[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Kiras

Beat the game. Ended at level 30 with 47 int.
Items that helped int: Old skull, dead skull, ancient amulet. Also consumed one of those +3 int rings whose name I forget.
Neoka - no bonus. Aeris is the only kid of hers I have with spell bonuses
Aeris, int sp +20%.
Scouting 3
Inquisition
Healer 3
Archmage 3
Destroyer 3
High magic 3

Ahh! That's where your additional bonus came from - another 1.2 times the amplifiers I mentioned above.

Originally Posted by Kiras

I think I took leadership only once on level up. Always went for int or sp bonuses when offered. Incidentally, my phantoms are 95% (didn't use that spell much though), Pygmy is -73%, Plague is -73%. Those are how I take down really strong stacks.

Armageddon is doing 1925-5780 damage. Incidentally, the 1 damage and 1 burn damage it does to me is actually helpful. Mana spring is giving me 43 mana at 8 duration, so casting that on someone and mana for armageddons is no longer an issue.

5% of 1925 - 5780 is 185 to 550 damage so that gives you a feel for what kind of damage you'd take if you maxed out the 5% friendly damage on Armageddon with the forthcoming update.

Pygmy and Plague are both amazingly effective at taking out stacks as they effectively reduce the stack by the percent of their power.

Going for the intelligence and spell bonuses sounds like a good strategy!

Originally Posted by Kiras

I never got a copy of divine armor in this run. Using a cheat code to get it in the book, it gives +72% resist all. Compare to stone skin's +80% phys, but divine armor isn't mass. Which leads to a really overpowered strategy that I never used: A single level 5 stack with mana spring and divine armor casted on round 1. After that, they'd take almost no damage, and I could spam armageddon.

That certainly would be a potent Divine Armor spell, although some enemy heroes have -50% of a resistance type so you'd be exposed to at least one resistance type depending on who you fought (for example, Sonya is -50% Magic Resistance or Xeona is -50% Fire Resistance). By the way, in my latest update I'm working on, Unicorns have a +20% Magic Resistance Aura and Black Unicorns have a -30% Magic Resistance Aura (or Curse). So this will make their use more interesting as they add / subtract Magic Resistance to your troops / enemies (or vice versa).

Also, a lot of the later enemy heroes have the Dispel spell and so you might find it getting Dispelled.

Originally Posted by Kiras

I didn't go for a true spell power build. I wonder how broken this would be with that water nymph for a wife instead of Neoka.

Diana certainly has some powerful magic babies. It'd be interesting to hear if someone stuck with her to see how they'd fare.

Originally Posted by Kiras

Spirits are all ~level 20. Except the reaper, who is low 30s. I basically chose one ability on each to specialize on. Smashing sword (was actually aiming at underground blades, but the random number generator god did not like me), Poison cloud, Ice orb, and the Reaper was a mix of all abilities.

For a Mage, it is hard to get the Spirit abilities leveled up, but 20 is pretty good.

I'm currently level 28 in my Paladin game and all the Spirits are at Level 35 or 36. I've been really diligent with keeping them balanced as I leveled them up. I really like how each Spirit now has at least 2 damage abilities that can give you a lot of experience when used, whereas before it was hard to level up Lina and Sleem. I still have the Labyrinth and beyond to do, so maybe I'll get them all up to level 40 - we'll see how it goes...

Originally Posted by Kiras

Late game, most fights went like this: My army was elves, hunters, druids, ancient ents, and dryads.
Round 1: Target on the ancient ents, plus magic shackles (if useful), mass slow, a mass slayer, ancient pheonix, occasionally mass helplessness. Sometimes kamikaze if I'm trying to kill a big black dragon stack.
Round 2: Magic spring on ancient ents, then start chucking armageddons.
Round 3 and beyond: More armageddons. Resurrection as needed.

Sounds like a really good strategy with the 1 damage that Armageddon was doing! Once I release the current version then you'll have to deal with more damage from this spell, but this strategy should still be fairly viable.

Originally Posted by Kiras

Geyser was useful when I first got it, but I ditched it once I found armageddon was at 0% damage to friendlies. Plus, the physical resists made it useless against heroes. Well, I occasionally used it for the stun. The change to armageddon should help make other damage spells useful again.

The enemy hero bonuses make fighting them really interesting. I think I've made it harder with the changes that I've made to the spell AI - time will tell after I finish debugging it and am ready to release it.

Originally Posted by Kiras

A couple balance issues aside, it's fun to laugh at impossible armies as I squish them like bugs. Early game was way harder, but that's always felt true with King's Bounty. A number of dangerous heroes like Sonya, I had to retry the fights a couple times to have low casualties. With the dryad sleep thing, I literally prevented her from ever getting a spell cast.

Sonya is tough with her -50% Magic Resistance and Lightning! I'm glad you had fun!

I'll probably end up changing the Dryad sleep to a charged ability, although there are mind immune units that aren't affected by it and it doesn't effect Level 4's and above.

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

@Kiras Nice run man. Only question : what kids you had at end ? Maybe some screen of end game hero screen

About this spell bonuses now isnt big problem, but it will be if this mod get functional for Ap/Cw where intellect can get to 80+. Some change should be done, but not linear if possible.
Suggestion : to make intellect bonus for some spells go in some formula until 30-40 int, above that lower bonus, above 70 still some bonus but again lower.Same as with plague spell there is cap for penalty to unit stats.Why not make stone skin/divine armor and rest?

Yep - I'll certainly have to change how I do bonuses in AP / CW...

Originally Posted by Kiras

I've played through this before honestly, but I was cheating this round on controlling which kids Gelu, Ryland, Aeris, and Ivor. That basically gives me tons of elves and hunters. Ironically, it didn't end up being nearly as powerful as I thought it would be, because phys attacks weren't that good. Even though the hunters and elves almost always critted. With mass slow, pretty much any ranged heavy army could mow down the enemies before they reach you, especially if you start chucking pygmy or plague at the tough stacks.

Did you try Dragon Arrows at all with your Elves? That spell gives them Astral Damage to their Dragon Arrow attacks. I'm going to change the damage on this attack for each unit it affects (Archers, Bowman, Elves, and Elf Hunters) such that it is double the damage of their normal attack since the damage increase is not consistent with each unit (for example, the Archers get a big percent bonus compared to Bowman and the Elves).

Originally Posted by Kiras

Plus, Phoenix are fantastic expendable tanks. The only scary enemies later on, besides heroes casting armageddon on me, were black and red dragons. They became a lot less scary when I noticed that my armageddon was doing no damage to me. My army didn't matter much at that point. I'm tempted to play again with a demon army, which would make the fire damage negligible. I miss my demonologists though, Crossworlds really has a better variety of units.

The Phoenix is very potent and the Dragon's fire goes against your weakness to Fire Resistance from using the Elves. Did you fight Xeona or how were your battles with Raab Sottan or Baal? Were you using Elves or some other troop combo?

Since when I play I marry each wife, have 4 kids, divorce her, and go to the next so that I can double check their kids, etc. I usually end up fighting Xeona with Neoka and her kids when I'm level 20 or so. That battle is usually extremely tough because she burns my Elven troops a lot. So that's where you need to get some Fire Resistance to help. My current game, I fought her at Level 23 and she was a bear with Elven troops! I then marry Xeona after defeating her and finish the game with her and her kids. I got a crazy kid combination with her this time around where each child has +20% intelligence spell power (I got Ash, Axsis, Inteus, and Deemer) for a whopping 1.8 modifier from just her kids! I've got 33 intellect and Stone Skin is maxed at 80% Physical Resistance!

I've still been playing Demon troops, but since I don't have any specific Demon troop bonuses (just Xeona's general Demon troop bonuses) I'm (when I get a chance to play next, after all these changes I'm adding here and there) going to get some Red and Black Dragons and swap out the Imps or Cerberi. Plus the Evil Book gave me trouble so I'm probably going to do the single Black Dragon stack thang because my Demon troops keep getting zapped by Lightning!

Anyway, thanks for the comments - it's fun to hear various strategies and how you've progressed in the game!

/C\/C\