droids are NOT overpowered:-)

[ckdamascus]

Congrats! I have always wanted to find a good way to use Steam Armor.

You know, some of these questions would all be answered if people combed the Gamer's Edition player manual, which I have linked from my Ultimate Documentation thread, which no one has stickied (but it really should be).

Although, I do agree that most of this should be IN GAME. Why do I need 10 pdfs to support this game?

<coughs>
Regarding Steam Armor, it only affects "short humanoids", of which the list is

"""
Alchemist, Skeleton Archer, Archimagus, Barbarian, Berserker, Black Knight, Archer, Cannoner, Goblin
with the Catapult, Druid, Dryad, Dwarf, Elf, Pathfinder, Sworsman, Guardsman, Goblin, Violent Goblin,
Cavalryman, Imp, Imp the Mocker, Knight, Miner, Necromancer, Orc, Orc the Veteran, Peasant, Pirate, Old
salt, Priest, Inquisitor, Robber, Marauder, Shaman, Skeleton, Vampire, Werewolf Elf, Ancient Vampire,
Zombie, Decaying Zombie, Demoness, Wood Fairy, Lake Fairy, Foreman, Paladin, Demonologist
"""

Regarding Undead
"""
Immunity to some spells (Bless, Revival, Armour of the God, Victim, Weakness),
to talents (Vampirism, Dance of Edges, Gobble up a Corpse, Second Breath) and features Absorption of Soul,
to effects (Bleeding, Furiousness, Curse).
Spells Treatment and Life Light cause a loss.
The plague does not influence undead parameters, gives +1 Morals.
"""

I don't know if anyone created an updated manual for Crossworlds. The Warrior Counter-attack seems to simply not work with undead. It does work with quite a few humanoids, and their definition expands far more. e.g. it works on my Shrek team.

Or in other words, it works with LARGE humanoids too.

Or, in case someone does not get it by now, it works on trolls, ogres, and orc chieftain as well.

[impy]

Thanks for the info. When I meet a troll I tell him he is one of us
well, dear ckdamascus, seems that we ended in this discussion alone
I was thinking about playthrough with ancient vampires. No crazy challenges (hopefully it will be challenging enough), just nice game with vampires only.
So I want to ask - has anybody tried it? Can they be made self sufficient with their drain ability? I guess with very occasional use of eviln it can be done...

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by impy

Thanks for the info. When I meet a troll I tell him he is one of us
well, dear ckdamascus, seems that we ended in this discussion alone
I was thinking about playthrough with ancient vampires. No crazy challenges (hopefully it will be challenging enough), just nice game with vampires only.
So I want to ask - has anybody tried it? Can they be made self sufficient with their drain ability? I guess with very occasional use of eviln it can be done...

Haha indeed. But I wonder what height we have to be to qualify as "short humanoid" for King's Bounty? Hmmmmmm I'm 5'7"....

I did ancient vampires in the Champion Arena campaign. I can't say I did it with no-loss though haha, and the game mechanics are clearly different in that game.

It probably is possible since the key features of beating the living daylights out of bosses is no-retaliation (ranged and/or special melee) OR insane firepower (aka Black Knights).

I suppose the resurrection/resistance bit is pretty important too.

I'm sort of scared to think of more combinations. I love this game, but I fear of losing myself in it again.

[Fatt_Shade]

Hm . . . ancient vampires playthrough. not bad idea, but it`s possible you`ll have problems getting enough vampires to restock your army. I played this game for some time now (what an understatement and rarely have found some reasonable amount of ancient vampires, to be useful before finishing quest for Mysticus and having chance to change normal vampires to upgraded version. On other hand solo BK or droid playthrough no problem since they can be found in almost unlimited quantities (BK from Moro Dark, or castle in undergroung in Montero, and droids almost anywhere on Montero in hordes).
And Warrior`s counterstrike not working with undead would make solo ancient vampires boring, even more since they dont get any bonuses like black knights, and crippled from lack of beneficial spells.
All in all, really unbalanced race to race up`s and down`s.

[impy]

Well, i still intend to go ahead with vampire play through at some point. Beauty of all challenges lies in the fact that there is not only one way to achieve it. Shall you go with max criticals for vampires to leech as much as possible? Or max defense with steam armor, belt of the winner etc? Or max resistances? You would obviously like all of it but due to limited amount of slots you can't. As for getting sufficient amount of vampires i guess one would have to kite to Nameless, do not pick up anything in process , just to get vampires, come back to debir and start properly. I also do not think it would be boring. Since every enemy army consists of mixture of units, one needs to plan ahead the order of killings. For example - kill first non leechable units = undead, cyclops etc. or save really weak units for when vampires numbers drop and one can do massive leeching = bowmen, gobots etc. Or kill one non leechable then one leechable etc in order to keep numbers consistenly high..

[Zechnophobe]

Wow, the steam armor works on non-dwarves? Seriously? I thought it was pretty obvious that it worked only on Dwarves. I mean, those are 'short humanoids' right?

That makes it a much better item. Though... still probably not worth it.

[impy]

I have not tried it personally, just following the ckdamascus list above about units affected by steam armor. Why shouldn't it be good? The otherwise terrible drawback = -1 speed can be easily offset by belt of winner or adrenaline skill. Besides vampires in their bat form have speed of 5, so even reduction to 4 i find acceptable.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by impy

I have not tried it personally, just following the ckdamascus list above about units affected by steam armor. Why shouldn't it be good? The otherwise terrible drawback = -1 speed can be easily offset by belt of winner or adrenaline skill. Besides vampires in their bat form have speed of 5, so even reduction to 4 i find acceptable.

Eh, only +8 defense and +8 attack? I guess that is a decent chunk. Now if only it worked on some Level 5s....

Hmmm it works on the overpowered Veteran Orcs though... hm. Too bad they cannot be resurrected easily.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by impy

I have not tried it personally, just following the ckdamascus list above about units affected by steam armor. Why shouldn't it be good? The otherwise terrible drawback = -1 speed can be easily offset by belt of winner or adrenaline skill. Besides vampires in their bat form have speed of 5, so even reduction to 4 i find acceptable.

'easily offset by belt of the winner'? That's... a composite end game item you likely will never see, or only after defeating Scrounger! Also, it is still -1 movement compared to it!

Also 30% to the stats of a level 4 unit is rarely all that much. I don't recall the beefiest level 4, but I think it might be around 30 attack defense? Probably less. And that's only +9 attack and Defense. That's MAX. I can find decent items for that slot that give good bonus', that don't decrease my speed by one, and effect my dragons or cyclopi or whatever.