What is the use of glory?

I read from a thread that you can use glory to exchange for energy at the later stage of the campaign.
But I can't find the thread anymore.

How does it work?
How much energy can you exchange with glory?

I haven't seen it happen in the campaign, but based on my look through the data files earlier, it would appear that Zarr will (at some point) offer to trade your good (or bad) reputation for energy. It looks as though he uses your name in an endorsement campaign, which generates something close enough to "worship" to give energy returns.

Of course, it doesn't always go quite as planned...

Interesting... on a complete side note, how did u get the bow and the fairy??? was it random reward or did you take out a specific master?

Random reward. I had 2 campaigns without fairy and one with 2.
You can look(and/or edit)
shard_bonus.var

unit in garrisons - first number - position in unit.var, second - weight
Fairy is #17, you can see that she can be received on level 3 and 4 shards
About weight:
for level 4 shard:
Level4: (6, 10)(9, 10)(8, 10)(14, 5)(17, 5)(18, 5);
6-pikeman 10/(10+10+10+5+5)=~22% chance)
8-healer 22%
9-barbarian 22%
14-orc 11%
17-fairy 11%
18-halfling 11%

Item in treasury - item.var
Hunting bow - 30.
Only on level 3 shard with weight 3.
I was really lucky.



If you edit this var for better bonuses, you need to restart campaign, because shards generate, well, on the start.

Is 22% the highest chance to get any particular unit? If I change, say, pikeman to 5 and fairy to 10 will it double my chance to get a fairy? Or pikeman to 1 and fairy to 14 or everything else to 1 and fairy to 40?

you can even delete/add (*,*) parts, game don't care. (lol, smile)
If you leave here only (17,*), then reward for this shard size would be only fairy.
there is 2 checks -
1 on unit possibility
2 on unit type.
Even if you put (17,100), it will not guarantee fairy for each shard.

Thank you ;). Very interesting. Would a fairy be restricted to only level 3 and 4? I don't want to make it too easy but is it possible to guarantee a dragon on a level 1 shard and reduce it's cost to, say, 2 astral (making it cost 1 astral is cheating :D), although the upkeep on a dragon would bankrupt me unless that could be adjusted too. Also do AI's get any of these benefits? I would imagine adjusting upkeep would make it cheaper for the AI too.

*Edit. On a different subject, if I change a bowman from

Lvl 01 upgrades: (1, 4; 33, 3; 84, 2; 27, 2; 30, 1; 20, 2) to
Lvl 01 upgrades: (50,*) will that guarantee double shot at level 1?

And can a swordsman have charge or a bowman collect ammo?

It would look like this
http://i.imgur.com/k4KN6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/s3DVA.jpg

Astral energy cost is a multiplier of hire cost, so it is impossible to make 1-2 energy without heavy editing.

AI get benefits on own shard defense in campaign, but I don't know if they tied to these bonuses.

Thanks for the very quick response and info, Gremlion. 7761 for a phoenix. Ouch. Just as well, though, as it'd make it all a bit too easy.

This is very interesting, thanks!!!

I guess i was just really unlucky, got mainly chaotic/evil units as rewards.... and about 4 leather hats :)

why would you ever use a bow over a crossbow?

hmm because they have one more range most of the time (sometimes even two) and deal the same damage in most cases

early on the one more range is important and most of the time you face enemies with low ranged defense anyways - later on some of the bows are just superior - well anyway it depends on what you get

Comparing bows and crossbows of the same tier, the bow gets +1 damage and +1 range in exchange for losing out on armor piercing (bypass 50% of enemy ranged armor)

That extra range doesn't end up mattering . The damage advantage is 1 point extra for bows for enemies with RA (ranged Armor) of 0 or 1, equal for enemies with RA of 2 or 3, and better for the crossbow for enemies with RA of 4+ (highest RA in the game is 40, for which crossbows give a whopping 19 extra damage thanks to RA penetration giving a -20 to enemy RA vs the +1 base damage of a bow)

So, between "up to 1 damage extra; to the weakest of units" and "up to 19 damage extra, the stronger the enemy the more bonus damage" the latter is the obvious choice.

Any enemy that actually matters is going to have enough RA for a crossbow to deal more damage. Often by quite a large figure

A really good bow like the hunter's bow is indeed situationally useful over the weakest of crossbows (mainly in early levels when fighting lowbies with no RA).

I picked bow because it was better than starting weapon, I could afford it, and I didn't have crossbow. Isn't that obvious?

You didn't count morale bonus - which is multiplier to base damage and bow have higher base.
If you carefully think about fact that scout with 5/5 ranged skills have 7 armour penetration without artifacts, you will see that crossbow better on him than bow only vs ghost. And usually I kill ghosts with my healer. High level ones tend to get magic strike. If possible, place him on hill, cast magic weapon(for attack buff) and astral energy (for resist). AI prioritize healers, and with these buffs (mandatory for sniper) he can deal 8 magic counterattack (5 base+1 hill+2magic weapon)

Anyway, my scout on the start attack only those who can damage Iron Wall of swordsmen (shamen and sorcerers) or kill healer - bowmen and slingers). I need only pure damage and range. When you attack hill province enemy will have hill start. Bowmen on hills with doubleshot very annoying. And they get +2 range advantage over scout with crossbow. (+1 because of hill and +1 because of lower range of crossbow).

Even if you meet heavy armoured target without crossbow - you can wait until it loses all stamina(by attacking your swordsmen which healed by healer - giving you chance for medals). +Fatigue spell. When fighter have 0 stamina its defence halved - bam, crossbow passive without crossbow.