King's Bounty [By rpgclassics.com]
Continentia
There are several options you have when you start the game, the second is to skip it all until you have the best army (this is described here), the first way, which is described in this page creates a more challenging game and saves valuable game time.
In this option you can create a beginning level army and go throughout the game villain by villain. The army building is described here.
There are many units on the first continent you may want to look for when creating your beginning army. The first place to look is in King Maximus's castle, pick up as many militias and pikemen as you can, with some archers if you want. Then search the nearby area (and if you want to far away areas with the boat, avoiding enemies) and see what is available to you. My 1st continent recommendations to hire are wolves, Sprites (they can be good in the beginning, but suck horribly later on, don't have any left in your army by the time you get to caneghor or you will have lots of trouble), skeletons, and orcs, I do not recommend having any peasants, they are slow unskilled fighters that can only kill in huge groups.
Once you have a decent army (compare it to the one Murray the Miser has, if its more than his its good for now) its time to start hunting villains
Note:If you aren't the sorceress remember to get the ability to use magic in the area north of the castle.
Go to a town, rent a boat, buy siege weapons, and get the contract for Murray the Miser (also get spells if you want).
Find Murray's castle and lay siege to it, he should be easy if you have a decent army.
Fight all the villains on continentia in this way, get a promotion (this raises your character's stats and allows the hiring of better units), get the map to Forestria, sail to the edge of the map and continue your adventure on the next continent: Forestria.
Forestria
When you go to the next continent there are always new units to hire and a new set of villains.
You should always search out the new units on each continent (especially Saharia) and use them to add to the strength of your army.
Some units that can be found in Forestria are Zombies, skeletons, elves, gnomes, dwarves, and wolves. I recommend dwarves (for their high HP), wolves (fast with decent attacks), and zombies (somewhat powerful undead, better than skeletons but slow).
With the exception of the castle on Continentia the units on each continent are stronger than those on the last, so always find and hire some new ones.
The villains on this continent are fairly easy, but harder than those in Continentia, follow any instructions in the villain descriptions and you should beat them fine.
Remember that as you beat the villains you should go back to King Maximus's castle often to see if you qualify for a promotion (see character pages).
Just remember to get turn undead spells before facing Rinaldus Dyrbone and you should be fine.
After you finish the villains find the map to Archipelia and get going.
Archipelia
Archipelia Is fairly challenging. It is the first continent on which you fight dragons, the strongest units in the game.
Of course the greater the risk the greater the reward, the treasure here is incredible compared to that of the previous continents.
Some of the units you will find in Archipelia are barbarians, druids, elves, trolls, orcs, and ogres. I recommend druids (their magic is very powerful, they are similar to archmages but they cant fly), Barbarians (fast, high HP, good attack), and Trolls (regeneration, high HP, good attack but slow).
Take out the villains as described on the villain page. Some of these can be kinda hard.
Now that you have defeated the Villains here you should find the map and go on to the last and hardest continent Saharia.
Saharia
You have made it, after your long journey and battling you have come to Saharia, the realm of Arech Dragonbreath the mastermind of the plot against the kingdom.
On this continent you will face challenges like nothing you have faced so far.
The treasures here have amazing value and the units here are incredibly powerful.
The units you may find on Saharia are Dragons, Demons, Vampires, Achmages, and Giants. I reccomend them all. Dragons are the most powerful units in the entire game, they are nearly unbeatable by lesser units and they are immune to all magic. Demons are second only to Dragons in power and have the incredible ability to kill half of a unit instantaneously, Demons can fly. Vampires powerful undead flying units that can regain their HP by draining enemy units. Archmages, my favorite unit, can do incredible damage with their fireballs, they can also fly, the only units that can easily beat Archmages are Dragons because of their immunities. Giants are immensely powerful monsters that can hurl boulders and do excellent damage.
Once you get a powerful army with some of the units above, especially Dragons, Archmages, and Demons, it is time to hunt the villains.
Magus Deathspell has an army of magical units. His archmages can devastate massive armies of anything but Dragons. Follow my instructions and take out his archmages first. The rest of the battle should be pretty easy if you have Dragons.
Urthrax Killspite the Demon King has an army of powerful units including Demons, Knights, Dragons, and Cavalry. Follow my instructions and you should be ok. Kill the Archmages first in any way possible, then hit the dragons while fireballing the Knights and Demons. Then take out the Cavalry and mop up the remaining Knights and you've won.
Now its time for the most challenging battle in the game. The mastermind of the plot, Arech Dragonbreath, and his massive hordes of Dragons. I seriously recommend you use the Perfect Army Strategy before coming into this battle.
Once you use the perfect army strategy come to arechs castle with a few turn undead spells and fireballs.
When you go into the battle with Arech you should hit the Vampires and Demons with your fireballs and turn undead spells (as well as Archmage spells) while mass attacking the Dragons. Attack the largest group of Dragons with some Demons and pray that you get a "half" because it may turn the tide of the battle. After that just keep attacking the Dragons and if your army is strong enough you will defeat them and gain the final piece of the map.
Once you get the map you should return to Continentia where it is hidden and follow the istructions here.
Building the Perfect Army
This page illustrates my fool-proof (I wish) strategies for making the perfect (close to it at least) army.
Instant Army Method
This is how I made the best army I ever had (ahhhh the wonderful sensation of having 3000+ druids simultaneously calling down bolts of lightning on you...OW).
| 1: | Get huge amounts of gold (a few hundred thousand should do) |
|---|---|
| 2: | Buy and use many Instant Army spells (it will take a whole lot if you are not a Character that is good with magic). |
| 3: | When you have gathered an army of a few thousand strong/medium (the armies are only strong if you use this strategy when you are at your final rank) units you will notice one problem, They are completely out of control! To solve this buy many Raise Control spells before each battle. Then you will notice that the army costs a hell of a lot of gold each week, Well, I told you this strategy was expensive:) heh heh heh. |
| 4: | For as long as you can support the army (the sad part is this is never for very long), ravage your enemies with your awesome might, even the forces of the great Arech Dragonbreath can't stand up to an army of a few thousand good soldiers |
Cloning Method
This strategy is somewhat similar to the instant army method except it takes a little more time and effort and it can work on stronger units (no this strategy doesn't work with dragons because they are immune to all magic, even cloning)
| 1: | Get huge amounts of gold (yes, all perfect armies take this). |
|---|---|
| 2: | Buy many Clone and Raise Control spells. |
| 3: | Use many raise control spells (if you forget this you will have a massive newly cloned army of strong units attacking you) and get into a battle and kill most of the enemies without finishing it. |
| 4: | Use all your clone spells on your strongest non-dragon unit being careful not to get above the control limit. |
| 5: | Finish the battle. |
| 6: | Repeat until your army is extremely powerful. |
| 7: | For as long as you can support it (not long) use the huge army to obliterate your enemies, but remember, use raise control spells before battles (see step 3 for reason) |
The easy way
In King's Bounty you can easily get extreme power before you even fight the first villain. All you have to do is follow the simple process here:
When you begin the game don't hire extra soldiers, just get a boat and start looking for treasure while dodging fights as much as possible. Always distribute your gold.
When you find the map to Forestria go there and get some treasures until you get the map and so on until you reach Saharia.
Saharia has by far the best treasures in the game. you can gain masses of control by distributing the treasures there. Unfortunately most of them are guarded by extremely powerful monsters. The thing you need to do is buy a single dragon, demon, vampire, or archmage and dismiss your other armies then use it to fly around and get the treasures.
As soon as you find most of the treasures in Saharia go buy some dragons (assuming there are some, I've played one game when there wasn't any, it sucked)
Once you have 5-10 dragons sail back to continentia, dismiss everything else and fly around getting each of the villains (no army on continentia can stand up to these dragons, any unit will die in one hit against these, and not a single dragon should die defeating the entire continent)
After you clear our Continentia get your promotion and go to Forestria and continue your destruction. Then get another promotion.
It gets a bit harder after that. The villains of Archipelia can beat a couple dragons. Go back to Saharia and stock up a few more dragons. Maybe some demons and archmages too if you want to be really safe.
Then feel free to use those armies to ravage the villains in Archipelia. Get a promotion and head to Saharia.
At this point the game takes an incredible turn towards impossible.
The first thing you need to do is grab as many dragons, archmages, demons, and vampires as you can afford.
This army should be able to stand up to the first two villains, Magus Deathspell and Urthrax Killspite, But Arech is a whole different story, yoou will need alot more power than this to beat him, I seriously recommend you use a perfect army strategy and beat him with a combination of:Knights, Dragons, Demons, and whatever unit you get using the Perfect army strategy.
Arech has an incredibly powerful army a total of about 150 dragons, and about 100 demons and vampires. This will be the most challenging battle in the game regardless of how powerful your army is.
I would like to note that even though you can hire Hordes of sprites to do thousands of damage the skill level adjustments and the fact that peasants and sprites cant in any way harm dragons amke them utterly useless here. A single counterattack from Arech's dragons can kill thousands of them.
Once you use the perfect army strategy you should be able to beat Arech Dragonbreath.
CREDIT:
