What King's Bounty to start with?

[Gregz]

Health isn't the way to be tanky. I don't care how much health you have, its going to survive a fraction of the time something with high resistance will. Your main tank should have at least 80% resistance to physical after you cast your resistance buff, 90% being better. Can probably get away with a bit less in normal mode, but do this and things that used to decimate stacks just barely chip away at their health. Keep in mind that most lvl 5 units have significantly lower damage output too, if you are using all high HP lvl 5 units then you are probably taking 2-3x as much damage because you take so much longer to kill them.

I only have my mage experience, but I do remember learning late in the game how incredibly powerful defense and resists are. Try maxing those types of support spells and buffing the hell out of your units, then use the various duplication spells like phantom etc. so those mobs can do most of the tanking.

There's no shame in lowering the difficulty from normal, most games on impossible difficulty are easier than this game on normal.

Also, I'm sure you've figured it out by now, but powerful items can be upgraded via combat (fighting the item gaurdians).

 

[Grunker]

There's no shame in lowering the difficulty from normal

Oh yes. Yes there is

About items: Points here are irrelevant right now. I still have the starting sword and shield, for example. Simply can't afford otherwise.

About resistance: I guess I should've known that from the fact that Paladin survival rate is pretty good despite their hit points. I have 33 mana (and that's with investing points in mana skills) and my resistance spell is called Divine Armor or somesuch. It costs 20 mana, and I don't know which unit is going to be hit so often it will be useless.

Having royal snakes in the army seems like suicide - my guess is they'll melt. But, if you say so.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Stoneskin should be your goto spell for resistance, at lvl 3 it costs 7 MP for 5 rounds of +50% vs Physical. If you haven't gotten the medal yet thats worth another +7% vs everything after you spam enough. Then there are various items that can boost it between 5 and 10% each.

As gregz says phantom is great (at least once you upgrade it - lvl 3 phantom maxes out at 70% of original stack health I believe). Simply summoning the dragon of chaos right next to the enemy on the first turn of battle is also good for relieving initial pressure. Also, phantom your summoning units to summon even more (best with Royal Griffons/Demonologists).

Are you digging with your pet? There is really no instance in which I have ever been low on money, by the midgame I'm usually at 100k+ and buying lvl 5 items just to salvage them into runes.

 

[Grunker]

I digged way too little compared to my last playthrough, sadly. With regards to Stoneskin, I fucked up so bad myself. I thought the Divine Armor thing was better so I trashed the stoneskin-scrolls - I had quite a few - because I hadn't learned their magic school yet. Not sure if there are any left. Yeah, that brutal blunder is really on me, dunno why I did it.

 

[Terpsichore]

The best way to cheese the end-game in the original game was using a demon army (demon, two succubus and imps) with a mage hero, is that still the case in AP?

 

[Overweight Manatee]

I digged way too little compared to my last playthrough, sadly. With regards to Stoneskin, I fucked up so bad myself. I thought the Divine Armor thing was better so I trashed the stoneskin-scrolls - I had quite a few - because I hadn't learned their magic school yet. Not sure if there are any left. Yeah, that brutal blunder is really on me, dunno why I did it.

Trashing scrolls? You can sell em at castles for serious cash. Low end scrolls go for ~300 gold and high end ones reach 10k. When at the castle go to your spell book and right click on the spell scrolls. Yes its unexplained and I'm not sure how I figured it out, but there it is. You can also buy them back later after you learn the magic school.

The best way to cheese the end-game in the original game was using a demon army (demon, two succubus and imps) with a mage hero, is that still the case in AP?

A single Black Knight stack works now. As does 2 stacks of repair droids that heal each other. Don't even need the mage part since the AP classes weren't balanced by a loony.

 

[Gregz]

The best way to cheese the end-game in the original game was using a demon army (demon, two succubus and imps) with a mage hero, is that still the case in AP?

That's how I ended the game, one stack of about 20 or so Arch-demons + damage spells.

 

[Reptilian Shapeshifter]

I digged way too little compared to my last playthrough, sadly. With regards to Stoneskin, I fucked up so bad myself. I thought the Divine Armor thing was better so I trashed the stoneskin-scrolls - I had quite a few - because I hadn't learned their magic school yet. Not sure if there are any left. Yeah, that brutal blunder is really on me, dunno why I did it.

Trashing scrolls? You can sell em at castles for serious cash. Low end scrolls go for ~300 gold and high end ones reach 10k. When at the castle go to your spell book and right click on the spell scrolls. Yes its unexplained and I'm not sure how I figured it out, but there it is. You can also buy them back later after you learn the magic school.

No wonder you've run out of money. Scrolls are a huge source of income. Treasure hunter will also earn you a fair number of scrolls and runes over time - you need to manage your kills to give yourself enough time to dig up everything on the map.

 

[agris]

*casts Raise Dead*

I'm thinking about playing the modern KB games, based on offhand mentions in threads. Should I? Are they worth it for someone who isn't a basement dweller with unlimited free time? I like challenging and strategic TB combat, a narrative slant (even if that means linear), and stats/build optimization. I'm also a compulsive loot whore.

Relevant games that I like: Expeditions: Conquistador, BG/IWD/PST, Fallout 1/2/NV, Disciples 2, Diablo 1 (including Hellfire muthafukkas)/2, Anachronox, SRR, KoTOR, Morrowind, ME1, DA:O, MMXL, LoG etc etc...

 

[Tigranes]

Armoured Princess is less big/grindy, and if you enjoyed Conquistador etc., it's probably worth a try.

 

[Metro]

Yeah I'd go with AP (Crossworlds is an expansion/transformative pack for it) and skip the others. The games are all fundamentally with only mild variations.

 

[Grunker]

Isn't that viking-thingy that just came out also an expansion for AP?

 

[Gregz]

KB:Crossworlds is best KB.

 

[Metro]

Isn't that viking-thingy that just came out also an expansion for AP?

Nah. Warriors of the North is a standalone game that tweaks the chest/dragon powers somewhat in the form of Valkyries. It also got a recent expansion pack... not that it needed it. I guess some people are like crack addicts when it comes to KB. I never finished any of them.

 

[Grunker]

I enjoyed AP a lot but then it came to a point where losing even one unit meant backtracking for 10 minutes after which I could take one fight and then repeat.

 

[Average Manatee]

Get the mod that lets you buy reinforcements in the field. Pretty sure all of the KB games have one. There is also one that expands the reserve slot limit to 5.

 

[SCO]

True. There is a russian mod for this (with a horrible google translation) that adds a new area and leaves the original game (mostly) alone. Thing is, it also adds a experience system, kinda like Eador Genesis, which is welcome.
It also has a 'persistent' summonable unit, but i'm finding the fucker boring as hell to progress (you need to invest all of your kills on him and keep him alive, otherwise you will fall behind and it will be completely useless).

I also quite liked the strategy of summoning lots of (weak or not) units and casting that explosion spell on them. Nice for vanilla, but not recommended with this mod obviously.
But truth be told, i burned out on this game a while ago. Repetitive as fuck.