marauders: a good unit on impossible mode

[Jun006]

I hired some marauders in Debir and was very impressed by its search ability. They can search corpses twice and generate about 600~700 gold in each battle , which helps a lot on impossible mode.

Compared to guardsmen, marauder is a little weak but have an ability to attack one space away from the enemy, which is really useful since I am trying to achieve no casualty. The downside is the morale of priests is lowered by the robber property, but it's not a big deal to me.

Please excuse me if everyone knows this already. I am really thrilled by this game. After the disappointing Heroes of Might and Magic IV and the end of 3DO, I gave up on this kind of strategy game. I never tried HOMM V since I heard it's made by some Russian company. I have to admitted that I was biased toward PC game companies in Europe and I am glad that I was wrong. I still don't like the storyline and dialogue of armored princess but I enjoyed the tactics part a lot.

Should I give HOMM V a try? Any comment is appreciated.

By the way, some posts said trap is a good spell. Could someone tell me the reason? I just started the game recently and now I am at the second island. Being a hardcore strategy fan, I am proud (or stupid) to start my first game on impossible mode.

[N3MES1S]

Depends on if u have money problems, but in my case i never had money problems on impossible so marauders are useless for me. And for a low level stack unit, royal snakes are faaar better than marauders. Trap is good for maintain the enemy in place, but sometimes (and on impossible mode almost all the times) the enemy will evade the trap taking another way, so u can use the trap to mark the path u want the enemy troop to make. But I played a lot impossible matches, and i never use trap anymore, maybe sometimes (i did an abuse of trap spell some games a go only for raising the trap medal). But there are a lot of powerfull spells, not only trap.

About HOMM V, its not a bad game if u played it 6 - 8 years ago, but nowadays i really dont recommend it to anyone. I looked at it some days ago and the graphic quality is just horrible (as logical so u cant use high resolutions), and the fight system almost the same. The good thing is that u can hire a lot of races/factions, but the bad graphic quality makes that u cant stand in front of the screen more than 10 minutes.

[mare911]

HOMM V is on my hard disk only because of multiplayer/hot-seat mode.
Apart from that, KB is superior in almost any aspect

[Jun006]

Thanks for the detailed replies. I am relieved to hear that money is not going to be a problem later.

N3MES1S, you are right about royal snakes. They are very good and form my first line of defense. (The only complain I have is why they don't have 9 heads) I used marauders to replace guardsmen because I want to avoid casualty. I hesitated when I made the decision since I was not sure whether it's worth the cost. But it proved to be a good investment and I am going to keep marauders in the army for a longer time.

And thanks for the comments about HOMM V. I will stick with armored princess then. I am just missing 3DO and Strategic Simulations Inc.

p.s. For members here never try marauder's search ability. Here's some information. After one typical battle in Debir, the prize was about 150 golds, two chests dig offered about 100~500 golds or some scroll, and marauders found about 600~700 golds. (Sorry I can't be more accurate because I have the game at home.)

[Razorflame]

mauraders die easily later on

but i gues u ain't going for a no casualty so should be fine


and about homm5 it's a great game


mostly because it got a nice mp feat
u can battle your strats vs other players

kb:ap is gonna get boring after some time when u know u can beat all with ease and have no more challenge


homm5 got a nice story line though

[Zechnophobe]

Homm5 is at least more VISUALLY impressive. It's not a bad game either, just not as solid on the mechanics as KBAP is.

As for Marauders... I think you will realize like most people do, that the money they make from looting corpses ends up not comparing to the extra money you pay to replace the losses for them. And then You'll get Demonologists, dragons, or Beholders or something, and never switch back.

Trap is good because it can 'negate' the turn of an opposing unit if used correctly, and on certain choke-pointy battle arenas can slow down a large number of enemies.

[KongMysen]

To the author: King's bounty is also a made by a russian company. They understand gametesting is the way to get a better and more balanced game. I wonder if it would be a bestselling game, had they hired som decent marketing employees...?

Anyhow. I used those Marauders alot in my first playthrough. The extra gold harvested was usually worth more than the casualty cost. However I learned that getting some higher hp troops, or some summoning troops can eliminate the fear of loosing units at all. and eventually that will get you rich.

But if you already had 30 no-loss fights before Bolo, I'm pretty sure, you'll have no trouble reaching the final phases of the game. That is, if you aren't palying on easy.

Originally Posted by Jun006

By the way, some posts said trap is a good spell.

Trap can stop even black dragons, who are immune to spells. Just place the trap, where the dragon will land. With tactics you can place two adjecent troops and spread the rest. This way you'll lure the dragon to move, where you want it to. Any other lvl5 unit immune to slow/fear/sheep etc. can be stopped by a trap. AND you can benefit from the huge dmg + poison bonus added by upgrading it to lvl 3 with a mage.

maybe not THE best spell in the game, but certainly one of the better

[N3MES1S]

except for the thing that on impossible mode, even if u drop a trap where u think the dragon will land, dragon will land on another place, xD. Almost i discarded the trap spell (well, i didnt need it anyways) for that reason. I only used trap on impossible to change the path the enemy will take. But with a warrior, it is hard to raise trap to level 3 and with good dmg.

[Razorflame]

i find trap a perfect spell

not only it stops units who use running(which is really nice)

it could also lead to trapping their own units

and combined with a fireball/fire rain/ ice snake after

it's boom boom

[KongMysen]

Originally Posted by N3MES1S

except for the thing that on impossible mode, even if u drop a trap where u think the dragon will land, dragon will land on another place,

AI doesn't change with difficulty settings. Maybe because there is no real AI and only some game mechanics, whick works similar on all difficulties?

If you place two non-fireresistant units adjecent to each other and the ohers spreaded out, the Black Dragon will ALWAYS fly to the same place. Its because game mechanics will tell it, that here it will do the most damage. If you leave the opportunity to use the ability however, the BD will instead fly across the units, since now this is the most damaging attack.

works with easy to Impossible setting.