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#1
03-25-2009, 12:17 PM
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Mid-game crisis :<
Hi folks,
I am pretty new to the game and am still learning strategies but nevertheless I am used to these kinds of games like HoMM/LoM and I've been reading this forum for hours and hours gathering every information my brain can take but yet I can't seem to make proper use of all of them. This is my first playthrough and I chose Paladin on normal diff. Lvl 19 12,5k Leadership 8 Attack (only 1 + atk to choose @ lvlup so far :< ) 24 Defense 11 Intellect I learned to use all the tricks posted in here about sacrifice/time back so I can bring back slain lvl 5ers, extend buffs or save/multiply troops that are rare. I float around to grab free goodies and search shops. In my (pretty lucky tbh) game at the moment I can get every troop execpt for: Arch-Demons, Blackies, Reds and I have found every powerful spell except for Armageddon (which as a paladin is not usefull anyway). But I explored only up through Ellinia and Demonis so far. So I'm confident that at least 1 out of these 3 will appear later on in the Lotd and the labby. As a paladin of course my spell power sucks big time but yet I have Order and Disto @ 3 and chaos @ 2 (only for sacrifice) and of course the 1 cast/turn rule makes me a rather helpless wannabe warrior/mage. I have been reading for hours about troop setups and tried a lot on my own but it seems like I am stuck. Having Anga's Ruby and the elven crown I came to the conclusion that my current setup: Dryads Lake Fairies Demonesses Emeralds Demon might be a good idea considering the morale bonus on the she-fighters and the fact that it makes up for the demon penalty. I am trying to use the greenies as tanks with timeback and as mana gain machines combined with their skill and magic spring or on easier fights the demons for the massive slaughter presented by their 'furious' and pentagram abilities. But I am totally unhappy with the elf chicks. They do practically no damage. 1,5k to 2k normals without frenzy is a PITA especially when facing high defense mobs. Plus it's even more a PITA that they just get destroyed by troops that ignore the 'Target' spell or are lvl 5 and so do not obey to it. The Demonesses do fairly good and I love the swap ability and their charm on humanoids (priceless against big stacks of hunters that would just carve the dragons in half). So basically what my problem is: so many people on this forum say that lake fairies and all those she-elves are ultimate damage machines combined with Anga's Ruby and I've seen that one signature displaying a 54k sprite crit  . But it just doesn't work out for me, the damage just sucks. What am I not considering ? I chose every good might talent possible incl frenzy, onslaught and nighttime operations. I went for 3/3 into that rune exchange talent of course to get the runes needed. And I've maxed concentration and as said before 3 Order, 3 Disto, 2 Chaos and 3/3 Healer.Ok, that's very much for one posting ^^ I hope somebody can figure out a strategic advise for me because actually fighting is very frustrating because the enemy just lives too long and the 'target' ignoring creatures just crack my girls. Thx in advance ! P.S: having 3/3 Bowmen Commander and that bow with +3 atk to rangers and +15% physical range dmg bonus I tried Hunter/Elf/Bowman triple range setup with greenies as tanks and Inquisitors as ress machine/rage machine with time back but yet again the damage is not even mediocre and only has a few shining moments when using double-shot. Last edited by Vulture; 03-25-2009 at 12:34 PM. 
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#2
03-25-2009, 12:27 PM
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#3
03-25-2009, 12:36 PM
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Last edited by Vulture; 03-25-2009 at 12:40 PM.
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#4
03-25-2009, 12:41 PM
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#5
03-25-2009, 12:49 PM
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there is quite a big difference between +1 and +3 morale for getting the criticals. That's one of the many dilimmas I faced when playing this great game, whether or not to put demoness in the army with fairies and dryads.
to increase the damage, you need to get the whip (easy to get) and the dagger (I never found it in my first game), and to use multiple weapons, you might have to marry Xena. For the ranged units, I found spell "precision" at level 3 to be really useful. Other people also suggest spell "dragon arrow"
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#6
03-25-2009, 12:59 PM
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Ah, but what makes the sprites and lake fairies kick butt is the +3 morale that they get with anga's ruby. You have reduced their morale back down to mediocre. The other thing that makes them own is using +damage items, namely the poison dagger and isshara's whip. The latter is a quest reward for a quest in demonis, which you will get eventually. It gives +2 att and +1 fire damage. Since sprities + lake fairies are in such large number due to low leadership cost, this +1damage has a huge effect.
Some suggestions for you: 1) since you are paladin, you should have little problem getting tolerance level 2, which will negate the morale penalty from the demons. The other option is replacing your demonis troops with elven ones. The eleven archers are quite powerful, and I am frankly astonished that you don't have any sprites. 2) Lake fairies pale in comparison to sprites, which are only slightly slower and in slightly smaller numbers, but do more than 50% more damage per troop, so I would add sprites to your lineup either instead of lake fairies or in addition, see 1), above. Another thing to note is that dryads suck at dealing damage and should mostly be used as support troops ie. using lullaby to put enemy troops to sleep and summoning expendable stacks of thorns to distract enemies and do some damage. 3) Red and Blacks Dragons are ALWAYS available in the land of the dead, amongst the cliffs in Death valley, so extend your explorations there. Of the two, blacks are more devastating with better special abilities but are harder to keep alive without losses while reds are only slightly weaker and have a better special attack and can be kept alive easier. 4) Inquisitors are a good addition to any army despite their rather lacking damage. They are primarily support units with the ability to ressurect any level of unit even level 5 as well as having an ability that blesses a troop (and sprites and lake fairies become far more powerful when blessed) and gives you some rage (only 5-10, but it still helps).
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#7
03-25-2009, 01:08 PM
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@ Thorndike: You're right about the Dragon Arrow and/or precision and I do own both of them but the problem is that I am not a mage and need my single cast per turn for 1. target 2. magic spring/divine armor [timeback tank unit at end of turn 2] 3. target again 4. magic spring/divine armor again. There is practically no time for 4 turns to cast dragon arrow or precision which is the reason why I dumped the ranger setup.
You're right about positive morale being inferior to a possible high morale but I was doing BETTER with other units having no morale bonus at all, meaning neutral morale (Evil Beholders, Royal Snakes, Horsemen, Inquisitors went far better until the tanking problem appeared) so the morale can't be the only problem. If so I will have to throw out the demoness, replacing her with something else. Yet I can't figure out how I am supposed to get Isshara's whip at level 19 since all over Demonis it says 'very strong' or 'overpowering'. But I'll see what I can do. @ Ryastar: ok, I get the point. So the sprite is missing. I remember having read in the 'favorite unit' thread about lake fairies being better than sprites. Must have got it wrong then. So without the whip (yet) and the dagger I should not go with the 'girls' setup ? And forget about tolerance, I have taken the way down to the rune swapping and won't do more since the mind tree sucks big time tbh. Getting all the talents in the middle and right (i.e. glory which doesn't scale at all) part of the tree doesn't make sense to me since I have Inquisitors + Sacrifice/time back to make more if lost. As you stated correctly the Inquisitors lack range damage wise unless fighting the undead (I will take them again in Lotd) so I don't think they are a good choice for Ellinia. Having timeback lvl1-5 at 20 rage it's pretty fine for me not to go with inquisitors since I use to have the rage for it and so don't need it at all atm. The bless coming with holy anger isn't enough to justify their spot (again unless fighting undead) and so it leaves me with a small rage gain and no damage at all. But still, even if I took the demoness and the demon out replacing them with other none-demonic units there would still be a problem with the lvl 1 (sprite or lake fairy don't make a difference in that respect) melee unit just being smashed by all those mobs ignoring 'target' either by bein' 5ers or immune. Especially ancient ents are horrible in that respect. They just spit (or melee hit) them to death while the mobs affected by target are busy with my dragons and/or demons. So either with +1 or +3 morale they get eaten and I end up every fight saving a low stack of slow enemies or rangers to wait for my mana to regen to resurrect them all. Spending more than 50% of your battle mode time with running and waiting is rather frustrating. Running through cities with backup in their garrisons I've put there isn't that much more interesting... Edit: elven crown gives +1 to elven morale, too, so I have actually +2 on them with demons in the army. Last edited by Vulture; 03-25-2009 at 01:51 PM.
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#8
03-25-2009, 02:01 PM
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Your setup is too melee based. This is setup I was usuing in previous game as Pal:
1) Demons (if you don't want to loose too much morale, use griffins) 2) Vamps 3) Ancient Vamps 4) Skelly archers 5) Bowman You already know the awesomness of Target+Timeback combo, so use Demons as main assault unit (Onslaught skill to move them sooner in 1st turn, and Tactics to move further). Vamps are strike support unit, they are essential when Demons are timebacked (life drain rocks). Skelly archer simply the best ranged unit in the game, 5th unit is optional I used bowman (thorns are good with + dmg items) It goes like this: (1st turn) Vamps pausing. Cast Target on Demons, use running and pentagram ability. Archers shoot enemy archers. Vamps use their move and attack archers (melee's are busy with Demons) 2nd turn: Cast Dragon Arrows on skelly archers. Focus all units on enemy ranged. By the end of turn, cast timeback on Demons. 3rd turn: protect Demons with Glots Armor, cast Target on Vamps. Now it's easy. When fighting dragons, start fight with 20-30 rage, place archers in corner and cast Ice Thorns to protect them from all sides. Dragons will ignore them, slaughter them with Dragon Arrows. You really should buy Skelly Archers. Regular dmg is excellent, with Dragon Arrow I saw full stack of Emarlds (25 uints) killed in ONE SHOT. 3/5 units are undead, so zombie form Rina and Dark Commander skill is really helpful. This is how it worked out for me: 
Last edited by Zonc; 03-25-2009 at 02:04 PM.
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#9
03-25-2009, 02:58 PM
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Yes, Ishara's whip and the Poison Dagger are essential to high damage output with sprites and lake fairies. Since they do 1-2 or 1-3 damage, if you add +2 to that, you are almost tripling their damage with these items.
I do have to disagree about Sprites being better than Lake Fairies. Not always. They do have a slightly better damage range (1-3 vs 1-2), but with higher leadership (8 vs 7), you can recruit fewer of them, so this evens it out partially. Furthermore, the Whip and the Dagger have a MUCH greater effect on Lake Fairies because you can hire more of them. The power of these items essentially are proportional to the number of units in the stack. So I've found that if you are using these two items, go with the Lake Fairies, otherwise, Sprites are better for damage. I've actually tested this out with full stacks of both in my army. Just hovering over enemy units, the Lake Fairies had higher damage ranges (both the minimum and maximum were higher) than the Sprites. Finally, since Sprites have Fire Weakness, they drop like flies fighting Dragons of other fire-based units, which pretty much are in all the hardest fights. Lake Fairies don't, so live much longer. Last edited by jwallstone; 03-25-2009 at 07:28 PM.
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#10
03-25-2009, 05:41 PM
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@Zonc: thanks for your detailed information. As for me I can't go with demons and undead using bowmen as 5th unit for I refuse to buy 3 talents I consider of low value if not totally useless to get to tolerance. As for Dark Commander it would take me 2 more levels to get it since I'm totally out of might runes and the handy 'easy runes for free' talent is maxed already. This includes the possibility of buying runes @ Bogacho which I already did to get my magic schools spells to a reasonable rank (for ress, sacc, target, divine armor etc). Anyways I cured Rina and she's happy with Hake as a human. I thought by myself 'I'm not going for undeads anyway, I'm a paladin and will have Dark Commander veeeery late due to lack of runes' and so didn't take an undead army into consideration.
You're certainly right about this setup being marvelous along with the talents but I'm afraid it won't work out for me at the moment since I just can't reach them/can't buy them. But that is what matters for me. My current state in the game. It is unbearable for me. I don't want to lvlup 3 or 4 levels taking 5min+ fights to the point of agony when concentration3 only delivers 2 mana per turn in order not to run to the castles grabbing reserves :/ By the way how do you restore losses on your undead troops as they can't be resurrected if I'm not mistaken ? For me it would turn out into running castles to refill which is actually what I want to avoid. As for the tactics everything is clear. If only it was as easy as 'hit archers with archers, take melee strike units and kill archers, enemy melee is busy with demon tanks'. Those fights are piece of cake and I can win them without losses with practically every setup. My problem is for example this typical PITA enemy troop in ellinia: 3 stacks of 300-500 sprites or lake fairies each, 2 stacks of 10-23 ents, 3 stacks of 3-7 ancient ents, 2 stacks of 50 unicorns, 1 stack 8 Giants and one stack of 60 random lvl 3s. How to take such a bunch of mobs down, especially those ignoring 'target' and lots of melee/range hybrids ? Which actually means that in this enemy troop setup they spit or melee my melee strike department down to 50% manpower (which is 2 resurrections aka 60 of 89 mana only for those, assuming target and phantom/protection spell being cast twice, once before and once after timeback on tank this means 0 mana left and numbers of ranged decimated by Giants Stomp or Ents getting them in spit range). For a mage this would be a simple zapp 'n crack setup takin them all out quickly with Fire Rain (hello plant ents) and keeping them away with ice snakes. For me neither worked. The dryad, lake fairy and sprite (I purchased them now) setup with demoness and demon was just smashed hard leaving me with losses again. I tried a full range setup with bowmen/elves/hunters with Emeralds as tanks, supported by inquisitors and it ended up with what I said above. Turn 15+ long term fight for simple 'slightly weaker' outdoor troop just to not lose too many units. As for availability I can't hire ancient vamps anywhere in my game having cleared all the sarcophagi and tombs so far. Castle Karmag provides ghosts and normal vamps only, same with the necromancers hut in Kordar whereas Demonis has Bone Dragons, Skelly Archs and Skells only. As for the lands of the dead I can't tell for there's a lvl 27 hero unit with 'impossible' tag blocking the first path -.- @jwallstone: Yeah, that's actually what I came across, too when reading about these girls. The lower leadership makes up for the lower dmg range when hiring big stacks of 2k+. Below that number I'd conclude from the maths that it's practically even and prolly tending a bit towards sprites though. A question in general is: What can I do to avoid many low stacked units to surround my tanks (if not flying) leading to the problem of additional enemy stacks ignoring the target spell because there's no space in the targets melee range ? Against fast units this always breaks my neck on the melee strikers or range/supports. Traps don't do much as I can't cast them anyway for I need any cast/turn for survival of the tank. Another one: am I expecting too much ? Does the battle duration and difficulty (not tactic wise but mass and strength of troops wise) rise suddenly to such a huge extend when going to ellinia ? Was the impression of the first half of the game a false one ? I was used to 2-4 round mashing through any kind of troop including 'match' or 'strong' heroes even in ardent's peaks. Was that just the warm-up ? If so the general impression of the game loses in my eyes but I don't want to believe it's the game's 'fault' but want to believe it's mine. Last edited by Vulture; 03-25-2009 at 06:28 PM.
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