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King`s Bounty: Warriors of the North Next game in the award-winning King’s Bounty series

 
 
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Old 09-13-2014, 04:28 AM
MattCaspermeyer MattCaspermeyer is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 553
Lightbulb Fixing Starting Daert / Bagyr

Okay, I've been doing a lot of play testing here and there with both Daert and Bagyr.

For Daert, it is possible to do no loss through Whitehill with just two Vampires if you get lucky and receive 1 of about 5 different spell choices from the Ore Cart in Dragandor.

I've also been doing some playtesting with Bagyr's starting forces and due to the fact that you don't get any spells except Haste / Slow and you get a single Veteran Orc with Goblins, Furious Goblins, 2 Orcs, and 5 Hyenas he has no chance to do any of the Catacombs fights.

You pretty much have to run Bagyr to the Shelter as quickly as possible and then you hire the Shelter troops to complete the fights with losses. For both you can use the Spider / Snake Eggs to create a large uncontrollable stack that can handle the various stacks, but these are with losses.

So I'm for improving the starting situation of Daert and Bagyr so that they are much more fun to play like Neoline and that you can actually do no loss at impossible difficulty through Whitehill without having to restart, scan your save game, and determine if you've got a chance.

I've performed the most testing with Daert and here is what I think is a fun starting situation where you can actually have some decent spell selection and play one of the new units in the game (1 point for each spell level and 12 total points):
  • Spells:
    • Stone Skin: 1
    • Poison Skull: 1
    • Weakness: 3
    • Total = 5
  • Scrolls:
    • Kamikaze: 3
    • Evil Book: 3
    • Frost Grasp: 1
    • Total = 7
  • Total Points = 12
Daert's Army is then:
  • Starting:
    • 1 Necromancer
    • 1 Black Knight
    • 1 Cursed Ghost
  • In DragDark:
    • 2 Cursed Ghosts
    • 2 Female Vampires
I'm experimenting with this right now (before I had 5 regular Vampires) and I think it is neat to actually play with the Female Vampires at the start of the game (just like Neoline gets some Elementals and Blood Priestesses) so that you get to play some new units right away. Plus, I figured Daert is a handsome fella and could have been entertaining a couple of lady Vampire friends when the situation at the start of the game went down.

The spell selection is really good, too, as you can use the Frost Grasp on the Snakes and Spiders to great effect and you still have Poison Skull to use on the Dwarves, Humans, and Elves. You also get to cast Evil Book and Kamikaze is great to cast on a raised unit. So far I was able to do all the Spider stacks except the big one in the Catacombs. I'm 1 Magic Rune short from getting Chaos Level 2 as I just made Daert Level 4 (I probably could have held off on going with Meditation so if you don't go with that skill then it is possible to get Chaos to Level 2 if the Might Runes fall for you). I'm looking forward to continuing this playtest through Whitehill to see how well it works, but I was able to do the above with 5 Vampires instead of 2 Female Vampires through Whitehill no loss.

I also made one other change and this is to add variability to the Zombie shop where they can sell either Archers or Skeletons and Zombies or Cursed Zombies.

As far as Bagyr is concerned, his starting army is absolutely pitiful and his spell selection only of limited help. So, sticking with the same point system (and same number of starting points, 5) I think a better spell selection for Bagyr is:
  • Spells:
    • Precision: 1
    • Blur: 1
    • Total = 2
  • Scrolls:
    • Whirlwind: 1
    • Trap: 2
    • Total = 3
  • Total Points = 5
Since Bagyr only has his starting army to rely on, he needs to be able to take a group of troops through to the Shelter and beyond and continue with no loss. This is very tricky and so I think the only way for him to be able to handle more difficult enemies is to allow him to increase army stacks via his reserve and have a troop that can summon units. So the plan here is to have enough troops available so that he can pump 2 stacks as he levels.

So here is his starting army and available units from Tristrem:
  • Starting:
    • 10 Goblins
    • 2 Orcs
    • 1 Orc Scout (can summon 5 Wolves)
  • In Tristrem
    • 6 to 8 Furious Goblins (no change)
    • 1 to 2 Veteran Orcs (used to be just 1)
    • 4 to 6 Goblin Riders (changed from Goblins)
    • 1 to 2 Catapults (changed from Hyenas)
    • 1 to 2 Shamans (changed from Furious Goblins)
I next changed the Troll shop to sell better Orc troops and some spells, it now sells:
  • Items:
    • 1 Level 1 Viking Item
  • Troops:
    • 6 Goblin Riders, 5 Orcs, or 2 Catapults
    • 2 Veteran Orcs, 1 Shaman, or 1 Orc Scout
  • Spells:
    • Stone Skin
    • Berserker
    • Animal Call
    • Random Level 1 Spell
It still sells the 2 Level 1 Orc Items (helm and armor) and the 2 Level 5 Troops.

This gives some variability to Bagyr's start, but the idea is that you can use the Furious Goblin ability to find an extra 1,000 to 2,000 gold or so from the 3 fights and then you'll end up disbanding the starting Goblins (perhaps they should be swapped out with another unit) and then you can disband the Furious Goblins when you are getting ready to buy troops from the Troll shop.

The Orc units are just not very good in low numbers, unlike the Demon and Undead troops so you need a troop that can summon units. The only troop that can summon units is the Orc Scout. I never even saw one in my Demoness playthrough with Neoline and so I think this is a great way to introduce a new unit since you start with 1. There is a possibility of getting another one from the Troll shop, but it is not guaranteed.

You can run around and pick up the other troops if you'd like, or just go with this group and you can take all the armies with just this group. Use your Furious Goblins to check bodies for money and hopefully you collect somewhere between 1,000 to 2,000 gold from your endeavors to give you money to buy stuff from the Troll shop.

After getting rid of the Goblins and Furious Goblins, you should have (one or more troops will be in reserve):
  • 4 to 6 Goblin Riders
  • 2 Orcs
  • 1 to 2 Catapults
  • 1 to 2 Veteran Orcs
  • 1 Shaman
  • 1 Orc Scout
This starts you with 2 of the new Orc units (just like Neoline) and I think it would be great for new players of the game to play some of the new units right away.

You then will either get more Goblin Riders, Orcs, or Catapults and Veteran Orcs, Shamans, or Orc Scouts with some additional spell scrolls and artifacts. Based on who you can purchase will determine which troops you place in reserve.

In my current playtest, I have 1 Orc Scout (+1 in reserve), 2 Orcs, 1 Catapult, 2 Veteran Orcs, 1 Shaman, and 11 Goblin Riders in reserve. I also had enough money to buy the Stone Skin and Berserker spells, but that used up all my money.

I was able to do the first easy Catacombs stack and so I'm hoping to be able to do all 3 at least. We'll see if I can take on the harder Spider stack in the Catacombs or I'd at least want to try to take out the stack before the Dragandor gate since it usually has troops divided into smaller stacks (usually 7 stacks instead of 5).

When Bagyr gets to level 4, he should have enough Leadership to have 2 Orc Scouts (with the ability to summon up to 10 Wolves) and then I'll probably put the 2 Orcs in reserve and go with max Goblin Riders. I also have the option of splitting the Orc Scouts and keeping the Goblin Riders and the Orcs in reserve as this might be a better strategy.

I'm still evaluating both the changes to Daert's and Bagyr's starting scenario and if there is interest maybe I'll post these changes once they get dialed in.

I need to get a feel for Bagyr's Leadership increase to see if there should be more troops offered from the Troll shop if you can afford them. I'm also thinking of switching Blur to a Scroll and have him start with Whirlwind as a Spell so that you can use that with Trap (Level 1 Diversion should be attainable by level 4 or 5 max) and cause some small damage to units as well, but it costs 5 Mana, which is expensive for the start (although I think you may have enough Magic Runes for 1 point in Meditation to get you up to 16 Mana when you reach level 4). Bagyr does not get enough Magic Runes, it seems, to be able to get any of the spell schools until probably around level 7 or 8 as a guess (too high of a level to be able to learn any new spells before completing the first Whitehill fight). Also, if the Goblins are just going to be disbanded at the start I'll probably end up changing them to a different troop.

So the point to all this is to make the game more fun for playing Daert or Bagyr and to give them the possibility of no loss on impossible difficulty through Whitehill with a significant percentage of their starting scenarios. Neoline can pretty much do no loss on impossible with her current starting scenario. Daert only has a very small chance of being able to do no loss with his current starting scenario through Whitehill and Bagyr actually seems to have no possibility of doing no loss through Whitehill.

Chime in if you have any thoughts or ideas on improving Daert's or Bagyr's starting scenario.

By the way, the mod is now available:
/C\/C\

Last edited by MattCaspermeyer; 10-12-2014 at 08:07 AM. Reason: Added download link for both V0.1 & 0.2.
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