Ahh, I managed to deal damage over 1000! No secret, Heimdal has a swordplay skill of 39, and one of his huscarls upgraded to maximum damage just went berserk on an enemy the weakness of which was cold ;)
Well, nice, and I didn't expect it. Significantly more difficult than the second and the third ones. I'm having difficulties with completing non-storyline quests currently. But the complexity, creativity and non-linearity of the game is amazing. Many thanks to the developer!
I've got an excellent, but definitely offensive concept of party. Try a warrior-barbarian-rogue-ranger. Rogue, the fastest, is equipped with damage (strength or dexterity or both) and poison boosters, and can take literally anything down in one hit, except for legendaries (when considering poison, of course), and for legendaries he has cripple and sap strength. Ranger has dexterity boost, hail of arrows, swiftness, hunter's prowess, envenomed shot (for legendaries) and pierce/pin. Barbarian strength boost has whirlwind, pulverize, dismember, charge, last stand, and warrior has strength boost, shield wall, overwhelm (good against legendaries with cripple, no need for it against other enemies), power attack, cleave, bloodlust. I can only recommend it (diffcult on first level without those mass-destruction skills). It is worth trying a mage instead of a ranger as well (Electric storm).
A great game, I could only find two important problems. I did not find inflictors too strong and training destructors or quickspells is worth doing rather than wasting them to be inflictors. Another thing, that "train 300 poison units" requires too much patience, since there are only two or three maps where it is worth training poison units. Finally, the skills can be developed very slowly. Otherwise, one of the best games and deserves a 5/5!
Also, I preferred items from Shadowreign and I didn't like factions (idea is good, but I got bored of killing hundreds of mercenaries in order to raise my reputation so that I can get the quest of killing twenty of them).
Hey, downstage!
I've played Shadowreign as well and I liked it so much that perhaps only Book of Dread could surpass it (that one certainly, though). I thought the same, but a little further. I've never tried programming but I think that mixing the two games' advantages wouldn't be difficult: I think the whole Hands of War world should be kept (because of its extreme greatness and diversity of enemies compared to that of the Shadowreign), but I think the fight and character development system should be retained from the Shadowreign, especially Talent trees and mixable character classes, as opposed to the strict separation of this game. A wonderful game it would be...
Louis66: There are some glitches. For example, there was a quest to kill a mind reaver. I've done it, but I had to quit without saving. Next time I loaded the game, the quest giver told me to kill the mind reaver (as I had expected), but it wasn't there. I had to restart the game. Perhaps your case is something like that.
Assassin/Gladiator (assassin is primary class, I picked up assassin talents first) is far the strongest combo. Although it has a small problem with Death Gates, Generals can be defeated very difficultly with Wardens (well, well, nature's grasp and scorpion's bite, but there were often two other monsters who respawned and attacked me, and if I had used nature's grasp on all of them, I'd have had to cast nature's grasp all the time). With an assassin/gladiator, just stealth, blink strike, two backstabs, blade flurry or whirlwind, bash, shadow slice... can be finished off with ease. Not to forget Terrifying shout. Also, incapacitate I found useless. But perhaps it's just me. After taking up all those critical upgrades and paralyzing swing (and one of the bests, aftermath), I was virtually invincible. The Shadow Lord was only a pushover (finished on level 40, though - sometimes I felt that I had trained too much for death gates).
With fair, I mean that certain classes excel in certain tasks and others do in something else. Although I thought that the Assassin-Gladiator character (with dagger) seemed slightly better than the others (I've played the game with Arcane-Assassin and Warden with Killing Spree, Anticipation and Dead Eye), because a blink strike and double backstab, followed by the terrifying shout, bash and shadow slices could kill anything very early. When I had Aftermath, Malice, Paralyzing swing and some others as well, I was practically undefeatable. I had problems with death gates (the warden and arcane could take out these with ease, but had problems with generals who assassin could finish off quickly), so I took up whirlwind and the character was unstoppable.
Great game, deserves a 5/5. I liked the improvements compared to the Hands of War. The abolition of the strict separation of the classes and thus enabling multi-classing is great. Also, it's fair - while in Hands of War the Ranger was unfairly strong and the others were significantly weaker, here my experience is that the classes are nearly equal. It has drawbacks as well (unfortunately). In Hands of War, I liked the countless types of enemies and the hours of enjoyable playing which I couldn't find here. The game can be played entirely within a hour (if not counting the really boring but sometimes necessary 'training' parts, it's obvious what I mean), and barely a dozen of enemy types can be found. Still, it's great.
A conjuror isn't needed to the final boss. A rogue is a lot better since it has the most damage, and even applies poison damage with passive ability. Also, a rogue can use Sap Strength on the Corruptor (and the rogue is the quickest of ALL creatures in the game) and the final boss can't summon the mirror images. I recommend that you should use Warrior-Barbarian-Rogue-Ranger. The Barbarian, with its Whirlwind and the Ranger's Hail of arrows are so powerful that they can destroy all the six enemies almost in a round. Rogue is extremly good for picking stronger enemies, and is a real legendary-killer, because concentrates on one certain enemy and can cause immense damages to that one. A warrior is a very good meat shield and can also take part in the mass destruction with cleave.
I particularly liked one of the endings. Five men conquer all the cities and rule the world. :) Although the game was quite easy, I think. Just roaming between Ido Tal and Edolie bringing Bronze to Edolie from Ido Tal (later diamond) and silver to Ido Tal from Edolie for 10 minutes and having a million.
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