Oh my,

that expert difficulty drives my crazy. My first party of 6 was swallowed at Lvl 10 by Brekek some weeks ago and my current party (Lvl 10 too )was bashed to death by a Battering Hogar yesterday. Incredible. He knocked out my Lord and Ninja in the first round, killed them in the second and knocked out the Bard. I ran away but he followed me (damn, are those guys quick)and killed my Bishop from behind. Then I ran into the tree because I thought : There are Trynnies Hunters and Guards and Chief Gari and I'm out of sight. Oh Lord ,I was VERY wrong. He killed the guards, ignored Chief Gari ( who only casted protection and heal spells ) followed me into the tree to the first ladder . There the rest of my party died heroically but without any chance.

I'm curious how Nessie or later Souleater fight on expert ( if I ever reach them :D )

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[ 06-25-2004, 01:37 AM: Message edited by: Loudhy ]

Against Hogars, you should cast guardian angels before he is in range. Or better try to avoid them (they aren't hostile).

I'm quite paranoid since i usually play expert/ironman. In such battles, i change my party formation so that the front row is empty (casters in the rear, rest center and sides). When a character is knocked out, immediately move a few of the others into the front row (you can issue the command during the round). Then your ho member is protected.

I've never had that much problem killing hogars and I've been playing on expert difficulty. I however would never play this on ironman mode.

My biggest problems were insanity and turncoat casters. If one of my warrior types get hit by a spell effect like that then they can wipe out half the group before I can do anything.

I also had considerable problems with the friendly Trynnies in the tree. A group of Oak Saplings once were completely blocked off by a group of trynnies. After losing 2 members to Crush spells I ended up running into a nearby building. In another instance the Trynnies simply pushed me off of the tree.

Aside from that the game has crashed at least 10 times. ( I've read there is a memory leak. Also during training you can overload the message buffer. )

Well, i don't train, so that's not a problem.

Oak Saplings that run free in Trynton are one of the worst enemies (along with some sprites). When i see them, i run. It's possible to fight them in the anti-magic area, or in a close area where only one can see you (Toxic cloud can be very deadly, especally for smaller perties).

X-ray is a very valuable spell in ironman. One for which you should waste a spell pick with a bishop, if you don't have a mage.

When i'm in danger of being puhed by trynnies, i just rest for a second. Then they are gone.

It isn't just the training thing. That only happened a few times and I learned how to avoid it. ( It's a timing thing )

The other crashes seemed to happen for no good reason whatsoever.

Hogars are simple. I talked about Battering Hogars. They have 4 attacks and with bad luck you have no chance to move unconscious members into the back.
IMO a Lvl 10 party of 6 has no chance against them on expert.

@Wereboar
You're right. I once ran with my above party into a Toxic Cloud Lvl 2. In the second round ALL were suddenly uncounsious. Luckily I could ran 2 rounds later with two dead members because after a hit my Lord woke up.

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Just yesterday i killed two of the with a level 10 party of 4 without accident (expert ironman).
But it was a very powerful party - fighter, rogue, monk, bishop.
First round engage it with missile while still yellow - bishop casts first guardian angel. Second round, hogar moves near, but don't reach party (or reaches and has only 1 attack left) - second guardian angel. Third round, third guardian angel.

You can't move unconscious party members to the back. But in these fights, i move the caster(s) into the back in the first round, and the fighter types into the center. When one gets knocked out, the others step into the front, and thus protect the helpless character.

Just yesterday i killed two of the with a level 10 party of 4 without accident (expert ironman).
But it was a very powerful party - fighter, rogue, monk, bishop.
First round engage it with missile while still yellow - bishop casts first guardian angel. Second round, hogar moves near, but don't reach party (or reaches and has only 1 attack left) - second guardian angel. Third round, third guardian angel.

You can't move unconscious party members to the back. But in these fights, i move the caster(s) into the back in the first round, and the fighter types into the center. When one gets knocked out, the others step into the front, and thus protect the helpless character. </font>[/QUOTE]Mmmmh. IIRC I havn't deleted my savegame, so I'll try it. We'll see, but my party wasn't that powerful. Fairie Ninja, Dracon Lord, Gadgy, Bard, Alch and Bishop. Both Ninja and Lord often missed, they need a little practice, because with magic-users I like to kill my opponents BEFORE they are in reach of my swords :D

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[ 06-28-2004, 06:35 AM: Message edited by: Loudhy ]

Well, try insanity with your bard, and hypnotic lure with the gadgeteer. Both work very well against normal hogars, less good against battering ones, but it sometimes works.

I agree with Wereboar - with hogars the best option is often "Run". Is the expert mode really different from normal. When I started playing there was such a difference on ex. pts. that it seemed better to go that way so that seems "normal to me. But so many people on the board seem to find expert difficult. Nessie wasn't such a problem at lvl 18 or 20 (don't remember) Souleater was terrible and I switched over to Easy for that fight.

It is really frustrating to see your whole party taken like that. Better luck in the future Loudhy.

I've never tried Iron Man, but I've noticed that when my butt is getting whupped, if I switch to continous battle and simply let everyone die (perhaps several times) - then shut down for awhile (like over an hour - better yet a day), my 'luck' seems to improve (I think that the game 'notices' when we die - and if we are dying over and over, then exiting, it may be assuring that we'll continue to play...)?
Hogars don't stay paralyzed for long either, but once knocked out it's almost tragic to watch them be helplessly pounded - the thing I hate about running is that it seems all too often another band of annoyed creatures joins in (I still try to knock off the Hogar first).

If I start an expert game, I win an expert game. I don't change difficulty levels during a game.
But from my lost games I've learned, that I need a little bit more patience to build my party up. And I think I'll remove the hybrids because they grow too slow. IMO pure fighters and pure mages joined by Vi and RFS-81 later are the key for an ascension on expert. I'll start my third party this weekend.

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heh. None of my expert parties had any of that*:
Solo Lord with 5 Bishop levels.
Bard and Bishop.
Ranger, Rogue, and Lord.
Ninja, Monk, and Bishop.
Those four went Expert all the way, even Stealth trained on Expert. I also played a number of 4somes 'mostly' on Expert.
I've been playing on Normal now, rather having fun on it.

* (edit) and only one of my 44 Ascensions had an RPC in the party for more than a couple minutes.

[ 07-01-2004, 02:32 AM: Message edited by: Scatter ]

Don't forget Scatter, I do not reload a saved game after a party's destroyed. So I must be a little bit more careful with development.
You gave me some hints about reduced parties some months ago and I tried it, but that's not RP for me.
If I want to play single member games I take Gothic or Morrowind. Currently I try Thief III ( and of course my expert party ).


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[ 07-01-2004, 02:45 AM: Message edited by: Loudhy ]

So Scatter, what's the difference between Normal and Expert that makes it "fun"?

Normal is more fun because you can just run around killing stuff more often, and not worry so much about your tactics and condition (compared to Expert). I was dissapointed the first time i tried Expert and found that, unlike Wiz-7, the Bosses don't double on Dominus.

@Loudhy; I only ever reload once per party that Ascends if the death is from combat. And only 14 of my finishes (the only Expert one being the solo) have been reloaded after combat death. I did play 4 parties on Ironmode, of which 3 finished. I prefer to be able to reload when the game kills me (falling off the map, etc) and sometimes (ok, often) for loot, but not if dying makes it obvious the party's not working.

[ 07-01-2004, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: Scatter ]