Defender of the Crown thread

[Zechnophobe]

As a paladin I got enough leadership to pick up red dragons after the first fight, and fought the rest of the battles with no losses... but not the first one.

That one seems to be a bit of a 'luck of the draw' scenario. I can totally imagine a split stack of repair droids and an engineering badge being nice... but the odds of getting that doesn't seem very good.

I wish that your budget for items was separate from your budget for troops.

[loreangelicus]

Hi guys, I haven't played much KBCW since SC2/work/family is keeping me busy right now, but it looks quite nice!

Just thought I'd mention, AFAIK, your initial dialogue determines what the army composition of the first enemy would be: lizardmen, orcs, or demons. So for example if you plan on restarting a game till you get elves for their ents/ancient ents, then don't take on the demons (imps) or the orcs (catapults).

Interestingly enough in the first battle the lizardmen seem to have the most melee, allowing the 2 curse crosses and even the 2 walls to help a lot.

EDIT:

Experience chart used for DotC seems to be different from the other 3 campaigns. I noticed this from the bug that exists in the high score screen; a KBAP game I finished at level 61 jumped to level 65 while displaying the same ending XP amount. This is not the case when I try to view the same high score entry when the other 3 campaigns are "loaded" (the game is restarted to "load" a different campaign from the current one "loaded").

While given the shortness of this campaign it makes sense to make it easier to level up your character, it would have made more sense to maintain a different high score screen for each of the campaigns, or use a different formula to make a high score in one campaign comparable to another.

[Zhuangzi]

Originally Posted by loreangelicus

Hi guys, I haven't played much KBCW since SC2/work/family is keeping me busy right now, but it looks quite nice!

Just thought I'd mention, AFAIK, your initial dialogue determines what the army composition of the first enemy would be: lizardmen, orcs, or demons. So for example if you plan on restarting a game till you get elves for their ents/ancient ents, then don't take on the demons (imps) or the orcs (catapults).

Interestingly enough in the first battle the lizardmen seem to have the most melee, allowing the 2 curse crosses and even the 2 walls to help a lot.

EDIT:

Experience chart used for DotC seems to be different from the other 3 campaigns. I noticed this from the bug that exists in the high score screen; a KBAP game I finished at level 61 jumped to level 65 while displaying the same ending XP amount. This is not the case when I try to view the same high score entry when the other 3 campaigns are "loaded" (the game is restarted to "load" a different campaign from the current one "loaded").

While given the shortness of this campaign it makes sense to make it easier to level up your character, it would have made more sense to maintain a different high score screen for each of the campaigns, or use a different formula to make a high score in one campaign comparable to another.

Hi loreangelicus! I've been playing a lot of SC2 myself, and KB:C, and work and family. For those who are new, this guy is one of the masters of King's Bounty games, so listen to him!

I did not realise that that dialogue choice at the beginning did anything! Thanks for the heads-up.

I'm trying Impossible Mage No losses myself with a different army setup. Good old humans - Paladin (only 3 of them - very annoying given that for the third fight I could have had 6), Horsemen, Royal Griffin and Archmage. The third fight was especially difficult given that the enemy hero loves to spam fireballs. Couldn't use my Royal Thorns for this very reason. Finally managed to do it without loss after many reloads. The tactic is to use level 3 Ancient Phoenix (VERY useful here) and Demon Portal 1/Healing 3. Not easy at all. Most importantly, you've got to avoid having any 3 of your units in adjoining hexes, or you'll get a fireball on your head. VERY difficult given that you'll need to have units clustered together for the Paladin's resurrection if you lose a single unit. I finally managed to do it without need for resurrection, but it was about 10 tries before I got it.

So 3/6 fights down with human + Royal Griffin build.

[Zhuangzi]

I did it!

At last, I managed to finish my Impossible Mage game. I used human troops on the first island and the first fight on the second island. Then I switched to a single Emerald Dragon for the 5th fight, which proved very easy, and just 2 Emerald Dragons for the last fight.

The final fight was VERY difficult like this, and took many reloads. Here's how I eventually did it. I had been using Ancient Phoenix as my main attacking weapon (see my combat statistics in that regard ) but I found it not so useful on this last mission as it died too quickly. I was really struggling and thought I might not be able to do it when I found the Peacefulness spell for sale.

So Peacefulness on Emeralds Dragons -> 1200 hp. Then alternate Magic Spring III (which the Mage starts with - luckily), Healing III when required, and most important Avenging Angel III to actually damage the enemies. This involved a LOT of flying around the map to get into corners where the weakest enemies would hit my ED. For mana, I was getting +4 a round early on, and was using Mana Accelerator and the ED's Mana Drain. All of this sounds good, but it was still very, very marginal. I managed it on about the sixth attempt.

So, we've demonstrated in a few days that Defender of the Crown can be defeated on Impossible with no losses as a Mage. I suspect it would be much harder with the other classes, but if you got a good stack of Paladins I'm sure it could be done.

Had a lot of fun doing this - DotC is great as there's NO GRINDING at all. Just six main fights, all of which pose different challenges.

[loreangelicus]

First off, congratulations! The Phoenix definitely looks promising for the mage for this low to mid level campaign.

And thanks for the intro. Though I must say that I don't play KB as much as the other hard-core KBers since I only complete each game once.

Anyways, things I noticed for this campaign:

1) One day campaign, and doable very quickly. Trolls seem to spawn at the latter shops, so Impossilbe-(any class) could just finish the last few battles at night and still complete it in one day. Stoneskin is everywhere, and Paladin even starts off with Divine Armor.

2) If going for a high score Paladin is the go-to class. Medal (from giving 20k gold) provides +5% XP and Learning 1 provides +10% XP right off the bat. Remember, it is a lot easier to level up in this campaign, so that +XP means a lot. See base score computation below:

(100 + (100 - 1 day))*(1 + (0.02)*(total levels + 1 quest))

So a level 16 character on impossible gets 664, getting +10 to the score for each level higher.

3) Sadly, if you want to grind you still can. I've restarted a couple of games and some spawned many upgradeable items. That means more XP/gold and more chances of grabbing an Ancient Knowledge scroll from a dug up chest. Sure, money is a problem, but you are given a very easy battle at the start to try and dig up a wanderer scroll (which if it is not an AK you could just sell for a lot of gold). Note that just one AK covers more than half of your required battles (not counting item upgrades).

4) Due to the shortness of this campaign it's hard to build up the "perfect army". So you needs troops that are "just great" by themselves. Droids at the start, trolls and dragons at the end.

This is all theory though. Money is definitely a problem for a no-loss high score run to buy your army, upgradeable items, and the decision to give 20k for an extra +5% XP. I'll give this one a try sometime soon.

[Zhuangzi]

Yes, money is definitely a problem here, especially if you spend the 20,000 initially for the medals like I did. The upgrade items I had were much too difficult initially (of course) but maybe I could have done them before the last fight. I've never been one for trying to maximise the score though. One good thing about DotC - you WILL finish on Day 1.

[hotfix666]

I play this yeasterday

[Zhuangzi]

Well done hotfix. Beating the game on Impossible is always a challenge to begin with. Did you manage to do it without losses (can't tell from that screenshot)?

[bladeking77]

Yesterday I finished the game on Impossible with Paladin. Seemed like the best tactic is to max out the Holly Anger skill and pick Demons as enemies. And it worked, first three battles were pretty easy compared to ones in my previous attempts. Also, 20000 gold for medals seems like too much, but it isn't, especially since you can take 20000 gold from that random guy in the first castle. One or more 5th level units + Healing spell was also very helpful.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by bladeking77

Yesterday I finished the game on Impossible with Paladin. Seemed like the best tactic is to max out the Holly Anger skill and pick Demons as enemies. And it worked, first three battles were pretty easy compared to ones in my previous attempts. Also, 20000 gold for medals seems like too much, but it isn't, especially since you can take 20000 gold from that random guy in the first castle. One or more 5th level units + Healing spell was also very helpful.

Yup! Paladin is definitely the best way to go for an easy run (choosing demons defines your first 3 enemies, then reload/jump to the next island till you get undead), and is also the best way to go for a high score run (Learning 1 right off the bat, then Learning 2 after the super-easy medals battle, then Learning 3 after the 1st serious battle).

Then after the 1st serious battle just get a level 5 Heal-able unit and your off-the-bat Heal 2 just makes it smooth sailing.

Attached are screenshots of my first 2 battles; I even grabbed an Ancient Knowledge scroll on the second battle. After the second battle Trolls and Red Dragons were available, so after doing a test battle with the 3rd enemy using 1 Troll in broad daylight and completely owning that battle with Heal 2, I lost interest and stopped (for now).

Wait, so the random fool in the castle hands you 20k before you leave the 1st island? Great... so much for what seems to be the only challenge left in my game, accumulate/budget money. Not surprisingly enough among the overpowered units/items available after the 1st serious battle a shop was selling FOUR Ancient Knowledge scrolls. 20k a pop (I think I only need one more), and I'm looking at 15k worth of upgradeable items, so I need 35k before leaving the 1st island.

I already have 15k after the 1st serious battle, and would likely get 3k+ each on the next 2 battles. Paladin also starts with Inquisitor's Blade (8,250), Healer's Jacket (3,500), and 3 Divine Armor scrolls (5,400 total). But with an extra 20k I don't even have to sell those items and still purchase an extra AK, 2 total, so 10 battles with AK on (5 sure battles and 5 extra battles for possible item upgrades).

While I think this campaign would have been better if level 5 units were only available on the 2nd island, people would probably have just restarted till they got droids and walked over the first island anyways. Oh well, shorter campaign, easier to abuse.

EDIT: (2010-09-24)

Added the screenshot of the next battle. I bought one Troll, placed my 3 Paladins in reserve so that the pet dragon gains a bit more XP, then went to town. Just to show you how overpowered this setup already is I did the combat during the day, so no regeneration to full health every turn for the Troll. As such, I had to use Heal 2 (2 mana, 200+ HP healed per use) every 3 rounds or so. Also note that the enemy hero did not use a single point of his 100 mana pool. I'm guessing he had no direct damage spells and only had a bunch of debilitating spells, most of which don't work on my level 5 Troll.

Started to use the AK for this, got 2,294 XP and level 8; tried the battle without AK and got only 1,638 XP and level 7. On both occasions I already have Learning 3 (+20% XP) and the medal (+5% XP).