Top 10 tips for everybody starting the game! (non-spoiler)
 

* You can increase combat animation speed in Options! It's a dropdown among the technical graphics options, so it's really easy to miss. Everybody should do this.

* You'll get the Rage Spirits by doing the King's quests (the ones marked in the list with a little crown). Once you have the box, talk to the spirits on the Hero screen to get them to work for you.

* Right-click and hold to move the camera, both on adventure and combat screen. (Limited to 180 degrees in combat)

* Right-click and hold on an unit or unit picture for a quick reference of its statistics. Shift/Ctrl click, with left mouse button, on an unit or unit picture for the info popup to stay, so that you can hover the mouse over the numbers and icons and see what all that means.

* Alt key shows turn order in combat.

* Scribe scrolls into the magic book by clicking the button next to them in the book.

* ... but don't waste magic crystals and runes on useless spells and skills; spend them only on things you really want or need, as they're not plentiful at all, particularly later in the game. High end spells may take some 50 magic crystals to scribe and upgrade.

* There's a limit on the unscribed spells in the spellbook. If you see for sale a spell you want, but can't buy for some reason, either scribe or right-click on some of your extra scrolls and chuck them out to make room (or just use them in combat).

* Once you have an upgraded spell in your spellbook, you can still cast the cheaper, lower level versions by holding Shift or Ctrl while the spellbook is open.



* F5 key quicksaves the game. Thoughtfully, the game keeps not one but three of your last quicksaves. The game also auto-saves in castles.

* Always check enemy strength before combat, by right-clicking them while adventuring. Always save before entering a battle whose difficulty you can't judge firsthand, such as creatures in castles, or upgrading/pacifying items. The Scouting skill under Soul gives additional info about enemies and is a prerequisite for many others, so it's useful to have at least on level 1.

* You can right-click and Use the Thorn sprouts, spider/snake/griffon/dragon eggs and other such items to summon creatures of that type.

* You can upgrade some items by right-clicking them and choosing Upgrade. You'll then fight the gremlins that inhabit the item. Warning: depending on the item those fights may be very difficult, so save first.

* Some items can form item sets which give additional bonuses if you're wearing all its members. Right-click on an item and choose Info. If it belongs to a set, then it's written there.

* Enemies, treasures, available items and troops etc are randomized. There's no single strategy for anything.

* It's possible to run the game in windowed mode by editing the .INI

(will add more as I think of them :) )

Great stuff, hawker! Keep it coming!

Excellent ...thank you very much ...cheers :):)

Great.. exactly what I looked for :!:

what i'd like to know is if there is a difference between russian and english version atm

is there actually a penalty for dying though? in the demo its a bonus cos u get extra cash for it..i suppose u do lose your army.

You will lose your army and stuff, but level and skills will not be removed. And also you will continue the game from the King's castle.

You indicate you will loose your 'stuff'. Do you mean items? If so can items be recovered by winning hte battle later on ? Also, sometimes you are utterly defeated and game is over. Is this totally random or based on number of times you've previously lost ?

You'll never lose items, but if you lose certain battles it is the end. I think it depends on whether it's possible to run away in a particular fight: if it isn't, like in castle sieges, then it's game over if you lose, otherwise you'll end back at the king's castle.

Two comments:

1. One thing I find annoying is moving around the map by clicking and holding the mouse; it makes the map rotate. Instead, just single-clicking on the ground keeps the map oriented.

2. I tried the windowed mode by modifying the .ini file, but the game performance went right down the tubes. Maybe I needed to synch game resolution to desktop resolution, but it was virtually unplayable.

* You can right-click and Use the Thorn sprouts, spider/snake/griffon/dragon eggs and other such items to summon creatures of that type.
Does this mean that you can do this in battle or is it only when running around ?

One query : Is there a way to scroll around the map without moving the hero ?
also , you can add : Get damage in combat in terms of of units killed :

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...5&postcount=32

you can do this only while running around and i think its not possible in battle mode

Obelisks. If you ever played HOMM, you know what they do.

From the demo (didnt actually tested it in the full game) u also lose some leadership.

This is seriously addictive! One question, couldn't find the answer in the manual (though it's probably there - I can't stand these pdf thingies): I see that the number of swordsmen et.c. in the castle are dwindling as I keep having to recruit more. Will there be new swordsmen to recruit once I've exhausted the current supply?

Some additional informations regarding those two:

Hitting the ALT-Key displays the order *and* health bars of the units permantly.

When this is active, you dont need Shift / Ctrl for the unit informations, a simple rightclick is enough.

troops in castles renews when you pass king quests and gain nobility ranks.
in taverns, shops and ets... troops never renew (or renew rarely, when you do some quests for tavern or shop keeper)

U can sell the the scrolls when in castle View by going into the spellbook and right clicking on them.

Don't forget the 'SPACE' bar!!!!! it's in the manual but it's a very important key. You can pause the real time screen and check the power of the enemy near you (if you have a high enough scouting skill). I like that feature!

Hey Souldrinker, is that a Duvel glass I see before me? :-P

I live in Australia but *love* Belgian beer. :cool:

/offtopic

early game tip
 

First off I'm on my iPhone so I'm making this short and sweet. I see alot of people struggling early game. You know that spot where u see the knights standing guard in front of the tent? You can recruit the horse guys without fighting that battle. Run right pass them to the backside of the tent. They will not follow. They will move a little so wait tip they go back to their starting position. Inch you way down the side of the tent. Click on the tent. It will pop up the window. Buy your guys. Now get ready to run. As soon as you close the window run back behind the tent. If your fast you won't get into battle. Then wait for the guards to move back to their position and then run past them. Obviously save before doing this. I've hard my horse guys for several levels. There are only a few so don't let them die. Get inquisitors in your group so u can red them if they die. Sorry this doesn't look neat, but it's hard to type something this long on he iPhone.

I'm going to give that a crack when I get home.

for me it was easier just to lure them out of that area. it takes a bit to master but basically if u r close enough to any group they will follow/chase you. the trick here is to stay in that range while keeping moving (u can get out of range save and go back to luring right after). once u r close to the main castle u can just double back buy what ever u need (can even do 2nd run after leaving the 1st purchased group in the main castle).

Another small detail I noticed this morning...the scroll vendors have many more scrolls to the right if you click over...I thought they just had 4.

Yeah, the same with unit selection. I've been playing this game for a half of a year and only noticed that yesterday.

Hire Marauders, split them into two groups and loot every corpse in the battlefield. A good way to make money early

Even one group of Marauders can prominently increase your money income from every battle ;)
They have an ability to loot the corpses twice in the battle.

Thanks. I guess it's quite important to be careful with good troops, then.

It's not terribly important to be careful with the good troops... because you'll replace them kinda soon.
After I reached the dwarven lands, I replaced most of my humans with dwarves (not the inquisitors though). Now, in the elven lands, I replaced anything with elves, keeping cyclopses and giants though. I like those troops :)

Hi... First of all sorry for my bad English but I am not to good at it.. I had questions... did higher difficulty settings will help my character level up faster? There will be more troops in enemy armies= more experience or the numbers of troops will stay the same but they will be tougher? I want to know if there will be difference in level power etc. at the end of the game between character from easy and impossible difficulty...

Im having trouble getting cash. only level 4 but i have less than 15k and i havent really bought anything. any tips for getting rich so i can actually buy something?

You will find that most cash are found laying around or from quests

ok sorry if this is a dumb Q, but what is the + to attack stat? i.e. one of my babies has given me +20% to attack and the other +3 to attack :confused:

Marauders. With them you can become ultra rich fast. Just be sure to use their ability twice every combat. It's tedious, but worth it.

Dont think ive actually come accross them..where can u hire them at? Ive seen pirates and robbers to buy but not those yet. got a bit more now anyway just cleared out the swamp dungeons with my kick ass army of evil beholders, royal snakes and those dwarfes that chuck potions. get annihilated by that castle in the swamps with that corrupted kid tho..

They wear blue shirt and have a cape i think. They look a pirate/robber.

The enemies will be tougher, but the percentage of exp for winning will be smaller, as well as the money income. All in all, the levels at the end won't differ very much, but the difficulty of the battles will be bigger

I started game on impossible difficulty some time ago and it is more then impossible ;) but I am also super satisfied after every winning.. This could be too much for me but I check how my mage will level up (save, then use cheat to go on level 30) and I think that he could be able to complete the story... I started game few times and check level up bonuses to get the most from new levels (each time new game starts bonuses are different... like everything in this game.. :evil: but I think you all know this heh)

I think babies (in the game) at pretty bad. Its not hard to find items that are better than them and can be swapped but babies can. So my advice is not to have babies. (How did my wife give birth so fast anyway?:rolleyes:)

Buy all the potions. They are cheap and useful. Buy those artifacts with special properties. Who knows when you will need them. Hmm, might as well buy all items they are not expensive anyway.

Of course, it's a question of choise, but I completely disagree) Children usually give very useful bonuses, and the potions are rather useless imo, cause mana replenishes fast, and rage falls rather slowly.

I find the rage potions invaluable..i build up rage quick during battle but am usually out right at the very start of battles.

At 500gp a pop for the potions, they can be a life saver. Not a big investment and come in handy for those back to back battles.

Buy all the artifacts that give you some form of permanent bonus after 50 victories. Even if the stats on the artifact may be sub-par with some other items, the permanent bonus is worth using it for 50 battles.

Not sure if it is documented anywhere, but it appears that each point of Attack rating increases your damage by 3.3%.

So if your unit's Attack is 30 higher than the enemy's Defense, you do double damage (+100%). 60 higher, and you do triple damage. Apparently it caps out at triple damage.

Similarly if your unit's Defense is 30 higher than the enemy's Attack, you take half damage. 60 higher makes you take 1/3 damage. Basically each point of defense increases effective health by 3.3%.

Just a couple tips to help starting game-

Get the 2 Rage Spirits ASAP its very easy to get the Swamp Spirit going, just buy some yummy spiders or poisonous snakes to feed him. The other a not too hard fight with some Mages.

Once you have those two Spirits the game becomes much easier along with Scouting.


Max out Scouting asap this skill can really help you pick and choose your battles. Here on it will be the first skill I get. It is a huge help remember, know thy enemy.

GB

I have 1 point in it, all i need to know really.

When you put 3 points into it you get a full idea of how many and what kind of troops the enemy has well worth 2 more points imo.

GB

I'd rather save the skill points and find out when I actually enter battle.

Not sure if this was mentioned yet but when I was first able to go to freedom island I got my a** handed to me real fast lol. My lvl was not yet high enough to start their yet, so I bought a boat and sailed around the western and eastern islands and found many many items and didn't have to fight once. I found around 1000+ leadership flag points, lots and lots of gold, items etc...etc. I then went back to the first island and it made completing all of the side quest much easier.

agreed

thank you very much for all the tips - especially the first one! - would save me tons of time. :)

Thanks Hawker! Great post and great tips. It helped me a lot.

alt key
 

Is there some way to display health bars but not turn order? I could swear my UI was setup like this at some point, but ALT toggles both and I can't find any other key that affects either one.

Ctrl or Shift, not sure which is which, Alt displays all info.

the costs are:
lvl1: 1 rune
lvl2: 2 runes
lvl3: 3 runes

And once you have lvl1 it tells you if the enemies are stronger or weaker... I have never found it to be wrong yet. Strong enemies give me a run for my money, weak enemies I can wipe the floor with. So investing more runes to get even more accurate details seems superfluous.

that is a big thing about the entire game, this is not a linear game. And fighting a tough battle can result in a net loss of resources. So run around and collect stuff to upgrade yourself, kill the weaker monsters first, then finally backtrack and fight the (previously) tough fights...

I am now trying to look around to see if there is any XP penalty to doing that or not. but so far I am level 10 and it hasn't bit me yet.

At round 10 of a battle i got a message in battle log: -Extended combat has sapped the strength of your warriors and decreased their capacity to channel magical energy. Mana restore and rage increase are HALVED.-

Is there a way to estimate castle defenders?
 

This game appears to be great, but a suspected major deficiency:
1. Is there a way to estimate castle defenders?
2. Is there a way to estimate item keepers' strength?

These are major leaps of faith, which do not fit my personal style of playing, where defeat is a defeat and reload due to failure is not in my personal honor code. I simply lose interest playing on.

Ps. The original King’s Bounty had a feature to estimate castle defenders, which was the main point of the whole game in capturing villains. In this game getting quests to attack castle defenders when my hero is level 4 and still losing when my hero is level 14 due to unknown castle defenders is very disappointing.
I already searched 2 hours on Google and in this forum, but I gave up, so I ask here now.
I suspect that the answers are no (or something close to that), but please confirm or enlighten me. Thanks.

Get Scouting in the Mind tree and hold down right mouse button over the castle.

It did not work for me. It states “The castle is covered with slime and swamp grass” and “Castle Karmag”. What patch version do I need?

Laugh, I pretty much play every game like this now...Too bad losing a fight in this isn't game over, but a trip back to the castle.

Every game for me so far is in Ironman mode and I just restarted again playing the Paladin. Got as far as Lvl 5 or so with a mage on Impossible and didn't want to rely solely on Gift and Inquisitors even though I didn't die yet. Trying to do a no casualty game for my first play through. The key point seems to be picking your fights so far.

Usually, get impatient and sloppy though.

Will have to check these castles out when my time comes. Lvl 3 now and mostly just wandering picking stuff up right now and saving runes for EXP boost.

Hm . . . investing runes in learning skill isn`t so good at starting locations in my opinion : greenworth, arlania, verlon forest, marshan swamp. Those fights gives you low exp starting from 30 up to 300, so all bonus exp from learning skill wont be more then just 1 fight later in dead lands, or demon realm. Better in start invest runes in glory (at least 1 lvl), some magic school (for heal, stone skin, gift, fear for larger stacks of low lvl enemy if your lucky to find it), or try to rush for quick draw initiative is very important in this game and all archer build is interesting to play. Also i recommend 1 archmage for magic shield on your main tank unit they are much more common then inquisitors at start. Rest depends of army at your disposal.
Have fun :-)