KBDS Normal/Hard/Impossible No-loss thread

[DGDobrev]

Phantoming with Puppeteer? You got it, as soon as I can afford the runes to get it. I will post my findings here as necessary. Any way to grow Paladins or Knights is welcome as I still can't find any more than what I have. I personally prefer Knights to Dark Knights, as the Knights start off with great morale, which means more damage, while the Dark ones need to fight a bit before they accumulate the extra attack bonus. It was so easy with the good old Splinter of Darkness item in KBAP/CW, but so far I haven't seen it show up in my game. It might still be in, though.

EDIT: Yeah, I am a big idiot. But of course Inselburg has lots of Dark Knights and Dark Paladins - I just wasn't looking where I should have been. After you create the Twilight order on Inselburg, all kinds of shops open around the castle, selling all kinds of goodies - but I was squarely not paying attention to that. In the castle was also the Amulet of the Twilight order, that for a whopping 88k gives you 20 mana, +2 Morale of traitor Troops, and a freaking -20% Leadership to traitor troops. Holy hell - 163 leadership Paladins and 119 leadership Knights. Where has my head been til now?

[MattCaspermeyer]

You know, I was going to ask if you had hooked Leo up with Julia and checked around the castle, but thought you had.

Oh, and one thing about the Recruiter / Puppeteer is that the units have to be there at the end of combat for them to be added.

Phantomed troops are usually gone by then, so you'll have to make sure that they are there at the end, otherwise they don't count.

The function "army_update_postcombat" is run at the end of the fight and so it only surveys the battlefield at the end, so if you summon troops and they die, then they don't count either, and for that matter, if you have a stack in your army that is killed then they don't count as well.

Keep that in mind...

/C\/C\

[DGDobrev]

My observations exactly. I was able to get all kinds of demons, executioners, cerberi, imps and dark paladins, as I usually use them for a phantom-res tactic close to the end of the fight.

Allrighty, so it does work, we just need to make it work

EDIT: Ok... while I understand why the devs wanted to make burning, poison, cold, etc. more viable, this is kind of ridiculous. Since when we can't remove those conditions? Dispel is like the worthless thing ever now.

[aghiuta]

Finished the game on normal with demoness, it was fun, you really improved the quests now.
I managed to break camilla's quest, SPOILERS to follow:
i killed 6 dwarfs, and when i got back to camilla's island she already had all 7 as ghosts. Killed them, killed her, and after that when i met the last normal dwarf and killed him the quest remained at kill camilla, but she was dead so the quest remained as unfinished.
SPOILER END
For those wanting to replace the reds and other lesser troops, get the Dragon riders from your blackie, they are expensive but gold is abundant, and they rock, without being OP, i usually orc shield them in all fights because they are so hard to get, and limited.

Just for reference my setup for the demoness: Archdemons, Demons, Demonologists, Dragon riders and Shamans, first four spam summons, especially with phantom archies, and the shamans distract with totems or heal all with axes, they can heall all living troops, even dragon riders, which is really useful.
With demoness using Demetrius class III, heirloom sword, and Burning cloak to reduce the leadership costs for demons an Archdemon is down to 510 leadership, so i can pack a whole lot of them.

[zjazd18]

Well i was telling you earlier about shops around castle on Inselburg.

Shield of Rage gets rid of post damage effects, it's second best talent in might talent tree in my opinion.

I would love to be wrong about vampire start but i tried many start/spell combinations and there is couple things that are unavoidable. For example there is not a single unit that can survive ranged attack from elfs in elf guardian of light stack. So only luck with diversion could possibly prevent that to happen in first round. Fights against spiders/snakes in catacombs are very hard as well if stack has thorn hunters they always attack skele archers so you have to bench them and they are only source of reliable damage.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but even with magicbook cheat only way to some battles was phoenix - not even level 1 could cut it, had to be level 2.

Currently I'm on portland already and having lots of fun, with huge spell selection from the beginning it's really refreshing. Only restriction i put on myself is that spells from scrolls are not allowed.

[DGDobrev]

You did, but I did not realize what you meant - I thought you mean all the inns and bullshit. Keep in mind that I am playing the game for the first time

Then again, I feel in a profoundly commanding position now. Battles fly by, and all I need to worry about is to avoid losing a single knight or demonologist. It is also absolutely ridiculous how much attention the AI pays to stuff like totems and volcanoes. With an Archie and/or a Shaman, you can keep at least 1 enemy troop occupied at the same time.

Shamans shine in KBDS, mark my words. You can use them for so many tasks, it is absolutely ridiculous. I have never liked a unit so much since the Paladins in KBAP. Shamans plant totems, heal your level 5s, act as mop up for any troop that shows up close to your rangers.

Also, I have grown to like the Wizards. In Battle Trance, they can halve enemies like nobody else, provided their leadership is higher. My current setup consists of Archies, Demonologists/Dragon Riders/Wizards, Dark Knights (give an extra attack to a Battle Tranced Wizard is OP), Dark Paladins and Shamans/Wizards. It takes a bit of babysitting to keep the low-hp troops safe, but they sure hit like a ten ton truck. Teleport is a great spell to have along this squad too, as you can put a Knight right up the ........ of the enemy and have them execute their circle-swing attack for HUGE damage. And then port them back for ress and recuperation. So satisfying... haven't felt so good since KBAP.

[aghiuta]

You captured the feel of this game, it just feels good, and i might be wrong but some of the stacks at the end seemed to be generated lvl up according to your lvl, which is great. I finished at lvl 72 i think and some stacks were still shown as strong, with huge numbers in them, which was delicious with my half.

[DGDobrev]

I just feel that impossible can rock the no-loss game, as it has been since KBAP. It is an exhilarating experience. Every battle counts. Paying attention counts. Knowing your stack size counts. Knowing what you can do vs various lineups counts.

I feel kinda reborn That is what KBAP/CW used to thrive on. And of course, all maps open in KBDS now. Lets see what the future has in store for us. I really wanna try the Dragon Riders before I swap them out for lvl 4s, like Executioners. Those guys are amazing with Stone skin and Mana Spring.

[travelingoz]

Originally Posted by zjazd18

Well i was telling you earlier about shops around castle on Inselburg.

Shield of Rage gets rid of post damage effects, it's second best talent in might talent tree in my opinion.

I would love to be wrong about vampire start but i tried many start/spell combinations and there is couple things that are unavoidable. For example there is not a single unit that can survive ranged attack from elfs in elf guardian of light stack. So only luck with diversion could possibly prevent that to happen in first round. Fights against spiders/snakes in catacombs are very hard as well if stack has thorn hunters they always attack skele archers so you have to bench them and they are only source of reliable damage.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but even with magicbook cheat only way to some battles was phoenix - not even level 1 could cut it, had to be level 2.

Currently I'm on portland already and having lots of fun, with huge spell selection from the beginning it's really refreshing. Only restriction i put on myself is that spells from scrolls are not allowed.

I've purchased the game and tried a few different starts so far on vanilla vampire impossible. It is possible to get your Chaos Magic up to lvl 2 at lvl 4 if you're lucky with might runes at level up, but you simply won't have enough time, with one cast per round, to be able to CC/kill all the Black Gate Guardian's troops before they get close enough to start inflicting losses on your army. And this is only possible if you open some snake eggs as your necro army cannot deal any significant damage to the enemy. I defeated all of the armies in the catacombs, except the one that has tons of fire spiders by using a stack of snakes, but the red snakes simply have too low HP and once 1 dies......... I seem to remember that there was a way to change the result of the opened "container", if you could manipulate/get green or even blue (royal) snakes or spiders from those eggs, I do believe it's doable with the right spells on vanilla. For example, if you got Chaos Arrow and Snow Storm from the tree stump and Clarissa, and some lvl 2 or 3 snakes or spiders from containers.............
From many restarts, Clarissa will give you a LVL 2 scroll, like Magic Shackles from time to time, so I guess getting Phantom from her is "theoretically" possible......

[zjazd18]

Farthest i've gotten without cheat was beating black gate guardian using level 2 trap, trapper medal, and diversions level 1.Also with that setup it's possible to beat dwarf guardian of light as he has no ranged units.

Those eggs only give red spiders, and cave spiders, tried alternating them and simply nothing else comes out.

I've tried searching steam forums, and didn't see anything about impossible no-loss. Only impossible with loses, and abusing uncontrollable stack of spiders. If someone managed to do it, definitely didn't brag about it.

I restarted game many times, and best spell i saw was trap. Even if you get phantom it's too weak early on.