GameFaq for King's Bounty

GameFaq for King's Bounty
V0.1 November 2000
V0.2 June 2013
Copyright 2000, 2013 Chris Lee ([email protected])
Producer: New World Computing

Requirements:
You really need the manual, which you can find at
http://www.mocagh.org/nwc/kingsbounty-manual.pdf

Introduction:
This was a pre-cursor for Heroes of Might and Magic (I, II, III). Previous
to the game, Arech Dragonbreath and Urthrax Killspite conspired to dethrone
King Maximus and seize his kingdom. Now, all the castles are held by the
evil henchmen or a group of monsters. King's Bounty is a story of a general
who is recruited by a kingdom to help find the Scepter of Power and thus
restore the dying King and kingdom.

Initially, the player must choose between one of four heroes:
Knight
Paladin
Barbarian
Sorceress

Indeed, as the book suggests, the Sorceress is the hardest, but she has the
most abusive potential for magical buffs (described later).

Strengths/Weaknesses of Characters:
Knight: has highest leadership, best initial troops, average magic, quick
first advancement but slow advancement overall. He's the most all-well-
rounded character.

Paladin: slightly better in magic than a Knight, but will be weaker in
leadership and slow advancement, good initial gold. He's a balance between
Knight and Sorceress, but weaker than both.

Barbarian: very fast advancement, highest leadership, terrible magic, low
initial gold.

Sorceress: does not need to learn magic, great magic, terrible leadership,
low maximum income but good starting base commission, excellent initial gold.
Must use magic to enhance all abilities.

General strategies:
Knight will use magic to enhance (supplement) his battle abilities and allow
his troops to do a lot of damage.

Barbarian will in general be using the brute strength of his armies, with
some limited magic to beat down enemies.

Paladin will use a lot of magic to both enhance and supplement his battle
abilities, and this will help to lower overall death of troops.

Sorceress will often use magic to boost her leadership, battle, and
adventuring – all battle must be very planned.

When you start the game, you can either select a character or load an
existing game. If you select a new character, you get to give him or her a
name and then you may select the difficulty. This will affect the number of
days left, as well as how many moves per day. On the MAC version, there is
only Easy, Normal, Difficult, and Impossible:
DAYS LEFT MOVES PER DAY SCORE MULTIPLIER
Easy 900 40 x0.5
Moderate 600 30 x1
Difficult 300 20 x2
Impossible 200 10 x4

In the PC/DOS version, difficulty does not affect Moves per day.

Chart
Table 1. Character Advancement
___________________________________________________________________
|TYPE / TITLE |VILLAINS|BASE |MAX SPELLS|SPELL PWR| BASE |
| |CAUGHT |LEADER| | | COMMISSION|
| | |-SHIP | | | /WK |
|________________|________|______|__________|_________|___________|
|KNIGHT | 0 | 100 | 2 | 1* | 1000 |
| GENERAL | 2 | +100 | +3 | +1 | +1000 |
| MARSHAL | 8 | +300 | +4 | +1 | +2000 |
| LORD | 14 | +500 | +5 | +2 | +4000 |
|________________|________|______|__________|_________|___________|
|PALADIN | 0 | 80 | 3 | 1* | 1000 |
| CRUSADER | 2 | +80 | +4 | +2 | +1000 |
| AVENGER | 7 | +240 | +5 | +2 | +2000 |
| CHAMPION | 13 | +400 | +6 | +2 | +4000 |
|________________|________|______|__________|_________|___________|
|BARBARIAN | 0 | 100 | 2 | 1* | 2000 |
| CHIEFTAIN | 1 | +100 | +2 | +1 | +2000 |
| WARLORD | 5 | +300 | +3 | +1 | +2000 |
| OVERLORD | 10 | +500 | +3 | +1 | +2000 |
|________________|________|______|__________|_________|___________|
|SORCERESS | 0 | 60 | 5 | 2 | 3000 |
| MAGICIAN | 3 | +60 | +8 | +3 | +1000 |
| MAGE | 6 | +180 | +10 | +5 | +1000 |
| ARCHMAGE | 12 | +300 | +12 | +5 | +1000 |
|________________|________|______|__________|_________|___________|

* Must learn magic to cast spells

You must get troops to defeat enemy troops and castles.

Table 2. Unit Stats
___________________________________________________________________________
|MONSTERS |SKILL|HIT PTS|MOVE |ATT |SHOT|COST|MORALE GRP| SPECIAL |CONT|
|___________|_____|_______|_____|_____|____|____|__________|_________|____|
|CASTLE |
|Militas | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1-2 | | 50 | A | | C |
|Archers | 2 | 10 | 2 | 1-2 | 1-3| 250| B | SHOTx12 | C |
|Pikemen | 3 | 10 | 2 | 2-4 | | 300| B | | C |
|Cavalry | 4 | 20 | 4 | 3-5 | | 800| B | | C |
|Knights | 5 | 35 | 1 | 6-10| |1000| B | | C |
|__________________________________________________________________________
|PLAINS |
|Peasants | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | | 10| A | | C |
|Wolves | 2 | 3 | 3 | 1-3 | | 40| D | | C |
|Nomads | 3 | 15 | 2 | 2-4 | | 300| C | | F |
|Barbarians | 4 | 40 | 3 | 1-6 | | 750| C | | A |
|Archmages | 5 | 25 |Fly+1| 2-3 | 25 |1200| C | SHOTx2 | S |
|__________________________________________________________________________
|FOREST |
|Sprites | 1 | 1 |Fly+1| 1-2 | | 15| C | | C |
|Gnomes | 2 | 5 | 1 | 1-3 | | 60| C | | C |
|Elves | 3 | 10 | 3 | 1-2 | 2-4| 200| C | SHOTx24 | F |
|Trolls | 4 | 50 | 1 | 2-5 | |1000| D | (1) | A |
|Druids | 5 | 25 | 2 | 2-3 | 10 | 700| C | SHOTx3 | A |
|__________________________________________________________________________
|HILLS |
|Orcs | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2-3| 1-2| 75| D | SHOTx6 | C |
|Dwarves | 3 | 20 | 1 | 2-4| | 350| C | | F |
|Ogres | 4 | 40 | 1 | 3-5| | 750| D | | A |
|Giants | 5 | 60 | 3 |10-20|5-10|2000| C | SHOTx6 | S |
|Dragons | 6 | 200 |Fly+1|25-50| |5000| D | (2) | S |
|__________________________________________________________________________
|Dungeons |
|Skeletons | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1-2| | 40| E | | C |
|Zombies | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2| | 50| E | | F |
|Ghosts | 4 | 10 | 3 | 3-4| | 400| E | (3) | A |
|Vampires | 5 | 30 |Fly+1| 3-6| |1500| E | (4) | S |
|Demons | 6 | 50 |Fly+1| 5-7| |3000| E | (5) | S |
|_________________________________________________________________________|

KEY:
(1) Living Trolls regenerate to full hit points.
(2) Dragons are immune to magic.
(3) Ghosts absorb creatures they kill; on the week of the peasant, they
become peasants.
(4) Vampires heal their own wounds equal to the damage they inflict.
(5) Demons have a random chance of halving any enemy troop.
This is around 10% regardless of troop and regardless of number of demons.

CONT = Continent that you will usually find the lair; C = Continentia, F =
Forestria, A = Archipelia, S = Saharia.

There are occasionally some lairs that are unusually early in the game e.g.,
you may find some Druids in Continentia.

Peasants and Sprites can't harm demons and dragons. This is a cool fact to
note.

Other notes:
Frozen units cannot move. They cannot attack, unless there is a unit beside
them.

"Fly+1" means you can move anywhere there is an open space, and then either
attack, shoot if applicable, move one space, or fly again.

Shooters cannot shoot if there is a unit beside them. You may wish to
judiciously put units beside the more powerful shooters (such as archmages or
druids), as their normal attack is much weaker than their shots. You'll want
to use this strategy a lot!

You can only recruit castle units at King Maximus' castle, near Hunterville.
Different units unlock based on your rank.

Damage may wrap around on the Mac and DOS/PC versions if you have too many
of one unit! (ARGH!) If you have over 400 archmages, it will do a tenth
the damage or wrap around.

Damage modifier table for skill level of attacker & defender (APPROXIMATE):
Table 3. Skill difference modifier
_____________________________________________________
|ATT \ DEF | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
_____________________________________________________
|1 |1 |0.55 |0.338 |0.226 |0.072 | 0 |
|2 |1 |1 |0.445 |0.336 |0.2 |0.113 |
|3 |1 |1 |1 |0.324 |0.33 |0.226 |
|4 |1 |1 |1 |1 |0.446 |0.339 |
|5 |1 |1 |1 |1 |1 |0.452 |
|6 |1 |1 |1 |1 |1 |1 |
_____________________________________________________

How Damage is calculated:
(roll for damage * (number * (morale + artifact modifiers) * (skill
based on unit) of units) modifier)

So for instance, if I shot from Elves against Dragons, I would be rolling a
2, 3, or 4. Multiply that by the number of Elves. Then multiply by 1.5
(Normal Morale+Sword of Prowess or High Morale/No Sword) or 2 (High Morale
and Sword of Prowess) or 1 (Low Morale+Sword of Prowess or Normal Morale+No
Sword). Then the skill modifier depends on the skill difference.

For Elves (skill level 3) vs. Dragons (skill level 6), it's approximately
0.226. For Giants (skill level 5) vs. Dragons (skill level 6), it's
approximately 0.452.

So if I want to know how many dragons my 6500 High Morale Elves possessing
the Sword of Prowess could kill, it would be:
Damage roll of 2 or 3 or 4 * 6500 Elves * 2 (Sword+High Morale) * 0.226 /
200 hp per dragon = 29 or 44 or 58

As the manual indicates for the size of the stack:

Table 4. Descriptor and Size of Enemy Troop Stacks (from Manual)
A few = 1-9
Some = 10-19
Many = 20-49
A Lot = 50-99
A Horde = 100-499
A Multitude = 500+

Table 5. Morale Effects (from Manual)
A B C D E LEGEND : N = Normal
H= High
A N N N N N L= Low
B N N N N N
C N N H N N
D L N L H N
E L L L N N

High Morale usually means you get +50% base damage. It is HIGHLY advantageous
to have High Morale over Normal/Low Morale.

Low Morale means you don't do as much damage, damage is halved (-50% base
damage).

It is highly recommended to have high morale for damage. You'll be far more
effective.

Game play:

There are several elements of the game, divided into two categories. One is
the metagame or adventuring, the second is combat.

Metagame (Overworld)
The character in the metagame may move around by boat (if you have a boat) on
any water square, by foot (displayed by a mounted hero icon), or flying
(displayed by a hero on dragon). If you are sailing by boat, you can only
move in any of the 8 directions (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) on a water
square. What is helpful is that if monsters are 3 squares away (out of
sight), they will no longer follow you (assuming you are not time-stopped).
The only way to get to a new continent is also by boat.

In the Sega Genesis version, monster units are somewhat real-time (not turn-
based like the DOS, MAC, or C64 versions), so they are harder to lose/dodge.

Moving by foot, you must move to an open square.

If you move through desert, it automatically costs 1 day, unless you
timestop. If you are timestopped, each time you move to a desert square
(that is, a new desert square), your timestop counter will go to 0. In
other words, you will have to cast timestop each time you move a desert
square if you do not with to lose time.

There are treasures which you cannot get unless you can fly (Saharia), and
some where you'll either need the bridge spell or a boat. You cannot land on
the grass square immediately south of the castle gate.

The elements of the adventuring metagame is collecting treasures, visiting
towns, collecting artifacts, and visiting castles (if possible). And if you
are not playing a sorceress, going to the area immediately above the castle
to learn magic. I advocate for exploring as much as possible without having
to fight since many artifacts (Sword, Crown, Amulet, Ring, Shield) and better
troops allow you to win the game more easily, as well, you don't have to
carry a costly army around.

King Maximus' castle does not have a name. But the closest town is
HUNTERVILLE.

As the book suggests, photocopy the charts to help you figure out which
villain is in which castle, as well as what spell each town sells. You may
also wish to research what armies each villain commands, but that's usually
not necessary.

Killing all enemy units is not necessary for winning, nor is capturing all
the castles. Castles are important (as are henchmen) for your final score,
and henchmen will give you pieces of the map essential for finding the
Scepter of Order. Killing enemy units is useful for giving you gold as well
as giving you time to buff up your army (e.g., I attack weaker unit stacks
and clone the heck out of my army).

Collecting artifacts
The best part of metagaming is finding the artifacts. I would highly suggest
that you find all 8 artifacts before you start fighting any battles (if
possible). They will help you greatly in your quest.

You will find the Ring of Heroism and the Articles of Nobility in
Continentia. From what I've noticed, the Ring of Heroism positively
influences random damage in your favor. You will more likely do more higher
damage, and enemies will more likely do lower damage. The articles of
nobility will increase the amount of commission you receive by 2000 per week.

You will find the Shield of Protection and the Anchor of Admiralty in
Forestria. The Shield of Protection halves the amount of damage you take
from any enemy. The Anchor of Admiralty lowers your weekly boat rental from
500 to 100.

You will find the Crown of Command and the Book of Necros in Archipelia. The
Book of Necros doubles your spell capacity and the Crown of Command doubles
your leadership (including any leadership bonuses received). In other words,
if you become a Barbarian Overlord (from Barbarian Warlord), you will receive
1000 leadership instead of 500. Same goes with Treasure leadership bonuses.

You will find the Sword of Prowess and the Amulet of Augmentation in Saharia.
The Sword of Prowess adds 50% more damage (+50% base damage) when you attack,
and the Amulet of Augmentation increases your present spell power by 5. So if
you have high morale and the Sword of Prowess, you will do 200% of base damage.

Collecting treasures
As you go around, there are many places where treasures may be hidden.
Treasures may be in the 8 forms. The first are mineral deposits, which
increase your weekly commission. The second are a rogue band of monsters
which offer to join your party. (These are useful for quickly grabbing to
fortify a castle pretty cheaply.) The third are genies which may either
increase your spell power or spell capacity. The fourth are lairs, which you
may purchase followers. The fifth will give you a map to see the current
continent completely. The sixth is the map to allow you to travel to the
next continent. The seventh gives you some random spells. The final, and
most prevalent, are amounts of money, which you may either keep and increase
your current gold, or you may distribute to your followers and increase your
leadership. (I slightly recommend the latter because gold is fairly abundant
if you play this game correctly, although it really doesn't matter if use
lots of raise control spells.)

Getting magic
If you are not a sorceress, at some point in time, you will need to learn
magic. You may have to go along the path left of King Maximus' castle, and
the place that teaches you is in a cave immediately above the castle. (5000
gold)

Once you have learned magic, there are two spheres, combat magic, which you
can only use in battle, and adventuring magic, which you can only use in
adventuring.

As mentioned before, if you have kept good records, you know where each of
these spells are being sold.

Table 6. Combat Spells
NAME COST EFFECT
Fireball 1500 25*spell power vs. 1 group
Lightning 500 10*spell power vs. 1 group
Turn Undead 2000 50*spell power vs. 1 group of Ghosts, Skeletons
Vampires and Zombies
Resurrection 5000 Causes units which died to become alive, at
20*spell power (you will still lose the points)
Clone 2000 Multiplies units at 10*spell power for 1 group
Freeze 300 Causes one group (preferably enemy) to not be able
to move or attack (except if you have a group
beside them)
Teleport 500 Moves an enemy or friendly group to an open spot

As you can tell, Lightning has the biggest "bang for the buck," and it is
sometimes advisable to have a few lightning bolts to get rid of a few weaker
units for less cost. Fireball is when you want to kill things faster. Turn
Undead only works on Undead. Demons are NOT Undead! Clone is very cheap for
getting very powerful units. For instance, buying 2 knights will cost 2000.
However, if you have maxxed out your spell power, you will probably get more
than 2 knights. Resurrection only revives dead units of a certain type, and
will max out to whatever your original stack size was. Freeze is highly
effective for pinning down one stack of shooters, fliers (except dragons, who
are immune), and fast movers. It is also highly effective (although a little
on the costly side – trading off game points for money) when you have one
enemy stack left and you have some shooters left. Freeze the stack, shoot it
to death. Very nice elf/archer strategy. Of course, freeze doesn't do much
if you have a unit beside the frozen stack. Teleport is useful for putting
an enemy troop far away or moving one of your slow(er) moving stacks into a
strategy position. (I use this for teleporting knights when fighting Arech
Dragonbreath.)

Table 7. Adventuring Spells
Instant Army 1000 create an army unit based on spell power and rank
Town Gate 500 go to a previously visited town
Castle Gate 1000 go to a previously visited castle
Bridge 100 create a bridge for 2 spaces in any of the cardinal
directions
Raise Control 500 Raise Leadership by 100 * Spell Power (to a max
leadership of 65000)
Time Stop 200 10 rounds*spell power
Find Villain 1000 Shows castle where current villain is in the contract

Instant army is a great overall spell; it gives you a lot of units. Town Gate
-Castle Gate combinations are highly effective for getting reinforcements
and moving around quickly, as well as replenishing spells and visiting
King Maximus. I find Bridge and Find Villain fairly useless after the
beginning. Raise Control will temporarily elevate a spell caster's
leadership until the end of the week or until you get a promotion from King
Maximus. The maximum leadership is 65000. In conjunction of time stop, it
gets abusive (you'll never really need more leadership!)

As for Instant Army:
The specific unit you get is determined by your class and advancement.

Table 8. Units received from Instant Army
________________________________
|TYPE / TITLE |UNIT RECEIVED|
|________________|_____________|
|KNIGHT |Peasants |
| GENERAL |Militia |
| MARSHAL |Archers |
| LORD |Knights |
|________________|_____________|
|PALADIN |Peasants |
| CRUSADER |Militia |
| AVENGER |Archers |
| CHAMPION |Cavalry |
|________________|_____________|
|BARBARIAN |Peasants |
| CHIEFTAIN |Wolves |
| WARLORD |Orcs |
| OVERLORD |Ogres |
|________________|_____________|
|SORCERESS |Sprites |
| MAGICIAN |Gnomes |
| MAGE |Elves |
| ARCHMAGE |Druids |
|________________|_____________|

Defeating wandering troops
As you move around, you will see various hostile armies peppered around the
map. I usually like to save them for later in the game, for two purposes, 1)
I can clone my own troops, or 2) for their gold.

You also receive as spoils of war (roughly) 50% of the recruit cost for all
units you kill. (The only caveat being that you get 5 for Sprites instead 7.5
and a bit less than the full amount for Johnny's troops.)

Sieges
At some point in the game, you may wish to take over a castle, and you will
have to siege the castle. You must have a siege engine, which costs 3000 and
you must buy it in a town. Although it says that there is a random
probability it will break, I have never had one break on me. If you lose a
siege (i.e., all your armies are defeated, or you give up), you must buy
again before sieging a new castle.

Battle
Against the open armies (not in castles), all your stacks will be lined up on
the left and all the enemy stacks will be on the right. You get first
move/attack advantage, as well as spells. This is a huge advantage if you
know how the enemy fights.

Generally, you will want to kill his most dangerous units first, danger being
defined by 1) demons, who may half your stack, 2) other fliers, 3) shooters,
4) creatures with high move and damage (especially ghosts). Creatures with
higher damage generally should destroy first or freeze.

One sometimes useful maneuver is to freeze a front-line unit and his back
units will get trapped, unable to move.

Magic
The stronger your spell power and spell capacity, the more you should be
using magic in general. Only one combat spell can be cast per round, so
carefully plan your attacks.

However, freeze and teleport always work the same way regardless of spell
power.

Ideally, you want to give your shooters as much time as possible, as well as
using magic to kill other stacks – for instance, archmages, giants, and elves
should all shoot to kill one enemy stack if possible, and then use fireball
to kill another stack, or freeze or teleport the enemy stack away.

Contracts
You must have the contract for a known villain to be able to turn him in for
money. Otherwise, if you take his or her castle, he or she will escape to
some other castle.

Fortifying
When you destroy all enemy units, you will receive a certain amount of money
determined by what creatures you have beaten, and whether you had the
contract for a criminal. You will need to fortify the castle with a minimum
of one troop (even one peasant) for you to hold the castle. At the end of
the week, if it is not fortified, you have a random chance of losing the
castle, and a random group of monsters will now inhabit the castle. Instant
army and/or castle/town gates are helpful. (e.g., town gate to Hunterville,
grab one peasant, castle gate back and drop off the peasant)

Winning
You really don't need all pieces of the map to win. You will the centerpiece
to reduce the number of days required to search, and enough pieces to be able
to see the map.

Suggested game play

Phase I.
Exploration
I like to play the sorceress. She doesn't have permanent abilities quite as
high as the other classes, but she can temporarily pump up her abilities much
better than the others with time stop and raise leadership.

As soon as I start, I dismiss all armies except sprites (or whatever is the
cheapest army), and I rent a boat. I explore as much as possible, avoiding
any conflict. I'll pick up any treasures, and artifacts, visit towns and
castles. I occasionally use timestop to allow myself to pick up some
treasures guarded by monsters. I also go through the desert in Continentia
so and pick up all the treasures and also visit castle Azram so I can castle
gate back. I carefully note where each villain lies and what spells are sold
at which towns, and buy some extra timestops if possible. As soon as I've
picked up all the treasure I can, and have the two artifacts and the map to
Forestria, I go to Forestria.

Repeat, and also for Archipelia.

Saharia, I change my strategy slightly. I visit castle Uzare first and pick
up treasure thereabouts, and then I go to the middle and try to pick up
treasure. I'll also try to find either a dragons', demons', archmages' or
vampires' lair, buy a few (even sometimes just one), and then finish my
exploration of Saharia. If I have enough timestops, I'll just cast them and
buy as many dragons, demons, and archmages as possible, grab all the
treasures and artifacts, and visit castles Spockana and Zyzzarzaz. If I'm
playing a sorceress, I'll usually find just one flying unit and go around,
visit the castles and towns, pick up treasure and artifacts, then new week,
time stop and gather archmages and then giants (since giants can't fly)...
then I'll begin phase II: The War Campaign!

It is debatable whether to spend as much time as I do with the lower income
(you get +250 gold per week per castle that you garrison, plus more gold with
higher rank). However, the Sword of Prowess and more powerful units,
especially Archmages, make your early battles much easier. As well, it is
only possible to get a highest score if you use a ton of magic and have
morale group C units (early on you can survive with Elves and Druids, but
archmages do make your battles much easier).

Phase II.
The War Campaign

Now that I've got my army, I'll want to kick some butt as quickly as
possible. I'll split the campaign into 5 subphases in order of difficulty.

Also, I tend to have two combinations of armies:

Combination 1 ("Morale Group C Shooters"): Archmages, Elves, Druids, Giants.
Max army = 250 Archmages, 330 Druids, 1083 Giants, and 6500 Elves. (You can
make more archmages and druids, even up to 360 of each, but you don't need
that many. Besides, you risk having the damage wrap around.)

This calculation is based on the maximum number of Giants and Elves you can
have, plus a number Druids that kill around 110 Vampires in Arech's army,
plus the number of archmages with high morale to kill all 100+ demons in
Arech's army.

Combination 2 ("Power"): Dragons, Demons, Archmages. Possibly as well
(later) vampires, giants, and/or knights. This army is expensive but very
powerful.

It is possible with the Sorceress, Paladin, and Knight to be able to defeat
all villains up to and including Urthrax Killspite without losing a single
troop; you just have to use a lot of Morale Group C Shooters (combo #1) and
Freeze spells. (And time stop and raise control.) Freeze is best on high
move units (Cavalry, Barbarians, Nomads, Pikemen, etc.)

Usually the strategy is to Archmage shoot the stack with the most hit points,
Druids shoot the second most hit points, freeze the highest move stack,
have Elves and Giants pick off other stacks. Repeat until done.

I will post first a table with Morale Group C Shooters for suggested army
and spells to tackle each villain, and then I will post a general guide
for non-Sorceress classes to tackle villains (which was from the previous
version of this FAQ). I would also suggest tackling Auric and Nickolai before
Makh.

Table 9. Minimum Army Playthrough for Sorceress (High Morale+Sword)
_____________________________________________________________________________
| VILLAIN | ARCHMAGES | DRUIDS | ELVES | GIANTS | SPELLS | LEADERSHIP|
_____________________________________________________________________________
| Murray | 2 | 3 | 7 | 3 | NONE | 180 |
| Hack | 3 | 3 | 10 | 5 | NONE | 300 |
| Aimola | 6 | 4 | 15 | 5 | NONE | 300 |
| Baron Johnny| 6 | 6 | 25 | 5 | Freeze | 300 |
| Pirate Rob | 6 | 6 | 64 | 5 | Freeze | 640 |
_____________________________________________________________________________
| Caneghor | 14 | 6 | 64 | 5 | Turn Und. | 640 |
| Moradon | 14 | 6 | 64 | 5 | Freeze | 640 |
| Barrowpine | 15 | 21 | 75 | 5 | Freeze | 750 |
| Bargash | 15 | 38 | 75 | 5 | Freeze | 950 |
| Rinaldus | 16 | 38 | 232 | 5 | Freeze | 2320 |
_____________________________________________________________________________
| Ragface | 25 | 41 | 250 | 40 | Turn Und. | 2500 |
| Makh | 36 | 50 | 1000 | 100 | NONE | 10000 |
| Auric | 32 | 60 | 250 | 50 | Freeze | 3000 |
| Nickolai | 32 | 63 | 1000 | 50 | NONE | 10000 |
| Magus | 69 | 78 | 1000 | 503 | Freeze | 30500 |
_____________________________________________________________________________
| Urthrax | 113 | 78 | 2213 | 503 | Freeze | 30500 |
| Arech | 228 | 165 | 6500 | 1083 | NONE | 65000 |
_____________________________________________________________________________

SUBPHASE 1. Non-villain castles
These are fairly easy to take over, so you should just take them over as
quickly as possible.

SUBPHASE 2. The first 5 henchmen
The first 5 henchmen (Murray the Miser, Hack the Rogue, Princess Aimoila,
Baron Johnny Makahl, Dread Pirate Rob) are all relatively easy to beat up.
Especially the first two should be pushovers if you have archmages, dragons,
and demons or 3+ stacks of shooters.

Murray the Miser typically has 30 wolves, 50 peasants, 25 peasants, 30
peasants, and 25 militia.

Hack the Rogue has 10 nomads, 30 militia, 20 militia, 60-70 peasants, and
40-50 peasants.

Princess Aimola has 70 sprites, 50 sprites, 20 skeletons, 20 zombies, and
6-10 ogres.

All character classes should be able to upgrade to the next class after this.

The Baron is a little trickier. You may want two groups of shooters (not
just the archmages). Beef up your army with your new status, and perhaps get
elves or giants (or both). You can rearrange (reorder) your armies in
castles. You'll want archmages and giants/elves in the back, so this means
slot #1 and #2. Baron Johnny Makahl has 30-40 wolves, 20 orcs, 10-20
archers, 2 trolls, and 6-10 dwarves.

Dread Pirate Rob has a little stronger army (2 groups of 50 militia, 10
archers, 10 elves, 5 barbarians), and if you are strong enough, the same
elves/druids/giants/archmages combination still works. Use druids on the
militia, archmages on the barbarians, fireball/freeze the archers, and use
the giants and elves on the elves (and if you kill the elves, shoot at the
last group of militia). Then it's pretty easy.

You get the idea. Basically, use fireballs and archmages to take out stuff
or freeze to delay and allow your shooters a chance to kill them second round.
You may sometimes wish to add druids and/or giants, and sometimes I play
around with elves. Generally, you want the strongest armies and keep enemies
away. As soon as you have captured enough villains, go up levels. It will
increase your leadership and your spell power/spell capacity, the latter is
the most important thing for Sorceress.

Town Gate to replenish your spells. Don't forget to fortify.

The first five henchmen are very easy, and you should not have to lose any
troops if you do this correctly. You may decide to start using Clone (as
it's cheaper and faster to clone archmages than buying them). You can use
the random armies lying around as fodder to clone your army. Don't let them
get out of control though!

SUBPHASE 2. The next four henchmen
The next 4 henchmen (Caneghor the Mystic, Bargash Eyesore, Prince Barrowpine,
Sir Moradon the Cruel) are a little harder. You will start taking losses
unless you use Combination #1.

With Caneghor, it will be useful to remember that if you put a unit (I use
dragons) beside them, they cannot fireball. E.g., fly in dragons, and
attack archmages.

As sorceress, you'll want to level up again at King Maximus' castle. Build
up the army a little. I usually have at least 7000 leadership at this point,
so I'll get 200+ archmages and 200+ druids. Caneghor has 256 sprites, 10
ghosts, 10 knights, and two groups of 4 archmages. Alternately, you can turn
undead/freeze on ghosts and shoot the rest.

Sir Moradon has a lot of pretty mobile units with many hit points.
Combination #1 works best against these guys. He has 105 militia, 20 archers,
20 pikemen, 15 cavalry, and 15 knights. Don't forget that you can't shoot if
the pikemen are beside you.

Prince Barrowpine is your next enemy, and as he has a horde of Sprites (306-
312), you may want to use dragons and/or demons or freeze with combo #1.
Prince Barrowpine also has 30-34 elves, 30 archmages, 12-14 druids, 30-42
pikemen.

At this point, all classes should have moved up to their second advancement
(second highest rank).

Bargash Eyesore is your next opponent, and he has 5-6 giants, 150 orcs,
23 ogres, 10-16 trolls, and 90-100 wolves. IMHO, Combination #1 is still best.

At this point, you may have lost your first unit. If not, you're doing well!

SUBPHASE 3. The next 5 henchmen

The next 5 henchmen (Rinaldus Drybone, Ragface, Auric Whiteskin, Mahk
Bellowspeak, Czar Nickolai the Mad) are getting increasingly difficult. Using
Sorceress, you will probably need 1 turn undeads or freeze each for Rinaldus
and Ragface, and do them back-to-back, they're the easiest of this group. I
don't like fighting (melee) demons because of the possible halving factor.
Combination #1 is your probable best bet.

Rinaldus Drybone: 500-525 skeletons, 100-105 zombies, 30 ghosts, 12
vampires, 7 demons.

Ragface: 600-625 skeletons, 200-205 zombies, 50 ghosts, 27 vampires, 10-11
demons.

I suggest doing Auric before Mahk, as Mahk's dragons and giants are actually
a tad tougher than Auric and Czar Nickolai.

Auric has 300 gnomes, 40 barbarians, 20 giants, 104 nomads and 724 peasants.

If you're a sorceress, you'll want to upgrade to Archmage. Build up the army
again. At some point in time, you'll want to spend a lot of money on Clone
spells and build up to "the maximum army", which is 6500 Elves, 1083 Giants,
and usually like 360-400 Archmages and 360-400 Druids. (Usually I go for ~360
so that the damage doesn't wrap around, although you only really need around
227 High Morale archmages.)

Czar Nickolai has a lot of Castle units which are painful. Prepare to lose
units if you don't have Combo #1. You'll need a pretty large army.
Nickolai has 35-50 archers, 100-125 pikemen, 80 cavalry, 60 knights, and
5-6 dragons. Usually freezing the cavalry works best (they move the
farthest).

Mahk has 30-36 giants, 5-6 dragons, 36-40 ogres, 200 orcs, and 200 gnomes.
I usually do archmages shoot giants, druids shoot orcs, and Elves+Giants shoot
Dragons. To kill all the dragons, you would need either a minimum of (a) 266
Giants (16k leadership) or (b) 1328 Elves (13280+ leadership) or (c) some
mix thereof like 1000 Elves and 100 Giants.

SUBPHASE 5: The final 3 henchmen.

The last 3 henchmen (Magus Deathspell, Urthrax Killspite, Arech Dragonbreath)
are a pain in the butt. You will just need to use superior numbers or Combo
#1.

Magus Deathspell: 31 demons, 50-55 vampires, 100 archmages, 500 gnomes,
5024 peasants. Freezing the archmages is the key here.

Urthrax Killspite: if you don't use Combo #1 -- it's painful. Using combo
#2, bring in knights this round. (That is, Dragons, Demons, Archmages,
Druids, Knights.) Urthrax has 51 demons, 10 dragons, 200 cavalry, 250
knights, 60 archmages. Again, freeze the cavalry.

Arech Dragonbreath: 101-103 dragons, 25-27 dragons, 25-27 dragons, 100-103
demons, and 110 vampires. For the Barbarian and Knight, it is far more
challenging.

Barbarian suggested army: Archmages, Druids, Giants, Elves, Barbarians
Knight suggested army: Archmages, Druids, Giants, Elves, Knights/Barbarians

You can also use Dragons, Demons, Archmages, Giants, Knights or Vampires.

A freeze or 2-3 Turn Undeads on the Vampires + lots of resurrections is also
not a bad idea. There are only two stacks that are affected by
magic/archmages, so you may as well freeze one of them so the archmages can
wipe them out in round 2.

CHOICE OF UNITS IN FIGHTING ARECH:
Vampires vs Knights: Vampires have an automatic resurrection factor (they
heal their wounds for the damage they do). The bad thing is that they
don't do very much damage. (Vampires do 3-6 and have 30 hp; Knights have
35 hp and do 6-10. Both are skill level 5.) Vampires also all non-undead
troops to low morale, so that's even worse than knights (you'll end up
losing more units).

Barbarians vs. Knights: Barbarians are skill level 4 and morale group C but
have 40 hp. Knights are skill level 5 but morale group B (reducing the army
to Normal morale) and have 35 hp. Barbarians effectively become a speed bump
or are good for absorbing the retalliatory hit. You will lose less numbers
for Barbarians, but you do have to clone to get enough Barbarians to be a
speed bump (minimum 250 or more). Barbarians are not there for the damage
(1-6 * 2 * 0.339) is going to be less than Knights (6-10 * 1.5 * 0.452).

If you are looking for the highest score (Sorceress is easiest, Paladin is
able to do this and Knight with lower difficulty), you can fight Arech
Dragonbreath with 250 Archmages, 1083 Giants, 6500 Elves, 1 Barbarian, and
1 Nomad/Gnome (or other morale group C troop). Note that Giants go before
Elves. The 1 Barbarian and 1 Nomad are sacrificial stacks, speed bumps for
Arech's big dragon stack. The play goes:

Round 1
1. Freeze Horde (101+) Demons - on the outside and back
2. Archmages shoot Horde of Vampires (killing all)
3. Giants shoot Many (usually 26) Dragons (83% chance of killing all)
4. Elves shoot Many (usually 26) Dragons (killing all)
5. Move Barbarians beside Horde (101+) of Dragons, not touching
demons, but don't attack
6. Move other sacrificial stack to Dragons, not touching demons,
don't attack

Computer moves
7a. Horde of Dragons kill one sacrificial stack
7b. Bad luck scenario (1 in 6 chance): your giants didn't kill a small
dragon stack. Remainder of small stack kill your second sacrificial stack.
8. Demons are frozen

Round 2
9. Archmages shoot Horde of Demons (killing all)
10a. Giants shoot large stack of Dragons.
10b. Giants shoot small stack of Dragons, killing all.

11b. (Ignore if you have the second sacrificial stack) Teleport Giants next to
remaining large stack of Dragons.

12. Elves shoot Large Stack (Horde) of Dragons

13a. Pass for the sacrificial stack if it still exists

Computer moves
14a. Dragons attack second sacrificial stack
14b. Dragons attack Giants, Giants retalliate

Round 3
14. Archmages wait or pass
15a. Giants shoot Horde of Dragons
15b. Move Giants 1 square away and shoot Horde of Dragons.
16. Elves shoot Horde of Dragons if necessary

There is a 1 in 10.8 chance of only losing 1 follower. You had to
kill the entire small stack of Dragons with Giants in round 1, and
then shoot 44 or 48 with the Giants and 54 for the Elves.

The breakdown of this strategy is:
9.3% you'll only lose 1 follower
74.1% you'll lose 2 followers
16.7% you'll lose a lot of followers (a lot of Giants, up to 31)

As the Knight gets Knights equal to his spell power when he casts Instant
Army, his most cost-efficient path to victory is to use a ton of raise
controls and knights (and resurrects). Unfortunately Knights reduce you
to normal morale and you have to use a first round teleport to put the
knights into position (so your shooters would have to focus on Vampires,
Demons, then small dragon stacks).

There is a way to lose no units but you can only do this with the Sorceress
and either Normal or Easy difficulty. Use the above army with 380 Druids and
one sacrificial stack in the 5th slot. When it is the the 5th slot's turn to
move, give up your army if you kill off both small dragon stacks. Only save
if your Giants and Elves each eliminated one small dragon stack such that
the 100+ dragon stack is the only stack left. Cancel boat rental and wait
until end of week (W) to build up a massive bank account, and then rebuild
to 1083 Giants and 6500 Elves, and you now a 1 in 9 chance to win with no
losses (i.e., must shoot 44 or 48 dragons with the Giants and rest with the
Elves).

WINNING
When you recover everything, then you must look at the map and dig at the
right place to recover the Scepter of Order.

You receive a score based on castles and villains captured, artifacts
found, and subtracting the number of followers killed.

The exact score is 500 points per villain, 100 per castle garrisoned, 250
per artifact, minus 1 per follower killed. Take the sum, and multiply by
0.5 for easy, 1 for normal, 2 for hard, and 4 for impossible. The maximum
possible score would be 52396 (Impossible, only 1 follower killed). Lowest
score is 0.

THANKS TO:
* Chris Jones for his FAQ, [email protected]
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/577442-kings-bounty/faqs/7416

* the Mac / DOS manual here:
http://www.mocagh.org/nwc/kingsbounty-manual.pdf

* Henry at Genesis Project Online, for the Sega Genesis version of the
manual:
http://www.genesisproject-online.com/Genesis/I-k/king/king.html

* Lucien McMahon a.k.a., Thuryl, [email protected] for his ideas
and Let's Play:
http://lparchive.org/Kings-Bounty/Update%201/

* Vitaly at openKB, [email protected]

* Shrine RPG, where you can find maps of the 4 continents:
http://shrines.rpgclassics.com/genesis/kingbounty/maps.shtml