droids are NOT overpowered:-)

[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.

[Fatt_Shade]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

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

Come on, for 5th lvl units ? Asking for to much now
I agree , it`s great item for 3-4 lvl units cause %, but if you use 1-2lvl not so useful. For me best option for Steam armor are : Paladin/Knight, Orc veteran/Trackers, Black knigh/Ancient vampires and Demonolog/Demoness high basic attack/defense.
Funny thing, Steam armor is native dwarf race but is least useful for them. Dwarf and Foreman almost never used units and it doesnt effect droids, so only units that benefit from dwarf race are Mechanic/Alchemist
All in all good item, and -1 speed is not so big problem with Adrenaline skill, or 1 cast of Mass haste.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Come on, for 5th lvl units ? Asking for to much now
I agree , it`s great item for 3-4 lvl units cause %, but if you use 1-2lvl not so useful. For me best option for Steam armor are : Paladin/Knight, Demon/Executioner or Orc veteran/Trackers, Black knigh/Ancient vampires high basic attack/defense.
Funny thing, Steam armor is native dwarf race but is least useful for them. Dwarf and Foreman almost never used units and it doesnt effect droids, so only units that benefit from dwarf race are Mechanic/Alchemist
All in all good item, and -1 speed is not so big problem with Adrenaline skill, or 1 cast of Mass haste.

Am I? Look at Belt of the Victor.. +50% defense, +1 speed, AND works on level 5 AND works on summons.

Dwarves always make cool stuff that they can never take advantage of. Oooh mithril weapons and armor? Let the humans and elves use it.

[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.

[Fatt_Shade]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

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 cyclop or whatever.

30% att/def for 4th lvl units isn`t that much ??? Pls tell me your joking. All 4th lvl`s have 25+basic att/def so this armor give them +9 for BOTH att/def!!! +18 stats isn`t enough ( for Paladin is +10/+12 att/def) ? Name 1 other item that gives so much attributes.
There are so few high bonus items Dead skull +5 int/att, Mithril shield +8 def, Axe of ice III lvl +7def and that tooth +7 att you get from K`tahu. Thats it, no more so strong items. Plus this is ARMOR, there are no other items that fit in that slot witch give better stats.
If you use 5th lvl units, obviously this armor is bad choice but for other unit lineups it`s great item. All humans, dwarfs (except droids), undead(except ghosts), many elfs, and some neutrals. So there are alott of builds that would benefit from this item. In my opinion only other Armor/Dress that can compare to Steam are : Dragon cloak (for Mages), Steel leaf (for 3-4 lvl army - Orc team, 100% crit archer lineups, or mass summon army), Dress of mages and last but not least Leather dress
And since there are no Armor/Dress that give -% leadership for some units (Inquisitor blade, Orc ear . . . ) in late game this armor it great choice. Of if you play dragon army with +3 morale, or Shrek team go for some other item, but for any other army consisted of 3-4 lvl units Steam armor is better then most of others.

I just now figured out imba fact for Mage+Elenhel combo : you can equip 3 sets. Undead set (2 artifacts+gloves in hero), Darkness set (helm+artifact in hero) , Vampire set(weapon hero, artifact companion). I`m playing it now and wondering should reload since lvl 12, and pick Moro dark instead Elenhell, just ot get that stupid Shard of darkness and exploit this retarded combo. Black knights and Ancient vampires are ridiculously strong. It gives some impression that developers intended to overpower this class