Something for true warriors..

[impy]

The introduction of runemage, which, without any saved runes, is more of overpowered level 4 unit rather than 5, got me thinking. With how many unused runes is one actually capable of finishing the game? This question can be transferred into - what is the lowest number of skills (=skill points) one must invest into in order to finish the game?

And the new challenge was born..
Conditions:
1) Impossible difficulty
2) No loss
3) No kiting
4) No level 5 units apart from runemage
5) No pet dragon digging - in order not to abusively raise number of gained runes
6) Finish the game with highest number of unused runes

Once again, choice is yours, but i will personally not use any of the known overpowered combos - droids, necro+elwin, 100%crit shooters etc. etc., i mentioned it all before in paladin ultimate thread.

The number of runes generated in the beggining of each playthrough & runes found in chests on battlefields may vary and therefore can affect the final figure,but I think it should not make much of difference, it will more about how many runes you spent on skills.
The character level will give extra runes, so it may be worth pursuing +%experience. Investing in Learning may not be the best, Learning 1 requires 23 runes to start. I have not done the precise calculations whether gain of extra runes through extra levels is worth it though, i leave it to the others. Also, no pet dragon digging should put a stop to abusive digging of +experience wanderer scrolls. That's fair.

I am currently level 21, see screenshot, with 278 unused runes. I only invested in Distorsion 1, and Linguistics 1 as a prerequisite, and Scouting 1, hoping to get as far as possible.
Warrior character is an obvious choice - with no benefits coming from skills, only warrior provides leadership advantage as he (she) levels up.
Things are quite tough actually, it reminds me of my first kings bounty playthrough - running around to see what i can actually kill
Thanks for over 1000 views on paladin ultimate thread, hopefully this one will attract some fruitful discussion too.

[Metathron]

So, a rune mage will make use of however many runes you have available, it's not capped?

[Saiko Kila]

Originally Posted by Metathron

So, a rune mage will make use of however many runes you have available, it's not capped?

It's capped at 20 runes. Only Runic Armor is supposed to give an additional bonus if you have more than 20 runes, but it's the same whether you have 21 or 221.

[Voxfox]

Originally Posted by Saiko Kila

It's capped at 20 runes. Only Runic Armor is supposed to give an additional bonus if you have more than 20 runes, but it's the same whether you have 21 or 221.

Saiko are you certain on that as I`m sure my mages powers increase the more runes I harvest (dont use) as in the summoned creatures stack increases etc
If its capped at 20 there is no real point in Impy`s challenge

[impy]

You can easily check it with cheat code, but just you know what to expect from runemage:
20 might runes - strength of destruction talent goes up to 90-150.
- standard damage goes up by +40 = 80-95 (game mistakenly only shows +20)

20 mind runes - strength of revive talent goes up to 240hp per runemage
- health of runemage goes up by 200 = from 450 to 650

20 magic runes - strength of illusion talent goes up to 1000hp summon/mage
- 30% probability of casting sheep on standard attack

Destruction talent looks nice, it is irresistible astral damage, but due to low basic runemage attack (30) it does not do that much damage unless buffed up. It is a far cry from dragons doing 300+damage.
650hp does not make it a strong level unit, but let's not forget it is a ranged unit like cyclop. The best perks come with saved magic runes. illusion talent is rechargable every 3turn - brilliant!, casting sheep is awesome.
Eventhough runemage is a human unit, it does not seem to be affected by royal griffin skill or Portrait of the knight - bug?
Saving so many runes weakens your overall army performance, question is whether it is worth it or not in regular game play. Answer is given by runemage leadership req - 2000, which is too much for middlegame. For endgame with important skills already maxed out, having f.e. 12 runemages summoning 12000hp meatshields (then cast target on it) every 3rounds is different cup of tea.
Let's say it is nice to see some fresh unit which is not another violet, yellow, pink dragon with slightly different statistics.

[impy]

Originally Posted by Voxfox

Saiko are you certain on that as I`m sure my mages powers increase the more runes I harvest (dont use) as in the summoned creatures stack increases etc
If its capped at 20 there is no real point in Impy`s challenge

My challenge is not based on having (or not having) runemages with (or without) superstrong statistics/talents depending on creators setting limits to it or not.
Point is to finish the game with maximum unused runes left. Since runemage is a new unit and happens to benefit from saved runes, i thought - why not to include it in my challenge to see have it behaves? You can run around with orcs if you want, they are very strong or make your own challenge, thousands of options.
Hmm.. My challenges are usually not very funny, (unless your standard army setup does not include bottle of Jack by the pc table ) but difficult. Some people find it interesting this way. All the best

[Swindley]

I like challenges like this and will keep an eye on this thread, even if I wont try it myself

Oh and after some testing in my game, I've found the sheeping from the Rune Mages extremely usefull, and often have 2 stacks of powerfull enemy units sheeped, although with 30% chance it's abit random. The summoning is very usefull too, and I was surprised to find out they can heal and revive black dragons as well
________
ASIAN MOVIES

[DGDobrev]

Well, I can confirm that there is a cap on the abilities of the rune mage. Destruction seems to be capped at +200%, which still provides a real nice damaging capabilities in a straight line.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Well, I can confirm that there is a cap on the abilities of the rune mage. Destruction seems to be capped at +200%, which still provides a real nice damaging capabilities in a straight line.

Sorry, I mentioned this before. All of the abilities are capped at ~20 runes per discipline.

e.g. 19-20 might runes, 19-20 mind runes, 19-20 magic runes

at about 19-20 magic runes, your debilitating effect is "sheep".
mind runes max at about 140% power as well (20*7).

[onepiece]

Now we need to compare if the rune mages are really useful for that high lds and rune cost and price (I suppose it depends on your current strategy)

A more correct comparison would be: which is better: x rune mages or x red dragons? (since they have the same lds)