tips on paladin on impossible/no casualties/7 days/level 30

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by iregev

very intresting about leadership. I ususally start taking them much earlier at about ~500, I think this is what Calinda recommended but not sure. Tips vary here

It depends on the class, and the target final leadership. How I evaluated it is in terms of the possible final leadership of a paladin at level 30, which I estimated at 23,000.

Each attack and defense gain affects damage by roughly 3%, which is 690 leadership worth if you take 23,000 as your base. Intellect vs leadership is again a bit subjective, depending on your spell use.

But you are right, tips vary here since the evaluation of the value of leadership is not an exact science. Just take these suggestions with a grain of salt.

[Zhuangzi]

Originally Posted by loreangelicus

Day 3 14:48 level 13 to Darion (no-army-suicide-trick)
Day 4 05:33 level 17 to Islands of Freedom (1.5 hours to spare)

That's approx. 14.5 hours of Kordar time there. The time management done here is really not that complicated; you simply do Ardan Peaks/Taron Mines/Underground Sea first, then if you still have spare time, try and clear out as much as you can in the easier areas.

Note that it is key here to advance the dwarven peace pact main quest, so that on your return trip to Islands of Freedom you have an extra 1,500(?) leadership for advancing the main quest, making the rest of the enemies in the said area easier.

Btw, I even had time here to pre-stock King Mark's castle and the temple with a working army since I would be returning from Islands of Freedom without an army.

Day 4 12:40 level 18 to Darion (no-army-suicide-trick)
Day 4 23:58 level 20 to Ellinia (7 hours to spare)

More Kordar time here, approx. 11 hours. As could be seen from the time to spare, I have cleared every nook and cranny of Kordar by this time (except the double battles, which is better done with a higher leadership for more XP). Also did Magic Range/Rezo/Haunted Castle/Castle Karmag here. I even completed Issarah's Whip and killed off two hard to access demon enemies (those that require moving platforms to reach) since I had tons of time to spare, and no more (manageable) enemies to kill.

The key idea to the enemy management (and resulting time management) is that if you are going back to a continent multiple times, then you can go ahead and split your time for that area. Darion and Islands of Freedom time were similarly split, although I wasn't able to split Ellinia, which is why I believe a Day 6 game while still killing everything and getting everything is doable.

Fantastic work. Next question, are you the type to pause the game alot, like after finishing a battle? I hear you about how you clear out each area, but I guess you must max out mana at the end of each battle so you can head straight to the next fight? I read hereabouts that you have a different save where you have a look to see what items/units are available etc.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by Zhuangzi

Fantastic work. Next question, are you the type to pause the game alot, like after finishing a battle? I hear you about how you clear out each area, but I guess you must max out mana at the end of each battle so you can head straight to the next fight? I read hereabouts that you have a different save where you have a look to see what items/units are available etc.

For a 6-7 day game the space bar is not your friend, it is your boss. Pausing is not optional, it should be automatic to the point of being second nature.

Correct, regenerating mana outside of a battle is not an option. That is why Meditation was a useless skill for me. Optimal and cost effective spells are also given more weight as you can't just throw spells around and spend more rounds just bringing your mana back up to max (same with rage, btw). Phantom is your best friend here as it is basically a free spell with Emerald Green Dragons that damages enemies and draws enemies away from your troops.

Yes, I do an initial scouting of a new area for items/troops/spells/enemies. But the scouting doesn't stop there. Making a lot of saves gives you an option to redo mistakes, and do more scouting from the point you are at currently.

[Dustpower]

loreangelicus,

Could you please also show me the screen shots of your spell book? Thanks,

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by Dustpower

loreangelicus,

Could you please also show me the screen shots of your spell book? Thanks,

Screenshots attached, though I think I should explain this more. I only used a couple of spells, and in fact for the longest time in the game I only had Chaos Magic at level 1 when I grabbed Necro Call and Sacrifice; I upgraded it to level 2 when I got the Emerald Green Dragons since you needed level 2 Sacrifice to add more troops to it.

Dispel 2: Didn't upgrade this to level 3 since I needed it to dispel negative effects on opponents. I used Poison Spit a lot to reduce the last enemy stack to minimum numbers (to give me time to resurrect lost troops and get back my mana/rage), and I dispelled the poisoning damage if it was enough to kill that enemy the next turn.

Healing 3: Used a lot even late in the game to heal the Emerald Green Dragon. Even used it against the undead as a damaging spell for just 1 mana.

Slow 2: used a lot till mid-late game against enemy melee units.

Magic Pole Axe 1: Very useful early in the game as this was my only damaging spell; never found the need to upgrade it when I got Slow and Trap.

Magic Shackles 1: I never actually used this. I just wrote it in the spellbook. Good against demons, so I've heard.

Magic Spring 3: Very useful early to mid game to regenerate mana. Late game Lina's Chargers replaces this.

Trap 3: Useful early to mid game. The damage is great, but I found the lost action points to the enemy and even better boon.

Fit of Energy 1: I never actually used this. I just wrote it in the spellbook. Looks useful though, especially in conjunction with a no-retal or ranged unit that does big damage.

Gift 1: Some light use to be cast on Inquisitors in bringing back the Shamans or the Emerald Green Dragons.

Invisibility 1: I never actually used this. I just wrote it in the spellbook. Useful for single unit/rage drain/chargers trick battles.

Phantom 3: My key spell. Shined late game when used with Emerald Green Dragons as this essentially turns into a free spell since the phantomed dragons give you back your lost mana, if not more.

Teleport 3: I had this at level 1 for the longest time, then upgraded it to level 3 since I had tons of crystals. Quite useful actually to make you troops more mobile.

Ice Snake 3/Fire Rain 3/Lightning 3: I never actually used these. I just wrote it in the spellbook. Late game I had tons of crystals and runes, so I upgraded Chaos Magic to level 3, Destroyer to level 2, and took these 3 spells. But the phantomed Emerald Green Dragons were so effective in dealing damage/getting back mana/drawing enemy fire that I never found a situation wherein a damage spell would be more efficient. I could see damage spells as having more play for a dual-casting mage, but even then if you are doing a 7 day game your mage would be spending a bunch of turns regenerating that mana (regenerating mana outside of battle wastes valuable time). Seek a player who played mage on impossible for advice on damage spells.

Sacrifice 2: Upgraded this to level 2 just for the Emerald Green Dragons. As key a spell as Phantom and Resurrection.

Resurrection 3: You can resurrect even demon units, and this is still the tier 1 key spell for a no-casualties run. Level 3 was needed for my Demons/Demonesses/Shamans.

Necro Call 1: This was mainly written to my spell book for the zombie Noric fight early in the game; it was NECESSARY for that fight though as I had to take him down at level 6 to get a better item reward. Had some uses in the spider boss battle as well, though I had Royal Thorns for that. In hindsight, I should have upgraded this to level 3, but I really thought crystals would be real scarce so I only upgraded spells as needed.

By the end of the game I had tons of crystals left to write down a bunch of other spells, but found it unnecessary since I had all the spells that I needed.

[Arilian]

First of all Congratulations.

Phantomed Emerald Green Dragons are indeed soo good that it is actually bad - the game will be boring casting only this..

Resurrection 3 is a key even if you dont play no causality you dont want a LOT of causality.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by Arilian

First of all Congratulations.

Phantomed Emerald Green Dragons are indeed soo good that it is actually bad - the game will be boring casting only this..

Resurrection 3 is a key even if you dont play no causality you dont want a LOT of causality.

Thanks. It should be noted though that getting used to Phantomed EGDs certainly did not prepare me for the final battle.

Sure, you could do the final battle with a single high-initiative invisible unit/rage drain/chargers, but I wanted to put my foot down and do all battles with 5 units.

Phantom EGDs were next to useless in the final battle, what with the small map, surrounded on all sides by enemies, and the EGD's mana blast ability giving back only around 6-10 mana since the enemies are high defense level 5 units. Thankfully, the Demons went on a killing spree, and even Haas seemed to know how lethal they were, what with him always casting Sheep on them (with me always casting Dispel, up until has ran out of mana, then I continually casted Resurrect on them).

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

The no army-sacrifice thing has me puzzled. If you enter a battle with no units you automatically return to the castle with new units and money. How many times would you do this in Greenwort for example until you actually fight the enemies. Do the enemy stacks disappear if you deliberately retreat back to the castle?

The other thing is I can't be bothered to take 20/30+ turns to finish a battle which is what it sounds like you have to do to exploit the game.

I commend you on your efforts though.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by Kings Bounty Hunter

The no army-sacrifice thing has me puzzled. If you enter a battle with no units you automatically return to the castle with new units and money. How many times would you do this in Greenwort for example until you actually fight the enemies. Do the enemy stacks disappear if you deliberately retreat back to the castle?

The other thing is I can't be bothered to take 20/30+ turns to finish a battle which is what it sounds like you have to do to exploit the game.

I commend you on your efforts though.

The no-army-suicide trick is a time-saving trick, not something you do at the start of the game to supposedly hoard troops and gold (you could do it, but it is not worth the effort). Granted, it is an exploit, and I heard they had removed it in Armored Princess. This is a welcome change for the succeeding game, but for this game it is there and is the only way to achieve the highest possible scores.

Thanks, to each his own I guess. Only tough battles should hit the 20-40 turns range though. Most battles should be in the 5-12 turns range, even for a no casualties/max mana-rage run.

I guess you could call regenerating mana/rage/troops in-battle as an exploit, but I found regenerating mana off-battle and replenishing troops via shops to be even more time-consuming; and you can't even get back rage off-battle.

Blame it on the developers for putting a "final score" factor to this game, as well as showing the final days finished in the record. Being a typical gamer and more than a bit OC, I am "compelled" to try for the highest score possible.

[Zhuangzi]

Originally Posted by loreangelicus

The no-army-suicide trick is a time-saving trick, not something you do at the start of the game to supposedly hoard troops and gold (you could do it, but it is not worth the effort). Granted, it is an exploit, and I heard they had removed it in Armored Princess. This is a welcome change for the succeeding game, but for this game it is there and is the only way to achieve the highest possible scores.

Thanks, to each his own I guess. Only tough battles should hit the 20-40 turns range though. Most battles should be in the 5-12 turns range, even for a no casualties/max mana-rage run.

I guess you could call regenerating mana/rage/troops in-battle as an exploit, but I found regenerating mana off-battle and replenishing troops via shops to be even more time-consuming; and you can't even get back rage off-battle.

Blame it on the developers for putting a "final score" factor to this game, as well as showing the final days finished in the record. Being a typical gamer and more than a bit OC, I am "compelled" to try for the highest score possible.

Yeah, I just wish the score had been calculated differently so that it isn't all about how quickly you finish the game. My style of play doesn't suit that, and I doubt I hit the spacebar more than a dozen times in 250+ hours of play.