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Originally Posted by jake21
Well for me I don't really need level 5 units; I need units that will create distractions (royal griffons, royal thorns, demologists, shamans...). A few key spells also help (not all of them but at least a few) (gift, fire rain, phantom, time back, ...)
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In my current 'hard' game up to (and including verona) I have had almost no luck with troups and spells. I didn't help my cause by vertically in damage spells skills but I in the end it probably was the best option simply due to lack of spells found.
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At the same time i started a normal mage (since the hard mage is such slow pace) and that game is utterly breeze not just due to easier skill level but before reaching verona (and verona was a gold mind once I started exploring it) I had royal thorns, royal griffons, demologists, fire rain, phantom, gift, ...
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This ignores items though in my hard game items haven't been that bad (I started with the +10 mind (banner) AND +10 warrior rune (sword); though it drained most of my cash) and found a +3int/stuff helm long with a +3 defense/+2 int shield.
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Still debating what to do with the guard. The elven guy is 4int but not sure 4int is all it is cut up to when compared with 700 leadership. Also the 700 ledership guy allows me to use better items.
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That may be true on lower difficulties but distractions won't work for too long on impossible. My mage had a tad over 5000 leadership but the stacks I fought ranged from 10k on the low end to 40k on the upper end. I've pretty much stopped using Phantom because it's not cost effective--practically any one stack of the enemy's will one-shot a phantom stack I make that isn't of L5 units.
There isn't much luck involved in getting the stuff I'm using. The one thing I lucked out on is finding the Trap spell early. That was it.
Since you had trouble with your mage game and I won't have time to check out your save till tonight (as I'm at work), I can detail how I progressed in my current game as some of that might help you:
1) I picked the Green dragon. If you don't and still want Treasure Searcher as early as possible, the trick is to dismiss all of your starting units during the training and dismiss 4 of the 5 paladins you start with. Now do the first fight with dragon kick while having your paladin just defend and heal himself when needed. The second fight is trickier but if you kill the royal thorn with a few fire arrows to stop him from spawning more troops, the rest of the fight plays out the same as the first. If done correctly, your dragon should have just enough exp to level up after the two training fights. Then be sure to pick Treasure Searcher (it and Stone Wall will always come up at Level 2.)
2) Loot the first few islands you have access to but don't engage in ANY battles yet, even if you think you can win. If you are lucky, you will have access to Rusty from Bolo. Make sure to get the Stone from Bolo and use it plus turn it in. My mage had roughly 1000 leadership at this point after using and turning in the stone (I found zero +leadership items.)
3) Return to Debir. Sell everything you find that you won't use (sell any Wanderer Scrolls too except for may Call of Colossus if you get that; I was never lucky enough to find that scroll this early.) If you had access to Rusty, you should have somewhere around 55k gold now. This will allow you to buy a good starting artifact from Debir. If not, you will have roughly 36k gold. I've had games with both. Make sure you get and use Jimmy's Shark Tooth as well.
4) Distribute your talent runes. Ignore Order and Transmute for now. 28 mana starting is plenty if you don't screw up trap HP count and there are no useful Order spells for a mage in the beginning. Rush down towards Higher Magic (1) as that will help a lot with medal spam in the beginning. On the Might tree, try to get Rage Control (1). For the Mind tree, get Scouting 1 or 2, the thing under (forgot the name) to 1, and Learning as high as you can go. Learning gives Intellect so you'll eventually want it, so you might as well get it as early as possible.
5) Buy 1 full stack of Inquisitors. Travel to Scarlett and do the undead fight that leads to guaranteed Archmages (either 3 or 4.) If you split your stack into 3-4 stacks (so they can resurrect each other) using Trap as the killing blow for every stack, you should have no losses and 5 ticks on the trap medal.
6) Buy all the archmages you get access to. Split them into stacks of 1 and put all your inquisitors back into 1 stack. Now go back to Debir and do every fight. Have the mages spam Magic Shield every chance they get and have your hero, dragon kick, and inquisitors kill stacks with trap. When you get down to 1 stack that you can control, start spamming Stone Skin instead (to build the counter) till Turn 10. Then trap the last remaining stack after Turn 10. Wait for your mana to fully recuperate before each fight. This "army" is good enough to clear out all of the non-hero fights on Debir and half the stacks on Scarlett with no losses on impossible if you lay your traps right and plan. By this time, if you were diligent in trapping and grinding guardian angel medal, you should easily have Trap III (I got this after fight 22 this time) and Guardian Angel III (this one goes fast since your counter rises by like 20 or more each fight.)
7) Once you have those, switch to spamming Oil Mist for fire mage. You now have a couple of choices. If you have a Leadership item, you probably have around the 1900 needed for a Green Dragon. You can go grab the free one on Rusty then. If you don't and Bolo sells Cyclopses, you should have enough leadership for 1 of those. Either way, your goal is to get yourself to 1900 leadership to use that Green dragon. With it, use 4 shooter stacks (archmages, inquisitors, plus whatever else you have that's good) with the dragon and combined with trap, you should be able to exterminate up through Rusty (go in order.) If you're having trouble, build up Mystic egg and make sure to get Summoner (3). This will open up Verona.
8 ) Once you get to Verona, do the fight that blocks Montero, then loot both Verona and Montero. Of note in Montero is the Abyss quest because the reward I believe is always an artifact called "Living Book" (since he mentions it in his dialogue.) This item gives +2 Int and +20% to demon portal and call of nature. It also gives you a scroll of demon portal for 1 crystal (which I needed as I couldn't find this spell.)
There's usually at least one place in Montero that carries trolls. If not, cyclopses work just fine. In fact, they are better than trolls in daylight as they have more resist and I've never needed to heal either. Pretty much any L5 unit works though I don't like Giants as I consider them hugely overpriced in gold and leadership. I didn't find black dragons till I killed Odim in Verona (and that place only sold 2.) You now have everything you need to terrorize Verona and beyond with just 1 L5 unit.
As you can see, very little of this requires you to luck out in getting something.
Edit: Forgot to mention. Jimmy's 700 leadership seems great at first but it's actually pretty terrible considering that you'll reach 10k or more leadership by mid-game alone. If it were percentage based, it'd be worth something but wasting an item on him for a static 700 seems like a waste. I much prefer to drink the thing myself for 150 so that I can take Elenhel instead.
Edit 2: Wow, I just realized I remembered something wrong. The Abyss quest is in Tekron, not Montero. Though the Tekron map is not guarded on Montero so you should still have no trouble getting to it.