Shall we start a new high score/info thread? (Spoilers inside)

[DGDobrev]

I totally agree with that assessment. The game looks harder because even on hard most of the time you'll be facing way stronger armies than your own (at least that's what the description will say), but with proper tactics, you can always beat the living hell out of them. I guess the thing you have to get over actually is to get used to seeing "Very strong", "Overpowering", "Impossible" enemies and do not be afraid to engage them

[Pyramid]

I passed game liked it now passing with paladin since i finished on normal with mage and warrior .With warrior it was piece a cake 52nd lvl dragon and those EGGS give you all army you need!!I casted berserker on paladins who had 63% crit it was insane!!!

[travelingoz]

Yay finally found "time back" on the lizard island. Had to be the very last island i found the map for!
Sure makes a huge difference! Playing mage on impossible with no losses and i'm up to level 34 but it's day 14 already so i don't think i'm going to get a great score....

Favorite tactic for generating endless mana and rage so far is royal thorns with necromancers raising dead then using magic spring with the necromances area attack.

[DGDobrev]

Reading through all the posts here made me want to do a new playthrough of KBAP. I haven't done that for a while and found that I really missed the game.

So I picked up a Warrior, selected Impossible and went for it. I must admit that the warrior gets a pretty easy time in this game, at least in my opinion. The start is dodgy, you may have to replay some battles later in order to ensure quick 50 no-loss victories (the requirement for the Great Tactician medal, or whatever they will call it) to get a huge boost to the leadership very early on which will ensure your easy-going through the starting islands. Still, compared to the start with a mage, it was a breeze. Just for a reference, the mage starts with Flaming arrow and Fireball scroll, and it is some time before she can get the fireball spell itself, and even if she does, it isn't much use early on in impossible (I also have a mage started on impossible, so I have a certain ground for reference - even with +200 leadership helm, +150 leadership belt and +250 leadership batton she struggles).

Since this was my first playthough on impossible, I wasn't much aware of the hardships at hand. This is why I can give a few pointers to the people who will decide to try it out (they work if you play through the first time as well, they will work for me from now on):

1. Have a clear idea what kind of army do you want. Do not spend money on a new unit simply because you have the money right now. You may need it later. I made the mistake to buy a ton of necromancers early on, which I used in only 10-20 battles and had to babysit them, since I couldn't resurrect them. I also made the mistake of buying a ton of Emerald Green Dragons and Assassins, which I barely used. Do not make my mistake
2. Read the quest info thoroughly. They provide valuable information that you will need when you do the quest. They also open up new quest possibilities, so save before talking to a quest giver.
3. Be a cheapskate. Do not spend money on items that you will not need later on - or you are unsure whether you will need them later on, for that matter. You may spend 60k on items and troops just to see on next island a piece of equipment that provides 10 might/mind/magic runes, for example, which is a must to buy and use, as it will speed up your development very quickly, especially in the early levels. You will rue that mistake.
4. A general rule of thumb that will ensure that you will never run out of cash is: never lose units worth more than 3/4 cash you get from the battle (since you will advance in levels and you will need more troops). If you must lose more units (for example, in boss battles, castle sieges, etc.), make sure you made up for that in advance.
5. Make sure you do as much victories without casualties. This will help you amass a sizeable amount of money that will help you early on.
- another way of circumventing this problem is to use scapegoat units (meaning expendable units) that are easy to recruit in each area - like Executioners (the new purple demons, always retaliates), Royal Griffins (a new type of griffin, always retaliates), Paladins (resurrection and a great tank), Ancient Ents (tons of HP), etc.
- as a Paladin, you have one great trick up your sleeve. The resurrection skill that I had so stupidly neglected and ridiculed can be used to your advantage big time. Granted, it alone costs 42 mind runes to master, but it pays off big time. With it, you can use a scapegoat troop in each battle, which, even if destroyed, will come back to life after the battle. It counts in the losses, but unless you're going for a no-loss victory, it isn't much of a problem
- as Calinda suggested, paladins + phantom spell is wicked.
6. Learn to love your dragon, especially if you play a Warrior. Use it anytime you can. As a Mage, you should be more cautious with it, as using it more often will have him gain experience quickly, which may surpass the overall rage amount you have.
7. Be on the lookout for "easter eggs" - or things that have something in common with King's Bounty: The Legend game. There are a few of those here, and they are fun to spot.

As for my playthrough, I must admit that it was riddled with mistakes, but in the end, it was fun. I didn't find some very useful spells until lvl 30+ - like Target, Sacrifice, and I never found the Time Back spell (just my luck I guess), even on Rehau island, where I found it in the last 2 playthroughs. For example, I went to Tekron island 4 times, while in essence one can do it in 1, maybe 2 tries at most. It also seems that I once again missed out on 5 quests, and for the life of me, I don't know which they are. I probably made some bad decisions in the quest dialogues, since this is my 3rd playthough with 82 quests completed. I also ended up with 230 out of 282 battles without losses. Not bad I guess. Could have been more, but I didn't buy a lot of items that can be upgraded - that improves the battle count and provides cash, but I did poor army choices on a few occasions and had to re-stock, so I didn't had a lot of extra money... shame on me. The losses are sizeable for only 52 battles with losses, but most of those were scapegoat units I had to use.
Another thing I noticed is that I get more than enough rage in combat to use the stronger dragon abilities all the time, whenever they became avaliable even with +40% rage income when troops exchange blows (there is also a +60% option).

So in the end:
Score: 1651
level: 54
Atk 36 / Def 27 / Int 23
Rage 119 (165 max with proper equip) mana 50 (65 with proper equip)
Battles 282
Losses: 4992
Enemy heroes killed: 76
Bosses killed: 6
Damage - by troops: 78%; by Spells 0%; by Dragon abilities: 22%
Final Dragon lvl: 59

And of course, I do hope I'm not pouring too much salt in the wound with this post, as people are still waiting for the English release...

P.S> It would be really, really great if the current fan manual (or at least I think it is fan manual) is translated in from Russian to English with the launch of the game. It has everything in it - from skills and attributes, through monsters, game objects, pointers to game mechanics. An it's 217 pages of content. Actually it is the best manual I have ever seen. Extremely descriptive.

[BB Shockwave]

I'm with warrior on Normal right now, and I have had around 82 no-losses battles so far... Paladins, Droid Engineers plus the Phantom spell is need for that, of course. Mana is much easier to regenerate now then in Legend thanks to the Rage-to-mana spell and the Dragon's chargers/mana orbs.

[DGDobrev]

Actually, it's a bit harder, at least in my eyes Lina had the chargers skill, which at good level provided enough rage and mana that could be easily converted into more mana. Here, the dragon can transform 25 rage into 25 mana at best. Still the phantom spell works wonder, as you so rightly say

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Actually, it's a bit harder, at least in my eyes Lina had the chargers skill, which at good level provided enough rage and mana that could be easily converted into more mana. Here, the dragon can transform 25 rage into 25 mana at best. Still the phantom spell works wonder, as you so rightly say

Yeah, I also miss that Lina's chargers gave Rage as well as mana, plus there were more then one chargers. But at least the Dragon's skill can be used every round.

[DGDobrev]

Provided you have the rage

On normal, you can simply use the dragon to trample any enemy. The rage income is really wicked and you can use the War frenzy skill in the first round, combined with the multi-hit diving skill in every other round, thus seriously reducing the enemy strength. It's actually really nice that they didn't make the lava flow skill reusable in every turn, as that would simply be way too uber - you can still waste a cast to do it though

Well, in any case, KBAP provides a serious diversion from the usual KBTL gameplay. There are some griefs I have, and I can't bear to refrain from sharing:
(all of this said considering impossible difficulty)

like why the warrior is so overpowered once again, mainly due to the blood thirst skill, which allows you to retain enough rage, even if you wasted it all (mainly on mana for the phantoms), to start the next battle with a free dragon skill? In my eyes this puts him one step ahead of the mage (even with higher magic) because as you know, the constant exchange of blows provides rage, which can be easily transformed into tons of mana. 25 rage for 25 mana? No problem. How much did the phanton spell cost again? 25 mana at lvl 3? Wonderful!
Why the mage is so weak in the beginning and keeps this weakness for quite a while, until she can cast much better mass-hitting spells? Not to mention that stronger spells are found mainly on the islands with the hardest opponents...
why the paladin can finish the game with 100k losses and still not waste even a coin over what he has to? Scapegoat units (preferably with "always retaliates" trait) + Resurrection skill lvl 3 FTW

Well, I'm certain this will all be discussed when everyone gets the game

[Zhuangzi]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Provided you have the rage

On normal, you can simply use the dragon to trample any enemy. The rage income is really wicked and you can use the War frenzy skill in the first round, combined with the multi-hit diving skill in every other round, thus seriously reducing the enemy strength. It's actually really nice that they didn't make the lava flow skill reusable in every turn, as that would simply be way too uber - you can still waste a cast to do it though

Well, in any case, KBAP provides a serious diversion from the usual KBTL gameplay. There are some griefs I have, and I can't bear to refrain from sharing:
(all of this said considering impossible difficulty)

like why the warrior is so overpowered once again, mainly due to the blood thirst skill, which allows you to retain enough rage, even if you wasted it all (mainly on mana for the phantoms), to start the next battle with a free dragon skill? In my eyes this puts him one step ahead of the mage (even with higher magic) because as you know, the constant exchange of blows provides rage, which can be easily transformed into tons of mana. 25 rage for 25 mana? No problem. How much did the phanton spell cost again? 25 mana at lvl 3? Wonderful!
Why the mage is so weak in the beginning and keeps this weakness for quite a while, until she can cast much better mass-hitting spells? Not to mention that stronger spells are found mainly on the islands with the hardest opponents...
why the paladin can finish the game with 100k losses and still not waste even a coin over what he has to? Scapegoat units (preferably with "always retaliates" trait) + Resurrection skill lvl 3 FTW

Well, I'm certain this will all be discussed when everyone gets the game

I breezed through the game on Hard as a Warrior, and I found that once I had upgraded the Might skills completely, I was getting so much rage that I could do Dive Dragon TWICE A TURN. (using the Wake Dragon Spell as well).

[DGDobrev]

Just a quick post to confirm my thread-starting post. There is no Gift spell in KBAP. There is also a new "Forgetfulness" trait on the Lake Fairies and the Dryads which, if successfully activated, strips their target unit of any spells or abilities he/she might have, effectively removing any option to use abilities with charges.