Teach me, expert players of Armored Princess

[impy]

Hey kcwong, all is not lost yet. As i said, just get the rusty island map from bolo and there are paladins in tavern +2 easy quests not requiring fighting - captain bottles and bringing chests from scarlet. That should give you a level, plus you collect all the leadership rods from new area etc. On bolo, save game, get off the boat on the left, ,run past the barbarians up the hill and look. if there are enemies blocking your way, reload, wait 10-15-20.. seconds and try again. Remember, enemies are constantly moving, just wait for the right moment. Also, about your problem with polar bears not letting you out of bolo underground. Before you go underground, loose the tail and stop for several seconds. Once you go underground, game aboveground "freezes" in the exact position you left it in. (hence the polar bears = if they were following you before you descent, they would be there once you reappear again). Only if it is all nice and clear then go underground, 'cause you know it is safe to come back. Once done underground, come back up and wait by the entrance until the road is clear, it may take again 5,10,20..sec. If some enemy comes down the hill, there is a bit wider area at where the droids are positioned, just run around enemy there. Yes, you may restar the game if you wish, on the other hand you can consider yourself lucky to have access to rusty without fight, it does not happen that way everytime.

1) glory. i am not saying it is a bad skill, but it is about the runes. From your "mage power" point of view what is better - having 250 leadership or higher level of magic? definitely the latter
2) traps. Seems that you're talking about casting trap spell (i agree, not the best), but free of charge pre-laid traps are very nice to have. During the battle you can reposition your army in a way, which will force AI to come right down on the traps, or use dragon kick to push them on a trap or use archmagi skill.
3) casting pet dragon wall. don't do that. It stops pet dragon for 2 turns. Casting cheap dragon kick or mana acc. is better
4) you say - "i was wrong not getting a level of might skills". I hope you mean att/def equipment (eventhough as a mage you should prefer mana/int equipment) not spending runes on might skills. DO NOT. From might tree only invest in pet dragon skills, and only when you're happy with the magic tree first.

[kcwong]

Originally Posted by impy

Hey kcwong, all is not lost yet. <snip>

I looked at what you've changed, and then fought a few battles to test how well I can use them. I started a new game (since my skill choice was a mess), but I've made a backup - so I'll definitely go back and continue this game afterward.

Originally Posted by impy

if there are enemies blocking your way, reload, wait 10-15-20.. seconds and try again. Remember, enemies are constantly moving, just wait for the right moment.

Correct me if I'm wrong: the enemies have several patrol schemes, randomly chosen when generating the map. This patrol scheme controls where they will go (unless you are nearby), and most importantly for guards, controls how far they will move from their station.

In my new game the boss droid in the mines won't go any further than the middle of the two tunnels going left and right (luckily it paused long enough for me to snatch the amulet). In the game I uploaded, it will chase me around the 90º turn and a bit more.

So the possibility of kiting treasure is also somewhat predetermined on map generation.

What I'm trying now is to disrupt their schedules... factor in how long they will pause after losing my trail, I try to group multiple stacks into a cluster, leaving me a much longer time period to fetch items after they are gone. I'm not always successful though.

Originally Posted by impy

Only if it is all nice and clear then go underground, 'cause you know it is safe to come back. Once done underground, come back up and wait by the entrance until the road is clear, it may take again 5,10,20..sec. If some enemy comes down the hill, there is a bit wider area at where the droids are positioned, just run around enemy there.

That gap looks really really narrow... bears may be doable, but if it's a barbarian stack I'll be out of luck.

In my new game I got lucky - I can access the mines from both ways, due to the stack type. On the top of the mountain it's a stack of druid and royal thorn, both very slow moving. I can dodge them both easily, and I found some cyclops there. The bear near the landing is a bit harder to dodge - I have to make sure the way is clear (2 bears and 1 barbarian above), as I cannot stop or the bear will catch me.

Originally Posted by impy

1) glory. i am not saying it is a bad skill, but it is about the runes. From your "mage power" point of view what is better - having 250 leadership or higher level of magic? definitely the latter

In my new game I've obtained level 2 destruction and alteration, and 1 order. I've spent no other skill points other than defense 1. I think it's about time to get glory 1, in order to have more repair droids...

Originally Posted by impy

3) casting pet dragon wall. don't do that. It stops pet dragon for 2 turns. Casting cheap dragon kick or mana acc. is better

Early on the wall allows me to win some fights... but on Bolo enemies can knock a level 1 wall down in one hit. So yeah, I agree it's not worth it. I had to use it because my last game's army selection is bad, it's wall or lose units.

Originally Posted by impy

4) you say - "i was wrong not getting a level of might skills". I hope you mean att/def equipment (eventhough as a mage you should prefer mana/int equipment) not spending runes on might skills. DO NOT. From might tree only invest in pet dragon skills, and only when you're happy with the magic tree first.

Yes, I meant getting some att/def skill. And I did put a point into +1 def. In all my non-warrior games I never invested much into pet dragon skills... 0_o

[Sylvine]

Originally Posted by kcwong

Correct me if I'm wrong: the enemies have several patrol schemes, randomly chosen when generating the map. This patrol scheme controls where they will go (unless you are nearby), and most importantly for guards, controls how far they will move from their station.

In my new game the boss droid in the mines won't go any further than the middle of the two tunnels going left and right (luckily it paused long enough for me to snatch the amulet). In the game I uploaded, it will chase me around the 90º turn and a bit more.

While they do have pre-generated patrol routes, it is, form my (limited) experience possible to pretty much always kite them almost indefinitely except for a few special groups - mostly the ones guarding the Navigation Chart locations. The Droid boss, for example, will pretty much always follow You only to the intersection, but can, with some movement on Your part, be lured to follow You further, too.

For kiting advice: What I do is save manually before a kiting spree, then just use the three quicksave slots to go around and snatch treasure. In almost every part of the maps, there is enough room to go lure an enemy to and do a little triangular maneuver to get behind it - it requires very little space, too. Only enemies that give much trouble at kiting are the very fast ones - horsemen, beholders, wolves, bears, dragonfly bosses and so on - it's a bit more difficult with those. If I ever manage to maneuver myself into a corner and have no good way to get out of it with my quicksaves, I still have the save file from the start.

And regarding kiting for navigation charts: I didn't even know about any pause/quicksave/quickload tricks. I can kite away some enemies from charts by going towards them, then turning in a way that will make the character almost touch them with her side. They usually follow her then, some just a little bit, some for longer. Those that follow just for a small bit and stop - for those, save once they have stopped, and try the whole thing again. Sometimes, it works. Sure, it takes time, and doesn't work on every enemy, but it can be done.

And knowing it can be done might just as well let You use any tricks You know to make it less tedious (I know I hate grinding for guardian angel and would gladly use any trick to make it even faster - if I can complete it in a few weak battles with 4xatchmage 1xtank with no challange at all, I don't see anything wrong with sparing myself the tedious, boring grind. But I digress...)

Though, to tell the truth, I try not to do it, anyways. It is obvious that kiting normal enemies and snatching away all the goodies of a map before battling is an integral part of the game and intended, too. Those hard-to-kite enemies guarding charts, however, are obviously NOT meant to be kited, otherwise they, well, wouldn't be so hard to kite ;P Still, on my current warrior playthrough, I actually managed to unlock verona, montera, umkas and sheterra without kiting "guardians" at all. There are a few "free" navigational charts availble in Montera, for example. But getting there can be a pain, I'll admit. Especially for a mage, since he's very dependant on good spells availble (then again, if he manages to find just one of them, repair droids let him do pretty much any fight, so...)

Anyways, hope this helps.

~Sylv

[impy]

You invested 1 point in defence? why? benefits are negligible, and you can easily buy +1def eq. for few coins. There will come a moment when you will eagerly await enough runes to have chaos/distorsion magic at level 3 and they are costly, and then you will remember how you "gave up" runes easily for +1def.

Regarding druids & druid combo. It is sad that many people come on this forum looking for advice with higher difficulties, like you, and they get recommended something which has been discovered as uber-powerful. yes repair droid repair ability is every 3 turn and is brutally powerful. I personally find it sooo powerful that i do not use it, it ruins the game and takes away some of the challenge.
Choice is yours..

p.s. regarding luring enemies from their predescripted path vs. waiting for them to go. The paths on bolo are mostly very narrow so luring enemies doesn't help. That's why i suggested to wait

[kcwong]

No skill taken on Might tree; 1 point each to Neatness on Mind tree.

I don't have any more assassins and archmage. One more necromancer and two more cyclops are available.

I opened up Rusty, but other than snatching a EGD I can't do anything there.

Debir is cleared; Bolo has the droid hero, one big wandering stack and the map guard. Scarlet Winds has one ship hero left (the one using Evil book), the recruiter, the map guard (kited), and one huge stack guarding a banner.

I just got EGD, will have to see what it can do for me.

Among assassin, necromancer and archmage, which one would you choose?

I am thinking to stick with archmage for arcane shield, now that I have more tough stacks (was using 28 repair droids). I can't get rid of the inquisitors at this stage - I'm completely dependent on rage to get more mana. I'm already equipping all affordable mana increasing items I can find. There are more intelligence items I can get though.

[Razorflame]

that ons is easy kcwong
archmage for the arcane shield(use it on your egd and let it them the shit)

or if your rather aggresive

you can pick the necromancer
and use it to revive dead stack or make one unit not use his abilities

which both can be very handy

[kcwong]

Yeah I went with the archmage. Killed the evil book hero in Scarlet Winds, and Bolo is clear except the droid hero and the quests. Managed to kill some huge but low level stacks on Rusty by abusing the landscape and fear 2.

Now all enemies on Rusty are out of my abilities... I guess I'll return to Scarlet and try again.

Level 12 now, and I decided to go Chaos 3 first, High Magic for now is quite useless because my mana pool is so tiny (43), and Destruction 2 is not as effective.

Also I ran out of paladins... 11/13. If I can't get the map from Bolo I'll be in trouble...

Edit: Cleared Scarlet Winds... but then I have run out of easy targets. My next one would be the map guard on Bolo, but this is going to be a close one...

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by kcwong

Yeah I went with the archmage. Killed the evil book hero in Scarlet Winds, and Bolo is clear except the droid hero and the quests. Managed to kill some huge but low level stacks on Rusty by abusing the landscape and fear 2.

Now all enemies on Rusty are out of my abilities... I guess I'll return to Scarlet and try again.

Level 12 now, and I decided to go Chaos 3 first, High Magic for now is quite useless because my mana pool is so tiny (43), and Destruction 2 is not as effective.

Also I ran out of paladins... 11/13. If I can't get the map from Bolo I'll be in trouble...

Edit: Cleared Scarlet Winds... but then I have run out of easy targets. My next one would be the map guard on Bolo, but this is going to be a close one...

You should be able to take a lot of battle's on Rusty with that emerald dragon and archmages. What spells do you have? Arcane shield + green dragon + heal, for instance, will lock down just about any melee units you'll likely be facing. Throw in stone skin and/or mana spring to help further.

[kcwong]

But they will go for my tiny stack of archmages... ranged and fast moving enemies like berserker love to do that, since they know they will do very small damage on a buffed EGD.

My current army forms a meat shield - I put inquisitors and archmages on one side, and then EGD, paladins and cyclops block them off from harm.

Maybe I can try a single EGD with stoneskin/mana spring/healing...

Edit: Got Bolo map.

[Minecontrol]

Originally Posted by impy

p.s. regarding luring enemies from their predescripted path vs. waiting for them to go. The paths on bolo are mostly very narrow so luring enemies doesn't help. That's why i suggested to wait

I find that it helps to look completely vertically down on your character as you are luring (usually) and then stepping around them. When you make it past one, save.

The only map guardian i ever tried (or succeeded) at kiting was the one on Scarlet near the lake - it was a bandit, very poor mobility.

Never even bothered to learn dragon wall myself, and left glory at level 1 (that one is a tempter, to get you to part with extremely valuable runes for an early game advantage - generally it is not worth it). The might skills i would go for first are the rage ones, i never used Chaos Magic once, some like it a lot but Distortion does me fine.

Among assassin, necromancer and archmage, which one would you choose?

Archmage, you want to send up one 'tank' monster towards the enemy and encourage them to swarm around him, if that tank already is high level then a stoneskin and a magic shield around him (plus use of heal - consider priests) can win you games marked lethal or invincible.... As Zechnophobe says (just saw).

But they will go for my tiny stack of archmages... ranged and fast moving enemies like berserker love to do that, since they know they will do very small damage on a buffed EGD.

Never used it myself, but there is a spell called 'Target', if you use it take down the low def and fast barbs/berserks first before it runs out.

Now all enemies on Rusty are out of my abilities... I guess I'll return to Scarlet and try again.

I remember that feeling . The thing about this game is desperation will make you take one of those on eventually, and you will win and realise it wasn't that hard all along.