Shall we start a new high score/info thread? (Spoilers inside)

[DGDobrev]

I know the game's out only for the Russians, but I got it on my trip with our company to Moscow bought it and beat it. I'm Bulgarian, I've been studying Russian for 15 years and it wasn't a problem going through it.

First of all, randomness is here, and is here to stay. Wonderful. A lot of items have been added, a lot of enemies and the wickedly powerful Paladin unit is probably the best addition to the game. Actually, I stopped using Inquisitors since lvl 25 or so because of these guys. They have mass resurrect of all allies in the adjacent 6 hexes. With Time back (it's back as a spell) you can do 2 mass resurrects, which usually makes you take slim to none losses, unless the battle is really, really hard - like the battles with some of the bosses. There is no gift spell, and inquisitors' holy anger has only 3 charges, which makes the big ressing vs. bosses somewhat difficult.

The next thing to consider is the travel time. I finished in 14 days, but I can easily shave off like 3-4 days out of that. I did a lot of pointless traveling because of quests I wasn't aware of, troop replenishment or chains of quests that require you to travel through several islands and/or multiple locations. It will be most interesting and challenging to try and find out the best and shortest route with minimal travel time.

I really liked the way the AI performs. If the AI decides that it's losing the battle, it doesn't allow you much time to do resurrecting. It usually suicides the last unit against your closest one, unless it's ranged or the unit is with no retaliation trait. For example, I got extremely irritated in the battle vs. Samail (in a castle on Shettera island) who as soon as he realized that he's losing the battle began casting Armageddon each turn (he had 361 mana, I think, so he had 9 armageddons available...), effectively destroying more of my units rather than his own. I did win, and with only 18 units lost, thanks to the 2 mass resurrections, but still, it was irritating as hell. I can imagine how a powerpuff girl party will cope vs. him. The losses will be extreme

The final battle vs. baal was also fun. You team up with Bill Gilbert to kick baal's... ummm... backside. Baal has over 125k HP's on normal (I can imagine how will it be on impossible) and has a peculiar spell. You start on a big chunk of rock, portions of which can be destroyed by Baal from time to time. The AI that commands Gilbert's units is absolutely awful. I saw 3 of his units disappear just like that, because he didn't move them from the endangered area when the rock broke. Even worse, I think that Gilbert's units losses count as your own. If I'm correct, that can give you bonkers if you need to do a game without losses, because you have no control over his units whatsoever.

In any case - the story's good, the game's good, the good tactics and minimal losses are once again the key to victory.

Maybe it's time to try a game with a mage now. It will be fun with the addition of the multiple bonuses to the spell damage introduced in this game.

[Elwin]

So i was right about the point that GIlbert will be controlled by AI

[Metroplex]

I can't wait to play the game...
Thanks for the spoilers
It would be cool if we could control both Amelie and 'Bill Gilbert' by taking turns with them instead of us controlling Amelie and the AI 'Bill Gilbert'...
Maybe the devs can make this change before the game is released in English or release a patch afterwards!
KB rocks!!!

[Mandea]

strange, in the russian demo there is a GIFT spell. maybe you haven't found it yet.

[DGDobrev]

I didn't find it in my entire game, otherwise I would have used it. I know gift and it's one of my favorite spells. But since the game is random, it's normal to be unlucky from time to time

[foolstone]

I am a Lvl 26 Mage at impossible now.
I think AP is much better than Legend.
more replayable,more units,more .....

[DGDobrev]

And much more challenging in terms of no-loss battle (I actually discovered that Gilbert's losses do not count os your own), quick victory (because of all the traveling) and such.

[Metathron]

Thanks for all the info, DG! Looks very appetizing.

Could you tell me what the two different coloured knights' abilities are? And the different coloured evil eye? Are there still the regular versions of these in the game?

[travelingoz]

Where did you find masses of paladins? I'm level 18 mage and i've only found 11 so far.

Nevermind found them.

[DGDobrev]

Well, things are looking good

Just finished a game on hard with a paladin. It was a lot of fun, mainly because this is my favorite char. 13 days, all quests completed (I think they're 83, since I checked under every nook and cranny for quests) except one one - it would force me to lose 14 hours to travel to Elona and back to give away some stupid papers, which would take me into day 14.

I must say I have underestimated the Paladin's skill Resurrection. I was very, very wrong in thinking it isn't as useful as higher magic or warrior's Bloodthirst. It's wicked usefulness lies in the ability to abuse it like hell once you get it up to lvl 3. Even if you lose 100% of 1 troop, but lose nothing else, you will get all those soldiers back (100% resurrection of a random troop that suffered casualties in battle), no matter whether they are Thorn Hunters or Black Dragons, practically leaving your army intact. Still, I must warn you - they do count as losses, so that's not a no loss battle, and no loss battles are very important - winning battles without losses gives you up to 1000 leadership.

EDIT: Also it's good to note that the AI usually resurrects the troops you need the most and/or cost the most. For example, if it has to choose between 20 inquisitors and 120 horsemen, chances are it will choose the horsemen. For example, in the final battle vs baal it had to choose between 156 archmagi, 417 inquisitors and 185 horsemen. It chose to resurrect the horsemen, which in my eyes was the best choice.

As for the final battle... I'd see only 1 way that it may go without losses. Baal is killed, some imps are left alive (no retaliation, so magic spring FTW) and Bill Gilbert has lost all his units (so that he doesn't kill the imps). Way too many variables and way too many if's for my liking

It was a fun playthrough. I must say I got a lot of nice items early on, but the game compensated it by giving me few useful troops. I had only 4 Paladins to tank and 3 archmages (and they remained 3 up until I got to Elona, the elven lands, mid-game) to support them for quite some time till I got the shield that gives out a dragon each level. So I started abusing it. The Paladin can indeed become a natural Dragon master as soon as he gets Voice of the Dragon lvl 3 (+2 morale to animals and dragons). A dragon with +20% atk/def and increased chance to crit is a force to be reckoned with. I strongly suggest that everyone tries it out. It's a hell of a fun, and it's rewarding

I'm a strong supporter of high morale, even if it costs me a unit to carry around (like the royal griffins, +1 morale all humans). +30% Atk, +30% def, 140% of normal chance to crit is just uber. Top it with some items and you get something crazy. Take a look at the last screenshot. With these paladins every hit is a crit (however, there is some margin for missing, because I think everything is capped at 95%), because I even have prayer lvl 3, which adds an additional 7% crit chance. I really wanted to try it out along side the warrior's last tier skill "Retribution" (up to 20% increased crit chance when counterattacking), but it's hard to spare that much runes if you're not a warrior. In addition to that, my entire army (even the priests) had a chance to crit over 60%, which is 2 out of 3. Suffice to say, that's like having not 33k, but 50k leadership. There is only one unit that's hard to kill with this army... The ancient vampires have the uncanny knack to evade crits all the time

Suffice to say that once I managed to fill the army as I wanted to (Inquisitors, Paladins, Knights, Archmagi and Priests), the game was a breeze. "Impossible" enemies were dying like crazy and with hardly any losses. The priests were really doing their job.They can be considered a real scapegoat, since the enemy usually goes for your weakest unit, and with lvl 3 in resurrection, you don't have to mind if they make it till the end of the fight as long as your other units are intact. Still, they do quite a bit of damage, since the Paladin can get a medal to upgrade the damage of the Paladins, Inquisitors and Priests by up to 40%. Besides, the only place I didn't use them was in the last 2 battles - with Ctachu (very tough end-game boss that summons a lot of powerful units like T-Rexes, so strong melee units were required) and with Baal (he's got a wicked smashing ability that hits multiple units regardless of the distance for massive damage).

Hope you like the new inputs... Although they do contain a lot of spoilers. The screenshots are pretty much self-explanatory, even if they are in Russian. Note the crit rate on the last one. I just love it

BTW: I do realize that my end stats are low. That's because I used a ton of utility items. +20% paladin crit chance, +10% crit chance, +45% reistance vs. magic damage, +25% resistance vs. Physical damage, and so on. They did more for me than any other item would do. It was really funny seeing a stack of 3k fairies (magic damage) hitting me for under 100 damage

EDIT: Fixed the formula by which I counted up the "leadership" you gain by critting.
For example, if you have:
=> 189 Paladins with 94% chance to crit for a total of 33700 leadership
=> this is close to 100% chance to crit (and they did crit in pretty much every round both on defense and offense)
=> a crit is worth 1.5 of the base damage, so you can practically multiply the leadership by 1.5 and get the total value of your troop
=> the result is that this troop actually weighs 50550 leadership or 284 Paladins with no bonuses

Wicked, right? The same goes for troops that crits, say 50% of the time.
For example:
=> You have 481 inquisitors with a chance to crit 50% for 33700 leadership
=> that's a 1 out 2 crits with a multiplier of 1.5
=> so the leadership of the troop is 33700*1.25 = 42125
=> that is as if you have 602 inquisitors without bonuses