I think I may have got myself stuck

[MasqueradeCry]

@ Elwin : While my battle tactics weren't mindlessly rushing I didn't use anything along the lines of sacrifice/magic spring and so on and didn't come across any resurrection scrolls until I got to Kordar, and even then I only found one by sneaking around in Demonis.
I'll admit I was careless in cases but I wasn't ENTIRELY unaware of how to use my units effectively, however it was a long time before I was able to start bringing them back to life mid-fight.

As for the load screen showing what difficulty I'm on - it doesn't in fact. If it does in your game then I can't explain why, but I assure you it's not obviously stated anywhere.

@ Akimbo : I've dug up some nice chests over the course of my exploration and it has helped a lot. There's a good chance I've missed some as well, so your advice could possibly be what I need to do in order to somehow rescue my game. All that said, I get the feeling that even if I can get enough money to raise a decent army it'll be too little too late and I would be better off starting from scratch, my lesson learnt.

[Elwin]

AH i wrongly defined load screen i bet, dont know why but i cant load your save to check it.

But u can check it by yourself as on this screen :

[MasqueradeCry]

Ah, it is there as you say. It turns out I was on Hard afterall. I'm not so sure I'd like to begin again on Normal, that being the case - even though I've got myself stuck I was careless in some battles, couldn't revive for a long time and made some bad choices in the levelling tree, so I imagine if I played on Hard again but without those mistakes I'd do better than I have. On the other hand, I'm worried that I'll now find Normal too easy by comparison.

[Vilk]

Originally Posted by MasqueradeCry

@ Elwin : While my battle tactics weren't mindlessly rushing I didn't use anything along the lines of sacrifice/magic spring and so on and didn't come across any resurrection scrolls until I got to Kordar

There's no need to use sacrifice/resurrect/magic spring/time back tricks to do the game, those are useful only if you try do a time record.

That said if you have Sacrifice and magic spring that could be a way (not that fun) to save money.

Originally Posted by MasqueradeCry

All that said, I get the feeling that even if I can get enough money to raise a decent army it'll be too little too late and I would be better off starting from scratch, my lesson learnt.

There's no need to finish the game in less than 100 days. For the first game I finished (not even my first game but the third with two unfinished) I did it in 169 days! Yes plenty travels, but you can do it too, anyway your score won't be that good and there's no need to worry about it.

As Erwin I cannot load your save file, I'm using retail version updated to 1.7.

Forget time and check any quest not done in all previous area, check and do any easier fight not done yet and sell items and scrolls, yes you can sell scrolls in case you didn't quote it. Also for saving troops and in same time learn the game, it's good to replay any battle where you had too heavy lost.

[Elwin]

I suggest gremlin's castle if u hadnt done it and still want to try finish that game.
If u wanna start from scratch remember basics :
- always explore land first before fighting etting everything what is posssible
- to not loose much use crowd control spells slow,phantom, or target on tank
- you hadnt written what units you have used and what tactics for them so basic most powerfull ones : sprite/lake fairies/dryads with anga's ruby; no retalation unit ( griffon,demon) sent into enemy on the begggining of the fight and timebacked on the end of 2nd round

[MasqueradeCry]

The loading problem is probably caused by my game being the Steam release. There's been a lot of fiddling with that by Katauri so it's no great surprise my save is incompatible with your games.

Unfortunately I've been very thorough and there aren't any quests left to do. It's literally the Labyrinth or nothing, or so it seems.
I haven't been through the castle however, so there probably is a chance I could rescue my current game. I'm kind of set on starting over though, I'd rather finish the game in a non-sloppy way.

As for tactics, there is one detail I left out - when I chose to be Warrior I did so because I normally go for magic users and wanted a change. I stubbornly stuck to the idea, for much of the opening part of the game, that I wouldn't cast spells and thought - wrongly - that my choice to be a warrior instead of a mage would make up for that approach. I didn't expect spells to remain crucial to a Warrior, despite there being two other class options better suited for casting.

[Akimbo]

Originally Posted by MasqueradeCry

I didn't expect spells to remain crucial to a Warrior, despite there being two other class options better suited for casting.

If anything spells are more important to a warrior than any of the others, since his are usually weaker and you can only cast once. Making choice and timing more important.

[MasqueradeCry]

There's one thing I'd like concrete advice with that should be fairly easy to answer and explain - with your wives, is it generally better to go for children or keep the equipment slots? (and why, of course)

[Akimbo]

Originally Posted by MasqueradeCry

There's one thing I'd like concrete advice with that should be fairly easy to answer and explain - with your wives, is it generally better to go for children or keep the equipment slots? (and why, of course)

Items all the way, they tend to give significantly better bonus' than the children, remembering the children are also "randomly generated" ( lol ) my current wife is providing me with:

+1 morale to demons ( sad because I'm not using any at the moment )
+5 attack +50 %vs dragons ( dragon slayer sword )
+5 attack (+10 in the day) -20% defense from demons/undead ( Sword of Light )
+1 speed to flying units/+2 defense ( depending on if I have my dragons with me, sadly my boot finds have been awful )
+5 attack +5 Intellect ( Dead Skull )

Compare that to these: http://www.gamebanshee.com/kingsboun...d/children.php

[Elwin]

Originally Posted by MasqueradeCry

There's one thing I'd like concrete advice with that should be fairly easy to answer and explain - with your wives, is it generally better to go for children or keep the equipment slots? (and why, of course)

Answer is easy, take items. I think even creators realized that children are pointless by removing them in sequel