End of Act I: Alexandar Fight (Tactician)
 

This encounter really brought back great memories of the gold-box games with its breadth of battle-field, open range of approaches and emphasis on good character placement. The additional dynamics of the voidworm appearing also make for some nice unpredictability and you can effectively take minimal damage while the two opposing parties are battling it out, isolating one or two of the magisters here or there if possible. My party was level 7 and hit level 8 halfway through the fight! The extra stat power certainly helped.

PC Dwarf: (Warfare, single-handed)
Beast: (Battle-mage, aerothurge/dual wielding)
Ifan: (Huntsman, ranged)
Lohse (Hydrosophist, Necromancy)

Has anyone made it so that the extra seeker troops survived on tactician mode? That seemed tricky but possible with better placement.

I'd had several shots at this fight and had got progressively closer to winning it, once missing out by making a bad choice in not going invisible with Ifan at a key moment in order to double-back and apply a resurrection scroll. When I finally did win it, it was due to an incredible shift in fortune.

Here's what happened:

1. I unchained the party and took Ifan and the two seekers to the right side of the ruins (where the purged dragon eliminates the shriekers) The two dwarfs and Lohse I took to the left and teleported them up, positioning them outside the corridor.

2. I initiated the fight by getting in an arrow barrage to the dangerous Gheist and used the other three to teleport the flying magister into a choke point. This split Alexandar's forces more and gave extra coverage to my melee guys from the assassins.

3. The voidworm appeared to the left after my trio had taken out the flying magister. The corridor quickly became an oily inferno and chaos ensued. Many of the knights got stuck and slowed in the corridor, were picked off by my fighters and the worm. Then it changed direction and went right, hitting the Alexander side of the battle.

4. On the right side, Ifan and the two seekers were getting surrounded until the voidworm changed direction and brought its attentions to bear on the magisters. I kept Ifan out of key segments of action by the very useful "tactical retreat" and "chameleon cloak" skills. Eventually it was down to Alexander, a knight, an archer and the Gheist who hadn't been as dangerous or active this time around.

5. I thought I was winning until Alexander teleported Ifan to a nearby tower and the Gheist killed him. Then the voidworm came back to the left side!

6. I managed to teleport Lohse out into the bottom left corner just outside the ruins just in time, but on the worm's next turn it went straight to Lohse and chomped her to bits. Damn! It was down to the dwarfs! Curiously enough, the voidworm stayed in that bottom left position for the remainder of the fight and the surviving magisters were steadily moving toward the ruin corridor.

7. Alexandar and the voidworm were soon exchanging blows in the same corner, with the two dwarfs buffing up, healing madly, waiting on the imminent arrival of the gheist and the remaining knight. What happened next was pretty incredible. The voidworm from its distant position, could just see the gheist and was in range. It basically disabled my assailants with petrify at the corridor exit, eating the last knight and allowing a quick easy kill of the gheist. That action absolutely turned the direction of the fight fully on its head; as my dwarfs were all out of healing.

8. In disbelief, I double backed and resurrected Ifan, set up a popcorn eating spot and watched the fight between Alexander and the voidworm. They whittled away at each other, the dwarfs cheering and throwing grenades for moral support.

9. At the right moment, we brought back Lohse, teleported Alexander to his death and sniped the worm of its remaining health. Phew! All over. This was a long arduous battle and surely a sign of many more to come.

Feel free to share your own stories of survival from any crazy fights in Act I. :)

It was a lot easier for me on classic mode. I took out the shreikers ahead of time. Told the seekers to all leave on the boat just to save them. Then I teleported everyone up the southeast wall and snuck them into position behind the mage. Initiated battle with the sword&board/warfare/pyro/geo (Prince) staying below and the mages (summoner/necro/geo Fane and hydro/aero/geo Lohse) going to the top. Sebille (scoundrel/warfare/polymorph/necro) took out the mage, and we waited for the others to come to us. Was pretty easy with Alexander finally killing himself with attacks of opportunity and ruptured tendons while running away. All the human enemies were dead turns before the worm appeared. If I could change to Tactician mode at this point I would. Haven’t had to use a resurrection scroll once.

I must have totally sucked at this game. My memory of this fight was painfully grinding away at armour bars, spamming resurrection scrolls, and getting frustrated that the enemy skills to basically teleport around negated my character positioning. The worm was a great touch to the fight though and definitely added a welcome randomness. I gave up on the game not far into the second island, really should get back to it at some point….

Didn't play on tactician but the whole trick of the battle (without cheese) is to stay away and let the two groups fight each other, while attacking whoever's winning. At the end you'll fight a very weakened survivor.

Yep, I just helped whoever was losing. :) I mean, it's obvious that's the way to save resources and you're encouraged to play that way, but I do find it unusual that a random choice to teleport away a character is the key event which pretty much started the tide moving in my favour. (Thus luring the voidworm out of the action…)

There are many fights from the goldbox games that had this great team fighting concept. One of the first I can recall playing is the competing factions of the thieves guild in the sewers of Curse of the Azure Bonds. I was also reminded of such fights as taking on Dexam the beholder, the bits of Moander and even the fun tussle with Dracandros in Hap. All are potentially quite long, enduring affairs.

In DOS2 I've just finished the Lady Vanguard fight and are moving on to the Hall of Echoes. Hoping the game opens up a bit more soon.

I made a house rule for teleport (I wonder if it can be modded). I considered it too cheesy as it is, so I made my house rule that it requires magic armor to be down for it to be used, like every other magic spell in the game.

Was a lot of fun on Tactician but not my hardest fight in act i. For myself the hardest fight was the 'ambush'. I'm not sure if this fight has a name but somewhere near some pigs you are ambushed by a killer monster…..

I save reloaded and properly positioned for that one. Got everyone up on the highest platform then triggered the ambush on the ground with my teleporting scoundrel Sebille. I've found that positioning and high ground is more important than anything else for a good defense.

I don't think teleport is particularly cheesy - it was established as a strategic idea in the first game and most players would be familiar with it. It doesn't move outside of the boundaries too much of expected player behaviour. But I get and respect where you're coming from Wolfing. On tactician, I'm finding every tool in these hard encounters helps as well. You have to be somewhat devious to balance the power of the AI.

@ you
I know the fight you mean - the Voidwoken ambush. It was quite rough, yes. I didn't enjoy that one quite as much as the Alexandar fight, but my method was quite simple - get to high ground to the left of the battlefield, protect the stairwell with elements, use the dome of protection on my two warriors and keep it tight; take out as many from up high as possible with Ifan's damage bonus. It was clustered and messy, but we got there in the end.

One idea I had for that fight but didn't test was with the fire-pigs - I never really interacted with those, but could they play a role in the fight if you teleport or lure one in?

Alexander: yeah, that was difficult on tactician for sure. I did the divide & conquer thing. Everyone set up cattycorner to where the enemies were. Red Prince (pure fighter at the time) came up along the wall until he was spotted then ran back to where everyone else was. Some enemies came straight after the prince, one (?) came the other direction a little later, and the one with polymorph didn't show up at all.

The worm was rough, though. It hit them but it hit me at least as much, if not more. There was no way to just run off and let Alexander deal with the thing.

The pig ambush was definitely worse - that Voidwoken was murder! I tried sneaking/teleporting along the ridge hoping to gang up on the Voidwoken and thus de-animate the dead but Sib was the only one that could get there - everyone else was spotted. Worse yet, I don't think killing the thing de-animated the dead when I finally did manage it.

My tactic? Out-level the buggars. I did that fight after finishing Alexander.

P.S. My favorite fight so far was when I rescued a certain person from execution on the top of a big, wooden platform.

Alas for myself it was a total mess. I had not saved for a while so reload was not an option. I had to play it the way it was and i got caught very early after leaving fort joy so my equipment and skills were limited. I think it took over an hour to win the fight - vaguely I cheese it - i discovered that if i ran quick enough the voidwalker didn't chase and i could kill the skeletons then comeback and finish the voidwalker. It wasn't quite that simple because at times it did chase - i was never able to get to high ground but i was determined to not reload because the save was quite old (in case this is confusing - i saved at the start of the fight so i was able to try a few things but couldn't change my position - also the enemy was between me and high ground - if I had a save before the fight i would have waited a while and found better equipment et all).

Ouch. Good on you to persevere. I quicksave constantly when exploring since Larian loves these surprise ambushes.

Another approach is to sneak everywhere, but that would be beyond tedious.

There's a point - the save system in this game is exceptionally good. It doesn't even lock up the game while it saves everything!

Yeah, you can even save in dialogue trees, which I love, when it starts getting too deep and convoluted.

I can't wait for the day I actually have time to start playing this…

It’s a huge time sink without a doubt.

I remember the fight with Alexander fondly, and really chaotic. The worm saved me since it drew the attention of several henchmen and I could heal and reposition my team. Good times.

I'm in the third area now. The Nameless Isle. So far it's a bit underwhelming compared to Fort Joy and Reapers Coast. Hoping it picks up again since I don't feel done with this gem of a game yet.

In terms of fights there are a couple of big ones; in terms of story and presentation my personal feeling is act 1 is the best by a long shot but i still hope they will patch the later acts with content changes.

Nameless Isle feels a bit like an interlude between the big area of Arx and the huge area of Reaper.

My next combat worthy of note in Reapers Coast was probably this one:

The lead-up little party break-up mission with the Voidwoken in Wreckers Cave was also awkward at first as well - but I found a nifty solution using the pyramids to reconnect the members quickly enough and had good fun clearing the place.

Party build at level 12 is now:

PC Dwarf (Warfare, single-handed)
Beast (Aerothurge, warfare, dual-wielding)
Ifan (Huntsman, Geomancer)
Lohse (Necromancy, Hydrosophist)

I think I'll cautiously try and do some more looking around Cloisterwood next.

Hmm, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this was:

I just persuaded my way through that one. Didn't even try the violent approach…

For the Mordus fight I just prepositioned everyone by sneaking up onto a ledge behind one of the flying possessed on the northend of the cavern. Initiated the conversation from there. Mordus teleported up to the group there and got swifting creamed by the group. Once you kill him his minions insta-die. Mordus didn't even get the chance to transform.

The castle before the cave was pretty tough for me.

Did you go through the front door or from the mountain side? I just hung out up there and drew them in one by one with a tank.

Mountain side, but I didn't see any way to draw them in one by one. Now that I'm more experienced, I'm pretty certain I could have used teleport to at least pull one or two out of the gang but I didn't understand the agro mechanics back then.

I kept the tank on the top platform who aggroed the closet with a ranged spell and then pulled back into the southeastern corner. All my other party members stayed on top of mountain near the climbable cliff. Also prepositioned a few poison barrels around the platform for some glorious poison explosions. Fun times! :)