Still Confused

[CSS]

Yes I did have the Hardness of the Bonelord set to hardest, That is how I prefer to play games. However even if I set it to medium I now can get 3 mana instead of 2. I am playing with a level 18 and it is still unwinnable at all. I replayed the first battle 5 times and didnt even come close.

When will you update the Ice Queen for replay, and thanks for being so responsive, you have potentially a great game going here. I have OVER 400 games in my collection and have a bit of expiriance. I playtest for Battlefront and Matrix games!

[Astral]

I downloaded the fixed version on Monday night (03/060/06) and installed it in the same directory as my Magic Stones folder. I go to play the game with my saved hero whom I started fresh from the first release of the Ice Queen expansion, and I still can't see the indicator for number of avatars collected. Am I doing something wrong? Should I install it to a new folder? Should I start with a new hero instead of my saved hero? I noticed you added the text in the screenshot in one of your posts, but oddly it is missing in the fixed version for download.

[jack1974]

Oops I checked and by mistake yesterday (for Windows) I made a new installer but forgot to replace the old .exe with the new one

The Mac one was ok instead, if anyone downloaded it.

I've uploaded it now, this time is the correct one! CSS, surely now you should be able to win 1st battle at medium setting I think... if you have any avatar at level 2 (like treant for example) should be almost easy
And yes the stones needed to level are displayed in character screen now.

p.s. you can replay ice queen, now the message window should appear "You want to retry this quest?"

[iulius]

I downloaded it now and seems to be the correct one.
Tried 1st battle of Bonelord at hardest level with my lvl 15 druid (all stones collected but none at level 2).
I summon a Treant on middle 1st line, then a crow on 2nd, and I have just 1mana left (the initial mana for the battle now was 15 and not 10 like before).
Use skill of Royal Guards and with them attack the knight in the middle and kill it with 2 hits. Now I use crow to stun the Master Necromancer since is the most dangerous enemy I think.
Use skill of treant to damage the 2 zombies remaining.
I concentrate my attack first all on one, then on the 2nd so they are both killed and I can attack directly the master necromancer and the evil eye.
I kill first the necromancer, but they manage to kill my treant, I keep attacking the evil eye always with "normal attack" because with power attack you have less chances to hit.
In the meanwhile the mana regen arrives at 4, and when is crow turn I summon a succubus instead, so then I can use his life steal which never misses even a high defence avatar like the evil eye: he has just 6hp left now, with some more hits from my avatars, I manage to defeat him!

I think that now this game has reached a very good difficulty balance, since at hard level you have to think different strategy to win. I think the key is to diversify, try different avatars combination.
Probably if I used my old druid with the Timber Wolves avatar I would have beaten this one quite easily even at highest level.

I'm proud to be a so good tactician now... I remember when I first tried the Bonelord (in old version) I thought "this is impossible!!" too!

[jack1974]

Ok glad to hear that the version now works fine

I just noticed that there's a small bug in the battle, when you right click an opponent it displays "level 2" and the number of stones (even for opponent neutral avatars).
That is obviously wrong and I'm fixing it now, but doesn't affect the gameplay anyhow, is just a text mistake.

[Zorro]

Also, I found that the battles in the Bonelord expansion were made easier if you had rings associated with certain avatars. I think for the low-level encounters, a ring of the crocodile is the most useful. It puts out a 6/7 creature for only 6 mana!

I would strongly recommend you make use of the swarm. They're probably the single most important avatar that nobody uses. And with good reason, if you only consider swarm for their attack and special. But the real reason to use Swarm is that they're the fastest creature in the game. Thus, you can spend all of your mana summoning avatars before the battle, and then, on the first turn, cast the Mannaz spell and either summon more avatars or pump up your creatures with spells. My personal favorite is to cast precision on my powerful avatars, who can then always power attack without missing.

The changes to the Mannaz spell are good - it used to be a game-breaker spell. I would summon a Drake and a couple of Swarms, and then use the swarms to keep pumping up my mana and then summon more Drakes. This is no longer possible. And if you combine the new limits on Mannaz with the limits on mana during quest mode, usually the best Avatars you can summon during the fight will only be within the 6 to 16 casting cost range.

This game just gets better and better with each version!

Z

[iulius]

Yes, the swarm is quite good avatar too. Probably is the best one to level, even if you can't really choose since the gather artifact avatars are randomly assigned (I think).
Can't wait to see the magic shop implemented... even if for that it seems we will have to wait this summer.
But since I'm a soccer fan I'm curious to see USM2 as well, so I can wait for Magic Stones

Want to add also that the Ice Queen is my favourite avatar now... for his special skill and... for herself a pity I can't use it in the rest of the game!

and yes, the great thing with most winterwolves games is that they get better over time with all those updates keep up the good job!