My attempt at getting the highest score

[McSwan]

OK, I'm gonna stop doing the chest trick now that I've hit Dersu, the only advantage is getting extra Ak scrolls, and they're extremely rare, and far too painful to try and maximize via chests.

I finally got a "call colossus" after doing Verona, in Bolo, so I finally got 3 red dragons.

My new strat is 4, 1 unit inquisitors, and 3 red dragons. The inquisitors pump rage at the start, then die giving me lots of mana (and some rage) from transmute - so cast big spells at the start and you'll get your mana back. I usually pump out mystic eggs everywhere, and usually get 1~4 extra dragon stacks and the odd swamp snake or royal griffins, who I stone skin and send to there death to get me more rage. It's important not to let anything die over your inquisitors bodies. I res 1 inquisitor at the end of the battle and then he/they chain res the rest of them, and also they rage me up for the next battle, so I burn through about 200 rage a battle instead of about 50.

Use slow over fear, cause fear will make them kill your mystic egg.

Also, if you loose a real dragon, heal the dragon stack to full and 1 inquisitor can res the dragon with 7 hitpoints.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by McSwan

OK, I'm gonna stop doing the chest trick now that I've hit Dersu, the only advantage is getting extra Ak scrolls, and they're extremely rare, and far too painful to try and maximize via chests.

I finally got a "call colossus" after doing Verona, in Bolo, so I finally got 3 red dragons.

My new strat is 4, 1 unit inquisitors, and 3 red dragons. The inquisitors pump rage at the start, then die giving me lots of mana (and some rage) from transmute - so cast big spells at the start and you'll get your mana back. I usually pump out mystic eggs everywhere, and usually get 1~4 extra dragon stacks and the odd swamp snake or royal griffins, who I stone skin and send to there death to get me more rage. It's important not to let anything die over your inquisitors bodies. I res 1 inquisitor at the end of the battle and then he/they chain res the rest of them, and also they rage me up for the next battle, so I burn through about 200 rage a battle instead of about 50.

Use slow over fear, cause fear will make them kill your mystic egg.

Also, if you loose a real dragon, heal the dragon stack to full and 1 inquisitor can res the dragon with 7 hitpoints.

Hi McSwan, how's your game going? I myself stopped trying to go for wanderer scrolls in general during reloads; I content myself to runes and crystals. Lately, I reload only up to twice per fight, and take the results even if its all gold or regular spell scrolls.

Elenhel is fully manipulated though. 3 out of 3 so far have been AK scrolls, but it's not easy! First scroll took me 5 tries, the second 6 tries and the 3rd roughly 11-12 tries! Given that there are 11 wanderer scroll types, one has a 50-50 chance of getting the AK scroll by the 5th-6th try. I was really getting frustrated on the 3rd AK scroll, but I thought I would be swimming in AKs so I used 2 AK scrolls in Montero-Verona so I had no choice but to get an AK. You could still get AKs every time from Elenhel, but much patience is necessary.

I dug up 2 AKs and got 1 AK from a duplicate navi map; these are my "backup" AKs. So with 3 AKs from Elenhel and using 2 already, I currently have 4. I still have 3 AKs in stores, but they are in Umkas (1) and Tekron (2), which I would be passing only after I take on Dersu-Uzala-Elon-Nameless-Reha (the path unicornxp used since that takes me back to Montero to get more droids and spend for runes); I might need to leave some heroes alive and kill them on the return if I run short on AKs.

For those interested, here are the XP gains one gets from using AKs on Montero-Verona heroes/boss; note that I have Learning level 3, 2 Hand of Necropolis, Shark's Tooth and Memoirs of the Marshal on as well for these battles:

Hagni - 11,004
Thomas Torkve - 8,498 (note: not always in Montero, so kill Xerxes instead)
Crazy Miner - 8,661
Iron Fist - 9,521
Fangol - 15,649

Driller - 20,701
Necromancer Mesmer - 7,215
Arnold Heningem - 18,771
Marquis of Krause - 8,902
Demenion - 24,891

[pavned]

That Arnold Heningem is so good to get XP, too bad I didn't knew that before killing him. Would have save him for later and use an AK on him!

Not sure about the numbers but I think I got more then 10k XP from him without AK on (but Shark, Memoirs, 1 hand and level 2 learning). He kept summoning Demon Portal and getting Demons which, themselves, kept summoning demons. I think at one point there was 13-14 ennemy stacks on the field! Counting that I was facing him with only my stack of 3 Red Dragons, it was a great XP generating battle.

[loreangelicus]

Yup, if you use a small number of troops (as is always the case with solo unit strategies) then some heroes content themselves to just casting summoning spells; that is, if they have any. I went against him with a near-complete lineup though (black knights-repair droid-bone dragons-repair droids-guard droids), so he kept hammering away with Lightning; not that it made much difference, undead and droids can easily recover from losses.

I don't think summons count towards getting more hero XP though. I've done multiple suppression battles on the Magician's Cape and Dragon Slayer Sword and I always get the same amount of XP, even if a friendly gremlin tower does a lot of summons or not.

Using less troop doesn't generate more hero XP either, but they do generate more pet dragon XP per rage ability use.

[DGDobrev]

Well, it is confirmed that summons do not improve the XP in the end. Shame, that could be exploited for fun

[McSwan]

I'm in Reha atm, just downed elenhel. I have a boatload of AK scrolls from elenhel and digging them up, +6 extra ones in game. I used them for all battles in Nameless and Reha so far, and probably use them in sheterra, and all bosses I haven't already killed. I think all up I'll have about 13-14 of them.

I think that it's likely using a warrior + repair droids will prove a superior tactic though. Might need to hurry up and beat the game with a slightly higher score than unicorns, then have you beat me by a couple more so at least I can say I was no. 1 for a day or 2 lol. Killing guy in Monterro was a good idea.

I'm using 3 inquis stacks for rage generation, occasional I swap in demonologists and necromancers. other than that I use Black knights and red dragons, the inquis can res 3 red dragons, but the dragons usually never die. The inquisitor stacks get killed, and give me rage and mana, and I res before the end of the battle.

I use mystic egg non-stop with awaken dragon, especially against undead for some funny battles. The critters from mystic egg go to there doom to give me more rage, and if there not dying enough, I use dragons fire ability to kill my own troops to turn them back into rage & mana. Nothing quite like lining all your troops up in a nice straight line, and cooking them all.

Man it would suck to be in my army! The inquis die and get resurrected over and over again. Still, I*cough* *cough* still have 0 losses *cough*.

[ivra]

Originally Posted by McSwan

Man it would suck to be in my army! The inquis die and get resurrected over and over again. Still, I*cough* *cough* still have 0 losses *cough*.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by McSwan

I'm in Reha atm, just downed elenhel. I have a boatload of AK scrolls from elenhel and digging them up, +6 extra ones in game. I used them for all battles in Nameless and Reha so far, and probably use them in sheterra, and all bosses I haven't already killed. I think all up I'll have about 13-14 of them.

I think that it's likely using a warrior + repair droids will prove a superior tactic though. Might need to hurry up and beat the game with a slightly higher score than unicorns, then have you beat me by a couple more so at least I can say I was no. 1 for a day or 2 lol. Killing guy in Monterro was a good idea.

I'm using 3 inquis stacks for rage generation, occasional I swap in demonologists and necromancers. other than that I use Black knights and red dragons, the inquis can res 3 red dragons, but the dragons usually never die. The inquisitor stacks get killed, and give me rage and mana, and I res before the end of the battle.

I use mystic egg non-stop with awaken dragon, especially against undead for some funny battles. The critters from mystic egg go to there doom to give me more rage, and if there not dying enough, I use dragons fire ability to kill my own troops to turn them back into rage & mana. Nothing quite like lining all your troops up in a nice straight line, and cooking them all.

Man it would suck to be in my army! The inquis die and get resurrected over and over again. Still, I*cough* *cough* still have 0 losses *cough*.

LOL... well, at least your army is composed of the living; my army is more like a cross between The Matrix and Lord of the Rings wherein the machines won out, and have found a way to "animate" their fallen enemies.

I think the key with the Elenhel manipulation tactic is to have a good grasp of how many total enemies you have left. That way you know how many AK scrolls you could milk from him (her?). One also needs good scouting reports on how much XP each hero is worth, and where to find them. Unfortunately, this is my first run of the game, so I have to make do with scouting out an island every time a navi map opens it up; having the flying horse helps a lot in this aspect though.

You just downed Elenhel? I guess I have my mindset wrong though, I thought Elenhel rebels when Amelie reaches level 40. Is it worth preparing a chain of hero enemies so that one uses an AK on the Elenhel battle as well?

Take your time, I'm not finishing the game anytime soon. And besides, we'll probably finish with the same score (level 60/7 days/all quests). It's pretty tight in my game though, I'm not exactly sure if I'm making good time... I've finished this path:

Debir-Scarlet-Bolo-Verona-Rusty-Scarlet-Debir-Verona-Montero-Verona-Dersu

I'm at Uzala atm, Day 4 at 1:50am already. And as per the unicornxp path, I still have:

Uzala-Elon-Nameless-Reha-Umkas-Montero-Terkon-Rusty-Scarlet-Debir-Shettera-Dersu-Elon-Nameless-Uzala-Verona

Granted, I've wiped clean all previous islands and all I need is to talk to NPCs for quests, but I still need to clear 7 complete islands... we'll see what happens.

As for battle tactics, steamrolling everything in my path. Level 39 and 21,000 leadership, lineup is black knights-repair droids-bone dragons-repair droids-guard droids. Last unit type that joined my army was the bone dragons, and I thought it would be more difficult since I now have 2 undead units that I needed to use mana to resurrect. Boy was I wrong... Phantom level 3 on bone dragons, mana accelerator, Phantom level 3 on bone dragons, mana accelerator... wow. Technically I already have 3 scapgoat units in my droids (since you don't need rage/mana to resurrect them), and now I could have up to 3 more tough phantom units in play. Warrior doesn't even have problems with rage generation, and I have 6 units (3 droids and 3 phantoms) that I throw at the enemy with abandon to generate rage. Nice.

Right now, the black knights usually just sit on their @$$ while the rest of their team do their thing. This is because even the guard droids move faster than he does, and the guard droids could pull enemies from afar (sometimes I use the black knights to help pound on this victim, but often find it unnecessary). Also, what I like about this team is that all the enemies and heroes seem to hate the repair droids with a passion; it's like I have Target level 10 on them. That's a huge plus for my 2 undead units; the only time I use Eviln to resurrect my undead is when I choose to use my black knights to do some real fighting.

And the thing I love the most about warrior? No more real need to end battles with max rage and max mana. I could end a battle with zero rage and zero mana, and immediately on the next battle my rage jumps up to 40% of my max rage (jumps to 44 rage right now at 110 max rage). Then just use mana accelerator to start the chain of phantom bone dragons.

EDIT/NOTE: Got a navi map for Reha on Uzala, so I took a quick peek. Overall, I was greatly disappointed... too few enemies for such a large island. I'm just level 39 and 21,000 leadership, and the non-hero enemies at Reha were all showing as just "Lethal" (and I'm technically just using 4 full stacks since 2 slots are occupied by repair droids). This means they won't give too much experience, plus the fact that on the whole island there is I believe only 5-6 of them. I took a quick peek of Tekron, and the hero enemies there show as "Lethal" as well. As such, if you have only a few AK scrolls, better just use them on Tekron heroes instead of non-hero enemies on Reha.

Uzala on the other hand has low-level heroes (level 28-34), but they command large armies, still showing as "Invincible" against my army. Worthy of an AK scroll I believe, especially since there are 4 of them (then use the last AK charge on the diploma battle at Elon, the next island one logically visits).