@BloodSucker
I will make a proper reply a bit later (there's something I meant to show around this time period but I haven't made it yet) but I'm interested in any feedback you (or anyone) may have on how to save a few more days in this time period or other point of the rush.
So far I feel my hand was forced:
-only Maximus could have enough spell points to defeat Xyron
-only Maximus had enough spell points to capture the Forest rampart
The goal of developing multiple heroes, as you said yourself, is that they are interchangeable and thus allowing more progress. The first instance will happen in a few more turns.
@Salamandre
TEW2 doesn't have that many battles available hehe.
Maybe one day I'll delve into TEW4. I figured out how to get the missing features from HDmod last night in ERA.
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I have no clue how this image will turn out, I may have to break it into multiple parts after this post is created. (Don't you wish there was a 'preview post' feature?)
Overview is a bit small but uploading the image at 100% size wasn't possible.
Basically, this is a flowchart of the quests in the game to go ahead. The game is linear up until the hall of the gods where (on paper) you could open up 3 paths right away.
As you can see, the longest path is the one unlocked by defeating the God of Earth, therefore, it makes sense to kill him ASAP. But to progress on this path, one must also defeat Xyron.
Optimal path In theory it should be possible to defeat the God of Earth shortly after capturing the Tavern in King's Castle (you need a lot of gold or a lot of spell points, considering the army will be fairly small at that point); this would allow one to get started on the Barbarian wildlands. At the same time, you need a hero making the trip towards Xyron so that no time is wasted when moving the army to go kill him.
Before one gets too far on the longest path, progress must be made in Mongolia to visit the red tent and kill Genghis so that the purple tent may be visited. At that point, you should be pretty much golden in terms of progress.
There are many issues with this, for example:
-there are not enough spell points to kill God of Earth without sharpshooters - unless you develop an Intelligence specialist, but then you waste time doing so
-so sharpshooters are pretty much mandatory but you are pretty broke by the time you capture King's Castle (defeating Arthur should be possible with much less troops but that means very good RNG), more time wasted
-since you don't get Xyron's 222k gold until later, there is not enough gold to get a 2nd decent army going and so even getting Xyron's gold (the ArchDevil fights) is difficult while keeping the progress in Barbarian lands
-there is a difficult fight on cursed ground in the barbarian lands, doing it very early may be impossible without losing most of your core army
-going through Mongolia is pretty long and then you have to add 4 days to reach the purple tent (based on my calculations, you'd have to start both at the same time)
-spell points issues since the new heroes don't get the time to develop as much before being sent on mission
It may be possible, but:
-the small army will need to be split so fights will rely on Morale/Luck until the conquest on Mongolia is done
-the generated save would need to be even better
What can I use? A few Adventure Caves in a random Era map, a bit of patience, frequent saves in case the bug solves himself and one can beat those numbers in the first week.
Yeah direct link for overview download is a much better idea, now can you please delete the overview here (or resize it to fit), as it resize all the page and posts become impossible to read without constant scrolling ____________ Era II mods and utilities
I've added a direct link. It's by no means a work of art - or exactly complete (for instance no mention of Necropolis area because no progress is limited by that) - but the main focus is there.
232
Kyrre pursues the conquest of Mongolia. I make a small detour (doesn't waste time) so that she can finally learn Expert Intelligence and have enough spell points for her first real mission.
Next she moves south a bit, visits the Oasis and maxes out spell points at the well (only 240, yikes!). She moves on through the hidden path while ignoring the Cornucopia for now, it isn't needed until muuuuch later so it will be picked up when there's a downtime. Since SP is so low, try to be as economical as possible in fights.
Andra lands near the Behemoths and uses the terrain because a complete forcefield is not yet available.
The remaining movement is used to hire troops and visit mage guilds, before finishing the trip in Longbow, where a hero-chain is formed until Maximus to bring him troops and artifacts. Andra > Marion > GoW > Maximus.
Maximus takes on the God of Fire. This is the third critical use of the Necklace of Swiftness, allowing AAs to be as fast as Phoenixes for the first turn.
If you are familiar with the forcefield trick, I recommend only watching the first 45 seconds of the video. I exploit the AI's greed and the fact that it doesn't feel the need to move units when they are in a 'safe' place. By having 2 Archdevils lined up, the Phoenix want to use breath attack on them, but they can only kill both from one spot on the battlefield because a pesky Pegasus is preventing the breath attack from below. In that position the Phoenix block access to my shooters.
-anti-magic on Ammo Cart to prevent Fireball
-focus on Fire Elementals so that GoF keeps summoning instead of using offensive spells
Right after, Maximus takes on God of Earth. I use the same exact technique as the GoF fight, feel free to skim through after the start.
-anti-magic on Ammo Cart to prevent Meteor Shower
-focus on Sharpshooters instead of Earth Elementals because I can't kill them fast enough and this limits the amount of summoned troops since GoE keeps resurrecting them
Maximus then TPs to Unknown and is met by Isra who takes over the tome of Earth and some artifacts, before swapping with Dessa in Unknown. (Not everything should be given, Maximus keeps +Knowledge items and Gloves, see 233)
The terrain here is Magic Plains so even though Isra doesn't have Earth Magic, Town Portal lets you pick where to go
Now Dessa TPs to Unknown, leaves the Tome of Earth to Maximus and starts on the Barbarian conquest through the hidden path (wood).
Double spell points and kills some easy creatures that grant good experience. Cast slow and shoot away.
As always, move as far as you can...
Remaining heroes start moving closer to towns or specific targets to facilitate future Tome of Earth swaps.
233
Let's follow Dessa a bit... cast slow, shoot, keep moving. Skip the first town and the Statue of Legion, heading straight for the northern town (can't reach the first town this turn, missing 3~4 steps).
Kyrre visits the Fountain and the hidden event vs. Dendroids. Save as many spell points as possible!
Visit the Fountain again and make your way to Deadwood. The surprise attack is fairly easy but avoid enemy morale to save SP.
Oops, I forgot I lost Zealots. Getting tired and didn't want to replay it. Instead of casting Earthquake an extra resurrect can be cast to avoid losing any Zealots (Pegasi are expendable).
Not a difficult fight but with only 200 spell points, you can't really make mistakes.
Maximus was left with these artifacts (Town of Earth) so he can replace Kyrre on the Mongolia conquest path.
The book goes to Kyrre and back to starting area, the current base of operations.
Now Maximus is the new Kyrre, it's like that hero has an extra 2000+ movement all of a sudden. There are some fights along the way, nothing too crazy.
Skip the red tent for now (see overview a few posts prior) because it's not needed until much later. It will be flagged during a downtime instead.
More undead, Pegasi split in groups of 1 to stop liches from firing.
"Kyrre" finishes the turn all the way over here instead of Kyrre finishing the turn a few steps to the west of Deadwood. Plus "Kyrre" (Maximus) has a fresh spell points pool of 500+
Real Kyrre goes to Unknown to get some real spell points.
She only has half a day of rest before going back to Mongolia... but that is for another time.
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I know I said I'd try to be briefer, but there's so much happening it's difficult to skip some of these details.
Next update (not for a few days I'm afraid) will continue the Mongolian and Barbarian conquests.
RoseKavalier said:I know I said I'd try to be briefer
Please don't. The way you are doing it it works as a tutorial as well as a walktrough. It's something at least I have been long expecting.
One can see 10 hours straight of competive gaming almost everyday but this kind of gameplay is so less frequently streamed some things get completly discredited like the utility of a set of secondary skills containning Water Magic and Intelligence.
BloodSucker: alright, just let me know if it gets too heavy at some point.
Salamandre: 200 movement points for 25 spell points just isn't worth it... that comes out to 4000 movement for 500 spell points...I can get more than that just from sitting in town with the new artifacts. That and you have to spend an extra turn just to get there means it's just not worth it.
On a 'cheat' rush with Admiral's Hat, it is very useful on the other hand
Yes, but you can leave there Kyree for several days, he gets 2000 mana then he can do battles that he couldn't before to level. I don't remember if the event gives extra mana or it stops when you are full, never stopped enough to check.
____________ Era II mods and utilities
While Kyrre was off to refresh her spell points, Maximus pushed on in Mongolia. Casting Waterwalk saves a few movement points which will be just enough to trade, town portal and trade again. The town capture is not a difficult fight: Armageddon most of the army in 2 turns. There are plenty of SP but I was really tired and decided not to revive everything...
In order to reach the Stronghold, summon boat is required because too many tiles are hidden by fog for waterwalk.
Dessa's fight is slightly more difficult because "Crag Hack" likes to cast blind, which can be problematic.
-Open with Forgetfulness so that I don't have to resurrect too many troops.
-He casts Blind on sharpshooters during T-birds' turn...
-since I have no more active shooters, the AI thinks he has shooter superiority (Arrow towers) and will not send his troops outside the castle walls!
-Blind the t-birds and suicide remaining troops so that arrow towers wake up the shrapshooters
-Since I wear +1 speed artifact, both fastest troops have 10 speed (AB and shooters).
-I get to act first and kill with frenzy/blind the rest
The key here is just to have initiative so that the AI's Blind spell is basically wasted...
So far, Isra is the most neglected hero. The truth is there isn't time to spare the Tome of Earth in order to go kill creatures for experience... so Isra grabs whatever was left over and gives troops to Marion.
Marion brings these troops to Kyrre (I remembered this after taking several screenshots so they are missing until the end of this post).
As I was saying, Kyrre refreshes spell points and then visits Dessa in the newly captured Barbarian town.
They switch troops and some artifacts. Sharpshooters are necessary to clear the remaining parts of Mongolia... there are just too many Chaos Hydras to make it with Zealots. It's not that it's impossible but rather that you use a lot more spell points without the sharpshooters and run out before conquering the last of Mongolia. Buy a cheap slow Goblin before leaving as you want a low speed before boarding the ship.
Kyrre stops in Deadwood for the +1 defense.
Well not really... in fact it's for a small trick that I use throughout the rest of the run every time I have to Town Portal somewhere.
This Oasis is 441 movement away from the town; 641 when factoring in the Town Portal spell. Oasis provides 800 movement! So if you have to Town portal somewhere and have fought a battle, go through Deadwood to gain 159 movement. It's sometimes worth 2 tiles...much worth for 12 spell points.
Next Kyrre meets up with Maximus, trades troops and artifacts in order to board the ship. Now Maximus has Tome of Earth.
Kyrre ignores everything along the path, the essence is to get to Genghis Khan as fast as possible. Land on Chaos Island (for more mapmaker humour) and you immediately see why Sharpshooters are needed to not waste your entire spell points pool.
Kyrre finishes her day all the way over here, thanks to Navigation and Logistics specialty. Consider how much movement was gained from swapping between Maximus and Kyrre for this portion... basically two days.
With his 300-something movement points left, Maximus has just enough to visit Dessa and give the Tome of Earth. This also means he gets to stay in the city and refresh spell points
Dessa goes to Deadwood as well for the Defense skill... well just grabs it on his way to clear the Red tent.
The rest of the heroes aren't super interesting, they move about and get set for their next tasks which usually involves going to a meeting point or ending up near a town.
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Up to this point, my original plan had been to keep moving North with Dessa to kill Cyclops King (see timeline post) to focus on the main path of the map...
The problem is that I couldn't figure out a way to kill him with so little troops as he would keep doing a split on his Cyclopes like this and systematically destroy me. With Frenzy and Morale I could technically kill the Cyclopes in 2 turns... If the sharpshooters survived and got a ridiculous Morale RNG. There is still the issue with the T-birds that could wipe out the 0-defense Sharpshooters.
Not using quadruple-morale hit another problem: I couldn't block both remaining Cyclopes and survive. After the next week of levees it's not an issue as you will later see. So now that further progress on this path is pretty much stuck, I decided to clear up Mongolia fast, grab the red tent and do some more cleaning of Barbarian lands [next update].
Well, what do you know. I was messing around just now and #$(@#^$#@($!!!! Swap in this crappy sword:
No more split
This is kinda frustrating. It may be possible to gain ~3 days on my completion time (now finished) but it involves a LOT of replaying and planning of the days leading up to 234... possibly as far back as 214. And then all the way to the end of the game another time.
No way that's happening
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Noticed I took some screenshots from the wrong set of saves last time (you know when you're 10 movement points short of an objective and have to load back 4~5 days... yea, that happens way too often) but it really doesn't change anything in the strategy.
Salamandre said:Hope you didn't give up, we wait for more!
Yep, I said nothing cause u said u have been short of time and I hate to put pressure on people but, when you find time, please don't forget this amazing task you're up to.
This thread is pages long: 
posted September 14, 2015 10:21 PM
