Lowest level challenge?!

[axelle]

what is the minimum level one can beat the game at?

i finished my 0 casualty game at level 42, i believe if i actually planned ahead i could have pulled it off at around level 35. maybe even around level 30 if i were a warrior (more leadership).

but what if we don't care about casualties? you will still need to try to avoid losing troops as you will need a lot of gold to buy runes.

i definitely think there are other strategies besides abusing droids, so let me know what you think!

[Razorflame]

ah better one would be
what would be the highest LEVEL u could complete the game

considering your bound to find a static number of armies


i think u could rush to baal and try to finish him
on a very low level
kite the way

then again
a level 1 mage owning baal with skill only
would be epic

[axelle]

i think just the main quest line and mobs and heroes that you have to fight will push you to level 20+...

[Zechnophobe]

Yeah, two questions you would need to answer:

1) What is the minimum level you can beat bhaal at?

2) What is the minimum level you can get to him at?

And the higher answer to the above is the answer to the overall question.

I am guessing some sort of 1-stack strategy will work the best. Once you get to probably 2k leadership you will likely be able to beat a lot of fights.

There really aren't many mandatory fights:

Ktahu
Zilgadis
Bhaal
King Telion + Queen (Need for fight with Bhaal)
Singing Dagger fight for Ktahu
Arena fights before Ktahu.
Demenion
Krause (can you fight Krause without freeing the duke delaware?)
Hagni
Spirit of Sorrow
White Dragon
Goblin Leader Dude (for hope)

and then Bhaal

So it looks like 14 total battles? No grand strategy for you!

Oh, you MUST kill the stack on the bridge leading to Montero. So that's one more (probably your first fight actually).

Goblin dude rolls over to Dryads, so he can also be done early for XP.

You'll need to Kite for flags to get leadership for the most part, get the few 'easy' fights too for that. And then get a game with the right items in it.

How big of a stack of Black knights or Bone dragons do you need to pull of Eviln against Ktahu and/or Bhaal? That's probably the operative question.

[axelle]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

Yeah, two questions you would need to answer:

1) What is the minimum level you can beat bhaal at?

2) What is the minimum level you can get to him at?

And the higher answer to the above is the answer to the overall question.

I am guessing some sort of 1-stack strategy will work the best. Once you get to probably 2k leadership you will likely be able to beat a lot of fights.

There really aren't many mandatory fights:

Ktahu
Zilgadis
Bhaal
King Telion + Queen (Need for fight with Bhaal)
Singing Dagger fight for Ktahu
Arena fights before Ktahu.
Demenion
Krause (can you fight Krause without freeing the duke delaware?)
Hagni
Spirit of Sorrow
White Dragon
Goblin Leader Dude (for hope)

and then Bhaal

So it looks like 14 total battles? No grand strategy for you!

Oh, you MUST kill the stack on the bridge leading to Montero. So that's one more (probably your first fight actually).

Goblin dude rolls over to Dryads, so he can also be done early for XP.

You'll need to Kite for flags to get leadership for the most part, get the few 'easy' fights too for that. And then get a game with the right items in it.

How big of a stack of Black knights or Bone dragons do you need to pull of Eviln against Ktahu and/or Bhaal? That's probably the operative question.

1, i have a feeling that the must-fight battles probably won't be enough, so you will need to do a few more battles for medals/more level for more runes and leadership/more gold/leveling pet dragon/artifact/wanderer scrolls/whatever. maybe you also need to do 50 fights (easy trash on debir and scarlet that yield little experience of course) to get those extra runes from those usable-after-50-victories items. you probably also will want jimmy as your companion for boss fights for that extra 700-150=550 (550 is huge when you are doing a low level challenge) leadership.

2, you will probably need different set ups for different bosses. for example, baal and ktahu are both easy as all their damages are physical (except the 2x fireballs from imps that baal summons and lizard mages that ktahu summons), but zilgadis will be the key and most important fight, as he can do AoE magical damage as well as physical damage, i am thinking about royal griffin + griffin's banner(yes it affects royal griffins) for zilgadis fight, because with some magic resistance items, all you need to do is stoneskin and mana spring (where as if you bring any other unit instead, you will need to cast divine armor which costs A LOT more than stoneskin) your royal griffin and calm rage while spamming resurrection.

3, since we are kiting anyways, one can maybe use an editor to edit out all the wondering trash mobs, or use a memory editor to lock hero's exp/gold amount and use whatever cheat that let you win fights instantly, because as much as i love this game, kiting is the one thing that i find boring/meaningless/a complete waste of time.

4, i actually do think that this low level challenge is a lot more challenging than a high-level/high score challenge. it requires more skill and as much planning. and when everything (gold and talent runes) is limited, only the true heroes can survive

[Zechnophobe]

Depending on Class, one stack green, one stack red, works pretty well vs Zilgadis. I think you are forgetting that the royal griffons have no no-retaliation way to deal damage to Ziggy, so they also need to worry about physical damage.

Also, we can very likely take all the battles on Debir and scarlet without giving us any extra levels at the end, so yes, they should either be saved to unlock runes, or used early for Grand Strategy.

[axelle]

what we also can do is bring one high initiate cheap unit(like a pirate), then cast invisibility, summon creatures to get beat up to get some rage, dig all the chest up, and then retreat without gaining any exp! so i guess technically we can get as many runes/wanderer scrolls/gold as we want. of course we do this against a high level trash on reha or shettera for better chest rewards.

[Zechnophobe]

Hmm, that would be interesting. I'm not sure if that works. It'll kill our score something fierce.

Also, devilfish would be the ideal unit. Cheap, init 7.

Oh, and something bad just occurred to me. The fight against Bhaal, Bill has only as much leadership as you do. So that'll make it even more difficult with a small army.

[axelle]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

Hmm, that would be interesting. I'm not sure if that works. It'll kill our score something fierce.

Also, devilfish would be the ideal unit. Cheap, init 7.

Oh, and something bad just occurred to me. The fight against Bhaal, Bill has only as much leadership as you do. So that'll make it even more difficult with a small army.

bill's armies are useless anyways...last run i actually used rank 2 fire rain +rank 3 fire rain first round on his armies because he kept killing the first two wave of demons too fast

all you need to do to beat any boss is to reach an equilibrium state: i.e. gain mana faster than you use mana and resurrect troops faster than they die.

[Razorflame]

you will also be hard pressed for the good items to manage all of this

so u need a VERY good kbscanner save file xD