Best Class for Race-Based Games via Editor

[Helios]

Thanks for the input, ShuiMienLung! That's a great idea regarding teleporting Ancient Ents to tank. These were my preliminary thoughts on the races, so I hadn't thought of good ideas like that! I'll bet the Elves end up being the easiest with their variety of good units. I also forgot to mention here that I'll be using the sets that I think will benefit each race, like the one for the Elves that you indicate. I've set up a spreadsheet of all the sets and useful equips for these playthroughs in this topic: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=25853.

I've just started my Undead army, which is rolling along.

And thanks for relating your experience with Sea Dogs. That's just the sort of thing I was hoping to discover with some of these units I haven't used. With Mirabella's bonus, I'll bet they'll be the MVPs of that Outcast team. And I'm in agreement on the berserkers--no control over them = impossible to use tactically. Having a reserve of Sea Dogs would be better than them. They might be the worst unit in the game.

[Vulture]

In an all-undead army, neither the Whip nor the Dagger are a choice, mate. Only for one unit (Skellies) that is a terrible waste of slots. Any +Atk weapon greater than 3 (Dwarf hammer, Demetrius, Dragon Slayer, Equilibrium) will perform better in the long run.

Btw letting Ancient Ents tank is a terrible idea since you can't ress them.

As for the Human playthrough. Depending on if you count Sea Dogs and Marauders to them you can have a fairly decent team (Biting Strike and Fury Attack are beast) until you get to boss battles :> I'd NEVER play Warrior with humans. Ever. Reason: a Paladin can easily (!) get Bowman Commander and Onslaught. My Paladins always have so many might runes left I take Tactics 2, and Dark Commander and have still might runes left. It's not like it makes sense to take Destroyer or Chaos 3 with a Paladin, is it ? A Paladin is a warrior with more runes and less ldr and atk. A warrior can never sustain enough mana and spellpower to keep them all alive. Unless you don't care for losses and give yourself "Horde" for everything. but that's kinda pointless. Impossible isn't a challenge if you keep restocking everything. Every beginner can do that. Marauders btw only cost 30 ldr. Fairly priced for a lvl 2 unit. Compared to Priests with 50 ^^

As for the Animal/Neutral playthrough I agree on the Snakes. With Feonora and the Snake King Ring (maybe even two) you might even bring regular snakes, too (No Swamp Snakes, tho, as their damage is poison only. Royal and Snakes have physical damage. The poison is an after effect as a bonus)

As for the archer playthrough. A: it is completely impossible. You WILL be wiped on all major bossfights. And in order to not get your ass handed to you, you MUST play mage in order to Phantom + Teleport early on (which both you won't get before the Islands), else everyone will just swarm you in melee. Imagine Dragon fights, fights against Lake Flies/Fireflies, Griffins and heroes with the Lightning spell. You can't spread out 5 troops on the left part of the battlefield far enough so he would refrain from doing so or doesn't hit more than 2 of them. Also you'll always need rage before the battle to drop a Wall/Icy Thorns/Ice Orb against otherwise fast melee units with "Running".
Next problem will be the range penalty. There is no mass Dragon Arrows. Skeleton Archers and Bowmen suck donkey balls when it comes to range; 5 or 6 tiles. 5 tiles is also what many units can bridge to get into melee in one turn, the rest in 2 turns.
Elves suck in general. The leadership/dmg ratio is dreadful. You should replace them with Thorns. I don't think the Telescopic sight works with them but it doesn't matter anyway as it only works with the base Atk of the unit which is pretty much nonexistent ^^ Just like with the Bowmen and Skellies.
Next thing is that you need Cannoneers. There's no way around that. You didn't honestly suggest Goblins, did you ? Crappiest archer in game ^^ To compensate for the morale loss you have the Ale Barrel and the Elven crown. That'll bring them all down to +/- 0.

I don't want to burst your bubble there but an all-archer playthrough on impossible is... impossible.

As for the Dwarf playthrough: not impossible but you'll run out of money in the late game as you will never have first strike except in round one and only if you play Paladin or Warrior and get Onslaught early. The best initiative will be 6 with the Cannoneers. Idk but you'll get stomped in Ultrax, Demonis and the Labyrinth so much that you'll go and restock your troops after every other fight.

As for the "Outcasts": lol :> We don't have to talk about that. Not a chance. But if you urgently need to, do yourself a favor and take Human Rina over Mirabella. You'll need the init and speed, believe me :>

[Helios]

Thanks for the thoughts, Vulture. How many units would you think you'd need to warrant using the whip and dagger? Just the Elven girls?

And what do you think of item sets--pointless given how much you have to equip for the bonus? I'd love to get the Knight set for the human playthrough (plus I was thinking of Iron Fist so I'd have an insane amount of troops), but devoting five pieces of equipment to get the bonus doesn't seem as good as just equipping the best equips. What do you think? Maybe viable early-mid-game, then ditch it? I imagine it would be hard to keep the Bow equipped for the Elves for very long, even if I carried both Elves and Hunters along. Combined with Neoka, there's no way to even use the whip and dagger with that set.

Noted on the Ents. I hate units I can't heal/ress unless I absolutely have to use them: Royal Thorn + Blackthorn Crown.

I should probably just junk the idea of the archers and the "Outcasts". Like you say, there's no way to keep the enemy from reaching the archers, and the outcasts will get slaughtered worse than the Dwarves. If I did try them, I'd probably end up trying to max Int as a Mage and Fire Rain everything to death since I couldn't stop the hordes from reaching my units. And if I end up doing that, the troops I choose wouldn't really matter that much then, so what's the point? I was just trying to come up with ways to make the Archer set and Mirabella usable for once. I'll probably be too bored by the time I get that far down the list and want to give AP a whirl.

Sounds like a Paladin would be best for the Dwarves. The more I've looked into the weapons I thought were good for them, the less I realize that they are good. The axe of Craig the Destroyer is useless due to how few units it affects.

If I scrap the Outcasts, then I would just lump in Sea Dogs and Marauders with the humans, despite the morale penalty from the latter. I had been thinking of the humans game as "King Mark's Army", but it's probably for the best to lump these units in together.

Thinking all this over, I may trying using that "Ultimate Hero" mod that lets a Paladin get Iron Fist (to actually make use of the skill) for a human army. I may mod the wives a little myself to make Gerda actually hold a weapon, too. I'm not sure. I don't want to break the game too much, but I want to try different approaches with armies, sets, classes, and wives.

Also, is there a way to keep Vampires/Ancients in bat form so that they start a battle in that form? I really miss that initiative point for the first round.

[ShuiMienLung]

@Vulture: There was a (lengthy) discussion about Ancient Ents tanking in another thread; that was what I was thinking of when I mentioned them.

Also, with one of the boots (Pilgrim? +1 speed to slowest) and some of Lina's boosters--KB:AP makes it even easier with dragon to give +2 speed--they can actually get nearly halfway across the map on turn 1 even if you use your cast for a buff spell (Stone Skin, Magic Spring) to boost their defenses.

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@Helios: Take advantage of the fact that they are not subject to retaliation from the flanking units (the bonus damage hexes). So if you KILL the unit they are targetting directly, they face no retaliation and stay undamaged heading into the next turn for Time Back.

Also, militaries all over the world are built on the premise that Speed. Kills. Run away from a tough spot, get to an opponent that thought they were safe, whatever. Particularly if you're using them to mop up after (you 'Wait' on their turn, with them out of range of the opponent) you've done distance damage from other units, and then dart in for a quick mop-up so they stay undamaged.

The very first game (non-Sega Genesis version of 'King's Bounty') that I played I found multiples of everything: 3 silver rapiers, 2 snake boots, 2 jackboots, 2 dwarf hammers, two or three of a bunch of things. Unfortunately Royal Snakes were *not* that thick on the ground, so those boots didn't help much... but that was when I fell in love with Sea Dogs.
+ 2 base speed
+ 1 bonus (wife: Rina)
+ 2 wear two boots (Rina can have the other...)
= 5 base speed before adding in Lina's chargers, Haste, or their built-in Running talent.
AND Rina gives them +1 initiative as well as the speed.

.

Would I have preferred to use froggy Feonora with two snake boots for Royals? Sure, but sadly she can't wear boots. So I can either stick with one of the double-boot wives and have fast movers, or I can increase the attack but slow down the movement. If I'm fighting Haas with two Dragon Slayer swords equipped (yes, I had one show up in addition to the one from the tourney) then mobility matters more to me than raw attack.

[Helios]

I take it that AP has bonuses for flanking units? Interesting addition.

And it seems that with certain equipment, units can become quite useful. That much speed on a Sea Dog is killer.

[Vulture]

Certain equipment to boost a flaw is always inferior to increasing an already amazing feature with even more of it. What's the point in equipping utter crap to make up for major flaws of your arm composition when instead you can just get better units and then have no obligations equipment-wise because you don't have to make up for anything ?
Except of course, if you don't care how you perform and just zerg through with Hordes of your 5 troops edited into King Mark's castle.

I don't see the point in equipping 3 items with speed boost and nothing useful otherwise on them just to correct speed problems. I mean, wearing Anga's Ruby just for one unit is even borderline wasted and I sometimes wonder why I do it but 3 to everything including morale for them is way better than just +1 speed.

The Human set is just bullcrap. You'll end up with 12 Atk and 35 Def, killing exactly nothing past Elinia. Until then, tho, you'll have decent fun with the increased morale through Knights and Guardsmen.

About the Whip/Dagger: if those are your ONLY weapons you will wear (aka you're not a Warrior or your wife has no weapon slots) then you'll have to go with 4 that benefit. That means girls, Skellies and Bowmen/Thorns with a random supporter (Shaman because you'll probably need the totems to keep the damage off the girls). If you can wear 3 or more weapons so you'll have some atk, too, you can probably only go with anything you want but should use the girls at least.

[Helios]

No argument there about enhancing a strength rather than compensating for flaws. My interest in using these different units is to get some more variety out of the game and try some things I haven't before with some added challenge.

The sets in general don't seem to add enough bonuses to warrant taking up the equipment slots required. They could use a boost.

Thanks for the advice on the viability of the whip and dagger. I'll keep that in mind as I play. The Undead don't seem like a good choice for those equips, and it seems highly dependent on class + units when to use them. I still haven't completely settled on the class for each race I'll play with either--I'll leave that open to advice, as I'll have plenty of time between each lengthy game!

I can't believe I didn't make an effort to get the two kinds of vampires into my playing style before! They're great, and would be well worth investing in Tolerance to get into a typical game. I'm going to be spoiled by their ability to replenish themselves. I'm not enjoying the ghosts as much, though. They get out of control very easily, and I find it impossible without loading to get through battles without losing one or a few when getting them back under control when I inevitably lack the leadership to control them. I'm hoping to find some other gems of units that I've missed like the vamps.

[Vulture]

I understand your desire for some change and all that. In the end you'll play whatever you want to play and whatever provides you with the fun you wanted to have :> I'm just poop shooting terrible ideas xD In the end, you decide.

If you want challenge: play no-loss With a Mage. On impossible diff. Have fun :> If you make it through Demonis and the Labyrinth without losses, you can still start 5-melees-with-crappy-stats games ^^