Freedom Islands on hard, how to avoid losses?

[balmora pete]

I am playing on hard, am a paladin. Have 5084 leadership, 7 attack, 19 defense and 12 intellect. It is getting a bit tough, there are no more "very weak" or "weak" armies to destroy. I worry for the future and wonder if hard difficulty was a mistake.

Currently use Ancient Bears, Royal Snakes, Inquisitors, Beholders and Archmages.

Is there any advice? Should I just give up and play a later game? I do not want to restart, but I could

[Andrey]

You dont have to clear zones in the first visit. You can leave strong enemies behind and return to them later.
Inquisitors can resurect one unit near the end of combat. If it is the only option then your goal is to have only one unit with losses - this is highly dependent on luck and requires reloading. But as a Paladin you should have Resurection spell (you always have this scroll at the start of the game and can learn it - this is very big advantage of paladins because scrolls are random and high level scrolls are hard to get).
More shooters are good. Royal snakes are very good close combat units but bears will definitely die from retaliations. You can use human archers instead (but enemies like to atack them).
Your goal is to stop/disable enemies: beholders put them on sleep (100% for level 1), archmages can destroy action points. Slow, trap, fear, blind spells, freeze arrow of archers. Rage abilities (did you activate rage spirits?): wall, bubble. This way you can kill even not weak armies consisting of low level, not ranged units.

Also you can resurect your losses at the end of combat. Resurection spell. Phantom spell: you copy Inquisitors and use their resurection. ~Gift spell to restore resurection charge of your Inquisitors. This way you can restore even relatively heavy losses.
Where to get mana - (maybe later) you can farm it at the end of combat. Keep some low level almost killed enemy unit (usually ranged or something very slow or unit without retaliation - so it can live long)
1. Magic shield spell (5 mana on hit). Usefull with no-retaliation enemy. Also if your unit are standing close to ranged enemy then it usually steps away and shoot it (but i am not sure they do it 100% - they can hit in melee and die from retaliation)
2. Inquisitors (including copies) can generate rage and you can convert it into mana (later)
3. passive ability +2, +4... mana each turn.

[balmora pete]

Originally posted by Andrey:

You dont have to clear zones in the first visit. You can leave strong enemies behind and return to them later.
Inquisitors can resurect one unit near the end of combat. If it is the only option then your goal is to have only one unit with losses - this is highly dependent on luck and requires reloading. But as a Paladin you should have Resurection spell (you always have this scroll at the start of the game and can learn it - this is very big advantage of paladins because scrolls are random and high level scrolls are hard to get).
More shooters are good. Royal snakes are very good close combat units but bears will definitely die from retaliations. You can use human archers instead (but enemies like to atack them).
Your goal is to stop/disable enemies: beholders put them on sleep (100% for level 1), archmages can destroy action points. Slow, trap, fear, blind spells, freeze arrow of archers. Rage abilities (did you activate rage spirits?): wall, bubble. This way you can kill even not weak armies consisting of low level, not ranged units.

Also you can resurect your losses at the end of combat. Resurection spell. Phantom spell: you copy Inquisitors and use their resurection. ~Gift spell to restore resurection charge of your Inquisitors. This way you can restore even relatively heavy losses.
Where to get mana - (maybe later) you can farm it at the end of combat. Keep some low level almost killed enemy unit (usually ranged or something very slow or unit without retaliation - so it can live long)
1. Magic shield spell (5 mana on hit). Usefull with no-retaliation enemy. Also if your unit are standing close to ranged enemy then it usually steps away and shoot it (but i am not sure they do it 100% - they can hit in melee and die from retaliation)
2. Inquisitors (including copies) can generate rage and you can convert it into mana (later)
3. passive ability +2, +4... mana each turn.

Yes, I immediately got resurrect as a spell but unfortunately don't have very high mana (like 59) to cast it much. I only have concentration at level 1 so only get 2 mana per turn. I think I need to replace Ancient Bears because like you said, having one melee unit that is the designated "loss-taker" sounds like a good idea

Thank you for the tips!

[[MOSS]-BurningUp]

I only ever play on Hard and Paladin usually. Freedom Islands can be tough for sure. The issue I see with your build is you have 2 support squads that aren't putting out much damage and take a lot of leadership per unit. Inquisitors and Archmages.

[balmora pete]

Originally posted by MOSS-BurningUp:

I only ever play on Hard and Paladin usually. Freedom Islands can be tough for sure. The issue I see with your build is you have 2 squads that aren't putting out much damage and take a lot of leadership per unit. Inquisitors and Archmages.

I do seem to have favoured a defensive approach too much with Archmages. They do indeed not cause very good damage. I am just so scared of having unit losses but they are inevitable sometimes EDIT: Also my low attack is not exactly helping. I am trying to find a better weapon

[Scathe]

first visit to freedom islands at a minimum try to deliver the black mark to lucky james, return to redbeard, then kill lucky james and fight your way outta his mines, and try to find the ship with the quest to buy a holy indulgence, do not kill ghost ships at night unless that quest is already done, agna's ruby ring is good. once you get the maps from lucky james you open up creiston mines. if you click fast, you can dodge fights all the way down to demonis and pick up a ton of leadership flags on the way and pick up issharra's whip quest and a quest to go to ultros and steal a dragon egg, both those quests are practically a full level at level 11ish, then sneak all the way back to creiston mines. you open up full dwarven units as available, and giants make great use of the target spell if you have ogre's sandals or pilgrim's boots for them. you want max tactics skill in the might tree and rush the giants into range of forcing enemies to attack them. inquisitors and archmages both support target on giants strategy well. round out with cannoneers and dwarves or beholders, depending on unit availability, royal snakes are also good, in underground sea one big place to check is the big fish tavern, if they have a load of giants you don't have to worry much about losing a few giants. target spell on giants or on emerald green dragons (not available till later) is a major saving of casualties, especially when inquisitors can ressurect them and archmages can magic shield them.

all that said, you can also play the game successfully on hard with attrition units being used. I have a score in my records of a paladin on hard with under 1000 casualties for the whole of the game, which I find quite low, using veteran orcs, emerald green dragons, inquisitors, evil beholders, and shamans. shamans can place a totem the enemy cannot kill if the enemy is beaten down to low numbers, allowing you time to resurrect your units using lina's chargers and inquisitors rage generation. I also have a game on hard that had over 11000 casualties, including over 3000 sea dogs. marrying mirabella is legit just cast mass haste on the first turn and let your sea dogs wreak havoc. that said marrying gerda is the move for using the target spell, and you can do that soon after killing lucky james.

[Scathe]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3264588797

above - most of those 5000 casualties were thorn hunters. an easily overlooked cheap attrition unit that does put out the most damage per shot of any archer, even beating cannoneers and elves. giants finish first in damage. end with just over 1 million gold.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3264588645

above - my 900ish losses paladin's stat line, veteran orcs finish first in damage. end with just over 2 million gold. grow veteran orc and shaman numbers only through sacrifice, peacefulness on emerald green dragons and you can do a sacrifice rank 1 on them without killing any, then heal to full with healing spell, all after the enemy is down low on numbers and distracted by a shaman totem.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3264588566

above - sea dogs finish first in damage, with a whopping 40%. the number of 4495 over the sea dogs is number hired, I may have been lucky enough to have saved 800 or so unused at the end and lost as attrition all others in the 4495 number. end with 980,000ish gold. for best damage get jackboots or boots of the mystic and marry mirabella. be sure not to leave the jackboots without suppressing them every time they get mad.

[[MOSS]-BurningUp]

I gotta admit every time I hit that area I always feel like I kind of suck at it, on Hard difficulty anyway. It's sort of a huge jump in difficulty compared to the zones before it.