demon line-up

[impy]

I played a bit with demon line-up and it turned out to be quite interesting, it deserves few words I think. Currently level 30, things finally going smoothly, just defeated demetrius 3 guardians and got reha scroll.
Although not as extremely challenging as my previous attempts with single black dragon or ultimate challenge with knight, it will ask any seasoned player to come up with fresh tactics. Basically, no loss impossible game asks you to play a bit conservative, demon line-up will ask you to play super conservative due to lack of affordable ressurecting.
I mentioned before, at the beginning I kitted all the way to Shettera, did not do any quests on the way, just picked experience shrine in order to have enough leadeship for one archdemon, and back to debir to start the game. I did not allow myself to do any quests in new areas until I defeat their map guardians properly with demon line-up.
I made sure the following items appear easily accessible : demetrius, bow of souls, twinkling boots, belt of mana, chaos crown + death star, ressurection, turn back + demonologists.
Things get tough after Scarlet island, since
1) your demonologists are weak to ressurect
2) you don’t have enough intellect for powerful ressurecting
3) ressurect 3 cost 30 mana, time back on archdemons 30 mana. Your mana regen. is low, mana accelerator not maxed out, mana pool not great yet. So good bye mana hungry higher damaging spells, if you want to do ressurecting.
4) But, if you give up harsh spellcasting how are going to kill the opponent with mage with low att/def and leadership, early in the game?
That’s why I said this set-up is fairly challenging, try it. Up until level 25 it is certainly challenging. I picked mage for this challenge and never regreted this decision, paladin wouldn’t be able to keep up with ress.requirements.
Strategy: Basically, demons and executioners do just finishing jobs in order not to get hit much, demonologists hide, damage is done by demon summons from demons+demonologists, archdemons and hastened scoffer imps + pet dragon is used for mana acc & ball. I did not take elenhel, since i find attributes of bow of thousand soul too good to give up. Question was who would become target. Archdemons seemed an obvious choice, but a pain to restore, only demonologists or time back, but eventually it worked. Check out the screenshot, not bad for un-buffed unit,hm? Executioners turned out to be a bit of dissapointment for unit with highest leadership req. of all 4th level unit. Their terrifying ability gives a headache, cause it automatically makes imps a target. But imps are much better than demoness.

[BB Shockwave]

I found that you can easily get a no losses game ending even with a warrior - granted, I was playing on Hard only. I used an all-lizardmen army, btw though it took until around level 21 to get to Reha finally. I maxed out Order and Distortion magic for Time Back and Resurrection, as well as all the nifty mass beneficial spells of these schools which come really handy. In AP magic crystals are plentifull so getting spells upgraded is easy. And you can easily get lot of mana with good artifacts, not to mention the skill that gives you mana every time you kill a stack of enemies - it can be abused in fights with Towers to no amount.

I do plan to do a mage with demon army next myself. In the original game, the demons weren't that powerfull sadly, but in AP especially the Archdemons are awesome. Their halving ability can really turn the tide quickly. I think even Cerberi are usefull - due to their new ability they can run and block several enemy archers at once. SCoffers imps are good too, but perhaps better worth summoning them with demons. I guess Demons/Executioner can be swapped depending on what you face - Executioners are not too usefull against undead and lizardmen, but otherwise can seriously hamper an enemy with debuffs. In my first playthrough I used Demonologists for a while, they are very effective healers and give you instant fodder - but due to their short range not too good damage dealers. I guess they can be used until you have enough mana/power for resurrect and demon portal, which will be more effective later on. Also the fact that you cannot control the summoned demons can be a hindrance as they can ruin your strategy.

[ckdamascus]

Any update on this? I am curious about this since executioners "seem" to be the best candidate for Lvl3 "Berserker" given they have the highest base attack rating for level 4, therefore, will benefit the most from the spell.

Or perhaps I should just live with demonologists summoning up executioners, and then berserkering them. I usually casted kamikaze on the demonologist summons. Ah the joy!

A real shame it seems most no-loss strategies revolve around the paladin or eviln.

[impy]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

I found that you can easily get a no losses game ending even with a warrior - granted, I was playing on Hard only. I used an all-lizardmen army, btw though it took until around level 21 to get to Reha finally. I maxed out Order and Distortion magic for Time Back and Resurrection, as well as all the nifty mass beneficial spells of these schools which come really handy. In AP magic crystals are plentifull so getting spells upgraded is easy. And you can easily get lot of mana with good artifacts, not to mention the skill that gives you mana every time you kill a stack of enemies - it can be abused in fights with Towers to no amount.

I do plan to do a mage with demon army next myself. In the original game, the demons weren't that powerfull sadly, but in AP especially the Archdemons are awesome. Their halving ability can really turn the tide quickly. I think even Cerberi are usefull - due to their new ability they can run and block several enemy archers at once. SCoffers imps are good too, but perhaps better worth summoning them with demons. I guess Demons/Executioner can be swapped depending on what you face - Executioners are not too usefull against undead and lizardmen, but otherwise can seriously hamper an enemy with debuffs. In my first playthrough I used Demonologists for a while, they are very effective healers and give you instant fodder - but due to their short range not too good damage dealers. I guess they can be used until you have enough mana/power for resurrect and demon portal, which will be more effective later on. Also the fact that you cannot control the summoned demons can be a hindrance as they can ruin your strategy.

all the best to all kbap gamers, but BB Shockwave, i have to disagree with some of your comments. First, hard and impossible difficulty are different and that extra difficulty will put those easy peasy strategies to shame. You say you got Reha scroll on hard at 21 level. The easiest Reha scroll is in my opinion at Elon between the two castles, and I don't remember to get it on impossible no loss until 25 level if lucky, more like 30 level.. Halving ability of archdemons is great, but in most of the battles you face huge threating stacks with much higher leadership than you have = no halving until later. I do not find Cerberi useful. Their damage output is low, and they die quickly. True, you can time back them or heavily ressurect them, but there are better strategies. Dangerous enemy range attackers can be always tricked with target or blind, sheep, fear. And inability to control the summoned demons is a hindrance? How? You do not care if they die, the only bad things I can think of are stepping on your own traps, attacking blinded unit, but again, positives of meat shield far outweigh the negatives.

As for the progress, I left the demon line-up at around level 30, since I become so powerful, that middle game became too easy for my liking. I intended to get back to it, but lost the save file. Then I was playing with single red dragon, got stuck at k'tahu fight, now playing no loss impossible mage, no kitting, no wanderer scrolls, no direct damage spells, no creature summons, no hero summons, no hero phantoms apart from paladin phantom purely for ressurection purposes.Quite interesting

[ckdamascus]

Too easy? I live for the "kick the computer's butt" combo! I call it pay back for all the times I had to re-load because I messed up my strategy for a no-loss battle.

How can it be too easy? The early archdemon made it rough for the enemy? I still can't see how the demons can survive against a powerful boss like k'tahu.

Interesting? That sounds insane! Insane! I can't see how that is possible without a very lucky saved game of decent items early on.

My early game on Debir is about getting royal thorns asap so I could stand a chance against the heroes.

You truly are a hardcore gamer! I salute you! Do tell your early strategy in winning without any form of 'kiting'. By the way, is it kiting when you kill the devilfish first by using the boat instead of fighting the first monster right outside the city?

[impy]

As for the single archdemon, you can clear whole debir while heavily working on the medals. you should have trap 3 before fighting for verona scroll after clearing first 3 islands and most of rusty. Don't forget when playing demon line-up, I , eventough i did not do any quests in newly opened areas, i had access to demon army+demonologists. As i said earlier, you have to play super conservative, generally never go forward with your army, use summons from demonologists + demons, range attack from demonologists, scoffer imps, hit-and-run tactics with archdemons, clever spells with mage - fire arrow for burning big stack, fear spell on big stack, slow, dragon kick, anything that will stop enemy to hit you and if it happens, be it only one stack, so ressurecting is manageable.

As for the general no loss impossible start. No kitting means you do not get new continent scroll without fighting "stationary" creature stack guarding it. But you can do anything else - get treasures, lure enemies etc.so what i do at the very beggining is get easily accessible Bolo & Scarlet scroll, go to Bolo, get amulet of illumination from behind the robot G...something, get all possible leadership rods everywhere, back to debir. With your leadership get 3 or so paladins, go to scarlet, fight the skeletons to get archmagi from the tower. Now you have 4 archmagi - split them into four single archmagis + paladins. Back to debir and start serious fighting. This army will be enough to finish off debir believe me, while you cast only magic shield with archmagi, paladins do the killing, hero casts traps + stone skin, archmagi also move enemies onto traps. Pet dragon for mana acc. + treasures+kick on traps. Even some stacks in Scarlet you can defeat with this army, just increasing number of paladins. Eventually you can have paladins + 3 slots of archmagi + inquisitors (for rage generation). You should hit trap 2 ,guardian 2 , grand strategy 2 fairly quickly, don't forget to heavily "abuse" every single fight in debir aiming for 3-4 traps/fight + 20-25hits on guardian medal. keep pushing for trap 3, by then you should be close to guardian 3 as well. These two perks are very helpful. Once done with them, you can have the army set up you like. Many folks like to get to Zig-zag cave quickly as well, but for some reason i don't

As for my latest challenge being insane. I honestly did not use kb scanner. I found a black dragon on rusty, which was a bit disappointing because it made many things easier, but i could not resist to take it

[ckdamascus]

Ah ok. Not sure if I just had a hugely bad luck first impossible mage run, but I think the maps were initially guarded by some nasty bad guys.

Ever since I tried the gift mod pack, all my games have spawned scarlet island and bolo without any real guardians (they are not stationary). Again, maybe it is just my brain going wonky.

Ah yes, very good combinations. I did know most of those! Strangely enough, the past two games I have not beefed up my trap medal at all. Funny, since when one guy here mentioned he didn't like the pre-traps on the field, I thought he was nutty as I was super dependent on them. Now, I can live without traps, but I know they are very good for most mage armies.

Darn. Now that I think about it, maybe I SHOULD be getting traps for my current mage/archer army. Hm.

Ok, I wasn't sure if the "no kiting" requirement meant you could not grab even bolo or scarlet island without fighting the enemy.

The quad archmage idea is pretty cool.

WOW, black dragon on rusty! Nice! I thought I was lucky when I found red dragons on verona.

[Zechnophobe]

Bolo and Scarlet are always pretty much unguarded. Sometimes there will be someone...sorta nearby. (For instance, the Beholder hero sometimes 'guards' one).

Also, all map guardian stacks are larger than others of similar level. So it is not too surprising if they are very strong. That's normal!

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by impy

all the best to all kbap gamers, but BB Shockwave, i have to disagree with some of your comments. First, hard and impossible difficulty are different and that extra difficulty will put those easy peasy strategies to shame. You say you got Reha scroll on hard at 21 level. The easiest Reha scroll is in my opinion at Elon between the two castles, and I don't remember to get it on impossible no loss until 25 level if lucky, more like 30 level.. Halving ability of archdemons is great, but in most of the battles you face huge threating stacks with much higher leadership than you have = no halving until later. I do not find Cerberi useful. Their damage output is low, and they die quickly. True, you can time back them or heavily ressurect them, but there are better strategies. Dangerous enemy range attackers can be always tricked with target or blind, sheep, fear. And inability to control the summoned demons is a hindrance? How? You do not care if they die, the only bad things I can think of are stepping on your own traps, attacking blinded unit, but again, positives of meat shield far outweigh the negatives.

As for the progress, I left the demon line-up at around level 30, since I become so powerful, that middle game became too easy for my liking. I intended to get back to it, but lost the save file. Then I was playing with single red dragon, got stuck at k'tahu fight, now playing no loss impossible mage, no kitting, no wanderer scrolls, no direct damage spells, no creature summons, no hero summons, no hero phantoms apart from paladin phantom purely for ressurection purposes.Quite interesting

I see your point, keep in mind I went with a Warrior, not a mage, so I had larger armies to help me get the guardians. Also, I played with the first russian version, where you could often 'kite' (is that the word?) away the guardians in some cases from the maps. I'm aware that in the english version this is not possible...

Some of your "challange" games sound incredibly hard, I salute you! Me, I just want to re-play the game while trying out different armies and how they work. Usually I start the game with the idea in mind on which units I want to use, and won't rest until I get them, that's why I want to try an all-demon army. I never use the "killer stack" strategies like Anga's ruby and all female units, because frankly that sounds boringly simple. All units have some worth, and I want to try them all - when playing all-undead, I kept using Zombies for a long time until I got Black Knights, and found them to be quite usefull, even if not superior to the knights.

[ShuiMienLung]

I've got to be honest, it sounds like if you want to make the game as hard as possible... play as Warrior. All of these strategies I see posted all the time rely hugely on having two casts available (Mage-only skill), and of course Paladin has Resurrection scroll to be turned into a spell from the beginning of the game.

I can't count the number of times I wish I've been able to cast twice (particularly in AP where Time Back has been moved to a spell rather than a Rage ability).