Recruit vs crafting/removing calamities

[Tibbers]

New to the game and got stomped the first time through. Had some people die and kept spending points to recruit more.

Just wondering, what is generally best strategy. Save points for upgrades and removing calamities or maxing out your party?

[Chaoslink]

So far on the default difficulty, I recruit everyone when possible, and upgrade somewhat. Don’t get greedy when crafting at the end of the chapter. Keep 8-9 points on hand.

I typically don’t cancel calamities for the side factions, just the main one. You won’t be fighting the others enough to worry about their power much. Just keep the main one in check.

For crafting, I follow the logic that at the end of the first chapter my characters should have tier one equipment and do what I can to get that. Tier two for the end of chapter two, three for three. I don’t typically craft much in-chapter at towns.

[rockroser]

It really depends on how far in the campaing you are, last chhapter or next to last? youre probably better off strenghthening your already available characters, chapters 1 2, maybe 3 if your playing on 5? that extra person brings in a lot of potential to your group

[Tibbers]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

So far on the default difficulty, I recruit everyone when possible, and upgrade somewhat. Don’t get greedy when crafting at the end of the chapter. Keep 8-9 points on hand.

I typically don’t cancel calamities for the side factions, just the main one. You won’t be fighting the others enough to worry about their power much. Just keep the main one in check.

For crafting, I follow the logic that at the end of the first chapter my characters should have tier one equipment and do what I can to get that. Tier two for the end of chapter two, three for three. I don’t typically craft much in-chapter at towns.

How about securing sites? Is it worth spending the time on those or gunning for the objective?

I am playing normal difficulty, first campaign, only my second time playing.

[Chaoslink]

Personally, I always secure. However, I’ve only played through 4-5 campaigns so far, all on the default difficulty. It seems more relevant to consider the faster secure route through burning on the 5 chapter campaigns. I typically clear every tile as well, but I don’t think it’s really necessary. However, I’ve also not had much issue just storming through most fights, even the more difficult ones.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by Tibbers:

How about securing sites? Is it worth spending the time on those or gunning for the objective?

I am playing normal difficulty, first campaign, only my second time playing.

note that sites will be auto-secured when the next chapter starts, although you obviously will get neither the resources at the current chapter end nor an item.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by Tibbers:

How about securing sites? Is it worth spending the time on those or gunning for the objective?

I am playing normal difficulty, first campaign, only my second time playing.

Unless the chapter is running under a time limit, I always secure the site and get items, until the party is nearly fully geared. I may leave some sites for later to go stop an incursion if I want the xp, but I'll always go back and grab it before chapter end. Even under time limits, I'll try to carefully plan my steps to get as much as possible.

[this advice may or may not apply to higher difficulties. I don't really push myself to run on them since I'm having more fun leveling characters and making funny stories on the default setting.]

[Tibbers]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Originally posted by Tibbers:

How about securing sites? Is it worth spending the time on those or gunning for the objective?

I am playing normal difficulty, first campaign, only my second time playing.

Unless the chapter is running under a time limit, I always secure the site and get items, until the party is nearly fully geared. I may leave some sites for later to go stop an incursion if I want the xp, but I'll always go back and grab it before chapter end. Even under time limits, I'll try to carefully plan my steps to get as much as possible.

[this advice may or may not apply to higher difficulties. I don't really push myself to run on them since I'm having more fun leveling characters and making funny stories on the default setting.]

You will secure them later in the chapter and focus on clearing the areas first?

[ianliew]

I would normally secure them as I clear the areas. Having to backtrack to secure them will take a lot of time, and I want those augment items on my team as early as possible anyway.

The only ones I'd leave unsecured are the wilderness areas, in fact I'd try to leave them uncleared in early chapters to reduce the amount of years of peace in order to extend my team life. Those sites don't give you anything immediately anyway, although if I'm really short of materials and need to upgrade my team's basic gear in between Chapters I'll do a few. In the final Chapter I'll go round and complete them all.

[LDiCesare]

Initially, I secured everything. Now, I tend to completely ignore most of the map and rush.
This has 2 big advantages and 2 drawbacks.
Cons: You get less experience (but see 2nd pro)
Cons: You get less items.
On the other hand, less items isn't really an issue by the end of the campaign.
Pros: You get less calamities, which makes the fights much easier than a +1 damage on 1 weapon.
Pros: You age less. Since you spend less time and clear less territory, there are less peace years, which means your heroes are more likely to be available for 1 more chapter. meaning you may end up having higher level characters for the last chapter.

[jonnin]

My strategy was to do random 3 acts until I had a good selection of 3 star heroes to hire. On normal, I do the opposite as above for 3 acts: I clear everything and get an item after each fight and so on. Fighting incursions does give the enemy more power, but you also get more xp and in 3 acts the time spent won't retire anyone. The above is more useful for 5 acts, when you have age issues. Your imported 3* heroes will have a weapon, armor, and maybe offhand and skills so with that you can skimp on gear.

remove calamity is dicey. First, on a few of them are worth removing. I get rid of extra damage on any dangerous enemy, but little else on normal, and use the points on gear yes. The thing about calamity is the thing you removed has a high chance of popping up again as the after a fight one, so you just delay the progression. If your guys are good +1 armor or +1 health is meaningless to the enemy, but extra damage or new tougher enemy are dangerous.

the more characters you have the less xp you get per node and the more gear you have to find. a small party of higher level and better equipped folks works fine on normal as well.

[ianliew]

If you're lucky you'll get a few "Attack X, you have 360 days" objectives over your chapters. That way you can go straight for the end castle which leaves a lot of infected and uncleared land to reduce your years of peace. Most times, though, you'll get a "Attack X, Clear 4 Hostile Sites" which does not allow you to leave many sites uncleared, forcing you to almost max your years of peace.

Chapter 1 will usually have you clear 4 sites, but you can leave the wilderness site and have , say, 8 years peace instead of 9. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are random, and Chapter 5 you can take your own time. I just had a campaign where Chapters 3 and 4 were time limit objectives, which let me charge straight through and only lose about 10 years in total across both chapters (if they were "clear all hostile sites" objectives it would be closer to 30 years in total). The downside is that when Chapter 5 started, around 2/3rds of the map was enemy territory, and because of the sheer number of infected lands the incursions were happening at a very fast rate, early on even after clearing one I'd get less than 100 days to prepare for the next. It may or may not be a downside, though, as while it's really hectic it was great fun, and I actually lost a village which was surrounded by enemy territory. It was my first ever 5-chapter legacy game in which nobody retired, though, which was great.