If you are playing through the first time that's not bad and if you aren't doing permadeth you get them back, But remember you still are working with RNG which translates to every now and then crap happens. In the mean time Keep your archers and mages out of harms way and get a healer of two in every squad

Originally posted by grognardgary:

If you are playing through the first time that's not bad and if you aren't doing permadeth you get them back, But remember you still are working with RNG which translates to every now and then crap happens. In the mean time Keep your archers and mages out of harms way and get a healer of two in every squad

Thank you - even though it was my first time, I left it on standard difficulty (captain, I think it is?) so I went ahead and turned permadeath on, just seemed like it'd be more fitting. But I am seeing now as I go into the mechanics that upgrades are tied to attributes, which increase with experience, so it makes sense to try and keep folks alive.

Now I'm trying to figure out who to upgrade first and how to create/add to sqquads effectively. Looks like a fun game, though!

It is. Remember while getting your squad member promoted is a good thing adding more squad members is an absolute necessitty and there are artifacts that help with that. Note also that Arenas are very useful and grant you instand cp and xp for promoting basic boobs in to tier two bad boys,

That early on losses aren't going to be very important.

Do note that as you advance through the game, your recruits start at higher level too. And there is tech (the middle tree) that further boosts the level of recruits as well as their starting Class Points. There is also an artifact (that you can find multiple copies of) that doubles XP and CP gain. And of course, if a unit dies it refunds the resources you spent on it. (Iron, horses, that kind of thing.)

This makes it much easier to replace losses quickly.

However, avoiding losses is still important, especially later on when you have super-elite high tier troops you have given powerful traits to, or unique mercenaries with spectacular stats.

Fortunately, there are also resurrection mechanisms in the game. They're limited, but important.

Early on the main thing to look for for is Donari temples, which can raise the dead for 300 gold a piece. They're not in all missions, but they are in many of the bigger ones. If you have squads that suffered losses you care about, try to walk them to those temples to raise the dead before ending the mission. Even if that means you take longer than the mission is supposed to, getting your good troops back is much more important than getting a few more research points for finishing fast.

what you actually want to do in the earlier game is to recruit a nice stack of healers, archer, and melee from the store. pick out ones with naturally high LDR compared to their affinity element. discard the crappy recruits, keep the higher LDR or high base stat ones for your army. developing these units early and in great number keeps you at full armys the whole game, and just works out better in the long run, ive found. my games where i dump money on recruits after the first couple of missions turn out WAY better than when i neglect it. i only save enough money to recruit dragons for the first fewmissions. make sure you never hire units without first taking the related player perk to increase their base level.

Note once you get the right tech most of your leaders will come from prexisting squads.

With the way squad fights work in this game I don't think I would ever be comfortable with permadeath, like I would be fine if I lost an army it being permenantly dead (not sure if you can rez them in map and not lose them?), but perma death with the randomness of combat where sometimes you just get one unit focused on in a combat and dies even though you completely wiped out the opponenent just wouldn't be fun for me.

Originally posted by metfansc:

With the way squad fights work in this game I don't think I would ever be comfortable with permadeath, like I would be fine if I lost an army it being permenantly dead (not sure if you can rez them in map and not lose them?), but perma death with the randomness of combat where sometimes you just get one unit focused on in a combat and dies even though you completely wiped out the opponenent just wouldn't be fun for me.

I figure that ALMOST all vets to gaming such as myself (45 years video gaming) prefer the mechanic of permadeath. So therefore this game has 8 difficulty levels, 4 of which appeal to myself. I will start at story-mode permadeath. I am sure this will give me the greatest joy in playing said LEGENDS title. After such I obviously have the other 3 modes (difficulties) to play with once I happen to beat the game on this one! I am glad they also have the baby modes as I would refer to them as in the game (permadeath off). It is IMPORTANT to have options, just like one poster suggested a mechanic for being able to turn OFF the timers in newgame+ (maybe that has already been added?).

So yes, can anyone tell me how POSSIBLE failure is in any of the "baby" modes as I would refer to them as? Can you STILL fail the game somehow, and/or have to go back to a save? Or is it just respawn type stuff until you win (doubt it). So like I said earlier, the game has 8 BASIC difficulty modes from what I can tell, and an almost infinite amount extra (well lots) if you include newgame+ modifiers. Super glad to get into playing this what many refer to as AN OPUS MAGNUM of strategy gaming pixel perfection. Really luv the UI/looks.

Still have YET to start my first run of this fabulous strategy title. Was thinking tho about IRONMAN and how that would also work out with the 8 standard difficulty modes this game has. So obviously ironman is VOLUNTARY then (as it is other than hardcoded far as I know being a beginner to this game) yet BECAUSE of such I may decide to start on the EASIEST MODE of them all (easy with permadeath OFF)...for someone who has probably MORE gaming experience than anyone else I have ever heard of (me) I was wondering what all the VETS to this game would say as far as chances of FAILING or succeeding such a run (is failure possible because WITHOUT that challenge will be missing - so we want to AVOID that kind of aspect). So if anyone else can help me here before I start up my first run (as I want it to be an epic one so I keep playing to newgame+ and the third page of modifiers you can do), then please let me KNOW the information here as best you can! Thanks!

Originally posted by metfansc:

With the way squad fights work in this game I don't think I would ever be comfortable with permadeath, like I would be fine if I lost an army it being permenantly dead (not sure if you can rez them in map and not lose them?), but perma death with the randomness of combat where sometimes you just get one unit focused on in a combat and dies even though you completely wiped out the opponenent just wouldn't be fun for me.

As long as somebody in the squad is still alive if there is a Temple on the map you can ressurect everyone else in the squad for a hundred gold each but only one a turn I think. After your MC comes back from the dead he can ressurect up to three squad memebers five with an articfact the name of which I forget.

Originally posted by BlueAuran:

Still have YET to start my first run of this fabulous strategy title. Was thinking tho about IRONMAN and how that would also work out with the 8 standard difficulty modes this game has. So obviously ironman is VOLUNTARY then (as it is other than hardcoded far as I know being a beginner to this game) yet BECAUSE of such I may decide to start on the EASIEST MODE of them all (easy with permadeath OFF)...for someone who has probably MORE gaming experience than anyone else I have ever heard of (me) I was wondering what all the VETS to this game would say as far as chances of FAILING or succeeding such a run (is failure possible because WITHOUT that challenge will be missing - so we want to AVOID that kind of aspect). So if anyone else can help me here before I start up my first run (as I want it to be an epic one so I keep playing to newgame+ and the third page of modifiers you can do), then please let me KNOW the information here as best you can! Thanks!

This game won't work with ironman because if your MC dies (not squad destroyed, just MC) it's game over. Games that use ironman usually don't have fixed protagonist meaning that even if you suffered crushing defeat in 1 mission/battle you still have some chance to pull it

Originally posted by Hanzo:

Originally posted by BlueAuran:

Still have YET to start my first run of this fabulous strategy title. Was thinking tho about IRONMAN and how that would also work out with the 8 standard difficulty modes this game has. So obviously ironman is VOLUNTARY then (as it is other than hardcoded far as I know being a beginner to this game) yet BECAUSE of such I may decide to start on the EASIEST MODE of them all (easy with permadeath OFF)...for someone who has probably MORE gaming experience than anyone else I have ever heard of (me) I was wondering what all the VETS to this game would say as far as chances of FAILING or succeeding such a run (is failure possible because WITHOUT that challenge will be missing - so we want to AVOID that kind of aspect). So if anyone else can help me here before I start up my first run (as I want it to be an epic one so I keep playing to newgame+ and the third page of modifiers you can do), then please let me KNOW the information here as best you can! Thanks!

This game won't work with ironman because if your MC dies (not squad destroyed, just MC) it's game over. Games that use ironman usually don't have fixed protagonist meaning that even if you suffered crushing defeat in 1 mission/battle you still have some chance to pull it

So are you CONVERSELY stating that scum-saving is almost a mechanic built into the game...or as I am trying to point towards, can someone with experience (I have decades in gaming) play on EASY level without having to resort to a single scum-save (IE Voluntary ironMan as mentinoned = all mods start in the MOTHER of user created content = the imagination anyways). Would this PROVIDE a GOOD experience, as I refer to games WITHOUT possibility of loss to be essentially baby-games. I prefer MODERATE challenge with both good chances to win OR lose (maybe 2/3 win hahah).

Arena Tokens are the only way to grind in this game.

Save before Arenas , you get only so many of them and if you don't kill clear the map with 0 deaths within the time limit you get less rewards , or nothing if you outright fail it.

got it, so scum saving IS built into the mechanics of this game? I have read about other games having that mechanic...interesting. So zero way to play on EZ mode (or storymode hahah) without utilising some kind of scum save? I had heard that ONE person sorta was doing that...TO ME it kind of feels WRONG for a master strategist (gud gamr) to have to resort to a scum save...YET if it somehow IS built into the mechanics of the game, PERHAPS I could consider it, after all I already purchased, hah...yet I would prefer to do without IF IN ANY way feasible for proper runs! I mean I heard the game was actually considered too easy for some, and that the DLC which I also bought adds to that (or conversely can be used to make it much harder as well thankfully)...so there IS that also to remember I would think.

Originally posted by Vambran:

Arena Tokens are the only way to grind in this game.

Save before Arenas , you get only so many of them and if you don't kill clear the map with 0 deaths within the time limit you get less rewards , or nothing if you outright fail it.

This is actually not the case. Your arena rank has nothing to do with the amount or quality of rewards you get.

The best way to optimize the arena is
-Only do bronze
-Have these squads:

1: A soak squad, 2 oracales and a paladin in front with pacifist and arcane barrier. Sin credo and resistance items. Keep it in cautious attack stance. This squad will be attacked by all the others and deal almost no damage in return, meaning they stay alive to be "eaten" by the ones you want.

2: A money squad: as many rogues as you can fit into one squad. NOT assassins, assassins will kill faster due to the weapon strength but will not steal more money for it. you want to keep the enemy units alive as long as possible for more thief attacks. Give as many as you can scavenger, skill items, and ideally sin credo, use cautious stance for the same reason mentioned above. This will net you far more gold over time. Don't ambush, and don't give the leader treasure hunter/fixed die as there are no item drops in the arena.

3: An XP squad: All the units you want to grind xp/cp for and give it donar's treatise. Use sin credo and cautious attacks as much as possible.

4: A capture squad: whoever you want to grind LDR for, and as many unloyal units as you can fit. Use this to capture the point at the end as that's the best way to get both.

5: An LDR squad: Barnabas with all the low LDR leaders you can fit in him. Have him hit stuff with cautious attacks.

For farming surrenders: Ideally get skull of rowdain. If you can't, then i've found the optimal way to do this is to have the soak squad mentioned above, then just use your best squads to force surrender everything, even if they have full morale. There's probably better ways to optimize it with target leader and such but i found it frustrating.

Originally posted by BlueAuran:

got it, so scum saving IS built into the mechanics of this game? I have read about other games having that mechanic...interesting. So zero way to play on EZ mode (or storymode hahah) without utilising some kind of scum save? I had heard that ONE person sorta was doing that...TO ME it kind of feels WRONG for a master strategist (gud gamr) to have to resort to a scum save...YET if it somehow IS built into the mechanics of the game, PERHAPS I could consider it, after all I already purchased, hah...yet I would prefer to do without IF IN ANY way feasible for proper runs! I mean I heard the game was actually considered too easy for some, and that the DLC which I also bought adds to that (or conversely can be used to make it much harder as well thankfully)...so there IS that also to remember I would think.

This game actually does not reward save scumming all that much. You can do it sure, but it's honestly easier to just let your luck play out.