The so called "no-loss" concept (whole game) is wrong and stupid.

[Razorflame]

eh u call the troll a overpowered absurdity? but that has nothing do to with spells

then u name a ghost which can go out of control so the ghost is absurd too?

spells make the game easier or at least doable in some cases

try using boss fights without spells or rage
gl with that

and as a side note of all this

you don't have to use those spells
or go for a no loss

[tiberiu]

Originally Posted by Razorflame

then u name a ghost which can go out of control so the ghost is absurd too?

Is absurd in combination with stone skin. (90 to 95% phisical damage reduction) - most creeps are phisical.

try using boss fights without spells or rage
gl with that

Son, you can't use rage in boss fights.

you don't have to use those spells or go for a no loss

Simply saying "you don't have to do this" is a fine way to avoid the issue. Regardless of what I do, the issues still remain, some gameplay of KB is stupid.

@ Tororo try harder

[Fatt_Shade]

Who said that no loss game takes 2 hours per battle ?
1 of interesting no loss builds all ranged 100% crit army every battle takes 3-4 turns max (killed Baal in 3 turns, finished in 5th because needed to block Gilbert units from killing last stack of imps all in all 5 minute battle max), with maybe 1 turn to revive units because almost every hit your units make is 20K+ dmg, and if you go orc build goblins could go more then 1 action per turn(unstoppable talent) and get ridiculous amount of dmg.
Getting to your goal army can be challenging but it`s mostly 1/3 of game time.
Or human army+royal griffin +3 moral to all, and paladins for 2turn, archmage magic shield to horseman + warrior counterstrike, inquisitor mainly is there to look pretty and cast holy rage in undead battles. mage with all summoning army or all dragon army with voice of dragon +3 moral, high 80+ intellect mage with 20000 dmg black hole per turn . . .
If there is only 1 way to beat this game impossible no loss it could be called bug or exploit, but there is lost of them and that is just the way game is made. No loss builds are noticable because in previous game players commented on them most, and lost of game strategies came from those forum treads.
If most of talk about game were like this : Tread called `I dont know how to cast spells` and then 100+ replies from players explaining how to upgrade some magic school then open spell book, and then upgrade some scroll in to spell . . .
Some experienced players would come and laugh and call them all noobs. Now there is lots of talking about no loss plays and you come along and bitch about it, so game needs to be changed drastically to be acceptable for you. i just dont see it being done.
It is solo player game and every rule you decide will hold, until it get some multiplayer mode when we could start screaming on eachother online. But till then , chill and play or dont , your choice.

[amyndris]

I find that for about 90% of the fights, a generic Phantom/Paladin, Death Knight/Evilkin/Unlimited Counter item or Droid^2 can no loss your way through.

But for certain fights, it really makes you get creative. A good example was one of the spider fights in KBAP where I ended up nolossing it by delaying and filling up the entire grid with droids so the boss couldn't spawn more spiders and wearing him down. Is that cheap? Maybe. But at the same time, you really get to think of ways to defeat the encounter on your terms; it becomes a puzzle game as opposed to a combat game which is more interesting to me anyways.

Even finding uses for rare spells like Sacrifice and Peacefulness (and the Peace Pipe) was part of the no-loss game. You had to view all the spells, units and items as a toolkit and find the right tool to no loss the game. Is it more challenging than fighting normally? No it's not, on the tactical level, but it's more engaging on the strategic level.

Think of it this way. Regular playthough is about "picking a lock" to get inside the door. No-Loss playthrough is about finding the key. Different goals, different challenges. Neither is better than the other, they just appeal to people with different interests.

[BB Shockwave]

The problem is, for no-loss, at least in AP (WotN will give us more options, like Soothsayers and Warrior Maidens, not to mention that Gift is back...) forced you to ALWAYS use some resurrecting unit... like Paladins, or Inquisitors, or Rune Mages. Problem is, Inquisitors are just a useless unit unless you are fighting undead, and using Paladins in EVERY gameplay gets tedious. Same goes for the droid build. Yes, I've done it once, but I have no desire to do it again.

I'd rather try playing the game with an all-Elf army, or an all-Undead one, etc. I did a no-loss on AP with an all-Lizardman army+Warrior - but only on normal, using Resurrection spell/Time Back only. I have no desire to do it on Impossible, where the game would make me use the same old, same old tactics (Phantom+Paladin for example) over and over in every battle, often for 40+ turns. It is... mind-numbing and boring. This way, each battle was different, and I got to experience the Lizardman units and learn their strenghts and weaknesses. (Apart from the Chosa, I love them all...)

So I can understand why the new guy says "it's stupid", I do not agree with the way HOW he said that or how he trolled others who disagreed.

[Zechnophobe]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

The problem is, for no-loss, at least in AP (WotN will give us more options, like Soothsayers and Warrior Maidens, not to mention that Gift is back...) forced you to ALWAYS use some resurrecting unit... like Paladins, or Inquisitors, or Rune Mages. Problem is, Inquisitors are just a useless unit unless you are fighting undead, and using Paladins in EVERY gameplay gets tedious. Same goes for the droid build. Yes, I've done it once, but I have no desire to do it again.

So I can understand why the new guy says "it's stupid", I do not agree with the way HOW he said that or how he trolled others who disagreed.

It wasn't really necessary to use a ress unit, you could also use spells. The all dragon army worked pretty well, and target + timeback was also very strong. I think the most boring run I did was one where I used the repair droids to the extreme... so not fun.

There isn't any pressure to do no loss in the game. Rather it's fun to see how extreme you can be. And each fight becomes an even more complex puzzle to figure out. One of my favorites was the dragon den on Montero in AP. You could do the fight with like 2 or 3 red and green dragons (killing a few dozen other dragons). Figuring out the right combinations of spells and gear to make impossibly difficult fights, possible, is a huge part of the fun for me.

This is why truly overpowered units (rune mages) and lack of options decreases my enjoyment of the game.

[redsox0717]

You clearly did insult the play style and the people doing it in the first post. You come across as very childish by hating the way others play even though it doesn't affect you in any way.

[tiberiu]

Originally Posted by redsox0717

You clearly did insult the play style and the people doing it in the first post. You come across as very childish by hating the way others play even though it doesn't affect you in any way.

Nope. I said it is normal to try to lose no units. I'm sorry for your reading disability.

[BB Shockwave]

Originally Posted by Zechnophobe

It wasn't really necessary to use a ress unit, you could also use spells. The all dragon army worked pretty well, and target + timeback was also very strong. I think the most boring run I did was one where I used the repair droids to the extreme... so not fun.

There isn't any pressure to do no loss in the game. Rather it's fun to see how extreme you can be. And each fight becomes an even more complex puzzle to figure out. One of my favorites was the dragon den on Montero in AP. You could do the fight with like 2 or 3 red and green dragons (killing a few dozen other dragons). Figuring out the right combinations of spells and gear to make impossibly difficult fights, possible, is a huge part of the fun for me.

This is why truly overpowered units (rune mages) and lack of options decreases my enjoyment of the game.

I actually disliked Rune Mages not because they are overpowered- they aren't that much in AP/CW - but because it is an inherently silly concept to power a unit with runes - which are very hard to come by and are needed for the development of your heroes. Thankfully a patch addressed this and reduced the number of runes needed to boost them.

As for spells like Time Back and Resurrection, they are less of an option for a Warrior or Paladin, due to less intellect and mana. I mean - they worked fine for me on Normal, as I could be more lenient when investing runes and equipping items - but on Impossible this would be hard to do. For a Mage, I agree it is an option... I use it myself.

Originally Posted by tiberiu

Somebody wrote on this forum that developers of wotn did wrong to make it impossible or nearly impossible to do no-loss on impossible difficulty. I'll explain why the whole concept of a no-loss game is retarded and should be discarded quickly.

Yeah, you are SOOOO not insulting anyone there... Seriously, if you are as old as you say you are (for the record, I am 34) and have been around the internet, you should have heard about a little thing called "Netiquette". Basically, if you post anything in such an insulting manner - even if what you say is right, and you meant well - you will be labelled as a troll, because this is exactly what trolls do - creating topics with the intent of drawing people into prolonged, often personal arguments that actually are far-far removed from the original topic. And frankly, your later comments indicate just that - you are going out of your way to simply say "No, I didn't!" to anyone who practically quotes what you said. This looking more and more like the famous "Argument" from Monty Python...

Basically, if one is able to finish a game about huge fights and combats, many labeled as "invincible" and he is able to win without losing anything, this means that the game is unbalanced and poorly designed. Wars have casualties and it's only logical that a fight called "impossible" or "invincible" should in fact be factually impossible to do, otherwise it makes no sense to even call it that way. To be able to win "impossible" fights with no loss is even more stupid.

The game is hardly unbalanced because someone is able to keep the enemy at bay using debuffs and then reviving his lost units while finding clever ways to regenerate mana and rage (Emerald Green Dragons, Fountain of Magic, etc...) Usually at the point you do this, the AI is limited to one-two disabled or slowed troop, out of mana to cast spells, and there is no way it can do anything to stop the player from doing this. But up until this point, the AI fights and works as intended.

You think HOMMIII was unbalanced, too? I remember playing no-loss campaigns myself back in the nineties - using Blind, Slow, or Resurrect. Heck, one campaign in Armageddon's Blade pits you against a throng of Nagas that you can only defeat by cleverly manipulating them with spells like Blind, Slow or Berserk so that they never reach your units. The battle is practically designed this way. It is not a loophole, or not unbalancing.

If you want to see unbalancing, play Age of Wonders II. Even after patches and fan patches, some races are simply waaaay more powerful then others.

[amyndris]

Originally Posted by BB Shockwave

You think HOMMIII was unbalanced, too? I remember playing no-loss campaigns myself back in the nineties - using Blind, Slow, or Resurrect. Heck, one campaign in Armageddon's Blade pits you against a throng of Nagas that you can only defeat by cleverly manipulating them with spells like Blind, Slow or Berserk so that they never reach your units. The battle is practically designed this way. It is not a loophole, or not unbalancing

Heh, I just played this level 2 weeks ago (I was marathoning through all the old HoMM...finished 1, 2+PoL, 3 and am on AB) and due to level layout, I managed to beat it by bouncing them between two chokepoints using Force Field

It was something like 7 stacks for 500 Naga Queens.