Don't play the game as a mage - you will get bored quickly!

[taltamir]

Do not play computer games!
Playing computer games is boring! "Click-click-click-click... click-click... click..."

[YENKO]

Originally Posted by Gatts

I even used Sacrifice -> what could be considered "farming" as I increased my original number of units... still I didn't use "doublearmy" - I just found out how usefull is sacrifice + ghosts or vampires...

Details! I want details!
I want to know all the goody cheesy tactics for sacrifice!!

[Gatts]

Originally Posted by YENKO

Details! I want details!
I want to know all the goody cheesy tactics for sacrifice!!

Well... where to start... mabye with some "good to know points"

1.) Sacrifice works on dragons (except black), undead, demons (if the sacrifice level is high enough... I remember sacrifice level 2 could not give me green dragon... but maybe I had too low INT... I am not sure... but after some levels I was able to increase my green and even red dragons by 1)

2.) It does not work on Cyclops - any "golem" like creatures

3.) You can use mind possesed enemies as source of sacrifice (magically fight on your side - this considers your spells as abilities of your units)

4.) you can use units produced by "call of necromancer" as source of sacrifice

5.) and of course you can use units from demon portal as source of sacrifice


On lower levels I use ghosts - they gain much less units from "sould stealing" than vamps from live stealing - but if you sacrifice less than you can get "suck" back - dont' worry - you will uphold them later on...
- make sure your enemies have mostly phy damage - put your ghosts as far away from your units, and cas on them iron skin max level (level 3) - if you also have some artefact that gives you at least 10% phy resistance - ghosts have 95% phy resistance - even if you lose control of them - sometimes you can still use them as sacrifice... if not - well... fireball them

Vamps - here you should calculate a bit - if you end combat with less vamps - you can't catch that up in next combat (only if you buy them)

Feel free to combine blue and red vamps - prepare your strategy each combat - think if you could survive more enemies and if you could corner shooters (they have enough HP but do only 1/2 damage on melee - good blood banks)

stone skin is good option again on vamps + magic spring - so you have actually mana to cast sacrifice multiple times

If you are realy high level - you can even use TIME BACK (but I actually was able pretty often handle battles with buff/debuff spells and leave the rest on my vamps - as I did not care for some loses - as long my vamps did not suffer) - meaning I more used Lina's charges and Sleems Glot's Armor (when I had to hold enemies back but my vamps lost their "power" - few in numbers)

having red and blue - you can have one being tank and the second the "blood spender" - combining this with "hit and run" tactics - the weaker "sacrificed" vamp will be out of reach and only steal some life each second round, till the other will hold the battle line... (in haevy combats, don't sacrifice, but use clone instead - cloned vamps can fight whole 2 turns mostly delivering nice damage)

I could usually cast in MATCH or OVERPOWERED battles sacrifice twice - I invested it in my bone dragons to catch up my Leadership increase (without going back to buy them)... later on I increased my green dragons (as I started to use their magic source skill)

This spell can be very dangerous for strong mage - you may kill more of your own units than the rest of vamps could suck back (remember - less you, less damage they deliver, less they reborn/redie) and they have to hold the enemies tank units back from your (mine) hit'n'run units (bone dragon, green dragon) --- as fifth unit I kept Dark Commander - he gave my vamps +10% morale bonus

For other armies it is usefull at the same extend (elves can Posses mind, demons have demon portal - demons may summon other demons , dwarves... well... no one has only dwarves in his army, or does he?)

[CurtisJasper]

Just like the original King's Bounty (with was trivial even on Impossible when playing a Sorceress with TimeStop and Raise Control), experienced players may want to impose additional restrictions on the game to make things more challenging.

Last night I just started a new game as a Warrior on Impossible with the following restrictions:

1) No recruiting garrisoned creatures (must rely on lair creatures as recruits)

2) No magic tree (must rely on scrolls for magic)

I've nicknamed this the "Barbarian" game -- it's already turning out to be my most enjoyable game (though only my 4th through), simply because the challenge is greater.

Edit: to clarify, this was meant as a reply to the OP. You can probably come up with some interesting restrictions for the mage as well (e.g. Necromancer game -- Can only learn Chaos magic past lvl 1 and may only enter combat after the trial with an army of undead)

[Gatts]

Originally Posted by CurtisJasper

Just like the original King's Bounty (with was trivial even on Impossible when playing a Sorceress with TimeStop and Raise Control), experienced players may want to impose additional restrictions on the game to make things more challenging.

Last night I just started a new game as a Warrior on Impossible with the following restrictions:

1) No recruiting garrisoned creatures (must rely on lair creatures as recruits)

2) No magic tree (must rely on scrolls for magic)

I've nicknamed this the "Barbarian" game -- it's already turning out to be my most enjoyable game (though only my 4th through), simply because the challenge is greater.

Edit: to clarify, this was meant as a reply to the OP. You can probably come up with some interesting restrictions for the mage as well (e.g. Necromancer game -- Can only learn Chaos magic past lvl 1 and may only enter combat after the trial with an army of undead)

Sounds very interesting - I like your way of planning the gameplay based on solid restrictions (I used ad-hoc debuffs - like delete half of my units, or rather delete 2 or 5 unit stacks...)

This brings me a funny though => we could look into the .lua and .txt files of this game and create "debuff" mods (like tak hugely weakening artefacts, level up gains, increase enemy strenghts, increase = tripple or quadripple costs of crystals needed to upgrade / scribe spells, increase costs for skill and run a competition... hoping that there will be enough crazy players to try it)

I personally will just now to work on my personal "Berserker" Mod -> totally reducing INT and DEF gains / bonuses (even from items) but improve Attack gains/ bonuses (but not for items) - add 100 crystals for each spell costs and also increase the prize of all units/artefacts (bersekes are bad merchants - they need to pay the double for buying things) ... I am not sure if also reduce Leadership gaining -> as Bersekers are known for low charisma... well... maybe I will try to figure out how to make sure I could hire only melee units ... beserkers should not use something that strategic as casters or shooters... well -> this make take me few weeks... but will give my my desired "atmosphfere" -> also when I doubt the game would be playeable (but hay- I may try it on easy again)

[OGKingsBounty92]

Originally Posted by Handel

Gatts - I see you like to argue. Bet you are 14, wear glasses and are hated in the school.
As for the game - providing you want just to argue you can put any numbers. You can yeasily put any number hmm... let me see... why not 1800 arcmages? Or 4200 black dragons? or 365,000 sprites?

Go play some and they start to make your senseless calcualtiosn again.

Yenko: You have nothing to do with "Who can pee on longer distance" discussion. As you started to see being mage is very simple - just blast your enemy away and proceed. But some people which are not mages adore to explain how a mage must play.

I hear ALOT of talking but no proof at all or no clear evidence. A video of your example would be exellent proof and would also help me so when I decide to use a mage, I'll know what to do.

By the way don't mages fall into the category of weakling and pathetic like the person you just described? You know like Harry Potter? That's what Mages usually look like so that would be "YOU" wouldn't it?

Warriors are the complete opposite you dig?

Alright, seriously someone needs to put all that in a nice little video to give us some pointers and tips. A video tutorial of the different tactics so get to work god dammit.