2009, 11:59 PM

Well, Calinda did it in 10, on impossible, without any losses.

The thing is to try and do the first few the islands in one go (AND without losses!!!), avoiding only a few battles that can't be win right now (Norb, Impossible map guardians). It's really hard. At this point the warrior gets the easiest time, the paladin is in the middle, and the mage goes through hell.

There is also the matter of traveling. Tekron must be done last, and on one go. This means you need to go to Dersu first (there is a quest leading to Tekron) before any other island. The worst thing is that you need to go back to Debir a couple of times and I couldn't find the best options...

Oh, and of course... You need to start with some decent items on Debir. On impossible, you can spare some cash to buy an officer's batton (+250 leadership, 8000 gold) and maybe something else that's cheap and adds leadership. Also, a belt with +100 leadership helps a lot as a reward from the first tutorial battle. Sell anything you won't use - like eggs, sprouts, etc. That helps a lot on impossible.

Zhuangzi

11-17-2009, 07:22 AM

Ah, I suspected it was the google translator mod.

Z, two more days? Isn't it the 20th? Perhaps it's a time zone thing my puny mind cannot fathom. :-P

If you preorder from Gamersgate you get to download it a day early, i.e. Thursday the 19th. What time on Thursday, I wonder? :)

BB Shockwave

11-17-2009, 09:33 AM

BB Shockwave, I can see that you love the reptile race as I do. I get the feeling that Hyterrants are the most useful/versatile of them, but you've shown here that a reptile army is more than useful. I have been playing with the reptiles a fair bit in the demo and they seem very promising. But I wasn't using the Gargoyles, thinking them to be inferior to the Gorguans. I can see now that this is a mistake.

Did you get the reptile kit, i.e. the combination of items that buff the reptiles in some way? I missed out on it in my only completed game of AP. And yes, BB is playing with the English mod on the Russian version, as I did. But in two more days I can download the real thing!

Hehe, yes I love them - pretty much all of their units are very usefull - though I did not use the worms that much. I kept the Chosa in my reserves and used them a few times, but they are mostly effective when you are low level. I prefer to be able to attack with all my units in the first round (with a Warrior) and the Chosa's summoned Gobots can only do that in the next round. They were still usefull in the Giant Spider and Toad boss fights.

Sorry about the Gargoyles/Gorguls translation. On the Official KB AP english site, they are still mentioned as Gargoyles, so I used that name. I know, it's very inappropriate as they look nothing like real gargoyles. (Speaking of whom, I'd love to get a real Gargoyle unit in KB - a flying Level II-III creature with high defense, low initiative and the same "Stone" ability as the Cyclops.)

I only got the Squamata Bracelet from the Reptile kit, sadly. But the Singing dagger is awesome with the +15% damage increase for all reptiles.

I also kept the Demon Bracelet in my backpack - if the Lizards have a weakness it's the -10% Fire resistance, I had to wear that item for a few fights, especially against imps or fireball using heroes.

I downloaded the english demo yesterday and must say, I did not like the translation that much. It can still use some tailoring. Also, in the demo the mini-map doesn't show objects which the full game does, I hope this is only for the demo...

Elwin

11-17-2009, 10:24 AM

also demo doesnt show damage done by units aftr battle. i saw this on screens of full version Polish.

Mandea

11-17-2009, 10:38 AM

Also, in the demo the mini-map doesn't show objects which the full game does, I hope this is only for the demo...

Yes it does show them. it just doesn't do it on hard or impossible levels. on normal it shows them.

DGDobrev

11-28-2009, 04:24 PM

Well, the most wickedly entertaining playthrough I have ever had with the Mage in KBAP has come to an end.

It took a while, since I was lingering a lot. But in the end, all went as I thought it would. It is all about knowing the game, knowing the game mechanics and knowing what works best and when does it work best.

The Mage gets a really tough time throughout the game and starts to shine around lvl 40 when you can upgrade most of the equipment and get spells like geyser and death star. To remedy that, the best you can do is to make a playthrough where there's a Verona map on Scarlet wind and start kiting the map guards till you open up the entire map. This usually means at least 5 hours of uninterrupted loading, saving, swearing, anger, and so on. But in the end it's worth it, as it provides a very strong and stable playing environment from level 10 to 40.

So I did the same. I did all the quests that do not require fighting (except the ones on elon and nameless) and started the fighting on lvl 18 with a bunch of items already purchased as well as a very strong lineup - Tirexes, Archmagi, Paladins, Inquisitors and Gorguanas, backed up by Knights and Demonologists. With this setup it's impossible to suffer casualties up until lvl 30 or so. After than, some enemies start posing a little trouble. However, having opened up all maps, I had target, stone skin, fire rain and that was more than enough to get me through the harder battles. Starting powerful also gives you the opportunity to use higher damage traps right from the start. In the beginning, there were battles where I raised the trap counter by 3-5 points in one go, as it was a snap.

The game was a breeze, actually. The only tough spots are as usual, the castles and the bosses. Another tough "spot" was Elenhel. On Impossible, he's simply wickedly overpowered and you have to confront him on lvl 40. 115 necros, 187 Archmagi, 250+ Demonologists, 328 Druids... They hurt a lot, and his geyser was dropping my stacks by 1/4 per cast. In the end, the Paladins prevailed. The tactic was simple - target + stone skin on the paladins so that they suffer as less damage as possible from attacks and geysers and then making sure that no other unit dies. Even if in the end you end up with just a few units, this means you did it good, and the resurrecting can begin. I also kept mu back line units very close and used paladin phantoms to do quick resurrections when I saw things were going bad.

Before I start on the bosses, you should know that there is one extremely useful item in the battles with them. That is the rage eater, so if you see it, buy it! Since you can't summon the dragon, you can't transform rage to mana. Well, this little toy will do that for you. It's 5 for 5, but it's better than nothing.
I also made sure I have a +20% leadership scroll for the last 3 boss battles, as well as any other stat-boosting scroll available. Since I was digging all the time, I had plenty.
For the bosses... Spider is a snap. Demonologists spawn demons, Knight with stone skin + magic shield near his left legs, Paladins with stone skin near his right ones. Paladins hack the Giant spider all the time, Knights help from time to time against the growing spider stacks.
Driller was a pain in the first go. But then I got inspired and made this party - Paladins, Knights, Archmagi, Inquisitors. 4 units, the width of the bridge. If there are 2 units in a row, that's simply begging for a gun shot that usually results in a lot of damage. So, like the spider - Knights with stone skin and magic shield near his driller hand, Paladins near his other hand. When he summons droids, I used the archmagi and inquisitors to beat them up. When he summoned Repair Droids, I left them be, simply reduced them to smaller stacks so that they don't pose that much trouble. Then, when the driller was down, I could ress at will.
The tactic against the Dersu-Kumatu Frog is the same. If you have the Healer's Jacket (pretty common item), put it on without thinking! That will reduce the damage your units take from the frog's spits. After that it was the same. I left a royal snakes stack alive after I killed the frog and went on resurrecting. Since royal snakes have no retaliation, you have a lot of time to do that.
Zilgadis was easy. Equip items that provide magic resistance and/or stock up on troops with decent magic resistance. That will deal with his mass attack, since it inflicts magic damage. I used the mirror shield + anti magic diploma and that was more than sufficient. Then it was simple - Knights with Stone skin near his left arm, Paladins with stone skin near his right one, the other 3 units (Archmagi, Guardsmen, Horsemen) hack at the towers and/or anything they spawn. I finally left one evil gremlin (he simply didn't spawn a friendly one later on) tower and ressed everything.
K'Tahu was another deal. All his attacks are physically based, so you need high physical resistance. I did it with this lineup: Knights, Paladins, Horsemen, Guardsmen, Demonologists. It was really tough, but with the rage eater, phantoms and protecting the demonologists and guardsmen from suffering major losses (stone skin help a lot here) I did it. I also had Knights on his weak spot and Paladins (higher def) on his protected side. Paladins had Stone skin on them all the time so that they take as few damage as possible. Regretfully, I had to swap the companion for this battle - BB Elenhel, hello Agvares. You NEED both the Singing dagger and the Inquisitor's Sword equipped, so that you have more paladins available. You will suffer casualties, but when K'tahu is low on HP, wait will he summons a stack with Gorguanas with it, then kill him. Finish off the summons, and leave a few gorguanas alive, then start resurrecting. The rage eater will provide sufficient mana for the task (NOTE: works until rage falls below 10, not 5! Also when the rage and mana income becomes 0, it stops working. So plan accordingly).
Baal was another matter. If he starts summoning stack after stack, you'd better restart, because after summoning a stack he won't be able to hit you directly, so he'll throw his sword, which is HIGHLY undesirable.
What you can do, is to be aware of his capabilities and his behavior. If there are 2 stacks one behind another on his line swinging there is a big chance that he will do just that. So I used stone skin only on the Knights, Paldins and Horsemen, while the Archmagi and Demonologists provided cover with magic shield and summoning. Then I put the Knights and Paladins right in front of him and put the Horsemen behind the Paladins or Knights, whatever was available. Believe me, losing 5-10 horsemen in such attack is highly preferable to having Baal summon a ton of Archdemons, Executioners, Demons, and so on - besides, you can always buff them up with magic shield and lose only 3-4 of them. I also made sure that the Knights and Horsemen in Bill Gilbert's army had Stone skin on them as much rounds as possible. When I exhausted my dual casts, I left his horsemen to die and concentrated on doing this: 3x stone skin for my paladins, knights and horsemen and 2x 15-mana phantoms so that there is always a unit behind unit to tempt Baal to hit them both rather than throwing his sword or summoning enemies. Well, both of the latter actions cannot be avoided from time to time, but that provides valuable rounds to hack at him with more than 1-2 units. I also made sure that when Bill Gilberts' units died and Baal was low on HP, to leave an Imp stack alive so that there is something on the battlefield (especially one with no-retaliation!) before I start resurrecting. In the end, that tactic worked perfectly.

And there it is. Mage, Impossible, lvl 57, no losses whatsoever :)

I've added screens of the build and the result, as well as the save game just before finishing the game to show that everything is fair and square :)

travelingoz

11-29-2009, 04:25 AM

"Since you can't summon the dragon, you can't transform rage to mana. Well, this little toy will do that for you. It's 5 for 5, but it's better than nothing."

DGD what about the Order Magic spell that converts Rage into Mana? Not quite as efficient as a mana ball but only costs 1 mana to use and on level 3 is about 75% efficient from memory.

Anyways, great result! I'm trying a Mage no-loss play through at the moment as well as a Warrior and i completely agree about the need to do some serious sneaking first.

Elwin

11-29-2009, 09:30 AM

Exactly, i was using calm rage like crazy during ktahu and ball fight

DGDobrev

11-29-2009, 09:49 AM

Kings Bounty Hunter

11-29-2009, 01:33 PM

FAO DGDobrev

I noticed your army had no sprites and fairies? Also, your tirexes were your best fighters yet were not in your army? Is that cause you got them very late in the game? they killed 22% of your enemies:confused:

I haven't come across any good dinosaurs yet, only the flying units

DGDobrev

11-29-2009, 01:41 PM

I did a stealing spree all the way to Reha in the beginning, So I came out of there with 19 Tirex eggs and started using them since battle 1. Free units for the win :)

Sprites and Fairies can ruin a no-loss game, especially as a Mage. In fact any unit that is low on HP can do that.

What was fun about that playthrough, was that I had to utilize every single bit of knowledge about this game in order to pull out a no-loss victory :) The Mage hero is really hard, so a lot of intellect and unusual cunning are called for :)

Kings Bounty Hunter

11-30-2009, 08:13 PM

DGDobrev

11-30-2009, 08:19 PM

Using the pause trick. Run at a 90 degrees at them (not directly at them, or they'll kill you), and if they move out of their place while you're getting away, hit space to pause. Quicksave while paused. Prepare to move just an inch and pause again. If it happens successfully, pause and quicksave again. If not, restore the old game. You have the advantage of the paused game to try the same.

This way you can kite any map guard who is not in a really tight spot. The ones in tight spots... You can't, unless you get lucky, and to get lucky it takes a ton of attempts.

Oh, and it needs a lot of practice. So practice, guys :)

Zechnophobe

11-30-2009, 11:35 PM

Or you could just edit the save game to unlock all the maps, right? I guess either way you don't get the 'cheater' comment on your final save.

Kings Bounty Hunter

12-01-2009, 12:34 AM

Or you could just edit the save game to unlock all the maps, right? I guess either way you don't get the 'cheater' comment on your final save.

He could have. But his posts are very detailed and a good contribution to the forum, he doesn't strike me as a cheat. I personally wouldn't mess with the game files and just play it "as is"

Zechnophobe

12-01-2009, 01:42 AM

I was insinuating that using a quick space-save trick in order to get stationary style guards to move away from a nav map is borderline exploiting anyway. Dunno why, that tactic just rubs me the wrong way.

DGDobrev

12-01-2009, 08:00 AM

Well, there russian guide says that any cheating is recorded in the save game, because it records any change in your character's runes, items, money, troops all the time. I don't really know how to open that save game, edit it and discover if someone had cheated, but I'm sure the developers can. This is why it is prudent to provide a save game to show the developers (if not the other players) that you did it without using improper means - like cheats :)

Metathron

12-01-2009, 07:40 PM

Just finished my first game, on normal playing as warrior. Amelie was level 54, the pet dragon 49.

My stats were:

Attack 37
Defense 28
Intellect 25
Rage 110
Mana 55
Leadership 42,878

My most effective troops:

(SURPRISE SURPRISE) Royal Snakes - 30,9%
Black dragons - 24,9%
Red dragons - 21,7%
Paladins - 6,6%
Shamans - 6,3%
Inquisitors - 4,0%
Evil beholders - 2,4%

I believe the blacks were more effective only because I found the reds quite a bit later.

I completed 83 quests, I don't know which I could've missed, though I did fail one for sure.

All in all, a very enjoyable game! :D Next up, mage on hard!

DGDobrev

12-01-2009, 08:08 PM

Grats :)

Zhuangzi

12-01-2009, 10:34 PM

He could have. But his posts are very detailed and a good contribution to the forum, he doesn't strike me as a cheat. I personally wouldn't mess with the game files and just play it "as is"

KBH, you have really turned over a new leaf here in the AP forum. No more raging about how people can beat the game so quickly and/or with no losses (I am 2/3 of the way through an Impossible Warrior no-loss game, btw). So congrats to you too. :)

Kings Bounty Hunter

12-01-2009, 10:57 PM

melwin

12-03-2009, 11:39 AM

EDIT: So... I made a small calculation concerning the max +XP per battle (something I really like as well)
Marshal's Memoirs - +5% XP per battle
The Hand of Necropolis - +10% XP per battle, +2 Attack, + 2 Defense, Living (Morale falling by 1 after each battle, rising by 1 if there were Humans or Elves in the opponent's army)
Shark Tooth - +5% XP per battle, +5% gold per battle
Learning skill - 20% XP per battle

So, maximum is +40% XP per battle.

OK so I started a new game as a pally and this is what I got after some "kiting" :

2 x Hand of Necropolis + 2x10% XP
Level 1 Treasure hunter + 3% XP
Shark Tooth +5%XP
Level 3 Learning + 20% XP
Total ----- 48% XP

I still didn't have even one fight ( not counting the tutorial). I'm wondering what will be the max level I'll achieve with this char??

DGDobrev

12-03-2009, 12:05 PM

Maybe you can get to lvl 58 or even 59. Try it out :)

BTW, when I made this calculation, I wasn't aware that 2 hands of necropolis may spawn. However, I got 2 in all 3 of my last playthroughs, so it is completely viable.

Zhuangzi

12-03-2009, 12:08 PM

he he you'll pardon my ignorance at the time. But the methods that were being used to achieve those ridiculous scores still offend me!

(Off topic)
I may be joining you in a career as a (Music) Teacher. I spent nearly 20 years as a Musician with varying degrees of success and I feel the best way I can feel good about that time is too explain/teach others the pro's and con's of Music and the industry.

Oh and morning!

Cool, the money is reasonably good and the holidays sure are nice. Two more weeks and then summer!

Oh and back on topic - DGD - I got two Hand of Necropolises in my current game too. Only using one though. I won't get anywhere near level 59 but I'm 49 now and there's still Nameless and Reha to go.

DGDobrev

12-03-2009, 12:13 PM

Well, if you have the spot, use it! +2 atk/def is a very welcome bonus for any warrior, at least in my opinion :) Few items are that useful, and the necro's gloves take the cake big time.

Elwin

12-03-2009, 12:40 PM

i had 2 in my first game but none of second one

Elwin

12-04-2009, 10:16 PM

OK its time to post my scores.
One thing is bad: i have played 2 games and in none of them found a slippery cuirass whoch made the game only a little harder :P

First play .. normal mage to get familair with the game .. tried to minimalize the losses but it wasnt no loss run at all

Second play no loss hard warrior - easy :p

ONe thing which makes me wonder are numbers of units on the warrior game .. i always thought its the amonut i buy but its definetly to high shown there ...

http://images40.fotosik.pl/230/efee3d5f5215c4ffm.jpg (http://www.fotosik.pl/showFullSize.php?id=efee3d5f5215c4ff)

http://images48.fotosik.pl/234/dc9a53534fad262em.jpg (http://www.fotosik.pl/showFullSize.php?id=dc9a53534fad262e)

Metathron

12-04-2009, 11:07 PM

Woah, how'd you get your leadership to 49,000? In my warrior game, I thought I did good with 42,800! I see you had the baton, but I had the ogre set!?

DGDobrev

12-04-2009, 11:33 PM

Great work, Elwin!!!

I sincerely hope you enjoyed the Tirex-paladin-chosha-archmage-gorguana army setup. It has wondrous potential :) 1 wonderful sacrificial lamb, regardless of the time of the day (Tirex), 1 unit that constantly spawns meatshields, much faster than the Royal thorn (Chosha), 1 unit to seriously boost ANY damage (gorguana), 1 unit to ress (Paladin) and 1 unit to ensure the Guardian Angel Medal + 50% less damage to the tank + 100% crit - Archmagi.

That simple army setup looks stupid at first glance but actually, those troops have it all - meatshield, resurrection, sacrifical lamb (so you don't have to waste time to go back for troop replenishment), and last, but not least - wicked damage :)

Elwin

12-05-2009, 08:51 AM

Methathron : i was 42K, it was after using flaming eyes.

DG: this army is awesome i liked it very much, i know how to use it , i was running mostly with half of my leadership army and i was destroying everything on my way
I got my arm at lvl 20 then restock at 30 and 45 and 50 ... i could run that 10-15 levels without refiling no problem .. couldnt sacrifice since my spell power was to weak for that
But i boosted ita damege to even more wicked since army was 70-100% crit chance ;p

Metathron

12-05-2009, 11:59 AM

What are flaming eyes?

DGDobrev

12-05-2009, 12:23 PM

Wanderers scroll. Adds +20% Leadership for 1 battle.

Zhuangzi

12-06-2009, 01:24 PM

Okay, I finished my first proper game of KB:AP - a no-loss Impossible Warrior game. I got a score of 1451 and I completed on day 28. I've never been very good at keeping the time down in these games but no losses on Impossible is a pretty cool achievement. Thanks to all those guys who completed KB:TL on impossible with no losses - you motivated me to try to improve enough to do the same with AP. And thanks to all those who gave advice hereabouts, especially DGDobrev, who would appear to be the master of KB:AP. :cool:

Screenshots are uploaded in the Impossible Warrior No Losses thread.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?p=125729#post125729

Younghappy

12-08-2009, 08:48 AM

There's a Baal trailer 4 any1 who wants 2 watch it

unicornxp

12-09-2009, 07:13 AM

although i don't think it's the utmost, but 1831 is still a nice score based on enough luck.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=1602&stc=1&d=1260367849

details here :D

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=11666

Zhuangzi

12-22-2009, 12:11 PM

1474 for me in my No loss Impossible Mage game. 28 days is what kept my score down, but I can't do everything in this game. I just suck at keeping the time down.

Details and screenshots in this thread:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=11542&page=2

Kings Bounty Hunter

12-27-2009, 09:55 PM

Finally!

Finished on day 26 on hard level using Paladin hero with a score of 1197 and no losses :)

Zhuangzi

12-27-2009, 10:16 PM

Finally!

Finished on day 26 on hard level using Paladin hero with a score of 1197 and no losses :)

Do my eyes deceive me? Didn't you used to say that no losses was against the spirit of the game? :-P Congrats on your achievement - feels good doesn't it? :)

Kings Bounty Hunter

12-27-2009, 10:39 PM

Do my eyes deceive me? Didn't you used to say that no losses was against the spirit of the game? :-P Congrats on your achievement - feels good doesn't it? :)

No sir! your eyes do not betray you. I never had a problem with the no losses outcome, just the way people went about getting those scores. tbh mate, I can't even remember what annoyed me about KBTL back then but there were some great memories. I got flamed from some guy saying I eat wotsits and just...it was so funny to read and so well written I forget that I was having the piss taken out of me :grin:

I'm gonna have a go at impossible with the Mage and then that's me done for a while. Then i'll try and do it all again with another 'specific' army type. I just started this game so i'm not sure what army type I will try and win the game with but what I will say is. It was a lot easier beating that bastard Ball with humans :-)

Zhuangzi

12-28-2009, 01:22 AM

No sir! your eyes do not betray you. I never had a problem with the no losses outcome, just the way people went about getting those scores. tbh mate, I can't even remember what annoyed me about KBTL back then but there were some great memories. I got flamed from some guy saying I eat wotsits and just...it was so funny to read and so well written I forget that I was having the piss taken out of me :grin:

I'm gonna have a go at impossible with the Mage and then that's me done for a while. Then i'll try and do it all again with another 'specific' army type. I just started this game so i'm not sure what army type I will try and win the game with but what I will say is. It was a lot easier beating that bastard Ball with humans :-)

I think Impossible Mage is probably the hardest thing in the game (without giving yourself extra limitations like no Paladins or something), so that'll be a reasonable challenge. From memory you used to get annoyed about people finishing the game in 5 days or whatever it was. They are doing the same with AP now. :rolleyes: But that's no fun to me, trying to plan out every little thing I am going to do in the game to cut down the time. The best I've managed is 28 days and I doubt I can be bothered replaying the game again to cut that down. Happy New Year to you. :)

unicornxp

12-29-2009, 02:30 PM

i replayed my last game and made this

7days +lv59 = 1850
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/attachment.php?attachmentid=1726&stc=1&d=1261972275

need 16000 EXP to reach lv60(one more ancient knowledge would make it)

Since i didn't use pet dragon to dig for at least 50 fights, it's quiet possible to find the scroll in 150 chests. But i it's impossible to reach lv61 unless got mass(20-30?) ancient knowledge~~~

Ish

01-03-2010, 08:35 AM

I just finished my first play through, as a warrior on impossible.

Score: 1,563 and 12 days to complete.

Pretty fun game although I think the difficulty has not been distributed well.

I found Verona/Monteiro to be a reasonable challenge when I first got up to them, but after that everything became an easy landslide - i beat K'tahu in 3 turns with only 2 units attacking him.

On par with the original and gets a thumbs up overall.

McSwan

02-02-2010, 06:19 AM

ok,

I might have a crack at the record. (+no loss)

I've scanned a lot of save games and got a save game with the scaly set by montero mines and twinkling boots in Elon.

I'll have to check for hand of necropolis too, but I suspect they won't be needing till late game.

Basically I'm not kiting at the start, in case there are scroll guardians I can't beat, plus it's faster to not kite, although I might need to do *some* later on.

Playing Mage so, 1st I'll clear debir, ->
Skills-> get to 350 leadership with the pal skill. -> then get the mana regen for mage, then 30% learning pal skill. This will be hard because I won't have chaos magic for a while, and I hope fire arrow will be enough.

Do you think that the dragon bash should be upgraded at the start to make the first battles easier ? Obviously, it's almost useless later on. Probably have 2 stacks of inquisitors to get rage.

I might get a call of undead wander scroll or call colossus would be nice at this point.

Scarlet - I'll get 3 slots for arch mages to cast magic armour, every round for ten rounds until I get armor ahievement. Might need to change config for the harder battles. I'm not sure if it's possible to clear scarlet at the start but I'll give it whirl.
I know you need to come back to it later on for a annoying quest.

I'll prob skip bolo If i can and hit rusty anchor in search of a green dragon, like what unicornxp does.

I'll need to figure out the "primary key" of the shortest paths to locations that also fulfils every quest. Anyone have that primary key ?

Petwin

02-02-2010, 09:50 AM

Here you can find info on the shortest routes:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=12249

Chase

02-14-2010, 06:27 PM

Mage, Impossible, No unit loss and almost single stack :).

7 days with a score of 1821.

http://img94.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=screen1vs.jpg

Link to the screens. Also added one where I beat Baal with 30 bone dragons in the end.

DGDobrev

02-14-2010, 07:03 PM

Grats Chase! Your result is great and you most certainly managed to master the game :)

Metathron

02-14-2010, 08:03 PM

I find it perplexing that you can finish the game in 7 days with 86 quests completed. Do you clear up each island in one fell swoop and hardly, if ever, return there at all? :confused:

loreangelicus

02-14-2010, 08:13 PM

I find it perplexing that you can finish the game in 7 days with 86 quests completed. Do you clear up each island in one fell swoop and hardly, if ever, return there at all? :confused:

I haven't finished the game, but I am going for a fast run as well. I believe it is actually a requirement to take out all enemies in an island if you can if you don't need to go back there anymore for a related quest. That's what makes a fast run, no-loss game all the more impressive, since you can't skip enemies for later when you are more powerful.

And it is possible, but with great difficulty. Bolo is one such early game island.

Metathron

02-14-2010, 08:30 PM

Thanks for the answer. I was thinking particularly of quests that require you to travel between islands to complete them.

I will probably never attempt anything like that. I prefer a leisurely playthrough, even slothful at times. Don't mind flicking through newspapers while I'm waiting for that mana to recharge. :grin: Ah well, to each his own.

Chase

02-14-2010, 11:26 PM

Grats Chase! Your result is great and you most certainly managed to master the game :)

Hardly! But thanks mate :). It seems like there are a lot of people out there who make me look like a mere child in comparisment!

I find it perplexing that you can finish the game in 7 days with 86 quests completed. Do you clear up each island in one fell swoop and hardly, if ever, return there at all? :confused:

Yes. I dident go to any islands twice except for when I had to hand in a few quests and such. Sometimes its hard, well tedious as you have to reload a lot on some fights. But its the most effective way to do it. Also if you have the right spells you can do anything really. This playtrough I found all spells and even better I found the important ones really early on aswell. (for the most part). Its not like you need that many spells when you have red dragons sniping all over the place :).

I found impossible easier with one stack then with a full army. As you can see in my screen I spent most of the game using Red Dragons and they were quite easy to keep up using max rank heal and "time back" if it got nasty.

I would also hit space to pause after every fight to plan ahead on where I would go next and I tried to end most of my fights with full mana and rage.

Also I would save a lot and run around to plan out routes and try some fights just to see how it would go.

All in all this playtrough took me 4-5 weeks and the hardest part for me was actually Umkas. Got some crazy huge shaman armys there with the WRONG kind of support units.

What challenge to go for now.. hmm :)

Hento

02-15-2010, 09:50 AM

Chase

02-15-2010, 10:49 AM

How did you manage to kill armies with huge stacks of shamans(especially if they are distributed into 3 stacks), I had to go all the way back to just have a single Black Dragon army to avoid their devastating magic axes.
I have no idea how I would beat them as warrior.

Yeah that was the hardest part of the game for me. For those fights I ended up stacking defensive items and I had the magic resistance hat that cut 50% of the damage (giftbag item) and stone skin was always up. The trick was to survive the damage they did every turn while casting rank 3 heal.

It was especially bad with 3 shamans + catapults, but it works if you stack enough damage reduction and catapults can be quite easily crowd controlled with fear or such. In the end I wore them down with my red dragons. One thing I noticed was that based on what spells I would use, they sometimes change the order of how they used their spells. Surviving one or two sets of axes is not as hard as surviving 3 sets. Also if they move a step prior to casting their spell you can reload and put a trap in that spot.

Hope any of this helped :).

loreangelicus

05-14-2010, 10:03 PM

It is finally done...

main goals:
* Impossible difficulty using Warrior class
* LEVEL 61!!!
* Day 7
* all 87 quests
* ZERO casualties

seconday goals:
* all medals at level 3
* FAILED: pet dragon only level 57 (was targeting level 60)

final score: 1,869

Screenshots of high score pages attached. I might create a post giving tips on how to achieve this (especially the level 61 goal) but I would like to give KBAP a rest for now. :grin:

As with with my KBTL high score game, this is my only KBAP game that I finished; the attempt simply takes too much time planning and doing, and I don't have too much playing time with family and work being my priority.

As always, it has been a blast playing KB! :grin:

Zhuangzi

05-15-2010, 01:13 AM

Well done loreangelicus. Some people are born to get absolutely everything out of games. Apparently you are one of them. Respect. :cool:

loreangelicus

05-15-2010, 11:13 AM

Well done loreangelicus. Some people are born to get absolutely everything out of games. Apparently you are one of them. Respect. :cool:

Thanks, but I did have a great advantage in foresight by reading up on the discussions in this forum before making my attempt.

As such, I would like to give credit where credit is due:

1) unicornXP for the Day 7 path that involves getting all 87 quests

2) DGDobrev for doing the initial run for level 60 and posting GREAT tips on how to achieve it

3) all the contributors in this forum that showed me the power of black knights, bone dragons, and the two droids for the zero casualties attempt

4) lady luck for placing the two Hand of Necropolis XP items BOTH ON VERONA

Heck, the only genuine contributions that I have are: 1) replaying easy battles to dig chests for call colossus/call of death/ancient knowledge early on, and 2) replaying Elenhel battles to get him to cough up ancient knowledge every 30 battles.

I'll write up the post giving tips on my run; may it serve to inspire others (especially the veterans) to make a high score run as well. It should be noted that I didn't play with the gift bag mod, and that playing with the said mod could lead to a LEVEL 62 run since I think it adds another +5% XP item. :grin:

DGDobrev

05-15-2010, 02:36 PM

loreangelicus

05-16-2010, 05:24 AM

In my opinion, loreangelicus, you're too modest ;) Thanks for giving me a credit, but the achievement is entirely your own. It represents hours of commitment, perseverance and a strong will to keep on going. This is something few people possess in abundance. You had the nerves of steel to get the most out of the battles.

Great work :)

As for the 62, I'm uncertain. I think the 5% isn't as much as it looks, but it is well worth the try.

Thanks. :)

Btw, here is my "official" post regarding my run. Hopefully it inspires others to follow suit just as I have been inspired by the accomplishments of others. :)

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=14756

ckdamascus

05-18-2010, 03:02 AM

Thanks. :)

Btw, here is my "official" post regarding my run. Hopefully it inspires others to follow suit just as I have been inspired by the accomplishments of others. :)

Congrats! Truly an excellent run!

john_crapper

05-18-2010, 12:30 PM

sthubbar

05-25-2010, 02:45 AM

What a great game. Thanks so much to the developers for writing such a fun game.

As a casual gamer it is fun to see all the crazy things people on this board are able to achieve in this game. My goal for both KBTL and KBAP was to be able to finish both games without any help from these forums. I'm proud to say that I finished both games before even reading one post on these forums to see how others are doing it. :)

Of course, the way that I won was quite different than anyone else I've seen, though it worked and that's what makes this game good for even casual games like me.

I'll post the screenshots later.

In general, I was able to go with no losses up until the last 5 fights or so. I never knew about the timeback spell, I'll have to double check my spell book to see if it is even in there.

I settled on being a Mage with an army of Royal Griffins, Inquisitors(the ones with resurrection), Demonlogists, Green Dragons, and Cyclopses. Towards the end I realized I could improve on this choice, though I wanted to be loyal to the team that had taken me so far, so I used them till the end. :)

BTW, has anyone achieved level 62?

Jatekos

09-12-2010, 02:14 PM

After a similar run with mage (score 1652) I managed to finish an impossible no loss warrior game with a result of 1769. (day 11, level 57, quests 87).
Now I can see what an unbelievable result to do the same only in 7 days.
I was using UnicornX' travel plan (thanx for it!), and I was always trying to hurry, but I don't see the possibility to repeat Lorangelicus' score.
It must had be very-very very well organized and planed, and I think the only way to achieve it, if you make every step's of the route only once, and kill everything immediately as you meet him.
In my run I used mainly Red and Black dragons with both kind of droids.
They can handle easily almost all of the battles.
The 3 hard MainBoss fight was different.
Agaist K'tahu I used only one stack of ghosts. According to my Leadership I could have had 375 of them, but I used only 275, because in the first few trial it always run over the maximum, and I lost the battle immediately.
Starting with the 275 I finished of K'tahu absolutely easily, my only problem was not to exceed the limit. (At the and I had 374 Ghosts).
Against Gremlion I used RedDragons (21) and Cursed ghosts (333).
The tactic was to send the ghosts to battle, I needed the dragons only controll the game, and after defeating everything reduce the number of the ghosts back to normal. It's really funny, that when the ghosts run out of my controll, Gremlion doesn't hurt it, even if retaliate!! (neither if uses area attack).
In the final battle I used BoneDragons (42) instead of Reddies, allied with 361 cursed ghosts (possible 419). It was the same method, the major part of the battle was done by the ghosts, which run out of controll very quickly. It grown up till 2927 !!, with an attack of 264 !! causing 108338 damage to Baal with one critical hit. After cleaning the demons out it takes about 50-60 turns to reduce the amount of the ghosts to 418 with the Bonedragon's poisoncloud.
I have had only 3 AK scrolls, so I'm sure, with better luck, and with using Elenhel (I haven't had him) it is not to hard to reach 1-2 levels more.
It was a wrong decesion to use MoroDark (instead of Elenhel e.g.), but I wanted to get the splinter of darkness, and finally, I haven't used Blackknights at all. :(
One more thing. Seeing DGD's motto about Gorguana and mark of blood, I had an idea, and I made a trial. Fighting against repair droids (135 pcs with 64 HP, 8640 all together), I used gorguanas mark of blood on them, and send Drako's Ligthning ball against them. The effect was amaizing. The ball caused 10110 damage (39%*2*1,5), killing the entire squad. (Droids are vulnerable to magic, -50%).

marcinl0

09-16-2010, 03:44 AM

My latest result, impossible mage 1317 & 60 lvl, data on the screens, with modified hardcore pcbun mod:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?p=179364#post179364

Bag In Vena

09-30-2010, 06:41 PM

Warrior, impossible, 7 days, 87 quests, zero casualties, score 1850

Jatekos

12-07-2010, 08:29 PM

I was curious how it goes with a Paladin hero, to make a no loss run. (In this sites I haven't seen any really high score with paladin, except DGD's one).
It was similar, like the Mage and Warrior ones, although the Paladin's speciality (Resurrection) has had no sense at all (because of the NoLoss).
Debir was easy, but Scarlet wind and Rusty Anchor was a nightmare. After reaching Verona everything turned to easier, and after Montero -getting the first RedDragon- it was a piece of cake.
Score: 1818
Days: 9
Quests: 87
Level: 59
My original goals was to reach Level 60, but I should have had about 50000 Exp more. I had 8 scrolls of AK -seven from Elenhel, and only one from travel charts:(-, and to reach L60 I needed at least 6 more AK scrolls.
Also I wanted to solve the game in 8 days, but finally I spent 8 and half, and don't really see the possibility to solve it only in 7 days. There should be some trick, because I used the shortest travel route -to solve all the quests-, always paused the game if not moving, and tried to move on the islands as few as possible -with the wings asap-, and still being pretty slow :(
Anyhow, it was a great fun to play with all kind of fighters, and now I go to the store to buy Crossworlds :grin:

One more thing, does anybody know, how the "most effective troops" record works? Because it shows such silly things as 60 (??) Red dragons, and Beholders causing 1,2 % effectivness, although I used them only in a few battles at the very beginning of the game?
Could it be, that Resurrected -with Inquisitors- and TurnBackTimed ones are added to the real ones in this record??