Battle Squares - Strategies?

[Gimli]

Hey - well I have read some postings about the Battle Squares section, and mostly people talk about the different rewards and the mechanics of the game.

What I haven't seen enough of is strategies used to win, especially at the higher levels.

Two strategies that I'm not interested in are using improved invisibility; and using undead summoning. I think we all know that these can be abused and make anything easy. What I'm looking for is something that's not taking advantage of a bug or unbalanced spell.

One strategy I have seen help is to park the rest of your party in the hallway to the north of the room, just outside of the door. Then those characters can help out the one doing the battle square battles with ranged attacks and spells.

Also I'm not averse to non-undead summoning necessarily. But, I have run into problems where someone summons something, the ice golem notices it, walks over and "ushers" it out of the battle square room. The problem is is gets placed in the locked room with Nickademus - and whatever it was I was fighting runs away to attack it - it will eventually stop somewhere outside of the room. But this takes so much time that I lose squares because of the time limit. Although if it was a really large creature (like the Frost Giants), it will get stuck in the doorway of the battle square room and stay there, with its back to me, letting me get in free shots. So summoning IMHO gets kind of funky.

What are your strategies for dealing with battle sqaures?

[Magness]

Well, for a straightforward tactic, try this:

Use your toughest tank.

Buff him/her up as best as possible. Stoneskin, Emotion: Hope, Bull's Strength.

Give him your best slashing and blunt weapons to overcome the differing resistances of different enemies. Being armed with a sling and a bow (with the best ammo) doesn't hurt either.

There are some foes that you are just plainly better off not meleeing. Cyclops are better off being dealt with by ranged weapons. Easy to hit. Keeps them from doing unnecessary damage. Stunning ammo works great. Stun a foes then charge in with your best melee weapon. (If you have taken the Power attack fest, crank the damage up to the max on a stunned foe.)

Know you enemies. Use slings and/or blunt melee weapons against boneguard skelies, for example. (FYI, stick with slings against the boneguards.)

Keep track of each battle won in each rank on a piece of paper. Try to fight the battles in each rank in reverse order. That is, try to win the "7 squares" set first, then 6, then 5, and so on. Why? Flexibility. Since the enemies are random, you cannot know what you'll be fighting in each individual battle. Some foes will bang you up worse than others. Take each string of battles as far as possible. If you've beatan the first 2 foes easily without serious damage, why bail out by taking the 3 in a row? Always aim for taking the maximum number. If you get seriously hurt after winning 4 squares and don't think that you've got enough left to make it to 7 squares, then bail out at 5.

Going "forward" thru the 3,4,5,6,7 series leaves you no way to bail out early. Well, actually you could, but if you've already won 3 and 4, it doesn't matter if you win 3 again. Doing it in reverse (i.e. 7,6,5,4,3) allows you to bail out early and still get the full benefit of it. That is, say you've won the 7 squares and are now trying for 6 squares, but you get whacked after only 2. Take the 3 in a row to finish off the "game". Now you've completed 7 and 3. Go for 6 again. But you could still bail out at 4 or 5 and still be making progress at completing the overall rank.

A kinda-sorta cheesy strategy is to skip all but the first rank of battle squares until just before leaving the monk monestary. You'll be higher level and better able to handle the higher ranks in the battle squares.

[Lord Corwin]

I`m curious how you got 7 squares.......

No matter wich way I figure it,and I have already been through it all. 6 is the max. Because no matter what you do,when you go for your sixth square,you can`t avoid making a 3 in a row,somewhere on the board......

[Gimli]

Seven looks like this when I do it:

- X X
X O X
X X -

The O you do last, the Xs in any order.

[Lord Corwin]

Thanks Gimli !

Gonna have to try that next time. Best I got was 6. Didn`t think to put in the pattern you just showed.....
Live and learn.... [img]smile.gif[/img]