Traveling further into Dwarven territory I was able to finally find some Evil Beholders to replace my normal ones, and Giants to replace the Cyclopes. Giants can be healed with the Shaman's Axe Dance, and with my intellect I can heal 360hp for 2 mana which is a big improvement over the Cyclopes which could only be healed with Gizmo. I also found 4 Sacrifice scrolls buried under some tracks in Lower Hadar so I promptly dived into the Gremlin Castle and using the fights there to generate unlimited mana while I maxed out my stack of Royal Thorns. Giants are now one of my favorite opponents.

Since they use their Earthquake ability every other turn, you are guaranteed to get your mana back from Mana Spring, and at level 3 it lasts 5 turns so you are guaranteed to make at least 10 mana out of every 5 you spend. Also since Giants have 900 hp each, they are not prone to accidental death. So in order to create the Mana Spring loop I had to whittle a stack of Giants down to just 1, and leave my Royal Snakes and Inquisitors inside the field of a totem of life. The Earthquake damage was not enough to kill 1, and at the beginning of every turn the stack was healed. However, it takes 40 mana to create 2 Royal Thorns, so this was a fairly tedious process.

Unfortunately I cleared out all the Giants and my favorite enemy has been replaced by dragons and demons. These guys are seriously difficult for my army of relatively low HP units. The Royal Thorns are actually better than Evil Beholders here, but I have to put Glot's Armor on them to keep them alive, which reduces my damage output. Still, the dragons love to burn my summoned thorn stacks and that keeps my important units alive. I have cleared Ardan's Peak and am prepared to storm the underground there, I have cleared the Gremlin Castle except for the last three armies guarding the dragon eggs (those are listed as overpowering) and there's one area in Taron Mines I decided to skip because the armies there were a tad too difficult.

Seems like you're doing really well there. Could you give us another update on your paladin? Stats and leadership. Also what was your early game (levels 1~9)strategy? Did you take any leadership points? I am trying mage on hard now and took my first leadership points at my last level up. Consequently, I have good basic stats ATK 7 DEF 8 INT15 MAN70 RG 46, but leadership is only 3600. I am finding most of the fights in the Eastern Islands really tough and although i have lots of cash, there are no leadership arties anywhere to buy....?

Also regarding the mana loop:~ Am i doing something wrong? When i cast mana spring it only seems to last 2 hits/attacks, not 2 turns (or 3 on level 2)????

No you didn't, that's the intended behavior of mana spring.

I am playing a paladin on impossible now and get through most of the battles with no loss or slight loss. However I was stuck on storyline battle on undead territory. I believe these storyline battles are the most challenging ones for OP's "no loss" quest unless he has good equipments/wives etc.

Travelingoz: Buffs tick down every time your character takes an action. So take the Inquisitor's Holy Anger spell for instance. If they cast it on themselves, it immediately loses 1 turn duration because they apply it to themselves, then their action is concluded and the duration decreases. Much better to cast it on something that hasn't moved yet. You can stall the duration by waiting instead of defending, so it's quite often a good move to have your Royal Snakes wait, then buff them, and then they take their action at the very end of turn 1 and the beginning of turn 2.

How this applies to Mana Spring is that the duration goes down by 1 every time you are hit AND every time your unit takes an action. At the lower levels, Mana Spring doesn't last very long so it's hard to get a lot of mana out of it. At best, you put Mana Spring on a unit, attack with it and get counterattacked to refund the cost of the spell, and hopefully someone attacks you. Then it's gone. But at level 2 and 3 the duration increases to 4 and 5 respectively so there's some real potential to gain a lot of mana. My favorite is still to put a stack of summoned thorns in a poison cloud, because you are guaranteed the full return on your investment.

As for levels 1-9, I didn't do anything different than what I described in the first post. I also didn't take any leadership bonuses from leveling up until level 12 or so. For me the first 14 levels or so were the most "tactical" because I was frequently fighting strong or very strong opponents, but Darion is also the easiest continent so there's the most opportunity for strategy to pay off. When you get to the later levels the game is much more "brute force" because some stacks are just too big. I remember fighting a stack of 70 demons, it took at least 6 turns of all of my stacks focusing on them before I brought them down. I guess tossing totems and stone walls in the way is still strategy, but not like it was in the early levels. ;)

As a mage on Impossible you may need to start taking leadership bonuses sooner, especially if you can't find Fire Rain. Either that or spend your early runes on the Glory skill.

I will look up my current stats and post them today. I can say that I don't feel like I have particularly good equipment. Having read about some of the items other people have found, I think I'm missing out in that department. Here's what I'm using (from memory):

Some Intellect Helmet (+3 INT, +1 Defense)
Pirate's Halberd (+3 Attack, +5% gold, from quest)
backup: Silver Rapier (+30% damage to undead) x2
backup: Adherent's Staff (+2 INT, +10% lightning damage)
backup: Pilgrim's Staff (+1 INT, saving the upgrade battle as a rage booster)
Slippery Cuirass (+2 Defense, +10% Physical Resistance)
Ogre's Sandals (+2 Defense, +1 Move for Giants and Ogres)
General's Baton (+750 Leadership)
Battle Shield (+2 Defense, +1 Attack)
Some Round Stone Artifact (+4 Defense, you can trade Magic Crystals for Stoneskin scrolls. I got it from the zombie in the Marsh, not sure if it's random or not)
backup: Silver Chain (+1 INT, -2 Defense to enemy undead)
Anga's Ruby (+300 Leadership, GIRL POWAH++)

I do not have a wife yet, mostly because I don't have any artifacts that I feel like I "have to have" but don't have slots for. I probably should have married Feanora early in the game, but since I didn't I'm just going to wait for the demoness in all her dual wielding glory. The undead lands should be much easier with 2 Silver Rapiers.

Also, another mana loop for fighting keepers. Originally I was of the philosophy that the friendly gremlins (brown) needed to die first because they continued to summon units. However, now I feel like the evil gremlins (red) should die instead, and you should hold a brown gremlin hostage to summon an endless supply of units for you to use Mana Spring on. As long as your army is strong enough to take control of the fight, the small # of allies one gremlin tower can summon will not be strong enough to beat your endless supply of summoned thorn stacks. However, I still can't upgrade my archmage's staff or baton without taking losses so I obviously need more practice. :rolleyes:

Edit: Added Battle Shield, changed Colonel's Baton to General's Baton

My stats at level 18:
9100 Leadership
13 Attack, 23 Defense, 11 Int

Ok, back to story time. Instead of pushing to Castle Bogacho and weaving around the overpowering heroes, I instead went back to Darion to restock my troops. While I was there I absolutely creamed Archmage Rezo (it felt great) with a Geyser + Underground Blades on turn 1. My reward was 14 more Inquisitors. :rolleyes:

I also killed Big Pato in the arena, and upgraded my baton from the lowest level up to General's Baton (+750). The extra 650 leadership puts me at 9100 which didn't change the enemy army status (still overpowering) but I am a little bit stronger. More importantly, my army stacks are above the enemy demonesses charm capacity so I should be able to clear some of the tougher demon armies now without taking ridiculous losses.

Thanks Sector24. Doing upgrades with no losses is no mean feat!

I do wait and double strike with my blue snakes already and since my last post i've got more leadership arties and distort lvl 2 now so life is going much easier .:cool:The main problem is that i can't find phantom or sacrifice yet anywhere. Also, the old fella in the swamp had only 33 inquisitors and the mage in vernon had only 14!! I Haven't found anymore anywhere yet. Which is leading to some serious gilot's shield abuse!

I just snuck through the mines tonight and got leena juiced up. I got away with few losses by sneaking past the big guys and taking out the little guys. So i'll go back and mop up the few big fights left in the islands and try and get gizmo, etc going.:cool:


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Well, some good news to report at last! Did some more mopping up around the islands and some of the easier stuff in the mines. Finished titan's tear and got geyeser. Managed to sneak through and beat the castle with the kings son in, then got out with only having to fight 2 or 3 of the easier patrols! I only lost half of the stack of brown bears i'd bought along for the purpose. But there's still a lot hard fights left throughout the dwarven lands.

When i got back, the mages shop in greenwort had phantom and gift so i hope with those 2 i'll be able to do most fights now with no losses. But :evil: still no sign of sacrifce anywhere!

So now i'm an earl and level 15. Stats are ok for a mage i guess. AT10 DEF10 INT21 RG46 MN80 and LD7500. Chaos 3, Offense 2 and Destruct 2.

I had i quick look around elves land and managed to sneak past the patrols to the queen's castle (everything still way way to hard fight 4 me yet). There were some dryads in there which could be nice with the ruby ring but i was wondering how they'd go against what's left in the mines and the dwarven lands?

Also would you go for offense lvl 3 next or save the runes and wait for higher magic?

I must confess to making a grievous error. In my haste to get promoted to increase my leadership, I made peace with the dwarves before clearing out the Underground Sea and the dwarven armies turned neutral. They wouldn't have been difficult, but it is missed experience, gold, and random treasure chests. The completionist within me weeps. :( Did I mention that in one random battle I found 2 magic runes and 1 mind rune? All in the same battle? True story. Every battle I miss, I imagine that there were 1 or more runes waiting to be pilfered. :evil:

EDIT: Gatts and YENKO informed me that they are always neutral and I didn't actually miss anything. Thanks guys.

On the bright side, when I advanced the main story Tom Digor granted me his +4 attack hammer (since I still use giants there are no item morale issues) and King Mark offered me a new artifact, the ring of intelligence. It's +3 int and after 30 battles I can use it for a permanent +3 int. I took off Anga's Ruby for now (I just got promoted so no leadership issues) and since I finally broke 15 INT I did the mage trial in Arlania. I was massively overleveled for it of course, and got a staff that I already owned as a reward. ;)

So I have 3 options going forward:
Mehgard via locomotive
Elven Lands via boat
Demonis via portal

I'm tempted to loot Demonis before going to the elven lands, as I don't want to go back and forth too often. I also noticed that the train ride to Mehgard is instantaneous (unlike dirigible rides that advance the game 1 day) so if I cared about my score, going back and forth between Mehgard and Ardan would not matter.

travelingoz: I have never used Dryads, but I have fought against them. I would have to imagine Dryads are head and shoulders above Royal Thorns, since they have the same ability to summon thorns plus putting low level stacks to sleep. In addition to that, you can heal and resurrect them and they are not vulnerable to fire. As far as how they'd fare in the dwarven lands, I think they would do fine. They float, so giants won't hurt them, and their hit points are low but not terrible. Every dryad lost is an inquisitor saved. ;)

Dryads are fantastic, their sleep always hits against units level 1-3 not immune to mind spells. That won't help against cannoneers but will keep those pesky dwarves and miners under control. That aside the AI loves targeting summoned units esp poor thorns so pop out a stack to draw archer fire. Of course with Anga's ring they truly become a menace with their no retaliation.

By abusing the phantom sleep combo of cheese you can keep those massive dryad/lake faerie/dragonfly stacks in la la land while you clean up.

In Haas's dungeon I just snoozed my way through 10000 peasants!

Demonis is worth it for some good spell/arties and top units as long as that champion is guarding the portal :(
The lead up fights (there's usually two on the bridge) can be pretty tough...

Thanks for the tips guys!

Think i'm going to sneak back over to grab those dryads now! Also, saw a shop with 8 emerald dragons and leadership lets me have 4, so i might grab those too for their mana ability. So that leaves 3 slots. At this stage i'm inclined to go with evil beholders, inquisitors and Royal snakes but that leaves no room for shaman...

I got the telescopic sight in a fight last night in the mines and the beer barrel was at one of the shops early in the game so i have that set. I tried with the canoneers but they weren't doing serious damage so i guess i'll have to wait until my leadership gets higher. Also they didn't seem to affect the power of the beholders attack either but the beholder has "archer" as it's ability???


When i go back to elves land, i'll do some more sneaking and see if i can get some hunters. So if i can get those then maybe emerald dragons, dryads, hunters, Royals, inquistors, beholders and shaman and switch between those 7 depending on the fight.

Keep you posted.