tips on paladin on impossible/no casualties/7 days/level 30

[loreangelicus]

Paladin on impossible; no casualties, 7 days, level 30. Final score of 1,727. I won't go into battle tactics/skills choice/unit choice and stuff like that since these have already been discussed thoroughly in other posts. And besides, tactics vary. I'll just explain how I did the above feat.

You always make the most of a day, which is usually from 07:00 of that day up until 06:45 of the next day. Below is the "jump" schedule I followed:

Day 2 18:55 level 10 to Islands of Freedom (12 hours to spare)
Day 3 14:48 level 13 to Darion (no-army-suicide-trick)
Day 4 05:33 level 17 to Islands of Freedom (1.5 hours to spare)
Day 4 12:40 level 18 to Darion (no-army-suicide-trick)
Day 4 23:58 level 20 to Ellinia (7 hours to spare)
Day 6 02:20 level 27 to Darion (4.5 hours to spare)
Day 6 19:14 level 29 to Ellinia (11.5 hours to spare)
Day 7 12:42 level 30 outside King Mark's castle; game over

The no-army-suicide-trick is done by garrisoning your whole army into castles (including reserves) then attacking a wandering enemy without an army. This automatically teleports you to King Mark's castle. The disadvantage is that you have to rebuild your army from scratch, which is easily remedied by pre-stocking your new army in advance. Tons of time to do this, as could be seen in the hours to spare that I had.

So the above explains how I finished the game in 7 days. So how to do no casualties and level 30 on impossible with a paladin? Read the forums for tactics on units/spells/rage use (tons of advise out there), but the most important thing is KILL EVERYTHING. Skip battles only if it is REALLY tough and you are sure you would be going back to that continent. Buy all suppressable items and suppress them. Max Learning and Keeper of Light.

Skipping battles because they are "too tough" would only mean you don't gain XP and don't gain levels, making you weak, meaning you encounter even more battles that are "too tough".

Contrary to popular belief, 7 days doesn't mean you "rush" through the game. I picked up ALL banners/chests/gold and killed ALL enemies (well, except for 1 enemy at Islands of Freedom used TWICE for the no-army-suicide-trick).

I posted screenshots of the record, as well as my might/mind/magic tree skill choice and army composition. The army choice is very subjective. I usually just like to "park" my real army away from harm, so I abused Phantom level 3 on the Emerald Green Dragons a lot (free phantoms). Used Demoness with Anga's Ruby (thus always being first), then swapped the phantomed EGDs for an enemy; phantom EGDs use mana blast ability in the middle of enemy ranks, getting back 15-30 mana, as well as tanking big time. Next turn (and following turns) fly real EGDs stack to the middle of the map, phantom again, you get the picture.

It should be noted that the phantom EGDs above were not counted as spell damage in the final record, but as regular EGD damage. I thought I should point this out since my main stack of EGDs rarely attacked, and the record is misleading in saying that the percentage of damage from spells is only 1%.

Hope this helps those going for 7 days as well, especially those going for high scores to boot.

NOTE: It's actually possible to get an even higher score by finishing the game in 6 days. This could be done by not killing everything at Ellinia/Death Lands and do the no-army-suicide-trick from Ellinia to Darion to finish off Demonis. But I wanted to see how close anyone can get to level 31, and I had the "perfect game" for this in that I was playing paladin (quick maxing out of Learning and Keeper of Light) and I picked up the Tactics Treatise very early. As such, after killing everything and with the above XP-gain-enhancing conditions, it is safe to say that level 31 is not possible.

I could go for a Day 6 finish from my Day 5 start at Ellinia saved game, but I am too burned out from this game right now to do this.