Fixing Starting Daert / Bagyr

[jahes64]

Hi MattCaspermeyer
And many thanks for creating this fix. Orc and Vampire class were horribly unbalanced in the game i couldn't no-loss win the prologue with them without your fix (mod).

I tried both versions. First version was hard since you had to completely rely on diversion skill and hope for lucky placement of its trap and use trap spell which is weaker. It was hard but i managed to do that difficult spider stack (the one that is sitting in middle of some eggs) after many reloads. But second version is excellent, i was able to beat everything with orc class no-loss (on normal difficulty).

One thing though, one of the quests always give leadership with average amount of ~20, could you fix it so it always give us no less than 25 leadership? Else we can't always buy all available troops (lvl 5 units excluded of course) without some restarts.


But Vampire is still unbalanced. I couldn't beat that big spider stack at the catacombs and was forced to leave it alone. Human stack at the shelter was marked as deadly and was so difficult to win no-loss.
At whitehill first stack was marked very strong, second was marked dealy and the third was marked as INVINCIBLE. I made through the first two stack but as far as i see the third is not do able no-loss. And this is on normal difficulty, we are supposed to be able to them no-loss on impossible difficulty, right?

I have attached my save which is from gog version of the game. Btw, GOG version is on v1.5.1048.1751 if that counts. Probably gog is behind steam .

As i noticed you had those wolf riders removed from second version of the fix, because you are supposed to get them after forming a special order later on.

As i understand same thing goes for female vampires. In my demoness play through after i convinced that female scientist to go to the shelter, i went to the shelter and chatted with her. There was a line regarding these female vampires. Something like "i met a new sort of vampires which were female", which starts their quest. I had to bring 10 female vampires to her, so she could "copy" them. Alas i accidentally deleted the save in question and my quicksaves were overwritten when i played other races.
So i think they should be removed and replaced by other units, since it is not right to have them when you never saw them before and are supposed to make these "new" female vampires through that quest.

Also they are not anything special, their "long attack" is pointless when their base attack is of no retaliation sort, and you have to beat the enemy hard before you can you their "call" ability on them and on top of these, they can't regenerate their numbers.

So i think ancient vampires are good replacements.

Now other two classes have decent troops with lots of variety but Vampire only has four different sort of troops. Demoness has blood priestess which is able to resurrect your units and give you free units out of thin air, with their sacrifice ability (at first you are limited to resurrect low level units because their numbers are too low). And orcs have shamans which are able to heal your units every turn. But undeads can only resurrect by picking Eviln which is dropped randomly and is not reliable, so we should have maximum number of normal and ancient vampires.

A single black knight is no where as good as a single demon, because the demon can counter everyone that attacks him and also gets additional turns when he is attacked, which means he can inflict lots of damage and accumulate additional rage for you. It is not as good as a single veteran orc as well since veteran orcs after a few hits can gobble rage potion and counter anyone as well, also they counter enemy counter attacks which is pretty good against no retaliation enemies plus they can evade enemy attacks (and on top of that, they can run everywhere if you get enough adrenaline and run multiple times, which is good when you are going to defend a weak ranged unit), but what can a single black knight do other that their one-time "run" and weak ranged attack?
I think their number should be added to maximum, so they can hold stronger stacks back for a while longer.

And those cursed ghosts are not of any real use against fire arrows and ranged attack of inquisitors and the fact that their soul drain ability is bugged and makes them unable to resurrect dead units, adds to their uselessness. i always had to keep them on initial spot, because the further they go the more effective enemy ranged units become, and in close range they always use fire arrows and kill cursed ghosts easily. Also they have low hp.

Also since undead army only has necromancers as their ranged units, with no ranged special talent and it is not easy to reach ranged units of the enemy with melee units, their number should be maximized.

I am not sure, but a few skeleton archer could help to bring big spider stack at the catacombs.

Undead has too few leadership, so why not maximum every unit to even things?

Btw, since you improved Orc's leadership from 200 to 250, it would be nice and neat to improve undead's leadership from 180 to 200 and demoness's leadership from 270 to straight 300. 180 and 270 are strange numbers and don't go with 250.

Hope you can fix everything that is mentioned above and give us a new and better version.

-- Edit --

And one thing in regard to shelter stores:
Demon shop sell all lvl 1-3 troops, if you could make orc and undead stores to sell all lvl 1-3 troops that would even things in that aspect.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Unfortunately, I have no time to perform any changes to the mod due to all my time being consumed on another project.

I'm not sure if you're using your spells correctly for Daert.

Frost Grasp and Kamikaze are very effective against the spider stacks and don't forget your Evil Book.

The starting units will bring you to the Shelter without any issues (I played a couple of times on impossible so normal should be cake) as long as you grab all the crystals and get your Evil Book at least to level 1 (if you get it to level 2 even better).

Note that you may have to skip the big Spider stack in the Catacombs - no biggie you can always fight them later.

Evil Book is your key to winning most battles and any troops that you find dying easily against the shelter stacks stick them in your garrison / reserve. Check the no loss posts here for other information to help you with your strategy (I have quite a few in the impossible thread where I was able to do no loss Daert with the original game files if you got a certain spell from the Ore Cart by the Dwarf castle).

Good luck - keep trying!



/C\/C\

[jahes64]

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

Unfortunately, I have no time to perform any changes to the mod due to all my time being consumed on another project.

I'm not sure if you're using your spells correctly for Daert.

Frost Grasp and Kamikaze are very effective against the spider stacks and don't forget your Evil Book.

The starting units will bring you to the Shelter without any issues (I played a couple of times on impossible so normal should be cake) as long as you grab all the crystals and get your Evil Book at least to level 1 (if you get it to level 2 even better).

Note that you may have to skip the big Spider stack in the Catacombs - no biggie you can always fight them later.

Evil Book is your key to winning most battles and any troops that you find dying easily against the shelter stacks stick them in your garrison / reserve. Check the no loss posts here for other information to help you with your strategy (I have quite a few in the impossible thread where I was able to do no loss Daert with the original game files if you got a certain spell from the Ore Cart by the Dwarf castle).

Good luck - keep trying!



/C\/C\

Hi bro

I hope you find some spare time and tune the vampire as well. Just play all 3 races to the point where you can refill your army (without you ignore any enemy stack on the way) and you will see how hard it is with the vampire

It would be better if we could defeat all enemies without having to scribe scrolls and waste crystals before we get Bibliophile lvl 3. After all for a mage magic crystal are very important.

When i was playing bagyr with second version of your fix, that strong spider stack was so easy, that at first i thought you have decreased their numbers to half the original, but end-fight window proved me wrong.

But the vampire is not half as strong, troop wise.
I found it impossible to even kill that strong spider stack with losses, since they were strong enough that they could kill my troops with one strike. With other races i had slight difficulty to deal with them.

Dwarf stack at shelter was easy (marked as very strong though)

Elf stack at shelter was not so hard because archers were so far away and faun's nightmare talent and werewolf's howl talent were useless because of undead's natural resistances.

But human stack was hard, what with healing of priests which was pretty effective with no distance penalty and poweful projectile of inquisitors and on top of that i had archers also guardsmen were evading blows all the time while my single black knight was doomed to suffer lots of damage. it took me a number of reloads to win it no loss, since i only had a single necromancer to deal with them and only in first 2 rounds which melee attackers were not close, i could use spells on ranged enemies, but i managed.

But last stack at whitehill is really invincible that i can't win it no loss. I even have diversion lvl 2 with 2 traps but can't beat 23 swordsman, 17 priests of light, 13 guardsman, another 16 priests and 14 bowman. Priest's unavoidable kills aside, per what you suggested I even used evil books as tank to absorb damage but melee units of the enemy are so strong that they kill the book with 2 blows and these evil books are pretty useless with their randomness. And Kamikaze is pretty hard to use, if i attach it to melee units, it blows when they reach my troops and if i attach them on healers and ranged units that doesn't help either, since it goes off pretty late and healer already healed my units by then.

I really think we should have maximum number of at least black knights and necromancers, female vampires should be replaced with ancient ones and normal vampires should be added too.

With orcs it was very easy distracting everyone with 2 totems every round and dealing damage at the same time with trap, catapults and hyena riders

And with demoness it was easy as well. I could throw two powerful fireballs at ranged units, hit them with fire arrows spell and then teleport demon to enemy side so he can hit other weak melee troops while i bring a weak ranged unit nearby and hit them with blood priestess in round 1 and after that i had nothing to worry about.

I think we shouldn't rely solely on the spell book and like other races we should get a decent army, strong enough to make us able to defeat map guardian of Monteville, so we can get there and refill our army.

With demoness we can go to Atrixus and get strong troops and refill our army right away.

And with orcs you can go Tristrem from catacombs, then exist (since you can't avoid the nearby troops), go to the port and take a ship to there and get your army filled.

But with undead we can't refill our army before we defeat that guardian.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by jahes64

Hi bro

I hope you find some spare time and tune the vampire as well. Just play all 3 races to the point where you can refill your army (without you ignore any enemy stack on the way) and you will see how hard it is with the vampire

I've played many times on impossible in the past - on normal difficulty you should have no problem with this mod.

Originally Posted by jahes64

It would be better if we could defeat all enemies without having to scribe scrolls and waste crystals before we get Bibliophile lvl 3. After all for a mage magic crystal are very important.

The whole point of modding Daert was that he was a mage. The amount of crystals you'll lose by not having Bibliophile is insignificant in the grand scheme of the game (although 1 level in it may help you get more spells with the limited crystals).

If you refuse to use this strategy, then I can't really help you since you're ignoring the class of your starting character.

A mage is supposed to defeat great armies with a small force. That is how I modded Daert and so if you don't use you're spell book to its fullest, you're not going to be able to do no loss with this mod.

That's the way it goes.

Originally Posted by jahes64

When i was playing bagyr with second version of your fix, that strong spider stack was so easy, that at first i thought you have decreased their numbers to half the original, but end-fight window proved me wrong.

But the vampire is not half as strong, troop wise.
I found it impossible to even kill that strong spider stack with losses, since they were strong enough that they could kill my troops with one strike. With other races i had slight difficulty to deal with them.

This stack is easily skipped if you can't beat it as I mentioned. I've also had to skip it with Bagyr on Impossible sometimes. There are many stacks in the game (not only at the start) that you need to return to. This is one that you try a couple of times and if you can't get them, then skip them.

Originally Posted by jahes64

Dwarf stack at shelter was easy (marked as very strong though)

Elf stack at shelter was not so hard because archers were so far away and faun's nightmare talent and werewolf's howl talent were useless because of undead's natural resistances.

But human stack was hard, what with healing of priests which was pretty effective with no distance penalty and poweful projectile of inquisitors and on top of that i had archers also guardsmen were evading blows all the time while my single black knight was doomed to suffer lots of damage. it took me a number of reloads to win it no loss, since i only had a single necromancer to deal with them and only in first 2 rounds which melee attackers were not close, i could use spells on ranged enemies, but i managed.

But last stack at whitehill is really invincible that i can't win it no loss. I even have diversion lvl 2 with 2 traps but can't beat 23 swordsman, 17 priests of light, 13 guardsman, another 16 priests and 14 bowman. Priest's unavoidable kills aside, per what you suggested I even used evil books as tank to absorb damage but melee units of the enemy are so strong that they kill the book with 2 blows and these evil books are pretty useless with their randomness. And Kamikaze is pretty hard to use, if i attach it to melee units, it blows when they reach my troops and if i attach them on healers and ranged units that doesn't help either, since it goes off pretty late and healer already healed my units by then.

Remember, you only have to kill 1 of the Whitehill stacks (not all 3). You find the easiest one and then you're done. You can return later to kill the other two. By the way, it used to be all 3 back in the beta days.

Originally Posted by jahes64

I really think we should have maximum number of at least black knights and necromancers, female vampires should be replaced with ancient ones and normal vampires should be added too.

This would sure make it easier, but it is not necessary. If you read the previous threads in this topic, you'll see that I thought it a neat idea to let only Daert play Female Vampires early. It gives new players a chance to play a new Undead unit (just like Neoline and Bagyr get to use some of their new units).

You can actually defeat everything with just two regular Vampires (I did this with the original game on Impossible quite a few times - read the impossible no loss thread) through the first Whitehill stack (this also includes all the basement stacks).

One Ancient Vampire will make the whole play through Whitehill way too easy.

So I went with Female Vampires since they are not as good as regular Vampires and it gives you a chance to try them out at the beginning of the game.

Originally Posted by jahes64

With orcs it was very easy distracting everyone with 2 totems every round and dealing damage at the same time with trap, catapults and hyena riders

And with demoness it was easy as well. I could throw two powerful fireballs at ranged units, hit them with fire arrows spell and then teleport demon to enemy side so he can hit other weak melee troops while i bring a weak ranged unit nearby and hit them with blood priestess in round 1 and after that i had nothing to worry about.

I think we shouldn't rely solely on the spell book and like other races we should get a decent army, strong enough to make us able to defeat map guardian of Monteville, so we can get there and refill our army.

You're missing the whole point of playing the mage class! If you use your army to defeat the enemy stacks, then you're playing just like a Warrior.

So I think in the end, your play style is not suited for the mage class. That is where all the trouble lies.

Originally Posted by jahes64

With demoness we can go to Atrixus and get strong troops and refill our army right away.

And with orcs you can go Tristrem from catacombs, then exist (since you can't avoid the nearby troops), go to the port and take a ship to there and get your army filled.

But with undead we can't refill our army before we defeat that guardian.

You can't return to any of the starting locations until you defeat one of the Whitehill stacks and return to the Shelter. After this, any class can go get Demons, etc. sold in Atrixus. You can even kite your way all the way to Helvetia (or whatever it's called) and get Archdemons!

I can see that you have a certain style of play that you seem a bit inflexible on and so that is preventing you from doing no loss Daert with my mod on Normal (mind you I designed this for no loss on Impossible).

As such there is really no need for any changes and so I hope you rethink your play style for a mage as no loss on normal should be really easy with this mod.

Good luck!

/C\/C\

[jahes64]

I sent you a PM.

[jahes64]

Hey MattCaspermeyer, pls answer PM.

PS: Hopefully, you have subscribed to this topic and get a notification for this post.

[ryllen]

Hi @MattCaspermeyer! Thanks for the mod, it makes the game more fun for these two classes!
I tried to make some small changes to the hero.txt (want to give Bagyr slow and haste spell) in your mod but there were nothing changed in the game after the edit. May i ask for your help to teach me how to do the edit? thanks a lot!

[MattCaspermeyer]

By the way, I started a new forum thread that talks about how to mod the game without the editor here:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=229817

Feel free to post questions there as it is a bit complicated...

Matt