random rambling about this game (spoilers)

[Scathe]

I go in detail about my current game and alot of my past games (I've played this way too much) also some thoughts about what I might be able to do to interest myself enough to play all the way through another run sometime in the future.

so my current run is going well, kinda too well. I'm using emerald green dragons, shamans, inquisitors, evil beholders, and veteran orcs. I'm only playing on hard, only level 18, and only just started clearing ardan's peaks, but already this team is feeling way too good, I just cleared an enemy hero unit (giant unit) that rated as "strong" against me, cleared it with not just no losses but also finished the fight with near full mana, yeah, feels too easy. most of the other fights in the area rate as "weak" or "slightly weaker" against me.

for the easier fights I am using a bit of mana though. most fights start with casting target on my emerald green dragons on turn one after the emerald dragon's turn, then rounds two and three I cast healing on them. then I get the enemy wittled down to just one small stack of slow moving melee units left, then my dragons and orcs clear away from that unit and I drop down an ice ball or a shaman defensive totem for that unit to spend it's time slowly beating down, and the totems reload is faster than that unit can kill the totems. then I cast peacefulness (rank3, 6turns) on the emerald green dragons and get them healed to full (1050health) then with my 21 intellect paladin and 2 points in destroyer I cast sacrifice (rank1) on the dragons and it only does 1005 damage, so I can use the next two turns healing them for another sacrifice. there were only 94 veteran orcs for hire on the whole game this game(yeah, for the first time after over 6 winning runs, I checked KBscanner at the start, wanted specific units this time, wanted to try various orcs), but I'm already up to 82 on the field and 144 in reserve thanks to sacrifice. this is the first time I've relied on sacrifice to keep a unit at full strength. with peacefulness and sacrifice I can get like 16-20 veteran orcs added per easy battle.

this strategy of building up more units with sacrifice is not making the game more fun, however, it is making it a bit boring honestly. in my first 4-5 times through the game, I used lower level units, and just kept extras in reserve for expected attrition, and losing a few units even in easy battles didn't bother me at all. I often turned to sea dogs, and used them, and casted mass haste on the first turn and smashed my line into the enemy line, less thinking I know, but battles had a faster pace and the game finished faster. now that I'm buying into the idea of dragging fights out long after they should be over, yeah, not as fun. I am very curious to see what my casualties count would be if I can manage to stick this game out to the end though. at level 18 I've already wasted 21 days, so beating my previous high score is definately out of the question since that whole game was only 18 days. I bet I'll finish with less than half the casualties though, my highest scoring run had almost 5000.

So I mentioned using KBscanner for the first time this run. what I was looking for was interesting orc units early, found catapults, furious goblins, and shamans in the orc embassy early, tried the catapults and furious goblins for a while, was not impressed. also there were goblins in shaman karrak's tower in magic valley, was not impressed with them either, couldnt justify keeping any of them around over evil beholders.

also I wanted to find with KBscanner a wife with the first baby being useful. I know this is just a game, but I hate the idea of divorce, so for me that pretty much takes marrying xeona or neoka out of the equation, because getting to either of them requires too much of the game, you should probably be level 20 for neoka and level 22 for xeona, and I usually beat the game by around level 24. there is just no benefit there, far too few battles between marrying them and the end of the game for me. the logical thing gamer wise to do if you wanted to marry either of them is marry someone else first and divorce them when you get there, yeah, I'm not getting a divorce in this game, I hate divorce. by contrast you can get gerda and mirabella both at around level 12, and feanora and rina both at around level 6. plenty of game left to play for all 4 of them.

this game I found gerda with a +5 defense baby first in her fourth slot(regalia?) and a +20% defense baby next in her boots slot. seemed to be strong to me, shield slot still open, mithril shield in every game, and this game has rahha's shield too. also for the early game I found a +3defense shield for her and a barbarian's shield for me. I had the barbarian's shield since level 5 since that was when I took my first trip to pirate islands (you can find kanatos's head randomly on a pedestal there for the taking, cannot turn it in unless you haven't done the "new peace pact" quest yet, not sure it always spawns or not) , the trip also netted me enough gold just from running around looting and not fighting anything to buy a banner of true faith from the knight's temple in greenwort (something else I wanted to find early on KBscanner) . I also randomly found a pain skull in a cache in a tree in eastern islands. that was a big jump in power when I upgraded it to a dead skull after 50 battles too. I also made sure to find a start with both the target and sacrifice spells available fairly early.

So recently I noticed the Battle Axe weapon for sale in my current run from the dwarf king, the weapon adds +20% damage to all warriors armed with cold steel weapons, whatever that means. so I saved it, bought the thing and equipped it, and traveled around finding out what units it all effects. so far I've noticed it works for my veteran orcs, orcs, furious goblins, demons, guardsmen, swordsmen, sea dogs, and dwarves. I was wondering if anyone noticed any other units it works for and would actually suggest using it for that unit, and what a good team to look for for battle axe might look like? I'm thinking sea dogs, veteran orcs, demons, and scoffer imps might be a team that'd be different enough from my other runs to try, but not sure about a 5th unit, maybe another demonic unit but not demonesses or cerberuses since I used them with sea dogs and demons once before.

well I salute you if you read all the way through this massive post

[Mako]

Could you remove the text from under the spoiler?
I cannot copy text to add it to google translite

[Scathe]

Mako님이 먼저 게시:

Could you remove the text from under the spoiler?
I cannot copy text to add it to google translite :ProblemBear:

done removing spoiler.

[AwakenOne2010]

Wait until you meeting level 5 enemy units especially those annoying black dragons, they get to you so fast and totally ignore your target spell and reck havoc on your other team units! I also use the target spell tactics on my level 3 Griffins but these level 5 enemy units just ignore it and instead target anything else except it Lol.

In KB darkside, the battle axe gives 30% crit increase for axe weilding units. So, I just looked for axe weilding unit as my tank and 'executor' demon was the best due to the 'furious' (always retaliate ability). In KB Legend, demon which you are already using is very good because of the 'furious' ability. Griffin is also very good as tank due to the same ability.

I have used Veteran orcs in KB Darkside which is very good for the counter-the-counter ability but still not as good as the Demon 'furious' ability.

Your suggested team (vet orcs, demons, sea dogs and scoffer imps) demands a very aggressive strategy where you must rush your enemies asap as you lack range attackers. I am not used to your aggressive rushing strategy since it is difficult to minimise casualties. But it is something I may also consider in the future for a different kind of challenge.

[AwakenOne2010]

Your emerald dragons, can they be revived with the sacrifice spell? In KB Darkside, you cant revive level 5 units using sacrifice spell.

[AwakenOne2010]

In my current Normal playthrough, I encounter a few 'very strong' enemies but still able to win without lost thanks to inquisitors and resurrect spell.

[Scathe]

AwakenOne2010님이 먼저 게시:

Your emerald dragons, can they be revived with the sacrifice spell? In KB Darkside, you cant revive level 5 units using sacrifice spell.

no no, I cast sacrifice on them first, the other units are being revived... the emerald dragons have enough health with peacefulness and I have a low enough intellect that I don't lose any dragons. 1050 health on dragons, 1005 damage with sacrifice.

[Scathe]

healing spell only heals 930 health so it takes two turns to heal them back to full for the next sacrifice.

[Scathe]

glass cannon units such as sea dogs and thorn hunters fit the warrior (Bill Gilbert) much better than mage or paladin, since they take better advantage of the leadership stat. it is hard to get enough magic runes for all the good stuff in the mage tree as warrior, so focusing on distortion magic 3, flat mana boost at the start of the tree, and then order magic 3 I find more effective than going down the tree to concentration and chaos magic. paladin and mage get enough magic runes to fill out the tree well, on the other hand.

[Scathe]

AwakenOne2010님이 먼저 게시:

Your emerald dragons, can they be revived with the sacrifice spell? In KB Darkside, you cant revive level 5 units using sacrifice spell.

I have checked, and currently they cannot be revived with the spell, but I am not sure if this is because the spell does not work on level 5 units, or because my rank 1 spell only revives 502.5 health worth of units and the dragons have 700 health without peacefulness, more than 1 full spell each.

[Mako]

I want to say in advance that my native language is Russian and I try to understand most of English through a Google translator.

You got a very interesting story about your adventures in this great game. I myself really love this game, maybe that's why I spent about 200 hours on one perfect walkthrough.

Sorry, but I didn’t understand what you wanted to know by writing this post.

If you want, I can share with you several tactics that you can play the game without loss at the last level of difficulty.

My record for which I spent about 200 hours and 3 hours preparing the save through a program that allows you to scan the save to the smallest detail.
1612 points in the table, 13 game days, 100 tasks, last difficulty, 0 losses, 3 bosses, 69 enemy heroes killed.

What disappointed me on the last difficulty was that the last boss of the game was much, much easier than the demon Baal. On the battle with Baal, I spent about 2-3 hours to go through it without loss. When, as the last boss of the game was completed on the first try, it is sad.

[Scathe]

AwakenOne2010님이 먼저 게시:

Wait until you meeting level 5 enemy units especially those annoying black dragons, they get to you so fast and totally ignore your target spell and reck havoc on your other team units! I also use the target spell tactics on my level 3 Griffins but these level 5 enemy units just ignore it and instead target anything else except it Lol.

In KB darkside, the battle axe gives 30% crit increase for axe weilding units. So, I just looked for axe weilding unit as my tank and 'executor' demon was the best due to the 'furious' (always retaliate ability). In KB Legend, demon which you are already using is very good because of the 'furious' ability. Griffin is also very good as tank due to the same ability.

I have used Veteran orcs in KB Darkside which is very good for the counter-the-counter ability but still not as good as the Demon 'furious' ability.

Your suggested team (vet orcs, demons, sea dogs and scoffer imps) demands a very aggressive strategy where you must rush your enemies asap as you lack range attackers. I am not used to your aggressive rushing strategy since it is difficult to minimise casualties. But it is something I may also consider in the future for a different kind of challenge.

I have plenty of experience with teams similar to that suggested team. the only fight I'd really suggest adjusting the formation for is general karador. I'd add either dryads, thorn hunters, or royal thorns to summon thorns out of corpses, blocking his ability to use those corpses himself, or else add shamans to drop totems on corpses.

as for black dragons, most of the fights with them aren't mandatory. dodging through the dragon's labyrinth avoiding fights.. yeah.. like I said I usually win by level 24.

[Scathe]

Mako님이 먼저 게시:

I want to say in advance that my native language is Russian and I try to understand most of English through a Google translator.

You got a very interesting story about your adventures in this great game. I myself really love this game, maybe that's why I spent about 200 hours on one perfect walkthrough.

Sorry, but I didn’t understand what you wanted to know by writing this post.

If you want, I can share with you several tactics that you can play the game without loss at the last level of difficulty.

My record for which I spent about 200 hours and 3 hours preparing the save through a program that allows you to scan the save to the smallest detail.
1612 points in the table, 13 game days, 100 tasks, last difficulty, 0 losses, 3 bosses, 69 enemy heroes killed.

What disappointed me on the last difficulty was that the last boss of the game was much, much easier than the demon Baal. On the battle with Baal, I spent about 2-3 hours to go through it without loss. When, as the last boss of the game was completed on the first try, it is sad.

I didn't really have a set goal of using this post to learn anything at all, I mostly just wanted to vent my current frustration with my run and share my experience and maybe get some people talking about this game in this forum again.

edit - I also wanted to get some of that written down somewhere for my own future use checking back here.

[Mako]

Scathe님이 먼저 게시:

Mako님이 먼저 게시:

I want to say in advance that my native language is Russian and I try to understand most of English through a Google translator.

You got a very interesting story about your adventures in this great game. I myself really love this game, maybe that's why I spent about 200 hours on one perfect walkthrough.

Sorry, but I didn’t understand what you wanted to know by writing this post.

If you want, I can share with you several tactics that you can play the game without loss at the last level of difficulty.

My record for which I spent about 200 hours and 3 hours preparing the save through a program that allows you to scan the save to the smallest detail.
1612 points in the table, 13 game days, 100 tasks, last difficulty, 0 losses, 3 bosses, 69 enemy heroes killed.

What disappointed me on the last difficulty was that the last boss of the game was much, much easier than the demon Baal. On the battle with Baal, I spent about 2-3 hours to go through it without loss. When, as the last boss of the game was completed on the first try, it is sad.

I didn't really have a set goal of using this post to learn anything at all, I mostly just wanted to vent my current frustration with my run and share my experience and maybe get some people talking about this game in this forum again.

edit - I also wanted to get some of that written down somewhere for my own future use checking back here.

The game is random when creating each new save, so it is not surprising that you can be disappointed in the game playing at high difficulty and have different problems.

Without using third-party software, I ruined my first lossless walkthrough because the game did not give me the necessary artifacts for Intellect.

In the end, I did not have enough damage to kill the enemy troops, it has already begun on the island of Elves.

[Scathe]

AwakenOne2010님이 먼저 게시:

Your suggested team (vet orcs, demons, sea dogs and scoffer imps) demands a very aggressive strategy where you must rush your enemies asap as you lack range attackers. I am not used to your aggressive rushing strategy since it is difficult to minimise casualties. But it is something I may also consider in the future for a different kind of challenge.

another thing, demoness would be a great 5th for this team, use her ability to swap their best ranged attacker into the middle of your group and drop your sea dogs or demons in the midst of the enemy. hopefully the sea dog can kill another ranged attacker and that is all their ranged, while the rest of your group mows down the one unit you dropped in on your half. then, you time back the sea dogs to their starting position with reaper (requires killing the unit dropped on your end fast) plus the scoffer imp does have some fireballs it can kill some ranged units with. but yeah, lots of ranged units would still demand mass haste and rush.

I only have two games on my records on my current computer because my first 4 playthroughs were on an older computer, but my game times are 18 game days, 41 playing hours for my best game, and 23 game days, 35 playing hours for one where I used sea dogs, royal snakes, polar bears, one other melee unit I forget what(maybe griffins?), and evil beholders.

[AwakenOne2010]

Scathe님이 먼저 게시:

glass cannon units such as sea dogs and thorn hunters fit the warrior (Bill Gilbert) much better than mage or paladin, since they take better advantage of the leadership stat. it is hard to get enough magic runes for all the good stuff in the mage tree as warrior, so focusing on distortion magic 3, flat mana boost at the start of the tree, and then order magic 3 I find more effective than going down the tree to concentration and chaos magic. paladin and mage get enough magic runes to fill out the tree well, on the other hand.

As warrior, it makes sense to go distortion route since your intellect is low and both order and chaos magic needs high intellects to be most effective. I find eating the roosted rats in exchange of 2 mana & 2 rage for 50 leaderships is much better than taking mana or rage on level up. I always go for leaderships, defense, attack or intellect. You can get unlimited roosted rats from miner dwarfs by keep talking to them.

I didn't use Paladin hero in the past but now I find it even better than the warrior or mage hero because of the 10 spirit runes for 10 might runes + 10 magic runes. My current Paladin hero can pretty much fill up all 3 trees!