King's Bounty

[alanschu]

Sooo, spin off from the what are you playing now.

 

 

What are your strategies for level ups and the like?  I have been playing with a heavy leadership bias (more troops = more killing), but I imagine at some level there is critical mass because the supply of truly elite troops is limited and you just have enough of them that an extra one or two don't mean a whole lot.

[Pidesco]

In my experience you can never have too much leadership. You might reach a point where good troops are in short supply but, if that happens, it's because you haven't been able to conserve them properly.

[Cultist]

Paladins+Royal Thorns+Evil Eyes+Rune Mages+Archmages.

Spam expendable units and resurrect lost ones. Make phantoms of paladins to repeat.

Then, replace units with dragons and Archdevils.

[Humanoid]

I haven't played any of the rebooted KB games despite having copies of all of them on both GoG and Steam. Advice on whether to start with the first one or straight to the sequel and its expansions?

 

I only briefly played the original when it was included in the big box HoMM Gold (1+2) collection back in the late 90s.

[Pidesco]

Start with Armored Princess.

[Nordicus]

Start with Armored Princess.

Can you elaborate why one shouldn't start with The Legend, since it was released first?

 

The KB convo in the other thread got me to check out what the series is about since since all I knew was that it looked a lot like HoMM 5.

 

Internet: "It's essentially that but with no base building and more of an RPG than TBS"

Me: "Aaaaah..."

 

So I downloaded the Armored Princess demo and while I was apparently put into some mid-game location with no tutorial, I liked what I saw

Edited March 25, 2013 by Nordicus

[Spider]

I'd start with The Legend. I don't percive any real difference in quality between them, and the mechanics are basically the same. So might as well start at the beginning.

[Pidesco]

The second is much better balanced and designed, from encounter design to basic gameplay. The Legend ends up being very, very grindy and can burn you out.

[Hurlshort]

Yeah I started on Legend and I'm still playing it.  I've been burned out a couple times, but I think I will finish this one.  I'm level 21 and I've got a pretty kick butt army, so it is getting fun.  I finally beat the Undead General guy, it was a tough 30 minute battle but my mix of red, green, and black dragons, with some Necro's and some sort of stone guy who throws rocks really did the trick.  

 

I plan on playing Armored Princess after I finish it.

[alanschu]

I am planning on going in order.  My army right now is priests, archers, knights, griffons, and guardsmen.

[Orogun01]

Paladin Master race here, high leadership, high bounties keep the troops stocked. Also, more runes per level.

[alanschu]

I am the Paladin too.  Dumping points into the skill that gives more xp and more gold haha.

[Hurlshort]

I went Paladin at first, but I found the mage more enjoyable.  Throwing fireballs around to start every round is entertaining.

[Rostere]

I always think people are referring to the original when I read about King's Bounty on forums. I guess I need to get with the times on that genre. Personally I've only played the MD version of King's Bounty which is pretty retarded, but was a cool game if you had not played the PC version or the Heroes series.

[Tigranes]

Armoured Princess is the better title - does everything The Legend does, with a few improvements, and is less grindy. TL can be very grindy if you're not used to it. That said, I think both are very good games, so if you're feeling relaxed and wanting to go through it slowly you could do both in order. 

 

I'm playing a Warrior meaning you get a lot of Might runes, but that's just to give myself a change; I'm very partial to Mind skills. In TL you want to start with 1 levels of Scouting, Learning and Glory, and I also like the Reserve skill - e.g. in the first continent, there are a few elite troops that are really very good: Inquisitors, Royal Snakes, Archmages, Knights/Paladins, etc. (I hear Royal Thorns rock, but for some reason I never want to use them.) It's useful to buy some extra and put on reserve so that when you go from 7 archmages to 6 archmages you don't lose that firepower. I also like Ancient Bears for the sheer power and decent endurance as the 'tank', and of course some kind of Bowmen. 

 

I have a highly partial playstyle that I'm married to, though this time I'm deliberately trying to break out of it. E.g. I'm hugely fond of traps: not only do they do damage, they kill a turn, so if you play it right, the dude walks right up to you then loses his turn, allowing you to pounce (here is when Royal Snakes' no-counter attacks come in handy; you do this right, and you can have all your ranged units AND the royal snake pounce on them without retaliation, then, due to the snakes' high initiative, you'll probably start the next turn with another free hit = most things die by then without doing any damage to you.) 

 

I played far too much last night, so level 9 now. Took care of most things in the immediate vicinity of the first continent. There was only one shop of Inquisitors that had a very small stock, but I found another in the new island which is a little better.

[Hurlshort]

Speaking of marriage, I've had my frog princess forever and I've got 3 girls and 1 boy.  It's a pretty cool little feature

[Cultist]

Armored Princess had horrible exploits, especially with Black Knights, that allow you to wipe armies ten, twenty, thirty times stronger than yours without a single casualty. Others as well, some combos remained true even in Warriors of the North. Sadly, in WotN you can't play as Undead, but still can have overpowered demonic armies.

A lot depends on chance, especially if you get super effective units like Evil Eyes or Demonologists early on or extremely powerful spells like Book of Evil lvl 3.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Cultist

[alanschu]

I just started from the beginning because the assumption I make is that the future games iterate on the previous ones.

[Majek]

I was very disappointed with AP. Nothing really new or improved and they wanted the same price again. THe more i played the more everything got dull, boring and repetitive and what's the word ... unimaginative? :/

[Zoraptor]

Well, it is a sequel so it's hardly going to be radically different. I thought KBAP was better than KBTL in generally the same ways that Fallout 2 was better than Fallout 1, ie a lot of the small niggles were smoothed out though it lost some of the storyline charm of the first.

 

Crossworlds on the other hand I'm a lot more ambivalent about since it almost seemed like it hadn't been play tested or balanced at all, and some of its changes are much for the worse.

[Tigranes]

Yeah, I loved TL so much I was fine with AP being more of the same, but after that it felt like a lot of milking, so I never tried. I'm really hopeful they'll use that revenue and push ahead with a big fat KB2. Heck, maybe this time we can have a real story!

[Majek]

Properly written so you actually want to read more of it.

 

Anyway i KB games or at least either TL or AP can be recommended wholeheartedly, but you should really love it to play more than one game, is what i'll stand by.

[Keyrock]

Properly written so you actually want to read more of it.

 

Anyway i KB games or at least either TL or AP can be recommended wholeheartedly, but you should really love it to play more than one game, is what i'll stand by.

I can agree with that.  I like The Legend and I still play it on and off, have for years, but I have no desire whatsoever to buy any of the sequels.

 

Also, I seem to be in the minority of people here that play Warrior, seems like most prefer Pally.

[alanschu]

Haha I give very cursory glances to the story elements when I am accepting quests

[Keyrock]

I have to say I enjoy the humor in The Legend.  It's not fall over and roll on the ground laughing funny, but it's pleasantly humorous.