I'm not sure this has much effect because warrior would have a huge XP penalty. Or is it a percentage of max stack? I'm playing a mage and I could not have always all stack at max but most or quite close to max. That's hard enough like that! :grin:

Level 9 is already quite nice I would attempt at this level with my mage. I don't think I have the treaty in my current party alas. I learned XP bonus skill level 1 right before my mage level up to 4 (started a new game and dropped previous one) but I'm far to learn it level 2 because currently I have zero spirit rune.

Weird I checked that and didn't think to check both travels! So if I checked well that means that it's the travel the go to the island that consume no time. 5mn to do the trick?

Heavy loss is in fact more amazing, how the hell manage that? I saw only one record close to Calenda record, a mage in 7 days. That said this mage used quite a lot ghosts and with ghost you get loss quite often but can manage a balance to compensate it.

Still look at Calinda save make it more impressive, I regret the mage guy didn't provide some... now there's still a challenge, if 6 days isn't possible then it's without the treaty, sacrifice and gift. :-P

The ghosts are both a boon and a curse. I personally don't like them... They like steal way too many souls for my liking and tend to go out of control :)

I remember using haste on thorns and may be battle cry or smth, it was long ago ....

anyway the fable about using less troops before going into battle to get more xp isn't working

i have tested this in impossible mode with mage

first i used like

10 horseman 15 inqi 10 royal snakes 3 alchemist

and after i only used 3 horseman

in both cases i won and in both cases i got 25xp

:)

to kill the turtle is very easy without any losses

use fire dragonfly

let it use haste(get the scroll or spell last hero)

get 4 ranged units

make the firefly stand in front of turtle with defense
cast last hero on it
let i die and keep casting last hero(the turtle will always attack the firefly and your ranged units should take this one real easy without any losses:>

(USE inqi's to ressurect the fireflies)

:)

Horsemen + Healing + Lvl 1 Order magic + lvl 1 concentration + 4 ranged units is also a clean sweep at the turtle :)

What was the difficulty of the mob at both times? If both times it was very weak, then indeed it makes no difference. It is not about the number of troops you have, it is about the difficulty of the opponent. I can assure you that I get more xp for a weak opponent than a very weak opponent. If dropping some of my troops makes a very weak opponent go to weak, I get more xp from killing the same mob. If it stays very weak, than there is no change in xp reward.

About sacrifice, do you save some very weak mobs in the start area to use sacrifice or just use sacrifice at the end of your next battle, be it easy or tough. I mean, do I save some very weak mobs on the map for sacrifice or do I just keep killing mobs and using sac + ress at the end?

It is better if you can do the second, use sacrifice whereever you go, and obtain extra leadership from flags or whatever. Even mana potions come in handy when you deplete your mana and next battle is near. Another thing is, buy all available scrolls for sacrifice and use them as scrolls, they dont use up any mana then. For a fast run you don't want to return to any place without a serious reason, so leaving weak troops behind is not a good option.
Also a good advice is to finish battles with full rage, and as much mana as possible.