roguelike campaign howto

[shade1515]

I managed to complete roguelike campaign. Not the endgame, regular one so far, endgame still in progress but if I fail I won't bother to restart. Here are my tips and observations that might inspire somebody to do same thing.


1 Save - this is crucial part - game saves when you make a big decision or WIN a fight on a mission map or almost any action in the town.
This allows for a certain save cheesing. For example if your character dies - you just click load the roguelike campaign save and it will always load the state right after you completed the previous fight (unless you talk to important NPC and mage a huge decision, which is quite rare, then you are taken to a point where the decision is made).
Also that means if you have NOT finished first fight on a mission map you can return back to town and go on a different mission or change crew! Just do a load any moment before last monster is killed during first mission fight. This alone saved my playthrough on more than a single occasion.
So, in all occasions before make a finishing blow - double check your heroes, their armor/hp and make sure this is the state you wanna save the game, once the fight is over there is no way back.
2 Vanguards are a must, your best source of damage. I recommend Buticea. Stats that you NEED for her - best damage weapon, +AP on kill (2-3), +damage on kill for 2 turns + AP on first turn + movement on first turn. Good stats : +damage after using travel skill, +damage from backstab.
I completed first 2 acts using Tristran and trap build. Which worked wonders while enemies are undead and kind of run into you.
3 My personal composition old gods + tyrant. My exact dream team :
Bouticea - main DD - see vanguard section above, one man army
Lady Isolde - best support in the game. With proper relic and late game passive she can give +2 AP every turn and Bless + 30% damage + 1 AP twice a turn (bless>kill somebody>bless)
Mortred - kind of there, most useless team member, can tank, can disable 2 monsters without resistances with shield charge + lightning strike. Can amplify damage, again only on moster without resistances, so for most part he can't affect monsters that really matter.
Faerie knight - can teleport and backstub for 100 damage. Can properly tank - 4 hits going into ice armor and 2 hits going into mage armor + 30% dodge that works in parallel, can take first 8-10 hits scratch free, which is enough for most battles. I used sir Kay on this slot before getting him. I think I would be better off just using Tristran all the way through. Only downside of Tristran is you have 1 more person competing for swords, while Faerie Knight gets best staff without questions and there are some good ones.
4 The difficulty is off the charts right now, so you need to be careful. I never completed Morgana mission (this is the only mission I had to skip). First fight is just bonkers, so I loaded back to tactical map, afraid of worse to come and I can't afford to be stuck inside a mission I can't complete, it is a game over.
Closest I have been to defeat was on some random level 10 mission, right before Fisher king, in a cathedral. I do not remember the name, but you get teleported right before the fight. The final fight on that mission is off the charts. I really though that my run is over. After some trial and error I used a corner + dead undead bodies and kind of blocked everybody in narrow passage which allowed to get through it. I never faced such challenge again (not counting Morgana mission, obviously).
So level 10 is first difficulty spike, then level 14 is second one. Level 18-19, some missions were challenging, some mission were complete cakewalk for whatever reason, like sudden 14 hp mosters show up from act 1, really.

Here is a video for level 19 OK difficulty mission, no sound, my team is almost at full strength here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdESTWLaRqs shows importance of +AP on kill (2-3), +damage on kill for 2 turns items.



I would recommend it to any turn based game fun, this was a good time and a great game overall! I might reply if you ask specific questions.

[Nagumo]

Mmmmh, i started my very first run on ironman, sadly they won't give us the option to play on normal and ironman, which is for me the best way to play such games.
Good to see that there is a fallback opportunity with your described savecheese, but frankly: Playing Ironman is playing without any save cheeseing, doing it makes Ironman obsolet ;)

[Gnk*]

Originally posted by Nagumo:

but frankly: Playing Ironman is playing without any save cheeseing, doing it makes Ironman obsolet ;)

Pretty much this. Playing Ironman and "save cheesing" is not ironman anymore. :)

[shade1515]

well, it is all nice to have a "correct" ironman, but the game is NOT balanced at the moment, check other posts around and read complains.

at the moment you can face 15 hp monsters 5 levels after a mission with a large group of 200 hp monsters with 20-30 damage/hit.
A random Priest in one of 16-18 level missions brutally murdered my Isolde as it turned out he had 60 damage x2 and he could do 2 attacks in single turn, so he single-handedly burst 240 damage which is more then last boss would do. While this exist in a game, for proper ironman you would have to restart and lose hundred hours of progress. Ability to load before a fight allows some leeway, but it is in a no way a silver bullet.

Ironman is still punishing and there are TONS of ways to screw an entire playthrough. Hell, some folks around here manage to get stuck in normal playthrough, doing so in ironman is 100x easier even with described tricks.

[Gnk*]

Originally posted by shade1515:

Ironman is still punishing and there are TONS of ways to screw an entire playthrough. Hell, some folks around here manage to get stuck in normal playthrough, doing so in ironman is 100x easier even with described tricks.

Yep I agree with you. Hope the devs will better balance the game with the next patches and make Ironman more viable without "tricks". Btw finishing Ironman in the current game state is a huge achievement.

[Snakeeater]

this cheese tactic with the Vanguards is so broken.You make a difficult game to a joke