Undead Warrior no losses?

[Urbz]

Originally Posted by Kathos

I've often thought about trying an undead hero in KBTL but I just never got around to it, and I was really hoping to try it in AP perhaps. Maybe not right away with no losses but we'll see as I only like to play games on the hardest difficulty =)
However regarding your post, are you saying that life draining units (cursed ghosts, ancient vampires) can create new units above your leadership? I always thought they would just heal back up to however many you came into the battle with, like in the HOMM games (minus the rigged ghosts in HOMM2, peasant feast!)

I tried this on KBTL although I think i played a mage ( on either hard or impossible, not sure ) and although it wasnt "no-losses"I actually almost finished the game, was at the big orc just before the final battle, I should really try to finish it sometime although i might've uninstalled the game apparently.
But yeah playing with undead is awesome !, indeed mainly the ( cursed ) ghosts and vampires is sweet but dont forget units like the black knights, necromancers and skeleton archers ( esp with dragon arrow ) they're also are pretty awesome and really under-rated, and even zombies could be amore usefull now with the "Pass" skill.
Also if there's cemetaries around be sure to kite enemies into it, for sweet bonusses.
There were not many places to get the units though, and even less so in this game ( at least at the start ) although diplomacy and some luck with with undead spawns will help alot. So you might have to "cheat" and use the living till you can get a decent army, i doubt no losses is doable but meh who cares really, fun counts and using undead is quite fun imo!

[Kathos]

Don't get me started on those skel archers, that black arrow is strong! They were always my first choice in any fight to kill or at least dwindle down before worrying about the less threatening vampires/ghosts.
But yea thats one of the main reasons I could never find the motivationg to go through with an undead hero. The bigger skills were so deep in the talent tree, and it took a while to get into the cemetery to really get some of the units. At best all there really was to recruit was some zombies skeletons and ghosts. I found Vampires and Necromancers to be quite a rare find. And I always thought it would be cheating a little to pick up inquisitors just becaus of tolerance =p
If anybody has some advice on starting an undead hard/impossible of any class (preferably paladin, always been my fav of the 3) it would be much appreciated, seems like it could be an even bigger challenge than the normal no-loss with whatever units you can scrape up.

[DGDobrev]

As for the outgrowing the leadership, I remember having this problem once in KBTL. It may have been fixed in KBAP. We'll have to try it out.

[Zechnophobe]

Well, you can field an army of self healing undead if you use ghosts of both kinds, and vampires of both kinds. Sacrificing vampires before you attack with them, or ghosts afterward works fairly well. Your fifth stack can be basically anything that goes well, like Demonologists or maybe bone dragons if you want to stay in theme.

The problem, though, always comes down to winning without casualties when you face plants and machines. If you can't suck their blood, you can't ressurrect, and that pretty much ends your spree.

[Urbz]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

As for the outgrowing the leadership, I remember having this problem once in KBTL. It may have been fixed in KBAP. We'll have to try it out.

I'm not sure if this is a bug/ will be fixed. It's just a feature from a really powerfull unit, although i agree an annoying one, you need to waste alot of rage/mana to keep the ghosts "in order"

@ Zechnophobe: truth about no life-drainable target

[Infiltrator]

Agree it would suck (or not, literally) to be up against targets you can't suck the life out of.

Edit: Has anyone considered the use of the spell I mentioned earlier? The one that damages living to heal undead?

[DGDobrev]

Originally Posted by Infiltrator

Agree it would suck (or not, literally) to be up against targets you can't suck the life out of.

Edit: Has anyone considered the use of the spell I mentioned earlier? The one that damages living to heal undead?

I have confirmed that anything this spell heals/resurrects is permanent. So it can be used to recover dead undead units, which is pretty nice.

Unconfirmed data:
However, the recovery portion seems to be based on the health of the enemy stack. So if you lose a lot of units in one stack, make sure you get a decent size killed troop to resurrect them.
On the other hand, the spell description is somewhat misleading. It recovers 10-30% of the starting stack. But which starting stack would that be? Enemy or own? I'm inclined to think that it may be your own, but I'm not at all certain.

I have also confirmed that Ghosts (both types) do steal more souls than their max leadership and can outgrow it and go out of control. Usually the AI starts to ignore them (as they are hostile towards you as well) and they will eat more and more. In my test battle, I had 272 Cursed ghosts that went to 639 by the end of the battle simply because of all than ignoring. When there were no enemy units (the ghosts killed them all) the battle continues till you manage to get that stack back into your control.

So not at all like KBTL.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

I have confirmed that anything this spell heals/resurrects is permanent. So it can be used to recover dead undead units, which is pretty nice.

Unconfirmed data:
However, the recovery portion seems to be based on the health of the enemy stack. So if you lose a lot of units in one stack, make sure you get a decent size killed troop to resurrect them.
On the other hand, the spell description is somewhat misleading. It recovers 10-30% of the starting stack. But which starting stack would that be? Enemy or own? I'm inclined to think that it may be your own, but I'm not at all certain.

I have also confirmed that Ghosts (both types) do steal more souls than their max leadership and can outgrow it and go out of control. Usually the AI starts to ignore them (as they are hostile towards you as well) and they will eat more and more. In my test battle, I had 272 Cursed ghosts that went to 639 by the end of the battle simply because of all than ignoring. When there were no enemy units (the ghosts killed them all) the battle continues till you manage to get that stack back into your control.

So not at all like KBTL.

I think that is like KBTL actually. I used Ghosts in a similar fashion, and had similar problems. However, I do recall two tiers of 'out of control'. The first being when they went slightly over their leadership, in which case they would attack and move randomly, but wouldn't attack your guys. The second when they got a 'lot' over your leadership, in which case they would be considered a foe until you knocked them back in line.

Does AP skip straight to the second effect then?

[DGDobrev]

Yeah. It simply depends which is closer. However, chancer are like 80/20 to attack a remaining enemy stack if there is one in range, otherwise, it will go for your own stack.

This is why if I decide to try an undead army, I should make it:

Black Knights
Ancient Vampires
Vampires
Necromancers
Demonologists

and Bone dragons + skeleton archers in reserve. The ghosts are great, but they are simply too damn unreliable. If they outgrow your leadership twice, it will take at least 2 rounds of suffering some losses to drop them down to their normal stack size.

I for one, would love if there was something in the game to regulate that condition - whether to drain souls or stay at max leadership. But there isn't one and I'll have to find other options, and of course, adapt my tactics

[Elwin]

Hmm about undead army new zombie ability to pass his move to someone else is also nice so i would considered them as well