[Mabuse]

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THE LOST SCROLLS

Our troops enter the mystic cave and find... a FAQ


Unofficial Fantasy General FAQ v2
Last Updated: Feb, '98

Preface

Preface: This is the second public draft of a FG FAQ. There are likely many errors still. I'd appreciate constructive input, particularly if I've made an error, or in the spots that I mention are still unfinished. I'm hoping this will evolve somewhat from input from the friends of the FGC. Some parts of this, particularly battle trees, are from other people's input.

JULY 9th 1999: Nevr mind the updates, the FGC is archived. Still, this FAQ should provide you with good info. Seb.
Introduction
I haven't played it, what's it like? Is it any good?

It's great. The best place for general info if you don't own the game is the SSI-Online web site.

What is discussed by this FAQ? What is excluded?

In general, I'm trying to explore and clarify the game mechanics. This is NOT intended as a substitute for the manual, but rather as a supplement to it, and as errata for errors in it. There is a short section on strategy, but it's pretty basic, as I feel the best way to learn stuff like that is to play. There are a few tricks in there, though...

Where did the information from this FAQ come from? Is it accurate?

The information in this FAQ was figured out by observing the game. I haven't hacked the code, I don't have info from the publisher. It may be wrong, particularly as this is currently a kind of beta test FAQ. Comments, suggestions, corrections, and, yes, questions are welcomed. See information at the end of the FAQ.
Game Mechanics
Tactical information (on the battlefield)

* HOW DOES TERRAIN EFFECT MOVEMENT RATES?

It depends on the method of movement (MOD). Also, movement ends when the hex you move into is in enemy zone of control (ZOC-see manual pg. 54)

Road Clear Rough/Woods Mountain/Volcano River Jungle Swamp/Lava
Ope 2/3* 1 1 All All 2 3
Clo 2/3* 1 2 All All 3 All
Cav 2/3* 1 2 All 3 4 All
Sie 2/3* 1 2 All All All All
Air 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

* The 2/3 value for roads is only applied if travel is between two road hexes. Clear to road and road to clear movement both cost 1. Non-road to road appears to always cost 1, not 2/3. It doesn't matter if the graphics show the roads on the hexes as connecting or not.

Bridges are odd. My guess is that they cost as a road if you approach on road. It looks like you must move to the road hex adjacent to the bridge before crossing it. I got some weird results though; it's possible the 'find the best path' mechanism is broken, or something is very weird....

* COMBAT

How do units with more than one type of attack work?

Combat appears to go through Missile, Skirmish, then Melee phases, stopping when the attacking unit finishes it's primary attack.

So, skirmishers will skip the Melee phase when attacking, Archers will skip Skirmish and Melee.

However, an infantry with a Crossbow will get both attacks in when it attacks (it's expected damage is higher than it would be if it got only a melee strike).

How do ambushes work?

An ambush occurs when a unit attempts to enter a hex occupied by an unspotted enemy unit. The 'defending' unit then ambushes the unit which is moving, getting an attack in without any return fire. This, incidentally, is the only way to get a bombardier to fight another bombardier...

What formulas are used to determine damage?

OK. I've tried to work this out, but it's either non-linear or the damage estimates are somehow fishy.

Damage is based on (attack strength-armor of defending unit). Amount of damage is not the same for attack and defense, nor is it the same across the three types of attack.

In general, defenders do slightly more damage than attackers (try identical grade 1 HI to see this.. the defender does more damage expected)

For total damage, (kills+wounds): (same attack and armor values)
melee > skirmish > missile

However, for just kills: (same attack and armor values)
missile > skirmish > melee

it follows that for just wounds: (same attack and armor values)
melee > skirmish > missile

15 life melee units never expect less than 1 wound or more than 3 deaths and 10 wounds.

An advantage(attack strength vs. armor) of more than 20 is irrelevant. I've seen a +45 advantage give the same expected casualties as +20.

The Official Strategy Guide is wrong. (I've leafed through it at the store; I didn't buy it partly because of this.) If you find the expected damage of a unit per advantage over the enemy it does not come out as linear, unlike the formula they describe. Admittedly, they're somewhat close. The other, perhaps more sinister, possibility is that they're right and expected losses is screwed. Also, I postulate 6 formulae, one for attack/defense for 3 attack types, yet they list just one. Which one is it?

When do archers get defensive fire?

Archers get defensive fire if an adjacent unit is attacked by a NON-MISSILE attack.
(unless they're Broken [ML])
Note: Defensive fire comes BEFORE any other attack.
So, if the archers kill 3 guys out of 15, the the attacking unit will only attack with 12 guys. When do units retreat? When will they surrender?

The manual says retreating is based only on 'current life and any losses' I suspect morale is involved. Almost whole units retreat a fair bit. They surrender if there is no hex for them to move to. They can move into the attacking unit's hex if it dies in the attack! (weird retreat, huh?)

What is the sky hunter's escort ability? (pg. 56)

It is essentially an interception of an enemy bombardier. If a bombardier attempts to bomb in a hex adjacent to a sky hunter which has neither defended nor already escorted that turn, the bombardier will fight the sky hunter in melee instead of bombing.

It is also the interception of an adjacent enemy sky hunter attacking an adjacent friendly bombardier.[ML]

* MORALE

What determines the base morale of a unit?

Base Morale = 100 +5/level of unit

What effects morale?

Units get +10 if they are adjacent to or if they are a Hero. Morale is modified by 20 for the Charisma attribute. Combat affects of morale:

-(4-9) per attack or defense[I haven't found a pattern here]
-5 per death the unit suffers
-3 per wound the unit suffers
When you rest, you regain up to base morale, modified by -5/death and -3/wound.

When do units become disordered or broken?

Morale is checked after each attack or defense by a unit. This happens during each type of combat. (pg. 50) A unit can become disordered or broken even if that unit suffers no losses (I guess that's a 'combat result'). Affects of disorder and breaking are described in the manual on page 51.

* EXPERIENCE

What determines how much experience a unit gets?

The formula is:

+5 per attack or defense (+3 if a single entity)
+5 additional if there is return fire (for both attacker and defender) (+3 for single entity)
+1 per wound and per death the unit SUFFERS.
Archer defensive fire gets the archer +5 xp(as return fire)
Extra return fire (from archers) does not increase attacker's xp.

Values for single entities aren't exact. They sometimes get less, for no apparent reason. My current theory is that 'deaths' a S. E. suffers become wounds, but don't give xp.

The amount of damage a unit INFLICTS, and how many kills it gets, appears to be irrelevant. This surprised me...

Also, for spells: (magic items give similar experience)

+1 per successfully cast non-damage, non-area effect spell
+3 per successfully cast single unit damage spell
+1 per unit affected by an area effect spell
There are a few exceptions(Berserk? I can't remember...)

How/when do units lose experience? How much do they lose?

This is described in the manual, but some people find it confusing. When a unit suffers deaths in combat, when the unit recruits to replace the dead parts of that unit it will lose experience.* If you don't recruit on the battlefield, you will automatically recruit after the battle. The formula:

(# still alive)*(present XP) + (# to replace)*(starting XP)
all divided by the maximum life of the unit(usually 15, 10 for spellcasters)

Since Marcas' units start with 100 XP, recruiting costs less xp for all his units throughout the game. A good advantage.

* If a volunteer with under 100 xp recruits for Marcus, it gains XP!

What's the limit for a unit's experience?

599. No experience is gained above 599.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of the unit types?

* Heavy Infantry

I tend to think of them as a sort of default troop.

Strengths: They are the strongest all around units. The most powerful Melee unit. Negate cavalry is a big plus.

Pikemen, Legionarii and Heavy Spearmen has the negate Cavalry bonus, which is very useful in the front line. Warlord Mechanus with Amulet of Resistance make great cannon fodder. Weaknesses: Speed. They're slow. Force March helps, but you can't spellcast and attack....

Opinion: Either H.I. or cavalry is necessary. A good, almost essential, unit.

Keeping a few Samurai around to fill the role of light infantry can work pretty well, as they are an open formation unit. (no negate cavalry bonus though!)

* Light Infantry

A somewhat faster, weaker version of heavy infantry

Strengths: Well, they do well in rough terrain.

helpfull on 3rd continent, upgrade them after, but do't buy anymore. Weaknesses: with low xp, or in open terrain, they're weak

* Skirmishers

Somewhat fast infantry which has a skirmish attack

Strengths: Skirmish attack which disallows return melee attacks. *Half Damage* is dealt to them, when they defend, by troops which move _as fast as_ or slower than they do. (see rulebook errata) They move well in rough terrain. Invisibility is neat, don't forget to cast it for a free xp.

Weaknesses: Cavalry can kill them quickly, as they do full damage (unless the skirmisher has a boots of rapid movement!) They're a little slow in open terrain.

Opinion: I like them a lot. I have a lot of either them or light cav. in every army. They are beefier than L.I. because of half damage rules, as well as skirmishing... A group of skirmishers will easily slaughter a group of Heavy Infantry similar in size and price.

Combined with archers, invis. gives a nice ambush attack- enemy tries to attack the apparently lone archer and moves into the skirmisher, giving an ambush plus defensive fire.[DWP]

* Archers

Slow infantry which has a missile attack and defensive fire.

Strengths: Missile attack which allows only missile return fire. Defensive fire, which is great on defense

Weaknesses: SLOW. This can be Very Annoying. They're pretty wimpy when attacked directly. They do less total damage, but get a fair amount of kills.

Opinion: Lukewarm. They're not necessary, but they're nifty if you can get them to the frontline. It is unclear to me if upgrading to Royal archers is a good thing. You don't get the 3 missile and armor, but fire archers move as an open formation, which can make the difference in getting into battle. defensive fire comes first which may soften the attack's strength The unlimited defense fire is very useful in the front line so I like to give them the boot to keep up the speed. Krindel is second only to Malric and actually more useful in the end game. The archers would get fire bombed in the 6th continent but that is much better than weakness on your HI.
* Cavalry

Melee unit faster than H.I. but somewhat weaker.

Strengths: Fast. +8 to melee if _attacked hex_ is clear, road, etc. Phoenix Knights Rule.

Weaknesses: not as strong as H.I., particularly early. Somewhat expensive.

Opinion: Thumbs up. Either Cav or H.I. is necessary in force. Their greater mobility slightly more than offsets their relative weakness when comparing to H. I. Raise Dead is the best spell in the game. Phoenix Knights, unless they die all the way, don't lose xp from deaths. Very Nice. And they're a mortal unit!

* Light Cavalry

Very fast skirmishing cavalry, somewhat weak.

Strengths: Very Fast. Skirmishing. Takes half damage from attacking units moving _as fast as_ or slower than they.

Weaknesses: They don't do that much damage. Pretty expensive.

Opinion: I like them; I wouldn't go without either them or skirmishers. Half damage is great, but watch out for Sky Hunters. I almost favor skirmishers, as L.C. are awfully wimpy, but I usually go for a unified mostly Cav or mostly Infantry theme. They don't have to fear (slower) Cav as much as skirmishers do.

Since they run fast, they are very useful to lay siege to faraway towns. However, two units are needed if the defender is a melee unit because of their tendency to retreat.
* Sky Hunters

Aerial Melee units.

Strengths: Flight, Very fast. Escort ability(see combat above)

Weaknesses: expensive, wimpy in comparison to other melee units.

Opinion: Absolutely Essential. I can do without any unit but Sky hunters. They are critical, and sometimes hard to keep alive. A _minimum_ of 25% of your forces should be S.H. IMO. Phoenix Hawks are a major reason to play Krell; as I said earlier, Raise Dead Rules.

* Bombardiers

Aerial missile unit.

Strengths: flight, fast. Missile attack.

Weaknesses: expensive, somewhat wimpy.

Opinion: Pretty good. Fast and flexible, useful in starting the attack on tough units as well as harrassing wounded units. Their weaknesses hurt, though, making them nice but non-essential to me.

* Siege Engines

Ranged attack unit with special siege attack

Strengths: Range of attack, siege attack on castles/towns.

Weaknesses: SLOW. Very wimpy in melee. SLOW. Attack doesn't get good until several upgrades. Oh, yeah, they're slow.

Opinion: Dislike. There are some situations where they're good, but it takes forever to get them forward, and you have to protect them too much.

They do get pretty nasty if you can cluster them near a town, as each one gets support fire for each attack.[ML]

Chain Guns is the upgrade much need to get to range 4, to compensate for their slowness.
* Spellcasters

Spellcasting skirmishers.

Strengths: Well, spells. Magical skirmish attack.

Weaknesses: Slow. Spells mostly suck. Wimpy. Only 10 life.

Opinion: Dislike. The earlier spells (healer, banshee) are pretty good but the later ones are poor. The 10 life per unit disadvantage hurts them a lot. As mentioned on the net, they'd be worth it if they kept all spells up to their grade, but as is, thumbs down.

Campaign management (outside of battlefields)

* RESEARCH

How much cash must I invest to get a certain grade of unit?

Roughly, it costs as much as the unit costs to buy(Not to upgrade) after you get the previous grade. There are discounts for some characters (Marcas for infantry, etc.)

How does non-mortal research effect this?

I think it's just additive. (big disadvantage.)
(note from Mabuse: i am not sure about mech units though)

* MAGIC ITEMS

What does X do?

The manual and on-line stuff seems to be pretty good. If you're curious, you can check them out in the arena by clicking on item on the unit screen when you're building your army.

Can you get multiples of the same item?

Yes. No restrictions, as far as I can tell.
except for skull of krang.



Errata to Rulebook

The rulebook is actually quite good, but it is occasionally inaccurate:

Skirmishers/ Light Cavalry in defense: (pg. 55, 56)

They take 1/2 damage to attacking units _as fast as_ or slower. If there's a morale penalty, it's very small. Much less than the morale loss they'd get if they actually took the damage, for example. Also, a clarification: apparently the probability of damage is halved, not the final damage. (This changes the probability distribution considerably; a 15 life unit will sometimes do 8 or 9 points, for example, though the mean can't go above about 6)

Spotting- 'The Spotting Trick' (see pg. 53/54)

If a unit moves into an enemy ZOC but not into an enemy unit, you get a free spot. You lose your ability to abort move but see enemy units within your unit's spotting range.

This has several implications:

You can never be ambushed if you move one hex at a time, cancel move, and then re-move to the next forward hex.

You can always find fleeing units(usually sky hunters for me) by trying a direction and, if you don't move next to the fleeing unit, aborting and trying another direction.

Is this Cheating?

It is my opinion that any game option other than reloading the game is part of the game, so is not cheating, although I'll admit this is getting iffy.

David [DWP] also thinks it's somewhat iffy, but thinks it is closer to cheating than not.

Make up your own mind. You might want to agree on this prior to PBEM games.

Retreating Pg.48

The manual claims retreating is based on "...current life and any losses..." yet I have seen a 15 life unit retreat. Something else is going on.

Unit pictures

Unit pictures examples are, well, way wrong.

Archers' defensive fire (pg. 46, 48, 56)

Archers don't get defensive fire against enemy missile attacks on units adjacent to the archer. This is not clear in the manual, IMHO.

Appendix 1 errors:

Valira has 17 armor, not 170.
Krindel's spell should be P, not PM.
Malkin's spell says VOD. (It's really Whirlwind -[PK])

Problems with the game:

Does the A. I. cheat?

(By cheat I mean does it do things with units a human cannot)

Yes. The AI will cast a spell(e.g. death wounds) early in the turn, I saw this in an all deaths unit(due to death wounds spell). I repeated to verify the unit always did only deaths. AFTER the unit which had had death wounds cast on it had moved and attacked the Conjurer moved. This is impossible for a player to do.

The Balanced Army check

Allegedly to force the players to have a balanced army, the A. I. goes nuts if you 'over-specialize' your army and research. I've seen 7 4-shield max grade units pop from a town when I had an unbalanced army on hard. I hate this. I don't know what the designers were thinking. If you want to force this, write scenarios needing varied unit types.

There is no good rationale why the Shadowlord should get cosmic recruits if you have a specialized army. This really pissed me off the first(well, as yet, only) time I played on hard. Do useless research and have a few token varied units if you want a specialized army, I guess.

Tactical Hints (basic)

Ideal matchups for attacking

Generally,

skirmish vs. melee
missile vs. skirmish
melee vs. missile

maximizes advantages. Also, Cavalry vs. Skirmishers(the unit type, not L.C.) is optimum. Most of the time you won't actually do this though. Like attacking like is usually the _worst_ matchup(!), although frequently necessary.

When casualties are acceptable

the less xp a unit has, the less it loses when it suffers a death. I'm less concerned about inexperienced units' casualties for this reason. Recruit to full strength ASAP, however, else you get effectively diminished xp for the rest of the combat...

Raise dead units make deaths close to irrelevant, however.

When should I cast force march?

Force March is a spell castable by Heavy Infantry. The simplest way to use it is to cast it before you move, which gives you two extra movement points. You may cast it before or after your normal move.

Sometimes it's best to cast it before you move, for example:

You start on a road, and want to move through two more roads, across two clear hexes, and through two more road hexes. The cost is: 2/3 * 2 + 3 * (1)(road to clear, clear to clear, clear to road all cost 1) + 2/3 =5

You can move there for five movement points, but if you split the move in half (one 3 move and one 2 move) you won't make it, as you won't keep the fraction of a movement point between the two moves.

More often, however, taking two separate moves is to your advantage. You can cross rivers in a single turn, or move through two squares of mountains.

Toying with the enemy: maximize your xp

Especially early, don't be in too much of a hurry to finish off your opponent. You can get lots more xp if you let units retreat and rest. (this can get very boring, however.)

What should I research?
Everything. Otherwise the computer will screw you over for having an unbalanced army. (grrrrrr.)
(Note from Mabuse: or take the punishment, it also possoble eith this pounishment, only the second and early thrid may do prblems, later it should not matter too much, since your troops are also very expierienced, many good players will tell you NOT to research everything))

Of course, first get the stuff you use upgraded, but don't let your useless research lag too far behind.

The spotting trick

See errata. Questionably fair.

Which character is best?

All IMHO:

Early in the campaign: Marcas, Calis, Krell, Mordra
Late in the campaign: Krell, Marcas, Calis, Mordra

Krell is great late in the campaign because of Phoenix Hawks. Beginners should have an easier time with Marcas and Krell. Experienced players will have fun with the other characters. All of the above is arguable.

What Now?

Who wrote this, anyway? Who helped?

Tim Firman - Primary author
This article is Copyright © 1996 by Tim Firman. All rights reserved.

[SD] Sebastien Dupre
[DP] David Pollock
[KMW] Kum Ming Woo
[GD] Gary Durfee
[ML] Mike Lay
[PK] Pekka Karjalainen
[/b]

i dont guarantee that everything is right what stands in the lost scrolls. but it may be stil interesting to read.
make a picture on your own