KBDS Normal/Hard/Impossible No-loss thread

[Loremipsum1]

Wow, great job, Matt and Impy!

My own test games both spawned significantly larger stacks (the one I made it in had 9 elves, 2x 13 werewolves, 96 fairies, 10 fauns); I didn't realize it varied quite so low.

Impy, interestingly enough, your strategy was almost exactly the same as mine with the single ancient vamp. Did you play through to Whitehall? I'm wondering how likely it is that the RNG gives you three unwinnable fights there.

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Since I don't know if anyone updated it since KBAP, you can get it from here:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...e+game+scanner
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...e+game+scanner

Thin is, I think steam saves for KBDS are a bit different for KBAP, so it might take a bit of fooling around to get it working. Or alternatively, if you can use another program to read the steam files used to save the game, I guess it can be used too.

It was updated for WotN; I'm not sure what changed between that and AP, but you can get the WotN version here, halfway down the page:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...t=35533&page=2

I thought that thread was difficult to follow; the main thing you have to do make a save game scannable is:
1. Within the save folder, copy "data" to "savedata".
2. Create a zip archive containing savedata, crc, info, and name, all at the top level. (If they're in a directory, it won't work.)
3. Change the .zip file to a .sav file; so, for example, if it was Vamp.zip, it'd be Vamp.sav.

And that works. KB_DB_EDIT could conceivably edit a save game to ensure that the ore treasure is a Phoenix scroll.

[DGDobrev]

Ok, it works. Now we need to know which cart exactly contains the scroll and how is it called. I have a save right now, with a phoenix spell in a chest in dragandor, but I don't know if it's in the explorable area or not. No magic spring though. This will make for fun poking around. I will sure spend some time toying with it.

[MattCaspermeyer]

I was fiddling with this this morning as I also have a save with the Phoenix scroll (it is in one of my modded games), but I'm not at my computer right now, so this is from memory:

In the savedata.txt file, search on telega_ore_box and you should find the first occurrence in savedata.txt is the correct one. This should be dragondor_embyro_13 (note that it is spell as "dragondor" with an "o" instead of the spelling we see in the game "dragandor" and you can also search on this as it should be unique for the file).

Just a few lines lower you will see the entry for "spell_phoenix" - your Phoenix scroll.

By the way, I'm conducting a test right not and have created at least 35 new games and have not seen it pop up again. I have actually seen Power of the Night twice and Flame Arrow once, so Phoenix is not the only spell you can get from the Ore Cart.

I'm going to keep creating batches of 5 savegames and processing them until I see it again and give a statistical breakdown of what you get from the Ore Cart in Dragandor.

I did try changing Power of Night (spell_dark_knight) to Phoenix (spell_phoenix) and using KB_DB_EDIT, but it crashes when trying to compile the file. So it may need to be updated for the new KB games.

/C\/C\

[DGDobrev]

Gotcha. I found it. You should open savedata.rpt with any text editor (I use notepad ++) and look for the following line:

dragondor.embryo_13 Vagon money 2300

So in this case, there's cash in the wagon. No luck there... Matt, have you checked in where the Magic Spring spell is supposed to spawn? I will jump in the savegame testing process as well.

[Zhuangzi]

Okay, some thoughts on the endless saga of Demoness Impossible No-loss...

I'm up to level 48, having just roflstomped my way through Okkarland against Very Hard and Deadly stacks.

Wizards are ridiculously powerful. Buffed by the Archmage staff, given ridiculously high morale by the Amulet of the Twilight Order (Heroic), halving stacks like crazy with Beserker level 3 (15% chance of having PER attack, and the Wizard hits three stacks with one attack when he's in the Fighting Trance). I've picked up a couple of items that increase Crit chance - Undead Master Belt +5% and, even better, a Dagger of Judgement, +20%!!!, that I got from a treasure chest in battle So the Wizard has a Crit chance of 59% and I feel sure that he's halving enemies more than 15% of the time (is this chance affected by whether it's a crit?) I just know that when I finish the game, Wizards are going to be my biggest damage dealer BY FAR.

The rest of my team consists of Dark Paladins, Demons, Executioners and Demonologists. You could use whatever unit you liked in the place of these last three. The only essentials are the Wizards for damage dealing + Magic Shield and the Dark Paladins for resurrecting. At a certain stage of this game, roughly from fights 120-170, I was struggling to win some battles no-loss. I was having to redo fights and look for the easiest fights. But once you get a stack of Dark Paladins, it's game over. Sorry, you also need Phantom in case you've taken too much damage for the initial resurrection, and Calm Rage too. But once you have these spells, we're back to the old Paladin + Phantom + Calm Rage infinite resurrection trick. My main problem here was that there was only about 130 Dark Paladins available in my game, and my current leadership (32k) allows for over 250, so I've had to use Sacrifice to fill out the stack, and this is tedious because I only have Sacrifice at level 1, not wanting to waste the crystals.

Is it just me or are crystals really scarce in this game? I only have about 12 spells learned and I never seem to have enough, so I've taken to buying all the trashy artifacts etc available in the game and destroying them for the crystals.

At level 48 I've cleared all islands except Amazonia (which I'll do next), Galenirim and Aralan, and also Helvedia. I'm up to 269 fights without loss, and I'm guessing that with some failed quests that I couldn't be bothered with (such as when they conflicted with other quests) I must be looking at about 400-450 fights for the whole game.

[DGDobrev]

Crystals are indeed scarce, so breaking items becomes a must at one point. Not that I mind, with so much gold and so much stuff to buy, it is quite all right.

I am nearing the end of the game. Level 71, finishing off stuff here and there. I have only a few quests left that I need to finish - the one about the Ancient Oak and a few assignments for the council in Helvedia. The Oak bugs me though. I have the primordial flame, but I don't see any guardian stacks around it. I think it is because I don't have the stupid Silver Axe. Gotta roam around the maps a bit and see if someone sells it, or look for ways to acquire it.

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by Zhuangzi

Is it just me or are crystals really scarce in this game? I only have about 12 spells learned and I never seem to have enough, so I've taken to buying all the trashy artifacts etc available in the game and destroying them for the crystals.

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Crystals are indeed scarce, so breaking items becomes a must at one point. Not that I mind, with so much gold and so much stuff to buy, it is quite all right.

I'll third this - I always felt like I didn't have enough and like you guys I just bought artifacts for conversion to Crystals. Daert gets a discount with his Bibliography skill so I think it is more of a problem with Neoline and Bagyr.

/C\/C\

[travelingoz]

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

I'll third this - I always felt like I didn't have enough and like you guys I just bought artifacts for conversion to Crystals. Daert gets a discount with his Bibliography skill so I think it is more of a problem with Neoline and Bagyr.

/C\/C\

Yep, major shortage of crystals here, too! I've only learned the spells I've absolutely needed, and waited until I had Bibliography LVL 3 b4 upgrading.

As far as progress goes; It's Day 6 Monteville is all done, I've just started with Insleburg, and have already convinced Madame Curie to come back to the shelter. As with previous games, the difficulty seams to vary between a few restarts and a walk in the park! I have to say the major challenge thus far has been finishing fights with full mana as I only found the Calm Rage spell in a battlefield chest late last night.

Daert is at LVL19 and has just gotten the Archmage abilty, so he has 32 Intellect and 145 Mana. I'd like to buy the Archmage Staff from the shelter but I've forgotten what affects it's morale, so some help here please someone?????

My army at the moment is 1 x Troll and 2 x Ice Dragons (Call Scroll), 2 x Red Dragon 2 x Black Dragon (from Shelter).

[MattCaspermeyer]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Gotcha. I found it. You should open savedata.rpt with any text editor (I use notepad ++) and look for the following line:

dragondor.embryo_13 Vagon money 2300

So in this case, there's cash in the wagon. No luck there... Matt, have you checked in where the Magic Spring spell is supposed to spawn? I will jump in the savegame testing process as well.

No need - just start your game and get through the two dialogues and hit "q" to bring up the Quest Dialogue. You'll see which spell you get right there!

Simple as pie!

/C\/C\

[DGDobrev]

Originally Posted by MattCaspermeyer

No need - just start your game and get through the two dialogues and hit "q" to bring up the Quest Dialogue. You'll see which spell you get right there!

Simple as pie!

/C\/C\

Gotcha. So in essence, we need to scan only the games that give Magic Spring as a reward for the phoenix in the wagon. That will take some doing

As for the Archmage staff, I think it drops when you fight Archmages, and rises if you have them in your army.