thanks for replay.
to be honest i didnt played another KB from first one in early 90's. AP is my first one after that, altho i played HOMM a lot.
1) i got higher magic to level 3 already
and there is ancient ring wating me at debir, was planing to get it next time i visit it, that 15 mana and 4 intelect seems damn nice
2) so far i was focusing on learning and get my magic skills up. though getting learning early will make game a bit hard at start but will pay off later on.
3) you are right for royal thorns, just if i could get my hands of few more ... :<
i have priests nearly at max of my lds, they heal my dragon for 700, for nearly full health. i checked debir, but only 10 paladins spawn after i returned stone, that isnt near max of my lidership too. as for those rune mages, where should i look for them, i know game is completly random at spawning units and items, but there should be place they usualy spawn. i checked may be half of shoops at velona, only units worth mention is archmages and royal griffons. may be assasins too, but for some reason i dont like them
there is some undead that can be usefull too, like vampires, altho i dont like playing undead (its like going to dark side you know)
also i noticed the difference of xp for pet dragon depending of lidership, my pet dragon is several levels higher then me, which is kinda funny, it seems smarter then me
about royal griffons, im using them for their summon, and buff over priests and inquisitors, lure enemies into traps, ie put them on other side of trap, their mobiliti is nice for this, and their high initiative ofc, giving me chance to cast spells before most of other units. i nearly never hit with them, mostly becouse their morale is -2 becose of dragon, but cant leave the dragon ether, its damn nice tank, keeping enemies back in their corner, at least for a while. with some stone skin on it, and several traps around it, its nearly invincible. thats how i won most of fights so far.
also im trying to end each fight with max rage and mana, and start next one with both nearly full, which helped me so far.
the last battle on velona, oposite army was with 16 paladins, 20 demons, 64 repair druids, about 300 swordsmans and 4-450 bears.
managed to keep sowrdsmans and bears back with traps while i took care of demons and paladins, and pushing repair druids to shoot my summoned thorns or my dragon. also im using a stack of 2 thorns to summon 1 stack of 1 if possible too, just geting enemy 1 more target to waste a turn
did this with 2 loads only, the last battle took me like 2.5 real hours, battle should ended in like turn 35 or so, but i used may be 10 more to restore my army, mana and rage. im always saving a ranged enemy unit for end of combat for that reason, forcing it to shoot the unit with, what was name of the spell that gives you mana back when you take dmg.
and probably my main problem is using hunt in first 2-3 rounds in battle, but cant stand the chance to get my hands on new spell or that shiny runes, which makes my pet dragon occupied with this instead kicking enemy butts (in fight for map on bolo got 2x call of colossos and AK scrolls, was awesome)
which reminds me.. it seems to me that the stronger is the army the cnace for strong spells or scrools or runnes is bigger, but that might be just wrong impression, im getting mostly gold from week enemies, and runes scrolls from invincible ones. and mostly if i use dragon in start of combat, like the weeker become enemy the chance is lower.
4) as for dragon push, i had no choise, my other choises was wall and mana accelerator actoin points upgrade. i didnt wanted to increase rage cost of mana accelerator and wall seems pretty useless to me.
5) that was my intentions at first but after i landed on velona wasnt sure if it was right.
i didnt have alchemy yet, but was thinking to take it to max soon to learn all that scrolls i keep for a while. wasnt sure how frequent are magic crystals later in game.
there is some fights i left for later, may be 5 or 6 total on rusty and scarlet, may be could get me a level or level and half, but would it matter so much?
100-150 lidership may be, and 200 from stone when i return it to debir.
on second though i might hit 4000 lds and try that call of colloses scroll to get 2 red or emerald dragons. ( i tryed spawn every lvl 5 unit in game just to look over them) black dragons seems awesome .. just if you could heal them :<
imo best is red dragons, may be in combination with emerald, from what i saw,
high hp and speed, defence too, emerald have some nice skills, puling enemy over a trap, or giving you mana just in right moment, red is a bit more offensive
i though my level is a bit too low for velona and that i might missed something looking at army and heroes there.
ill try change my army composition, think ill get the save just before im leaving bolo and go to debir for that instead velona.
and btw, thanks for hints, ill look into that rune mages they seems pretty nice.