Official Fulqrum Publishing forum

Official Fulqrum Publishing forum (http://forum.fulqrumpublishing.com/index.php)
-   Tips and Hints (http://forum.fulqrumpublishing.com/forumdisplay.php?f=130)
-   -   Surviving on Impossible (http://forum.fulqrumpublishing.com/showthread.php?t=4907)

Zhuangzi 10-20-2008 11:30 PM

Yeah Royal Thorns seem to be the perfect thing to use Sacrifice on, as you can't buy an unlimited supply anywhere. I am loving Royal Thorns myself. Like Orc Shamans they give the enemy plenty of things to attack that *aren't* your troops, and that is exactly what you want as a Mage. I have also been using Sacrifice to get a stack of Horsemen as well, long before they become a horde at King Mark's castle.

My own game is progressing very smoothly - in fact I am disappointed how smoothly it is going. I've totally cleared out Freedom Islands now, including the pirate ships, and that's despite the fact that many enemies were listed as Very Strong or Overpowering. Leadership is over 6000 and I've still got Feanora due to her wonderful children. I just cleared out Creiston Mines too and I think I am level 15 now.

I decided that a Mage really wants to race up the Magic tree (obviously) but some things are more important than others. So I already have Chaos 3 and Destroyer 3, but only Distortion 2 and Order 1. The mana regeneration is also not so important this early, so I've only got one point in that. Ice Snake is a very, very nice spell to use and now it's dealing over 2200 damage to the central hex of the attack. Fireball 3 is awesome for any thorns you see too, as they take double damage from fire.

Comparing my money stocks to my two earlier Hard games, I am surprised to find that I have WAY more money this time. Currently I have about 500,000 in the bank, compared to 200,000 at the same stage in my last Hard game. Obviously I haven't been losing nearly as many units, and this is down to the decision to play an 'offensive mage strategy.'

Basically, you want to do the biggest spell damage to the enemy each turn, which means having as high an Intellect as you can (mine is only 16 at the moment) and prioritising Chaos 3 and Destroyer 3. Then you can use spells like Fireball, Ice Snake and later Fire Rain and Armageddon. Ideally you want to use as many ranged units as possible to complement your spells, so I have settled on Royal Thorns and Orc Shamans to create cannon fodder/diversions, as well as whatever melee units are cheap (Pirates and Sea Dogs in Freedom Islands). I don't like the human archer (too weak) but I also have a stack of Horsemen which I created with Sacrifice.

kennec 10-21-2008 02:00 AM

zhuan nice to read your post.

i am at same stage in the game as u almost on impossible.

altough i play an paladin lvl 13. soon cleared the freedom islands.

i use whutever forces avaible i only have leadership 5600.

i use frogwife in frogform and have a strong stack of royal snakes and the griffin banner and a stack of griffins.

i cant realy find royal thorns , where did u get those? i have only found 2 so far and i cant use sacriface spell for a long time. i got a crown wich doubles thorn damage and i realy would like to use that more.

every mob stack i encounter are ar least at match but most often on strong or overpowering.resurection spell comes very hand and i got 100 mana nowso i can use 5 lvl 2 resurections on my tropps now.

about money : i got like 200k gold and stacks in castles worth of 100k+. i change my army when i meet undeads.

i havent got the control of the orc castles yet couse they are to hard for me atm and i gotta wait till i get stronger army.

something i am struggling with on impossible is to upgrade items. the officers batoon is guarded with massive forces and so are the other items also.

very challanging so far to bad random factor have given me realy bad items in game so far.

Zhuangzi 10-21-2008 09:15 AM

I got my Royal Thorns somewhere in Eastern Islands. It's pretty random - one game I don't think I saw them at all. I wish I had the Thorn Crown though. 3 games and I've never seen that. :mad:

I have discussed the merits of Chaos 3 and Destroyer 3 enough, but now I want to explain how I stop the enemy from hitting my troops. For this strategy you need Ice Snake 3, Royal Thorns and Orc Shamans. My other troops are Horsemen, Griffins and Cannoneers, although I don't much like Cannoneers.

Ice Snake is a great spell because it deals massive damage AND slows the enemy using freeze. I spam this virtually every turn (unless using Sacrifice basically) and take out anything dangerous straight away, e.g. Evil Beholders.

Orc Shamans are great because the AI is pretty retarded when it comes to attacking the totems. This is very exploitable. And the Shaman can dish out huge melee damage when required as well. Certainly one of the best units in the game.

Royal Thorns are awesome because of their ability to spawn more Thorns. This is an awesome way to slow the enemy down from reaching your real troops, and then the Royal Thorns are ranged units too.

Horsemen and Griffins are there to pick off any weaklings. The only rage spells I use currently are the occasional Evil Shoal and more importantly Glot's Armor, which basically gives 'one free hit.' But I hardly touch the ragebox otherwise.

Using this strategy, with 97 mana (2 regeneration per turn) I can end most battles within 5 turns, i.e. by the time I would run out of mana. My losses are VERY low and I've got over 600,000 gold now. This is too easy. :cool:

Another lame strategy, this one against the Giant Spider. Shamans spam totems, Royal Thorns spam Thorns which spam more Thorns, and pretty soon you can cover the entire grid with your units. Guess what? No more spider drops. I cast Flaming Arrow 3 on the giant spider every turn, because it's only 5 mana and deals over 1000 damage. This is a pretty tedious strategy (took over 20 turns and toward the end nothing could move) but all I lost was 13 Horsemen (they got wedged next to the Giant Spider near the end) and 1 Cannoneer. :cool:

Zhuangzi 10-21-2008 02:33 PM

Lower and Upper Hadar were very straightforward, but Taron Mines and Ardan Peaks seemed much harder. I noticed a LOT of enemy heroes running around, many of whom were listed as Overwhelming. Never a good sign. It looked like my strategy that had served me so well up until level 15 would need to change.

So I snuck into Demonis. :-P

Sneaking is fun in this game. It's actually a 'clickfest' in that you have to run away from and dart around sometimes impossible stacks, but it can be done. Sometimes there is a hero guarding the demon gate, but this time there was just a normal stack that could JUST be gotten around.

You can get around Demonis easily too without fighting anything. Heaps of enemy stacks here, most Impossible. At least 5 heroes. I will have my work cut out here later, I can see. But instead of fighting, I went shopping.

I managed to find:

Armageddon (actually this was inside the big fish's belly)
Hypnosis
Demon Portals (which I hadn't used in earlier games).

The only thing I couldn't find that I wanted was Fire Rain, but no matter.

The only quest you can complete in Demonis without fighting anyone is the Isharra's love quest. With a bit of running around and dodging dragons you can complete the quest and get yourself Isshara's Whip. (+2 attack, +20 attack to Demonesses) Time to get myself a stack of Demonesses and equip Anga's Ring. With this done, here are the Demonesses' stats:

Attack 52
Defense 60
Initiative 9
Movement 5

Plus the Demoness has a 2 square attack like Royal Snakes, and can also Charm human enemies.

What unit can beat that? :cool:

So now I move onto the rest of Kordar with beefed up Demonesses, Demon Portals and Armageddon if I need it. :-)

Dorkus 10-21-2008 03:01 PM

Isn't Isshara's Whip +20% damage? +20 to attack is kind of... wow.

Zhuangzi 10-21-2008 11:02 PM

No, you are right. I was just about to go to bed when I wrote that. :rolleyes:

milo 10-21-2008 11:41 PM

Actually there are two quests you can do in demonis the other is collecting dragon eggs in ultrax. One thing I have found very very effective is using elven she fighters with agna's ring. The dryad's lullaby spell is immensely powerful, it will put almost all 1-3 to sleep for two rounds (except undead and immune mind spells). You can use gift on dryads to keep renewing the lullaby spell. This allows you to concentrate all your attacks on levels 4 and 5, the sprites hit without retaliation with high morale from agna's ring and do massive damage. Do it correctly and most enemies won't even get a chance to move.

Dorkus 10-21-2008 11:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by milo (Post 56153)
Actually there are two quests you can do in demonis the other is collecting dragon eggs in ultrax. One thing I have found very very effective is using elven she fighters with agna's ring. The dryad's lullaby spell is immensely powerful, it will put almost all 1-3 to sleep for two rounds (except undead and immune mind spells). You can use gift on dryads to keep renewing the lullaby spell. This allows you to concentrate all your attacks on levels 4 and 5, the sprites hit without retaliation with high morale from agna's ring and do massive damage. Do it correctly and most enemies won't even get a chance to move.

Why use gift when phantom is cheaper and better? it allows the same functionality (lullaby has the same effect whether you have 1000 dryads or 1), for 15 mana rather than 20, and gives you another set of dryads (and thus another set of thorns) to boot. It also seems like a waste to gift an ability that will recharge on its own, in 2 rounds, in any event.

It's a good strat, though, and one that i've used extensively.

Zhuangzi 10-22-2008 12:03 AM

Yes I had forgotten about the Ultrax quest. I did this without fighting in my last game, but I think I will clear out everything in Demonis later for the xp.

Anga's Ring is wonderful in Elinia due to the access to 'she-fighters.' I had great success with massive stacks of Lake Fairies and Sprites. I have read about the Gift/Dryads trick but I am more inclined to use Phantom, I think.

Shd 10-22-2008 05:56 AM

Sorry for offtop, but is something changed or Phantom she-fighters still have no bunuses from ring of Angi (that was a reason why i prefered +gift not +phantom tactics) ?


All times are GMT. The time now is 09:24 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © 2007 Fulqrum Publishing. All rights reserved.