Best Class for Race-Based Games via Editor

[Helios]

I'm still going with the Bowmen, Skellies, Elves, Hunters, and Cannoneers. It's actually going really well since I got my buffed Ancient Phoenix, which I should be able to use as a tank until Land of the Dead/Demonis and beyond--in my editing, I left the Phoenix magic immune, so I can't use Target on it, but it's getting the job done for the most part. Getting Mass Precision was great, too. Hunters doing 16-19 base damage (!) with the two Elven Bows. Actually it might be 13-19, I'd better go check. I was curious, so I didn't go straight to Bogacho like I thought I would, and was struggling because I was playing normally through the IoF. But by the end, I was doing much better. Kraken with no losses in turn 6.

[Vulture]

Sweet :> Round 6 on impossible is very impressive. But then again, you got yourself 2 Elven Bows ^^

[Helios]

That second Bow plus Mass Precision really helps! My damage output is Archers: 6-7, Skellies: 3-6, Elves: 8-9, Hunters 15-19, Cannoneers 10-16. These guys are taking down everything pretty easily. I lost no units in three hours of play yesterday. And only lost 100 units to my second Double fight due to carelessness. (I forget to Ress some of my stacks sometime. I have horrid short-term memory.) I bet I don't get tested until the last 1/3rd of the game, and then it will become really brutal.

Here's some more screens. First is no losses against Enemen. For some reason, enemies love attacking the Phoenix. He never even reached my troops. The second is the spider boss, but I was way overleveled in both battles. It took awhile longer--maybe 8 or 9 turns. I don't remember. I've been rocking a 30% Exp boost from very early on plus another 5% KoL on the Undead enemies. I feel like I'm on a higher level than I ever have been before at this point. I've cleared chronologically all of Darion now, Upper and Lower Hadar, and expect no problems with the Underground Sea, Taron Mines, Ardan's Peaks, and Mehgard before I leave for Ellinia. I may wait to do the Gremlin's Castle until then, as I expect problems with dragons, and the extra stats I acquire will be of great use for when they descend on me.

[Vulture]

Clearly the insane dmg output and the immortal buffed Phoenix break the game ^^ But it's quite the only way to play this setup.

Can't wait for Demonis/Ultrax/Labyrinth and the likes. I still have no idea how to make up for the initiative problem against Dragons and Archdemons and the nonexisting distance they create by their speed. I mean if you can start first you'll be able to put 3 troops behind Icy Thorns and maybe two in a line so Dragons will go after them of which one you can Time Back and resurrect the other. But you'll lack 2 damage dealers as they will be swarmed with Dragons and only be able to melee them. Placing one trap on each end of the line will spare you some incoming damage. Against Green Dragons, however, I'm stumped for an answer as this is beyond me. You can't guess where they're gonna use their Capture Target from as it doesn't necessarily have to be from the front. They can just break up that line and then other Dragons will choose a different angle diagonally and all of a sudden hit the 3 behind the Icy Thorns.

[Helios]

Well, a sign of things to come. I cleared those above areas with no losses, then went back to fight Dreddho, the boss of the tournament. I tried 3 times, and he killed me every time! I'm going to have to try and figure something out, if I can't even win against him! I only managed to kill 2 of his 4 dragon stacks, and he just sat sent the Fire Dragonflies right in with them, and I was continually decimated by his 3 ranged units: 2 Evil Beholders and a stack of 16 Cyclops. Mass Precision doesn't do enough damage, whichever unit I put Dragon Arrows on usually ended up with a dragon in its face and unable to fire, and of course, the Phoenix is of absolutely no use in holding back any of his troops. When I actually did get Dragon Arrows off, they weren't doing enough damage, due to the Mage's bad leadership.

I'll have to come up with a new strategy before I try again. My Traps are almost strong enough to kill 5 Black Dragons (the size of both these stacks), but still, even when I figure out this battle, I don't know how I'll deal with 100 Dragons in one battle.

[Vulture]

100 Dragons ? Glad there's no such fight that features 100 Dragons ^^

Well, as I said, without Icy Thorns and a 2-in-a-row bait for the dragons there just is no other way to keep the Skellies unharmed and able to Dragon Arrow away. There just is none ^^

[Helios]

I thought I fought over 100 of them in one Ultrax battle last game? There were eight stacks, at least two stacks were over 20 Emeralds each, and the rest were between 10-19, I thought. Maybe a couple of stacks were Fire Dragonflies and I forgot. I hope I'm wrong!

Well, I beat Dreddho. It came about in a way I never expected. I didn't use Ice Thorns, I didn't try to kill the dragons first. Some screens are attached, and here's what I had to start with casting: Turn 1: Summon Phoenix (to send at the Fire Dragonflies to hold them at bay and give the Cyclops something to target) and a Trap. Turn 2: 2 Traps. Turn 3: Trap and Mass Precision. I got pretty lucky, that all of my traps were landed on, and I barely had to shoot the dragons at all to kill them. I even whittled down the two Evil Beholder stacks with a shot apiece before turning full on the dragons, and just kept eating their attacks those first three turns with Glot's Armor, and Time Back blunting part of it.

In the end, I ran out of Mana, so I couldn't do it without losses, but I did ress all but 11 units. (10 Bowmen and an Elf.) I could've waited until a higher level and won without losses, but I can always beat him at level 20ish, and this won't resolve the problems and inevitable losses that I'll face later, so I just went with it. I don't see how no losses with this group even with all my edits could pull off an entire game of no losses.

[Vulture]

Congratulations on that :> Well, without Inquisitors it's indeed very tedious, if not impossible, to resurrect everything anyway when you take that many losses. You just don't have the rage. And without a summon you can cast Magic Spring on and put Poison Cloud over you don't have the mana past turn 10 anyway.

I agree, it's virtually impossible to play no-casuatlies with that setup. Especially when you face Geyser, Armageddon and the likes in the Labyrinth. You just don't have the mana, nor the mana recovery skills. At least not as long as your Phoenix is magic immune ^^

[Helios]

Thanks, Vulture. I forgot to mention the pivotal change in strategy also required I unequip a Bow for Rahha's Shield, so I could eat those dragon attacks much more easily. I haven't had time to play since.

[Helios]

Well I ran into an unexpected problem. I can't enter Death Valley. My game crashes and exits every time I try to go there. This game has been weird from the start, with the hunter and wolf quest bugged, the werewolf that bit the guy in Darion didn't drop the blood. Now this. From looking at the savedata.txt files, it seems that Karador's Castle, his face file and a whole lot more, about 200 pages, isn't there. Every save file seems to be a different length, so I can't just do a simple copy and paste even if I can find which data is missing. Those files are so unintelligible, I'm not sure I'll be able to copy and paste from a different playthrough to make it appear, and I don't even know what all is actually missing from Death Valley that's breaking the game.

I'll search the tech forum here, but my guess is that this game of mine is over--the save files are so complex that I don't know how I'll be able to sift through it all. Super disappointed.

Edit: It appears others have had problems with areas not ever loading in different places, but no one as yet (page 8 of tech forums) found a solution. Ugh.