Finish the game on 7 days?

[hotfix666]

I buy royal griffin and inquisitors to my paladin and cyclops and win over kraken. I think I get over 2000 leadership before end of scarlet.
I think I can make it now
I get bone dragon from a undead wander scroll
I think I fix all fights now on scarlet...with little luck and not so much loss

[impy]

I'd like to comment on this, since I am known for despising kiting, wanderer scrolls, overpowered units, combos,basically anything that makes your game easier.
If you are not looking for superfast game then any game with any character no loss can be started like this (i start this way pretty much all of my challenges). If i can do it anyone can do it. So if it helps anyone:
After training, sneak around debir,scarlet,bolo and collect everything on the ground. If you're lucky you gain access to rusty as well. Get amulet from bolo, collect archmagi from scarlet tower. Now we know that 2 most important medals are +1000leadership, +7%res, and it would be nice to have trap medal out of the way as well, while enemies are low on hitpoints which makes trapping lot easier. Grand strategy is done by no loss automatically, so you have to focus on guardian+trapping only. make a line-up archmagi-archmagi-paladins-archmagi-archmagi. Archmagi cast magic shield every second round = 4 x 5 = 20 hits on guardian medal, so teoretically you can have guardian 3 after just 20 fights, realistically after around fight 30. Advantage of having archmagi apart from hits on guardian medal
- 4 x telekinesis. So 4 x tel + dragon kick can get enemy unit up to 5 tiles away! Purpose is obvious - trapping.
- shocking. If dangerous enemy stack is approaching quickly, focus all archmagi on it. From 4 hits it is high chance it will get shocked. Shocking is also useful if you want to slow down the last enemy very weak unit which would get killed when it hits your back rank. Purpose is to pro-long the battle to 10 rounds so you can work on your medals
-low firepower. As mentioned above, if you want to keep the last enemy unit alive, single archmagi by retaliation can hardly kill anything.
If you want to work on your pet dragon at the same time, replace one unit of archmagi with inquisitors for casting holy anger. I would not worry about pet dragon too much, since once it gets behind in levels compared to hero, it will start to gain experience quicker. So do not take more than 1 group of inquisitors this early, you can always focus on your pet later when you're stronger.
So the battle starts. If you were lucky to find trap spell on starting islands, it should be your main priority. Distorsion 1 goes without saying, for warrior who might be the only character having problems to get it straight away- training experience, shrine in bolo, runes laying around, monk in debir - should suffice. You need mana - so get your hands on some cheap mana boosting artifacts - white slippers, warm mittens are usually around. Check how much damage your traps will do. Immediately start planning strategy which 1 unit is to be kept alive (shooters); which units are close to traps; which stupid melee unit with way too many hit points is going to run into your trap = needs luring away or kicking away or teleporting away from its natural path; which units with bit more hit points need to have their hit points lowered immediately with spells or pet dragon in order to be succesfully trapped. Sometimes you have to actually walk away with paladins so enemy stack does not kill itself by retaliation (or you can lower number of paladins & inquisitors) Realistic goal on Debir is 3 successful traps per battle on debir.By the time you get tired of trapping, you'll have 70+ on scarlet at least and you'll go on to finish it. wandering stacks on debir are so weak that recommended army will kill all of them with ease. For 3 hero battles i would take inquisitors for ranged power and help with healing, but only so i do not have to waste too many spell points on healing and can concentrate on medals. When fighting heroes (after you have guardian2), cast magic shield on inqusitors + archmagi. Enemy spells with spell power 2 will be very weak. Archmagi with 140 hitpoints and paladins should easily survive them. Keep shooters close to your paladins for circle resurrecting purposes. Keep always different stack unshielded - enemy hero will likely attack it with spells - you will save your weakened units and last longer. Those spells may be annoying but i never go for less than 6 rounds with these heroes. When you hit scarlet kill all easy stack first without changing your setup, it should be cca 5 wild fights. I should mention one extremely important thing now - i can only assume many players naturally would like to play offensively, that is why they struggle with early no loss. You have to play carefully, sit back, lure the enemy away, kick them back etc. just to get more and more time to do what is neccessary to do in your back ranks = walk shooters to the side where enemy is not approaching, stick paladins in the way, cast fear, slow, nature call, shocking with archmagi...Offensive playing = even green dragon from rusty can easily get killed if those hundreds of pirate units get some criticals in.
Once you have guardian 3 or if things get too messy, get royal snakes, but keep 2 stacks of archmagi for working on the trap medal. By the time you have guardian 3, trapper 3 (early Bolo latest) get any set-up you like those medals will be a strong boost.
If you're unlucky and haven't got trap spell, then from the start use hero mana on character specific medal - mage = fire arrow (or oily mist in order not to kill enemy too quickly on debir), paladin= heal, warrior = cannot cast battle cry (i was going to write battle orders as in diablo) yet, so i usually help with guardian medal by casting stone skin.
All of this can be done, and i;ve done it many times, without any investment in glory, and with simple units. Once you've got these medals out of the way then runemages, royal snakes, paladins, beholders, inquisitors, and orc units are excellent choice. And if you actually get access to rusty straight from the beginning then you're laughing - before you do any fighting get captain hausen maps + extra artifacts and 2 cases from scarlet, then mercenaries for sohaty + green dragon.

[atlatea]

I guess the hardest part is the early game, but loreangelicus is right, CW offer many things which ease early game. Well, this is some input from me for reference.

KB CW offer a lv 5 unit that is not a random spawn (rune mage), and you can get this early, warrior and paladin can get this at the end of scarlet, ofc this is if you have grand strategy medal lv 2, which is easily doable.

As warrior or paladin, usually it's just thorn or the new orc tracker, orc shaman is also good (but i prefer tracker), and inquisitor for support (pet dragon spam). Pet dragon kick attack and treasure dig are top priority.

After clearing all enemies in debir except heroes, amelie usually have enough lv to tackle some of the heroes if not most with just that setup (might have to add royal snake), though she must kill them as quickly as possible, or some losses is unavoiable due to flame arrow or poison skull, but grand strategy 2 is top priority. Left some of the heroes which is impossible to kill without loses, because you'll go back to this island later. Just kill to get grand strategy 2 and level, leadership must reach 2k asap

Scarlet is almost the same as debir, pet dragon do half to almost all the work and the mission is same (Just kill to get grand strategy 2 and level, leadership must reach 2k asap), especially if you have trap spell early (as mentioned by impy), yet from my experience, trap in CW is buggy (units that are forced to enter the trap won't lose their turn). By the end of scarlet, paladin and warrior can get rune mage, this unit always spawn in debir (royal university) and scarlet (small island).

Though with high luck you can get call of colosus spell, if you get this spell, try to get red dragon or troll, yet this way is not 100% guaranteed, i mean getting the scroll (not the red dragon after you have the scroll). But rune mage usually suffice, ofc in case of damage, it is not as great as red dragon, but it is there for rage gatherer, tanker, debuffer, and summoner. If you utilize it right, it can come close to red dragon.

After getting rune mage and most of scarlet is cleared, as usual go to bolo. Left most or all of your units (up to you though), and switch to droids. You can still bring the inquisitor for extra rage gatherer and more dmg dealer (rune mage can resurrect them). Most of bolo can be cleared with just this setup (including heroes, and even the rusty anchor map guard, not sure about verona guard though).

In rusty anchor, things become much easier, because there is another lv 5 unit which always spawn, the green dragon. You can left all your army and use only the green dragon or otherwise, up to you. Using full army means your pet dragon will level up faster but more risky to do no loss, though it's up to you, because by this time some people still aim for grand strategy 3 (so no loss is a must), yet some do the otherwise. Again, not all enemy here must be killed, because you'll back to this island later (unless you want to skip that quest). By the time you arrive at verona, things become much more easier, so no specific input there.

It must be noted that losses won't decrease your final score (it just affect your pride when other peoples look at your score and personal satisfaction), unless you use a mod to modify how to calculate the score.

At this point, losses are acceptable unless you still aim for grand strategy 3. Though it must be noted that high amount of losses means less gold, gold is still very important at this point, because a very good artifact which usually cost 20k to 50k or more might spawn early. Another thing is, by this time your units is still few, so even a little losses might have a big impact, not only affect your gold, but also time required to restock them (you need to go to bolo which is a very waste of time, unless you still have some bussines there).

Though as paladin resurrection build (there are 2 major build for paladin), at this point you should have resurection 1 or maybe even 2, with this you can have losses as the resurection skill will resurect them anyway. But it must be noted that it will count as casualties/losses at the score screen, again it must be noted that losses/casualties doesn't affect score (only your pride and personal satisfaction). If you use paladin with resurection, i recommend taking losses, but keep in mind to your losses, calculate it, so all your losses will be resurected completely. Why taking losses? the advantage of taking losses is you can tackle enemies at the time when it is too impossible to tackle if you're going no loss (this is only for paladin with resurection though), the purpose of this? it is obvious, high jump on anything, i mean getting very high amount of gold, level, pet dragon, and aquiring late game island map early.

[bucazaurus]

As i found out recently , in CW due to the new artefacts (Wanderer Gloves) combined with a flaw in Pet Dragon's Wall ability (has no aggro on enemy , unless they can't reach any of your units) you can abuse the combo Mana accelerator - Holy Anger - Teleport spell for unlimited usage during battles.

In the picture attached i entered the battle with only 2 Inquisitors and 1 Demonologist , but at this point by using the Fire Dragon for kite i can play unlimited rounds because i will never run out of Rage\Mana since i get 22 mana and 30 rage (-19 rage for casting mana accelerator = 11 rage profit) for 15 mana spent. This is a major flaw in my opinion.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by bucazaurus

As i found out recently , in CW due to the new artefacts (Wanderer Gloves) combined with a flaw in Pet Dragon's Wall ability (has no aggro on enemy , unless they can't reach any of your units) you can abuse the combo Mana accelerator - Holy Anger - Teleport spell for unlimited usage during battles.

In the picture attached i entered the battle with only 2 Inquisitors and 1 Demonologist , but at this point by using the Fire Dragon for kite i can play unlimited rounds because i will never run out of Rage\Mana since i get 22 mana and 30 rage (-19 rage for casting mana accelerator = 11 rage profit) for 15 mana spent. This is a major flaw in my opinion.

Actually the Wanderer Glove existed in the Armored Princess Gift Pack Official Mod, which they included in Crossworlds.

Sure if you cast two teleports in two rounds (or burn a double cast), you will have enough rage to convert to more mana.

Stone Walls have two rounds of rest periods, so this is annoyingingly long to setup. If you burn Awaken Dragon to set it up, that seems like a fairly expensive way to suck up rage, although with a weaker army, this is the expected strategy.

Inquisitors are going to run out of Holy Anger, although with two of them, you got quite a stock pile.

And I suppose the Demonologists get buffed everytime you cast teleport and you get another 10 rage.

I don't see how this is really out of control if they do not Aggro the Stone Wall. e.g. if your Dragon of Chaos was garbage, they could simply annihilate it, and they will proceed to break down the wall.

Even against bosses, they jack up Rage generation by killing their summons for insane rage, so you can convert to mana. So the idea of unlimited mana doesn't seem too nutty, not to mention it takes a while to build up.

Tactically, this doesn't seem much different than casting target on any ol flying tank.

As for mana restoration, with transmute and mana accelerator, in most conventional battles with a Mage, I can end up with nearly full mana, or full mana anyways, even after using it on Ancient Phoenix AND Dragon of Chaos and possibly at a much faster pace.

And, while I do like the Wanderer's Gloves, I like wearing other things Haha

[bucazaurus]

This tactics helps you to level up your Pet Dragon and max out his vital abilities , without doing anymore then few battles and without investing any rune in Rage Control - Training - Anger skills from Might Tree. (For a Mage it's a pretty good deal ) .
Inquisitor are there for the initial Rage you need in the first 2 rounds of the battle. You open the battle without casting any spell until you get the Rage for building the first wall. After that you cast Awaken Dragon - Summon Fire Dragon
or Phoenix . Second round you complete the blockade and start kitting . The enemy will always go for the summon since the other troops are blocked behind the walls and because of summon's higher speed they will never catch him .
When you consider the Pet Dragon has got enough experience or when you get bored ,you can start using spells to finish the battle .
(Trap spell does wonder ) And since you can't run out of mana , that shouldn't be a problem .

[atlatea]

From my experience, my pet dragon skills always as i need it to be.

I mean, if your pet dragon skill is too high you won't be able to use it anyway (because you don't have sufficient rage). This is especially for mage, because mage has the lowest amount of rage.

Mage doesn't need training, but she need rage, and rage need 1 lv of training.

Just defeat 1 green dragon at rusty anchor or scarlet wind + 1 lv of training = +40% bonus experience to pet dragon, that should suffice, unless you play warrior class.

And i don't see any reason why i should lv my pet dragon skills beyond my capabilities to use it.

And i hate long long battle, more than 20 turn is a no.