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Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
If you lose a shard with a tier two unlock, is it gone forever? If so, that's pretty aggressive.

Anyhow, having good luck with a starting commander hero (playing skilled). 4 archer + 3 magic spark is enough to deal with many of the early game mobs, and then as he goes up in rank he starts giving ranged damage bonus, and bringing a LOT of archers.

Not the best strategy I'm sure, but so far working out.

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Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010

Wolpertinger posted:

I'm reliably winning now on Skilled, woo. I'm still using way too many reversions though, and taking way too many turns. I am incapable of rushing fast enough through all the lethal independents to reach a Master before he starts mass-producing Mercenary guards or whatever the horsemen/horse archers guard is - those take at least a level 15 hero and a full army filled with T2s to have a chance at reliably beating.

I've got to re-evaluate my opinions on commanders, though. Commanders have an incredibly weak start, but a commander that's gotten a little high and is kitted out with guardsmen and bishops and crossbows is the auto-fight king - he can win 95% of fights, even the toughest ones, even vs other heroes, on autofight, without losing any soldiers. That's more than an archer/mage/warrior can say, as they tend to require more careful positioning than autobattle likes. The problem is that slow start can have you fall seriously behind if you're unlucky with independents (I spent like 4 reversions dying to stupid poo poo like the militia and brigandsd guarding free provinces in the 1-5s). In the end, though.. good lord they get strong when you have level 5 in each army buff and a shitton of already near-invincible Guardsmen. Once you get a hero that can autofight every time, winning becomes quick.

And all this work was for a tiny shard that gave some tiny building upgrades. :psyduck:. This game is too addictive considering how ridiculously time-consuming the campaign is.

I always start with a commander, and I don't think its that weak (possibly I am terrible with the other three types). First four turns are spent exploring while I build archers and the magic building that has magic missile. With four archers and 3 magic missile casts, you can beat almost any of the early "villager" (militia, etc), undead, barbarian and brigand groups. Lizards you can mostly beat as well, halfling / dwarf not so much until you get more archers and the commander range damage upgrades.

Once you are doing +2 ranged damage, which can happen as early as level 3, and you have six or so archers, you can kill a lot.

One thing I don't like is that the level 10 commander path that gives extra ranged damage doesn't have the rest of the ranged skill tree, so you can never get the +1 range.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010


About 10 shards in, still the best stuff anyone can build is tier 2.

edit: "This unit cannot be disbanded". Fair enough.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
The dragon contract came from a temple with ~15 tier 2 / tier 3 holy units. Fortunately that means units that suck versus ranged, so it was a pretty easy fight.

Unfortunately, I went on to lose that shard (second time playing on competent, also lost first time) after I got attacked by two masters at once, took one's stronghold, and then was one turn too late coming back to rescue mine. Ironically, if I had put that dragon on my stronghold, I almost certainly would have won.

It cost ~2k gold and a bunch of gems to place though and I was too cheap.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
So labyrinths:

Was expecting these to be considerably more badass defender wise. I almost felt like it was a bug, but the defenders at any level I chose were always the same three minotaurs, which aren't a big deal for a bunch of archers to deal with.

Completed two, both of which gave by far the best items i've seen in maybe 15-20 hours of play. One was a crossbow that was 15 damage, 6 range, AP, and 3 poison. The game considered that, on a scale from rare to very rare to legendary, as "rare".

Yikes.

Ironically, while I was grinding the labyrinth, the final master that I had mostly locked in a corner found a minotaur guard to put on his capital, which had 6 minotaurs instead of 3.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
I'm probably not the first to say this, but Eador is more like dominions than anything else.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
Hmm I've only gotten the good outcome when talking to the djinn, (3x).

I had a weird event where someone came to my stronghold and said we has a fellow immortal fleeing from chaos and needed me to protect him. I tried and failed, and when I "went back a step" the event didn't recur.

Anyone seen that event / seen it and had a different outcome?

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010


What a ridiculous fight...

I'll miss you level 17 bowman that was ~15 damage with 6 range, 3 pierce and double shot...

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
Agreed she's obnoxious. In my game, she declared war about two turns after making contact, giving me some fluff about running out of patience. After she lost a few provinces, she sued for peace, which I foolishly accepted. Cut to turn 120 where I've been BSing around with my first warrior, who is now a lvl 30 dark knight, and my other hero is a mostly ignored lvl 6 scout.

Warrior has been charging around the map, and now its time to take her stronghold. Which has some hydra/manticore/spider/other stuff guard. Which webs me. While manticores stack 6 damage poisons on me.

gently caress.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010

Wolpertinger posted:

How the hell did you get level 30 in 120 turns - it took me 300! Then again, I was cramped in a little corner and had to explore until I found stuff to kill.

And wow - that's a nice chart. Helps you appreciate the complexity of the tech tree.

Lots of + EXP from wisdom and equipment, and f10ing my way through a lot of merc / men of war enemy guards.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010

The Quake posted:

poo poo starting with 500 gold and 20 gems, I'd like to see some youtube of a russian guy playing on a really high difficutly.

I play expert which starts like that... that list almost makes me think I should play higher as the increased penalties aren't THAT bad.

I don't know what else higher dif. affects though.

The major difference so far is the early game, where you can't start with your ideal troops / spells, or quickly spit out a second hero. I now start with barbarians or (rarely) brigands, and work my way up.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
One of the nice things about starting with a commander is that normally you are able to handle the monsters guard by the time it shows up. I had several games early on where my lvl 30 Dark Knight, who had merrily been steamrolling the rest of the map, hit a brick wall against that stupid manticore + spider combo. Meanwhile all my other heroes are < 10 because I thought the warrior had the game in the bag.

Anyhow assuming you are deploying a real army rather than a solo warrior, the biggest issue is the three fast + high damage manticores. I've used with success:

- Massed sorcerers. Manticores will almost never have 6+ resistance, so four sorcerers will allow you to fear + web 2 total manticores. Bring 7 sorcerers if you want to fear / web all three. Note that sorcerers get fear at somewhere around lvl 5-10.

- Strategist + horse archers / centaurs. Enough of these guys and you can just shoot does the manticores first turn. Probably General range upgrade + massed catapult / ballista would accomplish the same thing, but I'm trying to avoid using tier 3 units.

- High-level wizard. I don't use wizards much, but mass slow, mass disease, mass sleep; I think there are likely a lot of options here aside from the already mentioned mass suicide

- Any very buff front line. If all your front liners have 50 + hp and 10 ish armor, most fights are a joke anyway.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
I always play commander first too. I normally go commander -> scout -> warrior. Warrior can then use all the equipment you've found and quickly level, whereas playing catch-up with the other classes is much slower (for me anyway). Commander with spider (and in best case scenario faerie + astral energy) is probably the safest dragon killer. Also good for killing cults.

I think a heavily geared warrior is the only way to kill 3+ dragons though.

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010
Finally finished Genesis using the talisman ending. Think it took me 46 shards. I kept raising the skill level as I got better, and was playing on master by the last few shards fwiw.

Overall a great game, if a bit repetitive. Increasing difficulty any time I started to get bored really helped though.

Purchased and loaded up MotBW hoping for new content, was disappointed. Worse, the game really is clunkier and harder to interact with (and is it just me or is it impossible to see # of dungeons in a province from the world map?), and in return you get some updated graphics... Yikes.

Anyhow I got enough use out of Genesis that I don't feel bad about wasting $20, but it was wasted.

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Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010

a!n posted:

I keep getting Harpy Nests in my home province and so I've put some thought into how to best make use of them.

Obviously I start with a commander so I can hire as many of them as soon as possible. I get Brigands and a Library. With Fatigue I can easily clear the surrounding provinces and level my commander enough to get his first and second tier 2 unit slot. Along the way I pick up Healers and a School of Sorcery.
In my current game I got to this point by turn 25 which I feel is pretty early for tier 2 units. The way I fight is just hit and run with the harpies. Those that get attacked in retaliation return to get healed.

My goal is to get a third harpy as soon as possible, because at that point I can take on locations with tier 3 units such as minotaurs or trolls by using Web.


As supercharged Barbarians they seem to work well enough for fighting against forces of equal or smaller size. They really struggle when outnumbered, however. They can't take much damage and will not be able to protect Healers indefinitely. I'm not yet sure how I'm going to make them work later in the game.

Has anyone else found working strategies for harpies?

It's been a while since I played but I was good enough to finish the game fairly ironman ish on a high difficulty settingfor what its worth. My first hero was also generally a commander, so finding any source of early tier two units, including harpies was great.

That said, I don't think harpies are hugely special, just valuable because you can get them before thugs etc. If you have haste they can be good at knocking out armies with a lot of dangerous ranged units (ballistas e.g.). They are also low on stamina which haste helps with.

Astral energy is of course one of the best early spells but also works very well with the highly mobile / high damage but low defense harpies.

For medals, one choice is to just focus on damage medals, but with commander defense bonuses and either the ranged or melee defense medals they can at least get rugged enough to not worry too much about tier one and then just be careful against higher tier units.

Very high level I think they can get no retaliation which is pretty valuable.

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