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Head too deep and too greedily into the underground sea please. The demoness has to be the most annoying enemy to fight in the game. Moving your ranged into their big blob and puts a large stack of demons right near your other ranged. And that freaking miss chance! 
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Nov 21, 2017 19:40
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The Demonesses are the main reason why I always go as far into Distortion Magic as I can as soon as possible. Level 3 Magic Shackles.
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Nov 21, 2017 20:14
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Oh gosh, a train? Let's go to that!
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Nov 21, 2017 22:17
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Huh, that last reaper level up seems to support what another poster said about cost reductions not working for the the next level up
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Nov 21, 2017 23:43
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It could be the that the cost goes way up each time you improve it. Look at the jump the other skill did with the rage cost.
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Nov 21, 2017 23:53
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Deceitful Penguin posted:Huh, that last reaper level up seems to support what another poster said about cost reductions not working for the the next level up Nah, the cost reduction is still in play. Here are the relevant level-ups.  At Level 5, we had the choice between either -10 Rage, or +15 Rage and +10% Power. I chose the -10 Rage, bringing the cost of the ability to 5 Rage (for 20% kills). If I had chosen the other one, we'd have a Soul Draining that cost 30 Rage for 30% kills.  Here at Level 7, the Soul Draining upgrade is once again +15 Rage for +10% Power. We take it, bringing the cost of the ability to 20 Rage (for 30% kills). So you can see that the -10 Rage reduction is still working. Poil posted:It could be the that the cost goes way up each time you improve it. Look at the jump the other skill did with the rage cost. Exactly. The Rage costs tend to escalate quickly as you increase the power of an ability, especially for the Reaper's skills. Gully Foyle fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Nov 22, 2017 |
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Nov 21, 2017 23:57
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I like to think that the sound of soul drain is like someone reaching the bottom of their soft drink with a straw.
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Nov 22, 2017 00:03
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Like an good
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Nov 22, 2017 01:51
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Whoof. Swapping any two units in a tactical context is murder. Is it any two units? Like, can you zoom a fast unit into the enemy lines and then swap in a tank, if you've got a demoness working for you?
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Nov 22, 2017 03:44
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Glazius posted:Whoof. Swapping any two units in a tactical context is murder. Is it any two units? Like, can you zoom a fast unit into the enemy lines and then swap in a tank, if you've got a demoness working for you? Any two, barring magic immunities IIRC, so no swapping black dragons and similia. Demonesses are, in my opinion, one of the best units player side for the sheer tactical fuckery opportunities swap gives you. By the way, charmed enemies are valid sacrifice spell donors, so it's fun times all around.
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Nov 22, 2017 04:24
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Looks like I was wrong about the rage levelups, there are specific conditions where a rage reduction is offered but for most skills it will be offset within one or two levelups. To use an example from the sequel, you may get -10 rage reduction for a skill but the next damage levelup will increase the rage cost by 11. I find a 21 point swing is mildly extortionate, so I would try ignoring leveling that skill for as long as possible. As such a few skills have a sweet spot where the skill is economical and leaves room for multiple casts and other rage skills. For Turn Back Time, you have little choice if you want it to affect tier 4 units. For skills like Black Hole, the cost spirals out of control to the point you need to use rage potions or in the case of the mage, you don't have enough rage to use the ability any more. There's a small snowballing effect to consider too, you get more rage skill experience for rage used earlier in a fight than later. Having enough rage or cheap rage skills to cast straight away is a long term rage experience boost. I suppose it's an intentional tradeoff. The mage will find lategame rage abilities consuming almost the entire orb (thank goodness for rage draining) but enjoys Higher Magic while the warrior will quickly level up rage skills but struggle to cast more than a couple of level 3 spells. For the latter, Lina can help. It remains skewed in the mage's favour though. Let's explore the Underground Seas.
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Nov 22, 2017 06:17
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Wanna see a dwarf-built train.
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Nov 22, 2017 19:47
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By a count of 4-3, looks like we will be taking a train next time. Don't worry though, the Underground Sea will be next on the list.Glazius posted:Whoof. Swapping any two units in a tactical context is murder. Is it any two units? Like, can you zoom a fast unit into the enemy lines and then swap in a tank, if you've got a demoness working for you? You could indeed, though you could also just swap the tank with one of their weaker stacks, and beat up the stack that is now sitting isolated in your lines while your slow tank absorbs the other army's attacks. There are a lot of fun tricks you can do. Omobono posted:Any two, barring magic immunities IIRC, so no swapping black dragons and similia. Demonesses are, in my opinion, one of the best units player side for the sheer tactical fuckery opportunities swap gives you. Oh yeah, the Demoness has a ton of potential. I admit I haven't used them that much, since it takes a while to get access to them and often times I don't bother getting the Tolerance skill. Delacroix posted:I suppose it's an intentional tradeoff. The mage will find lategame rage abilities consuming almost the entire orb (thank goodness for rage draining) but enjoys Higher Magic while the warrior will quickly level up rage skills but struggle to cast more than a couple of level 3 spells. For the latter, Lina can help. It remains skewed in the mage's favour though. Indeed. The additional Rage abilities of the Warrior definitely do not match up to the huge benefits of Higher Magic and fantastic spells, but they do help the Warrior get access to some forms of AoE/direct damage that he would normally not be able to get. The Warrior does get +50% more Leadership from levels, so his army will be much bigger and tougher than the Mage's. When we (eventually) get to the next game, they do a pretty big balance change - Rage abilities get a lot better, and Higher Magic gets significantly worse - and the Mage becomes much less over-powered, to the point where I think the Warrior easily becomes the more powerful class.
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Nov 23, 2017 16:29
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Gully Foyle posted:Oh yeah, the Demoness has a ton of potential. I admit I haven't used them that much, since it takes a while to get access to them and often times I don't bother getting the Tolerance skill. Yeah, demonic units cratering your morale and having restricted access is absolutely a necessary balance decision. In KB: The Dark, where you have immediate access to them and you don't actually need Tolerance for various reasons, the Demoness is insane. My standard mid-game tactic in that game was to swap my Demon stack with a ranged stack, while the Demons lay havoc in the enemy backline charm said ranged stack and sacrifice it to replenish the Demon numbers. It's insanely effective.
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Nov 29, 2017 12:55
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Gully Foyle posted:By a count of 4-3, looks like we will be taking a train next time. Don't worry though, the Underground Sea will be next on the list. The best thing about rage skills is they can actually affect magic immunes. the rock guy's stuff in particular all affects dragons. And yeah how future games changed rage was interesting, although they compensated magic a bit in the form of burning/frozen/poison status being far more damaging, to the point that inflicting burning/poison was the point of higher magic. "How many dudes can i poison and set on fire right now"
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Nov 29, 2017 14:38
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Update 45 - Oh Mehgard The voters have spoken, so we are going to find out where this train goes. Well, first I guess we have to find the train.  The lift brings us to the surface again, and we just have to follow the signs.  There it is! Not much room for passengers, though... especially an army thousands strong. Also, isn't it facing the wrong way?   : Well, well. It's not alive but it breathes nevertheless... I don't feel any magic, neither divine, nor elemental... Is it an artificial creation? A dwarven mechanism? : Oh, human! Haven't you ever seen a locomotive?: Is it a kind of battle machine?: Ha, ha. Actually, that's a good idea, to make locomotive into a battle machine. I'll have to think about it. Mark my words, human - soon we will put the rails all over Endoria and locomotives will carry people and goods all around. Then a new age, a new epoch will begin.: So, what is the locomotive needed for?: You really don't know, do you? The locomotive runs as fast as a dirigible, but it is safer compared to the dirigible. It runs over the ground and underground, and if we make a tunnel underwater, it will run through that as well. But for now there are rails only to Mehgard. Do you want to go for a ride?: Yes, I need to get to Mehgard!: Come on, come on... Climb on board. Now you'll feel the power of technology. Just hod tight to your horses - you wouldn't want it to jump off while we're traveling.: Ok, let's go. Well, that's one way to turn the train around.  I guess the train is driven by a combination of steam and... rockets?  One loading screen later, we arrive at the sole destination and pop out of the train.  Welcome to Mehgard. We've heard mention of the place from a few conversations before now... this is supposedly the centre of dwarven research and technological developments. The train has dropped us off high on a plateau overlooking the town and a glowing pit of lava.  The island is essentially a large bowl, with the village and pit in the centre, and a number of paths around the rim.  Before we head to the middle, we are naturally going to clear out the local brigands.  Although most of the enemies are dwarven, there's also a good number of Ogres, the Level 5 Orc unit. Once again, this is supposedly an isolated island, with only access by air (and now train). How did the orcish units get here?  Not that it matters, the Ogres don't survive the first round of spells. The rest of the army is all 2 Speed units...  These armies are so easy to distract with a Totem.  While the three dwarven stacks move back to try to reach the Totem that is slowing them down, the Reaper steals the souls of the Polar Bears.  Against high Health stacks like this, the Reaper can easily do more damage than any spell.  The rest of the units are cleaned up for no cost.  Ugh, what a useless level. I basically never use Ice Thorns, and the healing aspect of Gizmo is meh. I end up picking the Gizmo upgrade, more out of hope that the next level might offer better Gizmo options. The healing might end up being of some nice utility if we get some Level 5 stacks.  The island is surrounded by impenetrable fog, so the view from up here is not great (the chest just had a bunch of gold).  Heading back inland, we run into a familiar looking device. Maybe we can charge up Lina again?  We need to get through these guys first though.   The approaching troops get cut down before getting flanked by the Horsemen.  The Alchemists can be more annoying to fight with Undead in your army, their Holy Water potions are fairly strong.  Luckily, the Vampires can easily refresh themselves on the blood of those Alchemists. Vampires are extremely resilient because of this, as long as you are fighting living things.  The Horsemen will continue taking huge apparent losses as the target of the Sacrifice spell.  Well, we aren't gonna be using this machine anytime soon. No double-powered Lina for us.  This Cyclops-led army guards a Mind Rune off the side of the trail.  Geyser rips into the opposing forces, though it bypasses the front-most Cyclops due to an excess of enemy stacks.  Instead of the usual tactics of waiting for the Dwarves to approach under fire, I send my Horsemen out to open this chest before any enemy can open it. It doesn't pay off well this time, but it's a good idea to try to get as many chests as possible.  This leaves them open, and the enemy surrounds the Horsemen. Not many fall, but it's more than I'd usually lose.  Soon enough, the rest of the army catches up, and the front ranks of the enemy fall to pieces.    The local resources are hoovered up quickly.  Another army of Cylops come charging in around a blind corner in the woods.  We tune into this battle after a Geyser or two, as the Reaper rips the soul out of these Dwarves.  The Royal Snakes get their regular meal of dwarven flesh.  A few Skeleton Archers fall to Alchemist potions during the battle.  No dwarven igloo is complete without a huge beer barrel - kept perfectly chilled.  On a path near the sea, a rickety wooden elevator leads down the cliff face.  More crystals litter what passes for a beach.  The path along the shore leads to another chest, guarded by yet another army.  This army has a huge component of Ogres, backed up by a few stacks of Cannoneers.  After a few spells and a charge, the Ogres are all that remain. Like most 2 Speed units, Ogres aren't that threatening normally, even as a Level 5 unit. However, they can fall into a rage (using a Talent called, appropriately enough, Rage of the Ogre) that increases their Speed by 2 and doubles their Attack for two turn.  The Ogres may be strong, but their intelligence is... lacking. My Totem here is far more important a target apparently.  The distraction is all we need to surround and destroy them.  The Cannoneers did get a good chance to blast my Skeleton Archers though.  Ooh, yeah, that's more like it! This is the kind of upgrade I want to see. Once again, any Black Hole upgrade is going to be too expensive for us. But reducing the Rest period for Soul Draining is amazing, and doesn't increase the cost at all. The chest the Ogres were guarding was yet another stockpile of gold. I didn't record exactly when, but this update is the first time we break the one million gold mark, partly due to these gold chests.  We've nearly finished exploring the paths surrounding the village, and the last army in the region attacks us while we open up another chest.  This one is another large army composed of big, bulky units.  We prioritize the ranged units, leaving the Giants standing surrounded by corpses of their previous allies.  They soon join their comrades in death.  With the last hostile in the region gone, we can explore the rest of the paths easily.  Related to nothing, I just liked this little owl.  Before we head to the village itself, we can find a promontory that overlooks the pit of magma that is the central feature of the island.  Extensive mining operations surround the town, though we can't access any underground areas here.  A closer look at the chained floating rock... this doesn't look like any sort of dwarven technology.  The only currently inhabited building is the local smithy, though the surroundings indicate it may not be an ordinary smithy at all.  : What an insight! I really am from Darion. Who are you? And what is the place? : Let me introduce myself. My name is Debat, and at the moment I occupy the position of the Chief Engineer of Kordar. This place is called Mehgad. This is the center of scientific and technological research of our country! All our intellectual and productive force is concentrated on this small plot of land. It's a strategically important center, so we are rather isolated.: Oh... it's all very difficult. And so many new words...: That's ok. Don't be shy to ask questions. I seldom have guests, and I have a lot to brag about. Heh heh.Well, that sounds like a challenge to me. You want questions? I've got questions. : Look dwarf, have you really managed to create an artificial lightning - without any magic?: Wait, wait! How did you know about that? Could somebody have blabbed about it?: Well... I have a reliable source of information. So how did you manage to tame the lightning?: Well, you see... We can not only catch the lightning, but create them ourselves! In fact, it's not so difficult... Have you ever patted a shaggy rat with an ebonite stick?: I don't pat rats with sticks. Stop dodging the question. What if I want to contribute to the development of science?!: So you're a sponsor? Well gold is always useful! Ok, here's what am I trying to explain - to a human no less! Well, you better just have a look at a model of a Large Glass Lightning Storage Device in action! I think you'll be impressed by what you see. The key point is that the apparatus is driven by pure science - no magic whatsoever! You get on top, there is a preservation can...: I don't get it - a can of food?: Don't interrupt me, human! No, not canned food, although we do call our invention Thunder Can for short! Anyway, climb to the top and there you'll see the lightning catcher, though it doesn't work now. The working one you can find in the Upper Hadar. You can even try to strike something with lightning. Just put something you don't need onto the black circle and pull the lever. The lightning will strike the circle. Got it?: Put it into the circle, pull the lever... Got it, thank you!This whole bit of dialogue makes me think that energizing Lina was intended to be part of a quest. It's basically impossible to get here without finding that Thunder Can in Upper Hadar. I feel like we were meant to either have to use both Cans or fix the one in Mehgard or something. : Tell me about this Portal. Do you really deal with magic?: Dwarves used to use magic long ago. Rather successfully, I might add. This damned Portal, the passage to the other world, was the greatest achievement of our mages... What kind of world was it? What would be waiting for us there? Nobody thought to ask! All they cared about was the amazing success, what we managed, that we succeeded... Thus we nearly signed the death-warrent for the whole race of dwarves, for the Portal led to Demonis, the world of aggressive and bloodthirsty demons, they who conquer and rob other worlds... When the Portal was closed, the demons who remained were destroyed. It was then decided that the dwarven race would refuse to use divine and natural magic forever, and from that time forward would develop science and mechanics, using natural laws, not supernatural powers. So, in creating the Portal, the mages doomed themselves to oblivion, and opened to a new era for the dwarven race - the era of science and mechanics! Just look at what we've achieved over these thousands of years!: Do you have any special inventions?: We invent something every hour! Of course, not all of the inventions work, and some do more harm than good, ha-ha... However, if you visit the storehouse, you've seen a newly improved version of the miner lantern. It shines much better! Also, we're now just finishing the tests of a new mechanical protective device - steam armor.: Tell me about the science! It's extremely interesting!: You see, everything that happens submits to the laws of nature. Science studies these laws and engineering tries to use them in some way. I could give you a long lecture on the subject, but you wouldn't understand.: What's that hanging in the air on a chain down there?: Interesting, isn't it? That was taken from the Demon's Land by our specialists. We study it, perform experiments on it. Their world is a world of flying islands! But we haven't found out how to fly as yet...: I'd like to have a look at your equipment! Debat's troops are nothing special, but he does sell the advertised lantern. The Miner's Helmet provides a fairly good amount of Leadership, and the Attack bonus during night combat is large - if you have the patience to wait for night. Well, although Mehgard provided us insight into dwarven technology and some basic loot, there's not much else to do here right now. I have a hunch we will need to come back (you know, if the quest marker over Debat's smithy didn't give that away). We might as well head back to the train. : Hello! You decided to ride as fast as the wind? I'll get you to Kordar at top speed; you won't even have time to say the complete title of the third king of Kordar - Dar Digorn. Though how can any human remember all his one hundred eighty four titles?: Yes, let's go. Nothing really new for our hero - we are a little bit stronger, grabbed a few runes, a couple of banners, and got some experience. Next time, we will head to the Underground Sea and see what adventures await on the low seas. In the immediate future, I'm hoping to finish the dwarven realms off in the next two updates, and get the next round of stats done before the holidays. Then we can start the next year off in a fresh new land. ---------------------------------- Bonus Material Marking the Map  Talkin' 'bout Troops Ogre  Resistances: 10% Physical, 10% Poison, 10% Fire Critical Hit %: 15 Defense Bonus: 7 Talents  Rage of the Ogre: The Ogre falls into a fighting rage and gains 2 Action Points. Its Attack is increased by 100% for 2 turns. Reload: 3.Abilities Orc Commander: Orcs and Goblins gain +3 Attack. Gully's opinion: The Ogre is a fairly boring unit for a Level 5 unit. They are by far the cheapest Level 5 units in the game, so if you want to play with them, you can get a lot (relatively) of them. Of course, their stats are similarly lower than most, though they don't suffer greatly in any area. On the surface, their low speed is a problem for a melee unit, but their sole Talent very much helps out there. You get 2 Action Points (like the Running Talent), but the main show is the double Attack. Under that influence, these guys will have the highest Attack of any unit in the game (82 before any other modifiers). Combined with their decent damage range, they will inflict serious damage on your unit of choice. Outside of that, though, the Ogre is pretty dull. The +3 attack for other Orcish units is a nice passive to have if you are using those units, but not a huge deal. Fighting them: Unlike the Running Talent, the AI uses the Rage of the Ogre talent more intelligently, and saves it for when it will bring them into combat. The Ogre can hit very hard, so try to thin their numbers out before taking them on in melee. They have no particular weakness, but they also aren't the toughest high level enemy. Items Identified Miner's Helmet  Description: To the Miner's Helmet is attached a powerful lantern. Effects: +500 Leadership, +20% to the Attack of your troops during night combat Type: Helmet Race: Dwarves Cost: 28000 Info: The powerful lantern fixed on this helmet allows your warriors to attack the enemy more effectively during nighttime combat. Gully Foyle fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Dec 9, 2017 |
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Dec 9, 2017 05:26
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Aww, little owl. ... yeah, that's what I'm taking away from this update.
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Dec 9, 2017 06:42
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Dang, how long does night last when you're there? I don't remember you doing a lot of night fighting.
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Dec 12, 2017 09:13
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Doesn't underground count as night fighting too?
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Dec 12, 2017 10:38
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Picayune posted:Aww, little owl. Haha, yeah. Mehgard doesn't give us much right now, just a few more battles. I still like to do this first before the plot sends us here... if we come when we are meant to, the battles will be way too easy. Glazius posted:Dang, how long does night last when you're there? I don't remember you doing a lot of night fighting. I basically haven't done much, at least not for a long time. See, the game has an internal day-night cycle that moves pretty quickly. I don't know the actual rate off the top of my head, but I'd say something like 5 minutes of real time per hour in-game, so maybe an hour for the 12 hours of daylight, and then an hour for the 12 hours of night. I also don't think time passes while in combat (another thing I need to check to confirm though). The problem is that anytime we use fast travel to move between lands (like the ship, the dirigible, and the train), the game advances automatically to the next morning. So if you want to fight at night, you have to avoid using those methods of travel. If you go back to the first few updates, when we were confined to Darion alone, we did do some adventuring at night.  Here we see Bill at the beach at night, you can see it indicated in the bottom left of the UI. Since we started traveling between lands, I tend to go back and forth getting reinforcements often enough that we don't see night time very often. If you want to cheese the game in a really boring way, you can stack up night-time bonuses, and then wait until night falls to fight. Poil posted:Doesn't underground count as night fighting too? This I am not sure about. A lot of time, the bonuses to nighttime combat also mention underground combat - for instance, the ability Night Sight that Miners, Werewolf Elves, and a few other units have mentions specifically both underground and night, as does the Undead ability. Other abilities and items seem to specify one or the other. I will do some testing to make sure though. Gully Foyle fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Dec 12, 2017 |
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Dec 12, 2017 13:32
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Update 46 - Deep Sea Fishing I apologize for the long break from the LP - much longer than I expected, but hopefully a new year brings out new momentum. Last time, we explored the dwarven tech island of Mehgard to find not much besides a floating piece of rock. This time, we head to the Underground Sea.  The elevator to the Underground Sea lies near Castle Bogacho, in the Taron Mines.  Down the rickety lift we go, emerging on a dark stone ridge. A nearby dwarf patrol nods silently to us.  From the elevator, we start by going left, in the direction of the dwarven settlements.  A few Miners, clearly driven mad by being trapped down near the sea, attack us for no reason. I think this group being hostile has to be a mistake in the game's programming.  Like, this fight would have been appropriate for back in the first map of the game, instead of being locked behind much, much harder armies.  We could easily eliminate them with a single spell, but no need to spend Mana. We can use the chance to build up a bit of Rage at least.  No surprises here.  Past that useless battle, we reach the inhabited dwarven area. We can't do anything with most of the houses, but the local inn is open, and stocked full of decent troops. This is a nice stack of Evil Beholders especially, or some extra Giants if you wanted to go all-dwarf.  A few wooden bridges lead downhill towards the actual sea portion of the Underground Sea. The first one is guarded by Nehty, accompanies by an Undead/Dwarven mix.  In numbers, Nehty's force isn't that dramatic, just a solid mix of units. You also may notice a new unit in our lines - I've replaced the Vampires with these Veteran Orcs.  Nehty himself is apparently in the pay of the dwarven king... so why does he attack us on sight? Hopefully the King won't be too mad when we take out his psychopomp (you really don't get an opportunity to use that word often, so I'm taking the chance when I can). Nehty's stats are pretty solid all around.  We use Ice Snake to weaken the ranged Cannoneers, and Nehty uses his own magic to summon a max level Evil Book.  See if you can notice what I failed to when I did this fight - it has to do with the position of the enemy troops.  The Evil Book casts a high level Poison Skull onto our Horsemen.  Time to send our new Veteran Orcs into battle. Just from their stats, Veteran Orcs are pretty good units - good Attack/Defense, a decent Speed of 3 and the Running Talent to back it up. Their basic attack damage is also great, better than our Horsemen while costing far less. However, their real strength lies in their sole ability - Counter Attack. This ability causes the Veteran Orc to deliver a second strike to an enemy after the enemy retaliation, nearly doubling their damage. However, the enemy must be able to retaliate for this to trigger, and also must not have a weak retaliation (like most archer units).  The Ancient Vampires are eliminated as the Horsemen spends two turns worth of movement to go around the approaching Giants to get into the Cannoneers.  The Giants lurch forward to deliver a couple of crushing blows onto the Orcs. It's at this point that I start thinking "wait, Giants only have 1 Speed...". So yeah, Nehty does have a special ability that seems to set the speed of all his dwarven units to 3. Turns out that 3 Speed Giants are pretty drat good.  But there's still only a few of them, so some spells and attacks leave the fast Giants down and out. We corner the remaining units and Evil Book with Totems, and finish them off.  Our losses are not extensive, but higher than expected thanks to my inattention. As usual, the Horsemen are used to soften the impact for another stack.  Before we go to the harbor proper, we can follow a path on the cliff looking over the dark sea. Dwarven cannon protect the harbor from any approaching demonic fleet.  The path leads to a lighthouse that has been taken over by a Beholder infestation.  Scratch that, Beholder and Spider infestation.  Geyser is extremely effective against Beholders with their low Health.  The Veteran Orcs use their Counter Attack ability to destroy one of the huge stacks of spiders in one go.  Although powerful, the Counter Attack requires you to take losses through retaliation. I highly recommend having either Sacrifice or sufficiently powerful Resurrection when using Veteran Orcs, or their numbers will be quickly depleted.   The Beholders were guarding this chest full of Crystals.  Heading back from the lighthouse, we turn down towards the port where a convenient ship awaits us. There doesn't seem to be anyone looking, so we "borrow" the ship.  Sailing out of the harbour, we don't get far before an ominous series of bubbles approaches the ship...  Without warning (well, I guess the bubbles were a form of a warning), an enormous fish swallows the entire ship whole and dives beneath the black waters again. Well, guess Bill Gilbert is dead. Game over, LP done!   Of course not, we miraculously survive completely intact, and find ourselves in the cavernous stomach of the fish (which is also conveniently lit). A dwarf stands on "shore", watching us silently as we land.  Before talking to the dwarf, we liberate the treasure the fish has swallowed over time. Among the various bits of gold, we find this new scroll. Anyone who has played Heroes of Might and Magic can guess what Armageddon does - massive Fire damage to all units in the battle, including our own (though our own troops suffer less damage).  : Who are you? : Let me introduce myself, human, my name is Umdar. I'm a famous philosopher, and thinker. One of Kordar's best scientists, by the way. But I became famous not for my philosophic treatises, but after I broke the record for how long a person can live in a beer barrel. But that's a long story.: And I'm Bill Gilbert, treasure searcher.: Nice to meet you. You might not believe this, but for the last five years I haven't had anybody to talk to.: Do you know how to get out of here?: Of course! You're lucky - look; now the whirlpool will appear. This leads to the fish's gill. From there you can slip into the breathing chink, or you could try to tickle the fish's throat. That way, the fish will spit you out at once. I've tried this three times, to get out of the fish. I'm sure it'll work.: What's your story with the barrel?: You see, my theory is based on the fact that only in complete solitude people reach a higher understanding of themselves and the world around them. And to prove this I'm searching for that solitude. I even lived in a barrel on the central square of Taron for some time. I even had some followers. Digenists. They lived in barrels as well.: How did you get here?: You see, I have always needed solitude. I've tried everything - lived in a cave, then moved into a nest in a tree, then in a barrel, even in a special glass jar. But curious dwarves appeared from everywhere, and I never got any chance to really plunge into thought. Then I decided to venture to an unihabited island, and while I was crossed the underground sea I was swallowed by the fish, just like you.: So, you can't get out of here?: Quite the contrary. To get out of here is as easy as can be. The problem is to concentrate on my thoughts. Something is constantly rumbling in the fish's stomach, and that distracts me a little.: Are you sure you don't have problems with your head?: I see you're a subtle psychologist. Stay here with me; I'm sure you'll grow to appreciate my non-traditional approach to scientific pursuits.: Where are we?: You ask where we are? Haven't you figured that out yet? You've been swallowed by a cave whale. We are in his stomach. It's a very ancient fish - it has been living for several centuries already. That fish is protected by Kordar laws, and it's been written into the Cave Book, as have all the other endangered species. So, be careful, don't injure it accidentally.: I can help you get to the surface. My ship wasn't damaged seriously.: I'm sorry, but... I'm satisfied with living here. Here it's warm, almost dry, and there's enough food. Of course, sometimes I miss having somebody to talk to, but the essence of my experiment is complete solitude. And the sea gives me everything I need. Fish eat lots of different things, you know. Maybe you'd feel better staying here too.: Show me, what you managed to find in that belly.  Alongside the Devilfish that have served as food for the larger fish, Umdar will also sell us a few supplies, including one more Roast Rat that we gladly grab. Additionally, we can buy Umdar's Battle Axe. This one is an interesting item, giving a pretty large damage boost, but only to warriors wielding steel weapons. In addition to the obvious Dwarves, this also helps out all the human melee units, a few Orcs, and assorted others.  Leaving the fish is surprisingly easy, we just have to enter a whirlpool. Hopefully this leads up and out rather than down and out...  With an roar, the fish spits our ship out. Despite the acrobatics that the ship takes, it remains completely intact and all of our army is still accounted for.   The Underground Sea is not a large body of water, and we are spit out by the fish right next to the only real feature - an island with a strange looking plant growing on it. Before we can take a closer look, we have to fight off some Demonesses first.  Ooh boy, that's a lot of Imps.  They serve up some fried Royal Snake, though we are at least able to separate the troops out to prevent splash damage.  As usual, our archers get kidnapped across the battlefield. At least this time there are no melee units to swarm in.  In fact, it just means that the Skellies are in short range of the enemy units for full damage.  The Veteran Orcs take care of the Imps that got swapped in.  The Snakes we lost are revived by the usual blood sacrifice.  The demons defeated, we can harvest the plants. This is the Gerzhack we have been looking for to give to the dwarven brewery.  We can explore the rest of the Underground Sea, but there's pretty much nothing going on. We can land on this one spit of land with a cave that looks very much like a fanged mouth... but there's nothing to do here, not even buried treasure.  We return the ship to shore, and head back towards the lift. Now we can head the other way from the entrance, and quickly reach the dwarven battlements, where some dwarven armies are trying to stem the flood of demons into the lands above.  We leave the safety of the dwarven lines and strike out on our own. Just past the dwarven walls, a small side bridge leads to a forest (I have questions as to how trees grow down here), with more Beholders in it.   The onslaught of Geyser to eliminate the Beholders and melee units to wipe up the few remaining Spiders leads to a quick victory.  This battle is basically just for the experience, there is nothing else in the forest.  As the path leads away, the ground shows more and more effects of the demonic invasion.  The path is not unguarded either.  The narrow path translates to a fairly long and narrow battlefield, with several toothy stone projections blocking parts of the field.  Once again the enemy Imps seem drawn to my Snakes - I'm surprised, since usually ranged troops get the most attention.  The combination of 3 Speed and the Running talent provides great mobility to the Veteran Orcs, and they can rush from midfield all the way to the back line to help eliminate the remaining Imps.  Mmm, BBQ Snakes.  It's not only Demons that patrol the ridge, as this hero Geogram and his mixed force prove.  Oooh, I want that cudgel. Also, what the hell is he doing down here if he's a Darion graduate? Was he hired by the demons? Or maybe he sold his soul for that cudgel.  The Bone Dragons immediately fly into our lines, only to be cut down by the Orcs. However, we have a problem. A large group of Guardsmen have cornered in my Horsemen. Sure, I could move them away, but then the Skeleton Archers would be exposed. Surely we have some magic that can help...  We picked up the Invisibility spell way back in the Freedom Islands, but we haven't had a good showcase for this spell yet.  As the name implies, the spell turns a unit invisible to the enemy, until the troop attacks or uses an active ability. This is useful to protect exposed units, or for sending a unit through the enemy lines to a vulnerable ranged unit without being attacked. There is also one special combination use with a certain unit, but I will leave that for when the opportunity comes along.  It also works to turn your troops into walls - they still exist, and the enemy can't walk through the hex, so must go around. Here, the enemy Guardsmen have to spend a turn moving around the red crystal, leaving them open to my army.  I use Glot's armor to protect the Veteran Orcs from the retaliatory strike. Too bad this prevents their second attack - since they didn't suffer any damage. It's still worth it here to protect them.  The Horsemen lose their invisible status when they charge into the back of the enemy army, but it has served its purpose.  I like that they actually made these crystals transparent, even though you rarely ever get the angle to see through them.  Through the use of tactical invisibility, we come out of the battle relatively unscathed. Unfortunately, no magic cudgel is in sight.  We do get the next level for Reaper, though. Both of these choices are good, but I end up going for the higher level on Time Back. It doesn't help my current army (I have no Level 2 units), but it will in the future, and I'm really hoping to get this to at least Level 3 targets. Rage Draining tends to be used only in short, easy battles, so the reduced rest period is less necessary.  At the end of the ridge, we find an odd-looking platform. There's a glowing arrow pointing to it, so why not get on? When we do, the platform lets loose jets of fire and propels itself across a chasm.   Of course, there's one more army on the opposite side.  This one is pretty weak in comparison to the ones we had to fight on the way.  Our fast troops quickly reach the backfield and tear down the remaining forces.  A flawless victory shows the relative ease of the fight.  At last, we behold the Demon Portal that has been the cause of all this misery and strife. All of the Demon forces we have seen have come to this world through this point. This is one of the first (and only) times the game becomes potentially non-linear. The plot will bring us through this portal before the end of the game. However, we could just go straight in right now, and fight our way through Demonis. For this LP, I am not going to do that. First, I want to show off the game in the "intended" order, which means following the main plot to Ellinia. Second, because this is late-game content, it will be difficult right now, and I would need to go back for reinforcements constantly. Third, I think it is a bit against character. Our King has ordered us to Ellinia to rescue his daughter. Sure, we've put that off a bit to help secure the dwarven lands, but I think wandering into another dimension for no apparent reason is a bit much. However, if you are playing and want to recruit demon troops to your army, getting into this portal early is useful for that.  Before we do leave to follow the plot, though, we have a few things to wrap up here. First, we need to return the harvested gerzhack to the brewer.  : So, have you gathered the gerzhack?: Yes, I've filled your bag to the top.: Great! I didn't expect that you'd be able to deal with all those demons. It's too dangerous down there, I wouldn't have dared to go in there. Now Nerod won't have any more problems with his visitors. Bring him this barrel of wonderful beer from me personally, as any apology for the inconvenience. It's from my personal stock!: Ok, thank you.: Oh, you've really saved me. And how many dwarves will be grateful to you! You see, there's no way for them to relieve the stress combat - except for a tankard of good beer, of course.: See you later. We actually get not just one, but two barrels of beer from the brewery. The first, the Keg of Beer, is the actual quest item we need to deliver. We could also drink this one as a Rage filler, but the inn we need to bring it to is right here.  The real prize is this Ale Barrel, an artifact which gives any Dwarven units +1 Morale. This item is fantastic if you want to go for the all-dwarf army, and stacks nicely with the other Morale bonuses you can get. Anyways, we bring the Keg of Beer to the nearby inn.  : So? Have you talked to Dalas yet?: Yes, I've found out what the problem is. And I've brought you a barrel of excellent beer from Dalas! He is sorry for the barrels of bad beer, which he sent you by mistake.: A whole barrel of beer? Well this is great news! Beer! Free beer to everyone! Drinks on the house! (Reward: 20000 Gold, 3000 Experience): I was glad to help. In addition to the Ale Barrel, we get a significant gold and experience reward here, bringing us over the edge to Level 20. We've picked up a ton of Defense bonuses from items recently, and I'm satisfied with where it is. To that end, I pick the Mana boost, which is nice to have with our expensive spells being double cast.   Looking at the hero screen after leveling, I notice a problem that we are going to need to deal with. The Great Druid's Staff is once again approaching 0 Morale, at which point we will need to fight to restore it. This time, I am going to be proactive. I can't suppress the Keepers for the Great Druid's Staff ahead of time. However, I can instead upgrade the Adherent's Staff so that we can get a high Intellect Weapon with better Morale.  This upgrade is one of the toughest in the game. The enemy army is composed of huge numbers of Archmages, Inquisitors, and Griffins.  It takes two Ice Snakes to kill each Gremlin tower too.  We won't have the mana to take out the towers by spell alone. To that end, my troops get split up to take out the closer ones. The Horsemen go to the right.  The Snakes try to go up the centre, but their path is blocked by newly summoned Archmages.  The Veteran Orcs swing left, taking a strong swipe at the Inquisitors before heading for the tower.  And the Skeleton Archers... do very little as they have become Sheeped.   The high Health Griffins make great targets for Soul Draining - better than any spell I have right now by far.  The right side of the arena becomes a fierce battle as the Griffins and Horsemen battle. Over a few turns, the towers begin to fall, and the enemy stacks are brought down to manageable levels - not without cost of course.  The Veteran Orcs complete their own mission relatively unscathed.  A significant portion of the Snakes are taken out, but Sacrifice means that the non-Horsemen stacks are much better off than they would have been.   The Archmage's Staff is the ultimate Intellect boost in the game, providing a huge +5. It also gets a stronger boost to Lightning damage - still mostly useless to us. Like the Great Druid's Staff, this weapon also becomes a living item. But now that we have two high-powered weapons, we can trade them off if one gets low morale, rather than have to immediately re-suppress.  Next, we head back to Castle Bogacho to buy one more Might Rune.  Using our stockpile, we buy the new skill Onslaught. This Might skill gives us +1 Initiative during the first turn, letting us have that edge to go before the enemy. For a high-level Might skill, this is oddly most useful for mages. We've seen how important getting those spells in before the enemy can act, and this lets us do that much better. It's alright for a warrior, but the bonus is often wasted since it can be hard to get some troops into combat in the first turn.  We also add a second level to the Destroyer skill, boosting up the damage we can do with our spells.  It's been an eventful update for us with new skills, boosted spell damage, and a brand-new weapon. Our army needs a little pick-me-up though. There is one more thing that I want to do (or at least start) before heading to the elven lands - something that has been sitting in our pocket for a while. So next update, we will travel to a surprising destination. ---------------------------------- Bonus Material Marking the Map  Talkin' 'bout Troops Veteran Orc  Resistances: 10% Physical Critical Hit %: 20 Defense Bonus: 6 Talents  RunningAbilities Counterattack: If the enemy retaliates, the orc attacks one more time. Does not work against enemies with meek attack. Gully's opinion: The Veteran Orc is a fantastic melee unit, especially on the offensive. They have balanced and good stats for their cost, great Initiative, and even decent Health (though only slight resistance). On the mobility front, the Veteran Orc has the great combo of Running with 3 Speed, plenty for a melee unit. But the damage output is where the Veteran Orc excels. Their base damage is pretty good, but the real killer is their Counterattack. This ability essentially doubles their damage on the attack. It is also in some ways their downside - you need to be willing to sacrifice these guys. Because the ability requires them to suffer a retaliation, you will be taking losses to this unit if you are using them well. This is a problem if you have no way to get more of them. Fighting them: Prioritize cutting them down by any means before they can attack - ranged, spells, or just attack them first. Outside of the double attack, they aren't that special. Spells Seen Invisibility  The target become invisible to enemies, and can move through the battlefield undetected, without fear of being attacked. The spell expires if an invisible troop attacks an enemy or uses any of its abilities. Crystal Cost: 3 / 6 / 9 Mana Cost: 10 / 20 / 30 Level 1: Duration: 2 turns Level 2: Duration: 3 turns Level 3: Duration: 4 turns Gully's opinion: Invisibility is a very niche spell, but useful to learn the first level at least. Generally, it is good for two things - preventing an attack on a unit who is exposed (such as a unit swapped by a Demoness), or creating a barrier using your unit. These aren't common occurrences, but Invisibility does something no other spell will do, so it is worth learning for that. Not much point of more than Level 1 though. Finally, there is one exploit using this spell involving a certain gem-like unit. More on that later... Skills Shown Onslaught Speed and vigor are the secret to victory. During the first turn, the hero's troops receive a bonus to Initiative. Might. Tier 5 Prerequisites: Tactics, Frenzy  Level 1: Initiative +1. Cost: 5/0/0 Level 2: Initiative +2. Cost: 6/0/0 Level 3: Initiative +3. Cost: 7/0/0Gully's opinion: Onslaught is great for spellcasters, and ironically less useful for the Warrior. Going first on the first turn is amazing for the Mage to get huge casts in, so this skill helps immensely with that. For other armies, it can be nice for your archers and support units like Shamans to act first, but your melee units can seldom take advantage of this bonus. I usually take one level of this when I can spare the runes, and possibly a second only if I can't find anything else worth buying near the end of the game. Items Identified Archmage's Staff  Description: The staff is made of blue rock crystal, and glows with magical energy. Effects: +5 to Intellect, +20% to Damage from lightning Type: Weapon Race: Humans Cost: 76000 Upgraded From: Adherent's Staff Info: Such staves are granted to those mages who achieve great success in the study of the magical arts, as a symbol of their high status and great magic power. In hands of a mage, such a staff is a fierce weapon, which amplifies combat spells and the duration of magic effects. An unusual magical item, it is willful and dislikes fighting. Battle Axe  Description: A broad two-edged dwarven axe. Effects: +20% to the Damage of warriors armed with cold steel weapons Type: Weapon Race: Dwarves Cost: 26000 Info: To use a two-edged axe, a warrior must possess much strength. Such two-edged axes are the favorite weapons of bearded dwarven warriors. Its broad blade inflicts awful wounds, easily cutting through shields and armor. Keg of Beer  Description: Excellent dwarven beer. Use: Recovers Rage to maximum Remaining gulps: 1 Type: Quest Item Info: This beer was brewed with special additives which make the beer so strong. It is said that this recipe was bought by dwarves from the barbarians, who have a special appreciation and gift for strong drinks. Ale Barrel  Description: A potbellied beer barrel. Effects: +1 to Morale of allied Dwarves Type: Artifact Race: Dwarves Cost: 6000 Info: The person who created this barrel had a good sense of humor, and the form of this inspiring artifact was chosen not without purpose. Everyone knows that nothing invigorates and gladdens dwarves more than a gulp of a fresh ale! This item combined with the Telescopic Sight gives a +30% chance of Critical Attack to all archers. Gully Foyle fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Jan 19, 2018 |
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Jan 19, 2018 06:17
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Just chilling inside a whale.  Those floating demon platforms are neat but quickly become annoying and mess up the map a whole lot.
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Jan 19, 2018 15:55
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Hey, glad to see this is back! It's an interesting game and I enjoy the LP. I also really enjoy these. Dude raged so hard he aged 30 years in a skill level.
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Jan 19, 2018 16:43
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Diogenes probably would live in a whale if he could get away with it. Dude was a wild card. So magic item morale will recover naturally over time? Or will you just have two hard fights once the morale drains?
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Jan 21, 2018 17:04
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Glazius posted:So magic item morale will recover naturally over time? Or will you just have two hard fights once the morale drains? Each item loses (or gains) morale for different reasons when equipped during fighting. Many of them have no normal way of raising morale. Both of my good magic staffs (the Great Druid's Staff and the Archmage's Staff) will lose morale as we fight, and both will eventually become useless until re-suppressed. However, now that I have two good weapons, I can use one in the battle to suppress the other. I can also afford to wait until later to re-suppress, since I will have an alternate weapon to use.
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Jan 21, 2018 19:35
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: (Yawns) Well, had a nice nap there... though something feels a bit off... (checks watch): ...well, poo poo.: Uh, whoops? Hibernation is sort of like a nap, right? So yeah, sorry about the very long delay. Life happens, and the LP became a back burner item... so far back that it wasn't even on the stove. But we are back in business! Update 47: Gremlins! If anyone here remembers, we were just about ready to head to the Elven land of Ellinia. Before that, we have one last piece of business in Kordar.  At the Dwarven capital of Taron, this castle is available for sale. The game indicates it's a used item, but no clue as to what using a castle means. 3000 gold is chump change, so an experiment is in order. As we turn to leave with our new prize, the Dwarven king speaks out:  : Hey, human, wait a minute. I see you have bought a gremlin castle?: It's an interesting object, I decided to look at it more closely. By the way, what is it?: A castle. An ordinary gremlin's castle. Wealthy gremlins live in such castles. You'd better... leave it be - to stay out of harm's way. Gremlins are small creatures, but they can be quite nasty. If I were you, I wouldn't disturb it. Well, you should know - you must have come across these wretches inside enchanted items.: Who are these gremlins?: A small, strange race living in magic items and mechanisms. Silly and naive dwarves believe that it is thanks to gremlins that their devices work and don't break, but knowledgeable dwarves have long understood that if gremlins settle in your device, its working days are numbered.: Thank you for the valuable information.Well, that doesn't really tell us what it does. One way to find out though, so Bill reaches out to touch the miniature fortress...  : Sorry, I accidentally... : Now you understand! I'm only just finishing building the castle, and if every giant around is going to shake it...: Who are you?: My name is Ramsh. I'm a gremlin! I don't know if you have heard about us or not - we try not to show our faces. We gremlins are the best specialists in complex mechanisms and devices; we know much about dwarves' devices. If we disassemble something, even dwarven engineers can't assemble it again! But I most of all like to build and repair homes for gremlins - like this castle here.: Hmmm... sure, if your definition of "heard about" includes murdering a whole bunch of you...: What is this place?: Can't you see? It's a castle! Of course, it's not a common castle, but gremlins' castle. We gremlins are tiny creatures. How else could we get inside all those different machines? So of course, our castles are small too. This castle is my pride and joy; I built it myself, by my own hands, block by block. Well, my brother Jamsh helped out of course. After we have completed the castle, Baramsh himself will live here. He's the famous gremlin known as a Spoiler. Spoilers are the gremlins who spoil weight gears. This gremlin is none too poor, either. If only you knew all the treasures in the castle! Though of course there are a lot of guards as well.: Why did the dwarves have your castle?: I don't know They must have got it from our customer, Baramsh. Either he lost it in gambling or maybe he just gave it to them.: I'd like to see around your castle.: Of course, you're welcome to look around. But there is a little problem. Well, to tell you the truth - it's a big problem. Look at you and look at the castle - compare your sizes. Of course, for cases like this, we gremlins have a special shrinking spell - but I'm not going cast it on you for free. Give 1000 coins, and I'll shrink you down so you can get in.: Here's the money! Take it! We find ourselves transported into the castle entrance, where a much larger fuzzy gremlin stands... presumably this is Ramsh. : Hello! How does it feel to be as tiny as an ant? Don't worry, none of the local beasts are bigger than flies. Nothing's going to eat you.: Wow, can I really be inside this tiny castle? I can't believe it!: [gives the same exact introduction as before[: Why is one part of the castle blue, and another unpainted?: Oh, that's a sad story. It's all because of my brother Jamsh. He helps me with the castle, carries tools for me, and paints everything. We had a fight about the painting. He wanted to paint the whole castle a deep-sea color. Of course, he didn't even ask me about this! But everybody knows that Baramsh hates this color! But by the time I put this together, it was too late; this speedy little house painter had already painted half the castle blue. He might even have finished the whole thing, but he ran out of blue paint.: Let's talk about it later. I want to look around. The blue paint comment confused me a bit, but I guess he is referring to this change of colour here - looks more like a shadow than blue.  Turning away from Ramsh, we are faced with two diverging paths. There's no way to know which way to go, so let's use the old trick of hugging one wall. I choose the right door.  We enter a more dungeon-y room, with one of the guards that Ramsh mentioned immediately charging in to "greet" us.  Though the army isn't powerful, everything here can hurt me at range.  We take out the Beholders first, though this leaves the Cannoneers intact. Choices, choices...  This is solved by planting a Totem of Destruction right in front of the cannons.  A turn 2 charge by the Horsemen take out the last Priests.   Sticking to the right wall leads to what looks a jail with just the guards left.   The spread out Goblins do not fare well against a cast of Geyser. [14]  The surviving Goblins and Bears face only sharp edges as they move forward.  The only prize to be won here are a couple scrolls of Summon Phoenix. Won't be seeing that in action this update, but I'll show it off at some point in the future.  The jail room leads nowhere, so we head back to the previous room and take the other branch.  The exit is also guarded (naturally).  I don't remember if we've seen Ents before - these are the tanky high-level troops of the Elves. We will be seeing plenty of them in the future, but these guys are disposed of too easily right now to worry about.  As the name might hint, Ents are nice and woody, and therefore take double damage from fire sources. A simple 5 mana spell doing 3000 damage is pretty nice.  The rest of the army is all fast-moving melee. Unfortunately for them, "fast-moving" means just fast enough to stop right in front of my battle-line.  This tactic does not work out for them.   We collect the nearby flag (as seen before the battle), and head to the next room. Emerging on a balcony of sorts, it looks like the castle has some problems - maybe some one ignored the warning not to shake it...  There's nothing on the upper floor. Down we go!  We could bypass this Undead army (the exit door is behind the camera here), but they are guarding another banner.  The enemy army has a pretty good number of Necromancers and Cursed Ghosts, both tough customers.  Luckily, we've been building up enough Rage to afford a cast of Black Hole. The Astral damage does a nice job of bypassing resistances...  As does a couple of Fireballs!  The centre crumbling tombs do a good job of separating the enemy troops as they fly over/through the obstacles.  The Necromancers attempt to resurrect some Vampires, but all it means is another target for the Veteran Orcs to take down.  It takes a couple turns to reach the back row to take out the Necros, but once we do the battle is over.   The next room takes the appearance of a large hall... Gremlin architecture is a little haphazard.  More enemy orcs lie in wait for us. A regular, non-mobile, actually dead skeleton shows that we weren't the first people to invade the castle.  The most dangerous part of this army are the concentration of Ogres. An Ice Snake does a great deal of damage and slows them down to a base speed of 1.  We can also snuff out a portion of the larger stack with a Soul Draining.   With the Ogres pretty well neutralized, these Furious Goblin stacks are the other main threat. We lure them into a kill zone and use the combination of Snakes, Veteran Orcs, and totems to isolate, slow down, and kill them.   Our repeated use of the Reaper brings us to the next level (not showing it off, but we use Rage Draining in basically every fight). Once again, a Black Hole boost would be nice, but we can't afford the Rage cost, so I'll reduce the rest on Time Back.  The middle of the hall holds yet another banner and a chest of gold. We nab them and move to the next room.  Immediately upon entering, we are accosted by some Bone Dragons... rude!  Most of these stacks are too weak to care about...  ...as evidenced here. The Bone Dragons didn't even have enough move to get an attack in.  So really, the only stack that takes work is the giant number of Zombies. 375 of these things could do a boatload of damage.  However, a single slow melee stack is never going to be a threat with this crew. Between ranged attacks from the Skelly Archers, lunges and no-retaliation attacks from the Royal Snakes, the Totems to distract and slow them down, and the occasional Glot's Armor... all we need is patience to take them down.   The main feature of the room is pointed to by this statue - it looks like a way down. Minor spoilers, what's down there is a bit much for me to handle right now (at least while keeping my army intact), so we will come back later.  Instead, we'll continue to the next portal on this floor.  Another long hallway. As you will notice, the castle is largely symmetrical, with both halves leading from the starting room to the stairs down using a pretty similar sequence of rooms... though of course now we are going sort of backwards.  Ghosts and Werewolves galore.  First though, let's deal with the giant pile of Thorns. Fire does a nice job of it.  The Werewolves get separated by the scenery, so the Veteran Orcs get a chance to run in and cut down an isolated stack.  The ones on the left flank get well, flanked.   More bones line the hall, and one of the corpses yields a treasure... sadly already outclassed. The Wizard's Hat gives +1 Defense and Intellect, while our current helm gives +3 Intellect and +1 Defense.  Urgh, that looks like it hurt.  The next room is the mirror to the two-floor one. The Bone Dragons here are looking in entirely the wrong direction... too bad we can't get a surprise round or anything.  Not just Bone Dragons, but a large contingent of Royal Thorns too.  Though once again Fireballs just wipe them out easily with that double damage modifier.  Because we took the Royal Thorns out, the Bone Dragons are free to fly in and spit Poison at my archers - who are conveniently highly resistant to it.  In the middle of the arena we pop some friendly Skeletons out of a casket.  Like with the Zombies, the giant stack of enemy Skeletons is not much of a threat, especially when we have a sacrificial stack of our own to throw in.   Another army facing the wrong way, we really weren't expected to come from behind.  Dragons tend to be annoying partially because of their fast speed, meaning we don't get to cast spells on them before they act.  And their fast movement means it's very hard to avoid getting attacked immediately - as shown by our archers getting one hell of a slap.  Well, we had to wait a bit, but the magical destruction still lets us get rid of the Dwarven ranged units here.  Left alone, the Berserkers and their Bears get sliced up.   Huh, this looks familiar... (ignore that blue arrow for a moment)  And it turns out we've made a full circle of the castle. But if we remember, the first room on our path actually had two ways to go - let's see if the symmetry holds and head back to the room we were just in. And there was that blue arrow...  Well, X doesn't mark a spot unless you count a battle occurring.   Even with our spells and ranged attacks, this army still has a significant number of Spiders to deal with.  Our Veteren Orcs get a bit aggressive, and suffer a critical hit while crushing one of the remaining Spider stacks.  Our losses have been small, but our Skeleton Archers are being attritioned away. We can fix that with Sacrifice (not shown, I do the same to refresh the Veteran Orc numbers too).  Sometimes it seems like this game should have a surrender option for enemies... I feel a bit guilty occasionally when it turns into a massacre.    Smiley face marks the spot, I guess? Too bad the prize is just a handful of gold.  Just past the treasure, one last room and one last guard awaits us.   And one last blast of magic to take out almost everything.  And that takes care of the stragglers.   The battle does level Sleem up. Evil Shoal's damage is kind of pathetic now, and Glot's Armor is getting more and more useful, so we'll take the ability to use it more often.  The last prize for this floor. With the place cleaned out, we can go back to Ramsh for our trip out. : Well, aren't you tired wandering around the castle? If you are, just tell me - I'll get you out in a moment.: How can I leave this place?: It's easy. Just say the word, and I'll undo the spell. Free of charge, by the way.: Yes, I want to get out of here!And that's it for the first floor of the Gremlin's Castle. We will need to remember to come back for the underground once we are stronger (and with a more appropriate army). The Gremlin's castle is worth doing just for the experience and Leadership banners we found, and it far more than pays for itself. Next time, we will sum up the adventures in the dwarven kingdoms with another round of graphs and statistics, as well as a review of the Dwarven troops. After that, it's off to the Elven isles of Ellinia to attempt to recover the kidnapped Princess Amelie. ---------------------------------- Bonus Material Marking the Map There's no map of the Gremlin Castle, sadly. Items Identified Gremlins' Castle  Description: The small castle, built by Gremlins. Type: Used Item Info: This castle is not a toy; it's a real Gremlins' castle with halls, stairways and secret rooms! Wizard's Hat  Description: The conventional hat worn by mages. Effects: +1 to Intellect, +1 to Defense Type: Helmet Race: Neutral Cost: 6000 Info: Such an unusual hat is the timeless sign of the practicing mage.
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Mar 27, 2018 18:18
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Hey, nice to see this again.  Is the castle still in his pack when he gets shrunk down inside it? Mind breaking.
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Mar 27, 2018 20:17
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Welcome back! Good to see this LP is still alive, especially since it's now firmly in territory I never saw when I played the game.
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Mar 27, 2018 20:28
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That's cute. Reminds me of the modron toy from Torment, a little bit. Are there any other "dungeons in a box" we can find?
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Mar 28, 2018 03:53
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Poil posted:Hey, nice to see this again. Haha, I will have to check that when I have access to my desktop again (away for Easter). TooMuchAbstraction posted:Welcome back! Good to see this LP is still alive, especially since it's now firmly in territory I never saw when I played the game. Thanks! I think the game gets better as it goes on, so hopefully you enjoy the rest! Glazius posted:That's cute. Reminds me of the modron toy from Torment, a little bit. Are there any other "dungeons in a box" we can find? Not that I can think of - there may be similar items in the later games (though it's been long enough that I don't remember entirely.)
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Mar 30, 2018 17:59
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Update 48a - Stats and Stuff: Kordar Edition A Brief Overview Battles Fought Darion - 155 Freedom Islands - 81 Kordar - 109 Overall - 345 Enemies Killed Darion - 22426 lives ended, valued at 436246 Leadership (19.45 Leadership/kill, 147 kills/battle, 2814 Leadership/battle) Freedom Islands - 44139 lives ended, valued at 1219057 Leadership (27.6 Leadership/kill, 545 kills/battle, 15050 Leadership/battle) Kordar - 60671 lives ended, valued at 2765976 Leadership (45.9 Leadership/kill, 556.6 kills/battle, 25375 Leadership/battle) Overall - 127236 lives ended, valued at 4421279 Leadership (34.75 Leadership/kill, 369 kills/battle, 12815 Leadership/battle) Friendly Losses Darion - 635 lives lost, valued at 11365 Leadership (17.9 Leadership/loss, 4.1 losses/battle, 73.3 Leadership/battle) Freedom Islands - 1464 lives lost, valued at 55140 Leadership (37.7 Leadership/loss, 18.1 losses/battle, 681 Leadership/battle) Kordar - 1143 lives lost, valued at 95592 Leadership (83.6 Leadership/loss, 10.5 losses/battle, 877 Leadership/battle) Overall - 3242 lives lost, valued at 162097 Leadership (50 Leadership/loss, 9.4 losses/battle, 469.8 Leadership/battle) The Journey in Graphs Leadership destroyed - Kordar   Leadership destroyed - Overall   Troops destroyed - Kordar   Troops destroyed - Overall   *Our very first update from this section gave us a new record of 12307 enemy units killed - nearly 4000 more than the previous high! Kill Analysis - Type and Level Type of Troops - Kordar   Type of Troops - Overall   Level of Troops - Kordar   *We can see that our opponent armies are now far more balanced than before, with significant amounts of all Levels, peaking at the Level 4 troops. Level of Troops - Overall   *Wow, the Leadership of the Level 2 and Level 3 units killed are so close - 1141931 to 1141990, a mere 59 points of Leadership difference, or 0.005% Top 5 Lists Kordar Enemies Killed (#) 1. Cave Spider (5835) 2. Miner (4771) 3. Skeleton Archer (4746) 4. Hyena (3739) 5. Skeleton (2741) The underground nature of the fighting in Kordar puts some new contenders on the top 5 enemy killed list in the Cave Spider and Miners. The Hyenas have made a valiant run based mostly on one quest where we killed around 2000 of them. Finally, the Skeleton pair show up, almost entirely due to the haunted castle we cleared out waaay back in Update 34. Enemies Killed (Leadership) 1. Cannoneer (168740) 2. Cyclops (168000) 3. Alchemist (151320) 4. Beholder (150220) 5. Giant (137600) Looking at Leadership, the changing nature of enemy armies is obvious. The list is dominated by high Level units now - instead of mostly Level 1-3 units, we have been killing armies that now have significant amounts of Level 3-5 units. And naturally the Dwarven units are prominent from battling through the Dwarven lands. Friendly Losses (#) 1. Skeleton Archer (398) 2. Griffin (229) 3. Horseman (226) 4. Royal Snake (121) 5. Bowman (49) The Skeleton Archer has proven a fantastic archer for our team, but it has taken a number of losses due to how fragile they are (and imagine if I didn't have Sacrifice or Time Back bringing hundreds back from the dead). The tough Horsemen and Griffins would not be nearly as represented here if it weren't for me using them as Sacrifice material. Blood for the Blood God! Friendly Losses (Leadership) 1. Horseman (40680) 2. Griffin (18320) 3. Royal Snake (7260) 4. Cannoneer (5720) 5. Skeleton Archer (5572) The heavy use of Sacrifice to bring back hard to obtain reinforcements shows here, with those poor Horsemen taking the brunt of it. Overall Enemies Killed (#) 1. Skeleton Archer (14272) 2. Thorn Hunter (9592) 3. Cave Spider (8112) 4. Devilfish (6642) 5. Skeleton (5846) The Skeleton Archer still maintains an enormous lead in number destroyed, and will likely for a long time yet (probably the rest of the game). Cave Spiders have made a surge to third based on their strong showing in Kordar. Devilfish are hanging on, though we only killed a few hundred in the land-locked Kordar region. Enemies Killed (Leadership) 1. Skeleton Archer (199808) 2. Beholder (190960) 3. Cannoneer (189420) 4. Cyclops (173600) 5. Alchemist (155220) In Leadership destroyed, the battle between quality and quantity is very much evident. The huge numbers of Skeleton Archers have let them maintain their hold, but the high Leadership value of the cave dwelling Beholders and Cyclops, and the dwarven ranged pair of Cannoneer and Alchemist have seized the bottom four spots. However, with us leaving Kordar behind, can they hold on? And will some other unit manage to take the crown from the Skeleton Archers? Friendly Losses (#) 1. Pirate (623) 2. Skeleton Archer (398) 3. Thorn Hunter (293) 4. Royal Snake (251) 5. Griffin (237) Pirates have stayed in the lead, though mostly because I now have far better abilities to resurrect units in the field using Sacrifice. Friendly Losses (Leadership) 1. Horsemen (41040) 2. Griffin (18960) 3. Pirate (15575) 4. Royal Snake (15060) 5. Bowmen (9150) Horsemen, your sacrifice was not in vain, even though it brings you to more than double any other losses I've suffered in the game (they represent over 25% of all the Leadership we've lost so far).
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Mar 30, 2018 18:00
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It's hilarious that the most powerful tool in your army is lots and lots of skeletons with crappy bows that are probably falling apart.
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Mar 31, 2018 07:04
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wiegieman posted:It's hilarious that the most powerful tool in your army is lots and lots of skeletons with crappy bows that are probably falling apart. I think my Royal Snakes are probably still the powerhouse unit, hence why they haven't left my army since I got them. But you are right - Skeleton Archers are amazing. But oh so fragile too - if I start encountering larger numbers of Dragons (especially Black), they will be super-dead, and I don't have a great amount of them I can hire. One nice thing about using a worse archer like Bowmen is that you can just bring a whole ton of them in your reserve, and replace any losses easily after any battle. Since I do have the Sacrifice spell at high level, this problem is reduced, and I can use other infinite troops like the Horsemen as mobile health pools to revive Skeletons. If I was a Warrior (or even a Paladin), this strategy likely wouldn't be viable.
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Mar 31, 2018 15:04
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quote:2. Miner (4771) How many miners do the dwarves have? This is basically depopulating a small town of them
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Mar 31, 2018 15:17
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Slaan posted:How many miners do the dwarves have? This is basically depopulating a small town of them The word Dwarf and Miner are the same, there is no such thing as a Dwarf who isn't, when not doing anything else, a Miner.
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Mar 31, 2018 15:55
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Update 48b - Dwarves! During the LP I've done a lot of unit reviews and discussions, but not much on army compositions. In that light, I am going to be taking a look at the ways that we can use the units from each race/faction once we have seen every unit from that faction. Nearer to the end of the LP, I'll go into more general army composition ideas that involve combinations of any available units. Anyways, with the adventures in Kordar drawing to an end, it's time to take a look at the Dwarven units and how they work as all or part of an army. The Troops To start with, here are the unit cards again (without the opinion section). Miner  Resistances: None Critical Hit %: 10 Defense Bonus: 3 Talents  RunningAbilities Night Sight: During nighttime and underground combat, Attack is increased by 50% Dwarf  Resistances: None Critical Hit %: 14 Defense Bonus: 4 Talents RunningAbilities: None Cannoneer  Resistances: 10% Fire Critical Hit %: 10 Defense Bonus: 3 Talents  Salvo: Loads and discharges three cannonballs at once, inflicting 18-30 points of damage to the target. Reload: 2.Abilities Archer Siege Gun: Inflicts 200% of damage to obstacles, barriers, and gremlin towers. No Melee penalty Alchemist  Resistances: 25% Poison Critical Hit %: 10 Defense Bonus: 4 Talents  Potion of Poison: Throws a bottle of poison, which inflicts 5-15 points of poison damage to the target and all neighboring troops, as well as poisoning the targets. Charges: 1 Fire Water: Throws a bottle of flammable liquid, which inflicts 10-20 points of fire damage and burns the target. Charges: 1 Holy Water: Throws a bottle of holy water, inflicting 15-25 points of magic damage to undead creatures and decreasing their combat ability. Can only be used against the undead. Charges: 1Abilities Poison Resistance Acid Spray: It discharges an Acid Spray within the area of 3 cells, which burns all in its reach. An enemy has no ability to retaliate. The alchemist recieves some of the bonuses which apply to archers. No Melee penalty Giant  Resistances: None Critical Hit %: 25 Defense Bonus: 7 Talents  Earthquake: Cast's "Earthquake." All ground troops take damage. The closer the troops stand to the Giant, the more damage they take. Neighboring troops take 40-50 points of damage. Reload: 1 RunningAbilities Likes Emerald Green Dragons: Considers Emerald Green Dragons to be very delicious and nutritious food. Morale of Giants is increased. All Dwarf Army: Analysis The Dwarven faction has a few unique features that make an all-Dwarf composition interesting. 1. No options Unlike other factions, there are only 5 Dwarf units for your 5 army spots. If you go with an all-Dwarf, there is exactly one army composition. 2. Availability The Dwarven faction is by far the earliest one that you can build a complete army from (non-Human/non-Neutral faction, at least - which is important). It's also the earliest faction to have significant reserves of most all the troops, once you've done the Kordar quests. 3. Equipment There are a lot of items in the game that benefit all Dwarven units, and these work together pretty well. This includes the King's Hammer (+4 Attack, -10% Leadership cost for Dwarves), the Battlehammer (+3 Attack, +3 more for Dwarves), the Ale Barrel (+1 Morale for Dwarves), the Mithril Shield (+8 Defense, - 20% Leadership cost for Dwarves), and the Steam Armor (+30% Attack/Defense, -1 Speed, only benefits "short humanoid warriors" - I need to test this one when we actually get it). Note that only Warriors will get to use both weapons at the same time. 4. Morale The Dwarven army is the easiest one to get all your units to +3 Morale, which is a huge boost to their base stats. This comes from a combination of using only Dwarves (+1 Morale), taking Gerda as a wife (+1 Morale), and using the artifact Ale Barrel (+1 Morale). 5. Speed (or lack thereof) Looking at the cards, you may notice something: every single Dwarf unit has a Speed of 2 or less. This is the major downside to the faction. To be fair, all three of the melee units do have the Running talent to help, but they are still uniquely slow overall. Let's put these characteristics together with the units and see what we have. -An all-Dwarf army has 3 melee units, 1 archer, and 1 "support" ranged unit. In isolation, this is not a bad mix of units, and approximately the balance I use for most armies -Dwarven units generally have great Health (both Miners and Dwarves have 1:1 Health:Leadership, the Giant has the most Health of any unit in the game, and even the Cannoneer and Alchemist are pretty tough) -Dwarven units have fairly balanced and high Attack/Defense values as a base, and these are improved immensely with the easy to get Morale boosts (giving +30% Attack and Defense for all your units, as well as increasing Critical Hit chance by a ton). Then add in the +10 Attack if you can use both weapons, +8 Defense from the Mitrhil Shield, and potentially the +30% Attack/Defense from the Steam Armor for some of your units if you take the speed penalty (I will test this later) -You will eventually have a ton of units from the -30% Leadership from the King's Hammer (acquired through the main quest line) and the Mithril Shield (acquired through a side quest which we will see later) Combined, this means your Dwarven army will have both really good stats/Health, and high troop quantity. Your troops can survive through a lot of things, and will murder anything that comes within range. Which leads into... The Speed Problem Your units are sloooow. Sure, you have Running, but that's only once per battle. This has a few consequences. First, Your units are strong individually, but it may be difficult to coordinate and gang-up on individual enemy stacks that approach. Second, ranged units and magic casters will be your greatest weakness. You will have a longish march to get across the field to finish them off. You do have some ranged damage in the Cannoneers, and both the Alchemists with their Potions and the Giant's Earthquake talent will help. But this may be inefficient against enemy armies with multiple ranged attackers. This leads to three main methods to solve this problem: 1. It's only a flesh wound! Ignore the problem. Your units have high Health, great Defense stats, and can take the damage. Enemy armies with large melee components will come to you to get murdered, while your ranged units pick away at enemy archers. If the enemy army has a lot of ranged units, this strategy isn't great, but again, your units are tough. Pick away with ranged while your melee units close in as fast as you can. 2. Must go Faster! Get Distortion Magic levels as a priority, and invest in levels of Haste. Haste Level 2 will give a unit +2 speed, letting them close with the enemies fairly quickly. If you can get Hast Level 3, you can boost your whole army +2 Speed! This helps not only with ranged units but also with coordinating attacks on melee units. This strategy works even better if you find the Boots of the Mystic (+1 power to Haste/Slow spells). Alternately or additionally, get Teleport at high levels - teleporting your Dwarf stack 5 squares + Running means you can usually get them into the enemy archers Turn 1. 3. Archers? What archers? In a similar vein, invest in magic spells that disable or deny archers. The distortion spells Blind and Hypnosis may work (depending on target level and type), Shroud may reduce the damage from a group of Archers, the Chaos spell Sheep will both disable and likely move them closer to you, the Ice Ball Spirit ability can block an archer in, and so on. Generally, I recommended a combination of 2 and 3. Both require investing in Distortion Magic as a priority, and the other spells in Distortion like Slow are also nice to have. Recommended Class: Warrior If you want an all-Dwarf army, Warriors are by far the best to use. The second Weapon slot lets you carry both the great Dwarf weapons, your naturally high Leadership combines very nicely with the discounts, and your natural high Attack/Defense stats will increase already great innate stats of the units. Further, investing entirely in Distortion Magic is usually the best approach for the Warrior anyway. Gully's opinion All this said, I don't actually like the all-Dwarf army! Yes, it is actually amazing once you deal with the speed problem. However, the game has something like 80 units - restricting yourself to only using 5 for the rest of the game once you get to/through Kordar is boring (for me). And the units themselves are somewhat dull - the Miner/Dwarf units have basically nothing special, and the Cannoneer is just an Archer that you can't use Dragon Arrows on. The Alchemist is an exception, though - lining up shots to try to get as many enemies and as few allies in the range is a welcome addition to a boring army. Dwarven units in other armies When not using an all-Dwarf army, a lot of the above does not apply. Your other units can make up the speed problem, but your Dwarven stacks will not be nearly as powerful either. In my opinion there are exactly two Dwarven units that fit in to other armies decently enough: 1. Dwarf The Dwarf unit is just a solid melee unit. It is great at protecting archers and holding lanes. You can use this as an alternate for a unit like Swordsmen or Ancient Bears. 2. Cannoneer The Cannoneer is a fairly powerful archer - less damaging than the huge stacks of low Level archers (Skeleton Archers or Bowmen), but also less fragile. And the Siege ability helps nicely in Keeper suppression fights to hit the Gremlin towers. One interesting composition is using the Cannoneer in an archer-dominated army. See, the Ale Barrel is part of an artifact set, the other item of which is the Telescopic Sight that boosts Archer Attack by a whopping +100%. If you have both equipped, Archers get a further bonus of +30% to Crit Chance. Therefore, if you are using the set to boost Archers, the high Attack Cannoneers do very well and even get that +1 Morale from the Ale Barrel. One caveat that the game doesn't mention until it happens: Dwarves and Elves hate each other, so putting them in the same army results in both the Dwarven and Elven units getting a -1 penalty to Morale.
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Apr 1, 2018 02:27
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If you switched out one dwarf unit with a certain demon you could get the giants into the thick of it very quickly. Of course it's not a dwarf army anymore but miners and dwarves are so similar you might as well unless you want to die from boredom.
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Apr 1, 2018 09:49
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Dwarves seem like they'd be an interesting stunt run if nothing else.
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Apr 3, 2018 01:12
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Update 49: Through the Fire and Flames Welcome back! Before King Mark starts charging us with treason for disobeying orders, we better get on with our mission to rescue the kidnapped princess.  Our journey starts at a familiar fisherman on the shore of Darion. : Under orders of the king, I must get to Ellinia. : Yes, Bill Gilbert, I have heard the king's recent decree. Our ships will take you wherever you need - and we've just stocked up on provisions. The "Sea Swallow" and Captain Dellinger are ready to sail. Welcome aboard!: Cast off, Captain! One boat ride across the ocean later...  The boat drops us off on a beach, without so much as a dock nearby. The only person in sight appears to be a.. fishmonger of some kind. Not the best welcome.  : Thank you for your advice, elf.I'm sure we won't have any need to interact with these Books of Death whatsoever. Anyways, Ivar here serves the role of both small-ship-salesman and travel-between-continents-organizer, and is our way back to Darion when desired.  : Welcome to the land of elves, human. Wouldn't you like to go back home again? I could help you!: Tell me about the place.: You're in the Magic Valley, the place where magic powers are concentrated! Magic from across the whole world flows together here, attracting the greatest sorcerers and mages from all of Endoria. The secret depths attract inquisitive and wise people, and power attracts the injudicious and power-hungry ones. Many mages and their creations are gathered here.: I have another question to you.: Ask then, curious human. Your aspiration for learning the unknown delights evokes in me the sincerest respect. The search for the truth and knowledge is as important as finding yourself in harmony with the soul of the world.: What is the Book of Death?: The Books are passages to the Land of Death. Through touching them you can enter into another world, which was created by the ancient Titans. It is prohibited to use these books; people are not supposed to enter the World of Death while they still live.: Would you tell me how I can get to the elven capital?: The wonder of Daloer rises above the island, in the center of the Lake of Waterfalls! Your best way is to the east, to the Valley of a Thousand Rivers. By land or by sea - stick to the currents and rivers. All the rivers lead to Daloer.: Thank you, that's all I wanted to know. The village we've landed at is pretty sparse, and all the houses lay silent... definitely not a great welcome.  The village has several exits, marked by these awesome head-cube pillars. We start by taking the left-hand path.  Heading inland, we get ambushed by some Druids who step out from behind an odd stone-flower.  Oh goodness, that is a whole lot of Dryads. Depending on your army, this could be a nightmare of a fight.  Fortunately, our initial attack is decently effective, as I decide to take a strong offensive stance. No good just sitting back here...  A decoy Totem does its job of distracting at least half of the enemy stacks.  The orcs get a horn to the guts, courtesy of these Black Unicorns. Unicorns are the Elven version of the Horsemen - relatively fast and mobile melee units.  This is why multiple Dryad stacks can be really drat annoying - their Lullaby ability will put all Level 1-3 units to sleep for several turns, and with multiple stacks, they can keep casting it over and over. Meanwhile, Dryads can also summon whole bunches of Thorns. Lucky for us, our army is pretty resistant - the Royal Snakes are the only troop vulnerable to it (the Skeleton Archers are immune, and the rest of my units are Level 4).  Meanwhile, the Orcs get their bloody revenge.  Eventually, the last Dryad falls.  All things considered, that could have gone a lot worse.  A side path leads to a relatively useless Altar of Experience - the amount these guys give is pretty insignificant.  The main path winds its way towards a picturesque lake and waterfall combo.  : You're a mage? Well, can I buy some spells from you? A few Mana potions are never unwelcome, but that's all we get from here. : Actually, I wanted to ask you the same question. Maybe you need some help yourself? : You want to help? That would be wonderful. Recently there was a rain of Evilns in the Valley of a Thousand Rivers, a curse cast by the necromancers. I'm old and cannot go far, but Egnum needs to be fed - he is hungry. Will you feed him?: I will. But first tell me what Evilns are and who is Egnum?(Side note: I just love how willing Bill here is to do a task without even a basic understanding of what it involves.) : The Evilns are pure clots of Death Magic. Any living creature loses its vital energy when touching an eviln, and the smaller creatures die immediately. The Egnums are our cleaners. They can absorb negative emotions and evil magic. Some people even think that everything eaten by them goes to the Land of Death, but nobody has managed to prove it. I will give you my Egnum. He hasn't eaten for a long time. Let's do this way: the more my Egnum eats his fill, the more Talent Runes you get. If you agree, then find as many evilns as you can, so that my Egnum may eat his fill.: Ok, I'll search for these evilns. Awwww, he's pretty cute for a devourer of raw evil.  Heading back, a wandering patrol has blocked our path out of here.   More black unicorns, and a large stack of Sprites. First, though, we will try to take the Elves out before they can shoot us.  Sprites have the ability to dispel magic... the AI loves using this to terrible effect, like spending a turn getting rid of a pretty minor debuff here.  The few Elves that survived the Ice Snake are taken out by our own archers.  Larger stacks of Unicorns are hard to shut down without taking a loss or two.  Fire spells are going to be very handy here in Ellinia. For instance, Sprites take 50% bonus damage, so their already fragile bodies burn very easily.  The Black Unicorns were the only units that did anything of consequence here.  We could turn right after the last fight and head inland, but I want to explore along the coast more first. To that end, we go back to the landing village and take the southern exit.  The first branch of the path takes us to... woah, that's a lot of crystals! I want!  A lot of the battlefields in Ellinia will have these ruined pillars crowding our side of the map. This breaks up our line, and really makes me glad to have the Tactics skill so I can rearrange as necessary. If you don't, you can end up with melee dudes stuck behind pillars, or archers exposed without a defender able to protect them.  Anyways, this army won't pose much of a problem. Werewolf Elves are relatively easy to take out, though their Wolf form does give them good mobility.  But naturally the AI is good at using that mobility to just come in range of my own attacks.   Now let me raid that crystal garden! Seriously, we get at least 12-15 crystals from this spot.  Oh, maybe we should have asked for permission from the nearby forester fist?  Guess no one cares! As the army suggested, there are no shortage of Werewolf Elves here. We can also buy some Ent Sprouts, but I'll pass those by for the moment.  Coming back down the hill, I get distracted by this Mind Rune and almost miss the enemy emerging from the forest.  A standard Elven army... decent number of archers, annoyingly fast but fragile fairies, fast and not-fragile unicorns, and stupidly tough Ents. These guys are actually Ancient Ents, the Level 5 troop for the Elves.  But since they are plants, these 3 guys go down easily, so I'll save the discussion of them until they get to do something.  When you get to Ellinia, I highly recommend having at least one fast troop that can get stuck in with enemy archers quickly.   Back on the path, there's a short offshoot that leads to this oddly shaped house. Who would want to live here?  Ah, of course - Sprites would want to live in a flower. Wait a sec.... that spell...  ...Oh dear god yes. YES! MWAHAHAAHA!!! Ahem. Sorry, lost control for a second there, but I am very happy to have found this spell at this time. I was getting worried we wouldn't find it anywhere. We will be seeing plenty of this spell. But before we get into that, I think it's time for an army change.  We've been using Royal Snakes pretty much constantly since Update 16. They've accompanied me through thick and thin, and have been by far the powerhouses of the army. I think they've earned a vacation though, so I will replace them with these Sprites. Don't worry though, the Royal Snakes will definitely be back.  In a less major change, I swap out the Veteran Orcs for some Werewolf Elves. This is definitely a downgrade except in terms of troop availability, but these guys will fill that mid-speed melee troop spot decently for now. I do think the Veteran Orcs will be back as well, but it may be a while.  Surveying our new army, there's a small issue - our new hires look unhappy.  Ah yes, our Vampire Ring - almost forgot I was wearing that. It gives -1 Morale to Elven troops, and so must go. But what to replace it? I dunno, how about Anga's Ruby? At least the Leadership boosts match... wait a minute, aren't Sprites....  Female? Yes, yes they are. And because of that, Anga's Ruby transforms these troops dramatically. +3 Attack, Defense, Initiative(!), Speed(!!!), Morale(!!!)... these guys are going to be so drat good.  Before we get to test out our new army/spell, a hill opposite the Flower House looks to have some goodies on it.  From the top, we get a survey of the lands we are heading into. It looks like there's a path leading off back to the sea (to the right here), and on the left there's some magical-looking tower hidden partially by trees (and by my inability to look up).  We'll check out the sea path first. On the way, some undead accost us... this is a huge mistake.  I mean, the army isn't that impressive at the best of times.  And they got to me just when I am itching to try this baby out. Fire Rain is one of the strongest damage spells in the game. The damage this spell is the same as our old friend Fire Ball... except that Fire Rain does full damage to all hexes. So right now that's 2485-2840 damage to every single troop in the area of effect!  Oh, and it look awesome when you use it. Let's do a little recap of our main AoE damage spells now, and see why I love Fire Rain so much. Ice Snake (20 Mana): Center hex 3380 damage, outlying hexes 480-1445 damage (physical) Geyser (40 Mana): 1065-2130 to up to 8 enemies (physical) Fire Rain (20 Mana): 2485-2840 to a 7-hex region (fire) Let's take our current Ice Snake and hit three guys with it - total damage is 3380 + (960 to 2890) = 5305 average damage. Same group with Fire Rain? 7987.5 average. And every single enemy we shove into the area of effect will only widen that gap. And it costs the same. How about Geyser?. At max effect, Geyser hits 8 enemies, for an average total of 12780! That is fantastic, and obviously outclasses Fire Rain that only hits three guys (for that same 7987.5 damage). But wait! First, Geyser is only that effective against 8 stacks. Many enemy armies only have 5-6 stacks, so right away the damage comparison gets closer. Second, sometimes you get more than 3 stacks in a Fire Rain cast, which hugely increases total damage. If we get all 7 hexes full? 18637 damage. And third, Fire Rain costs half as much! Right now I can cast two Geysers, and then we are almost out of mana. Instead, I can cast 4 Fire Rains in a battle! Or 2, and have plenty of Mana left for other spells. The takeaway - Fire Rain will become our new general damage spell. However, this doesn't mean Ice Snake and Geyser are done yet. Ice Snake is still our best single target damage spell, and the slow effect is very useful in the right army. Geyser does outclass Fire Rain for damage done right now against the right size/position army. The last thing to consider is the element. One reason this spell is so amazing to get now is that Fire Rain is amazing in Ellinia - Sprites, Ents, and Ancient Ents all take huge bonus damage from fire. And if we end up facing undead, fire damage does great against them as well. However, let's just pretend we face some Demons or dragons in the future... fire damage may be the wrong choice. Ok, that's enough rambling... back to our regularly scheduled fun.  Fun like roasting most of this army alive... well, not alive I guess. Oh, one more detail for Fire Rain - you can target the center on an empty hex (you can't do this with Fireball/Ice Snake).  Of course, there's more to our army than a new spell. We picked up these Sprites, and oh boy look at that range of movement! The Sprites start with a great 4 Speed, and Anga's Ruby pumps that all the way up to 7(!!). Right now only Black Dragons and Archdemons (both Level 5 troops) can move further than these guys. With Tactics letting us place them where we want, we can attack almost any enemy Turn 1.  The Sprites sprint across and eliminate the Wolves hanging out all the way across the field.  The last few troops follow suit and die for good.  The undead were patrolling a small hill, where we find a chest (with some gold), and Magic Garden.   Unicorns for sale! Let's try em out, why not? Being fast "mounted" troops (ok, not mounted, but they are horse-based), it's only natural to retire our Horsemen for now. Unicorns are similar to the Black Unicorns we've been fighting (these ones are slightly faster and cheaper, but also weaker).  Past the Garden, a winding road leads down to the beach. More Ents patrol here.  One benefit to switching to local troops is that the Diplomacy skill gets plenty of use here to help maintain our troop stacks.  Beach Elf party!  Annoyingly, the inclusion of Fire Spiders here makes my new spell sad... but the ease of eliminating these Ancient Ents makes up for it. Just look at those casual multiple 5K+ damage rolls.  Even though WW Elves are weaker in Wolf-form, I almost always value the movement speed over damage when I use these guys.  I also have the benefit of not really caring about them - a) We've already found several thousand of them in the stores here, b) the stores of them are nearby, so it's easy to restock, and c) I don't really like them that much, so they likely won't be around long.  Distracted by the Werewolves, the Unicorns run around and spear the Fire Spiders from behind. I gotta admit, they are very shiny and that's a plus.  Oh dear lord, that's a great hit (and really unnecessary). The combination of the double critical chance given by High Morale and the 1-3 damage range of the Sprites means they hit super-hard when they crit, and they do so fairly often. Oh, and did I mention that the Sprites have the No Retaliation ability? Because they do, and it rocks.   I don't want the enemy Sprites doing that to me. A Flaming Arrow takes advantage of their fire weakness, and then I turn my own stack loose on their cousins. Must be some bad blood there.    We find some gold and a Magic Crystal, but nothing else of note on the strand of beach. We can see the shimmery-glow representing a portal to the next area, but this one is sea-only.  Back up the hill, past the Magic Garden, we continue inland towards that tower we saw. On the way, we get a "fun" army to fight. When you see "Few" under Black Dragon, that can mean anything under 5 (I think). And the difference between 1 and 4 Black Dragons is huge.  Thank you, King's Bounty god, only 1 solitary Black Dragon. Also of note - thanks to Anga's Ruby and our Onslaught skill, our Sprites have something like 9 Initiative on the first turn. At last, we can out-act Black Dragons.  Of course, we still can't actually hit them with spells, so I settle for taking out the Green Dragons and reducing the rest of the army.  We could send our Sprites right in... but Sprites do Magic damage, and that 80% Resistance the Black Dragons have really cuts down the damage they can do.  Lucky for me, the Dragons decide to have a roast Unicorn, avoiding my more fragile troops.  The solo dragon falls to the claws of the Werewolf Elves.  Just like Horsemen, Unicorns are pretty good at getting up in an archer's grill. Also, the horn always seems to go right for the groin for that extra punch.  We lose very few troops for what we faced.  We come upon the land-based portal to match the one we saw on the beach - but there's another magical barrier that seems interesting...  Wait... we've seen something like this before, haven't we? As we approach the barrier...  : Who are you? And why did you intrude onto my possesions?: I'm Bill Gilbert, Treasure Searcher. : Why are you so rude? Tell me, what kinds of treasures do you have?: You fool, do you know who you are speaking to?! Get out of here right now, before I really get angry!: Well, wouldn't you like a nice, friendly conversation?: One more word and I'll do something that you'll regret!: What do you want me to say? I just want to come by and have a little talk, get acquainted you know.: My nerves are at the breaking point. These are my possessions, and I shall decide who can be here. I even decide whether or not it will raining today. Now I will show you my true strength. Wait, first I'll cast my spell of teleportation.: You have spells, you say? Alright, let's have a look at them. With barely a blink, we are suddenly inside the barrier staring down a couple of armies. Something tells me we won't leave as easily... : Ha-ha-ha, Bill Gilbert! I did as you requested, now let's get a little more intimately acquainted! I'll teach you not to disturb my peace! You'll regret you ever got involved with me, you pitiful worm! Now you have nowhere to run!: Look, sorcerer, I'm not going to run away. Now let me into your castle and we'll have a little heart-to-heart discussion with you.: You even won't be able to approach my castle, you paltry coward!: We shall see. Before we can do anything, one of the enemy forces rushes in, though we have enough time to chug a Mana Potion.  Quite a horde of Elves here, with a huge number of low level units. These fairies looking very similar to our Sprites (cough color-swap cough) are Lake Fairies. They get the same No Retaliation, are even faster, and have an additional ability to cause Weakness on troops they attack. However, they lose the ability to cast Dispel, lose a point of damage, and lose some Health.  They also don't have the same weakness against fire, which saves a lot of them unfortunately. But Fire Rain still does a job of weakening the stacks.  One group of Lake Fairies sneaks around to attack the Skeleton Archers, but then gets waylaid by my WW Elves and sliced apart.  The Fairies did a good amount of damage before the backup arrived though.  The second army stands idly by while we slaughter the Elves... though the fact that it's largely Undead might have to do with the lack of compassion. (Or possibly we are just outside their aggro range.)  Wow, that's a huge pile of Black Unicorns - remember that they are nearly on the level of our Horsemen, and this Black Unicorn stack is like twice as strong as any of our stacks.  Ghosts are another great target for Fire Rain - bypassing their 50% Physical Resistance means they are effectively taking twice as much from this spell as from Ice Snake.   Soul Draining does a great job when you face one out-of-proportion stack. That percentage damage is incredibly useful.  You can see what kind of damage that size of stack can inflict - fortunately wasted here on a Totem.  Both varieties of Unicorn get the Horn of Light ability which means they do +30% damage to Undead/Demons. And it's a very pretty attack too.  With the super-fast movement of the (Ruby-boosted) Sprites, we can perform hit-and-run style strikes to take advantage of the No Retaliation. Here they dart in through the enemy army to zap the Black Unicorns, confident that their high Initiative will let them move away before being exposed to a counter-attack.  Even with all the damage we've done to it, and the huge stat disparity, the Black Unicorns nearly match up against my own Unicorns when it comes to horn-to-horn combat.  Once isolated, though, we can focus on the Black Unicorns with our usual tricks.  The Unicorns took the only real attack that their cousins landed, and lost over 10% of their number.  The Reaper reaches his next level, and for once we have a real choice. Rage Draining is very nice, but mostly useful as something to do in easier battles. If I want to use fragile troops like Sprites, though, Time Back will be amazing for rescuing them when they get in trouble. That's better for the tough battles, so I go with cheap Time Back.  Alright, Vermeus, you've managed to piss me off... : You turned out to be stronger than I thought, Bill Gilbert. So what is it you want from me?: Tell me about yourself. What are you doing here in Ellinia among elves?: Here there are not only elves - take a look around! This place is soaking with magic. The best of the best sorcerers come here to perform their experiments and perfect their skills. My name is Vermeus, and I'm one of the strongest... On second thought, I despise false modesty. I'm the best mage in this Valley, and maybe even in the whole of Endoria! I don't care about Karador: and his envoys' skulls decorate my tower. I'm not interested in the foolishness of others; I'm interested only in myself, in my magic and knowledge.: So why don't you become leader of a guild or an educational institution for the study of magic? Surely you are more than capable of something like that!: There was a time when I belonged to the Magic Guild of Darion - and was even head chair of Combat Magic in the Academy. But I was far ahead of my peers, and I came to understand that there is no place for me among those pitiful sorcerers, practitioners of cantrips. If you've been in Arlania, perhaps you've seen the Magic Range? That is one of the spells I created. In fact, the same field surrounds my possessions here. Trivial magic, actually, but the mages of the Academy looked at me like at a god when I did it! Pah, it's disgusting even to thing about them.: I'd look to have a look at what you can offer to sell me. We can replace the Mana Potion we used fighting our way in, and the Necromancers are an interesting option... but there's not enough here for my army. Before we leave, there's one more order of business... : What else do you need? Do not disturb me.: I remember you called me a paltry worm...: You know, Bill Gilbert, I was wrong about you. You are a strong Mage. But now that we have had a chance to talk, I feel a sense of respect for you.Is this apology good enough, or should we take some measure of revenge? To answer that, I turn to: Vote Time! Accept his apology : I see you've changed your tune. But be careful, foolish wizard - don't put on airs any more with me.We've done enough by destroying his armies, and we did sort of intrude on his privacy. We can let Vermeus be. Reject his apology : No, wizard, that is not enough. You have insulted my honor, and one must answer for one's words. (Attack the wizard...)Though we may have bothered Vermeus, he was the one who decided to teleport us into his sanctuary and tried to kill us with an ambush. No mere apology is enough.  Regardless of how we deal with Vermeus, our army has had quite the makeover - three new troops (with a surprise powerhouse in the Sprites), and a devastating new spell. Next time, we will deal with Vermeus as directed, and continue exploring the Magic Valley. ---------------------------------- Bonus Material Marking the Map   Talkin' 'bout Troops Sprite  Resistances: 25% Magic, -50% Fire Critical Hit %: 10 Defense Bonus: 1 Talents  Dispel: Removes all spells from the target. Charges: 1.Abilities Soaring No Retaliation Magic Resistance Vulnerable to Fire Gully's opinion: Sprites are an amazing package for a Level 1 troop. They have great mobility, high damage capacity, and even decent Health for their cost. And what makes them truly excel where most Level 1 troops fail is the No Retaliation ability. This saves them from a lot of damage they would normally take, and lets you be a lot bolder with them. Their high max damage means they do well with Bless spells, Doom spells, or anything that increases critical hits. And of course, they get supercharged by using Anga's Ruby to being zooming balls of death. Fighting them: They are vulnerable to fire, so Flaming Arrows/Fireballs and so on cut them down easily. Slow does a good job of keeping them away while you hit them. Finally, like most Level 1 troops, striking first with overwhelming force often means destroying the stack without taking a hit. Lake Fairy  Resistances: 25% Magic Critical Hit %: 15 Defense Bonus: 1 Talents: None Abilities Soaring No Retaliation Magic Resistance Fairy Dust: When attacking, the creature has a 30% chance to cast "Weakness" on the enemy troop. The spell makes the target weak for only one turn. Gully's opinion: See what was said for Sprites, though Lake Fairies are even faster with +1 Speed/Initiative. However, they are more fragile (except against fire), and do a great deal less damage (1.5 average as opposed to the 2 average for Sprites). Once again, Anga's Ruby is insane with them. The Weakness caused by the Fairy Dust is a nice bonus, but the random chance means it is hard to count on. Fighting them: No obvious weaknesses, but the small Health value means ranged attacks of all kinds will hurt them badly. They are harder to keep slow, so try to just lure them in and surround them if you can't shoot them out of the air. Spells Seen Fire Rain  Fire Rain causes fire damage to all targets within a 7-cell area. Crystal Cost: 5 / 10 / 15 Mana Cost: 5 / 10 / 20 Level 1: Damage: 70-80; Burning: 5% Level 2: Damage: 210-240; Burning: 10% Level 3: Damage: 350-400; Burning: 15% Gully's opinion: Fire Rain is extremely amazing for any direct-damage Mages - doing full damage over a wide area means you can devastate armies - and there are certain difficult fights that have crowded fields that will suffer particularly badly. The Mana cost is high but reasonable, and will generally be the best damage spell a Mage has. The Fire-type makes this a very binary spell, though. It excels facing Plants and Undead troops. However, the last portion of the game has a lot of Demons and Dragons that significantly reduce the capability of the spell. The other downside is the difficulty of finding it - you likely won't find it before Ellinia, and sometimes not at all.
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Apr 11, 2018 02:20
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 10:58 |
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I say we go ahead and Accept his apology. I mean, he did eventually let us buy his stuff and the armies he tried to kill us with were mostly just +XP
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Apr 11, 2018 03:08
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