Exploit (Spoiler) - But I need advice

[WhiteMage]

In this case, quite a shame that no one took it seriously enough to make a patch for it over 3 years (worse, a million years in Vulture’s calendar).

[Elwin]

I have never really used sacrifice in AP. It has different OP combos, "exploits" from legend were nerfed bad in AP, and most of Legend tactics will not work there
However the game is not free from such things, they are just different. Many poeple comnsider map kiting a cheating for example.
In AP if u have proper army setup u can win almost any fight without spending 100 +turns on rezzing, making it much ennjoyable. I never bother to do no loss campaign ( 0 units lost in whole capaign) in Legend since its tiresomne and boring., But i did in AP. And it was fun.

[WhiteMage]

Fatt_Shade (and Elwin),
Based on your post here I bought and tried out Kings Bounty Crossworlds. I played the Orc campaign immediately on impossible level and it is again very easy to win and the game is full of exploits, although different ones. Here are but a few:
1. Rune mage exploit 1. Find a battle and single out a marauder enemy and don’t kill it (the larger the better). Use illusion repeatedly and search every dead body with your marauders. Let the enemy marauder kill your illusion marauders, which provides “infinite” gold to the hero. Again extremely boring and time consuming, but gold problem is solved.
2. Rune mage exploit 2. Find a battle with inquisitors enemy and use illusion on them repeatedly to earn “infinite” experience for your dragon and spend a large amount of rage to earn level 3 medal in dragon rage. Use resurrection and holy anger as needed. Boring, but dragon level and rage medal is solved.
3. Use stone wall repeatedly to spend little rage and earn 33% of it back by destroying it for 20 turns. Boring, but earns a lot of rage.
4. Most medals are boring to earn and time consuming and motivates player to drag out already won battles.
5. Mana recharge in numerous ways. Repetitive, boring.

My conclusion:
KB should be played by a long list of self made rules, such as no inquisitors, no rune mages, no emerald green dragons, no stone wall, and consider battle lost if I did not win in 15 turns, etc. These are in addition to my earlier rules, which are to play impossible and load game is only allowed to continue from the latest position saved. Must save immediately before quitting.

Overall, these KB games would have a potential to become a great game, but they suffer from major exploits now and are childish with virtually no challenge for even minimally experienced players, like me. I am yet to try out the mods, such as red sands, but I suspect that they suffer from similar problems. If you know a mod, which has no known exploit, please let me know. Thanks,

[Fatt_Shade]

@WhiteMage About your `exploits`:
1) no need for AP, in tL it`s doable with gift spell and since marauders are 2nd lvl unit, for only 10 mana you refresh their looter ability and good to go. I played warrior last game on Homm3 babies mod and by 14th lvl got about 2million gold with only 1 marauder. And before illusion spell didnt leave corpses in field which is normal since you `created` those units it`s normal they dissepear after 3 turns. And how do you control enemy marauder (cast slow and keep on 2 squares form them i guess), and second much more important question how much enemy marauders you weave alive so they can kill your illusions ? Again time and nerves consuming for no reason at all. If this game lacks something it`s no gold. Every playthrough i did finished with more gold then i need (4,5 million was smallest amount)with only option to spend was buying runes.
2) Seems you dont get exp gain facts - as battle last longer your pet exp/mana/rage inflow is less. So casting illusion on inquisitors by 20 turn will give you 3-9 rage for all 3 charges, not worth of wasting time. Pet exp depends on enemy/your army ratio, as you kill enemy unit less exp you get for pet just look at firs turn exp info before you use some rage skill, and compare it to exp you get for same skill in 4-5 battle turn. It should be at least 4 times less exp.
So i`ll say it again there is NO way to get `infinite`pet exp. Only possible scenario is against full range army and you using only pet skills that doesnt cause dmg and keep enemy army at full until some 100+ turns + keep your rage inflow at max because you dont attack so no rage from killing enemy + keep your army alive since they dont retaliate to enemy attacking them + by then mana will be on 0 so no resurrecting for you . . . Is this really worth it? Only gain from your exploit is maybe a bit boost to rage medal (i got it to 4th lvl even with mage hero with no prob, so it`s not that big deal). Also with normal playing every playthrough i got pet to 60 before my hero was 50th lvl (45-48 usually).
3) Again rage inflow drops during battle, so it`s not worth it. It`s changed since tL, in original game killing wall didnt give rage, since you spend rage to create it in first place it was logical. In AP/CW wall 12lvl for 40 rage gives only 52 exp, comparing this to dive that gives around 400+ exp, wall is useless for lvling up pet. It useful for protecting units/stopping enemy advancement not so much for exp gain.
4)

Most medals are boring to earn and time consuming and motivates player to drag out already won battles.

You complain about spending turns in already won battle (only 10 turn max since after that spells casted doesnt count) to gain medal lvls (which are useful during all game), and on other side spend 100+ turns to lvlup pet dragon by meagre exp amount with rune mage illusion+inquisitors combo. You contradict yourself my friend.
And it not most medals, only 4 out of 10 medals are dependant on spells/rage so in not MOST is only 40%. Trapper 3lvl doable in 15 battles (4x1 inquisitor + EGD), guardian angel with mage 3lvl in 13 battles (5x1 archmage). Fire mage/blind rage i admit it takes time but that`s 2/10 medals not even by a long shot MOST medals are time consumable. Even if you depend on blind rage for crit% in late game, you did something very wrong in your build.
5) Again were back to mana/rage inflow. Ok in AP/CW we have rage for mana spell, but even that wont work much after 30-40 turns so it`s not infinite,and mana doesnt effect any medals directly (if you didnt use mana in first 10 turns to build medals, after that it doesnt count, so why waste time to recharge mana that you have no need to spend in later turns? Only way to exploit mana recharge is trapper medal since killed units by trap doesnt limit to first 10 turns. But that`s only way.
In tL we had chargers, in AP/CW mana recharger - similar, rage predator/mana well item in both games. Changes in later game are calm rage spell, transmutate skill. But why do you need so much mana ? If you only depend on mana to play game something is wrong. This is tactical game, you should use more approaches to it not only 1 way of playing.
When they release some kind of multiplayer for this game (i hope at least HotSeat) many of this exploits will be useful as peasant with 3lvl berserker spell.
All of what you said was found out long time ago, but if you wanted to give some contribution to new players at least explain it in a bit more detail : 1)how to keep your units alive with marauder combo, 2)how to keep enemy inquisitors from killing your weak units/target spell on rune mages, 3)why would you use wall if other pet skill bring 10x more exp then it, 4)think about medals before you say something completely untrue, 5)`infinite` mana when/how to use it since warrior doesnt need it, support mage also no use, only pure spell nuker mage have good use of it.

[WhiteMage]

Fatt_Shade,
Thanks for your quick reply. In your post you admitted that the game has exploits. One is too many, and there are more than one. In my view that is a weakness, which makes the game nearly impossible to enjoy for me. That’s why I made a post before and now. I am looking for a good strategy or tactical game and this one is just so close to be a good one, but not quite there.
Without an attempt to address each of your points I give a short response.
a. This game needs more patch or mod – badly.
b. Enemy marauders have speed 2 and is easy to stay away from them. I leave my illusion marauders in their 2 cell range and I do not retaliate. My other units stay away.
c. Regarding inquisitors, I leave a bunch alive so I get at least 1 experience for my dragon even for a wall. Since I have illusion inquisitors I can resurrect my units in case they die. Spells help too.
d. Regarding 4 out of 10 medals, how about grand strategy, battle academy, trapper, guardian angel, blind rage, and holy warrior? This is 6. My reported exploits should help each of these more or less.
e. I use wall because it has a low spend rage return rage ratio: I spend 6 and gain 2 by destroying it and it does not damage my enemy, so it is renewable.
f. Infinite mana is useful against long kept alive enemy inquisitors, for example.
I made my posts for 1 reason only: to ask for advice where to look for an exploit free game. Not to complain, start a debate, or to become some sort of hero in the community. A byproduct of my previous post came out as a recommendation for those players who are similar to me and like to play hard games and like challenge (I know that there are some). Since this game is not such a game, it becomes necessary to create self-made rules, to make some challenge. The other option is to move on to the next game and thereby support the game development industry in creating more so-so games, which you pay for and play once then forget about it, and go ahead to buy the next so-so game on the market. That is the end of story from my end. Thanks for your answers, but again, I am looking for a better game and that’s all. I am not interested in dragging this discussion out.