Dev-mode

[Lord Ludwig]

Dear Zuanghzi, thanks for the advice. I cam back from vacation yesterday late and can thus reply only now.

I WILL try your tips, but am not very confident. The 70+ int obviously is there if I use all the gear that gives +int, for example staff of the archmage instead of inquisitor blade. So either I go with no more than 150 paladins or I lower intellect. Anyway, what bothers me most is your strategy relies on hitting Baal with at least 3 units every turn. Well, given that the pals and knights only move 2 hexes, usually I can't even reach Baal with them, and when I do he pushes them back summoning demons... I'll try the geyser strategy, but what do you do when the 6 turns of double casting run out?

Well, given the celebrations of the coming days I do not know when I'll be able to give it a try but I will certainly do so and let you know.

As for beating him with only black knights... well OK I can try that as well, but as I said the max number I got was 279 and they were wiped out in less than 10 rounds... with staff of the necromancer I could raise that number to about 350 but I don't think 70 black knights make up for the loss of 190 paladins. And that's provided I can actually find those black knights in first place.

And all this is just to beat Baal... I really wonder how someone can do it with no losses... well I saw there is now a specific thread, gonna read that as well

[Elwin]

350 black knights pwn baal easy.. i did it with 400 in impossible without problem. they wont die that fast if u have stoneskin on them .. and maybe an eviln spell .. if u have level 3 eviln it res 30% of stack .. for 300 its 90!!

[Lord Ludwig]

350 black knights alone take care easily of Baal? I would really love to see it done. I replayed from the pre-Baal save I left before going on holiday. This time I wrote down some stats exactly. I had 278 black knights (1 less than max allowed, no more around), 111 royal griffins, 190 paladins, 838 priests and 419 inquisitors. Maybe "less is more" but I should think all the humans (at high morale btw) plus the griffins make up for the -72 black knights. I switched between stone skin, divine armor, phantom, pole axe and ice snake (geyser is a spell I had not built up, I'll try that as well but doubt it will make a difference). The result was that the BK managed to hit Baal three times for 4k, 2k and finally 600 dmg. They were wiped out at round 9. At round 20 I was left with the paladins alone, and they finally went down in round 42. Baal was at 98k, thus about 35-40% of his original health. I fail to see how 72 BK more would make the fight "easy".

[Urbz]

Originally Posted by Lord Ludwig

350 black knights alone take care easily of Baal? I would really love to see it done. I replayed from the pre-Baal save I left before going on holiday. This time I wrote down some stats exactly. I had 278 black knights (1 less than max allowed, no more around), 111 royal griffins, 190 paladins, 838 priests and 419 inquisitors. Maybe "less is more" but I should think all the humans (at high morale btw) plus the griffins make up for the -72 black knights. I switched between stone skin, divine armor, phantom, pole axe and ice snake (geyser is a spell I had not built up, I'll try that as well but doubt it will make a difference). The result was that the BK managed to hit Baal three times for 4k, 2k and finally 600 dmg. They were wiped out at round 9. At round 20 I was left with the paladins alone, and they finally went down in round 42. Baal was at 98k, thus about 35-40% of his original health. I fail to see how 72 BK more would make the fight "easy".

Maybe a matter of stats but possibly also a matter of items, probably a combination of both. I'm fairly sure Elwin had the set which gives huge bonusses to black knights for example, did you aswell?

[Elwin]

Tjis set is not realy required .. there was a guy who kiiled baal with 250 blackknights without it already .. stoneskin and evlin .. and just kill there is nothing else in that tactics ...

[Lord Ludwig]

nuntio vobis gaudium magnum: habemus baalicidium!!

Incredibili dictu, to go on with the latinorum, but I finally took down the m#th£rf&ck£r! A further trial with undead counting on the ghosts high physical resistance proved fruitless, but today I managed using the demon set. 26 archdemons, some 100+ demons and executioners, 200+demonesses and the good old black knights reduced to 224 because i had to wear the mask of hate. At a certain point it even seemed easy... the demonesses were critically striking for 10k every turn. Then however the big badass started summoning wave after wave of demons... all my troops were killed except 9 archdemons. Baal finally went down in round 23 or 24 after another round of geyser but I was left with only 3 archdemons against several executioners, imps, demonesses and cerberi. I thought the final joke would be to lose even after killing Baal and was pondering how to smash my monitor, but positioning the archi's in the corner where only 2 enemies at a time could attack them I could keep them alive long enough to go calm rage-geyser-calm rage-demon portal. The summoned executioners finished the job and I happily won the game at round 32 with exactly... one archdemon left alive.
How this could be turned in a no-loss I can't start to imagine but at least now I can say I beat the game at impossible as a mage. Final score was a not very impressive 1079 due to taking 46 days for completing it, over 50% dmg done by spell book, most effective overall troop paladins, even if in the final battle it were the archdemons (and secondly the demonesses, may they rest in peace) that brought the day home.

And now for warrior imp no losses

[fable]

Very impressive to pull it off with demons, indeed. For black knights you need a physical resistance item to reach 95%, they start at 30%, 70% with stone skin, 77% with medal, so another 15-20% more to make them invincible.