Beating the game with no losses (Paladin)

[jake21]

I'm curious sector - did you reload frequently to avoid losses ? Also i've not quite understood how thorns are used to gain mana. I think I understand how griffen are used with magic spring since they retaliate with every hit (I guess certain demons can also be used this way) but griffens can be a bit difficult to find early in the game.

I've played all three classes on hard and while it was not too difficult I'm not sure I want to play another game on impossible (or any other level ) for a while. While I think I can win on warrior on impossible I'm not sure it is worth the hassle - the step from hard to impossible doesn't seem too large.

[sector24]

On certain fights I did have to reload if I put myself in a position where I accidentally let the last guy attack me and kill himself. But they were all avoidable situations that occurred just because I wasn't paying enough attention or made a mistake. Occasionally I would try out a new unit to see how they worked with my army and if I didn't like them I'd reload. But more often then not, if I got some of my units killed due to my own poor judgement I'd just have to take a couple extra turns at the end of the battle to generate more mana. Even the battle where I lost 2300 fairies in one hit to a stack of ogres, I didn't reload.

I think there's a gap between the people who understand how to milk the combat system for unlimited rage and mana, and those who don't quite get it, which has caused some bickering on the forum. I tried to explain how I did things as best I could, but I'll give another example:

In the Castle Nexy fight to win the heart of the lovely Xeona, I took severe losses and had to generate a lot of mana and rage to replenish my forces. I used summoned thorn stacks to do this, just like I did in many of the regular fights. By the time I had run Xeona out of mana, there was just a single stack of 120 cerberi that I kept alive. There were tons of corpses on the field, so I kept the cerberi asleep with Lullaby long enough for my summoned thorn stacks to turn all the corpses into other stacks. It would not be uncommon in some fights to have 20 stacks of thorns making a living wall 3 hexes deep between my units and the last stack.

120 cerberi is a frightening stack, and they could kill any of my thorn stacks in a single hit and I wouldn't retaliate. But they could only kill 1 per turn so there is literally no danger at this point. You have all the time in the world to generate the mana and rage that you need. So how do you do that?

Generating Rage:
The most obvious way is to use the Inquisitor's Holy Anger ability. The second and slightly less obvious way is to receive damage. You'll get a couple points of rage each turn as the cerberi chew you up, and you can also damage your own units to generate rage. I'll elaborate a little more in a second.

Generating Mana:
Chargers converts rage to mana, but it's not always efficient unless you're lucky with level ups. The primary method of generating mana is the Magic Spring spell. At level 3, it costs 5 mana and lasts 5 rounds (potentially you can recover 25 mana for 5). If you have 15+ INT the duration is extended by 1, so you can recover 30 mana for your investment of 5.

Putting it all together, the best way to generate massive amounts of both rage and mana is with poison cloud. At the end of the turn, cast Magic Spring on one of your thorn stacks adjacent to the cerberi. At the beginning of the next turn, cast Magic Spring on another stack adjacent to the cerberi. Cast Poison Cloud on the cerberi so that it hits both your Magic Springed (Sprung) thorns. There are 120 cerberi, so the cloud won't kill them, but you'll gain 10 mana every time you command a unit to "wait" 6 times in a row. Essentially, for a 10 mana investment, you'll have 60 mana at the end of that turn.

Additionally, every time you "wait" the poison cloud does enough damage to generate 1 rage. Granted, this is not a guarantee. If you're playing on impossible you probably won't get the +1 rage because rage generation is reduced. Also, as the fight wears on the rage generation is reduced by 50%, then 75% and finally it is set to 0 after turn 20. But you really don't need all that much rage. Just enough to Time Back every 2 or 3 turns, and Poison Cloud every 4 or 5 turns.

To speed up the process, every time Reaper is available, have your Inquisitors use their resurrection on someone, and then cast Time Back on them.

So assuming everything is available to be used, you start with:

Loads of thorns
10 mana
10 rage

And two turns later you have:

Still loads of thorns
60 mana
20 rage
1 free res

Now just repeat that as often as necessary to replenish your troops and then finish off the cerberi. This is just one example of how to generate the mana and rage you need for a no losses challenge or just to minimize downtime between fights.

[Zhuangzi]

This is the best explanation of how you do it - cheers. I think shd was on about some exploit using Black Dragons and Invisibility as a way to have zero losses, but I forget what he said. That might have used Poison Cloud too.

For me, there are so many fights in the game (500-600) that I generally wanted them over as quickly as possible. I realise now that if I had been more efficient in the fights I could have completed the game quicker, but no matter. The great thing about this game is that about two months after the release, there are dozens of different strategies to use. It's such a diverse game.

[kennec]

gr8 post sector

[Gatts]

Originally Posted by sector24

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I've cleared about half of Freedom Islands now, the Orc Embassy looks like it's going to be very tough to beat. I have replaced my Archmages with Beholders and found 4 more Royal Thorns. No change in strategy yet.

Fighting orcs is easy when you get vamps -> much easier to make 0-loss tactics. They may be tough - but have plenty of life to be sucked out. (much more than they deal damage )

[Gatts]

Originally Posted by sector24

To speed up the process, every time Reaper is available, have your Inquisitors use their resurrection on someone, and then cast Time Back on them.

I wonder - is not "time back" working only fo the actual round?
From my usage of time back - I understood that it can't be used on "ressurect" my stack that was damaged more than 2 turns behind.

Once I even god message (Your unit did not move this turn - it can't be moved back in time) on my dragons, who were killed (partially) previous turn.

So I wonder if you really can use "time back" rage ability to ressurect units x turns after the cerberus tactics (as I understand - cerbers are luled, you first cast magic spring, poison cloud, another turns you repeat this - so at least one whole turn passed from your last lost normal units... )
Or how should I understand it?

[sector24]

Have your Inquisitors use Resurrection, and then cast Time Back on the Inquisitors. Sorry for the confusion.

Time Back will restore a unit to its former state back 1 turn. So if you use at the very end of the current turn it reverts back 1.99999 turns but never a full 2 turns.

[Kings Bounty Hunter]

Originally Posted by sector24

Yeah, the turtle is no big deal, I think I could beat him 1 Archmage and 2 Griffins if necessary.

Turn 1, move your Griffins forward 4 squares, separate, then move the new group into melee range and defend. Cast Stoneskin on the Griffins. Archmage puts Magic Shield on the Griffins. Turtle deals about 40 damage and pushes them back 1 square.

Turn 2, move your Stoneskin Griffins back into melee range and defend. Cast Magic Spring on the Griffins. Turtle deals about 25-30 damage and pushes them back one square. You gain 5 mana.

Turn 3, move your Griffins back into melee and defend. Cast Healing on them. Turtle deals about 25-30 damage and pushes them back one square. You gain 5 mana.

Repeat turns 1 - 3 until the turtle is dead.

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I've cleared about half of Freedom Islands now, the Orc Embassy looks like it's going to be very tough to beat. I have replaced my Archmages with Beholders and found 4 more Royal Thorns. No change in strategy yet.

In my game the turtle has 4000 health I have

2 Griffins
4 inquisitors
2 mages
2 horseman
3 polar bears

i'm a mage playing on impossible.

Maybe defending the horseman isn't the problem. Killing the turtle is though with 4000 health! I'll try it by placing my unit in front of it's foot.

[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.