Wow, just wow. NO Demonesses in my game.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by Metathron

I was going to use an orc army in my new paladin game (playing on normal, though - want to have a relaxed game with lots of room for experimentation and making errors), but ck's demon build looked so attractive that I went with it instead. It's a strong combination of units - I just love demons/executioners - and the three summons right in round 1 help a lot in distracting the enemy.

However, I have a small dilemma regarding weapon slots (companion Agvares): Is it better to have a +20% damage axe and a +20 crit sword, or two axes? Not much of a mathematician, so not sure which is ultimately better, though I am leaning more towards having two axes because it's a concrete improvement not rooted in chance.

I believe a critical hit adds +50% damage, so statistically a +20% critical translates to only +10% damage; so take the straight-up +20% damage axe.

[ckdamascus]

Yup, lore hit it right in the head. The only case where criticals are better is if you can guarantee a critical. I still tend to push for criticals though.

Another thing to consider is that morale (which is only really useful for the first hit, since you will most likely get hit by negative status effects), multiplies up your base critical. So it pays to get a higher base critical.

That said, ck's demon line up is not working out so well haha, at least in impossible. I did ok for a little while though.

What happens is, despite being really powerful, even with stoneskin and divine armor, the Demons have trouble resisting potentially major losses. I end up doing a lot of restoration instead.

Not to mention, that executioners have relatively damage to leadership (actually all demons do), so I can't quite blitz out the enemy even after I teleport them.

Demons and Executioners only get decent damage to leadership against level 1-3.

I end up baby sitting the executioners and demonesses a bit too much. Maybe when I get speed items, those demonesses and executioners will be more worth while.

I have now revised my build to

Archdemons
Black Dragons
Demons
Rune Mages
Demonologists

I actually end up phantoming the Demonologists instead. Now I can heal my Archdemons every round while dealing damage. Plus, the demonologists tend to draw a fair amount of aggro and now I got a lot of meatshields out there.

Mobility was an issue with my old army too. Again, things might be different once I get my speed items (belt of the victor and metamorphic axel).

You might be especially fine in normal modes though.

I might restart my mission back to level 37 though (i'm currently level 42 or so) so I can undo diplomacy. That like 24 mine runes and 8 strength runes I can't really afford. ;(

But ugh, I will then lose my ghost armor which I found as a random chest in a battle! Does anyone know if that will "always show up"?

I suppose I can live without some of the other skills. Or I can just start using that student belt non-stop now, plus start farming up gold big time.

[loreangelicus]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Yup, lore hit it right in the head. The only case where criticals are better is if you can guarantee a critical. I still tend to push for criticals though.

The problems with criticals is the base +50% damage from a critical hit. An item that for example guarantees 100% critical essentially translates to +50% damage; on the other hand an item that adds +100% damage obviously does twice the bonus. This is why Crown of Blackthorne is so good for thorns, despite the faulty description (it says it doubles attack, not damage), catapulting thorn warrior as the highest possible DPS units with available items (Whip of Pain, Assassin's Dagger), with thorn-hunter coming second.

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

But ugh, I will then lose my ghost armor which I found as a random chest in a battle! Does anyone know if that will "always show up"?

The good news is it is guaranteed to show up; the bad news is that you have to do EVERYTHING EXACTLY as you had done before; doing exactly the same island-hopping sequence, eggs item usage (basically any action that could also influence what unit you get from a Call Colossus/Call of Death scroll), sequence of enemies fought, etc. up until the battle that generated chests that gave you the Ghost Armor.

Thankfully, unlike the chests your dragon digs up, if you are able to generate the same starting chests in that particular battle, then you are guaranteed to get the same item.

If you got it from a chest dug up by the dragon (is this possible? I always thought you could only dig up gold/scrolls/wanderer scrolls/runes) then the pain continues: you have to do the EXACT battle that you did before, down to the very last detail (ie. on round 8 you first cast Heal on the rune mage, then you had it move to coordinates [4,6]). Good luck with this, I had a hard time recreating a battle up to just the 3rd round (dug up an AK scroll on the 3rd round, but incurred a loss in later rounds, forcing me to replay the battle).

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by loreangelicus

The problems with criticals is the base +50% damage from a critical hit. An item that for example guarantees 100% critical essentially translates to +50% damage; on the other hand an item that adds +100% damage obviously does twice the bonus. This is why Crown of Blackthorne is so good for thorns, despite the faulty description (it says it doubles attack, not damage), catapulting thorn warrior as the highest possible DPS units with available items (Whip of Pain, Assassin's Dagger), with thorn-hunter coming second.



The good news is it is guaranteed to show up; the bad news is that you have to do EVERYTHING EXACTLY as you had done before; doing exactly the same island-hopping sequence, eggs item usage (basically any action that could also influence what unit you get from a Call Colossus/Call of Death scroll), sequence of enemies fought, etc. up until the battle that generated chests that gave you the Ghost Armor.

Thankfully, unlike the chests your dragon digs up, if you are able to generate the same starting chests in that particular battle, then you are guaranteed to get the same item.

If you got it from a chest dug up by the dragon (is this possible? I always thought you could only dig up gold/scrolls/wanderer scrolls/runes) then the pain continues: you have to do the EXACT battle that you did before, down to the very last detail (ie. on round 8 you first cast Heal on the rune mage, then you had it move to coordinates [4,6]). Good luck with this, I had a hard time recreating a battle up to just the 3rd round (dug up an AK scroll on the 3rd round, but incurred a loss in later rounds, forcing me to replay the battle).

Oh no doubt it is the highest damaging unit per leadership with those buffs. If I wanted that though, I wouldn't have picked the Demonic Race. Although it seems maybe those little imps should not be ignored. Haha.

I get a feeling that it was one of those chests that was "in the battle" in the beginning. I'm not sure though! I swore I dug it, but who knows.

In my opinion, the demons true strength is tenacity due to infinite retaliation. That's why they are excellent summon units (and awesome candidates for Kamikaze).

KarlosCV: were you playing Impossible No Loss mode? That must have been a pain to restore the imps?

I like Archdemons since they are far more durable. I'm not so sure about other bosses, but it certainly made fighting the Frog and Spider doable. Admittedly they are NOT so good for damage/leadership.

The Frog... I had to use the Archdemon to force him NOT to use a mass attack.

I'm surprised you didn't see the power of orcs. Try using moldok as your hero, get onslaught level 3.

Phantom Orc Veterans eat up the front line like nothing. Once they hit Adrenaline Level 3, even bosses can't counterattack their assault.

Goblins end up doing 18K/damage per hit... throw in a Paladin and second wind. Oooh that pain.

[loreangelicus]

I myself tried to use imps in KBTL; no-retaliation, pretty high damage/attack per leadership ratio, and two fireball attacks to use in the first 2 rounds while they are getting into melee range. But it was a pain to do no-loss with them; I ended up getting demoness and demons, to compliment the inquisitors/shamans/emerald green dragons.

[KarlosCV]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

KarlosCV: were you playing Impossible No Loss mode? That must have been a pain to restore the imps?

No, I never do no-loss, too time consuming and I just like different challenges more. But I had no problem reviving imps for three reasons:

a) in my last playthrough the cerberi, archdemons and demon/demon summons were my main tanks, so imps rarely got hit
b) I played Paladin so whatever was lost was fully restored after the battle, so 80 percent of my battles was de facto no-loss anyway
c) I tried the excellent "Gates of Hell" mod by Rider, which is exactly the special power that Archdemons (and the demon race as a whole) are sorely lacking

As for orcs - all right, I'll try them for the third time, maybe Warrior and maxed out onslaught and rage control will make some real difference

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by KarlosCV

No, I never do no-loss, too time consuming and I just like different challenges more. But I had no problem reviving imps for three reasons:

a) in my last playthrough the cerberi, archdemons and demon/demon summons were my main tanks, so imps rarely got hit
b) I played Paladin so whatever was lost was fully restored after the battle, so 80 percent of my battles was de facto no-loss anyway
c) I tried the excellent "Gates of Hell" mod by Rider, which is exactly the special power that Archdemons (and the demon race as a whole) are sorely lacking

As for orcs - all right, I'll try them for the third time, maybe Warrior and maxed out onslaught and rage control will make some real difference

No. Moldok is the real difference. Throw in 2x battle axe and dagger of judgement too, I forgot my specific warrior build, but it will work whatever you put in it.

I believe I used Berserker Axe (+30% crit for axe users), Dagger of Judgement (+20% critical), and Maybe battleaxe?

Moldok gives EXTRA adrenaline to all Orc-ish units (excluding goblins), +1 speed and +1 init to all Orc race units (including goblins), makes all Orc-ish units (excluding goblins) have the ability to "Cause Bleeding" on hit.

Paladin
Goblin
Orc
Orc Veteran
Orc Tracker

No-loss, doable with these guys.

Goblin should have close to 100% critical. After first kill (max morale), he will get 100% critical. That's why you need a fairly high base critical.

Paladin Second Winds the Goblins. (or Orc Veterans)

NEXT round, Orc Commanders the goblins if he has enough adrenaline (that's basically second wind)

Orc Veterans use potion of rage to get into range, Phantom him. Phantoms have NO adrenaline, but that's GREAT for Orc Veterans. A level 3 Adrenaline Veteran doesn't get counter-attacked, but a phantomed one does. But Orc Veterans counter-counter attacks, so you do more damage in round 1. Real Orc then slices away.

Orc Tracker runs up and summons tanks. Either waits or slices. Adrenaline level 2 gives him +20% phys resist, tanks reduce him damage by half?

If you don't mind loss, this is a VERY fun build to roll around with. If you want to do no-loss it is doable, and not too crazy.

Orcs get max morale if they score a kill. That is their huge racial advantage. So it is very easy to get very high critical hits with them as the battle progresses.

@Lore-
Sorry, the Ghost Armor chest was one that showed up pre-battle sequence. I tried skipping ahead, no soup. It is POSSIBLE that it will show up eventually during one of my battles, not necessarily that one. (e.g. the random items are pre-generated ahead of time).

I don't know this for a fact though. I guess I will find out soon enough.

However, this points out a very key factor and a big problem with my previous army. Low initiative or low speed. Those pre-generated chests in the beginning of battle. Pretty sure if the enemy gets it, whatever item it was will never show up again IF the battles are pre-generated. (of course you could get lucky and have 2 duplicate items in the pre-generation ... if it's even pre-generated to begin with).

Demonesses got in first. But, can't reach the chest easily. Archdemons can still do my "first strike", Black Dragons can recover the chest.

So maybe it works like "the 150th battle ever, will have a chest that has ghost armor in it"

I know if I do it all exactly the same it will show up, but the problem is I don't want to and it is too far away for me to replicate it. Haha. Doing it with Demonesses made it much harder for a lot of the battles and I did a lot of sacrificing and such to raise my Demonesses ranks. (Yeah, from 1 Demonesses to like 93 haha, but I did steal a handful via diplomacy which I no longer have now).

I guess I will be the ultimate guinea pig for this. If I don't see it show up as I catch-up, then we know it is truly random vs pre-generated in the game's mind.

On the flip side, it isn't as critical of an item for me now, because I don't really plan to use demonesses that much now and/or I don't really need ghost armor that badly.


[EDIT]
LORE! Guess who just got his cake and ATE it too! The game spawned the SAME ghost armor again! Woot! I did go a similar path, but not completely identical. It seems it is not related to the unit make up (at least not the number of units and types of units?).

Might be more related to the number of battles AND where you fight them (since you can change the terrain).

[KarlosCV]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Phantom Orc Veterans eat up the front line like nothing

And that's another problem - I couldn't phantom my orcs, because throughout my whole game I didn't find a single Phantom spell! I think it was the only spell I didn't find, I had tons of crap, but not the most useful (and be honest, overpowered ) spell in the game. During the battles I almost always dug up three chests but no luck. Amazing game

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by loreangelicus

I believe a critical hit adds +50% damage, so statistically a +20% critical translates to only +10% damage; so take the straight-up +20% damage axe.

a Critical hit causes you to do 150% of the max damage for a unit. This means that it depends on the damage spread of a unit how valuable the crit is.

Also, +20% crit multiplies with Morale. So if you have +3 morale (140% crit) this will be +28% critical instead.

So, how does this figure in? Dryads do 1-4 damage (average 2.5) and crit for 6, more than double damage.

+20% damage would cause them to do just that, 20% more damage flat accross. (so .2*2.5 = .5 more damage per strike)

+20% with 3 morale (easy on dryads) so +28% crit causes them to, on average, do 28% of the crit damage they get. So 6 -2.5 = 3.5, * 28% = .98.

This means that yes, the crit boost is actually substantially more worth it(for dryads under these conditions). Also, most items that increase crit, do so for all your troops, whereas I don't think many items increase damage for all of them.

This is why I like to field high morale, high crit units with large damage ranges .

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

a Critical hit causes you to do 150% of the max damage for a unit. This means that it depends on the damage spread of a unit how valuable the crit is.

I had no idea critical hits do maximum damage on top of 50% additional damage.

I learn something new every day. Haha.

[edit]
This actually makes the spell Doom a little bit more worthwhile. Otherwise, Pygmy utterly annihilates it. (it still sort of does though. Haha).