I've read a lot already: Newb observations and questions

[Kanzil]

In general, from my experience, you should scarcely ever recall units that have finished levelling (except for those especially crucial scenarios like Siege of Elensefar or Valley of Death, IIRC, and the eventual healer/leader that can support your lower-level troops), and avoid as much as possible giving them kills. You'll have much more levelled units in the end and usually much more gold to recall them and their meat shields...

I agree, apart from the bit about barely ever recalling units that are fully leveled. I would agree, don't recall level 3s, however it is useful to recall a couple of level 2s, to smash holes in the enemy lines, as level 1s sometimes just can't hit hard enough. On top of that, a leveled healer and leader are necessary. So I'd say recall 0-4 leveled units per scenario depending on difficulty, with 6 the absolute maximum on the most difficult scenarios.

[jazzykat]

In general, from my experience, you should scarcely ever recall units that have finished levelling (except for those especially crucial scenarios like Siege of Elensefar or Valley of Death, IIRC, and the eventual healer/leader that can support your lower-level troops), and avoid as much as possible giving them kills. You'll have much more levelled units in the end and usually much more gold to recall them and their meat shields...

I agree, apart from the bit about barely ever recalling units that are fully leveled. I would agree, don't recall level 3s, however it is useful to recall a couple of level 2s, to smash holes in the enemy lines, as level 1s sometimes just can't hit hard enough. On top of that, a leveled healer and leader are necessary. So I'd say recall 0-4 leveled units per scenario depending on difficulty, with 6 the absolute maximum on the most difficult scenarios.

I assume the above quote does not include loyal units because they are upkeep free and can be leveled up to at least L3 to get massive damage?

Does leadership bonus only work for attacking or does it work for fighting on the defense as well?
Does leadership bonus stack e.g. If I put my L3 Kondrad and L2 Elvish Captain adjacent to a L1 Elvish Archer does the Archer's damage modifier become:

normal damage + normal damage * .25 * (L3-L1) + normal damage * .25 * (L2-L1) = 175% damage (excluding other modifiers)? The captain also gets 125%, right?
If this is correct then leadership becomes one of the most valuable traits in the game essentially letting your guys hit like they are a level higher than they are...


So I restarted the campaign (for the 5th time) and now I am rolling along nicely. I put the fresh recruits in the front and let them get pounded then bring out the guys I am trying to level. ("leap frog" approach per the manual).

Observation: Leveling up your leader quickly is awesome therefore you are assured a free heavy hitter. The downside is that you do have to watch his HP a little more than the rest of your leveled up units

Statement: While I agree that save load was hampering me from learning EVEN though I wasn't using it for random losing die roles, I still use it when I make obvious bone headed mistake like when not accounting for an extra enemy unit because it was off my screen or trying different combat tactics for the same turn. In this way I am learning much faster than starting from scratch. I liken it to practicing music. You practice the beginning probably the most because most people start from the beginning and go until they make a mistake or get stuck. When I practiced I also started in the middle and especially toward the end to make sure the whole piece/song got equal attention.

Obviously in this game which builds on the decisions before it may be much more worthwhile to always start from the beginning but then again I would like to have a little fun with this game

Update:

I just finished the Bay of Pearls scenario and now Konrad is L3 and I have
1 Loyal L2 Knight (going to try and get him to Paladin for illumination in the cave, random healing, and arcane melee vs. undead for the Siege of Elensefar
1 Loyal L2 Red Mage (He is my favorite. An exterminator for whatever infests a town )
1 L2 Knight
1 L2 Elvish Captain
1 L2 Elvish Hero
1 L2 Elvish Druid (I want 1 more...poison sucks)
1 L2 Elvish Ranger

[HomerJ]

Update:

I just finished the Bay of Pearls scenario and now Konrad is L3 and I have
1 Loyal L2 Knight (going to try and get him to Paladin for illumination in the cave, random healing, and arcane melee vs. undead for the Siege of Elensefar
1 Loyal L2 Red Mage (He is my favorite. An exterminator for whatever infests a town )
1 L2 Knight
1 L2 Elvish Captain
1 L2 Elvish Hero
1 L2 Elvish Druid (I want 1 more...poison sucks)
1 L2 Elvish Ranger

Paladin does not illuminate, he heals 4 but he doesn't cure. More druids are alright, but don't hesitate to get an elvish sorceress, they can reach lvl4 and are hovering beasts.


Greetz
HomerJ

[Celtic_Minstrel]

Does leadership bonus only work for attacking or does it work for fighting on the defense as well?
Does leadership bonus stack e.g. If I put my L3 Kondrad and L2 Elvish Captain adjacent to a L1 Elvish Archer does the Archer's damage modifier become:

normal damage + normal damage * .25 * (L3-L1) + normal damage * .25 * (L2-L1) = 175% damage (excluding other modifiers)? The captain also gets 125%, right?
If this is correct then leadership becomes one of the most valuable traits in the game essentially letting your guys hit like they are a level higher than they are...

I don't know whether the two bonuses stack, though I'd suspect they don't. Leadership bonus does apply both on defence and offense.

[TheScribe]

Bonuses don't stack. Both of them will display the animation for leadership, but only Konrad will do anything. It defaults to the highest level of leadership available to the unit fighting.

[jazzykat]

Last night I beat and then replayed HttT:The Siege of Elsenfar 3 or 4 more times. I am in my ~5th play through at the moment and have just broken the siege. There are no more orcs on the board and skeletons are coming in dribs and drabs as I am regrouping and sending my army northward to the Cave boss across the north and north east bridges. My army is ridiculously powerful because I recruited in a bunch of L2s when I reached the orcish Leader's keep but was heavily pressed by a combined skeleton and orc army.

I didn't really have much of a strategy except I was able to grab Elsenfar's South gate without a fight on turn 3 (or 4?) while the whole orcish army fell for a rather large(with my main army...) feint and then the chaos caused by the thief infiltration on the West docks.

In short, I believe I got lucky but am now in the process of what is mostly a mop-up operation 2 red mages, 2 L1mages, heavy L2 Elvish Support, 1 L2 Knight and, 1 ~L3 Paladin (xp=118/120) in next combat and he has plenty of health).

If the rest of the game goes well I am rather interested to get it critiqued by a more experience player or 2 because I am trying to figure out if it was luck or skill, and how many mistakes I made.

Also, if I upgrade from 1.10.3 to 1.10.4 do I lose all my saved games? Since they seem to be .gz (gzip ? files_ I guess I can probably just save the directory with saved games and then copy then into the new install?

[taptap]

Start of scenario saves almost always work. Other saves are more sensitive. Imo just finish the scenario in 1.10.3 and then upgrade to 1.10.4.

If you want comments just post a replay, someone will come forward to comment on it.

Leadership doesn't stack but L3 > L1 is already a 50% bonus, which pretty much is the difference in power between an L1 and L2, and if you can lead L0 or have a rare L4 leader it can get even bigger.

[TheScribe]

Leadership doesn't stack but L3 > L1 is already a 50% bonus, which pretty much is the difference in power between an L1 and L2, and if you can lead L0 or have a rare L4 leader it can get even bigger.

Or if you somehow get a Fire Dragon next to your peasant...

[Radh]

I actually never considered playing a different way than I do now (oops!). But I will take into consideration this possibility to play differently the next time I do a campaign. Thanks for the comments, though.

[taptap]

Leadership doesn't stack but L3 > L1 is already a 50% bonus, which pretty much is the difference in power between an L1 and L2, and if you can lead L0 or have a rare L4 leader it can get even bigger.

Or if you somehow get a Fire Dragon next to your peasant...

Everyone who wants to experience L5 leadership in action needs to play Fate of a Princess (it features it in a "final" scenario of a side plot) - suddenly your L1 hit as hard as L3 (even if they lack the durability).

[jazzykat]

Speaking of beyond L3. Does Konrad's leadership bonus or even his actual level increase beyond L3? When he was supposed to go to "L4", I see that he was healed again but it still said L3...

Does that mean that once Konrad hit's L3 you shouldn't seek to level him anymore?

[Kanzil]

Speaking of beyond L3. Does Konrad's leadership bonus or even his actual level increase beyond L3? When he was supposed to go to "L4", I see that he was healed again but it still said L3...

Does that mean that once Konrad hit's L3 you shouldn't seek to level him anymore?

Yes, don't give him experience after that as he doesn't level he just gets an AMLA(After maximum level advancement), as do all units after they have reached their peak level.

[tuggyne]

Speaking of beyond L3. Does Konrad's leadership bonus or even his actual level increase beyond L3? When he was supposed to go to "L4", I see that he was healed again but it still said L3...

Does that mean that once Konrad hit's L3 you shouldn't seek to level him anymore?

Units with a purple XP bar have no more defined levels. Generally, that means that every hundred or so XP they'll full-heal and gain 3 max HP, which is pretty lame and not worthwhile. However, there are a few campaign-specific units (e.g. in Under the Burning Suns) that gain AMLAs at much faster rates and with more interesting results (e.g. +1 melee damage, +1 movement, +10% resist, etc). You'll generally be able to tell those on sight because their XP bar is much shorter.

[jazzykat]

So, I finally beat HttT on medium last night and immediately began replaying the campaign The final battle is rather epic but sort of anti-climactic. I held a line and let their waves crash into it. All but one of my heavy calvary got slaughtered, I lost my loyal arch mage, and a whole bunch of good units. After the initial waves were dealt with, I wound up bum rushing the evil queen with 20+ of randoms and slaughtering everything in their path by encircling everything and giving it the death of 1000 cuts. Also, Konrad should be king. That chick is annoying.

[Into-Jesus]

So, I finally beat HttT on medium last night and immediately began replaying the campaign The final battle is rather epic but sort of anti-climactic. I held a line and let their waves crash into it. All but one of my heavy calvary got slaughtered, I lost my loyal arch mage, and a whole bunch of good units. After the initial waves were dealt with, I wound up bum rushing the evil queen with 20+ of randoms and slaughtering everything in their path by encircling everything and giving it the death of 1000 cuts. Also, Konrad should be king. That chick is annoying.

Yeah! The last scenario is weird. I didn't lose any loyals(minus mermen), but I lost several good units.