with my demoness i had 138 completed quests, 7 unfinished and 3 failed (sometimes you have to choose), but in my orc run i found some new quests that i skipped with demoness by simply killing the target (like the damaging steel + luring castle guard)

Yah, I guess, I like to sail around a lot! I was being cheap and saving the teleportation costs, but I ended with over 10M gold so I guess I had nothing to worry about.

I'm think of starting a what's your favorite boat thread! I posted a picture of the boat I ended with - love them Griffin sails! :)

Yah, here's my incomplete quest list (2 failed - I picked Marie Everhart over Skewbite and Blackbeard (hey! Didn't he look like Blackbeard from Pirates of the Caribbean now that I think about it?)):

Enlightenment (couldn't find Berserker or Battle Cry scrolls in my game)
Improving the Dark unit's Critical Hit (this quest is only a small improvement)
Improved Attack (this quest is only a small improvement)
Sabotage Media (I went back to him before Whitehill and there was nothing to do)
Improved Defense (this quest is only a small improvement)
Dragon Riders (not sure how many more princesses I need to finish this one)
Engineering Department (not sure how to complete - do I need to fight the Golem once?)
Military Department (not sure hot to complete - do I have to bring him a ton more prisoners?)

So those were the ones I didn't finish - between Krit, Attack, Defense, and Res All, I picked Res All. I guess I had enough artifacts to do another but +5 Attack, Defense, or Krit seemed like no big deal.

Anyone know how to complete Sabotage Media, Dragon Riders, Engineering Department, or Military Department?

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For military department i think at 10000 prisoners quests progresses forward. Also i don't think there are enough great artifacts to complete all of the Improve stats quests.

I'm sure you'll be able to do it!

By the way, keep an eye on your spell power as your Intellect goes up in the game because I was quite surprised by how much the spell power of certain spells increased.

By the way, I think the first challenge is "no res" party!

I never used any resurrection abilities the entire game!

Not any units that had resurrection abilities like Dark Paladins, Dark Inquisitors (is that their name?), Demonologists, (are there any more?) and I never even used the Resurrection spell. We are the Dark after all - death and destruction should be our game! ;)

I can also see the "no archies" (no ArchDemons) challenge!

I really enjoyed playing them as they were finally awesome level 5 units. I had improved them in my H3B mod for TL (they had an "Amalgamation" ability where they could cast a random spell on enemy troops that could either Sheep, Pygmy, or Blind), but I think (even though they are overpowered due to the AI focus on Volcanoes) the devs got them right for the most part. They should be able to summon troops, send down Fire Rain, and cause Volcanoes to appear from the ground! :)

I, for one, would be sad not to be able to use them in a game! :cry:

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Wow, well done on you guys for having completed the game no loss already. You are way ahead of me. This game is a massive time sink. Apparently I've logged 71 hours already (about 12 were pre-release) and I'm only up to 160 fights and level 30 or so.

Like DGD said, getting those maps on Tristem are really important to opening up the rest of the islands. The others mainly seem kiteable. I've used a whole heap of different units looking for a combo I really like, but currently I'm using Dark Paladins, Dark Knights, Wizards, Archdemons and either Red Dragons or Executioners. Just killed the king in Baraz-Gund or however that's spelled.

Tell me about the time sink... The way I am looking at it, to complete this game properly, you have to log like 150 hours in a single campaign. 81 hours in, 230 fights, level 42, and I don't know if I am even halfway. Seems we play similarly with Zhuangzi, my lineup is Paladins, Knights, Archies, Demonologists and Wizards. These freaking wizards... I don't know how helpful they will be in the late game, but there are no better halvers right now.

Working on clearing out Neoline's home. Lots of trash and meat, you know :P Spoils the whole sulfur paradise.

Challenges will be fun, but they will have to exclude dragon riders as well, no halving, no paladins and it's good starting point for a challenge.

At the moment I'm trying to do sick damage army. What i have in plan is fairies with chaos breath, female bonus items, +1damage items, breakthrough in magic skill tree for magic resistance shred. Dunno what the rest of party will look like, but i think paladins and archmages will find their spot. But I play really slowly this time around, like few battles a day, so it will take a long time before anything starts to shape up.

Yeah the game is very long, and i felt bored at the few last levels, but really it's quite expected tbh.

It took me 214 hours and literally just over two months to finish my game (I started June 23rd and finished August 28th)!

It took me 250 hours to beat WotN and there was one battle (where you play the Elf hero) where I couldn't do no loss. This was from June 4th, 2013 through November 29th, 2013 (although I was modding and played some other games through that playthrough).

So you can see that I tend to be a very slow player.

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Well I played about 4 hours last night with Vampire, no loss impossible.

It certainly is significantly harder than Demoness.

Portland is a lot smaller than Atrixus with respect to what you can explore before you have to go through the portal to the Catacombs.

You guys are right, the starting army is really lame - 11 Skeleton Archers, 5 Decaying Zombies, and 2 Ghosts. You then pick up 2 Vampires and 5 Skeletons. You can then buy more Decaying Zombies and Skeletons in the Zombie shop before you go to the Catacombs.

Starting spells are Poison Skull and Slow and you get a Plague Scroll.

I couldn't even do the first Catacombs fight without having to ditch everyone but the 2 Ghosts and Vampires and that fight took a long time for me to no loss it because of the Thorn Warriors.

I decided to skip all the other Catacombs fights and just work my way to the Shelter to see how 2 Ghosts and Vampires would fair. You can do the Black Gate fight with just 2 Vampires separated into 2 stacks by putting them in one of the corners so it is 2 stacks of 1 Vampire versus 3 of the Dwarven troop stacks. I also had Poison Skull and it reduced the stack sizes so that the Vampires could handle them without dying since they regenerate.

I then went on to the shelter and a single stack of 2 Vampires can no loss the Dwarf Shelter stack if you turn them into Bats and then kite around the map whittling them down and using your Poison Skull, but it took over 100 rounds. I took a stab at the Human and Elf stacks and a different strategy would have to be used (the Vampire Bat kiting strategy won't work with them).

So I'm not sure how much more effort I want to put into no loss Vampire - I'll probably go back to my save in the Catacombs and try to defeat the other spider stacks, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get another level out of it when defeating the Dwarven Shelter Guard stack later.

I was really hoping that I could get Chaos Magic Level 2 and pump up my Poison Skull spell, but I was a Might Rune short at Level 3. I need to get to level 4 to be able to get Chaos Magic Level 2 and when I went ahead, I ended up putting 2 levels in Concentration to get me more level 1 Poison Skulls per fight (that's 21 extra mana for 4 additional Poison Skull casts during a 15+ round fight).

I'm not even sure if level 2 Poison Skull will do me much good.

So that's where I am, I'm not sure how much more I want to try before I switch over to the Orc to see if he can fare any better.

It may be possible with fights with lots of living creatures to go with more of an army if you can resurrect your troops via the Eviln, but I don't understand the mechanics of how it works. It seems like if the Vampires kill a living (non-plant) troop there is a good shot at getting Eviln to appear, but not so much with the other Undead troops.

I'll probably have to look into the code to see how it works.

I did get Magic Shackles from the Clarissa quest, but that spell doesn't seem like it is going to help me very much at the beginning of the game.

By the way, the reward for Clarissa's quest is either a level 1 or 2 Distortion or Chaos Magic Scroll so it is possible to restart the game and get one of the following spells as a reward for this quest:

• Distortion:
  • Level 1:
    1. Blur
    2. Haste
    3. Precision
    4. Slow
    5. Stone Skin
    6. Time Shift
    7. Whirlwind
  • Level 2:
    1. Berserker
    2. Flammable Oil
    3. Magic Shackles
    4. Magic Spring
    5. Pain Mirror
    6. Snow Storm
    7. Trap
• Chaos:
  • Level 1:
    1. Chaos Missile
    2. Fear
    3. Flaming Arrow
    4. Frost Grasp
    5. Poison Skull
  • Level 2:
    1. Chaos Weapon

So that's what we've got to work with playing Vampire as far as another possible starting spell since you get it after just one fight.

Anyway, it'd be interesting to hear if anyone who's trying Vampire can no loss through Whitehill with the original released (V1.5.1047.1747) build as someone mentioned here that you used to start with 2 Necromancers and Ancient Vampires during the EA.

As an aside, I could see giving the Vampire some additional low level spells to help during the early game - he starts with only 3 spells (Poison Skull and Slow and Plague as a scroll); whereas, the Orc starts with 4 spells (Slow and Haste and then scrolls of Berserker and Fear). Why would a Warrior (Orc) start with more spells than a Mage (Vampire)? Seems strange to me. The Paladin (Demoness) even gets Hypnosis, a "Level 5" scroll. Seems like there needs to be something done for a starting Vampire - I could see Evil Book being a good scroll to give to the Vampire at the start of the game (it is just a Level 3 scroll - same as Plague).

I think if I were to try to help the Vampire's starting situation, I would swap Plague for Evil Book and give that a try since they are the same level of spell.

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