Battle against Karador on impossible

[Metathron]

I am perplexed at how some folks manage to do this battle with no losses. In all my previous games (normal or hard) I usually suffered heavy losses, but this time around, I just had all my troops killed with some rather huge enemy stacks left.

My army consisted of elves, evil beholders, sprites, dryads and ancient treants. I cast the ice spirit's shards at the beginning to stall enemy walkers, so my shooters could shoot. Well, for the couple of rounds I was able to shoot, they didn't do much damage. I'm thinking shooters are not a good choice for this battle. Better get some sturdy walkers/flyers, maybe griffins. Any recommendations?

My sprites/dryads had fear cast on them for most of the battle. An outstanding moment was when my sprites helped the enemy destroy the barriers between us.

I also cast fire rain several times, but against such large numbers, it's more like fire drizzle.

I also remember someone mentioning a strategy with emerald dragons and invisibility, but I can't seem to find it, and I don't know how it goes. I'd be willing to try it, just to avoid getting slaughtered by this ridiculously enormous army.

[Metathron]

Next, I tried with a completely different, expendable army:

Ancient bears
Unicorns
Black Unicorns
Priests
Griffins

Halfway through I thought this would work, when the computer started pulling stunts such as raising 71 necromancers, his 1000 skeleton warrior stack killing my (remaining) 80 ancient bears in one hit, etc.

This is just so much fun.

Edit: Oh yes, I had the druid's staff that increases animals' attack by 50%. A lot of good that did.

[Vilk]

Nobody can win this battle with no loss. No loss just mean no loss after resurrections.

Your battles descriptions are funny, even more when they remind me the misfortune I could face in this battle. That is just normal stuff for this battle. The key points are:

• Manage Necro call restoring enemies stack. Those can come from the crystal if the stack was a Karador stack. Or the two Necromancers will do necro call on any stack.
• Manage Karador spells, particularely fear and hypnotize when possible.
• Manage long range attacks, from Necromancers and big Skel-Archer stack.
• Manage close range and very strong stacks, typically, Black Knight and even Skeleton or Undead Spider.
• Manage the barriers.

There are various way to manage this fight but the key point is the first, you need have a way to manage enemy necro call. There are different tools to do it:

• Using Ice Thorn is an excellent way, but not have it ready when you want is a danger and sometimes they could be attacked and then free the dead stack.
• Moving on a dead stack seems a bit basic but can be useful in many cases.
• Using Thorns so they could use dead stacks to summon thorn. For that, Dryads or Royal Thorn can do the job. This is complex to use in practice but can work very well.
• Use yourself Necromancers so they can cast Necro call.
• Cast Necro call yourself. Because it uses mana and make you use your spell in the round, it's more the last choice but can be very handy.
• And the last but no the least tool against enemy necro call is just to avoid kill enemy stacks but attempt only to reduce them a lot until you get a good position to end the stack and avoid necro call.

The last tip is certainly a key to make the fight more easy. But Necro call is only one problem. Another disturbing problem is managing fear and hypnotize from Karador. There are various tricks against that:

• Use units immune to mind spells.
• Have a unit immune to mind spell have the initiative right before other non immune units. This will allow you cast dispel before you feared/hypnotized units move.
• Avoid units skip their turn this won't let Karador cast a spell on them before end of turn.
• Have your unit with the highest initiative be a unit immune to mind spells.
• Use summoned thorns, at some point they often take Karador busy to cast slow on them at almost each round.

Strong close range units can also kill your fight if they come in contact too soon. Again there are various tricks like:

• Ice Thorns, very efficient.
• Using summon you can summon a lot like thorns from Dryad or Royal Thorn.
• Cast slow.
• Few traps can be handy.
• Use a fast flying unit like dragon to attract them elsewhere, that's not so easy to apply but that can be very efficient.
• Use wall.
• Avoid destroying the initial door walls.

Karador long range are your first hard point to manage. Here few tricks that could make it less ugly:

• Use blind, but take care that last only 2 rounds.
• Use target and close contact a necromancer stack. This stack will just do the standard attack and the second stack will hurt all enemy close. Take care that if your target is too exposed it won't last long enough even with a high protection. The best is certainly use this with a fast flying unit like dragon.
• Attacking the long range asap is your first concern, so take care have some efficient long range like Inquisitor or even Priest. Cannoners should also work well. And summoned thorns can give a handy help.

For a green dragon stack alone that's always the same tactic, I never used this so don't know he details but overall, use its mana source talent for restoring mana, use spells to destroy enemy, use invisibility to avoid attacks, use time back to restore your stack.

Last point, that's a lot of word but only a part of tricks on how to manage better this fight.

[Metathron]

I know most of those things, but putting them into practice all at once is another thing.

I gave up on this game, Karador is just too frustrating on impossible.

Unless you'd like to win it for me, Vilk.

[BB Shockwave]

I did this battle with no losses easily (I did try earlier though and got PWNed when I was not high level enough...)

Key point is Karador here, not his units. His spells, especially Hypnotize and his damaging spells (Ice Snakes) can do a helluva lot of damage to you.

There is an easy way to solve this. Right away from first round, try to concentrate on killing a single stack ASAP. His few Bone Dragons are ideal for this. If Karador has a dead stack, and he will always act first thanks to his Necromancers, he will ALWAYS use Necro Call to raise them. Good thing? Yes, because the raised stack won't attack that round. You can re-kill it and Karador will raise that stack next round too... Ensuring he never casts troublesome spells (and he has a boatload of mana to do that for a looong time).

Just ensure that actually dangerous stacks (Death Knights, Skelly Archers) stay dead, IE have someone stand on them, or, way better, put a Totem on them with your Shamans.

Also: do not use archers in this battle. Most of Karadors troops have resistance to many forms of ranged attacks (Bone Dragons and Skeletons only take 1/3 damage from ANY ranged attack, Necromancers are resistant to Magic ranged attacks, Death Knights have 30% physical resistance).

My troops used for this battle were: Royal Snakes (augmented with snake Ring they can take out even undead easily), Griffins (aka your punching bags, use them to hold back all melee units), Black Dragons (no comment needed), Shamans (for unit healing/magic damage and defense/offense/dead stack pinning with totems). I normally use Evil Beholders for the 5th stack, but they are useless against undead, so I switched to Black Unicorns, very potent against undead.

Also one useful tip. Use Ice Crystals in the first round. This gives you time before Karador's melee troops close in - you only need to deal with the Bone dragons (I usually let the spiders in 'cause they are easy to kill). The Necromancers will cast plague and magic lock in the first rounds, so you don't have to worry. And Death Knights for some reason LOVE to attack the Ice Shards - it brings their damage to the max fast, I guess, but this meant for me that it was about Round 5 by the time I had to deal with them.

Also - blind the Skeleton archers first round. They represent the most danger.

After you killed all of Karador's troop, it's easy, but tedious resurrection time. Simply stand away from a corpse (spiders are preferred), let the crystal resurrect it, then use "Rage Taking" on it. From the accumulated Rage, use Lina's chargers! Slow, but works. I finished with no losses.

[iregev]

no Inquistors ?

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by iregev

no Inquistors ?

The Skeleton Archers, and even the Bone Dragons LOVE picking on them, and they die easily.

Plus, calculate: Dragons and Skellies only take 1/3 damage from ranged attacks (and that only if they are in full range). Even inquisitor's 200% damage means 2/3 of the normal damage... Not worth it. Heavy melee is much more usefull for this battle.

Oh and... use the Silver Sword if you have it. In some games you can find a recipe in the Marhsan Swamp graves, if you take it to the Mage School in Verlon Forest, they can make it for you. No attack bonus, but +30% damage agains Undead is pretty good. I also used anti-undead items like the paladin Shield and the Silver Cord that give additional defense against Undead - they still hit hard, but it helps.

[Razorflame]

wouldn't it be easier to use

royal thorns/thorn warriors/thorn hunters/dryads/necromancers?

first turn kill something

raise dead with necro and keep spawning those warriors/hunters ^^

use sacrifice on the summoned units to reraise the rest of your units ^^

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by Razorflame

wouldn't it be easier to use

royal thorns/thorn warriors/thorn hunters/dryads/necromancers?

first turn kill something

raise dead with necro and keep spawning those warriors/hunters ^^

use sacrifice on the summoned units to reraise the rest of your units ^^

Umm, Dryads would be useless for this battle, they cannot put undead to sleep (and that's their greatest asset).

Thorns are frankly, very weak units. I doubt they would stand against Black Knights for long. You need tough melee units for that. Plus plants cannot be resurrected in any way, that's why I never use them - hard to prevent losses.

One more thing to keep in mind - apart from the necros (who'll be busy casting spells anyway) and the negligible bone dragons, all of Karador's units do physical damage only. So it might be a good idea to stack up on physical resistance-items, or use Stone skin or God Armor.

[Razorflame]

true indeed

but wouldn't it be better to use demons instead of griffins?(assuming u want to have to always retaliation ability for a tank)

an black dragons are also hard to keep alive(unless u got time back ready they die rather easy) and can't use spells on them


i would do it with emerald ones

their mana drain ability can be very helpful ^^