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King's Bounty: Crossworlds The expansion to the award-winning King’s Bounty: Armored Princess. |
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#1
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Getting My Ass Kicked
So, I downloaded this game as I was a big fan of the Heroes of Might and Magic games. Played them all to death.
I started with Orc's March or whatever, since it's basically the first campaign with additions, right? I go with mage, because I like more active gameplay. I choose normal mode, but, I get trashed, like, hardcore. Since spawns and drops are limited, there's no way to farm back, and I couldn't seem to catch up. So...I made a new game, choose normal again. Chose mage again. Got trashed again. So, I made a new game, chose normal again, but this time I made a paladin. And now I'm doing the ass-kicking. Like, it's not even funny. The game feels like it's almost too easy. I'm winning all my fights with plenty of troops left over, I'm rolling in gold, got items galore. It's pretty damn friendly compared to my games as a mage where I suffered massive casualties every fight, never had any gold, and eventually was running around the map looking for gold drops while timing my mad-dashes between packs of roaming monsters, like it's mario running through the pendulum blades or something. I feel like no matter how I invest my skill points, my spell damage can't keep up with the growing enemy monster, and my leadership stays too low to afford an army that can actually deal any damage. That undead castle on the first island was a nightmare. The only way I made it through was using my rage on stone walls to keep the monsters away from my units. In some ways my second mage game was harder than my first, since in my first I found a scroll of the phoenix, and that firey big bird was the only way I managed to do anything. So, please, someone, tell me what are the tricks to playing a mage in this game and not getting rocked? |
#2
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Well it seems you are way to new so a few tips:
-Mage does not win battles with his units, that's what spells are for -Spells do 5% more damage for every point you invest in them and 15% more for every 7 point in them so with a lot of point you can easily do 2-4 times the damage -Mage gets less leadership (ability yo control more units) the paladin or warriors so he needs to have few but useful and resistant. -Gold is always a problem at the beginning but not that much on normal -Try to get some defensive items for mage (+x to defense and some +% physical resistance) -Try to not loose many units since the good ones come in limited numbers and is way to expensive to buy too many -Recruit reviving units (inquisitor, paladin, get resurrection spell, etc) to reduce the number of units you lose. -Use units that summon other units (royal gryphon, royal ents, druids, etc.) to suck up the damage to your REAL units. -Look this page for some extra info (although is updated to AP): http://www.celestialheavens.com/kingsbounty/hs-en.htm -Try to collect all the runes, chest, etc. that is in a new area before fighting -Try to get some +% fire/magic damage for mage since is greatly help -Try to fight your first battles with similar level enemies -Do all the missions to get runes for useful skills -SPOILER: Do a kite-game (get all the island scrolls without fighting) so you can get to new lands, get money and useful items/spells/units and THEN start the game. Have fun
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Time to become an active member!! King's Bounty for the LOLZ!! |
#3
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MrBlister - the game is random, you can run into very hard enemies with any class. I had to re-start my Paladin because I came to a point where I could not beat ANY of the remaining guardings of the Verona chart without huge losses. Why? Yogi (Polar) Bear and his friends Bubu the Barbarian. The chart was on Bolo, guarded by throngs of bears and barbarians, and those things do insane damage. I killed everything else already and got stumped.
On my next try, I got Phantom early, and found the charts to other islands to get more XP and leadership before challenging the same troop... It's luck, tactics is an important factor, but luck features heavily too. With a Mage you have to play differently... early on, unless you heavily max your Intellect (and there aren't many skills for that), you'll be weak. You need to focus on buff and summon spells, and de-buff your enemies. Fear is an excellent spell to get some throngs of level 1-2 units out of your hair without almost no mana spent. |
#4
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#5
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Since its your first time playing AP, as a Mage you should really grab the map for scarlet island from your starting island. Jump on your ship and run around there grabbing all the leadership flags and loot you can while avoiding the npc's there. That should give you enough of a headstart on normal to get your Mage leveled.
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#6
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Thanks for the advice guys, it helped a lot.
I have a few questions though:
Anyway, I started a new mage and went and ran around islands grabbing whatever loot I possibly could, and then stayed with fighting the easy mobs. I skilled to get the multi-cast thing earlier too; that helped a lot. Also, I took the red dragon pet this time. Because mana is so scarce early on, the mana accelerator skill is mostly what kept me going. Also, having the dragon an active part of every fight is so important since I was so limited in mana that I couldn't rely on my army as much, so having the +5 rage was extremely handy as the game forces you to level up your dragon skills (starting with only 20 max rage is rough, especially since you have to invest outside the magic skill tree to get more rage). Honestly, I tried several of the other pets that seemed better suited for a mage, but the red one just worked best for me. And man, it took a lot of tedious scavenging, but I managed to beat the first few areas. Kiting the islands is pretty tough, and required a lot of reloading of savegames, but I found you could get to some of the juicy, guarded chests and scrolls by leading the monster a long distance (so long as they have sight of you, they'll follow for a long time), and you can do things like lead them to areas where you can run around, and then ditch them so you have time to grab the stash. Also, the boat is handy when you're somewhat near the shore, as you can lead a mob to your boat, hop in, move up the shore a little, then hop out to pass the monster. lol, this wasn't exactly the game I thought I was going to be playing, you know? The advice about focusing on summons really helped as well. They also made great fodder for the suicide bomber skill, which did great damage for its relatively low mana cost. Mostly it was oil fog thing, fire arrows, and fire balls. I'd use stone walls to mess with the monster pathing to get them to cluster up, and then nuke the group down. I always have one meatsack unit in my group that I tried to put out ahead of my other units to keep my squishy casting/ranged units safer. However, going against enemy heroes and enemies with strong ranged attacks was extremely hard. It's easy to get to the point to where there are nothing but lethal and invincible mobs left to fight. Buying expensive items almost cost me the game a couple of times, as I was too broke to restock my army. I've had to return to save games that were like 3 fights previous. But, later I got the pirana spell, and man, that thing is beautiful. One thing I wish I had known early on was how important it was to save your crystals to upgrade your better skills. Early on, I decided to learn as many scrolls as possible, since learning them cost very few crystals and it is nice to have the versatility. However, it delayed upgrading some of the key spells when I ran out of crystals. I have so many spells that seem good on the surface, but that I never use. Kinda frustrating. I'm doing pretty well now. I'm level 24; I've unlocked like 2/3rds of the map, and I'm sitting on over 200k gold. I'm working my way through some mines--can't remember what the name of that area is. A big help has been getting black dragons. There was some land where there's this black unicorn guarding a cave. I managed to drag the unicorn away from the cave and slip in and buy 2 black dragons. Oh man, they are such badasses. Also, the rune mages can resurrect black dragons even though they're magic immune. I have enough leadership now to get a 3rd one, but I just haven't gone to pick it up yet. My biggest complaint about the game is that it wastes a lot of time. Not just the painfully long animations, but also, having to wander around and wait for your mana to recharge is honestly so stupid. There should be a rest skill that you can use on the main map that lets your hero sit down and regain all their mana and lose all their rage. I found some cheat codes that help with that now; after a fight, I just do "mana" then "rage -x". Really, though, there should just be a button to do that in the game. I mean, I'm not going to waste skill runes to upgrade the recharge skill since the skill doesn't actually give any in-game benefit besides saving you from having to stand around in between fights. Pretty dumb, tbh. If I had some advice for other new players after playing this game myself for the first time, it'd be "don't pick mage unless you really really really want to play a mage." But, if you are just a big nerd like me who loves playing mages, then here's what I've found that helped (obviously disregard any of this if a more experienced player says otherwise):
Anyway, hope that helps anyone else who is struggling with a mage like I was.Fire Rain 3 - good bang-for-buck. Thanks again for all the advice. |
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#8
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Thanks for that link to the info thread.
One question I can't seem to find the answer to is about the armor bearers. I found the dude with the scarred face, and have been travelling around with him. But I haven't seen anyone else. Does only 1 spawn per game? Do I have to dismiss this guy in order to find another one? I haven't found any since I picked this guy up. |
#9
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Sacrifice hurts one friendly stack unit (can't be a summon), and a percentage of that damage is used to INCREASE your maximum unit numbers of another stack. Very handy if you need more of another unit. Quote:
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Also, you can consider berserking (Berserker) demons the demonologists summon. Deadly stuff. Don't forget support spells like Stoneskin, Phantom, and Target. Those are some of the strongest spells in the game and they are relatively cheap for the crystals. In fact, for a more full-bodied mage army, you are better off with support spells than damage spells (because the enemy is too strong). Save up for Turn Back Time too. Also, you can cast spells that cost MORE than 20 mana as your second spell during a dual-cast. e.g. Pygmy (20 mana), then Call of Phoenix (35 mana) in a single round. As long as the first spell is at the limit, the second spell can be cast as a higher mana spell. Also, try to get used to winning with no-losses. This helps a ton on the restocking bit and it helps your leadership score by getting that medal (+1000 leadership if you win 50 fights, no losses). Get level 3 Summoner Skill ASAP. Helps Phantom and Phoenix a lot. Quote:
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Try to get Transmute Skill. It lets you get mana everytime you kill a stack OR if one of your stacks are killed. Don't forget to get Anger Skill (Might tree), you want to get Rage faster. Magic Spring spell (distortion tree), is great if you have a tank that will soak up hits. Every hit it takes (including post effects) will net you more mana! So it can be used to restore mana if you can ensure you will get that unit hit a lot. (think ... demons summoned by demonologist). You can try to push for concentration as well. That gives you mana no matter what. Anyway, these methods can be used, depending on your strategy. If you are big on "big sized armies" you want Anger and Transmute. Just one point in Anger will suffice for now. Transmute takes up Might runes, but it can really be worth it in speeding things up. Also, get mana accelerator up fast, but not too fast if that is your primary mana regenerator. You might need to get Absolute Balance in the Mind Tree to raise your maximum Rage. Mages have trouble with Rage and going with the mana accelerator route can be very tough. If you keep levelling up the Pet Dragon, mana accelerator will EVENTUALLY become 25 rage -> 25 mana. Also, you need one point in that "recharge skill" to get to Concentration skill. Also, you get +2 mana as well. It is better than nothing. If you win the battle faster than 10 turns, you can "delay" finishing the battle, so your mana will be more recharged (while you build up medals too). Game time lost in the battle does not count against your final score. Mouse over the sunset picture in the corner, it tells you how many days you have spent. If you spent time out in the game board regenerating mana, then your score goes down a bit more. So, it isn't such a bad idea later on to max Mediation for the mana boost, and it does speed up regeneration quite a bit. Of course, it is not a high priority. Quote:
Don't forget poison skull and fear. If you have all level 5 units, you cast fear. Then cast poison skull and flaming arrow... the guy will take 2 post effect hits, and won't initiate an attack on a level 5 unit. If you have buffed up a unit with stoneskine and divine armor, and it gets hit by poison or burning effects, you want Dispel level 3 to get rid of poison/burning, but NOT your stoneskin buffs. Ghost blade does not get any benefit from post damage effect. Flaming arrow or poison skull is much better since they will suffer from loss of morale, and take post-effect damage for 3 rounds. If you use Ghost Blade to kill phys resistance enemies, you should be using magic damage (inquisitor) instead. Or debuff the enemy with Pygmy (20 mana), or if they are a cyclops with Helplessness (6 mana). If a unit is hit by two negative status effects, the morale decreases, meaning, their attack rating AND defense rating drops (and their critical hit %), making them easier to kill. Sadly, in Impossible games, the only damaging spells I probably get are Flaming Arrow Poison Skull Trap Level 3 trap AND trapping medal can be very good if you know your army composition will be a little bit weaker than the enemy. I believe my traps do like 5000+ damage, I get 3 of them for free at the start of battle (they are only level 2 though). The level 3 trap ALSO inflicts poison damage. Trap probably does the most damage per mana (not counting aggregate damage like Pirana). Of all classes, mages tend to benefit the most from trap. In certain situations I will use other damaging spells like Black Hole A lot of people swear by Geyser... not sure why I never use it. The best debuffs in the game is probably Pygmy Level 3(for level 1-4) Helplessness Level 3(for level 5s) Plague Level 1 (for black dragons). They are also VERY cheap for the crystal/mana usage. Best support spells for yourself are Stone skin level 3 Phantom level 3 Divine Armor level 2 Turn Back Time level 3 (if you use level 5s a lot... otherwise, just get enough to help your primary damaging stack) Good crowd control spells are Target level 3 Fear level 3 Blind (eh) I am undoubtedly missing some, but those are the ones that come to mind. In hindsight, you are already doing a lot of what I am suggesting. I think the key problem why you are running out of mana so fast is ... because you are using very inefficient damaging spells or spells like Chaos Dragon. In Impossible Mode, damage by spells is really not that good. Don't forget to abuse your Pet Dragon Later on you will absolutely need Ball of Lightning Mystic Egg Don't pick the mystic egg upgrades that will "give you leadership +300", just get the level 2-5, 90% leadership... etc. |
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Thanks also for the other spell recommendations--I'll try them out. |
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