BAAL on impossible

[sahibjacek]

I play mage and now I am on 53lvl (24At, 43Def, 66Int after using scrolls) with 31000 command points (on impossible level of course). And I CANT'T kill Baal. My greatest succes was in third battle attempt when Baal in 29 round had 71K HP left (if I remember he started with 253K HP). Problem is that I have not Mass Haste spell. Its unbevielable but in ALL damned world I cant find this scroll! . I tried human army with Paladins, Knights, Cavalry, Inquisitors and Griffins. Of course Stone Skin and God Armour is very usefull, Geyser works perfect for Baals mass summonning but... but I cant deal with this mass summoning. When Baal was weaker he summonned demons almost every two rounds! In 29th round he summoned few hundreds imps, demoness and demons and (what was more worse) about 40 archdemons! For my tired troops that was end. I know that much players killed Baal having similar hero like me but now I should think that this is impossible. Maybe someone give me a good advice how defeat this ugly, dirty, stinky piece of red meat
I will be deeply gratefull!!!

[TemjinGold]

Replace the Inquisitors with Archmages and drop the griffins for royal griffins.

[DGDobrev]

Try to modify his behavior. Phantom a stack and keep it BEHIND one of your own stacks. This gives Baal a greater chance that he will smash the two stacks that are one behind another.

Whenever he summons, do not kill the imps. They are no-retaliation units, so leave them be. There is another counter which checks how many allied troops the boss has. The more they are, the more the counter decreases.

Now, since I'm referring to the counter all the time, here's its "weight":
If there are 2 troops that the boss can hit with his sword - 220
If there is one troop that the boss can hit with his sword - 20
Flying sword - 75
Summon demons - only if there are less than 7 boss-allied troops. with each allied troop the weight reduces by 10. Basic weight is 100, so it ranges from 100 (0 allied troops) to 40 (6 allied troops).

So in general, the boss is most likely to:
1. Hack 2 troops one behind another.
2. Summon demons.
3. Throw his sword.
4. Hit a single troop.

Try to use this to your advantage I'm not saying anything about stone skin, as you're obviously using it on all your troops. The next thing, leave most of bill gilbert's troops to die, but keep his knights with stone skin all the time. They are very important, as they can survive the longest without overburdening you and your number of casts. When you have free, summon paladin phantoms and ress your main paladin stack - he's the most important, as he is the one that will reduce the casualties after the boss is down.

[Hento]

Btw, have you thought of investing in frenzy?
29 turns+frenzy=insanely high attack

[sahibjacek]

Thank you very much for advices.

TemjinGold -> of course I used Royal Griffins not simply Griffins. I thought about using Archmagie or Demonologist instead Inquisitors. I will try...

DGDobrev -> wow, now when you explained rules of Baal's behaviour I'm sure that defeat him will be much easier. Then I will love imps now and will make them no harm. This is fact that summoning creatures can't make harm to units with Stone Skin. OK, I will concentrate on Baal from now not on his minions.

Hento -> i have polish version of the game but I think that Frenzy was translated "Amok". I never used this spell because if I remember player loose control on units with Frenzy.

OK, I will go to the battle. BAAL MUST DIE!!!

[MaroonMaurader]

The first problem you'll run into, due to lack of haste, is getting your units to close with Baal so he does his melee attack instead of sword-throwing and/or summoning MORE demons. As you really don't want him throwing his sword or summoning more demons, you could try using teleport x2 in the first round to make nice big targets out of your paladins and knights in a row as soon as you can kill off at least one of the demon stacks. If you game also didn't generate Teleport, you could try the sacrificial lamb approach - use a fast flyer (e.g., royal griffins) plus a summoned unit (e.g., phantom or call of nature) as big targets, and recognize that your flier is going to get hammered on the second round. If your game didn't generate Teleport, Haste, or any summoning spells, make sure you're playing Armored Princess and not SimCity.

With intelligence 66, once you have things under control you'll probably want to retaliate against his summoning demons with a Geyser - it won't kill any of his stacks, but it achieves three things: it makes it a heck of a lot easier for you to kill them with your actual units, it decreases how much damage they can do to you, and it knocks the numbers of his archdemons down so you don't have to worry about the halving ability.

[DGDobrev]

Originally Posted by sahibjacek

Thank you very much for advices.

TemjinGold -> of course I used Royal Griffins not simply Griffins. I thought about using Archmagie or Demonologist instead Inquisitors. I will try...

DGDobrev -> wow, now when you explained rules of Baal's behaviour I'm sure that defeat him will be much easier. Then I will love imps now and will make them no harm. This is fact that summoning creatures can't make harm to units with Stone Skin. OK, I will concentrate on Baal from now not on his minions.

Hento -> i have polish version of the game but I think that Frenzy was translated "Amok". I never used this spell because if I remember player loose control on units with Frenzy.

OK, I will go to the battle. BAAL MUST DIE!!!

Well, if he summons Archdemons, they MUST die, because as a mage, your leadership is low and they may start halving your squads, which will make you break the PC when this happens, as the only thing that can save your troop is turn back time, which is quite costly (but you should use it if this happens). The rest (demons, executioners, demonesses, imps, cerberi) aren't that much of a problem, because all of them inflict physical damage, and it will hardly kill a unit with stone skin on.

I just hope everything goes as planned. The AI sometimes makes strange decisions (hitting a single troop rather than 2 at the time, etc.).