Beating the game with no losses (Paladin)

[Shd]

Sector24, good luck in your adventure to complete wo looses...

Some hints from my mage (impossible, 0 looses):

1. Dont count on necromancy talent (if nothing is changed then ressurected units by talent is counted as "killed")
2. Be careful to not overupgrade spells/SR skills (sacrifice, time back etc.). I made such mistake, so in my opinion Sacrifice must be lvl 1, time back - up to lvl 2-3 units... But anyway, it is heavily depending on your gamestyle and Paladin one will differ from Mage one
3. All lvlup upgrades must be aimed toward tactic you will use against dragons (Because when you will get dryads from elves till dragons fights will be "piece of cake").... Just you must know what to do, if there will be 3-4 stacks of them with about 10 in each (there Mage tactic will not work, so i suppose i cannot help you much ).
4. Dont dismiss armies (not sure if it can hurt in straight way, but it really helped me in some fights when i got forest spirits (15 from mage strating army multiplied by hypnosis+sacrifice) before reaching elflands), just put them in garrisons.
5. Always have enough money to completly change your army. I needed to change it at least 5-6 times.
6. Dont expect "high" score at the end, because AFAIK its based on time spent (not killed/loss koeficient), for example mine was less than 800 when i played wo looses.
7. And last one... If you want to make such game interesting - dont use cheating tactics like greens+invisibility etc...


P.S. Killing turtle without looses is very easy. Just block her head with melee unit (cavalry will suffice). In such case she will not use AoE damage spell and knockbacks.

P.P.S. Killing "old double" is easy if you using dryads+ring+gift.

P.P.P.S. Beware of undeads, but as Paladin it can be more easy that as Mage

P.P.P.P.S. Most hard part will be dragons, i suppose... But, who knows...


Good luck and keep us informed of your progress

[kennec]

this is good reading.


anyone have tips for a paladin against unded hordes of ghosts and skeleton archers and legions of vampiers.

[sector24]

The most important thing to do when fighting undead is to use the right damage types against the right enemies. Ghosts have 50% physical resistance, skeletons and bone dragons are resistant to projectiles, etc. Typically the ghosts are the highest priority for me because they have high initiative (cursed ghosts move before my royal snakes so I can't cast first) and they have movement 4. I can usually trip up vampires with a death totem, and the bone skeletons die in droves after the ghosts are gone. So a generic undead fight (abandoned castle for instance) goes like this:

Turn 1:
Ghosts rush me, I have my royal snakes wait. I put Holy Anger on my beholders and they blast cursed ghosts, or the biggest stack of ghosts or skeleton archers if there are none. My shamans put a death totem in the back to waste the vampire/skeleton turns. Royal thorns summon a stack of thorns, I put Mana Spring on them, and then my royal snakes lunge at the cursed ghosts.

Turn 2: The cursed ghosts will either attack the summoned thorns (I get my mana back) or my inquisitors and I'll lose a few but the cursed ghosts will nearly kill themselves. Royal snakes attack the cursed ghosts in such a way that the regular ghosts are forced to attack the summoned thorn stack. If that's not possible, I have my shamans put a totem of life down so that the summoned thorns + the totem block the ghosts from getting to the snakes. Inquisitors and Beholders hit the skeleton archers. The battle is all but won at this point. The vampires are 2 turns away from hitting anything because they went back to kill the death totem, there's maybe a stack of ghosts and 1 or 2 crippled stacks of skeleton archers.

You can use the healing spell for direct damage against undead. It has a very efficient damage to mana ratio. If you can't take out a stack of cursed ghosts halfway through the 2nd turn, the enemies might just be a little too tough for your current leadership level. There are also some undead specific artifacts such as the silver rapier (+30% damage to undead) and silver chain )+1 intellect, -2 defense to undead). I found 2 silver rapiers in the Freedom Isles, I can't wait to marry the demoness so I can wield them at the same time.

[sector24]

I finally finished the Freedom Isles, my character is level 15 and I have 5700 leadership. 11 Attack, 22 Defense, 10 Intellect, which I feel is pretty good at my level. Sleem is level 22 and Zerock is level 17. I let my underground blades get a little out of control, it costs 37 rage (although it pretty much wipes entire armies off the board).

I am finding that I made some choices that I regret concerning my character. First, I took Rockfall when I should have skipped it, and I even upgraded it once because my other choice was to increase the stone wall's life to 300 (and increase the cost by 5 rage). Two wasted levels probably won't make a big difference in the long run though.

In the skill tree I took 3/3 Glory which in retrospect was too expensive for what you get. 500 leadership sounds like a lot when you're level 8, but at the higher levels, the leadership bonus from a level up dwarfs that. I would have preferred to have spent the might runes towards onslaught so dragons don't tear me a new one on the first turn. I have had serious problems getting might runes in my game, although magic runes are abundant so it's not that big a deal. If I find enough might runes to get what I need by the time I'm fighting big stacks of dragons, then it will probably turn out to be nothing.

In the mind tree I have 2 Order, 3 Distortion, and 2 Chaos, and I'm not really sure what to do with my mind runes from here. I would like to get the last 2 points of concentration, not that I need the mana but it does make all the fights easier if I had it. I have fire rain and ice snake as my primary damage spells, but I regret using the magic crystals on Ice Snake because the damage is awful for a Paladin and the freeze effect isn't high enough. It probably won't matter, but we'll see. I still haven't found Hypnotize, Phantom, Phoenix, Sacrifice and a few other useful spells.

I feel like Paladins need to be very careful about spending their mind runes because everything in that skill tree is so expensive, so I can't really afford to make a mistake. I need to decide to either go for the spell damage skill at the bottom of the tree, or get concentration and extra mana. I'll probably hold onto them until I reach a point in the game that I can't continue.

Going back to Darion was fun, the abandoned castle was a breeze, the undead castle in the marsh was challenging but not frustrating. I beat the gorgon in the arena which was a real pain due to her incredible initiative. I am now regretting not leaving more enemies alive in Greenwort, I have 2 arena battles to go and no one to build rage off of. I guess potions will have to do, but it's much easier to drag out an easy fight than it is to use the few consumables that the game provides. I have only found 2 rage potions in the entire game so far. I haven't tried the level 15 fight. I'm sure I could win, but probably not without losses. The archmage's staff is also best left for later.

As awesome as royal thorns are, they are becoming quite a liability against enemy heroes. Their fire vulnerability ruins me when the opponent has alchemists, dragons, fireball or flaming arrow. Since I don't have sacrifice or time back I have to reload the fight if I lose one. They're still great for 90% of the fights in the game, but I really need to find a replacement soon. I will be heading into the mines tonight, so we'll see what they have to offer.

[Zhuangzi]

About needing weak enemies around the place, I had this problem too because I tend to clear everything out methodically. I need easy fights to use Sacrifice on Peasants to replenish my expensive units. Then I realised that I habitually leave the neutral Griffins on Griffin Island in Arlania alive. But you can turn them hostile by stealing their egg from beneath them. That's a pretty low thing to do, but if need an easy fight...

[sector24]

More good luck, I found 10 cyclopes at the castle in Creiston Mines, so I was able to finish up that stupid quest for the rare animals and replace my royal thorns against fire based enemies. I think it's amusing that it costs 5000g to buy a cyclops and the reward is 4000g.

The dwarven lands are severely underwhelming after cutting my teeth against pirates. Most fights are "match" or "slightly weaker" which I guess makes sense because not every player would take the time to kill every single army they came across and do every single quest. So it seems I'm overleveled for this area.

I have used the lull to level up Lina, I summon her at least once every fight, although I think I've had some back luck on the actual level up bonuses. Twice, I've had the option to increase either the ice ball's offensive or defensive stats. So basically my level up had to be applied to the ice ball no matter what, and the rage cost went up. It costs 30 rage now which is too expensive for what it does in my opinion. Thankfully Gizmo is still only 12, and I can always use chargers which basically trades 6 rage for 4 mana.

The boss in laboratory 44 was also very easy. I used my royal thorns to summon thorn stacks, which summoned more thorn stacks, and I used my shamans to drop totems on the outside hexes, until I had filled the entire battlefield. If the boss decided to summon allies but there aren't enough hexes open, it just skips its turn. So basically royal thorns = free pass on this fight, and the 6600xp puts me just short of level 17.

I think this fight needs a boost. At a minimum, if the summon allies action isn't possible the boss should attack, but I think possibly the boss needs a 3rd type of attack to prevent the royal thorns exploit. Perhaps spitting webs on everyone causing mass slow (so it's harder to raise all the thorn stacks), or spitting poison on everything causing a 3-round poison debuff. I don't know, something. I mean at least the Kraken could hit multiple stacks each turn so it was pretty much impossible to fill the screen with thorns. This boss was not challenging at all.

Going to keep poking out the eyes of beholders and cyclopes over the weekend and see how far I get.

[sector24]

Traveling further into Dwarven territory I was able to finally find some Evil Beholders to replace my normal ones, and Giants to replace the Cyclopes. Giants can be healed with the Shaman's Axe Dance, and with my intellect I can heal 360hp for 2 mana which is a big improvement over the Cyclopes which could only be healed with Gizmo. I also found 4 Sacrifice scrolls buried under some tracks in Lower Hadar so I promptly dived into the Gremlin Castle and using the fights there to generate unlimited mana while I maxed out my stack of Royal Thorns. Giants are now one of my favorite opponents.

Since they use their Earthquake ability every other turn, you are guaranteed to get your mana back from Mana Spring, and at level 3 it lasts 5 turns so you are guaranteed to make at least 10 mana out of every 5 you spend. Also since Giants have 900 hp each, they are not prone to accidental death. So in order to create the Mana Spring loop I had to whittle a stack of Giants down to just 1, and leave my Royal Snakes and Inquisitors inside the field of a totem of life. The Earthquake damage was not enough to kill 1, and at the beginning of every turn the stack was healed. However, it takes 40 mana to create 2 Royal Thorns, so this was a fairly tedious process.

Unfortunately I cleared out all the Giants and my favorite enemy has been replaced by dragons and demons. These guys are seriously difficult for my army of relatively low HP units. The Royal Thorns are actually better than Evil Beholders here, but I have to put Glot's Armor on them to keep them alive, which reduces my damage output. Still, the dragons love to burn my summoned thorn stacks and that keeps my important units alive. I have cleared Ardan's Peak and am prepared to storm the underground there, I have cleared the Gremlin Castle except for the last three armies guarding the dragon eggs (those are listed as overpowering) and there's one area in Taron Mines I decided to skip because the armies there were a tad too difficult.

[ywhtptgt]

Originally Posted by sector24

More good luck, I found 10 cyclopes at the castle in Creiston Mines, so I was able to finish up that stupid quest for the rare animals and replace my royal thorns against fire based enemies. I think it's amusing that it costs 5000g to buy a cyclops and the reward is 4000g.

The dwarven lands are severely underwhelming after cutting my teeth against pirates. Most fights are "match" or "slightly weaker" which I guess makes sense because not every player would take the time to kill every single army they came across and do every single quest. So it seems I'm overleveled for this area.

I have used the lull to level up Lina, I summon her at least once every fight, although I think I've had some back luck on the actual level up bonuses. Twice, I've had the option to increase either the ice ball's offensive or defensive stats. So basically my level up had to be applied to the ice ball no matter what, and the rage cost went up. It costs 30 rage now which is too expensive for what it does in my opinion. Thankfully Gizmo is still only 12, and I can always use chargers which basically trades 6 rage for 4 mana.

The boss in laboratory 44 was also very easy. I used my royal thorns to summon thorn stacks, which summoned more thorn stacks, and I used my shamans to drop totems on the outside hexes, until I had filled the entire battlefield. If the boss decided to summon allies but there aren't enough hexes open, it just skips its turn. So basically royal thorns = free pass on this fight, and the 6600xp puts me just short of level 17.

I think this fight needs a boost. At a minimum, if the summon allies action isn't possible the boss should attack, but I think possibly the boss needs a 3rd type of attack to prevent the royal thorns exploit. Perhaps spitting webs on everyone causing mass slow (so it's harder to raise all the thorn stacks), or spitting poison on everything causing a 3-round poison debuff. I don't know, something. I mean at least the Kraken could hit multiple stacks each turn so it was pretty much impossible to fill the screen with thorns. This boss was not challenging at all.

The spider boss is easy to kill no matter what... By the time you reach the dwarves, killing stacks of 100+ spiders without magic should be easy enough. The boss does pretty much nothing unless you stand next to it.

[Handel]

Originally Posted by Zhuangzi

About needing weak enemies around the place, I had this problem too because I tend to clear everything out methodically. I need easy fights to use Sacrifice on Peasants to replenish my expensive units. Then I realised that I habitually leave the neutral Griffins on Griffin Island in Arlania alive. But you can turn them hostile by stealing their egg from beneath them. That's a pretty low thing to do, but if need an easy fight...

Explain me please the trick with those easy fights? How you can replenish depleted expensive units?

[Gatts]

Originally Posted by Handel

Explain me please the trick with those easy fights? How you can replenish depleted expensive units?

Do you know Sacrifice Spell?
It kills x units of one of your stacks (gains x HP capped by your INT / sacrifice level in conjustion with the HP of killed units)
then you select other of your other four stacks (not the same ) - and it will gain the HPs from the damaged stack and use it to replenish / revive / or add new units. If the second stack did not receive any damage in the easy fignt - you will end the fight with more units than you started it. This comes quite hande if you found only limited number of very good units (like archdemons... ) but you can have more in your army than they are selling... by using sacrifice you can pull them on your max leadership level.