:lol:

You know, that's a lot of hours just to try to prove people wrong!

In my game my archers got defeated easily. My footmen put up a valiant fight but were too squishy. My riders were next to useless. The HK is the unit that survived and let me win the fight.

I certainly didn't play in the most optimal way. I didn't hire the 7000 gc reinforcement. I hadn't noticed the "recruit" button until a bit too late. And it appears there is a serious unbalance between the generals that favor the one your prefer.

Great if you have an easier time than me.

KB/HoMM sim in this game is all about archers, not about melee whatnot.
Melee whatnot is a cannon fodder only to shield your (different stacks of) archers.
1. As such the cheapest melee units are the best units.
2. You'll never have to waste ress on building mercenary related buildings.
3. Better a money spent on a bunch of rangers and thielfling archers you don't have but will combine, than on melee mercs.

Yes the enemy wizards will use their damage spells directly on your archers stack.
You counter that by the healing spell provided by the general.
Your army strength is not of much importance there but the level and skillset (spellset) of your general.
Of course, you can't go with 2-3 archers as you can't heal them if the whole stack was destroyed. However people spend all their $ on stupid hellknights and nothing is left to recruit archers, and then experience heavy losses.

I'm speaking from normal difficulty point of view.
Maybe on other difficulties the secret of success is buying only hellknights and nothing else.
On normal difficulty hellknights are overrated and overpriced trash that guarantee only a headache, not conform wins with cheap investment.

If he will continue with investing into hellknights nonsense, the blame is not on me, I've written already a few times that buying those is basically a fraud.
There is no right or wrong here, you could have recruited conscripts, paladins and whichever mercs appear in that chapter.
Your choice. And not only yours, everyone and their mother on internet is shilling for hellknights except me.

I'm just saying that ingame $ could have been spent more efficiently.

Hellknights are essential.

Archers get targeted by enemy generals. There's one in particular who can wipe out the entire archer squad with a good damage roll. Can't cure them when they're all dead. Archers also lose effectiveness when there's a unit adjacent to them, and flying units can't be blocked.

I don't know how hellknights can be a "headache" regardless. You don't have to rescue them to get them later, if that's what you're referring to.

I don't think that's correct. IIRC, clearing Estrod tower & informing Irabeth before the tavern attack reduces number of enemies and maybe give you extra time to prepare but doesn't entirely stop the tavern attack.

I could easily clear whole map/all objectives and go to Gray Garrison before attack in beta but I can't seem to do that anymore - I think they reduced number of days before the attack.

If you do this, you might miss out on companions - storming Gary Garrison ends chapter1.

Kaylessa quest sticks out like a sore thumb because its a backer quest but not as bad as Darven/Linxia quest in Kingmaker.

Joxer, I'd advise you to pause your playthrough because chap5 army combat/managment is horribly broken from what I heard.

Joxer won't change my mind on HKs ;)

You need to protect archers, they get 1 shot a lot but they can also 1 shot enemies too, especially when you get high morale and they get chance to attack more than once per turn.

I picked shield general in chapter 2 and I think it is the most 'balanced' general - he provides buff to units and can stun enemies with his shout if enemies fail fortitude saves which is useful. Mage generals are studipily OP at this point - I raised a mage general in chapter 3 and you don't really need too many units under her cause the general herself does most of the killing - so OP.

I don't know how useful HK actually are but you 100% do not need to use the hell knights. I refuse to have anything to do with them (outside of the quest related content). I will do the quest stuff but there will never be a Hell Knight in my crusade and I am doing perfectly fine clearing the enemy from the map. They are totally not needed.

Whether they are useful or not I have no idea as I have never used them. Merely pointing out I don't use them and I get by just fine. So I can't comment on how effective they are. I can only say you can still win battles easily enough without them.

I find champions and paladins the most useful (out of the units I use), along with archers, in the crusade myself. Clerics aren't bad either. There are some mercenary types I find good but they tend to be even more costly.

I do not like the Hell Knights. I remember in Kingmaker how they arrogantly pushed their way into the Kingdom, ready to burn books and harass innocents. I booted them out and later killed them.

There is a line on how close you become to the enemy you are fighting. If you become as bad as the enemy then even if you win the enemy does as well in a way.

Adding to the tips content these are the things I have learned in combat:

- Try to avoid heavy losses at all costs. Recovering from having your army decimated, even if you win, is painful and time consuming. If you don't have a sure win reload and wait, if possible.

- Cure wounds, cleric healing and/or infirmary are super useful. I have won a lot of battles in a good state because I kept healing the units during the battle.

- Always try to get first strike without exposing the units. Cavalry can race across the map but if you do they can get swarmed and decimated. Use HOLD TURN to wait. Often you can get the enemy to move until you can get the first strike. If you still can't move w/out risk of attack use the DEFEND option to hold tight.

- Whittle down the units as much as you can before they get in their first strike or later strikes. The damage is a lot less.

- If they target archers or a unit from a distance heal them. It will distract the attacks from other units getting into range.

- Try to maneuver to protect ranged units from losing range ability because they get engaged in melee.

- Generals are great with healing, spell power increases, and the perk to allow more units in the army. Casters are great although most any general can be good with the right choices.

- High moral is vital, having a unit able to attack twice in a turn is so helpful.

To me it seems like having one power army is the common theme and how i do it mostly although only because I never seem to have the resources to make two really good armies and generals, although I try to have a second smaller one to weed out smaller armies, scout around, and protect other parts of the map. But I find it hard to really make more than one "super" army.

Good tips but I'd say have at least 2 decent army legions in chapter 3 because roaming enemy army spawns all over the place and 1 army legion alone can't cover them all (or you will get fort under a siege).

It seems a little harder in final then Beta as I did CH3 twice in beta and wasn't too hard. Have had to be a little more careful in CH3 this time but so far doing good. I have one really powerful army I try to send out to clear big armies and a second moderate one to cover other sections. I am trying to boost that one up but its hard with limited recruitment and funds. So far so good though so fingers crossed!

Why would I miss companions ? I've got all of them I think :

I've not played chapter 2 much, but if it's like HoMM and you can split some of your stacks into tiny 1 unit stacks you can use those to kite the enemy.

From my experience they kind of go after who they want to go after, and they're single-minded about it. If you tried to run little armies around, the enemy would just ignore them.

Yeah you got all of them - what I meant is if you rush to Garrison without finishing other quests.

Yeah I cleared ever area, got every companion, completed almost every quest and still wasn't attacked. So yes it seems not every play-through has the same outcomes.:)

I got the message to return to the Tavern after less than 1 full day. As I was almost at the Library, I quickly finished that quest and went immediately to the Tavern and was too late; the battle was over!! I'd done the Tower, but hadn't yet spoken to the commander. I was not happy.

Ha looks like if the player takes to long to finish you get a different outcome.:lol:

Just like the prologue in Kingmaker.

The whole timing with the tavern is kind of weird. When I first arrived at the tavern, I left it for the market square, got my ass kicked by Undead (unmodified Core difficulty) who applied massive stats damage to my party (Seelah could not even move anymore because she lacked the strength to wear her own armor :biggrin: ). I rested a lot in the market square district in one spot to heal up. From what I read before, I was fully expecting to miss the tavern battle since I rested so much (several days for sure).

When Seelah was finally able to move again, I went to the library and then back to the tavern. One of my characters (Woljif) had permanent stat damage so I tried if I could get rid of it by resting at the more secure inn.
I rested at the tavern many days in a row (the stat damage never went away so I probably need a temple/cleric to get rid of it) and the battle never happened automatically. Instead, when I finally left the room, I was able to go to Irabeth to manually start the battle when I was ready. She still gave me the option to prepare and return later though.

I'm definitely curious if anyone has fully figured out the mechanics of the tavern assault yet. I've read a lot of conflicting info on it like "it always happens on the 21st" which is obviously not the case. It seems very difficult to tell what triggers it, what delays it and whether any outcome is caused by bugs or being intentional.
It would be interesting to know what is the "working as intended" version of the whole chain of events.

There's a setting "Remove negative effects on rest" that would remove it in one rest but it's unlikely set with the difficulty level you chose.

Instead, you should get back 1 point per rest, but Woljif must have several negative points, you can see that on the character page, or maybe on the avatar, by hovering the mouse.

You can remove 1 negative point with Lesser Restoration spell, either a scroll, or a divine caster but that costs 1 diamond dust in that case. I used to consume it like candy in Kingmaker ;) Greater Restoration should work too, I think it removes them all at once, so it may be more interesting if you character is really crippled.

The divine spell Death Ward should protect from those nasty effects, if you got them from an enemy.

Combat Pro-tip: Dimension Door.

In turn-based combat, one of the most efficient ways to kill almost any melee machine of destruction, no matter how strong they are, is through using Dimension Door to constantly disengage. This is because when somebody moves and attacks, they only get to do 1 melee attack after movement, it is only when fully engaged and taking the full attack action that these melee mince machines will completely obliterate your party in a flurry of 5+ attacks.

Steps to take:

1. You need to manipulate your Dimension Door caster's turn to be immediately before the enemy acts. If the enemy is ahead of your spellcaster in the initiative turn, that's fine, just delay your Dimension Door spellcaster's turn to the very last in the round.

2. Big bad enemy will walk up and hit someone in the face. You will take one hit, because the monster used the move action prior to that. You should be able to survive it, no matter who takes the single hit.

3. Retaliate with full power. Take all full attack actions, or any spells you find efficient, do as much damage as possible without caring for consequences. Adjust your positioning with the "Free step" as necessary, so that all your characters are cluttered in a nice melee cluster (archers just far enough to not get AoO whenthey shoot).

4. If the monster is not dead yet, it's Dimension Door time. Take the "Mass" option and cast it on top of the melee clump you made, move far enough so that the monster has to move again before hitting you.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 til it dies!




I've finished the game in Unfair difficulty with this strategy, it works against anything that relies in melee attacks to kill you, especially efficient against some of those insanely strong optional bosses that you will find now and then, which also tend to be pretty much impervious to magic, crowd control, and ignore safety mechanics like Displacement/Mirror Images/Improved Invisibility, such as the *spoiler* in the summoning room during the Drezen assault, and similar ones that would be pretty much impossible to tackle on by any normal means.

Also, I've no idea if this works in RTwP.

Hope it helps, and good luck!

Is it the Shadow fight ?

That's what made me change difficulties. The biggest change is to go from Enlarged enemies to standard. There are just way too many Shadows to deal with at early levels like that unless you somehow have bought the right stuff before the fight (e.g. holy flasks for everyone or something).

Tips: Emptying spell slots… and spell penetration
 

* Just a quick tip (I didn't know this) - if you can't assign a spell to an occuipied slot (as happened to me with a wizard opposition spell, which takes 2 sots) you can double click to clear a slot..doh. This was not mentioned anywhere and meant I ended up having Nenio running around without stoneskin (abjuration) etc. you can drag a 1-slot spell over 1 slot (it overwrites as expected), but if you have a 2-slot spell, dragging only works if you have an empty slot already available.

* pay attention to spell penetration and greater/mythic spell penetration- every *$%!!! demon has SR, and for some (and dragons) it's insanely high. I auto-leveled all characters (initially) except my PC (magus), and the auto-leveler didn't seem to pay much attention to this….this is super important to those focusing on combat spells.

*mentioned before…but beware of sleeping too often and corruption. I had ember in that role, but she often failed her check. Corruption is really bad for casters again, the 1st level immediately knocks Int/Wis…I can teleport back to Drezen…but then a huge mission to get back to middle of wound. I will build more teleporters when I upgrade outposts, but I'm really not enjoying the whole army combat simulator aspect - I only want the teleporter to avoid walking everywhere and accruing more corruption. I have heard turning on auto-army stuff isn't a great move, otherwise I'd do it.