My attempt at getting the highest score

[McSwan]

It's pretty sad, but I'm killing them with the 1 free green dragon from Rusty. Just took down the bridge guardian to Montaro with him and level 3 order magic (level 10). Took about 60 rounds. I like the red because the burning it does kills them faster. Don't have Chaos magic yet, so only 110 damage with fire arrow. Also, some battles are impossible with 1 green dragon, and possible with the red dragon.

Had a funny battle with a bees nest taking down 170 bears, doing about 270 damage a turn. Just flew back and forth, the bears stuck in a cycle. They deserved it for stealing honey all the time.

One of the things I'd like to try it getting 4 inquisitors and 1 dragon, getting the inq to rage up, and just before the end using resurrection + there res ability to bring them all back to life. You could do it easily if you just let them die, but then you wouldn't have a zero loss game. Apparently resurrection is in dersu for me.

[loreangelicus]

McSwan/DGDobrev, I just made an additional discovery.While attempting to get better results and reloading a battle, Elenhel finally completed his first wanderer scroll for me. On my first try he gave me Flaming Eyes. When I tried a different battle sequence he gave me Magic Flow. Nice... so the reload tactic also changes what wanderer scroll Elenhel makes.

I know Elenhel didn't give you AKs on your previous run DGDobrev, but I'll check if I could make him cough up an AK.

EDIT: It only took me 5 tries to get Elenhel to produce Ancient Knowledge instead; see attached screenshot. I dug up nothing useful in the battle though, just gold. And I had to give up a battle wherein I dug up a Call Colossus and Elenhel gave me a Titan Sword, but I'm at the point in my game where these two scrolls are just more gold to me.

But AK from Elenhel! Since Elenhel is guaranteed to give you a wanderer scroll every 30 battles, and there are only 11 wanderer scroll types... I think its time to do up to 11 battle tries every time Elenhel is about to write another scroll.

[McSwan]

Hmm, every scroll from him might have to be an ancient knowledge then, no matter how much I want a call colossus. Can you do it off the first scroll he gives you ?

[McSwan]

Might be worth getting items that are very easy to suppress and use that for the 30th battle.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by McSwan

Hmm, every scroll from him might have to be an ancient knowledge then, no matter how much I want a call colossus. Can you do it off the first scroll he gives you ?

You mean the wanderer scroll he gives you when you initially enlist him? I think that one is fixed, always Fortune's Smile for me. And there is no way to change that since there is no tied up battle to it.

But no biggie, all others after that could be AKs.

[McSwan]

Been doing the chest trick a lot more and have picked up an extra 5 "mad rage" wanderer scrolls, which is a good reflection on what I think about my mood on my random wanderer scrolls.

Ended up buying a "deaths call" for 18K, which will give me black knights later on.

[MaroonMaurader]

I deliberately played through the same battle 3 times in 3 different ways when I first was about to get a scroll from Elenhel to see if it was randomized, and drew Magical Flow all three times... so I assumed it wasn't random. Now it looks like I was just very unlucky (like... 1/121 unlucky).

[McSwan]

OK, I'm gonna stop doing the chest trick now that I've hit Dersu, the only advantage is getting extra Ak scrolls, and they're extremely rare, and far too painful to try and maximize via chests.

I finally got a "call colossus" after doing Verona, in Bolo, so I finally got 3 red dragons.

My new strat is 4, 1 unit inquisitors, and 3 red dragons. The inquisitors pump rage at the start, then die giving me lots of mana (and some rage) from transmute - so cast big spells at the start and you'll get your mana back. I usually pump out mystic eggs everywhere, and usually get 1~4 extra dragon stacks and the odd swamp snake or royal griffins, who I stone skin and send to there death to get me more rage. It's important not to let anything die over your inquisitors bodies. I res 1 inquisitor at the end of the battle and then he/they chain res the rest of them, and also they rage me up for the next battle, so I burn through about 200 rage a battle instead of about 50.

Use slow over fear, cause fear will make them kill your mystic egg.

Also, if you loose a real dragon, heal the dragon stack to full and 1 inquisitor can res the dragon with 7 hitpoints.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by McSwan

OK, I'm gonna stop doing the chest trick now that I've hit Dersu, the only advantage is getting extra Ak scrolls, and they're extremely rare, and far too painful to try and maximize via chests.

I finally got a "call colossus" after doing Verona, in Bolo, so I finally got 3 red dragons.

My new strat is 4, 1 unit inquisitors, and 3 red dragons. The inquisitors pump rage at the start, then die giving me lots of mana (and some rage) from transmute - so cast big spells at the start and you'll get your mana back. I usually pump out mystic eggs everywhere, and usually get 1~4 extra dragon stacks and the odd swamp snake or royal griffins, who I stone skin and send to there death to get me more rage. It's important not to let anything die over your inquisitors bodies. I res 1 inquisitor at the end of the battle and then he/they chain res the rest of them, and also they rage me up for the next battle, so I burn through about 200 rage a battle instead of about 50.

Use slow over fear, cause fear will make them kill your mystic egg.

Also, if you loose a real dragon, heal the dragon stack to full and 1 inquisitor can res the dragon with 7 hitpoints.

Hi McSwan, how's your game going? I myself stopped trying to go for wanderer scrolls in general during reloads; I content myself to runes and crystals. Lately, I reload only up to twice per fight, and take the results even if its all gold or regular spell scrolls.

Elenhel is fully manipulated though. 3 out of 3 so far have been AK scrolls, but it's not easy! First scroll took me 5 tries, the second 6 tries and the 3rd roughly 11-12 tries! Given that there are 11 wanderer scroll types, one has a 50-50 chance of getting the AK scroll by the 5th-6th try. I was really getting frustrated on the 3rd AK scroll, but I thought I would be swimming in AKs so I used 2 AK scrolls in Montero-Verona so I had no choice but to get an AK. You could still get AKs every time from Elenhel, but much patience is necessary.

I dug up 2 AKs and got 1 AK from a duplicate navi map; these are my "backup" AKs. So with 3 AKs from Elenhel and using 2 already, I currently have 4. I still have 3 AKs in stores, but they are in Umkas (1) and Tekron (2), which I would be passing only after I take on Dersu-Uzala-Elon-Nameless-Reha (the path unicornxp used since that takes me back to Montero to get more droids and spend for runes); I might need to leave some heroes alive and kill them on the return if I run short on AKs.

For those interested, here are the XP gains one gets from using AKs on Montero-Verona heroes/boss; note that I have Learning level 3, 2 Hand of Necropolis, Shark's Tooth and Memoirs of the Marshal on as well for these battles:

Hagni - 11,004
Thomas Torkve - 8,498 (note: not always in Montero, so kill Xerxes instead)
Crazy Miner - 8,661
Iron Fist - 9,521
Fangol - 15,649

Driller - 20,701
Necromancer Mesmer - 7,215
Arnold Heningem - 18,771
Marquis of Krause - 8,902
Demenion - 24,891

[pavned]

That Arnold Heningem is so good to get XP, too bad I didn't knew that before killing him. Would have save him for later and use an AK on him!

Not sure about the numbers but I think I got more then 10k XP from him without AK on (but Shark, Memoirs, 1 hand and level 2 learning). He kept summoning Demon Portal and getting Demons which, themselves, kept summoning demons. I think at one point there was 13-14 ennemy stacks on the field! Counting that I was facing him with only my stack of 3 Red Dragons, it was a great XP generating battle.