Stuck at Verona...

[TemjinGold]

Originally Posted by basis

Hi all, playing my first game in KB:AP.

Playing normal difficulty, mage, leadership about 3.2K
army setup: normal bears, polar bears, 15 or 16 black beholders, 1 dragon (black? the first dragon unit we find I think on Bolo island), 2 cyclops.

I think my attack is 1, defense is 5 and intel is about 9. I know it is pretty crappy stats. my pet dragon is level 16. I cannot remember my level.

I cleared most of Rusty except for 2 units, Zig-zag and a group of Thorns that are guarding some treasure. When I right-click on Zig-Zag it says Lethal to me. And the Thorns that guard the treasure on Rusty is also Lethal.

I can go to Verona, but the units there are also Lethal to Invincible as well. I think I cleared most of the Strong units in Verona, but they town is protected by Very Strong or Lethal units.

I didn't know about map kiting until I read about it in this forum, but is there any other way to defeat those units on Rusty Island? Or advise me what I maybe doing wrong. Or should I be learning some spell that I may have missed? I have Order at lvl 2, Distortion at lvl 1 and Chaos at lvl 1.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I can't speak for normal as I've only played impossible but as a mage, you generally need to get used to facing stacks that are Lethal or tougher. Mages aren't about brute force so you're not supposed to have equal numbers to begin with. Therefore, how you built your character is far more important for a mage than it is for the other two classes. What did you spend your talent runes on in each tree and what spells do you have?

For my current mage, the key spells I use are:

Demon Portal
Fear
Stone Skin
Mana Spring
Trap
Phantom
Calm Rage
Fire Arrow (because it stays cheap)

I use more than that (Doom, Slow, and Avenging Angel come to mind along with others) but those are the ones I keep coming back to.

Spells I don't even scribe and just sell:

Call of Nature (worthless due to how small the stacks are)
Bless
Precision
(that spell that gives your unit fire damage; can't remember name)

There are probably more, I just can't think of them now.

Warriors and Paladins are about a lot of brute force and crushing the enemy directly. Mages are all about position and tactics. WHERE your guys are standing are often more important than how tough they are. For example, my L22 mage just took out Peter Drayn (on impossible, he is a L34 hero with two stacks of 56 demonesses and roughly 7000 total peasants in 3 stacks; Peter also has 250 mana and casts Ancient Phoenix and Demon Portal like a madman) on Verona with her 1-troll army (1 stack of 1 troll and no other units) in daylight (so the troll can't even regen.) Didn't need to be a troll. In fact, any stack of L5 units could accomplish it with no loss (I have 4 trolls but only use one in most fights to maximize dragon level.) That obviously cannot be done on brute force even with spells (Peter very quickly has like 10-12 stacks or more total on the board. Even with Higher Magic, which I have at L2, it is impossible to keep up with him on numbers.)

Planning, precision (err... not the spell of course!), and positioning is key when playing a mage. I find it strange that so many people say the mage is the hardest to play on impossible but I guess it boils down to play style. I've tried a warrior and frankly was bored with how "straightforward" her play style was.