Warrior, Paladin, Mage (info, strategy, hints, etc.)

[stupidface]

Hi, thanks for your tips!

I am a big fan of the original "King's Bounty" so I thought it was safe to play on Hard here too!

I managed to find a few more weak enemies, and also to find the crashed dirigible, which allowed me to (SPOILER AHEAD) get to the island with the first boss and once defeating him and returning for the quest reward I had enough experience to become level 6.

This caused the home kingdom to replenish its stocks of human troop, thus letting me rebuild my army. A good thing too - after the battle with the boss, I had only two dwarves left! So far, they seem to be my best unit, but I can only have a few at a time. All-in-all, it seems my peasants do a lot more damage than anything else - I just have to keep them alive.

So for anyone having the same trouble as me, I would suggest to just keep doing the King's Quests (Graham, Look out, a poisonous snake!) and eventually you will beat the boss and then get more troops.

I'll start trying to find some better troops. I really like the idea of replenishing life and "recruiting the dead" that Undead and Werewolf troops can do, but so far I have not been able to recruit many of these sorts of units. I will get some Royal Snakes as you suggest.

Any other troops suggestions?

Okay, thanks, bye!

[Bonar]

If you manage to get to an or settlement (the first is orc embassy in freedom island). Get Orc Shaman, best unit in their race so far. They don't have range attack, but the totems and dancing axe skill is very very usefull. I liberally use their totems skill many times as they can serve as distraction, most enemy will tend to target them first and wasting their turn. And if the totem lucky enough to survive by the end of the next turn, it will cast AoE damage or heal depend on the totem you use. The dancing axe is very nice, any damage to living creature will give major heal to all friendlies.

Giants are nice, but not much as they only can move 1 cell. The running skill compesate for this, then the earthquake which damage any nearby troop; the nearer they are the more damage they receive. I sometime use them as bait for enemies to gather around then do earthquake.

Black dragons, these are very nice unit. Expensive and demand lots of leadership points. Their firebreath attack can reach two cell within line of fire. Also the ability that fire everything in their path is very usefull if you are lucky enough to have multiple enemies in it's line of flight. Black dragons have less hp than giants though.

[Zhuangzi]

*Okay, this post is full of spoilers.*

Hi stupidface (no insult intended ), I am playing as a Hard Paladin as well and I'm currently level six.

Without bragging, and with respect to hawker's wisdom, I am actually finding the game (gasp) a little too easy right now.

The only rough patch I had was when I first entered Arlania looking for the royal seal quest. There are plenty of nasty troops around that could munch my then level 4 Paladin. I found that upgrading the Scouting skill to its max was PRIORITY ONE as it allows you to see exactly how many troops you will be fighting against. Very important. As you become familiar with the enemies you will be able to tell whether you can take them down or not. The estimate of strength is not very accurate as I don't think it takes into account your spells/rage, nor your superior intellect compared with the computer. Thus I am finding that 'Slightly stronger' enemies are often quite easy to beat.

Okay, so how did I get from struggling on level 4 to cruising on level 6? Firstly, you need the ragebox. Now. There is a thread about how to get this up and running if you haven't do so already. I have the first two rage demons serving me - the fire one and the poison one. The problem the Paladin has is that it is hard for him to access the Chaos spells early on. There is a prerequisite that is very expensive. Consequently, I still don't have Chaos magic. This is very bad without the ragebox, as you are relying entirely on your brute strength to defeat enemies. And this means heavy losses. The only attacking spells I have at the moment are Magic Pole Axe and Pain Mirror (which requires the enemy to hit you first).

Once you've got the ragebox and unlocked the first two demons (which is easy to do) things will get much better. I found that I could make a LOT of money and get a lot of experience by cruising around Arlania, Verlon Forest and to a lesser extent Marshan Swamp picking up all the goodies. It is especially good when you have a boat to go around the coast/islands with. There is plenty of money and easy fights available. I always had stuff to spent the money on but I am finding that there is JUST enough to see me through. There are heaps of easy fed-ex style quests to complete.

To my surprise I found that I was able to defeat the giant turtle fairly easily (this is on Hard remember). Oh, I am still using the humans alot too. My leadership is at around 1600 which allows for something like 60 Swordsmen, 27 Ancient Bears (love these guys), 5 Knights (but I can't find a place to buy more), 18 Inquisitors (again, I need more) and 5 Mages (I don't think that's their name - the guys who can cast the defensive spell or the teleportation). Add that to level 2 Order and Distortion spells, plus ragebox with two demons, and I'm in business. Marshan Swamp looks very tough though - especially the graveyard area.

I love this game.

[stupidface]

Hmm, do you think that I should have totally phased out Peasants from my army by now?

My Leadership is in the mid 2000's, and I have over 500 peasants. They hit for a lot of damage, but of course they are usually whittled down before they can be of much use.

[Zhuangzi]

Originally Posted by stupidface

Hmm, do you think that I should have totally phased out Peasants from my army by now?

My Leadership is in the mid 2000's, and I have over 500 peasants. They hit for a lot of damage, but of course they are usually whittled down before they can be of much use.

Well, I'm not sure, but I don't like peasants because they are slow and don't have any special abilities. Basically I think it's more cost effective to buy less stronger units that can actually withstand the enemy attack. Then of course you've got to keep them alive.

[hawker]

Peasants have a banding bonus, every +30 peasants in stack gives +1 to their attack (up to +10)

[Amamake]

Paladins start with a Resurrection scroll in the spellbook. Scribe it if you haven't already. It makes early game so much easier.

Any other troops suggestions?

Go to the swamp and ask the resident paladin there to show you his "special stock". If you are lucky he might have some Inquisitors for sale.