While waiting for a King's Bounty 2 (will it ever come?) I checked KB forum and discovered this big mod. Although I'm not a big friend of game mods which are often unbalanced there were some facts who forced me to give it a try with HLYFIRE.
- Don't play impossible, it's too hard ...
- more random inspired by Heroes III
- 15 different classes and 8 companions
This sounded good for me to start a game.
Installation was no problem, it was well documented how to do it. I played HLYFIRE on a iMac with Parallels/Win7/Steam and it runs well.
I choosed impossible because of the warning not to use this setting and to give it a greater kick the plan was to play no loss - i'm a no loss specialist
Several classes looked great and I went the mage way with a Witch Hunter. After 2h playing I could choose a companion and took the Scary Abomination.
BEGINNING PHASE - STRATEGY
1st trick is to get as fast as possible 250 leadership to get a Dragon of Chaos from the main castle. This can be the hardest part of a no loss game. After getting a chaos dragon the gameplay becomes easy. Dragon of Chaos refills his HP after each turn (not documentated). With 6 initiative he will start the turn and with 6 speed he's able to avoid melee contact and breathe fire to much bigger stacks without getting a damage.
As a witch hunter you get the spell Lynch Mob which summons a very big stack of good creatures which will help to bind ranged enemies.
It's a good decision to build up Trap Spell from the Distortion Magic - i had luck to get it very early. Traps helps with enemy ranged units who try to get away from my summoned creatures. In the endgame these traps will do around 20k damage and kill big stacks of archdemons or black dragons! BUT: you will never get extra traps like in the original game.
With 1 Dragon of Chaos - no other units if you go no loss!!! - and the spell Lynch Mob it's easy to get your ship next to the castle.
Get as many Lake dragon Flies as you can! Put them into reserve and and the day will come where you can change them into Green Dragons!
If you have 150 flies in reserve (don't put them in the unit slots or you get losses) you will get 15 Green Dragons - it's a random event after combat.
After getting green dragons you can throw away your chaos dragons. Green Dragons are the only unit which will fight for you for a long time. The companion is an additional help.
The companion: I choosed Scary Abomination which sometimes does good spell damage but often spells nothing. This companion becomes much stronger later in the game. In the beginning phase you will like it as a welcome target for enemy ranged units.
SPIDER - STRATEGY
Spider Boss killed in 3 rounds with no loss!
How? The trick is Lynch Mob
In 1st round I used the Lynch Mob spell and it summoned some Witch Hunters.
The Witch Hunter put his skill Magic Block on the spider boss. The spider boss summoned several spider on the battlefield and got endless damage waves from magic block until he was killed at once!!!
May be it's a bug or not - If the player is forced to accept events like "you loss 10% of your gold" or "no skills at level up" without loading game then this trick is ok.
ADVANCED GAME AFTER SPIDER - STRATEGY
Main goal is to get access to demon gate. You'll need both artifacts.
Your army are your Green Dragons. I had great luck to get 2 Archdemons in a shop. If they are splitted to 2 single archdemons you can fill your rage.
Rage is your big friend. Try to raise rage limit with a Goblin Shaman or a Dragon of Chaos in your reserve if you are low there.
By far the best unit for reserve stack is the Faun. He will give you after a random upgrade event: +10% of your mana limit!!! And later once again 10% and another 10% .... mana limit will raise beyond 200 very fast!
Best troops are Green, Red, Black Dragons and Archdemons. They are all level 5. Put fear on enemy and you are safe. The only unit under level 5 which worth to use are the Demonologists (lvl4). They can resurrect all your troops except Black Dragons. You can copy with Phantom Spell to use Resurrect skill again and so on.
Get Higher Magic Skill to cast 2 spells!
Tactic 1: (1st Round) Copy Green Dragons with Phantom Spell. Cast the big spell Geyser. Fly green dragons to block ranged units and replenish mana. (2nd Round) Cast a 2nd copy of green dragons and another Geyser.
Tactic 2: If it's possible to Fear all enemy troops (no undeads) then this is the better tactic. Cast Fear on every enemy unit beginning with ranged. After all are feared you control the battlefield and the rest is easy!
SKILLS (Before Spider)
MAGIC: Distortion Magic 3, Chaos Magic 2, Creation 1-2
MIND: Diversions 3, all other are worthless
MIGHT: Anger 3
SKILLS (After Spider to endgame)
MAGIC: Distortion Magic 3, Chaos Magic 3, Creation 5, Higher Magic 2, Concentration 5
MIND: Diversions 5, Diplomacy 5, all other worthless
MIGHT: Anger 5, Action Rage 4, Onslaught 1
SPELLS
Trap (20k in endgame)
Phantom
Fear
Geyser
Exorcism
Slow
You won't need any other spell!
CONCLUSION
I was impressed by the mod authors to see what is possible. HLYFIRE is not only a simple changed stats/skills mod. They changed much more: quests, events, spells and so on. They introduced 15 classes which I would like to see in the original too. You can choose from several companions with different skills. Many units can be upgraded or give a bonus.
Lvl 4-5 units have been weakened in healthpoints to force the player to use Lvl 1-3 units. But: Leadership of lvl 5 units are much more lowered too, so what now?We have some new spells and many old spells have been changed to fit into this lvl1-3 system.
But exactly this went wrong. The weakness of HLYFIRE is the IMBALANCE. Some skills (Concentration, Creation, Anger) are overpowered. Too much damage on damage spells possible. Scare Abomination is in the later game totaly overpowered and does often 40-60k damage or nothing. That's too much damage. Random is great but random damage of a unit should never range from "close to nothing" to "kill'em all". Mana limits get much too high with faunts. It has been never so easy to succeed with lvl5 units than in HLYFIRE.
I've finished the Witch Hunter class with impossible and no loss. Gold was never a problem as predicted by the authors. No loss does not need gold! It was very easy and also much easier than in the original game to win impossible without loosing a single unit. May be other classes are harder and I had some luck with choosing Witch Hunter/Abomination. But the motivation is very low to test another class/companion combination.
The authors references to Heroes III as source for randomizing. I know Heroes very very well, maps were randomized, units were randomized ... but the random of HLYFIRE is much more like Monopoly. Random Events like "you loose 10% of gold" are not good for a strategy game. Kings Bounty is not a gambling game.
PROS
15 classes
8 companions
random units everywhere
new spells
upgradable units
CONS
too easy to succeed
random with too extreme range
overpowered spells
overpowered skills