[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Loremipsum1

Yeah, that's correct, unfortunately. All the battles through the Black Gate were trivial, barring two giant stacks in the catacombs. Though, as you point out, the same is true with the default troops.

I definitely understand your concerns about ancient vamps being too strong, and before I did the Shelter fights, I had that concern too. After my first few attempts at the Elven Guardian, my concerns were resolved. 140 hit points is still fragile enough that the player will die if he gets hit by most melee stacks; the only difference is that it gives him a chance to survive the initial volleys from the enemy's ranged troops.

If anything, I think my setup is a little too weak; I don't think it's possible to beat the Shelter Guardians with it unless you get a scroll of Magic Spring from Clarissa. I'm not sure how to resolve that. (Other than swapping out your starting plague scroll for a scroll of magic spring, I mean.)



I like this idea in the abstract, but based on earlier posts in the thread, even giving Daert something as extravagant as Summon Phoenix still makes that fight pretty tight. (And it comes at the expense of breaking the game a little earlier in the post-Whitehall sections.)

Originally Posted by zjazd18

Phoenix in my opinion isn't that outrageous, but it has to be a scroll, so you don't have enough magic crystals to get it to level 2. Demoness gets hypnosis so it sounds fair.

Other option i considered is last hero, only thing i don't know is if troops take damage when the battle ends, if not some nice planing can lead to no loss victory. Haven't tested it as i went with phoenix approach.

Damage spells simply don't cut it, even the most powerful ones.

Originally Posted by travelingoz

After some more playing around, the dwarven ore trailer behind the castle will spawn between 2500 and 7500 gold, 6-7 crystals or a high level scroll like Call of Death or even Phoenix! However, a young phoenix will die to 1 good hit from a stack of 14 miners or 2 hits from anything else and it costs 20 mana. So given that it is 'possible' to get a higher magic scroll early game, I thought I'd try giving my Daert 2 x ancient Vamps, 2 x necromancers, and 1 x Fire Rain scroll to start. All you need to do is the first fight and visit Clarissa and the other hut to get to lvl3. Check how many might runes you have and Chaos Lvl 2 is possible by the time you reach the black gate. I left the 2 big fire spider stacks in the catacombs alone and manged no loss all the way to Portland, although i did have to restart several times and one or 2 of the fights in the shelter went to around 40+ rounds. It was still challenging and I didn't feel it was overpowered in any way as 1 misstep would result in losses. With the very low leadership of the Mage, you cannot have more than 1 Ancient Vamp or Necromancer in your army until the second shelter fight when you get lvl5 and in fact as i only used the Necromancer in 1 fight in the catacombs I think so they are not necessary. I basically just cast Fire Rain 1 or 2 times at the start, depending on how the stacks were arranged, then thinned them out further with Poison Skull Lvl 2 and Slow if the kiting was getting too hard. Now that I've made Portland, the game is looking good!
So I would start with 1 x Fire rain instead of Plague and 2x Ancient Vamps as starting troops and I think that should provide enough challenge!

This is all really interesting information and these are great suggestions!

By the way, I performed a little experiment with the Evil Book. Honestly, it is not much help as level 1, but if you could get it to level 2, then it may be helpful later. The only problem is that you need to get your Chaos skill to level 2 and I'm always 1 Might rune short at Daert level 4. So you'd have to get to level 5 before you could get any of your Chaos spells to level 2, at least from my playthroughs so far.

I did an experiment where I gave Daert all the spells in the spellbook via the "magicbook" cheat. My army was just 2 Vampires and 2 Ghosts and I was attacking the 2nd largest spider stack in the Catacombs. The only spell that was remotely useful was Phoenix.

The only problem with Phoenix is that why would Daert start with it, either as a scroll or spell? Perhaps the reason is that a Phoenix deals with reviving the dead and maybe he had one since he wanted to do some research with it. I think we should try to avoid Order spells unless they are specifically dark.

I've also devised a point system for the starting spells of all the heroes (1 point for each spell level):

• Orc: 5 points (3 level 1 spells and 1 level 2) / 2 points in learned spells, 3 points in scrolls
• Demoness: 8 points (1 level 1 spell, 1 level 2 spell, and 1 level 5 spell) / 3 points in learned spells, 5 points in scrolls
• Vampire: 5 points (2 level 1 spells and 1 level 3 spell) / 2 points in learned spells, 3 points in scrolls

So you can see that as a Mage, Daert doesn't even start with the highest spell points based on the starting level of his spells. I could see us, as a change, giving Daert 11 or 12 spell points to select his starting spells. Of that I could see going with 4 to 5 points in learned spells and 7 to 8 points in scrolls.

Another problem is his starting low Mana. it should be up to 27 by the time you hit the Catacombs.

When I had all the spells, I looked through them to see which ones had really low Mana costs at level 1 so that you'd be able to cast some with your low starting Mana. Here is a list of all spells that are 5 Mana or less (with some analysis towards their utility for an early Mage) the format is Spell Name (Mana/Spell Level) and bold spells are what Daert starts with:

• Order (Sanctuary):
  • Dispel (5/1): not very useful due to inability to dispel most side effects
  • Helplessness (2/1): starts with -30% defense (enemy unit defense is most likely too low for it to make much difference, although it is very cheap!)
  • Healing (3/1): no help, damages your troops
  • Last Hero (5/1): 0 damage until the spell is removed on level 1&2 troops (not sure the utility since a recast removes the spell first (thereby causing damage) before reapplying it and you probably don't need it at the end since enemy damage output should be minimal; the only exception to this is if the spell is coupled with Time Shift then you can hold onto it for a much longer time, but troop level severely limits the spell's utility @level 1)
  • Shelter (4/1): protects your troop from any damage (this could be really useful for soloing a stack)
  • Dragon Arrow (3/2): only useful (possibly) if you have Skeleton Archers
  • Empathy (3/1): deflects damage (starting at 10%) to an enemy (could be very useful for a Vampire and is effectively a 10% resist all damage that increases as your intellect increases)
  • Magic Axe (5/2): direct damage spell starts with 100 damage (the only units through Whitehill with Physical Resistance are Cave Spiders, Swordsmen, and Guardsmen) and gives very reliable damage
  • Battle Cry (5/2): gives +1 initiative to level 1&2 troops (probably not very useful)
  • Peacefulness (5/3): increased health with decreased damage (may be useful for a unit to absorb damage)
  • Titan Slayer (5/3): increases damage to level 5 units, but there are none through Whitehill so useless
  • Warding Healing (5/3): delayed healing, but given as a reward for a quest later (plus I think it only works on troops of the Light early)
  • Power of Night (5/4): increases damage of your troops, starts at +10% (may be useful, plus the only truly dark spell in this tree)
• Distortion:
  • Stone Skin (3/1): +20% Physical Resistance @level 1 (good for protecting against Physical damage)
  • Precision (2/1): starts with +25% damage (works with all Shooters so useful for Skeleton Archers and Necromancers only)
  • Berserker (2/2): +75% damage to level 1&2 troops (damage output is really good, but only to level 1 and 2 troops)
  • Flammable Oil (5/2): -20% ranged damage / Fire Resistance (may be useful against the Bowmen / Elves later)
  • Blur (3/1): starts with -15% Critical Hit on your troop / +5% evasion (I originally thought this was +Critical Hit, but since it is not it probably isn't very useful and +5% evasion is not even worth it as a cast)
  • Haste (3/1): +1 speed (only helpful for getting away from the enemy)
  • Slow (5/1): -1 speed (only helpful for slowing enemies from getting to your troops)
  • Whirlwind (5/1): 50 damage and knockback of level 1-2 troops (knockback may be useful, but damage is too low, although level requirement is probably not much of a hindrance)
  • Mana Spring (5/2): regenerates mana (perhaps very useful if applied to a unit that can absorb damage)
  • Pain Mirror (5/2): reflects 60% damage (not very useful for no loss unless unit being damaged is temporary)
  • Time Shift (5/1): extends spell life randomly by 2 rounds (very useful if only 1 bonus spell on target and that is the spell that you want to extend, otherwise possibly useful, but randomness may detract from utility, although most spells only last 2 or 3 rounds @level 1 so probably hard to use for more than 1 spell anyway)
  • Trap (5/2): 80 to 120 damage, but target must move onto trap (proved very useful for Demoness (as a skill and a way to increase damage via the medal), but probably not useful for Vampire)
  • Target (5/3): AI of level 1-2 focuses on target (useful for temporary units or units that can absorb a lot of damage, may protect lower level troops that need to move away)
  • Teleport (5/3): starts with a teleport range of 4 (this spell could be very useful)
  • Calm Rage (1/3): converts rage into mana (quite a bit more useful than Mana Spring due to immediate increase in mana and incredibly low cost - only 1 Mana!)
  • Pygmy (5/4): -20% to stack health and damage (effectively a temporary 20% kill all to a stack, but small stack size limits its utility early)
• Chaos:
  • Flame Arrow (5/1): 75 Fire Damage (useful at whittling down stack size over many rounds)
  • Poison Skull (5/1): 40 to 140 Poison Damage (useful at whittling down stack size over many rounds)
  • Frost Grasp (5/1): 80 to 100 Freeze Damage (probably the best damage spell early due to 0 Cold Resistance among enemies)
  • Weakness (5/3): causes target to do minimum damage (great against enemies with large damage ranges)
  • Kamikaze( 5/3): causes 130-200 damage from exploding friendly target (could be very useful if able to create temporary units)
  • Chaos Weapon (5/1): 25 x 3 damage of random type to target (could be useful to whittle down enemy stacks over many rounds)
  • Plague (5/3): starts with -15% to health, attack, and defense (similar to Pygmy, except effect is not quite as useful and once again utility limited by stack size)

Of the Order (or I keep forgetting they are called Sanctuary now) spells, Power of Night is the only one that seems well suited for Daert, but it is 4 points out of his 11 or 12. Helplessness is so low in Mana that it seems like it would be good to just throw it in there. Empathy would be an excellent spell to give to Daert, but it doesn't really seem like a dark spell (although it seems like it would go well with casting on a Black Knight if he had one at the start and it could reduce damage to Vampires as well to protect against loss of one of their units).

Of the Distortion spells, I could see Stone Skin being very helpful as well as Calm of Rage (but starting with Calm of Rage would seem a little strange maybe). Pygmy would also be really good, but its similarity to Plague kind of makes it seem strange for Daert to have it instead of Plague at the start of the game. It is also 4 points.

Of the Chaos spells, I really think Daert has to start with Poison Skull since it is essentially an Undead spell. I think Frost Grasp (due to its cold damage) is also well suited as an Undead spell in a way (it's almost like a grasp of death) and no units have immunity to Cold Damage through Whitehill. I think Kamikaze would be very fun coupled with a Necromancer or two in Daert's starting army and seems to go really well with a Necromancer. I still think Plague should be swapped with Evil Book as that is a perfect Undead spell.

So here's my starting spell recommendation based on the point system I devised (let's use 12 points with 5 points of starting spells and 7 for scrolls):

• Spells:
  • Stone Skin: 1
  • Poison Skull: 1
  • Weakness: 3 OR Teleport: 3
  • Total = 5
• Scrolls:
  • Kamikaze: 3
  • Evil Book: 3
  • Frost Grasp: 1
  • Total: 7

Okay, feel free to use this point system if you think it's fair and come up with your own list (if you want to use spells that I didn't list, just look in SPELLS.TXT for the spell's level - it is on the profit= line). It does kind of force you to want to go for the Chaos skill first, but I think that makes sense as an Undead Mage and if you find other spells then maybe you'll want to go to the other spell schools.

Next we have the problem of Daert's starting army. It is very paltry (you can only get max Decaying Zombies and Skeletons through to the Shelter since you can buy extra from the Zombie Miller). Since you can buy either, I don't think it makes sense to start with either Decaying Zombies or Skeletons - go buy them if you think they may be useful.

To synergize with the spells I selected, I think you should start with 1 Black Knight (since you can use Stone Skin on them) and I think 1 Cursed Ghost might be a neat starting troop because of their Ghost Cry (and you can Stone Skin them for 70% Physical Resistance). Both could use Evlins to heal their damage. Lastly, in order for us to be able to get any use out of Kamikaze, we need to have a Necromancer so that we can use their Raise Dead skill and then Kamikaze some troops.

That uses up the 3 starting slots, although we could use more troops, traditionally, you only start with 3 starting troops. Here's what I think we can do with the friendly troops in the castle: change the Skeleton Warriors so that you get 5 Vampires and change the Vampires to Cursed Ghosts. This would give you plenty of Vampires through to the Shelter and allow you to add Cursed Ghosts to your stacks as you level up. This would allow you to use their Ghost Cry and their life steal should be sufficiently high to help them recoup losses.

That would give him some extra level 3 troops hopefully enough for the Shelter and synergize well with spells / scrolls in his starting spellbook. You then get another scroll from Clarissa and possibly more scrolls before the Shelter.

Your starting troop makeup would look like this:

• 1 Black Knight
• 1 Necromancer
• 1 Cursed Ghosts

And then you'd get the following additional troops:

• 5 Vampires
• 2 Cursed Ghosts

I think this starting group would be quite fun and coupled with Evil Book, Kamikaze, and Frost Grasp when Daert Gets to level 3 should make for a really fun start for Deart no loss, while still being challenging, I think.

Not sure if it will work in practice, but it looks good on paper, at least!

/C\/C\