too easy on impossible!
 

i'm playing on impossible difficult. Before the big spider the games is difficult. in the main continent it remains challenging. After i opened the portal to demonis i sailed to the freedom isles and then.... all creature are weak or equal in strenght....WHAT? The elven isle is also so easy!! MAny creatures run from me too! Only demonis as some deadly creature.
Heroes in freedom isle are weak too

So boring. Is that changed in the patch?

The thing is, if you can get past Ahriman, the Necromancer and the Spider with Trolls (IF they spawn!!!) on Impossible... The game turns into a no-loss... not challenge, it turns into a no-loss MAYHEM. Why? You made the game difficult in the first 5 levels to discourage the players to do a no-loss? Or do it based on luck???

I cannot believe it, it is unbelievable... No way!!!

The freaking Faster than Light has less luck-scaled game compared to KB WotN... And that game is luck based. Oh, yeah... You better believe it!!!

What's your leadership? I'm playing Impossible Skald (level 30) and I have 12,000 or so leadership. Most stacks in Freedom Isles and Merlasser are Strong/Very Strong/Deadly.

This doesn't mean the game is HARD though. But I don't see many Weaker stacks.

15000 leadership viking level 38. I cleared most greenwort

On KBAP, we were fighting stacks who were IMPOSSIBLE all the time. KB WotN gives us stacks of Deadly or less all the time. Why? Why was KBAP/CW putting you against unsurmountable odds, where even losing one black dragon was a viable option, just to put us back into a game with stacks worse than deadly???

I agree with OP. THe only way to have fun with this game, if you want challange , is to self-impose rules. Do not use overpowered units (basically, all lvl 4 and 5), do not use overpowered spells (again, there are like 10 of them).

I can only wonder how playing the game on "Normal" would feel like. Seems to me its not made for brain scientists, if Impossible is absurdly easy, Normal is probably a joke.

I would urge you to check the KBAP/CW forums and check all the challenges suggested by IMPY. That guy knew how to give a challenge, and he used the exact rules you suggest. I had more fun with his challenges than ever before. It made the battles fun, intense, interesting... Where you would go as far as to care about your single awesome Lvl 3/lvl 2/lvl 1 stack who was all-important (DRYADS/Fairies anyone???) and make sure you dont lose much of it?

Yeah! That was a challenge. And we don't talk about no-loss too. it was about beating the game on impossible with the worst units possible. That created a story worthy of a song!!! How Drydas overwhelmed Black Dragons, even though the dragons are completely impervious to Dryads attacks by spawning tons of Thorbns and imbuing the Thorns with various spells (0% poison resistance for Black Dragons??? ANYONE???)

on freedom there is that quest to kill three pirate ships. The first was weak! And that baron that cut trees in the elven isle is weak to :(

Same issue here, I'm level 40 skald with around 25k leadership and pretty much enemies range is from very weak to equal in strenght and this is impossible... Dunno if my game bugged or what coz freedom island battles end up in 1-2 rounds, i decided to dont even pursue enemies that are runing away (very weak stacks). I had level 3 learning and tatctics treatise shortly after first island and focused on gifted warrior but still i shouldnt be that overleveled, i dont remember so many weak stacks in other KB games on impossible difficulty.
And i havent bought my own troops since i went to Marlassar then to Western Freedom Islands, now I'm on the Eastern part still without buying, so the game would be even easier, I'm short on about 15 royal griffins, so about - 5k leadership.

I have a feeling you're not supposed to do Freedom Islands and Merlassar after Demonis. I'm playing on hard with a Soothsayer and Demonis is kicking my butt. Freedom Islands and Merlassar's mobs, at least, seem to be designed for the time you're in Greenwort. It never even occurred to me that those areas were for later.

Well definietly, but they are that weak after finishing Arlania... I'm done with Eastern Islands and now off to Demonis, and it's looking much better, some fights are strong or very strong, but still some weak stacks around.

Aren't you a Level 40 Skald, though? Your leadership is immense compared to the other classes. I mean my Soothsayer and my Skald are only 6 levels apart but my Skald has way more than double my Soothsayer's leadership.

I don't think it's an issue if a Skald is finding much weaker troops. It would be if the other two were, though.

well it's just a fact that the first island is Overpowered hard
and after that the game just get's easier and easier

so GJ on that 1c!(NOT)

all people like play them game on different ways so if people shall play no loss first island is hard but will you have a fun adventure and take all achievements (steam) and get good score in the end you get fun :)

On first island : Only 2 heroes you must fight are really hard, and only on impossible. The rest of the creeps are 95% easy to do No-loss, without using exploits and abuse cheap tricks. So I don't think you are right to say "it's a fact" that is overpowered hard. It's not fact, is your opinion.

I have to agree about the difficulty. I'm up to level 38 now with about 20k leadership. I cleared out the Freedom Isles with EXTREME ease after Greenwort/Arlania/Verlon. Way too easy.

Things started to get interesting after i came to demonis, most of troops there were very strong or deadly, but after demonis (back in arlania), everything is invincible or deadly :)

BTW can you return to demonis later in the game?

How exactly have you managed to do those? I still haven't got a map to get to Freedom Island (I have done Merlassar), and I've already finished the Demonis stuff. Heck, I'm now stuck on Zalnaron - bastard is so OP it's not funny. I'd love to be able to head off somewhere else to get some more levels to actually have a shot at doing this guy, otherwise there's no way I'll get past him without cheating. Seriously, who thought that 2x9400 stacks of Skeleton Archers - not to mention 450 Necromancers + Ghosts, Vampires, Skeletal Dragons, etc - was a realistically doable fight? Hell, just one stack of the archers is 131,600 leadership. I've got 17,144 as a level 42 Soothsayer.

Depends if you want to use piss easy strategy or not, pick rune mages and paladins, then phantom them to ifinity, basicly u can do it with those 2 so 3 others are w/e u want.

Geez and other people have been saying the game is way too easy after the first island... that doesn't sound easy at all to me! Is everyone else just using rune mages? .. or maybe your numbers spawned here are just terrible?

It seems the randomness of army-sizes in this game has been messed with far too much, on the first island alone I've seen the same armies range in size from like 1x to 3x (three times the size, roughly) which is just crazy imo. If that continues onto other islands then I can see why some people are struggling and others aren't.

This is a major boss fight, most of the wandering monster fights do tend to be fairly easy.

I'd really like to do the fight without using exploits, but those damn archers can 2-shot most of my units. Not much I can do under those circumstances.

I'd still like to know where the map to Freedom Island is supposed to come from?

Do you use diversions ? It's really super strong, usually atleast 1 big stack doenst move first round. I just nuke big stacks with my rune mages using max unspent might runes, dmg is insane. Then throw in gryphons summons to tank whatever remained. Use burning and posion depending on enemies. Fights usually end in no more than 4 rounds even against deadly stacks.

Map to Islands you get from the boatman in Greenwort as far as i remember.

Get knights and teleport them right next to the archers.Kill as many enemies as you can and in turn 2 use time back.Worked like a charm for me.

Yeah, Freedom Islands are obtained from the Boatman in Greenwort, like zjad18 said.

Also, wtf is up with that enemy leadership? That's insane. Still, IN YOUR FACE people claiming it's too easy.

Yes, how dare some be so much better then you at strategy? -_-.

For your knowledge matey, leadership is meaningless when you have infinite gold, infinite mana, abilities and spells that completly block/stop from taking action enemies.

For example one can beat 1 bilion of polar bears with 1 single royal snake.
The fact that the polar bears would have 200 bilion leadership total doesn't hold any value.

So, would you say it's easy to beat 1 billion polar bears with 1 royal snake? Doable doesn't mean easy. A feat like that requires way more time, repetitive movement and patience than I'm willing to spend on a game.

Weren't you the one who was saying it would be stupid for people to spend hours at a time on a battle trying to get no loss? (Which you would have to do if you only had 1 royal snake).

No, I don't know what you're talking about. I always considered that the opposite is the logical thing to do. What is stupid is the fact that the game mechanics allow this thing to happen, which is something completly different.

Ah, my bad on that part. I didn't actually bother reading that thread, as I don't care about no-lossing.

I don't have time back, so that's not going to work for me.

Meh. I might just have to cheese it with Rune Mage abuse.

Hey guys,

so, I've managed to get to Zalnaron with my Soothsayer on impossible. This is where all the fun ends.
Yes, I was able to win many deadly to invincible fights mid-game easilly due to Evil Book bug (which is fixed now) and after that by phoenix and hoards of summons.
But now I'm stuck (as his army just one-two hits all my summons) and need an advice. This guy totally destroys my whole army no matter what tactic I use. I've tried almost everything which lead me to find this topic and after some reading I realized, that only Rune Mages I could buy were at the Greenwort castle square.

So, is there anyone who can help me out ? What tactics to use, what army to get (can't get those Rune Mages now), what spells/rage skills I should use etc., to win this fight ?

Here is some info on my current army and stats:

Soothsayer lv 43
19k leadership
20 att
16 def
50 int (+10 with scroll)
60 max rage
105 max mana

125 rangers
60 royal griffs
102 evil beholders
90 demonologists
80 paladins

I remember someone was asking for help with this one aswell, i used his save and did it with stoneskin target on paladins, then slow ghosts coz they deal cold dmg now and will be only one able to hurt paladins, spawn phantoms of paladins, from ur spells or rune mage if u have unused mind runes otherwise they are kinda weak. U can get royal thorns in verlon instead of rangers or evil beholders, and u have lots of summons and control over battlefield.

Good idea on royal thorns, but I think it wont be enough, as I don't have access to those Rune Mages and didn't even find Phantom scroll anywhere.

just use one EGD stack;)(EGD=emerald green dragon)

cast invisiblity on them and then rain spells at em like there is no 2morrow;)

another soothsayer tactic:
since I discovered it (around level 30, I'm level 38 now) I barely lose 1 unit in fights of 'deadly' or even 'impossible'.

rounds:
1 - cast 'oil mist' on the biggest group of enemies.
2 - advance your first acting unit to halfway of the grid, and 'summon' pheonix'
3 - use the rage to cast the 'fire rain' (or whatever it called)
4 - attack enemies that are close together with the phoenix. with int of 40+ it has ~2500 hp and ~200 defense!!! he almost never gets killed, and when he does - he has the option to be resurrected.

the enemies will concentrate on the Pheonix, since he's the closest, and you can use your ranged units to wreak more damage. concentrate on the enemie's ranged units first.

I also use a group of paladins to resurrect the few of my units who might be injured.

keep bombarding with spells and rage ability - and the fight soon over with no difficulties.

Didn't find GED either. Only reds, blacks and ice. Kinda funny. Any other army to use this tactics on ? I guess I need GED for mana purposes..right ?

@ironballs:

No way, my phoenix with 60 int still dies on one hit from any single enemy unit (just to make it clear, Zalnaron have bout 8k skeleton archers, 500 necromancers, 500 ancient vampires, 2x800 ghosts, 5k skeletons and appro 5x 6000 zombies)

8k archers wont even scratch paladins with stoneskin, 500 necro either, , 500 vampires aswell, 5k skeletons is a joke, 6k zombies might hurt but for them to get there will take some time, and u will have summons . So all u have to do is slow 2 stacks of ghosts, use burning and lightining rage.

Well as a Soothsayer, even with stone skin those vampires bites my paladins for 10-15 units on a hit. Ghosts arent really a problem, I'm able to almost kill them before they get to me, but after few rounds, I'm left with 1/2 paladins, about 20% of my whole army and still have to deal with vampires, zombies and skeletons/necros I could't finish.

Believe me, I've played The Legend, Armored Princess and Crossworlds many times, been thru many tough fights, but this one is really tricky. I need some abusive method, not cheating, but something I will be able to win with, no matter what I lose. The bad thing is I'm limited by units I can get (no Rune Mages and Green Dragons)

did you upgraded the pehonix to the maximu (3rd) level spell?
the storngest hit I got for him was ~700 marauders (level 3 unit) that took about half his HP....

in any case, a few pointers to help the battle:
1. use any buffing wanderer scrolls you might have.
2. use the Valkyrie buff before the battle (gives +initiative & +movement).
3. remember the phoenix attacks 3 adacjent enemies at 1 hit - so select to attack the weakest unit (so the retaliation will be the lowest) - and then all 3 will get the 'burning' state - which is deadly for large stacked units.

Of course, I have almost all my spells at lv 3. With 16 defense, its not problem for Zalaron's units to do 2,5k+ dmg to my phoenix in single hit.
1. I do
2. I do
3. I know

I need some tricky and clever tactic, that's all.

Well im telling you how i did it recently on somebody else mage char so strategy is viable. Just replace one unit with royal thorns, u will have 3 summoning units. As for my own playthrough this fight was a joke on paladin hero.

Are we talking about impossible ?
Well I will try to replace rangers for thorns and see if it makes any good.

I'm playing on imposs, but that mage was on hard if i remember correctly. You can provide save and i'll try to help you more, coz my paladin is just op at this point, and im having no fun finishing game.

I beat that fight as 32 soothsayer with 70% of your stats.
Get ancient ents from elf island / 5lvl from orc underground castle, cyclops or trolls or whatever he sells(East island i think).
Greasy mist + phoenix + Peacefulness on palas/ents spam defend and fire arrows etc.

Now I've been stuck for 2 days at Ele Taera at 37 with 12k leadership/15 atk/20def/34int 100 mana , red dragons,ogres,ents,cyclopes,catapult.Its really impossible for soothsayer i think.

Thanks for the tip, I'm totally gonna try this one !

FINALLY MADE IT !

The one and only trick that was really needed was to get enough tanky units and start with greasy mist+gudridas rage+fire rain. Even when my trolls and black dragons died both in round 2 (dunno how but 6k enemy skeleton archers just one shotted my black drags even under greasy mist :O), I have managed to burn those undead scumbags to ashes with phoenix and paladins under iron skin.
Yeah and...only 30 paladins of my 19k leadership army survived :D

But hey ! Impossible is possible !

Sorry didnt know you were fine with having losses would sugest other strategies. So is mage that weak or pala that op?

I've watched vid of someone beating this guys simply by ice spikes and ranged units. The problem is, his archers were doing 18k dmg on crits, mine ranged units do max. 6k on crit.

I guess Soothsayer is very challenging on impossible. I was using palas only for ress purposes with gift in fights where some loses would be inevitable (for example fat gremlin towers while upgrading snake ring), rarely used them for tanking or dmg. But in this fight, they just survived long enough for my spells and phoenix to do some dmg.

Yeah, I guess there are ppl who manage to do spider/archmage tower/any other bosses without loses on impossible, I'm just fine with progressing thru those ultrafights :D

It was fun but the fourth undead army on the beach forced me to stop playing Soothsayer and start a new impossible game as Viking. I simply cannot beat an army of 20k skeleton archers, 800 ghosts, 600 ancient vampires and 26 bone dragons.
I've run out of units that can summon, I have no access to demonologists, royal griffs, rune mages or royal thorns and one stack of 10k skeleton archers kills 1/3 of my paladins just with that black arrow (and they keep one hitting phoenix at melee). I am able to kill about 4-5k archers before my whole army falls to vampires, dragons and ghosts.

I will keep my save in case someone here comes with any idea how to beat this fight (no matter what the loses are), because I don't see any option now.

EDIT: Oh, how sweet the evil book bug was QQ :D

Post ur save man, im really up for some challenge in this game.

Save attached, I'm really curious if it's just my lack of skills, or the luck factor that I don't have an access to those crucial units.

Looking forward to see ur results ;)

Okay i can tell what is your problem, you dont have disortion lvl 3, WHY!??????? It's the best school of magic, and make this fight major pushover, whitout it u have to prolong fight to resurect every1 that got killed by ancient vampires coz lvl 2 target doesnt affect them. Other than that, just do as i said earlier target and stoneskin on paladins then u dont have high initiative unit so u cant slow ghosts, before they move so put divine armor and magic spring on next round and focus vampires right after u killed dragons coz they will kill your army. You have plenty of fights left, so you can do it to get disortion lvl 3, or prolong fight to res everyone. This fight is really easy one tbh...

The replay to this is quite obvious. In the previous installments the new maps corresponds to the difficulty. Now you get the 4 initial islands almost at the same time AND you get your pegas too. So you can hop and gather resourse and weak enemies. AND later you get almoost at the same time 3 continents and 3 islands with practically no need to fight. AND it seems the rage is gathered too quickly as at the same time the rage skill are somewhat overpowered. You need just 1 fight to get the 4th valkyrie and her golem rage skill is a game changer.

The problem is enemy archers just DISPEL paladins in the next round from all the buffs I put on them. What spell in distortion magic you talk about ?

TARGET, u cant dispell target becouse it forces them to use NORMAL ATTACKS, no special attacks are able to be used against unit with target spell. It's like magic shackle against ranged units, but way more powerfull and without leadership restriction.

Oh, so wish me luck on finding those 3 might runes :) cuz I usually get only one on lvl up :D

level 2 will work, but if u want to do no loss will take some time ressurecting units.

One more question, by resurrecting you mean the spell ? Cuz its really mana hungry and I cant calm rage forever.

In my try i just kept using gift on paladins, and dmging undead with paladins ressurect, u will have mana spring on paladins, so mana won't be an issue. U can leave 2 archer stacks and they will provide u mana.

just wanted to update how i killed ele taera for anyone stuck there.
10 Ogres 1 white rune mage guy(with antimagic shield).Shield on ogres , fire rain , ARMAGEDDON defend , repeat.When you run out of mana run and do it again :)

I got some ideas from this page and resolved the Zalnaron problem.

Zalnaron has
13.8K (x2) archers
25 Bone Dragon and vs vs...

I am level 37 soothsayer and have
70 Rune mages (4 equal stack),58 Paladin (1 stack)
You see , a considerably weak army.

At round 1 , teleport the paladin close to archers and make him invisible.

With ur rune mages. Create 4 phantoms of the paladin. (max %60 with 40 unused spirit runes )
With ur Rage skill , use the wall skill and protect your mages so the Bone Dragon does not prefer to attack you.

Every time you have the turn with Phantoms, use the second wind skill on Rune Mages. Dont forget to get away from the original unit so you have space to spawn new phantoms. (look below)

In the extra turn for Rune Mages (i.e. by the second wind) use Phantome again or use "Give Runes" in case ur out of Spirit Runes. (max 6 runes , so better to keep 40 unused Magic runes in stock).

In the second round , slow down (level 3) the bone dragons so he cant reach you. Use the Crystal Rage skill to create crystals so that it will be harder to reach the mages.

In the third round and so on ... deal first with the bone dragon, keep an eye on archers (slow down etc) so they cant shoot mages. The necromencers will hit you a few times so dont let your mages very close to each other.

EGDs dont work here... since they are very vulnerable.

It takes a hour or such careful gameplay and you will get them.

-math

why i cant load this save with iaf 1.3.1