I see that the merge has gone through. Good work, GOG! And thank you.

Small thoughs about said game....

After trudging through the prolouge it was fast becoming apparent how simplistic the combat is.
Not sure if i have this correct but here goes...you can move to attack,you can guard,heal etc...
But you carn't move to a empty tile ready for your next turn. Or even a chance to get a attack of opportunity.
You do however retaliate, small mercy, the music isn't bad, the graphics nice enough.
Tho buildings/ruins are cookie cutter style repeats throughout, meh, faces all start to look the same.

After finishing the prologue i ignored the quesst at the start of the next level, and happily found peasants to butcher...
Staying away from mercs, until i'd built up enough gold. Troop count low at this point.
Thus heading straight to the town that had healers/archers etc...that i wanted.
I also brought a bunch of rings/necklaces and other shiny things at the market.
Rinse and repeat, grinding, great two archers leveled up + two soldiers.
Now every slot is filled, after the last battle with a group of mercs i head for the Monastery "Saint Lucius"
to heal, now i'm swimming in more money than i need.....so healing us all isn't a problem.
A quest starts as soon as inside...protect us..blah,blah. Ok, i can do that....
I wait a few mins and combat begins, ahh ok so i now have two monks, and the soldiers are gone...WTF.
Ack, not good, but no problem Squib, reload and head them off before they hit the monastery....a solid plan.
So i do so, and the game still removes two soldiers after the battle.
I'm not in the vicinity of the bloody monastery nor has the game left me the monks.
It took a age to get them three levels higher, made me shit load of gold but...what a crock of crap.
At no point does the game give any indication that this will happen or the choice to say "No Thanks" i can kick their arse with what i have. Frankly my troops are better than two shitty monks.
After this..i started to lose the will to play further....

No colour text options, frankly the yellow is horrid.
No edge screen scroll, no chance of using the arrow keys instead of the right mouse button.
Or even WASD and QE, leaving me frustrated with the camera.
Right mouse click and HOLD to see info over building, groovy, could not find a alternative to this, talk about hand fucking ache.
After playing for a bit i'd forgotten what half the stuff on screen was for, thought drop out the game check and maybe get a better explanation on troop upgrade paths at the same time.
No, as i couldn't find any instructions, the tutorial page is one way of getting a quick reminder yes.
Not a option in less you save and go back to the main page.

The health bar drops before the attack animation happens in battle, that is really weird.
I don't expect every dialogue avenue to be available but a few better answers wouldn't of gone amiss.
I grew to hate my own characters responses....
I could say more..but that would take too much effort on my part.
Love rpg and i do love strategy titles, so this should of been a win.

Edit..Monastery, call it what it is :P

Never mind.

Correct. The front lines are the blockers, and their job is to block off the opponent’s avenues of advancement while attempting to create their own. Turns can only be delayed, never skipped, so try to force the enemy into making undesirable moves. The computer is clearly better at thinking on these terms than I am, slyly activating a useless ability to avoid plunging another man into my knight’s 3 hex sword arc. Meanwhile I'm on chapter 4 and still making silly mistakes on a regular basis.

Wish I could help with your issue but I haven't the foggiest.

Ahh never tried the two handed sword, been sticking with sword and shield.
I presume it's a two handed sword....maybe :P
All the negatives of the shiled negated by underpants of initiative + 4 or it may well be a necklace.
At the start i hit five odd bandits i only had me (Knight) a archer plus deserter....not bad.
The battle starts and straight away i want to move my knight in front of their archer..
I carn't..so i'm forced to attack another, not move closer to said archer, oh no.
Another annoyance, archers that fire at point blank, no secondary weapon, no go to dagger nadda.
My brain tells me, hit the archers and healers first, anyway half the things i'd like to be able to do you carn't.
It feels so restrictive, if i return with more number i whitewash the comp.

Abilitys are fine, the upgrade tree really has to be right clicked on and held to keep the info avaliable while you read.
I found myself saving trying one, then trying the other option, one way around it.(in less it has a key i've missed)
The healers abilitys being used the most, the acolyte i picked up i dropped for another healer.
Maybe he comes into his own at higher levels....most battles he stood still like a third leg.
There is little room on the battle screen to warrant any type of strategy other than hit the person in front of you.
Not including the archers etc....meaning the game becomes rigid fast and predictable.
Potions i'm finding usless, why bother missing a turn that may be vital to wining.
Found a nice necklace tho that gives blessed effect, no use for it yet :P
Again meaning the blessed potion are redundant...

You sound like your enjoying it, i may start agin and try the Mystic.
Anyway, good luck with it :)

You get two monks for the defense of the monastery. Whatever you do, you don't get to keep these two monks. You just got them for the quest and they got removed, what's the problem here?

I haven't tested it in my play, but I think he meant his army was already full and two of the soldiers were replaced by the monks. Then he didn't have the option to rehire his soldiers after the event.

My preferred strategy was to use my Knight as a tank more or less.
Leveling him up to use a horse and lance meant he could break through most of the initial defenses or at least weaken it significantly. The faster the Knight can reach the enemy's healer and bowmen at the back the faster the fight is over. Having two healers in my own army has proven itself ideal for me.

As you say using potions during battle does not really pay off, the enemy does too much damage for skipping a turn to be worthwhile, however they have been very useful for healing my men after a battle. Especially if you are far away from a place of healing.

'Pulling' the enemy by skipping a turn has only been a usable tactic for me when the enemy has no bowmen, otherwise they just get slaughtered by the enemy's arrows.

However, looking at how the combat is designed in general, it feels clear to me that the game wants you to play aggressively and offensively as opposed to defensively.

Using my bowman to attack the enemy's healer and bowmen has felt rather pointless throughout my playthrough. They do far too little damage. Instead I use them to support the take-down of the enemy's front-line, so that my other fighters can reach the enemy's bowmen and healer much faster.

Looking at how the enemy squad is composed before a battle, by using the right-click function, I pay attention to where the bowmen and healers are positioned. I then adjust my own squad formation in a way that hopefully allows my Knight to reach the enemy's bowmen and healers as quickly as possible. Sometimes spreading out my squad is better othertimes keeping them closer together is better.

Edit: meant as a reply to DampSquib's post, I forgot to post this as a 'reply'...clumsy me.

Yes, since the Monastery is placed very close to where you start in the map I think the game assumes you don't have a full army when you start that particular mission. I think most players will reach the Monastery early on in the map.
When you start the mission its mandatory that two monks will join your squad. Once the missions is over they leave.
It does feel like a bug or miss by the developers that the game does not return your two former soldiers.

Leveling up your men is quite time consuming, you need to do a dozen or so battles for them to gain a level.
You also spend a fair deal of money on their gear. So not having them returned after that particular missions would of-course feel very annoying.

I see. Hmm, yes, we don't check that. However, you always can reload and place your units somewhere before the quest. And also, at no point this map requires full army. I usually have only 7 or 8 units here as I don't like experience being given away to too many soldiers.

Archers suffer a ranged penalty the further they have to shoot (wouldn't be surprised if I picked that up from the loading screens rather than the tutorial). My first instinct was to hit the lone healer too, but that requires using the entire line of archers when their arrows might be put to better use helping the frontline create avenues of advancement. Once the melee units get in range of the archers, it’s pretty much over. Most of the time the enemy will even surrender with a couple of ranged units left on the field.

Healing potions are useful for drinking between wave battles, as sometimes you’ll get a quest that prevents a trip to the church between fights. Select the potion in the inventory screen and drop it over the injured character’s portrait. Buff potions are more useful for the fights themselves.

Knights are absolutely lethal - attack bonus, armour bonus, initiative bonus, ramming strike. If they move to attack a target (rather than attack from standstill) and pick up a kill, they get another turn. So the two knights I have potentially means up to four attacks before the enemy can react. If the enemy has knights, lure them into a forest or swamp and they’ll have to dismount.

Yep, took it from an undead lord’s grip. Check out as many rumours as you can, because the loot is seriously powerful. My main character is a demi-god at this stage. First he’s riding a battle horse and wearing magical plate, so his armour level is that of a 40K Titan already. If the enemy unhorse him, he lets them see his final form and unsheathes the two-handed sword which hits like a meteor strike in a wide arc. He’s so effective that the enemy line rush to the sides just to keep away from him. ‘We don’t want none of this guy!’

Thanks for the input. Great game by the way. I like the process of finding your own approach through trial-and-error, its one of the key things that attract me to tactical games like this.

Yes the moment you reach the archers with your Knight or fighters is extremely satisfying.
When you are stuck somewhere at night its easy to get hit by waves of enemies, having potions around is quite important to say the least. I still find it more efficient to use healers during battle though.

I think the three classes are arranged in terms of difficulty, the priest/mystic is even advised for advanced play.
I usually do the opposite when the enemy has a Knight; I pull them and attack them on the road, I'll try your approach next time. It definitely pays off to gear-up your Knight with better stuff as soon as possible as well.

" I see. Hmm, yes, we don't check that. However, you always can reload and place your units somewhere before the quest."

The asumption being that i have somewhere to garriosn men, well i didn't.
You would still need to know that that event was going to happen, as i said this is what i found while playing.
As i stated heading off the attackers still gives you two monks.....
This doesn't make sense, if you attack with just your own army, that is what it should be.
They didn't come with me, they teleported in..uh huh..
My experience so far, haven't made much more progress with the game...
Honestly that feels like being punished for playing my own way.....uh.


"And also, at no point this map requires full army. I usually have only 7 or 8 units here as I don't like experience being given away to too many soldiers."
Never said it does need that amount of men, i did so because i enjoyed playing that way.
And will continue to fill out my retinue/slots as and when i can afford too.
Yes, it takes longer to level, still i like grinding..call me weird :P