What King's Bounty to start with?

[Hobo Elf]

Thanks guys!

EDIT: I've been meaning to ask you, Hobo, why do you have that MtG-quote as your signature?

Because I used to be angry about video games. Then I realised that I should stop playing the shitty ones and concentrate on the good ones.

 

[Grunker]

Have you had any luck with it? I still play some pretty shitty games now and then.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Dark Souls is pretty much consuming me right now. I guess you're having fun when you forget to breathe during intense parts of the game.

 

[Metro]

As mentioned Crossworlds just enhances Armored Princess so there's no reason to play vanilla Armored Princess. Even though TL technically comes first the storyline isn't really important and, if you're like me, you'll probably find yourself skipping past a lot of the story text because it's fairly corny/uninteresting. CW/AP is more polished, too. It does a better job of distinguishing mage and warrior builds -- primarily by not allowing you to increase your rage or mana cap on level up, it's just straight leadership.

As mentioned, the game is quite long and it can get a bit tedious so you probably aren't going to want to play it straight through. I've dumped about 35+ hours into it and am only about 40% through at most. Depending on the difficulty level you choose you might have to get a bit creative in terms of kiting packs of enemies you can't beat in order to grab leadership flags, items, and troops to get stronger. Also as a mage it seems most of the challenge is in the first ten or so levels where you can't really use a lot of nukes so you're mostly just using buffs and debuffs to avoid losses -- you get leadership bonuses for 10, 30, and 50 combats without troop losses. The key is using high level/health units versus stacks of weaker ones combined with stoneskin, illusion, etc. However, once I hit the mid teens I became stupidly overpowered mostly due to the chaos dragon spell. It summons a magic immune dragon that does a huge AoE nuke when summoned, has health/damage based on your intellect, and the breath attack hits two squares in a row. At level three (of the spell) you can pretty much solo fights with it (combined with other nukes) but it takes a truckload of mana.

 

[Terpsichore]

Mage was way more overpowered in the original game, more so when combined with demon troops and wife.

Its nowhere as bad in AP, paladin sucks though, don't try playing in hard/impossible using one, you won't make it far unless you get lucky enough to find good troops to purchase (random).

RNG is tricky in this game, it either adds more variety and unexpected things or ruins your game.

In one of my impossible saves with a paladin i got stuck against troops way out of my league since rng decided to only give me garbage like thieves and pirates to recruit.

 

[Metro]

Yeah, that's one of the main drawbacks. You can hit a brick wall based on the randomization of troop seeding.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Well, to be fair, HoMM suffers from the "run-back-across-whole-map-to-get-reinforcements" too, and that's fine, because the alternatives would be stupid (aka instant summoning).

The eating through 50K enemies doesn't sound very fun though, but time will tell. Crossworlds GOTY Edition installing nao.

Well, its not really the 50k of enemies that is bad (as with HoMM, its just a larger unit stack that doesn't take much longer to defeat after you include -% unit spells). Its that 95% of the battles once you get a good group are going to be you exploiting the same overpowered tactic to win. Early areas are good because you are barely surviving by the skin of your teeth, later areas just become overly easy if you are keeping up to speed.

Mage was way more overpowered in the original game, more so when combined with demon troops and wife.

Its nowhere as bad in AP, paladin sucks though, don't try playing in hard/impossible using one, you won't make it far unless you get lucky enough to find good troops to purchase (random).

RNG is tricky in this game, it either adds more variety and unexpected things or ruins your game.

In one of my impossible saves with a paladin i got stuck against troops way out of my league since rng decided to only give me garbage like thieves and pirates to recruit.

I don't think Paladins are that bad really. At least, my lolimba strat for mage would probably have worked fairly well for paladins (for all classes really, since it benefits from all avenues). That is, Holy Anger + AoE spells and attacks targetted to include my own demon/undead summons for infinite rage/mana generation. I don't think brick walls really exist except for a few fringe cases in impossible, and even then if you dodge past enemies to get to new places and free stuff you are on easy mode (comparatively).

I'm speaking of AP though, TL could be different for all I know.

 

[sea]

The big issue with the Paladin class is that, like a lot of other games with hybrids, it's basically either a warrior but not as good at combat, or a mage but not as good with magic. It's very rare that versatility actually provides a real advantage; it's why min/maxing is so common in games with character development, and why it's so hard to balance out.

 

[Terpsichore]

Paladin design is just moronic, the signature ability was resurrecting your troops in a game where you aren't supposed to lose any, and even that was nerfed in AP.

 

[Grunker]

So I am supposed to out-right lose to the first enemies I encounter after finishing the tutorial, am I insanely, horribly bad or did I just miss something completely obvious?

 

[Gregz]

So, I've decided to give the new King's Bounty games a go, since I just finished playing some HoMM. Should I just start at the latest one (Crossworlds) since that's the most updated one, or is there any particular reason to start with Legend, then AP and finally Crossworlds? I don't give a toss about the story

Thanks in advance.

I never played the first one, so I can't speak on that.

I played AP for about 6 hours, then after googling around I realized that Crossworlds isn't so much a DLC as an expansion, an addon that improves just about everything, increases items, mobs, quests, and I believe adds a continent to AP. The main campaign 'story arc' is identical.

The general concensus was if you have Crossworlds, there's no reason to play vanilla AP.

So I grudgingly wiped my old game, installed Crossworlds, and started over from scratch.

I'm very glad I did.

KB: Crossworlds is easily in my top 5 strategy games of all time.

You are in for a great game!

 

[Terpsichore]

So I am supposed to out-right lose to the first enemies I encounter after finishing the tutorial, am I insanely, horribly bad or did I just miss something completely obvious?

That's perfectly normal if you are playing in hard/impossible, you have to avoid certain enemies for awhile.

Was it the pack of carnivorous plants?

I recommend leveling the scouting skill so you can check the difficulty of packs.

 

[Gregz]

So I am supposed to out-right lose to the first enemies I encounter after finishing the tutorial, am I insanely, horribly bad or did I just miss something completely obvious?

It takes a few hours to pick up what I call "the essence of the game", i.e. how not to get your ass handed to you.

BTW, I know a lot of people don't care about this stuff, but _all_ of the magic items/armor/weapons in the game are pregenerated at character creation. There are sets that require 3, 4, 5 I think even 6 pieces. There are also items that are just so uber, it's a real drag not to find them, or realize that you can't because they aren't even in your world.

Many veteran players will do a 'scan' of their initial savegame, and reference a table of the 'uber' items to make sure they are in the game.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=11780

On my first and only playthrough so far, I got lucky and the most powerful mage drops ended up being in my game, but I got quite lucky I think. Fans of this game who do multiple playthroughs will usually restart/scan about 12 times or so before settling on the savegame they want (usually one that includes all the uber items for the warrior/paladin/mage they plan on playing). There are so many items, but only a finite number of placeholders in the world, and the RNG is kinda dumb so it will 'push out' the uber items for mundane ones, or even place the same 'unique' item in more than one location.

This game is loooooooooooooooong, so if you really start to like it and have been playing 2 weeks, only to find out that you are missing that one crucial item for your build...it's pretty demoralizing.

So, if you care about this (you may not), run that scanner and check those forums for 'must have' items for the build you are planning before getting too attached to your character.

Enjoy.

 

[Grunker]

Well, that's what's so damned embarrasing. I'm playing on normal

Lost to some inquistor types who kept healing hyenas and shooting ranged at me. Reloaded and bought some of my own, went back in, only to get my ass handed to me even more.

Anyway, Gregz, thanks for the tip... You'd really think there would be a mod for that... First figuring out which items are crucial, then restarting games and digging through .txt-files a bunch of times to find THE SAVE-GAME sounds like something my life could do without. I.e. if I'm actually unable to progress at one point because the RNG fucked me I'll probably drop the game right there, rather than make sure all the uber-stuff is in my game before I begin by such an exhausting method.

 

[Gregz]

Anyway, Gregz, thanks for the tip... You'd really think there would be a mod for that...

I haven't played in a few months so it's quite possible there is such a mod by now, those forums would be the place to check. If not, scanning/restarting and cross referencing that table shouldn't take more than 30 minutes or so. Well worth the time.

Edit: Unfortunately I erased my bookmarks, there is such a table, but I can't seem to find it right now (forums are really lagging atm). I did find a thread listing some useful items sets however:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/king...how_msgs.php?pid=959265&topic_id=m-1-52658596

 

[Grunker]

I think I'm gonna make do without it, I really don't want to waste time on it. If there was a mod, maybe, but with no knowledge of the sets or even the impact of their effects I'm gonna skip. I'm playing on Normal, anyway, I should be able to cope.

Now if I could just manage to beat the starting area...

 

[Gregz]

Found it:

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=12249

Certain key units, like black dragons etc. are hireable and like magic items, may not be generated in your particular save, that's why there's a PDF for those.[/url]

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Crossworlds seems to make the islands a bit more random, with more outside the normal level range enemies. Also, IIRC it was Crossworlds that added random Goblin mobs that were horrendously overpowered, as a Goblin army that was ranked below your level would do some serious damage even if you were wiping the floor with armies that were at an "impossible" rating compared to you. You want to run around those and other groups that are harder then what you can handle. After the beginning the difficulty variance from randomly placed mobs seems to even out more.

Not sure what character you are, but try to abuse ranged units and spells. Try to win the medals since some of them provide large bonuses (+leadership for flawless wins makes early game easy, +resistance protects a huge amount if you stack with items to raise tanks from 50% to 80%ish damage reduction). Paladins (the unit) are great for resurrection, and the robed mage guys are great for their ability to buff your rage constantly (potentially split into multiple groups for more buffing). Ohh and get your dragon treasure searching, its the first skill I max on him since it will drown you in gold, runes, spell scrolls and even some rare items.

I don't think there are really any situations in the game that are literally unwinnable because of the RNG. Certainly not on Normal. The only reason to use a save game scanner is if you want to do a very specific build that relies on certain items (ie soloing the entire game with repair droids). Otherwise, adapting to what you have is what the game is about. I haven't save scummed to find any items and even on multiple impossible playthroughs the game has become so easy that I've given it up between 1/2 and 3/4ths through.

The big issue with the Paladin class is that, like a lot of other games with hybrids, it's basically either a warrior but not as good at combat, or a mage but not as good with magic. It's very rare that versatility actually provides a real advantage; it's why min/maxing is so common in games with character development, and why it's so hard to balance out.

The reason hybrids suck in most games is because you can't be a mage and a warrior at the same time (ie use spells WHILE attacking, not just switching back and forth). For KB that isn't a problem. While the Paladin specific skill sucks and a few others do too, simply getting decent access to both is great. Considering that most of the great mage spells are army multipliers, having a bigger army is a good thing. Certainly in the endgame Paladin's better point distribution is worth a bit since you diversify better.

 

[Metro]

You pretty much want to ditch the units you start out with -- think it's farmers and dragonflies or something like that. I'm sure there's some super strategic way to make those units great but I think they suck. Initially I'd go with swordsmen, bowmen, inquisitors, priests, and probably witch hunters. Randomization might mean some of those aren't there, though. Get the dragon kick ability, it's pretty handy early on. I found the wall to be pretty worthless and the treasure seeker thing superfluous unless you're on the harder difficulties and min maxing. On normal you'll never really be short of gold.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

I mostly agree with Roxor. The next-gen King's Bounty is a schoolbook example of a "pretty neat after 30 minutes/ok, I've had enough of this shit after 3-4 hours" game. It's pretty similar to Etherlords in that regard. The idea seems cool, but the gameplay turns out to be a repetitive chore. Armored Princess can indeed be difficult on hard/impossible, but then again it's a clear case of difficulty that stems not from a deep mechanic or encounter design, but the odds that the AI gets with legions of hp-bloated critters.

And yes - running back and forward, back and forward, back and forward, zzzz...

 

[Grunker]

Haha, turns out I am a retard. I hadn't discovered that I could buy units at the main castle. Those swordsmen helped out a lot. So I cleared the first island and have sailed to the next one, and that's it for today. My army now is royal snakes, swamp snakes, a banshee-thingy, and red and blue inquisitors (the blue ones are not named inquisitors but I can't remember their name). So far, it's been pretty damn fun! :D

Gonna clock in one or two hours tommorrow too, probably. We'll see how long it lasts. So far my only really big "WAT" for this game is that no designer raised an eye-brow to the back-and-forth-back-and-forth thing... Since there is no penalty for spending extra time you really have no inclination not to keep your army fully stocked at all times. I honestly think they should have either made it possible to supply any troops you want in the field or, and this would be the ideal solution, impose some kind of penalty for too many trips back to all the dwellings. Right now it's just a really odd design-choice and even worse than in HoMM. I'm sure I'll get pretty tired of it after a while.

 

[ZbojLamignat]

If you picked the mage then invest in chaos magic lvl 3 asap. It will make the running game more bearable as you'll just need some tank troops and do most fighting with spells.

 

[Metro]

You can keep two troops in reserve so that sort of helps with the 'back and forth' thing.

If you picked the mage then invest in chaos magic lvl 3 asap. It will make the running game more bearable as you'll just need some tank troops and do most fighting with spells.

I don't agree simply because the spell costs tend to be so high you may not actually have the mana reserves to make use of the level three spells right away. I'd probably get 'higher magic' first -- the one that allows you cast two spells in the same around. If you're only going to be able to cast one, maybe two level three fireballs then it's nice to be able to cast that oil spell before it enhancing the damage by 30%.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Since there is no penalty for spending extra time

EACH DAY YOU IDLE DIMINISHES YOUR ENDGAME SCORE, VARLET

 

[Grunker]

I'm playing a mage and I went straight for the damage bonus skill. I was going to level up Chaos now anyway. My first Chaos spell was pretty cool (Poison Skull). In fact, that snake dwelling was haevan in terms of units and spells both.

How are spells leveled up? Automatically when gaining new levels in their schools, right?

As for reserve troops, yeah, but you can't keep reserves of your favourite units as far as I can tell, since that'll break the leadership-cap.