Just finished the game on impossible, killed every single stack

[marc]

Well, I've just completed the game on impossible with a lvl 29 Mage. I've got this to say: Please Please Please I want MORE! This is the best game I've played in years!

It was just incredibly fun. I started a first game and right after completing the Isles of Freedom, I realized it was getting way too easy so I restarted on impossible. Impossible was such a stimulating challenge. I loved figuring out strategies that made impossible fights quite easy, or at least doable.

My favorite units:

Elf Hunters & Archers: Those units rock, no doubt about it. Good damage, no range penalties. You can't beat the feeling of satisfaction having a stack of elves shoot down a stack of 18 black dragons in a single critical shot.

Evil Beholders: They do magic damage, have a paralysing ray that make low lvl stacks skip their turn, and they can hypnotize any living unit up to their stack leadership value. I used those for over half the game.

Emerald Dragons: A Mage's best friend, the green dragon gives you that extra Geyser you need to win the fight by replenishing your mana. If you play a mage, do the main quest up to elf land as soon as you can to get those awesome troops.

Orc Shamans: For the first half of the game, using those strategic totems make a world of difference in those tough huge-stack fights. I replaced them with Emerald Dragons for the second half of the game though, due to the fact that they lack a bit in offensive power.

Archdevils: Those were my end-game tanks after I could recruit them in bhaal's castle. Teleport anywhere in the field, 50% fire resistance and awesome stats. If you have tolerance 2, don't hesistate to pick those up.


I was reading this forum a bit prior to finishing the game, and it seems I didn't get stuck in the same places as most people. For example, the Karador fight for me was over in 3 turns. I just killed all his troops without losing a single troop, then I noticed the crystal thingie. "Oh, I gotta kill that thing...". The random stacks I got prior to the undead prince fight were much worse (those 25 black dragon stacks were horrible).

Demonis was also incredibly though until I upgraded Magic Shackles to lvl 3. What a difference it made! I realized that no demonic troop had a ranged attack at all. The annoyances were the seductress' stack swapping and the imp fireballs, but they are both triggered abilities so do a mass lvl 3 Magic Shackles turned all demons into melee (dead meat) troops.

The toughest fights for me were the two Demonis castle siege fights; especially Bhaal. The last end game fight was ridiculously easy, it was over before my first troop even did a single move. I did two lvl 3 armageddon (52 int) and everything was dead without a single troop fighting *grin*.

I've got this to say to 1C: please make more of those awesome games. Either an expension, or another wacky game like Space Rangers 2, but keep making games! You are a breath of fresh air in the games industry, where making a bland new FPS is considered a huge success.

[Zhuangzi]

Well done for finishing on Impossible, now post your score in the High Score thread. So far I think MajorS has the best score with over 1400.

Oh and I didn't realise Magic Shackles 3 was a mass spell. Useful to know. I will try this next time.

[marc]

I only got a score of 666 (3rd place on the game rankings). I didn't aim for a high score though. I did a lot of backtracking and explored every nook and cranny of the maps. I was just aiming to kill every single enemy stack, I didn't care how long it took me to do that.

[Zhuangzi]

It is a bit sad that the game punishes you for being methodical. It made me anxious that my score was decreasing in my last game by flying around a bit, so I hurried through to the end by day 36. It would have taken 40-45 days to complete everything, however.