Stuck at Verona...

[TemjinGold]

It's difficult to explain in words but it's mostly understanding positioning (I'd make a vid clip of such a fight for you if I knew how.) Before every fight, I never make a move before studying the battlefield first. How are our units arranged from the start? Where will my opponent likely move? How many ways can his units reach mine? How can I stop/alter their progress towards me? These are some of the questions you need to ask yourself.

The key on impossible is to use the terrain to your advantage by dividing and conquering. Find ways to splinter your opponents forces or impede them from reaching you (Demon Portals and Traps are great for this because they can't move past one.)

A good analogy to this is a game of chess: It's not about how many pieces you have, it's about how many DEVELOPED pieces you have in useful positions on the board. In AP, my opponent might outnumber me 5 to 1 but if my units create a "chokepoint" such that he can only reach me with 2 of his stacks, then his "advantage" is moot. If I can place my units and spells in such a way that the AI is forced to traverse a set path (not because of shoddy AI but because it's the only way to get to me) then numerical advantage is more or less moot. This is the thing I love about AP more than HOMM or any other so-called "strategy game." Strategy is not about having more units and running him over. It should be about creative use of few resources to overcome impossible odds. And that's exactly what AP on impossible with a mage allows me to do.

[lauvhk]

So the demoness never use infernal exchange in the battle?

[TemjinGold]

Nope. Both demoness stacks stepped on traps in their first turn. Once the 2nd turn rolled around, my demon portal stack was deemed the much larger threat.

Right now, my mage has wiped out every stack from Debir to Rusty. On Verona, there are 3 fights left that are too tough for me to crack--Demenion, Marquis, and the Champion. Every other stack on Verona, heroes or not, have fallen to either the 1-troll army or the 2-black dragon army. The champion I'm pretty sure I can take if I can start the fight with full rage. When I tried him to see what he was like (with no rage), I only killed half his army before he killed 1 of my two dragons.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by TemjinGold

Nope. Both demoness stacks stepped on traps in their first turn. Once the 2nd turn rolled around, my demon portal stack was deemed the much larger threat.

Right now, my mage has wiped out every stack from Debir to Rusty. On Verona, there are 3 fights left that are too tough for me to crack--Demenion, Marquis, and the Champion. Every other stack on Verona, heroes or not, have fallen to either the 1-troll army or the 2-black dragon army. The champion I'm pretty sure I can take if I can start the fight with full rage. When I tried him to see what he was like (with no rage), I only killed half his army before he killed 1 of my two dragons.

How many turns on average do the battles last using this type of strategy?

[TemjinGold]

Surprisingly, not many. For most of the Verona fights, I can win by turn 5-6 (especially if my portal yields demons/executioners as being surrounded usually means they attack as many as 4 times per round not counting retaliation!) I usually drag it out to 10 tho as I don't have Fire Mage L3 yet (by spamming Oil Mist.) The tough hero fights though, such as Peter, can take upwards of 20 turns.

The trouble most people have with mages is that they are filling out all 5 slots with troops. That actually makes the fights HARDER since my spells do most of the damage rather than my units, so I only use one stack of units that simply won't die as easy. Generally, I only need to keep my units alive 1 turn before the AI's attention to turned to where I place my portals as the summoned stack is always exponentially larger leadership-wise than my actual units. For the really tough fights, I pull out the troll because I can cast Invisibility on him first turn before throwing up the portal.

[loreangelicus]

I've never played mage, but I'm beginning to understand now. I play paladin on impossible, and actually got got a pretty good save game start wherein the duplicate Bolo navi map in Scarlet always gives me Call Colossus. Unfortunately, the paladin does not have enough spell power (ie. intellect) and mana regeneration to employ such a tactic; and this is not even counting the inability to raise Distortion and Chaos high enough at the starting levels. Sure, I could still solo unit the first few islands without losses, but the best I could probably do is to get Order/Heal to level 2 and spend 50+ turns flying around my Red Dragon and throwing a breath attack from a distance every couple of turns.

I assume rage generation is not a problem for you given that you have "sacrificial lambs" to dish out pain; rage is critical for digging up chests for wanderer scrolls, specifically Ancient Knowledge. I think the problem encountered by other mage players is that they don't get lucky with spells and units. I believe the early game solo unit strategy for mages relies heavily on level 5 units being available, be it in shops or via Call Colossus. Even with a full complement of spells, is there a suitable level 1-4 unit that could be used to solo?

[jake21]

Well for me I don't really need level 5 units; I need units that will create distractions (royal griffons, royal thorns, demologists, shamans...). A few key spells also help (not all of them but at least a few) (gift, fire rain, phantom, time back, ...)
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In my current 'hard' game up to (and including verona) I have had almost no luck with troups and spells. I didn't help my cause by vertically in damage spells skills but I in the end it probably was the best option simply due to lack of spells found.
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At the same time i started a normal mage (since the hard mage is such slow pace) and that game is utterly breeze not just due to easier skill level but before reaching verona (and verona was a gold mind once I started exploring it) I had royal thorns, royal griffons, demologists, fire rain, phantom, gift, ...
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This ignores items though in my hard game items haven't been that bad (I started with the +10 mind (banner) AND +10 warrior rune (sword); though it drained most of my cash) and found a +3int/stuff helm long with a +3 defense/+2 int shield.
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Still debating what to do with the guard. The elven guy is 4int but not sure 4int is all it is cut up to when compared with 700 leadership. Also the 700 ledership guy allows me to use better items.

Originally Posted by loreangelicus

I've never played mage, but I'm beginning to understand now. I play paladin on impossible, and actually got got a pretty good save game start wherein the duplicate Bolo navi map in Scarlet always gives me Call Colossus. Unfortunately, the paladin does not have enough spell power (ie. intellect) and mana regeneration to employ such a tactic; and this is not even counting the inability to raise Distortion and Chaos high enough at the starting levels. Sure, I could still solo unit the first few islands without losses, but the best I could probably do is to get Order/Heal to level 2 and spend 50+ turns flying around my Red Dragon and throwing a breath attack from a distance every couple of turns.

I assume rage generation is not a problem for you given that you have "sacrificial lambs" to dish out pain; rage is critical for digging up chests for wanderer scrolls, specifically Ancient Knowledge. I think the problem encountered by other mage players is that they don't get lucky with spells and units. I believe the early game solo unit strategy for mages relies heavily on level 5 units being available, be it in shops or via Call Colossus. Even with a full complement of spells, is there a suitable level 1-4 unit that could be used to solo?

[jake21]

yea another spell i don't have; invisibility. What would you do without invisibilty and portal.

Originally Posted by TemjinGold

Surprisingly, not many. For most of the Verona fights, I can win by turn 5-6 (especially if my portal yields demons/executioners as being surrounded usually means they attack as many as 4 times per round not counting retaliation!) I usually drag it out to 10 tho as I don't have Fire Mage L3 yet (by spamming Oil Mist.) The tough hero fights though, such as Peter, can take upwards of 20 turns.

The trouble most people have with mages is that they are filling out all 5 slots with troops. That actually makes the fights HARDER since my spells do most of the damage rather than my units, so I only use one stack of units that simply won't die as easy. Generally, I only need to keep my units alive 1 turn before the AI's attention to turned to where I place my portals as the summoned stack is always exponentially larger leadership-wise than my actual units. For the really tough fights, I pull out the troll because I can cast Invisibility on him first turn before throwing up the portal.

[lauvhk]

I understood the potential of single slot army back in my last and completed game in KB:TL. But soon after I realized that managing a full 5 slots army was actually far more challenging, that now I would refrain myself using single stack approach.

As for using level 4 unit, Elwin completes and documents somewhere on the forum an impossible (Paladin?) game by using Black Knight only. Remember though he does map kiting which might not be your soup.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by jake21

Still debating what to do with the guard. The elven guy is 4int but not sure 4int is all it is cut up to when compared with 700 leadership. Also the 700 ledership guy allows me to use better items.

I think the greatest boon of Elenhel, the elven companion, is that he gives you a random wanderer scroll every 30 battles. From the forum posts, you need around 5+ Ancient Knowledge scrolls to have a chance of reaching level 60. Else, even with max Learning and two Hand of Necropolis and medals to pump your XP gain by +50% per battle, you still won't reach level 60 even if you killed all enemies in the game. Even if not going for level 60, there are a lot of very useful wanderer scrolls (Call of Death, Call Colossus, Titan Sword, etc.)