KBDS Normal/Hard/Impossible No-loss thread

[MattCaspermeyer]

With Empathy and Warding Healing you can still do Level 5 units, so you don't necessarily need the Healing spell.

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[DGDobrev]

Regarding the scanning... how crucial is the magic spring? I am trying to get both spells to spawn in early game, but so far I'm having no luck. I had all kinds of stuff showing up in that wagon: money, crystals, fireball, invisibility, ghost blade, corrosion, sacrifice... but so far no phoenix.

[MattCaspermeyer]

I think Magic Spring is needed for Impy's strategy, but nothing is needed except Phoenix for the one I posted.

In fact, the Phoenix strategy is much easier since you can get it to level 2 when you reach level 4. Since I defeated both Elves and Humans with Phoenix level 1, level 2 will be no problem.

Clarissa's reward is a level 1 / 2 distortion / chaos spell so it has a lot of variability due to that. I have not found the Ore Cart variability list, yet, but it seems to be limited to:

Money
A Rune
An Item
A Spell (of level 1 up to it seems level 4)
Crystals

So that seems like it would have a lot more possibilities, although, I think it is the same chance for each of the above, and then there is variability within each category.

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[Loremipsum1]

I did some scripted save game creation and analysis (don't ask) with over a thousand newly created games; apparently, the ore cart in Dragondor has a phoenix scroll 0.5-1% of the time. So the magic spring is definitely easier to get (showed up maybe 6% of the time), but has the side effect of relying on there being less than 8 elves in the elf stack. (I don't know the probability for spawning <8 elves, but it seems like it's not that great.)

[DGDobrev]

Gotcha, so this means I can scan more saves, and not exclusively the magic spring ones.

[MattCaspermeyer]

I found 2 more spell combinations that will definitely work and 2 others that have a chance of succeeding. I've seen Power of Night, which is a 4th level spell given twice from the Ore Cart and so I think you should be able to get up to 4th level spells from it.

These first two are fairly easy fights:

Evil Book (level 3 spell so should be given by Ore Cart, although I haven't seen it yet) @level 2 cast twice makes both Elven and Human Shelter fights pretty easy. You can also get your Poison Skull to level 2 if you need it to help out your 2 books, although that is a total of 47 Mana. You need 1 point in concentration, 2 points in Chaos and 1 point in Meditation will really help with your Mana. Try to get as close to 40 Mana as you can so that you don't have to wait very long to cast your second book.

Demon Portal (level 4 spell so I think there is a possibility of it showing up in the Ore Cart unless it is excluded in the criteria somehow) @level 1 cast twice (you need 1 point in Concentration, 2 points in Meditation, and 1 point in Chaos so that you have at least 39 Mana and on round 2 you'll get +1 and have exactly 20 Mana so you can perform another cast) and you can fairly easily defeat both Elven and Human Shelter stacks (note that twice @level 1 is better than once at level 2 for this spell).

These next two are pretty dicey, but they have a shot at working:

Ball of Lightning (I have gotten this from the Ore Cart so I'm going to try this game and see if I can do it for real). You need to get this spell to level 2 and so that means 1 point in Meditation and 2 Points in Order. I had two points in Concentration in my test and so I think you're going to need to be level 5 so that you can get Concentration to level 2. The Human stack is very easy with this spell, but the Elven stack is really hard. The trick here is only use level 2 of this spell if you need to (for example, the Fauns are killed with a level 1 Ball of Lightning). You should have just enough and I think you need to be Daert Level 5 do the Elven stack. Mana is very important here, level 1 Ball of Lightning is 8 Mana and level 2 is 14. I had 42 Mana in my experiment, which allowed 3 casts @level 2 and I also had Concentration level 2. This might not be doable in reality and I used every point of Mana on the Elven stack.

Avenger (level 2 spell, but Order so cannot get it from Clarissa so must get it in the Ore Cart). You need to get this spell to Level 2 so that means you should put 1 point in Meditation and 2 points into Order. You should then have 1 point in Concentration so that you'll be at least able to cast it twice over the course of the fight. I also had Time Shift in my experiment, but I don't think you can get Distortion level 1 and Concentration, but it can be used to inexpensively extend Avenger if you need to so this might also work. Note that the Human stack is a lot easier than the Elven stack and so you should take out the Human stack first.

I also tried several other combinations, but nothing else has worked so far on both stacks. I'll try some more attempts if other spell strategies come to me.

Okay, your mileage may vary, but if you see these as options from the Ore Cart, then try them out as well as they may work for you.

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[DGDobrev]

Ah, craaaaaaap!!! I had spell_demonologist show up in the ore cart and I was almost certain it was the demon portal. I knew it, I should have kept the save. Damn...

Otherwise I can confirm that any spell can spawn there. I had even level 5 spells like resurrection, spawning. Now I am making batches of 9 saves and scanning them as necessary. Now that we have more options, I will make sure I keep all those saves.

THERE WE FREAKING GO!!! After deleting one demon portal save, and beating my head a bit over that, I had a HUGE stroke of luck. In just 9 saves I found 2 with Demon Portal and 1 with Book of Evil - whoa, whoa, hold your horses, that is NOT the good news - the good news is that there are actually 2 (!) scrolls of Book of Evil in the ore cart!!! So you got a scapegoat scroll for a free level 1 Book if anything goes bad in any one of the fights!

I am so gonna test this game. I already checked the ore cart (it is right next to the dwarven castle) and both scrolls and happily lying in it. While Clarissa's scroll isn't useful at all, I managed to excavate a chest with 2-3 scrolls of Slow, which is also great news.

I have zipped the file with the book of evil for you, and I can add the other 2 with the Demon Portals if you want, but since Matt says this is the easiest option of them all, I uploaded the Book of Evil one first. Just make sure you don't overwrite any of your important saves, should it happen to have the same number when you unzip in the save games folder - C:\Users\(username)\Documents\my games\Kings Bounty The Dark Side\$save\base\darkside.

Let's see how well will that work.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

These next two are pretty dicey, but they have a shot at working:

Ball of Lightning (I have gotten this from the Ore Cart so I'm going to try this game and see if I can do it for real). You need to get this spell to level 2 and so that means 1 point in Meditation and 2 Points in Order. I had two points in Concentration in my test and so I think you're going to need to be level 5 so that you can get Concentration to level 2. The Human stack is very easy with this spell, but the Elven stack is really hard. The trick here is only use level 2 of this spell if you need to (for example, the Fauns are killed with a level 1 Ball of Lightning). You should have just enough and I think you need to be Daert Level 5 do the Elven stack. Mana is very important here, level 1 Ball of Lightning is 8 Mana and level 2 is 14. I had 42 Mana in my experiment, which allowed 3 casts @level 2 and I also had Concentration level 2. This might not be doable in reality and I used every point of Mana on the Elven stack.

Yes! This one works! I couldn't get my Concentration to Level 2 because I ended up being 2 Magic Runes short, so I decided to go the Spirit Tree Diversion route and was able to do it.

I had "small" stacks of everybody including Werewolf stacks of 8 and 9 units and so I used Ball of Lightning Level 2 on a stack of 80 Sprites and 9 Werewolves and it easily took them out.

The Fauns ran into the trap that Impy pointed out and with a fortuitous strike I was able to take the stack of 8 Werewolves out with Ball of Lighting Level 1 and my Vamps.

I was down to 1 Vamp at that point due to 7 Elves, but the Sprite death had left an Eviln and I was able to get back up to 2 Vamps and then the Vamps + a Level 1 Poison skull took down the 7 Elves!

I was very fortunate in this battle and had to adapt to the fact that I couldn't get Concentration up to level 2. I'm not sure if Level 2 Concentration would have been better than Diversion, but it would have given me a third Ball of Lightning Level 2 cast on round 5 if I made it that far, but the Diversion Trap took out those Fauns so maybe Diversion is better if you get Ball of Lightning in the Ore Cart than Concentration Level 2.

I posted pictures of the battle, to give you a feel for how it went down and how fortunate I was! You can see by the second to last picture that I've got him!

By the way, Ball of Lightning Level 2 can handle up to 99 Sprites and 12 Werewolves, but I really think you need a third cast of Ball of Lightning @level 2 if your second Werewolf stack is 11 units. Then there's still probably 8 Elves and 11 Fauns to deal with and so that just might be too much for this setup.

Nonetheless, it can work if you have an Elven stack on the smaller side (and the Human stack is way easier and I was level 4 when I did them and 5 when I did the Elven stack).

Note that I did have to kill one of the easy Catacombs stacks because when I skipped all those fights I was 14 exp short of level 5 when facing the Elven stack - ugghhh!

So I went back to my Catacombs save and took out an easy stack that was worth a whopping 23 exp! Just enough to get me to level 5 after I defeated the Human stack in the Shelter!

Whew! Very close battle!

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[DGDobrev]

Good job, Matt I am doing well too, killed the Dwarven and Elven stacks. The elven stack was a huge bother. In my save, there are freaking 8 elves and it was extremely difficult to keep the 2 vamps alive. I managed, but I was forced to use the scroll Book of Evil, cause best I can get in terms of mana is 36 if I pick Order, and that is nowhere near adequate for a second, so I opted for +1 Atk/Def/Int combo with 34 Mana, which actually managed to save my vamp - the elves hit for 68 rather than 70, which kills the 1 vamp. Lol

Now to see if I can manage with the human stack. With one lvl 2 and one lvl 1 Book of Evil it should be doable. Let's see.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Depending on what I got, I usually end up doing the Elven stack last since I try to get level 5 from either the first or second stacks.

You know what the worst thing is?

It seems like you get the least amount of experience for the toughest stack! In my game, I got 50 for the Dwarves, I think 63 for the Humans and then only 47 for the Elves!

Those amounts are so small, I know, but still it is just a bit insulting that you get the least experience from the hardest stack!

By the way, I way able to take out the 3 basement stacks and the first Whitehill stack with the Ball of Lightning strategy so it is good.

You won't believe how long some of the basement fights went! I had one go over 200 rounds! I get a little bored once I get past about round 30 and really bored after round 50, but I was in a situation with 2 50+ Cave Spider stacks and I was able to get into a repeatable loop as I whittled them down with the 2 Bats before I could go into Vamp mode.

This is crazy to have to do this so early in the game for no loss.

I think I'm going to shift gears a bit and start checking out Bagyr's situation some more...

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