Kings Bounty Collection

[Sharoth]

Gamers Gate has the Kings Bounty Collection on sale for a pittance, so I picked it up. Are there any good tutorials for this? Also, what do you all think of the series? Any good stories to tell about your playthrought(s)? Any good tips or tricks?

[factotum]

I found the power curve of the enemies gets a bit unforgiving towards the end--I never managed to take down the final boss in the first game, and I got stuck about 2/3 through Armored Princess. That might just be because I suck at the game, who knows? I had a lot of fun while I was playing it, though. The only tip I can give is to try to not lose too many troops--they're expensive to replace!

[warty goblin]

I've played a bit of both the first one (not the original from the late Neolithic, the original remake) and Armored Princes. Can't say they ever really clicked with me. It's the same problem I always have had with the HoMM series; namely the combat doesn't quite work for me. I just don't like the stacks and hero units as support power dispensers. Heroes should be on the map, stabbing things.

[Vitruviansquid]

Play your first game blind and see how far you get. You probably won't beat the game.

Your second time through, sit down and think about what spells, unit abilities, items, and dragon/rage spirit/valkyrie abilities that you found in the first playthrough could combine to become utterly overpowered.

Hint: It is possible to beat all of the King's Bounty games on the highest difficulty with any class with no creature losses.

[Ailurus]

Any good tips or tricks?

The three main spoiler-free pieces of advice I've got are:

1) Be ready to run away and dodge a lot. If you're careful and quick you can run around and grab a lot of treasure chests and flags without having to engage units, letting you build up your forces more before fighting. Similarly, you can skip around big enemies and take out smaller ones first.

2) Your troops are (usually) NOT expendable. They are expensive, and quite often limited in number. So, going back to point #1, if something looks scary, avoid it for now. Go find something weaker to kill first, unless there's nothing else to do. And its also always better to blow rage or mana on overkill to make sure soldiers live. Your rage will fade anyway post-battle, and mana automatically recharges. But dead soldiers are dead for good.

3) Explore everything. Unless I'm mis-remembering, the number of days that pass only act as a modifier on your final score. So, feel free to backtrack over areas to make sure you found all the loot, make sure you track down and beat up all the enemies (once they're not super dangerous anymore), etc. That being said, there's no respawns, so once you're sure you've cleared an area there's no need to scour it again later.

[Flickerdart]

I found Armored Princess a lot more fun than The Legend, and that's the one I played through to the end.

Warrior is probably strongest in the early and mid-games, but there's no beating a Paladin in the late game once you score Resurrection at max level. At that point it's just a matter of making sure your least expandable unit lost the most guys. Before then...you're going to be running away from difficult enemies all the time. Don't be shy about hopping between islands and killing whatever is the right power level for you to fight.

Also, your dragon is your best friend. Outside of boss battles, anyway because you arbitrarily can't use it in those. Still, boost Rage at every opportunity, run Inquisitors and use Rage-boosting spells, and then let loose with deadly dragon explosions.

[Cespenar]

I found the power curve of the enemies gets a bit unforgiving towards the end--I never managed to take down the final boss in the first game,

Exactly same for me. Also, while the game is a lot of fun, there's simply too many battles in the game for it to not be boring after a while. Probably the lack of a strategic aspect (like Heroes) factors into this boredom as well.

[factotum]

Well, they really replace the strategy element with more of an exploration and questing element, so I found that side of things OK.

warty_goblin, since you say heroes should be on the battlefield fighting the enemies, you should try Heroes 4--that was the only one of the series where that actually happens! That does mean you can lose a mission by having a bunch of Medusas (special: random chance of outright killing an enemy unit) attack the one hero you need to survive to get through the level, though...

[Sprinter]

I found the power curve of the enemies gets a bit unforgiving towards the end--I never managed to take down the final boss in the first game, and I got stuck about 2/3 through Armored Princess. That might just be because I suck at the game, who knows? I had a lot of fun while I was playing it, though. The only tip I can give is to try to not lose too many troops--they're expensive to replace!

Interestingly i found Armored Princess easier then original mainly because new units added. I recommend using guard droids + guard mechanic combo they are almost indestructible i used them till end playing as warrior to minimise unit loss.

[Corlindale]

I love these games, especially the Legend.

Others have given good advice, especially about taking the weak enemies first. It's not like in Heroes III where a risky battle might pay off early on, since you have infinite time to complete the map. So there's absolutely no reason not to simply pick off the weakest opposition first and Work your way up. Just like in Heroes you should be extra careful with ranged enemies and fast enemies - rememer that no casualties is the ideal (though it probably won't always be possible unless you use very specific, optimized strategies).

As Allurus said, it's useful to scout around a new area and see whether you can pick up some unguarded loot before you actually start fighting. Each treasure chest and each banner you find can amplify your strength.


Experiment with units to see what you like. Royal Snakes are pretty good for the early game, and thanks to Lunge and No Retaliation it's easier to avoid losses.

PLay to your class' strengths! I played a blaster mage for most of the Legend. It worked great to use magic as my primary offense and the army to delay enemies and pick off the weakened ones. But eventually, near the end of the game, my units became hopelessly overmatched by the enemies because my attack and defense scores were so dismal. I then realized that it was foolish to try to beat enemy warriors at their own game, and then transitioned into a pure blasting strategy using Armageddon and a single stack of weak, fast units to Dodge the enemies while I rained fiery death on them.