Karador and Life Light Spell?

[Helios]

Past that part now. Ancient Vamps are much better than Decaying Zombies. I guess with both kinds of vampires the Black Knights are pretty redundant as tanks--this army doesn't need one with the bats restoring themselves.

[Vulture]

Except against full undead and plant hero armies. I'd bring the Black Knights for Time Back tanking if I had to stick with undeads. The 30% physical resistance and 50 more hitpoints could come in handy if you can't restore yourself :>

Which makes me think of what I hate the most in my games: the Deserted Castle in Verlon Forest. I ******* hate it with all my guts >< Because this early in the game you just don't have the loss preservation techniques you wish you had. So for me as a no-casualty player I have to come back when I'm over the level.

[Helios]

OK, I'll keep some BKs in reserve for those battles. I was starting to get reckless with vampires until I ran into all plants and other undead armies. And yes, I hate the old castle, too. I always have to come back to it later, along with Enemen.

But my least favorite place in the game, by far is the IoF. I don't know why, but it always takes me several RL days to get through there, and is such a grind for me. I don't think I've ever gotten any significantly better equipment there, and don't like most of the units available there either (other than the Shamans). It seems like I should be able to breeze through, but am usually not strong enough to dive right in against the enemies there and end up sailing around grabbing everything that isn't nailed down. I especially hate the pirate ships, which I hate tracking down.

[Vulture]

I love the Islands ^^ Everything is for free ! I go there at lvl 3 and snatch 95% of the goodies and shops. When I return from my shopping (more like shoplifting, eh?) trip from the Islands I just rape Darion in just 1-2 hours tops until I feel strong enough for castle Bogacho (which I wish I could do earlier but playing no loss you just can't rush it too much). I mean I end up with Reaper at 29 or 30 either way but I just HATE playing without Time Back.

But I agree on the pirate ship issue. They're a pain in the ass to play and track down to begin with.

[Helios]

That's a better approach. I don't know why I haven't tried it. It's not like beating the turtle boss is hard and I don't care how many days it takes me to beat the game, either, so I wouldn't mind losing in-game time to get through there easier. And it makes some sense to get that extra "quest" from the orc outside the embassy after the peace treaty is signed anyway (I've never gone back that late into the story missions). I'll probably do your approach from now on.

[Vulture]

All about sharing experiences, huh ? :>

I finished my Warrior game just now.

Lvl 30 and a bit
49 Days
27 Atk
15 Def
13 Int
110 Rage
98 Mana (Although I had 6 roasted rats (they wouldn't give me a 7th in this game :<) Ancient Amulet ftw :>
Zombie Rina as wife throughout the entire game.
26590 Ldr

Final team was:

147 Ancient Vampires (Bats)
332 Vampires
132 Demons
300something Inquisitors (don't remember because I only used them for some bossfights that I feared would become long due to resurrection orgies; used Skellies 95% of the time, half of it with Dragon Arrows)
166 Shamans
using Cloak Of Shadows and Vampire Ring, Well Of Mana Belt, Cloak Of Wizardry, Miner's Helmet (love this thing so much :>) Fought Haas at night (you can imagine the numbers dished out by the Vampires with these items and 3/3 Nighttime Operations and Dark Commander ^^ They had something around 80 Atk)

Had a funny bug when fighting Bagud. After I beat him the dialogue would start all over and I had to fight him again ! Which I tried but it's kinda hard with Skellies out of control due to over-saccing them in the kill before (ONCE in my time as a player I had a situation where the amount gained through sacrifice was exactly the amount of Skellies that I had lost ^^ This time ofc not) and I was out of mana (20 or so left). I reloaded, killed him again and then it worked.

Haas was a big ol' joke this time. As you can see in the screenshot, he only had 1 stack of Blacks and one stack of Emeralds. Reds are predictable as f.uck so that was just a joke, although they were 4 stacks. Mass Dragon Slayer and went for it. Haas sheeped my Shamans twice, then my Demons twice, then pygmied my Inquisitors and sheeped the Shamans again. I dispelled it all and he never bothered casting Armageddon It took me 10 rounds altogether including resurrecting fallen ones because I didn't have to ress any (Ancient)Vampire as they both one-shot-critted themselves to max number ^^

I didn't even use my second Dragon Slayer Sword and instead used Demetrius because I wanted to try it without changing anything. I had a Plan B tho. Use the second sword and bring Knights (I took Iron Fist just for that. I ended with 0/0/0 runes left and some 800k gold ^^) instead of the Inquisitors and try a quick kill without much ressing. But apparently that wasn't needed :>

In the end my Might tree was completely filled out except I only had 2/3 Combat Readiness. I took Tolerance 2/2 in the Mind tree and except of Glory I maxed nothing. Just for requirements. That way my Inquisitors had +1 morale (Baton) and dished out a fine 15k Crit against the Bone Dragons :> I took Tolerance solely for the purpose of bringing Knights and Inquis and not having their morale downed by the Demons. Well, in the end no knights were needed ^^
In the Magic tree I went down until Archmage 3/3 for Shamans and Inquisitors (166 Shamans are huge, man ^^) and took everything else except Destroyer (duh!), except Chaos only 2/3 for Sacrifice and the Mana/max Scrolls talent 2/3. 3/3 Healer really helps reducing your ress times.

I was very lazy with my Spirits. This time I wasn't aiming for perfection with lvl30 on all Spirits (pain in the ass if you ask me since I rely on Time Back in round 2). Reaper hit lvl 30 before the Labyrinth even.
Time Back, 1-5, rest 3, 20 rage
Soul Drain, 40% or 50%, rest 1, 70 rage

Chargers 3/3 at 6 each. Lazy me. But my mana pool was so huge I really didn't feel I would've needed more anyway; and except on huge ldr buffs (promotion, ldr at lvlup) I never went past round 10 anyway.
Icy Thorns at 15 mana, rest 2

Never found Rahha's Shield or a dagger. Didn't care because I planned it as an Undead mainly playthrough to begin with. Gladiator Sword only in the Knight's Tent in the Labyrinth (no 50 battles left ofc). Had an early Banner Of True Faith which I was angry that I couldn't use because of my Undeads ^^
Had Telescopic Sight and Ale Barrel but never used them because The former only applies to the unit's base atk (which with the Skellies is practicall nonexistent) and I never used another archer. I really became a melee player...

Any questions ? :>

[Helios]

Wow, knowing what I know now, that sounds like an ultimate army setup! And all those items and skills in combination are killer! I can only imagine what it would have been like had you gotten an Equilibrium Sword and build it into a Sword of Darkness. (I've only seen that sword twice.)

That's a lot of Mana for a Warrior. When I didn't know any better, I ended with like 53 Mana, including the Roasted Rats. If I'm not mistaken, can't you get 8 RRs including the Dwarf in the belly of the whale?

That sucks with Bagud! The same thing happened to me in Murock last time, both with Bagud and the hero fight against that priest that seems to be in every game. Must be something buggy with the heroes there.

Goading Haas into Sheeping seems to be pretty easy if you have the right army setup. He did something similar to that with his Mana against my Paladin. That is a huge number of Shamans! I don't think I've ever seen that many. It sounds like you did a great job of using your runes if you ended with none! I've always had some glut leftover, even when I went so far as to count how many I'd get via the Scanner and leveling up my character via the cheat console in the Trial to see how many runes he would get. (I totally planned out my current Warrior that way, too. The game doesn't give nearly enough Mind runes to the Warrior and Mage, imo.) My plan has him with something like 30-40 Might runes leftover at lv 30.

It's interesting that you didn't give your Lina quite the workout level-wise. I didn't know until last time through that you get more crits when the Rage meter is higher, so I've been more lax in using spirits to exploit that in my current game.

I hate it when the game gives a great item like the Gladiator Sword that late. It really should drop all of those X victory items before Karador. I hate having to break down the Pain Skull during those tougher late-game battles when you need the Mana. I've had the game (this time!) put the Pain Skull for sale at the Dwarven Necromancer. I read on the forums that Noric can drop it, but that might be bs.

In my current Undead game, I got the True Faith Banner at King Mark's castle to start, and equipped it in Darion, getting the runes out, and sold it after since I didn't want that whole-game morale penalty. That Banner is awesome--it's like a baton + a good shield, and all those runes.

Thanks for the report. It's interesting to see how your spirits and troops ended up. Your Demons and Skellies dominated (heh). I've never seen such a high percentage of kills on a unit, let alone two. Did you get Demons early on? I've seen them at the Dragon Tooth Tavern for sale. Early sacrificing would be awesome to get a stack of them going that soon!

[Vulture]

Well, it doesn't matter when you get them (unless it's as late as Ellinia, Labyrinth or Murock) because you only have to fight 2 battles to be able to go everywhere I want before that. 3 if I want to check Ellinia and The Lands of The Dead but that's not on the table at lvl 4 ofc ^^
1. Robber with the Plugens
2. Turtle
+ Bribe Lucky James
Be in Demonis at lvl 4 and get Demons or whatever the f.uck else you want :>

I don't remember if in this particular game I had them in the Tavern or went to get them. I know that in my current Mage game they were in the Tavern.

About the heroes: sometimes it's really strange. In that game the Skeleton Kemilhu wasn't in the Labyrinth but in Murock Oo. never had that before.

About the Shamans: well, I skilled 3/3 Archmage. 20% less leadership is huge if you have the Runes to spare.

btw I had an Equilibrium sword. Just too late so I couldn't turn it into Darkness. Shame really ^^ But well, Dragon Slayer is better anyway. Boosting all troops, not only the 2 Vamps ^^

The Lina thing was a mistake. As I said in an earlier post somewhere, the Warrior game was an old one from at least 1 year ago. I checked it last week with the Scanner and saw that it's actually awesome but it was too late to level-up Lina all the way to 30.

[Helios]

Level 4! I've got to try that out next time, and will probably have to for all Archers and a Mage. That would solve some of the item issues. It seems to me that Karador always has has something good that takes a lot of battles to unlock. Last game, I got the Pain Skull from him and the promotion from King Mark gave me the Gladiator Sword, hence me rushing Karador before killing anything else in Ellinia.

The skeleton was in Murock? I've never seen that one.

I'm looking forward to my Equilibrium Sword in my current game, which I'll get for getting the peace treaty signed. My Undeads will love shredding the humanoids with it. I'm pretty sure the Land of the Dead is going to be the hardest area for my Undeads, with few battles that include any units for the vamps to restore themselves.

[Vulture]

Gah, I hate Mages... I wasn't able to Sacrifice anything because my innate spellpower is already too great and my Sacrifice kills every stack I have except my Demons (when Archmage-shielded). Which is pointless as I will get Resurrection in Demonis first. Except Royal Snakes but it kills so many that I can't bring them back with Inquis. And Gift is out of reach for the moment.

I totally forgot that in my last games as Warr/Pal I had 1 or 2 int early on and I could sacrifice and Inquisitor-Ress away as much as I wanted.

Now I have to wait with reinforcing my ranks until after I bribed Lucky and got Resurrection. Killing the Robber with the Plugens without a single unit gained...
Stupid Inquisitors should be resurrecting Demons ! Although that is quite antithetical to the logic of the setting but I don't care, I wanna have my vampires maxed for the Turtle !