Impossible warrior on freedom islands

[Zuvio]

Hello

I got to freedom islands with my warrior. I used horsemen for tank, archers, inquisitors, archimage and priests for buffs/damage. When I got to the islands, i switched out priests for cannoneers, because priests have low damage against non-undead, inquisitors give bless anyway and healing is pointless against large stacks.

Enemies now are a few slightly weaker, some matches but most are stronger and very strong.

My problem is this: with some tactics I can take out an enemy. But of course I lose many units in the process, especially horsemen, since i use target 3. Even with Glots armour, archimage shield, stoneskin 3, source of magic 3 i still lose many horsemen. I also lose some other units, but marginally. I do not have gift, sacrifice or resurrection so i can only use the inquisitors ress one time, which is of course not nearly enough.

Also, I only have 25/51 inquisitors, 14/28 horsemen and 17/23 cannoneers. Without sacrifice, i have no way of increasing these numbers. I have 2 Demons available in Dragon Tooth tavern after doing the Fang quest, but w/o sacrifice i cant use them. I also have 50 Evil Beholders available on the Western Island.

How can I beat Freedom Islands with level 9 on impossible?

I continue to lose units and am unable to replenish them. Am I out of luck due to not finding sacrifice? I have the tactic ready to ressurrect all my units after battle with target, source of magic 3 etc. but i dont have the necessary spells.

If needed, I can upload a savegame of me standing on western island with all items collected and no enemies yet defeated.

I am puzzled how someone like Calinda could beat freedom islands on level 10 with just one run through.

Thanks for your time.

[Zuvio]

Maybe someone could post a savegame of their own where they are on the freedom island on impossible difficulty with a warrior and let me figure it out on my own. I learned a lot already from Calinda's savegames, but i dont have access to those abilities yet. So I am basically in need of earlier tactics.

[Elwin]

You would be really lucky if u have found sacrifice so early, for me it was the hardest part of the game, problem is as already stated not much units available, not much spells, 2 (or 3 if u get Lina) rages. Personally i was loosing hell much but i was just getting wat was available, pirates, devilfiesh, berserkes whatever, it was not best strategy lost a lot of gold but i have done it ;p Also used royal snakes they are in quite much number available and with frog feanora quite powerfull.

[Zuvio]

I see, so you zerged your way through the freedom islands. I do have the money to back up such a strategy so i will consider it. I would place my horsemen and inquisitors in a garrisson and then zerg the enemy with buyable units. This would allow me to clear the islands, as long as there are enough units left to buy. I do think I would run out of units at one point and then i would have to go back to darion to buy the horde mobs. What a nice slaughterfest that would be

Thanks for pointing that out to me.

However, I would still like to continue the thread with other more strategic options if any are even possible at the moment. My tactic was to have 4 ranged units and one tank. However, this tactic isnt really working at the moment since I have no way of undoing the losses of my tank. So unless there is a specific way of playing with losing as few units as possible, I think zerging is indeed the only way here for me.

I definitely am not trying a no-losses game, just an as-few-losses-as-possible game with nice tactics.

I could also just pay lucky the 100 grand, but I am just dying to find out the tactics and setup the pro's used when they cleared freedom islands in one go without going back to darion.

[Elwin]

Yeah i am quite curious how other managed with it, altough it was my 3rd game and i knew about it pretty much couldnt deal with it in other way than zerg them down. I also knew that if i manage to do this way and capture Bogacho stright after that i have already won the game, and so it happened.
No matter how enemy stack is big with timeback, icethorns stonewalls ice orbs phantoms and some nice units like sprites skell archers demons everytihng will die mosly without loses. The only problem i had was heroes like Xeona, Baal, lvl30 tournament one, and Bagud.They are all pretty tough to beat

[Zuvio]

Ok, I have done the following:

garrissoned my horsemen, inquisitors and cannoneers since I have no option to buy them at this point.

bought griffons as the new tank, kept archimages for shield + shock, bought royal snakes, devilfish and evil beholders (forgot about their mind control ability!)

I ditched the zombie wife and got the frog wife, now waiting on her to change to a frog. I also had the option to buy the snake boots. Royal Snakes wreak havoc once again. Evil beholders' mind control also wastes a turn of an enemy, what a powerful spell this is.

I already cleared half of the main island in one go with this setup, including Tiberius. I just have to make sure I dont lose snakes or griffons, since those are the only two mobs I can not buy on freedom islands.

I guess I was just too concerned with a strategy for an army which I was not yet able to employ. It will come when I have all 4 spirits and hopefully some good spells.

[Ryastar]

One warning (and it's entirely possible that you don't care, but I'm still gonna point it out), if you try to do the freedom islands in one trip, and never return, then you will never get the item Anga's ruby, one of the best in the game. I'm going to assume that you know what I'm talking about, since you mentioned browsing the forums.

On a different note, if you have ever found/seen the spell gift, that is what you need in order to use inquisitors as your ress support. It costs 20 mana (!), but it replenishes all charges of the targeted unit's abilities.

[Zuvio]

Originally Posted by Ryastar

One warning (and it's entirely possible that you don't care, but I'm still gonna point it out), if you try to do the freedom islands in one trip, and never return, then you will never get the item Anga's ruby, one of the best in the game. I'm going to assume that you know what I'm talking about, since you mentioned browsing the forums.

On a different note, if you have ever found/seen the spell gift, that is what you need in order to use inquisitors as your ress support. It costs 20 mana (!), but it replenishes all charges of the targeted unit's abilities.

Thanks for the info. I should have been more elaborate in my original post. I have completed the game two times on easy and normal as a mage and warrior respectively. I now want to complete the game on impossible before I am able to put it behind me. But impossible is proving to be quite a bit of a job, so I went to the forum to look up some strats, but most posts are in detail of the late game, after freedom islands. And most strats involve the use of spells which I dont have, hence my difficulties with freedom islands.

I killed ambrosius in the savegame calinda provided and was kind of focussed on that type of tactic. But obviously you can not start that way, you need to be able to get to that point in the game where you have all four spirits. Now I realize you could pay Lucky the 100k, sneak through creiston mines, upper hadar, lower hadar to taron mines and try to beat Bogacchi castle, but i dont like that path. I like the path of killing everything (except for certain battles such as Enemen etc.) when you face it. Completing half the game and then returning to the start to start fighting is not my way. And especially since I know it can be done since several people have done it with very high scores. If you beat the game in under 10 days, you are progressing linearly.

I just would like to know the secrets, as do many i guess

The last game to have gotten me so hooked was Baldurs Gate II. Ironman solo sorcerer haha

P.S. indeed, I would go back for angy's ruby for completion's sake, but only for the ruby, I strive to have everything cleared out the first time I am there.

[Zuvio]

Ok, so being able to go to freedom islands on impossible on level 9-10 and clearing it in one go means relying on two things: access to inquisitors and finding the spell gift. Without these two early on you have no change of completing the game in 7 days game time. Sacrifice, resurrection, hypnotize are not necessary at all. Nothing is, exept for inquisitors and gift and making sure you do not lose any inquisitors until you either find more inquisitors or sacrifice.

[Elwin]

I had no inqis, and gift in elf land ..