Playthrough notes

[Darvin]

I haven't heard of anyone winning it since the Platemail bug was fixed, much less since platemail was actually nerfed.

[The Avatar]

See my notes after you commented on it in the Warlord Silver thread. It's crazy, but I beat it once.

[gjaustin]

I've beaten it too.

It is HARD, but doable. You definitely need to go Human, prep the blacksmith shield, and get lucky on glyph order. Also prep the Transmutation Scroll so you can get to the Fine Sword quickly. And, eventually, use the Slayer Wand on the level 9 monster.

[Lujo]

Hmmm, thing is, it's not the fine sword, it's the blacksmith sword down there. Second, I'm also not too sure about human because of pissorf which can be cast twice as opposed to fireball which you can only cast once. I've also been prepping the shield because with it you can kill the first 2 guys more easily. (Badge + Sword doesn't seem to bad an Idea though).

Big problem for most of the run isn't offense but defense, though. Thats just my opinion.

But the best result I ever got was with an elf because he could cast 2 fireballs. I'm actually pondering simply converting the platemail and going fireball and getindare crazy, Gaan'Telet Style. It would work for the lvling, but then the boss'd kill me.

Err, if this is so damned difficult, how come noone whined about it? Avatar managed it once, gjaustin managed it once, and Darvin and Lujo are not seeing it as doable. I'd bet my family tomb in the Balkan mountains it can be written off as undoable...

Tnx for help guys, will try it your way, and if I don't manage it, I'll try the elf approach.

[The Avatar]

It's an interesting idea.

We did bring it up, along with Bloodmage Gold and some others, but nothing changed.

http://www.qcfdesign.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2377

[Lujo]

Must've been in the middle of a big bug crisis or something else on the devs' hands. Fighter's gold is really stumping me. But I'm tired, I'll continue all this tommorow (and check that thread, as well)

[q 3]

[Lujo]

Well, that would explain why it looked unbeatable to me, the RBS is the only thing I wasn't able to unlock without unlocking 3rd lvl classes. Which makes it a bit odd, Fighter Gold - undoable before you unlock everything. Rogue gold - doable before you unlock just about anything

[gjaustin]

[Lujo]

I've figured I've just been trying the golds out to see which are doable, on the same ground, and on the "Maybe it wasn't intended and I found a bug / gameflow kink / secret pro strat". The Rogue Gold, in particular surprised and delighted me even if it's wholly unintended.

Oh, well, I wasn't so much avoiding monsters, as trying to increese my reasons to check early-mid places out with 1st and 2nd tier classes before I get the opportunity to fire paladins, warlords and the trisword up. The first Unlikely heroe's quest was likely what was supposed to prompt me to unlock the warlord early.

On the other hand, I'd have been pretty broke if I unlocked them "on time". I'm broke now, having sunk way too much gold into trying to do fighter gold without the RBS. EDIT: Allthough then my opinions on the bank quests would be different, as I would've had less problems with the 4000 gold limit.

Gameflow... development - I've unlocked the warlord. I'm also at 700 gold. But I guess It'll get better as I start doing the Unlikely heroes questline, which is also likely to let me test out stuff with unpriviledged classes, so no problems there. I'm interested to see how this affects my "issues" so far, and I might even do a playthrough in a week or two (unless the game manages to go live till then) with a more "natural" progression for 3 reasons: I don't remember the last time I did the 3rd tier classses early quests, because of no 3rd tier classes I've been doing stuff with a "minimalist" glyph pool for too long (making GETINDAE ubiquous), and to see what "gripes" are still there and which are smoothed out by it.

Noticed - Blacksmith: - is the only kingdom related thing that is affected in some way by 3rd tier class unlocks. And unlocking just one doesn't naturally let you unlock it. Just noting.

Disclaimer - I've even stated in the writeup that I'm not necessarily in love with every impression I got from this run, and not rushing the 3rd tier classes is a big part of why this is so. It did give the run so far a bit of a distinct outlook, allthough it's not impossible to find yourself in most of the situations I've been in even if you play naturally, except not in the same playthrough. I was just trying for an experimental thorough sweep of as much of a variety of options I could for different segments of the game.

Kingdom development idea - if the challenges have certifiably only one solution, like the RBS and the Fighter gold seems to have, then maybe they should be available only when the necessary parts are available? I know this is restrictive towards solving them in imaginative ways, but then again, I've just sunk more gold into pointlessly trying to do Fighter Gold than into anything else in the game apart from building unlocks. There's a feeling of "if it's unlocked then it's probably doable" , especially after you breeze through bronze / silver challenges (provided you do breeze through them). Also big feeling of dissatisfaction when they turn out to be undoable because you don't have something unlocked, and also a gold sink hazard. Just saying.

Disclaimer for the previous note - I know they have a message in red saying "Recommended", except it's missleading in case it's not "reccomended" but "bloody necessary", and when you're able to do other ones without the recommended unlocks. Ok, so the second will probabbly be extraneusly fixed, but the first still stays

LOL - I just remembered the other reason I didn't unlock tier 3 classes this time around - they were bugged the whole week EDIT: Elven warlord purist still kicked Venture Cave's SMM's ass o.O