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#31
10-30-2008, 05:27 AM
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dryads hp per leadership is actually the highest in the game.
also, if there are ever any difficult fights, you can always use the somewhat cheap invisibility tactic. it does somewhat ruin the fun of the game, though, as you can win basically every fight with a single dragon. 
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#32
10-30-2008, 11:26 AM
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You can cast Precision on Beholders, so I suspect their ranged attack is considered an "arrow" of sorts. However, I have not been using my Evil Beholders at all and am doing quite well. I still only have Order 2 so I cannot resurrect them via the spell and have to rely on my Inquisitors. Perhaps if I bit the bullet and got Order 3 I'd find them more useful, but I have had no problems crushing enemy stacks all the way up to overpowering so I'm not going to mess with success.
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#33
10-31-2008, 07:01 AM
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Quote:
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#34
10-31-2008, 11:30 AM
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Sneaking through Demonis was a ton of fun. I managed to pick up all the important spells in the game that I was missing except for Phantom. I have absolutely no magic crystals and a long line of spells to upgrade, but at least now I can calculate how many magic crystals I need to get the spells I want.
I also picked up some very nice artifacts in Demonis. I got a Dragon Tooth Necklace to replace my +4 Defense stone egg thingy. The necklace is +3 Attack, +2 Defense, and +1 INT, so a big upgrade there. I also bought the Sword of Equilibrium from Xeona's castle and completed Isshara's quest to get the whip. The +attack to Demonesses isn't very important to me, but the +1 Fire Damage is very interesting. If you are using low leadership units in large numbers that +1 damage ends up being very powerful. For instance, your peasant stack would do an additional 3000 damage per hit, or your sprites would do an additional 1800 damage, etc. Not very useful for Giants and Dragons though. I have leveled up the Reaper's Time Back skill so that I can turn back the clock on level 1-4 units for 25 rage. This has made fights so much easier. Of course everyone knows that you can put a powerful unit in harm's way and then restore 1.999 turns of losses with Time Back, but it also resets any charges you used in the last 1.999 turns. If my Inquisitors get hit, I make sure to use their Resurrection ability before I Time Back so that I can use it again later in the fight. I'm sure as more powerful charge based units come along this will be a handy trick. Demonis has some interesting recruits available: Demonesses, Demons, Scoffer Imps, Cerberi, Fire Spiders Druids, Black Unicorns, Sprites Necromancers, Black Knights I was tempted to recruit some Druids, but I'm really stomping through the Dwarven lands with my current army so I'm not sure I should switch anyone out. At level 19, the Xeona castle fight with no losses was impossible so I'm going to clear out Mehgard and come back. I am just now beginning to learn the pain of switching out my weapons depending on what the enemy stack contains. If they have dwarves, I can't use the dwarven hammer, if they have humans/elves I can't use the sword of equilibrium, if they have undead use the sword of equilibrium, but if they also have humans then the silver rapier. Annoying.  It'll only get worse when I have 3 weapon slots.
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#35
11-03-2008, 01:08 PM
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I logged a lot of hours this weekend and the game has become a lot more fun. I finished Mehgard and went to the Elven Lands, where I promptly looted the entire continent blind before clearing one stack to get into the land of the dead and robbing that place blind as well.
I also replaced almost my entire army with new units: Royal Thorns -> Dryads Royal Snakes -> Lake Fairies Giants -> Demonesses Shamans -> Evil Beholders Inquisitors -> I can't bear to let these guys go. I don't have tolerance, but with Anga's Ruby the girls' morale is still high, plus I found the Elven Crown which is an additional +1 to elves, and the Marshal's Baton gives +1 morale to Humans. So the mixed army penalty is mostly negated. I would love to replace the Evil Beholders with Sprites, but I searched the entire Elven Lands and they are not for sale. How disappointing, now my Power Puff Girl army is missing the blonde. But honestly I don't need them, this army is ridiculously powerful. Here's how most fights go against low level units: Turn 1 - Send the Lake Fairies in to cripple/destroy the most dangerous stack. Dryads use Lullaby to knock out level 1-3 units. Inquisitors build rage, Evil Beholders mind control any level 4 or 5 unit, Demonesses don't have to do anything. Turn 2 - Lake Fairies cripple/destroy another stack. Dryads summon a huge stack of thorns, then I cast Time Back on them to get the Lullaby and thorns back. I have all my units wait, and after the Lullaby wears off I deal as much damage as I can. Turn 3 - Repeat of Turn 1 Turn 4 - Repeat of Turn 2, except if Reaper is on cooldown use Gift instead of Time Back. With this style of fighting you can go ~20 rounds before you start to lose mana/rage. Lake Fairies generate 3x as much rage as Royal Snakes did, a good critical hit will generate 12 rage, and you get double rage for the last strike of the battle, so sometimes you get +6/+6 at the very end to carry you on to the next fight. In fact, against normal armies I end every fight will full rage and mana so you can just clear the whole continent in one go without ever stopping. Against dragons the fight goes a little differently: Turn 1 - Lake Fairies hit the most powerful non-magic resistant unit (usually Bone Dragons), the Dryads summon thorns, Inquisitors generate rage, Beholders mind control if possible and attack the dragons. Usually the dragons are all up in my business, and I usually lose a few units but more often than not they attack the thorn stack so it's important that you summon them in such a way that they can't breathe fire on you in a line. Demonesses can do 1 of two things here. They can deal heavy physical damage or use their infernal exchange to get a stack of dragons out of the backfield. Meanwhile the rest of the army pummels your Lake Fairies, although you get one counter attack which usually cripples/destroys whoever attacks you. Your turn 1 spell should be Magic Spring if you need mana, or Sacrifice on the Lake Fairies if you need units. Turn 2 - Lake Fairies attack again. Black dragons attack your thorns again hopefully, if not you lose a few units, no big deal. Business as usual, but after all of the enemy units have taken their turn (you get 1 more counterattack with the Lake Fairies) use Time Back on your Lake Fairies. Make sure the hex they started on is not blocked, by the way. So basically your Lake Fairies get 2 massive attacks and 2 massive counter attacks (plus possibly a sacrifice) and they're back to full. Your demonesses plus thorns plus dryads should be able to take out whatever dragons are in your backfield. Resurrect as necessary and finish up the slower units. Items: The elven lands provided me with: Dragon Slayer Shield (+2 Defense, +20% Fire Resistance) Elven Crown (+1000 Leadership, +1 morale to Elves) Some boots that upgrade to Spiked Boots (+2 Defense, +1 Attack) I was also able to clear every item suppression battle with ease. So I also have: Mantle of Wizardry 2 Archmage Staves Great Druid's Staff 2 Marshal's Batons My leadership at level 22 was 15,500. I decided to take a detour and go back to dwarven territory to tie up some loose ends. First, I had finally touched all the obelisks so I got the map and traded it for the Mithril Shield. Second, I defeated my double twice. I used Dryads, Lake Fairies, Inquisitors, Royal Snakes, and I bought Miners because they were right there. Using the Lullaby - Time Back - Lullaby - Gift combo I defeated both armies without my double ever being able to cast a spell. Third and most importantly, I went to Demonis to win myself a worthy wife. The castle Nexy fight is tough, and what made it worse was that I didn't have level 3 Magic Shackles. I was 5 crystals short, which made me seriously regret learning spells like Battle Cry which I have not used even a single time. Anyway, the fight consists of 3 stacks of Cerberi, one huge stack of Imps, 2 huge stacks of Demonesses, and a little stack of Knights and Catapults. I started the fight with an Underground Blades and a Geyser to thin out the stacks a bit, and sent my Lake Fairies to wear down the Demonesses. The Dryads could put the Cerberi and the Scoffer Imps to sleep, leaving just 2 stacks of Demonesses and the Knights. My Evil Beholders mind controlled the Knights and had them attack the Demonesses, nearly killing themselves in the counter attack. The nice thing about Demoness vs. Demoness combat is that when they make a bad Infernal Exchange, you can undo it with your own. If the Demonesses swapped one of my units with a sleeping unit, I didn't care, but whenever one Demoness swapped the other into my back lines, I swapper her back out. That kept my Inquisitors and Beholders firing on the Demonesses and wearing them down. Using the Lullaby - Time Back - Lullaby - Gift strategy I kept half of Xeona's army asleep for the entire battle, and whittled down the Demonesses and Xeona's Demon Portals. I took severe losses, but once I knocked out all the level 4 units, Xeona couldn't cast anymore and I could start producing insane amounts of thorns. I then used the Poison Cloud + Mana Spring trick plus Chargers to get my mana back. Because I had 15 INT, Mana Spring returned 30 mana and only cost 5. I think I spent 10 turns killing Xeona's army and then 20 turns resurrecting my losses. But I won and that's all that matters. So I'm headed back to the Elven Lands now. I'm really hoping that one of the questgivers turned shops in the Elven Lands sells Sprites. That would make me so happy. But I'm not holding my breath. I also can't buy Hunters anywhere, but at least I got a friendly troop of 43 of them garrisoned so I could sacrifice them up if I needed to. I plan on clearing out the rest of the Elven Lands and then killing the undead.
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#36
11-03-2008, 04:14 PM
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Hey Sector 24. Nice effort there will be interesting to know how u did in the end game where u are facing Bigger armies. I am tackling this game on IMP with a paladin and managed to lose only few units only on the most difficult of battles (or when my time get short and i have to wrap it up
).I use a different creatures than what u use.IMO shaman is one of the best supporting units and great board control, tnx to the totems totems i did the kraken and the spider with 0 loses (u can control where the little spiders or the Devilfishes spawn and the death totem zaps them) so he is always onboard. even though Knights are slow they are very strong and late game creatures can either shoot u or get to u on 1st round so their speed is not an issue. Demons and arch demons are great!!! especially when facing dragons. green dragons are also great creatures and help to generate mana. and last but not least the horsemen. In order to gen mana i use the mana spring spell (if i am lucky enough to encounter a no ret creature) or after withering the Mobs out I blind the last stack and i rage take (spirit of death) / Charges (Ice spirit) and that gives huge amount of mana but takes a lot of time. Good luck on ur quest, will be interesting to know how u did .
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#37
11-03-2008, 05:19 PM
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I wanted to keep the shamans, but they suffer -2 morale with the demonesses in my army. Inquisitors only suffer -1 due to the Marshall's Baton. Although to be honest neither unit is there for their damage dealing capabilities so I guess it doesn't matter too much. I guess I'm still used to HoMM where your unit could have a critical morale failure and lose their turn.
Looking back at my Demonis post, I noticed that I had found Sprites somewhere. So fresh off my siege of Castle Nexy I scoured the place and found that the human merchant there had 109 Sprites. Awesome. On my lunch break I tackled the level 30 arena fight. I wasn't taking it too seriously; I started the fight with 0 rage when I normally would have gotten at least enough to start the fight with Underground Blades, and my 5th unit was 109/2000+ Sprites. I used my opening spell to Hypnotize one of the Knights, and used my Demonesses to charm the other stack. This kept the dragons busy, and Lullaby knocked out the dragonflies. I did take quite a few losses to the dragons mostly because they can fly over everything so I couldn't physically block them like I do with most units. However, I took control of the fight and eventually there were just 25 Knights left. Because their speed is so slow, I had several methods of control here. First, I could use the Demoness to charm them, although a failed charm would kill the stack. Second, I could use the infernal swap to place them on the far side of the board. Third, I could just run away. This gave me plenty of time to not only resurrect my losses but also generate about 500 extra Sprites with Sacrifice. One of the things I didn't highlight in my last post was that you can cast Sacrifice two times before you use Time Back to double your efficiency. However, a full stack of Sprites is over 2000 and I only get 130 for each Sacrifice, so it's going to take several battles to reach capacity. I just made level 23 and here are my stats: 16662 Leadership 19 Attack (Using only Isshara's Whip. Xeona has 2 weapon slots but I swap the weapons out depending on what I'm fighting) 30 Defense 17 INT
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#38
11-04-2008, 12:00 AM
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Quote:
 ) and the problem with charm is that it works on low leadership score. I have ~21k leadership at lvl 26 and since lvl 18 I am facing chalges of stong and above constently (It became very strong and above recently) so charm would not work on enemy stack. I use blind and trap (only if i know exactly where the enemy will move next or to block chock points) for control and laer on mana spring and resurection with ocational sacrifice if a dragon/archdemon dies. I am seriusly lacking in the spell department (for example i got fire rain at lvl 16 and armagedon/sheep at lvl 24 I still dont have Hypnotize) so i leared to do with what i have. though armagedon has it advantages I never use it since it damages ur units also and i try to keep my losses at 0.
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