What is worth screening for with scanner?

[Boozie]

I am about to start my first game and decided to go with Mage. I was wondering what people can suggest I screen for with the scanner before I pick my game? Basically anything you can suggest i.e. make sure you get trap on the first to second island so you can get the medals or make sure you get any spell X at all or by X island. Also any artifacts and/or units worth making sure are in my game and/or access by X time.

I don’t really know about “set” artifacts but would it be worth restarting until the full set of something (is there a mage one?) is available?

[Elwin]

the ones who are giving you runes after x number of figfhts like ancient amulet. Also Dress of the magess ( can be spawned as eearlier level item dont remeber name)

[Zechnophobe]

on your FIRST game? You are going to use the scanner? Ech... I don't know what to suggest because I can't honestly understand your motivation.

Are you just trying to find really good things early to make the game easier? (You could just lower the difficulty).
Are you trying to make sure you don't get screwed out of some quest required item? (Only Necro Call scroll is required in Armored Princess and random, and that is pretty common).

If you want to know some of the best items in the game, see if you can get the entire Scale set, or get a very early Shield of Rekross. That'll set you up nicely.

[Boozie]

I more or less just don't want to be totally screwed. I know on normal it's possible to make any game work, I just don't want to overcome pointless challenges because X spell wasn't around in the game.

This will most likely be my only playthrough. Not to knock the game, I just have a ridiculous backlog of games I've bought on steam sales (this and TL, which I beat, were one of them) that I'd like to make headway on.

So far, I ran with my original game, no trap on the first three islands or at least not yet unlocked. Shouldn't be much of an issue.

On another note, after coming back to the first island with 5x the leadership is it even worth fighting the "weak" stacks? I get crap xp and feel like I should just leave them there for sacrifice boosting or when I get artifacts that need 50battles.

[Elwin]

But you can get grand strategy medal with that easily ..

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by Boozie

I more or less just don't want to be totally screwed. I know on normal it's possible to make any game work, I just don't want to overcome pointless challenges because X spell wasn't around in the game.

This will most likely be my only playthrough. Not to knock the game, I just have a ridiculous backlog of games I've bought on steam sales (this and TL, which I beat, were one of them) that I'd like to make headway on.

So far, I ran with my original game, no trap on the first three islands or at least not yet unlocked. Shouldn't be much of an issue.

On another note, after coming back to the first island with 5x the leadership is it even worth fighting the "weak" stacks? I get crap xp and feel like I should just leave them there for sacrifice boosting or when I get artifacts that need 50battles.

They provide Dragon Experience nicely. Dragon always gets full experience on the first ability he uses per combat.

As for screening, if you are just worried about being screwed. Hmm. Make sure there are Robbers and Pirates (at least 50) between Debir and Rusty. very rarely, there won't be ANY pirates in the game, and it prevents the completion of an important quest on Rusty Anchor.

Other than that, I got nothing. There just aren't that many ways to get screwed.

[Saridu]

I usually quick save before speaking to the Captian for training and check the castle and the mages tower, if I find a relative 50 fight item (after 50 fights they give 10 runes of a colour) I take the game. The warrior and mage items are great, the paladin not so much (used to be great in TL grumble, grumble)

To answer the op question about early island fights yes! If you do find one of these items they give their runes after 50 battles, suspiciously the same number of no loss fights you need to win for grand strategy so after a island grand tour of looting and pillaging you can easily do the first two maybe three islands, that puts you very close to 50 fights, just a couple on Rusty and you should be rocking.

The only time I would really care about save scanning (it's too time consuming for my taste) is if I found a good set early on and wanted to see if I could complete it or if I found a race specific item , like the -20% leadership for red dragons, you kind of need a good and early supply of RDs :p Or maybe if I was going for the trap medal and wanted to make sure there were Archmages available in the first few islands.

But as Zechnophobe was saying it's kinda hard to get completely screwed, obviously the harder difficulty you play the more careful you would have to be with your choices.

[jake21]

The only item I've ever looked for is trap spell. Everything else I take as is...

Sometimes after I've explored all the island I will look for time return spell (once I was very disappointed and learned it had not loaded at all) but i managed to win.

Side question is time return the only spell to resurrect lost demons ?

[Sir Whiskers]

Originally Posted by jake21

Side question is time return the only spell to resurrect lost demons ?

I'm reasonably certain that Resurrection works on demons. However, Healing does not, which is really inconvenient.