another sick challenge from impy:-)

[impy]

you know the feeling.. you have been playing this game for months, you can name anything that lies between debir and reha, you love the game, but it is not as when you were playing your first no loss impossible game anymore. You feel you're losing interest a bit, however there is no replacement for this game as of yet on the market and in your heart. What to do?
I can only think of two more challenges left, if you know more let me know.
1) no loss impossible mage game with no direct damage spellcasting. meaning only ressurecting, buffing, summoning etc.
2) no loss impossible mage game with single red dragon. I managed to conquer everything in the game apart from k'tahu & baal with single blackie; red dragon can be healed, so there is a fighting chance.

what do you guys think?

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by impy

you know the feeling.. you have been playing this game for months, you can name anything that lies between debir and reha, you love the game, but it is not as when you were playing your first no loss impossible game anymore. You feel you're losing interest a bit, however there is no replacement for this game as of yet on the market and in your heart. What to do?
I can only think of two more challenges left, if you know more let me know.
1) no loss impossible mage game with no direct damage spellcasting. meaning only ressurecting, buffing, summoning etc.
2) no loss impossible mage game with single red dragon. I managed to conquer everything in the game apart from k'tahu & baal with single blackie; red dragon can be healed, so there is a fighting chance.

what do you guys think?

Uh, I already did 1), pretty much. 2% total damage from spell book, probably just because I felt like trying to get Fire Mage. I almost never use direct damage spells.

2) Should be impossible. It is only possible if you have ridiculous physical resistance, since Ktahu will kill the red dragon on his first action before you can stone skin.

[impy]

i think it might be possible to survive k'tahu attack..
let's get numbers to do the talking:
k'tahu has initiative 12, which you cannot match so you have to suffer from his first physical attack = 3000-4000 damage.
damage depends on your defence/his attack ratio and your physical resistance.
k'tahu attack = 102.
your defence = 63 (start) + 19 (+3 morale) +31 (+50%defence combo artifact) + 10 (wanderer scroll) + cca 15-20 (hero attribute) = cca 138-143.
therefore his damage will only be 2/3 of 3000-4000 which is 2000-2666.

your physical resistance = 15 (start) + 7 (medal) + 15 (twink.boots) + 10?? (caution 3 skill) + 20 (scaly set) = 67% reduction

therefore (2000-2666) x (1-0.67) = 660-1147 damage.
knowing your dragon has 860 hit points, with a bit of luck you may survive first round

p.s. i put question mark to caution 3 skill, because i am not sure how exactly it works. it clearly says 30% phys. damage reduction in first round, but when i checked it on the black dragon it gave me only 20%. So i only assumed conservative 10%

[Zechnophobe]

Yeah, so that's kinda my point though. The 'challenge' is just loading up games until you have the exact items you need over and over again, since that battle pretty much means you can't succeed any other way.

(Also, am I the only one who thinks the Belt of the Victor should be... a belt? And not an 'artifact'?)

[Harush]

Hah...I've already done #1. My rule was zero spell book damage and no damage from phantoms. Meant I couldn't use sacrifice either.

[impy]

i played no loss impossible mage game with single red dragon.
Game was lot less nail biting than playing with single black dragon, due to heal/stone skin combo. Defeated everything in the game but ktahu & baal without using any wanderer scrolls apart from 50% exp. If you're interested see my previous thread about single black dragon for info. See screenshot after killing gremlion.
I got to ktahu and was wondering if he can be defeated. I had cca 250 mana, 6o int, 42% base phys. resist, 128 base defence on dragon + 61 scrolls ready (10 death stars, 4 geysers, 15 ice snakes, 10+ lighting etc.)
Idea was as follows:
1) first round : survive ktahu physical attack. It is doable as i mentioned earlier. I had twink.boots, caution 2, leather dress, belt of the victor. Heal, stone skin, hide in the corner where dragon can be attacked by 2 creatures only.
2) ktahu summons units. preferably 2 units of hayterans. Point is, that the whole battle with ktahu would be very long 40+rounds. Eventually the whole screen will get filled up with lizardmen summons. After killing ktahu one has to kill them all as well. My idea was to let hayterans which cannot reach dragon to lay eggs and have half a screen filled up with low numbers of hayterans, which can be easily killed by a few fire rains at the end.
3) dragon stays in the corner. Ktahu's attack does about 250dmg. So every 5 rounds cast stone skin, every 3 rounds heal spell. In between fire arrow to ktahu, occasionally calm rage or magic spring.
4) once lower on mana, save mana for stone skin, start using scrolls for damaging ktahu - my scrolls alone could do 70000+ damage!
5) this strategy works perfectly, got ktahu down to 80000 hit points and started to dance around my pc. But then the inevitable happened. Ktahu summoned gorguanas (again). Not a danger damage-wise, due to my 95% magic resist, but double damage for 2 rounds ability. That immediately brings ktahu damage to 500/round. I killed them easily the first time while i could cast two spells /round. When it happened again, after turn 30,I was effectively forced to cast heal every round and at some point 10000 death star to eliminate gorguanas. But then I could not heal or cast stone skin = game over. The only way to go then, is not to use up those 6x 2 castings/round at all, and save them only for the moments, when gorguanas appear. But it's gets soo messy.

[fable]

Did you try waiting with red dragons? That way you get doubled damage for only 1 turn, because the counter will decrease the same turn.

[Zechnophobe]

That's not true. Waiting does not end effects on a unit. Only finishing a units turn ticks down the duration on effects. Waiting would have potentially the exact opposite effect.

Hmm, unless you meant to wait so that he uses the ability before you go for the turn. That would actually work come to think of it.

Oh, and did you try summoning a phoenix so that you can 'go' with you dragon, and then cast spells on your dragon during the phoenix's turn? I found that immensely helpful for combats like this.

[machival]

Originally Posted by impy

I can only think of two more challenges left, if you know more let me know.

I have a good challange for you if you're feeling up for it and find it interesting. I'll go for it myself soon.

-Impossible Mage
-Pet Dragon can never use any direct damage ability, nor mystic egg. (he can use stone wall, treasure searcher and mana accelerator only
-Not allowed to use "Repair" with the Repair Droid.
-Banned spells: Phantom, Ressurection, Eviln, Sacrifice, Turn back Time, Invisibility, Armaggedon. (can never cast these even by scrolls)
-Banned units: All Dragons, Trolls, Black Knights, Vampires and Ancient Vampires, ALL "no retaliation" units (royal snake, assassin, etc)
-Not allowed to buy troops that are in Horde quantity.
-No map kiting with reload (if you are caught trying and lose the battle, you lose the challange, but you are free to try).
-All wanderer scrolls that give you troops by any kind are banned.
-No battles lost.

Don't try a no loss game with these rules
I hope you'll like it.

[impy]

Originally Posted by machival

I have a good challange for you if you're feeling up for it and find it interesting. I'll go for it myself soon.

-Impossible Mage
-Pet Dragon can never use any direct damage ability, nor mystic egg. (he can use stone wall, treasure searcher and mana accelerator only
-Not allowed to use "Repair" with the Repair Droid.
-Banned spells: Phantom, Ressurection, Eviln, Sacrifice, Turn back Time, Invisibility, Armaggedon. (can never cast these even by scrolls)
-Banned units: All Dragons, Trolls, Black Knights, Vampires and Ancient Vampires, ALL "no retaliation" units (royal snake, assassin, etc)
-Not allowed to buy troops that are in Horde quantity.
-No map kiting with reload (if you are caught trying and lose the battle, you lose the challange, but you are free to try).
-All wanderer scrolls that give you troops by any kind are banned.
-No battles lost.

Don't try a no loss game with these rules
I hope you'll like it.

I see you made sure common strategies are not "abused" - droids, trolls, black knights, dragons, ancient scrolls, paladin hero ressurection ability..
-pet dragon not using lightning ball is acceptable.
-"little annoyance" would be no phantom hero spell. one would have to make sure there are plenty of paladins in Verona, so one can cast at least one ressurection with them per battle, and use summoners a lot - demonologists, royal griffins, demons, target.
-Fight for Verona scroll would be interesting, due to no royal snakes. Also, Not allowed to buy troops that are in Horde quantity would mean a fight to the last breath
-Difficulty lies in - no battles lost - to clarify = absolutely no reloads? hmm..I usually have to restart k'tahu & baal fights, one never knows what they have up their sleeve, but then I usually play no loss
-i'm afraid it would be necessary to use scanner to make sure conditions are favorable = twink.boots+slipp.cuirass, chaos helm, and as mentioned earlier paladins, demonologists, griffins

we'll see. I'm not saying yes, not saying no.
i yesterday bought KB the Legend, so i'm in the middle of playing in for the first time