beginner help guide

[Vilk]

Originally Posted by Razorflame

this is very EASY

i found this the easiest part in the game ^^
...

LOL, in my country I'd say you are coming from Marseille, there people enjoy exaggerate a lot and more, fish they get becomes bigger and bigger as they speak about it.

Put beholders near the tent and then that is the easiest part of the game, why care how fast they are because you attract their attention from far, no need to dodge there.

The point isn't archmage, I always got knight here and those require to be very very close, and dodge or not it's not so easy. I wonder if this didn't change with 1.7. But ok even if last time I tried I already knew about dodge, I'll try again in my next game.

[Ryastar]

It's pretty much always knights for me, and I've never had any problems dodging them for the early game horsemen. Just quick save first, and reload if you mess up.

[Vilk]

Originally Posted by Elwin

The most helpful are of course crowd control ones. Stone wall,ice thorns,ice ball,time back are the key. ON normal you can use damage ones and they can help but on impossible they are worthless

The question is about Normal mode, but even at normal mode as the game progress the Spirits attack skills become less interesting.

Time back is certainly the more powerful for using it in very special tactic. Myself I don't like it much because I feel it a bit too much unbalanced and it restrains too much my choices.

It works in this way: At beginning of turn n your unit is a full pack. During this turn it fights lost some units. At turn n+1 it fights again and lost more units then at end of turn n+1 ie take care of your last unit in the turn and before use it then use callback then the unit came back at its position unit size it had at beginning of turn n. So two full fights with no lost at the end. Points to take care are: that the original position is still free of any unit. The there's a unit level limit depending of the power to use. That is the Reaper spirits is in rest because you used another of his skill then you lost the opportunity. Very powerful but tedious to use that again and again. There's quite more application of this skill like to use it in combination with sacrifice or with hypnotize and to make a spell effect last longer on a unit and so on.

Myself, for the first parts of the game:

• During a long time in the beginning of the game the best spirit skill is Evil Shoal, particularely because this spirit is quite easy to get with Zerock too.
• Poisonous Spit and Smashing are cool during a long beginning of the game to train those Spirits and if you don't have much better to do with your spirits.
• Underground Blades is cool during the beginning and the first part of the middle game, particularly when there's many opponent units.
• Otherwise, Ice Orb is great to attract enemy attacks and not only from archer, Glot's Armor has many interesting application, Chargers and Rage draining are quite cool in many case and often the best option during middle game than any attack skill but those of the Reaper.
• Ice Torns and Stone Wall have many interesting context of application.
• Gizmo is a very special skill, fun to use if you don't bother to increase the random part in your fights. Excellent choice to train the spirit and often in middlegame worth more than attack skills. A choice to think of for a battle that is long.

For the middle game:

• Ice Orb, Glot's Armor, Ice Torns and Stone Wall continue to be very interesting options with many possibilities.
• Gizmo can be still a weird but interesting choice.
• Underground Blades continue to be interesting during some time but less and less as middlegame progress.
• Black Hole and Soul Draining continue to be interesting as attack during a large part of the middlegame. Black Hole is is when there are many enemy packs and Soul Draining when there's one big pack but also living (no undead).

For the End game, it would be more:

• Ice Orb, Glot's Armor, Ice Torns, Stone Wall, Soul Draining and obviously Time Back.
• Gizmo if you feel ok to be weird and perhaps for long battles.
• Black Hole in some rare case, clearly not at all if you abuse of Time Back.

I never trained much Rockfall and Poison Cloud. I quote Rockfall can cover a large area and won't hurt your units in this area so it could be an interesting option attack up to the first part of the middlegame.

[Vilk]

Originally Posted by Ryastar

It's pretty much always knights for me, and I've never had any problems dodging them for the early game horsemen. Just quick save first, and reload if you mess up.

Lol sure, see bellow, attraction lost, quote how close it is. How many reload?

[Ryastar]

Dude, I can tell from that screenshot that you've moved it far enough. All you have to do is run around it and you're golden. There's no need for that sarcasm.

[Vilk]

Originally Posted by Ryastar

Dude, I can tell from that screenshot that you've moved it far enough. All you have to do is run around it and you're golden. There's no need for that sarcasm.

Cough cough sorry for the sarcasm, I was looking at you almost like a "friend" so the excessive familiarity... and well the series of little sarcasm of Razorflame caught me it their flow.

Turn around in such path? I know turn around for dodging but for attracting and in such area... Well perhaps you mean moving in diagonals, ok I should try that.

[Razorflame]

i wasn't sarcastic u got that then u got me wrong
i never save before i go to the tent

i know i can do it in 1 turn

i also know those HORSEMEN or knights can become very handy
^^

[Saridu]

Originally Posted by s2now

wow great advice thanx, wish i saw this earlier
now i killed a lot of the weak stuff

im about to attack the bogachio castle, looks pretty tough, does anyone have any tips on how to win that fight with as little casualties as possible?
also, about the time back ability on the reaper, i heard a lot of good things about it, can someone tell me how to use it properly to gain advantage?
also which skills on the spirits of rage did you guys find most helpful?
thanks

It's okay about slaying the weaklings just try to limit your slaughter

The castle can be tricky, depends on what spawns (it's usually a large bunch of thorns or two stack of skellie archers) but there is always two stacks of Royal snakes and a large stack of normal snakes. Also depends on what you've managed to pick up and your class.

Generally it helps if you have royal snakes yourself (not the end of the world), you can substitute swordsmen if you don't, also a good stack of archers helps.

If you're a mage and manage to get initiaitve (the above mentioned Royal snakes or some other fast unit) you know what to do super fireball (or double if you're being eating all your runes), they're nicely packed together.

If you're a warrior, it helps if you left a mob around the castle around to get your rage up (or quaff a potion of rage) and hammer them with an evil shoal or smashing sword or rockfall whatever works best. Get one or two tanks up front to deal with the snakes, (if you have trap might want to slow those snakes down, the map often has obstacles that you can use as choke points). A lot depends on your setup but it definitely doable (on normal!!!)

Like Elwin said on normal most of the spirits are very useful but later game (and hard plus) the non damage ones and the crowd control become more important. I personally like the ice ball, it has two uses, one as crowd control - drop it right next to archers, ai hates that and will almost always shoot if first before your meaty units

Second use is the wrecking ball mode, wait for an large stack of archers or mage to go, or wait one of your fast units (like snakes or dragons), when it comes to the end of the turn, summon the ball at the other side of the map in a straight line (as many hexes apart as possible) and fire away, the ball has a charge effect and can do thousands of damage at a good distance, great for taking out turrets.

I'm not a fan of time back, never used it but soul draining does a percent of enemy's health as damage, very useful end game when the ai send thousands of fire dragonflies your way...