Teach me, expert players of Armored Princess

[kcwong]

Please stop arguing. That's not the point of my thread.

[impy]

I took a look at your save. You're lucky I'm having some stomach problems so i'm stuck at home

First, about your character:
1) do not invest in transmute skill too early. You noticed yourself it wiped out your might runes, which are always in short supply for mage.
2) investing in wisdom gives only 6 mana, leave it for lot later. You want to pump up important skills first as a mage- chaos and/or distorsion magic.
3) do not invest in glory either. Again, you need the runes for magic skills.
4) i see you had trap spell available but did not buy/use it. No loss on impossible without kiting is difficult especially at the beginning, you have to take every little help game has to offer. Fights in Debir are easy, surely you could have squeezed some traps in? Getting it to at least level 2 means slowing down enemies+damage. The same goes for casting stone skin and getting the Guardian medal.
5) definitely take 4 archmagi from tower in Scarlet. They're sturdy, ranged, can push the enemies back, magic shield ability, chance to lower speed, help with guardian medal... as a replacement for archers.
6) you only have one unit which can resurrect, so you cannot afford to lose much and of one type of unit only. Swordsmen will have to go. replace with polar beers from Bolo
7) you're spending crystals on spells you will never use as mage- nature call, guardian angel, dragon arrows... save crystals
as a mage you only chance at the start is ranged damage, spell damage, no retaliation damage. So preferably no melee units apart from snakes or very sturdy ones - reason why swordmen have to go
9) fear is a great spell. therefore you need to remove units level 1-2 from your army - reason why archers have to go.

As a mage you have to choose which way to go and specialize. Distorsion and buffing/debuffing enemies? Then go for distorsion 2 quickly, keep casting slow, fear, dragon kick back, send summoned thorns forward with archmagi magic shield to occupy the enemy, and shoot. or Spell damage. Go for chaos 2 fast = stronger spells, longer fear spell, again attack from the distance.

Hmm, with you current state of affairs it is not exactly brilliant. Get +1int headgear from debir underground. go to bolo and collect unguarded rusty anchor map from in front of erica tent, you only have to avoid those barbarians by the boat, if you wait for the right moment. On rusty you will find paladins in the tavern...
good luck!

[mare911]

I tried save you attached above. Your army composition was pretty weak and hero slots were empty.
1st I equipped some +1 items which provided significant boost to your setup
2nd You didnt bought trap spell on Debir effectively crippling your chance of acquiring trapper medal (later in game enemies are harder to kill with a trap)
3rd I changed units for better survivability in this stage of game (since its no loss). I decided to make droids team (2 x repair + guard) mixed with palas + royal snakes. Droids are designated to be self ressing tanks, snakes are dmg dealers and palas are tank/ress/utility, depending on situation.

To gain access to all of this i set sail to Bolo and bought droids from the dwarf guy in front of the cave. Then i kited Droid boss in cave (since you considered this kosher ) to get paladins later.
After this i cleared rest of Debir (3-4 miniboss fights) to gain money i lost on droids and eventually bought paladins.
For your convenience i cleared few patrols on Bolo to secure path to droid guy (btw i picked up unguarded Rusty Anchor map there )

All fights were no loss ofc

P.S. I uploaded finished save below
P.P.S. Lastly i killed assassins stack you mentioned - it was super easy

[kcwong]

Thank you very much, Impy and mare911.

About glory:
I have always considered getting glory to be very important - as a mage I have very little leadership to start with already. On normal/hard that was sufficient for me to get more offensive and healing power to make my way through. Not good enough for impossible though, as my situation clearly demonstrated.

About empty item slots:
I'll read the info thread again, this time really get into the maths. I was skeptical about how good are +1/+2 to attack/defense stats.

About trap spell:
In my previous mage game I got all the trap medals - I didn't find it too useful back then, to be honest. I must cast it against natural obstacles, or the AIs will just run right around it, and still the trap will only delay them for one turn while blocking me from casting other spells. I'll try combining it with a small army and dragon wall.

About skill focus:
Since equipping some +1/+2 attack/defense artifacts did the trick, that means I was wrong not getting a level of the might skills.

Thanks again. I'll take a look at the save you uploaded, mare911, and compare the item/army config against mine. Then I'll restart - my skill choices are a mess!

[impy]

Hey kcwong, all is not lost yet. As i said, just get the rusty island map from bolo and there are paladins in tavern +2 easy quests not requiring fighting - captain bottles and bringing chests from scarlet. That should give you a level, plus you collect all the leadership rods from new area etc. On bolo, save game, get off the boat on the left, ,run past the barbarians up the hill and look. if there are enemies blocking your way, reload, wait 10-15-20.. seconds and try again. Remember, enemies are constantly moving, just wait for the right moment. Also, about your problem with polar bears not letting you out of bolo underground. Before you go underground, loose the tail and stop for several seconds. Once you go underground, game aboveground "freezes" in the exact position you left it in. (hence the polar bears = if they were following you before you descent, they would be there once you reappear again). Only if it is all nice and clear then go underground, 'cause you know it is safe to come back. Once done underground, come back up and wait by the entrance until the road is clear, it may take again 5,10,20..sec. If some enemy comes down the hill, there is a bit wider area at where the droids are positioned, just run around enemy there. Yes, you may restar the game if you wish, on the other hand you can consider yourself lucky to have access to rusty without fight, it does not happen that way everytime.

1) glory. i am not saying it is a bad skill, but it is about the runes. From your "mage power" point of view what is better - having 250 leadership or higher level of magic? definitely the latter
2) traps. Seems that you're talking about casting trap spell (i agree, not the best), but free of charge pre-laid traps are very nice to have. During the battle you can reposition your army in a way, which will force AI to come right down on the traps, or use dragon kick to push them on a trap or use archmagi skill.
3) casting pet dragon wall. don't do that. It stops pet dragon for 2 turns. Casting cheap dragon kick or mana acc. is better
4) you say - "i was wrong not getting a level of might skills". I hope you mean att/def equipment (eventhough as a mage you should prefer mana/int equipment) not spending runes on might skills. DO NOT. From might tree only invest in pet dragon skills, and only when you're happy with the magic tree first.

[kcwong]

Originally Posted by impy

Hey kcwong, all is not lost yet. <snip>

I looked at what you've changed, and then fought a few battles to test how well I can use them. I started a new game (since my skill choice was a mess), but I've made a backup - so I'll definitely go back and continue this game afterward.

Originally Posted by impy

if there are enemies blocking your way, reload, wait 10-15-20.. seconds and try again. Remember, enemies are constantly moving, just wait for the right moment.

Correct me if I'm wrong: the enemies have several patrol schemes, randomly chosen when generating the map. This patrol scheme controls where they will go (unless you are nearby), and most importantly for guards, controls how far they will move from their station.

In my new game the boss droid in the mines won't go any further than the middle of the two tunnels going left and right (luckily it paused long enough for me to snatch the amulet). In the game I uploaded, it will chase me around the 90º turn and a bit more.

So the possibility of kiting treasure is also somewhat predetermined on map generation.

What I'm trying now is to disrupt their schedules... factor in how long they will pause after losing my trail, I try to group multiple stacks into a cluster, leaving me a much longer time period to fetch items after they are gone. I'm not always successful though.

Originally Posted by impy

Only if it is all nice and clear then go underground, 'cause you know it is safe to come back. Once done underground, come back up and wait by the entrance until the road is clear, it may take again 5,10,20..sec. If some enemy comes down the hill, there is a bit wider area at where the droids are positioned, just run around enemy there.

That gap looks really really narrow... bears may be doable, but if it's a barbarian stack I'll be out of luck.

In my new game I got lucky - I can access the mines from both ways, due to the stack type. On the top of the mountain it's a stack of druid and royal thorn, both very slow moving. I can dodge them both easily, and I found some cyclops there. The bear near the landing is a bit harder to dodge - I have to make sure the way is clear (2 bears and 1 barbarian above), as I cannot stop or the bear will catch me.

Originally Posted by impy

1) glory. i am not saying it is a bad skill, but it is about the runes. From your "mage power" point of view what is better - having 250 leadership or higher level of magic? definitely the latter

In my new game I've obtained level 2 destruction and alteration, and 1 order. I've spent no other skill points other than defense 1. I think it's about time to get glory 1, in order to have more repair droids...

Originally Posted by impy

3) casting pet dragon wall. don't do that. It stops pet dragon for 2 turns. Casting cheap dragon kick or mana acc. is better

Early on the wall allows me to win some fights... but on Bolo enemies can knock a level 1 wall down in one hit. So yeah, I agree it's not worth it. I had to use it because my last game's army selection is bad, it's wall or lose units.

Originally Posted by impy

4) you say - "i was wrong not getting a level of might skills". I hope you mean att/def equipment (eventhough as a mage you should prefer mana/int equipment) not spending runes on might skills. DO NOT. From might tree only invest in pet dragon skills, and only when you're happy with the magic tree first.

Yes, I meant getting some att/def skill. And I did put a point into +1 def. In all my non-warrior games I never invested much into pet dragon skills... 0_o

[Sylvine]

Originally Posted by kcwong

Correct me if I'm wrong: the enemies have several patrol schemes, randomly chosen when generating the map. This patrol scheme controls where they will go (unless you are nearby), and most importantly for guards, controls how far they will move from their station.

In my new game the boss droid in the mines won't go any further than the middle of the two tunnels going left and right (luckily it paused long enough for me to snatch the amulet). In the game I uploaded, it will chase me around the 90º turn and a bit more.

While they do have pre-generated patrol routes, it is, form my (limited) experience possible to pretty much always kite them almost indefinitely except for a few special groups - mostly the ones guarding the Navigation Chart locations. The Droid boss, for example, will pretty much always follow You only to the intersection, but can, with some movement on Your part, be lured to follow You further, too.

For kiting advice: What I do is save manually before a kiting spree, then just use the three quicksave slots to go around and snatch treasure. In almost every part of the maps, there is enough room to go lure an enemy to and do a little triangular maneuver to get behind it - it requires very little space, too. Only enemies that give much trouble at kiting are the very fast ones - horsemen, beholders, wolves, bears, dragonfly bosses and so on - it's a bit more difficult with those. If I ever manage to maneuver myself into a corner and have no good way to get out of it with my quicksaves, I still have the save file from the start.

And regarding kiting for navigation charts: I didn't even know about any pause/quicksave/quickload tricks. I can kite away some enemies from charts by going towards them, then turning in a way that will make the character almost touch them with her side. They usually follow her then, some just a little bit, some for longer. Those that follow just for a small bit and stop - for those, save once they have stopped, and try the whole thing again. Sometimes, it works. Sure, it takes time, and doesn't work on every enemy, but it can be done.

And knowing it can be done might just as well let You use any tricks You know to make it less tedious (I know I hate grinding for guardian angel and would gladly use any trick to make it even faster - if I can complete it in a few weak battles with 4xatchmage 1xtank with no challange at all, I don't see anything wrong with sparing myself the tedious, boring grind. But I digress...)

Though, to tell the truth, I try not to do it, anyways. It is obvious that kiting normal enemies and snatching away all the goodies of a map before battling is an integral part of the game and intended, too. Those hard-to-kite enemies guarding charts, however, are obviously NOT meant to be kited, otherwise they, well, wouldn't be so hard to kite ;P Still, on my current warrior playthrough, I actually managed to unlock verona, montera, umkas and sheterra without kiting "guardians" at all. There are a few "free" navigational charts availble in Montera, for example. But getting there can be a pain, I'll admit. Especially for a mage, since he's very dependant on good spells availble (then again, if he manages to find just one of them, repair droids let him do pretty much any fight, so...)

Anyways, hope this helps.

~Sylv

[impy]

You invested 1 point in defence? why? benefits are negligible, and you can easily buy +1def eq. for few coins. There will come a moment when you will eagerly await enough runes to have chaos/distorsion magic at level 3 and they are costly, and then you will remember how you "gave up" runes easily for +1def.

Regarding druids & druid combo. It is sad that many people come on this forum looking for advice with higher difficulties, like you, and they get recommended something which has been discovered as uber-powerful. yes repair droid repair ability is every 3 turn and is brutally powerful. I personally find it sooo powerful that i do not use it, it ruins the game and takes away some of the challenge.
Choice is yours..

p.s. regarding luring enemies from their predescripted path vs. waiting for them to go. The paths on bolo are mostly very narrow so luring enemies doesn't help. That's why i suggested to wait