New player seeks advice about playing a mage and the tactics for no loss

[N3MES1S]

I tell u, i was the same opinion than u, when i started playing this game. Now i can say even on impossible mode its too easy once u know how to play. The first is gain leadership, glory 1 and glory 2. The second is to pick up the leadership flag on Bolo (the one right the stairs). The bolo map always appear on the coast, sometimes u need to kill monster of the abbys to pick it, sometimes not, and sometimes the map appears in the way to the robbers cave, so u need to kill the way patrol troop.

Once u get glory 1 and the leadership flag on bolo u should have a decent army. Third, grand strategy medal 1, four glory 2 (if u haven done yet). Then, u can pick the amulet of illumination on Bolo avoiding fighting if u can, and in the cave, u can pick up the amulet without fighting the droideka, if u see it doesnt move, u need to walk a bit closer.

Once u manage to do all of this, u should not have any problem to advance, specially on normal mode. I never play on normal, now i always play on impossible.

U can kite the cave entrance from Zag zag if u can make him to follow you along the coast, left to the cave, but be careful, when u exit the cave so him will be waiting for u.

As the mate said, use the bless inquisitor skill, a lot of people use inquisitors only for resurrect, and thats wrong.

I must say that i never finished the game on impossible with no loss playing as mage (its too hard and a bit boring). But with warrior is almost too easy.

About trap, dont waste efforts on using traps and raise the trap medal. Almost, not for now, do it when u have played more games. Cuz its mabe one of the hardest medals to raise. And traps do good damage along levels 1-10 but after that, level 1 traps almost useless if u dont use it on pure strategic game.

[kcwong]

I tried again and this time it went much much better on the first island. I avoided the hero fights, since their spells mean it is very likely to suffer losses, but I cleared the whole island with just one battle - the snake basement - losing two wolves.

The biggest difference I think are using Inquisitor's skill to boost rage. This alone kicked my army's offensive power up to a new level (pun intended).

The second biggest change is my choice of troops... I accidentally used an exploit - I left my starting army in the castle, taking just one peasant to the tutorial. When I completed it the game doubled my starting army for me.

With that I chose the Forest Fairies... something I've never done before. I fully expect them to die like flies - with their pitiful defense and 9HP, but it seems the AI ignores them for the most part (and I used them very defensively).

I used to go with Bowman, Guardsman, Priest, Inquisitor and Thorns/Devifish/Royal Snake. This time I went with Bowman, Guardsman, Inquisitor, Forest Fairy and Wolf. Wolf turns out to be completely useless, as there were very few level 1 enemies - just a few stacks of peasants. They are now replaced by Royal Snakes. I paid the 6K for the Snake Boots to make them more effective.

Skill-wise I chose: Glory 1, Linguistic 1, Distortion 1, Order 1, Transmute 1.

I went to Bolo first and picked up some flags as N3MES1S suggested. My army still wasn't as large as I wanted, but I guess it's not as bad as before. I'll see how I do on Scarlet Winds next session...

[Metathron]

In my opinion royal snakes are one of the best, if not the best, units in the game relative to level. Even without any artifacts they are awesome, but the boots are an excellent investment on your part, as it very often happens that the snakes need just that extra 1 point of speed to attack the enemy in their first turn.

Forest fairies -- and any other fairies for that matter -- are also very good units, but you won't be able to replenish them until you get to Elon, the elven continent, unless you use a trick wherein you leave your army behind and attack an enemy stack, in which case you'll lose the battle automatically (of course), but you'll get a new batch of your starting troops (bowmen, swordsmen and fairies, IIRC).

[kcwong]

My experiences on Scarlet Winds is indeed much better; managed to finish some weak stacks without loss. I still need to stay away from some wandering troops and ships though. In this game there is a stack of vampires roaming around - not gonna touch them for a while.

I went back and finished all heroes without loss, now the haunted castle is the only thing left on Debir.

Originally Posted by Metathron

In my opinion royal snakes are one of the best, if not the best, units in the game relative to level. Even without any artifacts they are awesome, but the boots are an excellent investment on your part, as it very often happens that the snakes need just that extra 1 point of speed to attack the enemy in their first turn.

I don't rush with the snakes though... I like to minimize my losses. So often the snakes will give me the chance to cast a spell and use my dragon, then wait on their first turn.

Originally Posted by Metathron

Forest fairies -- and any other fairies for that matter -- are also very good units, but you won't be able to replenish them until you get to Elon

Yeah, I know that from finishing the game once as a Paladin on Easy. The ladies are now sitting inside the castle chatting with the King, until I can make it to Elon.

[N3MES1S]

I always used to use polar bears or ancient bears instead of wolfs, fairies, etc but the point is i never used em on battle on Debir xD. In fact, i did the glory medal and the no losses medal only with inquisitors and a 1 royal thorn lol. U dont need a hugh army on Debir. The exploit u mention on the start of the game is not such a exploit, it is the initial army given to you at the start, when u finish the tutorial, the game gives u again the same troops (on case u lost almost all of em). So, if u dont waste any troops , u will have 2x.

Royal Snakes are the best units on early game, but if u want to minimize loses u will change em to another stronger unit on mid-later islands. If u find a big stack of level 5 units, use em, they rule normal mode (and on impossible, but impossible is a bit hard for u right now). And bowman are too fragile unit, u should change em too. They are good on high number stacks, but they die too fast. If u can get cyclops on bola, use em. Only a few units will attack em, like beholders or shamans, and cyclops are a very useful units.

As u noticed, there are some units / races that the AI will not attack eventually. Elfs and Demons are one of em. I am playing now with a mod that gives me , for example, cerberus or scoffer imps at the beginning, and the AI never attacks em. But this is on impossible....

[kcwong]

I switched from the very weak wolves to polar bear - never found any ancient bears, so I kept using the guardsmen until their number became too small.

Luckily I found Demonologists! I never found any in my Paladin game, but now I found over 30 on Rusty Anchor (in the inn at the pier).

With them I managed to beat the roaming armies on Bolo with no to minimal loss, and killed the roaming driods (ranked strong to me) in the mines. Then I kite the boss driod away (turns out I need to talk to it once first before it will chase me). Then I managed to kite Zag Zag away too, so now my army consists of 1 EGD, 9/10 Paladin (that's all I can find), 22 or so Inquisitors, 10 or so Polar Bears, and 10/10 Demonologists. I have my Royal Snakes and Repair Driods stashed away for the time being.

I think I'll be fine from this point forward!

Thank you all for the tips. The Inquisitor rage skill tip is a life-saver.

[Metathron]

Originally Posted by kcwong

I don't rush with the snakes though... I like to minimize my losses. So often the snakes will give me the chance to cast a spell and use my dragon, then wait on their first turn.

I didn't mean that you should rush forward with them, that is hardly ever a good tactic. What I meant was to wait and attack at the end of your turn, that is where the +1 speed often proves crucial for reaching the approaching enemies at the end of turn 1 already.

Also, is there a reason why you're using the bears over the snakes? No retaliation, high initiative, poisoning,... (As you can see, I'm a huge proponent of royal snakes )

[N3MES1S]

I prefer royal snakes too, but polar bears are a "support" melee unit, specially on the first 3/4 islands, after that, u can change polar bears to better units, and keep royal snakes as a high number stack melee troop. But as i said, i only played with ancient/polar bears / royal snakes on my first games, long time ago i decided to play only with all level 4/5 units (of course once i can get em). And if u like royal snakes xD, u will love my royal snake level 4 mod (celestial snake) xD.

[Metathron]

Originally Posted by N3MES1S

I prefer royal snakes too, but polar bears are a "support" melee unit,

What does that mean exactly? I can't imagine a single scenario where (polar) bears would be better than royal snakes.

And if u like royal snakes xD, u will love my royal snake level 4 mod (celestial snake) xD.

Ooh, what's that?