tips on no casualty run on impossible difficulty

[Zhuangzi]

I am just starting an Impossible Mage game (trying for zero losses) so I will post my experiences here. I realised that you can't beat the Green Dragon in the training with no losses, so I skipped him. Rest was easy. When out of training, I stashed all but one stack (especially want to keep the Sprites for Sacrifice use later) and went for the King's Tent. Luckily for me, the tent has 15 Horsemen and 13 Knights, so I bought one of each for now, and then stashed the other weak stack.

My strategy was pretty simple early on, using Fireball 1 and Healing 1 to kill weak stacks and heal the knight and horseman. As I levelled up, I kept adding more of each. I could only find 11 inquisitors in Darion in total so I have a problem there. I loaded up on Archmages too, and I found 1 Royal Thorn. So my team by level 7 when I was ready for the Giant Turtle was:

11 Horsemen
11 Knights
11 Inquisitors (could have had 20)
10 Archmages
1 Royal Thorn

The strategy for the turtle was really easy. I charged the Horsemen at it, Inquisitors cast their magic defense on the Horsemen, and then I alternated Stone Skin 2 and Healing 2 on the Horsemen. Turtle was taking 20 damage on it, and they were doing 200-300. Easy battle.

I had reached this level with zero losses without Resurrection, only using the Inquisitor's Resurrect. I have done most of the quests in Darion, but have left a lot of difficult stacks that are too tough for me at present. Hence I was only level 7 by the time I was ready to go to Freedom Isles. It is also day 5, which is normal for me but very slow compared to some people who seem to be on Ellinia by the same day.

Questions. If I can't find Resurrect at Freedom Isles, am I screwed? Furious Paladin didn't have it.

Also, can I use Sacrifice and still have zero losses?

[loreangelicus]

I'm 99% sure lost units to Sacrifice would count as casualties if you don't find a way to bring that stack's troop count back to equal to or greater than what it started with in the battle. Without Resurrect, Time Back is your best bet.

Hmmm... Ellinia is your next best chance of getting Resurrect after the initial Darion continents. Even if you are not going for a quick time and skip most battles pre-Ellinia, some battles might be tough to do without Resurrect; the required castle siege to free the dwarf king's son comes to mind.

Well, if you find more Inquisitors (Islands of Freedom, initial shop) then that might suffice, but only if you have Gift.

Another alternative is if you have Phantom and could spam this out in tough battles, but this is an even harder route.

Too many "ifs" for my taste, making sure Resurrect is at the paladin at Marshan Swamp for mage/warrior is easier. Which is why I took paladin, so that instead of shooting for Resurrect I could shoot for good items at the starting castles (I got Ancient Amulet and Gladiator Sword, bought them pre-turtle on 02:00H day 2 using marauders).

[Zhuangzi]

Yeah I think I am screwed. Plenty of Inquisitors in Freedom Isles but no Resurrect or Gift. I will have to start again.

[Razorflame]

why? at those levels you don't even need those ^^

you have to play smart ^^

a few tips for freedom islands

1) START FIRST *(horseman are perfect for this)
2) always bring inqi's/ archimages/horseman in your army (the rest is subsitute with whatever u have) personally i would say shaman or evil beholder(evil beholder got a nice ability putting enemies to sleep and shaman got nice totems

3)if u got no gift or resu last hero is your man

4) slowing an enemy is sometimes better than killing it asap

[loreangelicus]

A no casualty run presents a good enough challenge as it is, especially before dwarven lands since you still don't have Lina's Chargers for endless mana.

It might be possible to have no casualties without Resurrection, but that means avoiding tough battles altogether, killing your XP and lowering your score.

And then you still have to face some unavoidable tough battles like freeing the dwarf king's son, which I'm not even sure is possible to do without resurrect.

Shamans might not be an available choice since I didn't even attempt to take on the orc embassy even with resurrect; I might be wrong here... please correct me if it is possible to take the orc embassy without casualties on the first trip to Islands of Freedom.

I haven't used Last Hero at all, so I'm interested how this would work for a no casualty run without Resurrect. But from what I understand regarding the mechanics of this spell, wouldn't the above conditions require you to have one unit stack with just one unit to begin the battle? On impossible, that might be too much of a handicap... but then again, if that unit could tank like nobody's business...

[Razorflame]

Originally Posted by loreangelicus

A no casualty run presents a good enough challenge as it is, especially before dwarven lands since you still don't have Lina's Chargers for endless mana.

It might be possible to have no casualties without Resurrection, but that means avoiding tough battles altogether, killing your XP and lowering your score.

And then you still have to face some unavoidable tough battles like freeing the dwarf king's son, which I'm not even sure is possible to do without resurrect.

Shamans might not be an available choice since I didn't even attempt to take on the orc embassy even with resurrect; I might be wrong here... please correct me if it is possible to take the orc embassy without casualties on the first trip to Islands of Freedom.

har har i have killed the dwarfs son guards WITHOUT ressurrection! without gift!

i used

demonesses and necromancers inqi's evil beholder and shamans

it was QUITE EASY!!!!

i'm a mage no losses
got chaos on level 3 destroyer on level 3

first turn i use ice snake on red dragons(killing them all

then i use the necromancers to RAISE dead from the red dragons

and well..
all centering on the bone dragon will i kill the rest quite easy har har!

[loreangelicus]

I haven't played mage so I'm not on the up-and-up with mage tactics.

Interesting application of double-cast; kill the enemy and necro the dead on turn one. Nice!

[Zhuangzi]

Originally Posted by Razorflame

why? at those levels you don't even need those ^^

you have to play smart ^^

a few tips for freedom islands

1) START FIRST *(horseman are perfect for this)
2) always bring inqi's/ archimages/horseman in your army (the rest is subsitute with whatever u have) personally i would say shaman or evil beholder(evil beholder got a nice ability putting enemies to sleep and shaman got nice totems

3)if u got no gift or resu last hero is your man

4) slowing an enemy is sometimes better than killing it asap

Well, I am basically using the units you describe - Horsemen, Knights, Inquisitors, Archmages. And I use Slow a lot. But how to use Last Hero for this? I take it you would need only one in the stack? Also, how to defend against enemy heroes (all those ships, orc castle, Lucky James etc etc). They like to fire direct damage spells at me. Without Gift or Resurrect, there's no way that the Inquisitors can cover all that .

[Razorflame]

true in that hero battles are a killer for the last hero usage

last hero is only suitable vs heavy melee enemy stacks (which there should be enough in freedom)

try to lure them to a narrow gap
so u can fully use the potentional of last hero

and yes it requires one creature stack or 2-3 something that can be RESSURRECTED by inqi's

let all enemies pile upon that stack and wait until there are few units left and use resu on it

but then again it's easier to do with gif/ resu

last hero is hard to use ^^

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by Razorflame

true in that hero battles are a killer for the last hero usage

last hero is only suitable vs heavy melee enemy stacks (which there should be enough in freedom)

try to lure them to a narrow gap
so u can fully use the potentional of last hero

and yes it requires one creature stack or 2-3 something that can be RESSURRECTED by inqi's

let all enemies pile upon that stack and wait until there are few units left and use resu on it

but then again it's easier to do with gif/ resu

last hero is hard to use ^^

Last Hero didn't exactly work out for me. Don't get me wrong, the spell works as per its description, but when I used it on a unit of Swordsmen when fighting zombie Noric's all-zombie team, the zombies all of a sudden left it alone and trudged slowly (but surely) towards my ranged attackers at the back line.

I wonder if it has better application in conjunction with Armageddon... I'll test this when I pluck that spell at Demonis.

Originally Posted by Razorflame

anyone got a good idea to kill demons without magic shackles?

Well, there's mass Demon Slayer, but what a waste of crystals that would be. It does have the advantage of having twice the duration of Magic Shackles.

Mass Magic Shackles is a better investment of crystals as that spell is applicable to other unit types; but even this spell has limited application/use for me.