Post and discuss your favourite strategies/equipment/summons!
Personally, I'm a soloist, going through most levels with just Paladog himself, maxing out on the mana and mace skills. Seems to work. At least for now.
Turtles and Rabbit Archers work really well for me.
I mainly use the default spell but mixing in a few of the fire blast and meteorite spells is useful for when you need to deal with a build-up of enemy units.
No. (You need only 2/5 max food though) There are monsters which acts like turtles - they soak a lot of damage. Especially Huge versions. Also, there are a lot of boss monsters in last zone - you can expect up to 3 Football Skellies on one wave(and I know only one counter - big amount of summons)
I found that Mana become useless at later levels. Fist can kill 3 monsters only after 6-8 casts, and while you regen that amount, 9 more monsters will be spawned. Other spells way weaker.
Yes, the max. character level is 200. But even on Hell Mode you should finish earlier.
Hell Mode playthrough: lvl1: w8 until you fill food-bar than start spamming rats. For all missions things work this way: if you loose your initial troops you die. This can happen either right away, or 50% of liar-HP (bigger monsters wave initiated), or at skull-waves. lvl 2: basic rats won't work. You'll need at least lvl 3 rats. lvl 3: rats won't work. Combine rats with rabbits. lvl 4: same as lvl 3, but use more archers, and give the units more levels. Lvl 6 rats + lvl 3 rabbits are what I finished with. Of course you might get away with less invests into rats IF you have the chance to get hero-regeneration. lvl 5: spam lvl 5+ rabbits. Ghosts appear here first, if the get through your troops, you won't be able to add them more units until the ghost passes all the way. Making the ghost disappear by standing its way by the Paladog, and/or using a wind-staff is solution to ghosts. A healing-wand is nice to have, easier to gain 3 stars, what has the condition to have 50%+ paladog health when win. No idea on the other conditions. lvl 6: seems pretty much impossible w/o bear. Will work on it later.
No idea why I can't edit my own post. lvl 6: missclicked, and turned out a lvl 7 rabbit can solve this. I still think it was a waste, but who knows. A speed-ring + fire mace works good enough, leaving one ring-space free. lvl 7: the lvl7 rabbits spammed work here. I could even free both rings of mine to wear gold-producing ones.
abilities: each worth a point, maybe except hero HP. Food-production should be prioritiesed along that.
wands (maces): - fist: ok for start, worthless otherwise - heal mace: good to have in regular maps, useless otherwise - turn undead: most awesome after the beginner levels - ice: good to gain some more time at the beginning of regular maps if you have the food-production - fire mace: if it is high enough, very good in chariot-missions - lightning: not much to say. Too random. - food mace: very-very nice to have - meteor: deal hugh damage - wind: adequately cheap, can delay bigger enemies, or enemies at the start
lvl 12: you can farm it with your bears lvl 13-14: yu can farm it with lvl 4+ kangaroos, lvl 7 don't even require more than minimal wand-support. lvl 15: this is troublesome special level where you'll use randomly given spells, rabbits, bears and kangaroos. As your wand will not be used and you can not move, I advise to use health-rings. The poison wand will always hit the enemy most ahead. The effect does not stack, so although at the beginning it is crucial to get one, it soon evaporates. The meteor deals massive area-damage, but only before the barricade (what prevents your units to actually leave the field). The lightning-wand deals massive area-damage, aiming almost surely the enemies most ahead, but only until ca. 2/3, 1/2 of the screen.
The tactic for here is not just hope for a good random, but also to preserve the best spells and use them appropriate, and only release troops to push back the immediate danger. Your units will leave your aura, and otherwise weak compared to the waves on Hell diff, so will be crushed. So hold on some archers, and especially 2 (hopefully 3) melee units, and not waste the area-spells, and release them when the new wave will arrive only.
Still, recognising the need of tactic and an acceptable random is one thing, you also need strong-enough units. For me these worked: lvl 10 rabbit, lvl 8 bear, lvl 7 kangaroo. And it was a close call. Yes, it requires a lot of grinding before you ask.
16-23: just spam your kangaroos. I could manage this by wearing my two gold-producing rings, and using only the healing and turn undead scepters.
A tip though for lvl 21, and any purple levels: if you completely rule a row, and your big unit(s) are almost at the end, you might want to try send in rats. They have no use in fight, but these levels are about sending units through the goal-line, and they are very cheap and massively spammable.
Blue levels are chariot-guard. Hints for them: initially casting as many food-production you can is a very good idea to have sufficient amount of troops. For later phases instant damage (turn undead wands actually deal damage, not do insta-kills despite what the text says) is better. By far.
Red levels are boss-levels, not much of a change, only you have to defeat a lair two times. When the boss arise your troops will be pushed back unconscious - who cares. Your problem here is to run backward behind your troops, else you can die for the enemy mass in a fraction of moment.
Green maps are the conveyor-belt levels.
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Rings: the exp-ring are hardly ever useful. They don't help you fight better, the leveling still remains slow, and the hero-abilities albeit useful, not exactly game-breaking.
luck-rings are... Well, lategame if you really need a specific highlevel item, then. Maybe.
Ring of vitality: maybe for green levels. On normal levels you can't afford to be hit, no matter how high your life is. Well, maybe on easy difficulty.
Ring of regeneration: if you have the native ability for regeneration you can skip these. They won't regenerate you enough to turn you to Wolverine.
Ring of Agility: useful at chariot guards if you use the moment ranged units, so you move between supporting your units with aura and destroying your enemies by your maces.
Ring of mana: you won't be a solo spell-spammer, especially not while the random wheel of ability exists. This, and your troops following your aura around, and your capability to cast spells in the direction you face could improve the game (maybe if there'll ever be a 2nd).
Ring of prayer (aka. mana-regeneration): see ...of mana.
Ring of wealth: gives you extra gold at the price of not supporting your troops. Helps when farming to unlock/lvlup units.
meat-rings: substantially speeds food-regeneration. Useful, but not always a must. They can help you on purple levels!
ring of preservation: majorly extends your maximum food. This is an important factor at the beginning of levels mostly. A +3 ring will cover most of your needs until lategame where you'll want to summon dragons and such. A very useful ring, better keep 2 in your inventory. Heck, as I see no limitation, I advise you have each type of items in maximum possible use (1 for wands, 2 for rings), and only sell the rest - but sell the extras for good money!
lvl 24: lvl 7 kangaroos can do it with some luck. Unfortunately the random can send in during the start too many big enemy which will push your units behind you and that's your end. There is a small chance for this only, but still annoying. Aside that this is a good place to farm a lot of gold, and the boss can drop up to +6 equipment (and I got a +5 gold ring!).
Sad thing is, the shop-pig don't offer all possible equipment, his stock is standard, and the itemlevel depends on the number of bosses you destroyed. I advise against buying anything from this character if you don't absolutely must.
Don't forget that bears are NOT ranged units.
The turtle do not attack at all, and I have no idea what "defense" means. Maybe HP? The real problem of course is the cost of rising this unit to a useful level. it costs 40K gold to unlock it, estimated 20K more to level it sufficiently, 70K for the monkey what will be the ranged unit behind the turtle, another 20-30K to level that up...
Oh, maybe you wish to know the current stats of your units. You can only see their maximum potential while locked and the minimum unlocked. To know the current stats - this should be corrected in a 2nd game - multiply the stats you see (minimal stats) with the current level of the unit.
lvl 1-2: the already existing lvl 7 kangaroo suffice, although you might want to add them more level(s) to fasten the process.
lvl 3 is bad new though. Your units will be bear, kangaroo and - tadaa! - monkey! So leave the turtle, do not invest into it, buy the monkey and upp that one!
Tried lvl 3 anyway, and I got a very lucky draw, thus passed. the problem of the level is, you only gain fist wands (low use) and flame wands (melee).
During the first wave my troops got decimated, so I got the chance to use up all my storage-flame wands, and fortunately I had enough troops (bear and kangaroo).
Also a problem of the map are ghosts, they'll pass your main troops, so always store 2-3 units to catch these.
lvl 4: massive amount of enemy arrives. lvl 8 kangaroos barely held ground with the constant support of healing. At the start I spelled up some food, but that was it. Also took forever to finish, and my troops constantly lost health. And as the enemy had tons of ranged attackers, kangaroos (as like any melee troops) could not dispose them. Seems I have to go back grinding for money to unlock the monkey and level both that and turtle. Also the first enemy arriving takes so long you should have two ranks in buff max food now. Let's hope you had the chance to choose this as native and don't have to sacrifice ring-space for it.
Some notable skills: - incrise aura: one is awesome. A definite must-have. Not sure how larger it can get though, so I won't spend here more for a long time. If I'd know for sure it'd reach all the way through a conveyor-belt level... But it won't. - more maximum mana: I don't see the point. If you have extra mana you should either use it to heal or to produce food (if you have wand for it). - faster mana regeneration: one point for the show, but mana isn't really key-issue here - stronger units inside aura: give point to this, but also keep in mind thenext: - much stronger units when below 30% hp: one point is a wonder to have here. Not the first thing to have, but definitely helpful - more Paladog HP: useless - less damage for Paladog: probably during endgame. See above. If you could choose exactly what skill to invest into, and your hero would attack aside spellcasting, or mana would be much more - THAN for laugh you could make a stand-alone hero for a period. Not now though. - less duration between units attacking: what r u w8in' for? Get this! - more frequent special attack: no idea, but definitely worth one point at least - Paladog's HP regenerate: must have one point, but more seems too many - units regenerate HP in aura: definitely a must have for one point. More is not really noticable if you ask me. But if you have all bad choices, this is not that bad. - less duration to summon same unit: definitely key-issue - faster food production: nom-nom - higher max food: you should rise this regularly. One point as soon as possible, more when time comes. - find more items: will be key issue. If your basics are covered (or you can't cover them at the moment of lvl up), choose this. Yes, you loose the chance getting stronger, but items as basic are not falling all-around, and they do give nice amount of gold when sold. - find more gold: no. Leveling up is way more troublesome than getting gold, and gold has a limited use. - more exp: just like find item. When you have to decide between these two, I trust it on your decision. - "incrise defense of units in aura": no idea what "defense" is, but why not spend 1 point if you can? - incrise level of mace (= spells): not top priority. Ok, it is nice, but... - less mana cost: a nice thing to have. Definitely more worthy then regenerate mana - incrise Paladog speed: I'd just use rings when I have to - incrise unit speed: nonono! BIG no. - add levels to rings: this is cool.
