Do level 5 units rule this game?
 

In the last two games I played, I used units level 4 and below up till the moment when I found level 5 units, at which point I summarily ditched lower level units and played with just the level 5s. I started a new impossible paladin game last night and I'm thinking I could force myself to try out some other lower-level unit combos, but the temptation of using level 5s again might prove too great. :grin:

So my question is, are most level 5 units in KB:AP just a tad too good? Or is the balance just right in your opinion?

I think the archdemon, at least, might be overpowered at 1600 leadership and a measly 6000 gold (IIRC).

In my opinion, the balance is good enough. I, personally, rarely use lvl 5 units, unless I need something specific out of them (like the single BD playthrough).

My favorite setup is still:
Paladins
Knights
Archmagi
Royal Griffins
Black Knights/Dryads

Great resistances, a decent number of tanks, damage dealers and support units, all in one.

It all depends on what you are looking for.

An ordinary game? A no-loss game? No buy? Single stack? A challenge to complete the game using only up to lvl 2, or maybe just lvl 1?

And what's a "good" unit? A strong unit? A "cool looking" unit? A unit that's fun to play with?

Paladins (+ knights for bosses), royal griffins seems better than most lvl5.

On my last game, I will usually have at least 2 level 5 units. They are usually great even if is just for the fact that few spells can cripple or neutralize then (none, for black dragons) and because they can take heavy counter-attacks without dying. But most have great skills that make they worth using.

Dragons are always awesome. All three types, but specially black.

Cyclops are very good too: high defense, good damage, great for ranged, awesome in meele.

I loved playing with Trolls on my last game: good defense, high damage, kinda cheap, at night they will auto-heal. Great tanks.

Tirex are awesome: high damage, great speed, eating bodies to heal and gain action points is an incredible skill. Great tanks too.

Also love Ancient Ents: their ranged attack does brutal damage, and they can take a lot of punch too. Haste then and they become very effective.

I think yes, Level 5's are the king of the game, especially dragons. This is less true with a warrior, who has less ways to keep them alive, but even still, you will be hard pressed to fight the urge to bring out the bigguns.

The big difference to me is that you have to worry about ressurrection on your little guys. Look at DG's favorite army list, two Rezzer stacks. Compared to my favorite: (All dragons + Archdemons) you just beat people down and don't ask questions.

A unit I'd like to bang... :D

Level 5 units are powerful, without a doubt; like I mentioned in other posts, they learned from their mistake in KBTL and gave level 5 units better stats per leadership, especially dragons.

For a warrior who has more leadership though, I think the droid-undead build is better. I'm running an impossible warrior game right now, currently at Montero, and am having a very easy time getting no-loss against enemies (see screenshot of current build). And I have yet to get the items that reduce leadership costs of these two types: 2 items for undead to reduce leadership by 35% and 3 items for droids that reduce leadership by 45%.

But you are correct, level 5 are great overall. In fact, the last slot in my 5-unit lineup is reserved for undead bone dragons (+3 morale from voice of the dragon and black knights). :)

By the way, did they ever fix the droid morale problem? Since you have so many stacks of them...

I was not aware there was a droid morale problem; did a quick search, couldn't find a post regarding it, could you enlighten me on it?

As far as I know droids always stay neutral (as per description of the Mechanical trait) no matter what item/ability/spell/effect says otherwise.

The idea is that if you swap the droids with another unit on the same spot in the army, it gets a faulty neutral morale even if you have any means to improve it (skils, items, etc.).

Heh, looks like you made out like a bandit with items there. I see 30% physical resistance in your inventory, and 20 bonus runes in your equiped items (banner, sword) And you apparantly got that skull of death a loong time ago. I think that the warrior does need a little more rezz help since he can't really get the magic as fast and as copiously. If you go with dragons you WILL need timeback and/or life light at some point.

Basically if you have droids in say the first slot on the left at some point, then that slot is permanently stuck at neutral morale no matter what units you put there later. So if you had droids at all 5 slots in your army before, then you will never see any morale benefits for the rest of the game.

Attached is a screenshot of Undead Spiders I generated using Call of Death; they get a +1 positive morale due to the Black Knights in the army. They are occupying the 4th slot which is where I always place half of my Repair Droid stack.

The +1 morale seems to be registering fine. I even entered a battle, to check if I lose the morale bonus there, but it's still there. I even swapped the Undead Spiders around to the other slots, to see if it loses the bonus during the swap, but it was still there.

Could you give me a specific set of steps on how this bug manifests in your game? I'll try to recreate it in mine. If it is non-existent in my copy, then I'll start promoting the digital download purchase from Gamer's Gate. :)

Hand of Necropolis x2 at Verona, Skull of Pain and Slippery Cuirass at Rusty, Twinkling Boots at Bolo; and a guaranteed Call Colossus duplicate navi map at Scarlet to boot. :grin: I was just going for guaranteed Ancient Knowledge scrolls (x3 in shops per KBScanner), just got (extremely) lucky with the rest.

This is a level 60 attempt, thus the use of the Dragon Slayer's Sword / Magician's Cape / Jackboots for extra XP via multiple suppressions; no real need for resistance gear (for now) as my army is very easy to resurrect. I can't wait to dump the banner; I still have 15 battles left before I get the mind runes, then I'll swap the Engineer's Badge for more droids.

You are correct, warrior is in bad shape mana-wise. That's one of the reasons why I chose this lineup; droids have a built-in, reloading resurrect ability, and most of the time I only need to cast Eviln level 1 (15 mana) once per battle to bring back lost Black Knights. Turn Back Time costs too much mana, thus no level 5 units for my warrior. Good thing Eviln also works for the level 5 undead Bone Dragons, so I'll add them to the lineup eventually (via Call of Death). I'm just waiting for my Sacrifice level 3 to generate 790 HP of unit-generating power, so I could Sacrifice my droids to top up the Bone Dragons stack every time I have enough leadership for more.

Just a comment about the Sacrifice spell. I recognize the need for Sacrifice 3 when playing as a warrior. I had the same experience as you. It is barely enough to create a new level 5 unit. Now, as a mage, things are very different. I haven't even bothered to learn Sacrifice 3. Sacrifice 2 is often too strong. With Int=58 and 2/3 through the game Sacrifice 1 does 1460 and Sacrifice 2 does 2925 points of damage. I often have to use the Archmage's Magic Shield to reduce the effect by 50%. Even Sacrifice 1 with the Magic Shield is sometimes too strong... But I guess that is "luxury problem" :-) (a norwegian expression meaning that it is a problem because you situation is too good - not sure about the english expression for this)

Sry, this is not part of the threat, but I must ask this...

I play mage, lv. 42 atm, having a 11 Attack, 18 Defense and a 34 Intelligence... 62 rage-max and 133 mana-max... are these attributes too low?

I only read: 55 int... 60 int... 70 int...

Regards Tenbian

No and Yes :-) If you aim for control, support, buffs etc. it is not to low. If you aim for doing most of the damage with your spells, I will say that your int is too low. Spells like Fire Rain, Death Star, Fireball, Armageddon, Ice Snake, Geyser, etc. are very good with a high int. Death Star can easily reach 10k or more with a high int. On the other hand, remember that the burning and poisoning post effect damage is still very effective even with a medium int.

There are two things you can do to boost your int. The first is picking all the skills and achieving the medals that gives int. The second is pure luck... Here is how I ended up at int=58:

What you can do:
Play Mage: It starts with Int = 3
Medal: Illiteracy Exterminator +3
Magic Skill: Linguistics +6
Magic Skill: Thesis +6
Mind Skill: Scouting +3
Mind Skill: Learning +3
Elenhel as companion +4
A total of 28


The rest is pure luck:
2 x Dress of the Magess: 2 x +4
Engineer's Badge: +2 (I do not use droids - I only use it to get +2 Int)
Snake Ring of Wisdom: +5
Band of Concentration: +1
Boots of the Mystic: +2
Diploma in Anti-Magic: +2
Shaman's Skull: +3
Used Ring of Mind, class 2: +3
Shrines 4 x +1 Int
A total of 30

That is 58 in total. I am 2/3 through the game and there is still room to improve my Int. I know that the Usurer's Ring is in Reha for instance. That will push my Int to 63. I can replace the Portrait of the Knight that I still use. Of course, this one-sided focus on int hurts my other two stats. My Attack is 4 and my Defense is 13. The only Attack/Defense items I use are: Mithril Shield (Def +8 ), Inquisitor's Blade (Att +3 and 20% Leadership reduction for Paladins and Inquisitors that I use), and the Diploma in Anti-Magic that has a +2 Defense (It is mainly used because of +2 Int and +25% Magic Resistance).

Red dragons use to be more useful that black ones. On high leadership levels, u should use red dragons instead red ones, but depends on wat game do u want.

I agree about cyclops

Tirex are just good, but dont know y, i dont like em. I think the other level 5 units (except ancient ents) are more useful than trex.

Ancient Ents are just useless. U can like em, but i think is the worst level 5 creature of the game. Their range special attack is just good, but u need to recharge it for 2 turns and the slow speed of ancient ents make em too vulnerable. And u basically cant do nothing while u dont have the range special atk lol. U need to cast haste everyturn on em to make effective, and thats a waste. Normal ents are far better. Maybe im wront but i used ancient ents and after 5 matches i just discarded em. Same spot about giants.

Trolls are awesome units. They heal completely on evening/night, good dmg and have a good speed (for a tank level 5). If u cast stone skin/divine armour on trolls on a night fight, u can move em to the center of the battle and watch a movie.

Paladins/Knights are always the most resourceful units. Knights are the best units against dragons.

Ogres are awesome units too. His special rage attack can double his dmg on a single hit. I just killed 9 black dragons on 1 hit with 30 ogres xD. I think it was a critical hit, but cant be sure.

I can provide a savegame which will essentially give the mage 74 intel or 84 with a wonderers scroll. Amazing Items through the entire game, however I don't remember where I found every item. KBscanner might know that;)

Skull of death + 5
Usurers Ring + 5
Snake Ring of wisdom +5
Amulet of death + 5
Boots of the Mystic + 2
Dress of the Magess + 5
Dress of the Prinsess + 1
Silver Chain +1
Wizards Hat + 2
Dimpoma in Anti-Magic + 2
Scale Shield + 3
Archmages Staff +5
Ring of the Mind + 3 (permanent)

I never used this setup, since my companion was Moro, but I loaded a game and tried to visit Elenhel to see, how high it went. I guess only with a 2nd Dress of the Magess and it could get even higher, but 84 (with scroll) is pretty decent.

Other Notable Items:

Mask of Hate, Black Helmet, Crystal Helmet (Much better than +2 intel late game)
Twinkling Boots
Magician's Cape, Steam Armor.
Ancient Amulet, Banner of True Faith, Gladiator Sword
Shield of Recross