Haha... He asked you if you wanted to flip a coin? Really? XD
*siiiiiighs* Back on the subject of expensive crossbowmen... I'm really starting to get discouraged here. 8th shard I come across Oionor again, and this time managed to rush him and beat him in under 50 turns.
Next shard was uneventful, consisting of only a local lord. 10th shard? I meet up with that necromancer Oionor was griping about, and I do fairly well at first... Well okay early game was terrible, I got a lot of kills midgame, but late in the game everything fell apart in every sense of the word. No Iron at all - literally, and guards were 320 - 480 gold a pop, yet his heroes would wipe them without losing a single unit in most cases.
I finally got to his castle after wiping his Ranger (Which was using a MINOTAUR and spamming Raise Ghoul between every turn) and had to rush back to my castle to resupply, which cost me nearly 2,000 gold (Again, no Iron mines. Seriously - searched the four hills in my territory and the two I stole from him to 100%... No iron. None. Only thing I got was Marble in my territory.)
I managed to get to his castle again and siege it with a healthy team, a lot of horsemen and a priest, and a number of T1 healers, and my weapon breaks when he sends his commander after me and I lose one unit. Next turn, his Wizard. I kill him losing two of my horses. Then his Ranger comes up, with two Assassins, a Minotaur of all things, a Thug, and a few weak units. If I fight on my own, I see he spams Double-Shot and Raise Ghoul, and I often lost only killing a few of his. Auto-Combat fares much better, managing to kill everything but the Hero and the minotaur - injuring the latter while barely scratching the former.
So I'm broke, lost my hero twice, and prices for the only units that can dent his forces are almost 300g for a T1 unit and nearly 400 for the horses. And again, I'm terribly underequiped, with the only piece of armor that is worth while being a Gloves of Valor and the only weapon that isn't a common item is a sword. Oh yeah and I wasted my Phoenix contract too. If I could have summoned those into my party that freak of nature would be off that shard by now. V_V
Honestly, I've been hearing people saying they're on shard 30+ or are finding Skilled too easy, and I'm strugglign with Beginner. If I rush the enemy, it's mostly up to luck since I'll rarely get the time to pick up any good equipment. If I wait around and explore every little thing, I end up doing twice as poorly.
Is a very fun game up until you're trying to hold back an ocean by building a dam of twigs and pebbles - which is basically what I end up doing almost every time another Master shows up. I'm beyond amazed I even got this far on this run.
I learn fast, but I never really master anything, which is why I rarely venture into the higher difficulties games offer. But if I'm doing this terrible on the lowest difficulty? Really hurts my confidence ^_^;
Post edited December 18, 2012 by Rezca