Something for true warriors..

[ckdamascus]

Actually, as I finished writing it, I remembered your distortion level 1 limitation and how turn back time only works on level 1-3 at level 1.

That alone is a huge reason to go with royal snakes. I was also just curious if you had to do hit and run since I actually find soft, but hard hitting no-retaliation units harder to use effectively (hit and run doesn't seem as efficient at times) than stronger tanks.

Yeah, I think I spent too much time thinking about this game too. Haha.

[hotfix666]

Originally Posted by impy

The introduction of runemage, which, without any saved runes, is more of overpowered level 4 unit rather than 5, got me thinking. With how many unused runes is one actually capable of finishing the game? This question can be transferred into - what is the lowest number of skills (=skill points) one must invest into in order to finish the game?

And the new challenge was born..
Conditions:
1) Impossible difficulty
2) No loss
3) No kiting
4) No level 5 units apart from runemage
5) No pet dragon digging - in order not to abusively raise number of gained runes
6) Finish the game with highest number of unused runes

7) Dont use save... only save when you shall sleep....

[impy]

how about :

- no sex until you finish the challenge?

then we would see the outburst of original strategies

[onepiece]

Play the game with your eyes closed and with auto battle ON!! (now that would be scary, not knowing what the **** is the AI doing with your troops)

[impy]

Travel update.
level 56. Unused runes:731. Still going with Linguistics 1, Distorsion 1, Scouting 1.

My goal to get to k-tahu with only distorsion 1 and without boosting wanderer scrolls (and obviously keeping all the conditions of the challenge in mind) has been completed.
I just finished off all the forgotten wandering stacks everywhere, done all the artifacts upgrading, killed dragons in Ultrax and Montero and guardians before k-tahu. Mind you, the fight with the first guardian was absolutely mental - see screenshot. I tried it with my standard setup many times with no success. This fight was difficult due to
- hayterans & gorguls initiative 7 & 8 meaning they get the first turn every turn.
- stack of 892 hayterans with leadership 133000+ is probably the biggest enemy stack i ever seen. Their critical attack or laying egg for 440+ hayterans is a nightmare
- size of the battlefield does not allow for hiding my units behind meatshields and prepare for incoming enemy. Also, hayterans can reach almost the whole battlefield
- difficult resurrection towards the end. Due to size of the battlefield it is difficult to keep last enemy unit at bay since many rounds of resurrections are needed whilst i have limited resources.
- summoning spell of enemy hero.
Just so you know how i tried it.
-reduce enemy initiative to 5, so runemages go before enemy forces and create meatshield. Also needed for using pet dragon first and repositiong of the army.Voodoo doll + mask of hate do the job. So royal griffins + runemages summon.
- reduce enemy attack. Cloak of shadows is superb armor for that. Fighting endgame heroes at night means usually 10+ reduction in enemy units attack
- reduce enemy big stacks immediately. 2 x lightning ball cast in round 1 with shocking.
- avoid gorguls 2 units attack. first round royal griffins move to the side, runemages move backwards, snakes forward.
- stick the royal snakes in front of enemy forces immediately so they soak up a lot of damage. time back at the end of second round, and so on.
It all looks lovely, doesn't it? Did it work? No..Difficulty was, that i had to keep the last enemy stack at bay and alive for 10+ turns in order to do those weak paladin phantoms + resurrections ( using also scrolls from backpack).
I also tried high phys. resistant + high defence combo - paladins + knights only, while casting quietly 2 x mystic eggs at the back in first round. paladins held up with maxed defence of 100+, but knights were dropping quickly especially due to critical attacks. Single paladins army did not work either. Hm...The only unit which could successfuly avoid hayterans critical attacks were ancient vampires. So i grabbed single stack of ancient vampires, stayed for few rounds in the middle of battlefied (out of reach of gorguls) so hayterans can use up their turn in unsuccessful beak attacks while i was casting lightning balls all the time. Eventually i hid in the corner and took them down as a bat.
Now if anyone wants to finish off this challenge with only k-tahu & baal fights left, i attached the save game, i never liked boss fights. (actually there are Scrounger and level5 wizard's tower left as well, too tough with my conditions and no wanderer scrolls). Save game also proves the pet dragon was not used for digging and wanderer scrolls were not abused.

Axelle mentioned in one of the Armored Princess threads the lowest level challenge - sounds interesting..

[ckdamascus]

Dude, you rock. You really push the game to the limits, and with it, I can see/spot new strategies that I never thought of to employ in my games, sans restrictions.

Yeah, I really don't think it is possible for you to beat scounger as it stands, but it is fantastically amazing how far you got.

In a weird way, you could say I try to specialize for very fast boss fights since my very first boss fight traumatized me to no end. Or at least I hope to build armies that can do both normal combat and boss fights fairly easily.

[onepiece]

I salute you impy!! Now that's what they call enthusiasm. If you beat the game like that, we'll need to do a party for you.

P.S: @ ckdamascus; what boss battle was your first that it traumatize you?

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by onepiece

I salute you impy!! Now that's what they call enthusiasm. If you beat the game like that, we'll need to do a party for you.

P.S: @ ckdamascus; what boss battle was your first that it traumatize you?

I never played King's Bounty: The Legend so I had no idea what to expect when I saw a boss.

Driller! I went through most of the game without losing anything, using "summons to soak counter attacks", etc.

Then, boom. Infinite counter attacks, no way to debuff the boss, no way to call the pet dragon, AoE damage. Mega losses. What the?!?!

[onepiece]

@Ckdamascus; yeahhh The Driller. I remember reading to avoid stepping on the last row and guess what? I did it and 3 units were out half-way through the battle.
...
...
Re-Load please!

Some bosses on AP got some very strong abilities very thankfully they are easy to avoid ...once you experiment them XD