I am on my third play through at "skilled" level. (Refuse to use beginner - its not in me!)

I usually try to be as good/just as i can.

My typical strategy is using swordsmen/crossbowmen till my warrior is strong enough to do stuff on his own (and still use the troops for castle/province assaults. I use a scout as secondary hero.

Problem: I have twice now gotten to the 11th shard and was attacked by the barbarian doh-gor or whatever his name is. He ends up being expert and after a long and bloody fight I get surrounded with no outs. He cannot take my castle but he ends up with guards like trolls and pheonixs around me. Its a stalemate.

How can I beat this guy? My hero is usually around level 17-18 by the time he surrounds me so I can defend, but Im screwed otherwise once my home province is 100% explored.

The real problem is that he expands so fast that I cannot keep up with him - I can only get 2nd ring provinces (3rd too tough) before he conquers those same provinces.

Maybe Ive drawn tough maps, I dont know. Maybe my strategy is wrong.

Any help would be great! Im on third try and on shard 4. Help! =)

thrasha88

1. start with scout + swordsmen+ healer. Swordsmen can't deal a lot of damage, but can soak tons of it. Scout have higher damage possibilities on the start than warrior. http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2116/46626386.jpg
2. don't use crossbowmen. Just don't.
3. Hire warrior when you have armory and 1-2 magic schools. Buy chestpiece, (buckler and shortspear if scout didn't get anything from sites), take 2 astral energy and magic armor. With this setup you can take on goblins, 4 undeads, robbers or free settlement. Stay on hill or top left corner and only counterattack. Watch for stamina. If needed, use rest even if you will take free hits. http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/5496/49837843.jpg

For some reason I love to start with Wizard and I start Single Scenario's in this way.

Turn 0 - Build Forge, Hire Wizard, Explore OR visit Store/Monastary type locations to get quest.
Turn 1 - Build Swordsman Barracks, Hire 2 Swordsmen Attack Highest Income Free or Bandit province.
Turn 2 - Build Altar, If troops are 2/3 at least atk next prov or back to capitol.
Turn 3 - Build Quest Crystal take quest asap while troops rest in garrison for quick recovery
Turn 4 - Build Library and fill spell slots usually with Sparks unless he came with cure/MArrow
Turn 5 - Build Life Magic School get 2 slots or so with Cure Wounds
Turn 6 - Healer Building. As soon as Hero has 4 slots fill with 3 Sword and 1 Healer.

Of course this sometimes takes me upto 10 turns depending on Incoming Income.

For Wizard I prioritize my skills as follows.

Spell Power
Thermalugy
Wisdom
Wand Mastery
Concentration / Summoning (depending on if I get early summon Gargoyle scroll)

I love when my Wiz comes with Wand Mastery at the start actually for the free wand and couple shots in battle as it can be VERY useful to soften a guy up for the swords to finish without risk of counter when your spells run out.

I follow the same pattern if I decide to go for a Scout as my first Hero but I prefer Wiz.

Scout generally better for start. He can clear battlemages sites straight away with least casualties or without them at all.

In your start you can hit a snags:
Turn 0 - Hire Warrior. Build Forge. Buy Chainmail. Explore. Ambush - bye-bye, hero
Turn 1 - Build Swordsman School. Hire Swordsman. Explore. - 3 turns pay his payment without fighting
Turn 2 - Build Library. Learn Shock / Shock / Fatigue. Explore. Take 3 shocks if you attack undead or 3 fatigue for any other guards, during explore have 3 fatigue.

And, turns 2-4 pointless. You need either altar->healer or school of sorcery for astral energy. Stamina is the weak point of warrior.

Take 2 swordsmen and healer. Just place healer in the corner and form a ring around him. When warrior could go solo, give these units to new hero.

No rush in the early game. You can spend first 3-5 turns on checking sites in province and amount of guards in first ring for better planning. Amount of exp in high-end sites over and above maximum. For wizard better to prioritize:
a) "commander"
Wisdom (more exp and more spells) - you will get more versatility and damage than with Thaumaturgy and spellpower combined
Concentration (buffs/debuffs and damage over time generally better than any other spells). In the battle between higher level and lower level summoned gargoyles (but with prolonged buff duration) will win second.
Thaumaturgy (most spells decreased by resistance more than damage bonus from spellpower)
Wand master (for initiative)
Spellpower
(Necromancy+Summoning) optional
b) "horrifying"
Wisdom
Thaumaturgy
Spellpower
Concentration
wand master

Full book of fear spell. This hero can take on really high level sites with low amount of guards, like 2-3 ogres or minotaurs. Fear was nerfed twice(first nerf - doubled reduction from resist, second - decreased exp from feared opponents), but still extremely strong and useful.

Noted - Thanks for your help!

So then the reason the scout is a better start is because with 2 Swordsmen and a Healer and a Scout, you have 2 Tanks, 1 Healer, and 1 Ranged Damage, using MMO gaming turns. The Warrior replaces the Ranged Damage with another Tank.

If I start with the Scout, do we still build the School of Sorcery and take 2 Astral Energy and 1 Web?

Do you use the initial Militia and Slinger or do you disband them and save a little gold?

About the Battlemages - How do you win when the Sorcerer in the back corner has the Initiative, more than 8 hit points, and a Fear spell?

I've been starting off much more rapidly than that:

Turn 1: Build a sawmill (or whatever that first tier is) and hire a Scout. Set him to enter a quest building if available or explore otherwise.

Turn 2: Spearman school. Hire a 2nd hero (usually a warrior). Dump the militia from both heroes into the garrison and fill out their ranks with spearmen. (Each ends up with two spearmen and one slinger.) Send both off into weaker neighboring provinces.

Barbarians and human settled lands are usually easy pickings; some nonhuman ones can be. The heroes will usually level up from this, and if not, they'll be close to it. If there are other weak provinces, resupply with spearmen as necessary and take them out. Otherwise, start exploring and lair diving.

Turn 3+ generally means building toward the prerequisites to getting mills/mines/sawmills available for the provinces I've taken, as appropriate (especially if one of them has a resource). The library can wait until I've found a few scrolls.

well that sounds good - but it doesn't work for harder difficulties - on expert you only have 500 gold starting money so there is no way you can hire a second hero in round 2 also all enemies you encounter have the original hp (so you fight has the same hp like a slinger you own and not half of it like it would have on beginner) furthermore you get less exp and i think you might even need more exp to level up

just thought you might want to know that - the higher difficulties need a more thought through strategy

On Expert, I'm liable to take the same approach, but with just a single Scout hero to begin with.

The main thing I'm leaning on there is that spearmen are cheap and don't require any special resources (which is a real problem with swordsmen due to iron dependency), so they're decent cannon fodder against the weaker province defenders. As long as the scout stays alive, I can replace them with the proceeds of the battle.

Mind you, if I get an iron deposit from that initial conquest, I'll switch over to swordsmen ASAP so I can go after bigger targets. Spearmen are really only used as a stopgap. (I might use barbarians, but since I'm playing the campaign and have very high karma, their morale stinks.)

In campaign you can spend astral energy on bonuses which will let you get 2 swordsmen+healer easier. (additional gold/crystals or prerequisite buildings, don't remember what is cheaper). Sometimes you can even buy healer/fairy as starter bonus and can skip healer building for a while.
So, this is settled, let's talk about singleplayer on expert.


"Pure" side:
1 turn: scout - forge - remove slinger - place militia in garrison (NEVER leave demesne unguarded).
Based on the surrounding/amount of sites/population you can either check amount of enemies in available sites, pillage, check surrounding, take alliance quest, check stores(low priority). But don't explore without army.

About pillaging - if you pillage for 3 turns, you will be able to build swordsmen, healer and hire both(hire at the same turn, so salary will not hinder you). Probably even 2 swordsmen+healer. This is sometimes useful when you don't have good sites for start(like undead/goblins/brigands/militia) and surrounding isn't better either. You will be able to regain good mood before rebellion anyway.

2 turn: swordsmen.
a)Hire 2. Good sites to start - goblins, brigands, 4 undead. 5 undeads is a trap. If there will be 3 skeletons(66%) - it is a win. 3 zombies(33%) - guaranteed loss.

4 undead battle:
swordsmen have parry - +(parry skill) vs first melee attack. Try to place them, so they get only 1 attack per round.
Skeletons will die from 2 attacks (or attack+counterattack), and will die before zombies will reach you. Scout must shoot them. Take advantage of parry and divide zombies or finish wounded by sniper.
b)Hire 3. This is seriously hinder your possibility to hire healer if you don't have good sites, but could be useful to take on 3-4 free settlements in a row or earlier attack on 6 undead/5orcs (when there are 3 orcs, it is really dangerous) sites.
3 turn try to attack any site if you can(not seriosly wounded units). Otherwise put swordsmen into garrison and pillage. altar.
4 turn Healers. Hire one.

Now you need to give them medals.
Easy: let enemies attack in melee(undead/thief with poison/assasin are the best ones), use rest, lose hp, heal back with healer. Swordsman must score kill to have a chance for medal. If you get more damage summary than total hp - you will have chance for medal of resilience. Otherwise - medal of the defender. Usual set for swordsman - 2 resilience + 1 defender.
Healer for medal need to heal for at least heal*3.

Next buildings - workshop, buy bow and 3 arrows (you can get into negative money and will not have possibility to repair) and library (Fatigue is the best)

Now you need market (for storehouse) and schools with magic weapon and astral energy. Somewhere around this period buy second hero. Give him veteran units (or don't, if you bought warrior for stockpiled spells+items), buy fresh.
Examples of this start:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/2116/46626386.jpg
http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/7743/65212580.png
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/8921/15221743.png

Last 2 battles were very easy, actually. Scout kills T4 and T3 units, T1 and T2 can't damage 10 defence +4-6 parry swordsmen.

Evil side
Drown enemies in dead bodies(zombies) of brigands and barbarians. Build Thugs + healers. Best medal for thugs - Hero's cross - kill at least 5 enemy units. easy to get on free settlements.

Unit Stat Leveling.

So which stats do you all prioritize when your Swordsmen level up? My usual Is as Follows, order may vary if it's a 2 of boost for example would take 2 Atk over 1 Res usually and 2 CAtk over Parry:

- Defense
- Parry
- Counter Atk
- Resistance
- Atk
- Forced March
- Stamina
- HP
- Ranged Def (May take this one or 2 times over HP early on)
- Morale (almost never bother with this as my guys have 20+)

Also the only 3 medals I usually bother with for these guys are Order of Defender, Will to Win and Heroes Cross/

My Level 6 Wizard ounce had a Level 8 Swordie with 3 Will of Victor badges and stats were 19 HP, 11 Stamina, 14/15 Atks, 4/6 Def, Res 2 and Parry 2 :) . First Hero on Single Scenario Expert.

For scout I use:

Forced march (mobility is everything)
Defence
Health
Parry
Stamina
Counterattack

Forced march - extremely useful instrument, allow switching, stepping back for healing and returning on position and so on.
Defence - obvious choice.
Health - obvious choice. (tanking poison, magic strikes, spells)
Parry - lower priority than def and health because there are a lot of situations where parry doesn't work.
Stamina - when fighter at rest, parry doesn't work - so, you need stamina for less rests.
Counterattack - you can counterattack countless times in a turn (well, until end of stamina) and attack only once per turn.

Resistance useless - swordsman have too low base and max to bother with. Enemy magic strikes and spells he can tank with HP.
Ranged defence - in scout group useless. Swordsman's base defence high enough to ignore T1 ranged attackers and HP high enough to take hits even from catapults (with healer behind) until scout kill them. You will get it anyway with "Armour" levelup. (+1 melee/+1 ranged)
Attack/morale - useless for "wall", they must only take hits and let scout gather kills (exp).

Going into crypts seems to pay better then conquering provinces, and until I have the building required to build additional building in provinces I try to focus on the special sites. Do you rather spend time conquering provinces then going to sites? What is the advantage of this?

Demesne usually have far lower population than surrounding provinces. Pillaging, dark ritual, enchanted coffer most notable examples of things which greatly benefit from bigger population.

More provinces you have - higher chances for events. This is more profitable in campaign, where you can encounter karma based events earlier.
I like when wandering monks bring me good weapon on second-third turn. Or deal with devil for evil-based persons.

Usually I clear 2-4 sites in demesne and then leave, so fresh hero will have more sites for him.

I have never used pillage/dark ritual/enchanted coffer due to its negative effect on mood. How do you manage mood in your provinces?
Also I feel that when I go evil I go necro all my heroes(non mage) after level 10, it is to hard to both develop magic and troops. Is this something you recomend?