I can't be the only person having this issue?

[RobotParty]

The balancing in this game is ridiculous compared to The Legend. Arguably this game is like a complete reverse of The Legend : The game starts off hard and, presumably, gets a lot easier later on. I'm on my second playthrough and I'm stuck at the same place as last time : Verona. I've cleared out the first three islands and some of Rusty Anchor island but after the first island, everything was locked at, at the very least, Equal Strength armies. I must be missing something because at the moment, with Verona, everything is at Very Strong/Lethal. I've completely cleared Debir, Bola, and Scarlet Wind and I'm having a similar issue with Rusty Anchor island. As a habit from The Legend, I absolutely refuse to attack any enemies with a rating higher than Slightly Weaker. In my playthrough I've reinforced this habit when I fought a Weak enemy that had some Cyclops which... proceeded to take chunks out of my army because they're incredibly tanky and strong enemies despite my apparent army size advantage. So... Where do I go from here? The game gives very little options in terms of spells, army options, etc. I think it might be RNG at play here, because this game has some ridiculously stupid RNG mechanics, but I've got some pretty mediocre unit options too. I'm not replaying the last 5~ hours again. I'd rather play The Legend again and get softlocked at demons/orcs lmao.

Seriously, I take a gander at the forums whenever I play these games and I very rarely, if ever, see any having similar issues. Half the time it feels like this series is just a savescum RNG mess

[ZumZoom]

What difficulty are you playing, and which class? You probably know this from Legend: the "equal" for a warrior is probably gonna show as Very Strong for a Mage because the game calculates the enemy strength only by the army size and doesn't take into account the spellbook, mana etc. After a certain point (especially with a mage) there will only remain Strong and up enemies, so you'll have to fight them - at least this is the case on hard and impossible difficulties. It's just a matter of getting the higher level troops (3-5lvl) and using your spells/rage to the max. Also if you have gold try looking for artefacts that improve your Defense, or give other advantages.
On Normal and easy there is plenty of gold, so it shouldn't be a problem.
By the way - if you have Crossworlds, you should play it instead of AP, because it's the same campaign (choose Orcs on the March in main menu) , but with moar stuff.

[RobotParty]

Originally posted by ZumZoom:

What difficulty are you playing, and which class? You probably know this from Legend: the "equal" for a warrior is probably gonna show as Very Strong for a Mage because the game calculates the enemy strength only by the army size and doesn't take into account the spellbook, mana etc. After a certain point (especially with a mage) there will only remain Strong and up enemies, so you'll have to fight them - at least this is the case on hard and impossible difficulties. It's just a matter of getting the higher level troops (3-5lvl) and using your spells/rage to the max. Also if you have gold try looking for artefacts that improve your Defense, or give other advantages.
On Normal and easy there is plenty of gold, so it shouldn't be a problem.
By the way - if you have Crossworlds, you should play it instead of AP, because it's the same campaign (choose Orcs on the March in main menu) , but with moar stuff.

I'm on normal as a paladin(which I assume is what determines the majority of runes you get on level up, like in Legend, there's a huge lack of mind runes in Legend so I went for Paladin under that assumption in this one). I've done a few of the fights and I'm doing okay. I'm just hesitant to do certain fights because Legend has some ridiculous difficulty curve once you hit demons(screw demons and their high HP and high damage). I'm getting the same feeling with this one. Gold isn't necessarily my problem, it's just the perfectionist mindset this game seems to force on me. I've also avoided buying artifacts because, and this was an issue for me playing Legend, buying a bunch of artifacts to generalize isn't efficient and trying to plan out the exact type of units you'll use for the majority of a playthrough is... Not easy?

Yeah, go figure. Virtually all of the posts/reviews saying to play crossroads instead of this game don't explicitly say why, so thanks. I guess I'll just have to restart.

[ZumZoom]

Originally posted by RobotParty:

I've also avoided buying artifacts because, and this was an issue for me playing Legend, buying a bunch of artifacts to generalize isn't efficient

Umm, not sure I understand how artifacts aren't efficient if they boost all your units stats. Maybe I confused you with the word "artifacts" - what I meant was equipment in general (sorry, got used to the term with Dota, even though I stopped playing 6 years ago).
As for planning units for the whole playthrough - I never do that since it would be annoying and boring - sure, some combinations have better synergy than a randomly thrown together army, but I generally go with what's available (higher level units). Though some unit types are too useful to not seek out and use in most playthroughs (like inquisitors and paladins for example).

[RobotParty]

Originally posted by ZumZoom:

Originally posted by RobotParty:

I've also avoided buying artifacts because, and this was an issue for me playing Legend, buying a bunch of artifacts to generalize isn't efficient

Umm, not sure I understand how artifacts aren't efficient if they boost all your units stats. Maybe I confused you with the word "artifacts" - what I meant was equipment in general (sorry, got used to the term with Dota, even though I stopped playing 6 years ago).
As for planning units for the whole playthrough - I never do that since it would be annoying and boring - sure, some combinations have better synergy than a randomly thrown together army, but I generally go with what's available (higher level units). Though some unit types are too useful to not seek out and use in most playthroughs (like inquisitors and paladins for example).

In terms of artifacts(I thought you meant equipment too, haha), I just mean that there's certain artifacts that benefit certain units e.g. pirate flag, snake ring(or whatever the snake speed item is), etc. It just feels 'incomplete' to only use items for their stat increases, even if they are worth it just for that.

[ZombieKidzRule!]

I have had a much more difficult time with Crossworlds than I did with The Legend. There are a lot of bosses and most of them cast spells with a lot of mana.

But, I had settled in for my Mage, Normal play through. I buy all the equipment I can so I have options and then I plan on destroying what I don't need for stuff. That is a cool additional option in this game.

It could be RNG with unit options, but I was able to get Green, Black, and Red Dragons before getting far.

I still think this game is harder to get into than The Legend. I was used to dominating The Legend and staying ahead of the enemy strength. I have had to jump back and forth between islands quite a bit.

I have plenty of money, sitting on over 3 million right now with about 70% of the game completed.

I think my biggest problem is that I am trying for a zero loss play through my first time. It if wasn't for that, I wouldn't be having so many problems. And now that I finally got Resurrection, it is easier. Just using Sacrifice or units that can heal/resurrect is a pain.

Good Luck!

[Gards]

Playing this again after many years and enjoying it. What brought me back? I bought KBII and read reviews watched reviews and after 4 minutes refunded it. We all wanted more of the same just with nicer graphics and characters etc Massive dissapointment. I'm also "no losses" player and "hard" setting. I'm running red Thorns and bots and it's going well. Oh and the yellow dragon for the magic egg.

2 things: Paladins do NOT ressurect plants or machines..which it says THEY DO in teh description
"pirates/soldiers have 20% chance to do dodge crit attacks" Those bastards dodge more like 35 or 40% of attacks ALL of the time, very annoying. Anyway love the game.

[Quang Hung]

This game definitely get easier after you get access to the Paladin, it's the most OP unit until the Dragon Rider in Dark Side.

Hell, I think the "impossible, no loss" club wasn't a big deal during the legend but it went wild with this game.