Dumb Mistakes You've Made While Medal Hunting

[WhoseYerLilith]

I admit that the the excitement of getting medals has slighty worn off. THere have been a few times I've come close to getting a hard earned medal only to have some fluke happen at the very end. Then there's also when I mess up- though those results are a little funny.

Yesterday I decided to go for the Chief of The Commoners medal- I made a deck of all N cards, and dueled Mullyn 1 on 1 in The Temple of the Medium (second time). I set the goal for 9,000 and won with 9,500. No medal- checked the FAQ....oh, I need 10,000. Damn it. I played around with my deck a bit, added some, deleted some---then went again- same opponent, same level- this time set to 10,000. I won an hour later with 14,000. No medal---DAMN IT! Checked my deck---I had put in a Gremlin, an S card---naturally, he never came up while we were dueling...sigh. Third time was the charm, but jeez- spending about 3 hours to get the Lousy Chief of the Commoners....

[Leiodaahs]

At least you can take consolation the victories count towards the Repeated Victory and 100 battle medals.

Personally the biggest problem I had with a medal was Chief of the Rare Tribe. I kept making terrible decks, and losing easy battles against Mullyn. Mullyn decimated my deck at least half a dozen times, which really began to wear.

[Seiryuu]

A couple of times for the that you can use Sudden Death to win i'd gotten halfway through the battle and realized I had forgotten to turn the Sudden Death option on.

[MmmLilith]

No solace found there either.....'cause that has to be in STORY mode. ;D

Leiodaahs said:

At least you can take consolation the victories count towards the Repeated Victory and 100 battle medals.

Personally the biggest problem I had with a medal was Chief of the Rare Tribe. I kept making terrible decks, and losing easy battles against Mullyn. Mullyn decimated my deck at least half a dozen times, which really began to wear.

[Thumpasaurus]

What has to be in story mode? I got both Chief of Rare and Repeated Victory medals from playing in versus mode.

[WhoseYerLilith]

The repeated victories medals

[Thumpasaurus]

Are you suggesting Repeated Victories can't be earned in Versus mode?

Because I know with absolute certainty that is not true. I have at the very most, 30 victories in story mode. I earned the medal for Repeated Victories from fighting in Versus mode. I hadn't even touched story mode in ages when I got the medal, winning at least my last 20 matches in Versus.

[davemcmillen]

I made a sort-of-dumb mistake chasing "Fortune Bearer". The description in the FAQ (from the game text) was: "Victory with building a chain of 10 territories consecutively." So I figured this had to mean: build a chain of 10 adjacent territories, so that there would be 10 of them all in contact with one another, in one long continuous chain. It took me a while to figure out where this was even possible (Cratos 2, if you allow the chain to change directions), and another while to get it done -- and no medal! Wasn't until I consulted a Culdcept-to-English dictionary that I realized what they meant, namely a 10-chain of one element.

I still think the 10-in-a-row requirement would make a good medal, though. It's a challenge, without being completely impossible.

[Shadowshear]

I have Several.

"Oh, reduce to LESS THAN 40 with Death Gaze not to 40."

"Forgot to sell off symbols before I won when I had no lands. Crap"

Second try: "Oh, And no Symbol use at all. crap."

How is it at all possible to have no lands and win without using symbols???

I suppose a twin catastrophe after I had enough to win In pocket money.

[philharmonic]

I wasn't even sure if I would get a medal, but I took out all creatures and therefore, items were worthless, so I took them out too. I went to train with Goligan at Dunnan and Zenith came in instead. Needless to say I didn't win, but I think to my credit I put up a fight(around 2300 at final).

[TheSynapZe]

Yikes, philharmonic, I don't even want to think about fighting Zeneth with only spells. After reading many of the other posts, I feel like I was the only person who knew about Zeneth before he showed up. I also beat him the second time I played him, got the Knight Medal too.

Anyway, yesterday I made an extrordinarily stupid mistake in getting the Gooba Medal vs. Mullyn. Now, like most players, Mullyn is my usual punching bag when hunting for medals. I'm always sure to bring my 3 Fire Explosions with me so, at some point, I can shoot them off consecutively and mow down all of her creatures. So anyway, I build my deck with my lone Gooba Queen and the usual anti-Mullyn sundries, or so I thought. Shortly after the game began, I already had two "Fire Explosions" in my hand, so I kept them on me until necessary. At Round 50 or so, Mullyn owned about half the board so I felt it was time to bring on the pain. I cast a "Fire Explosion" and the game says "No available target". I do a double take and then wrack my brain trying to understand why it didn't work. Mullyn had a Barrier on herself at the time; does it protect her creatures against this? But then I looked at the card closely and the realization hit me like a cannonball to the face.

I had Ice Storms. ICE STORMS!!! The cards that do 20 damage to FIRE creatures!

I simply can't believe that I was staring at those two cards for about a half and hour and it didn't dawn on me sooner that those weren't the cards that I had used for about 25 medals in the past. Needless to say, I reset and swapped them out for actual Fire Explosions and went on to finally get that medal. But you know, I don't think I'll ever be able ot use Ice Storms again. The memory will be too painful.

[Shadowshear]

Nice.

Take a moment to wipe the coffe that you spit all over your tv.

[TheSynapZe]

I did in the figurative sense at least, ShadowShear. I really don't like coffee.

Anyway, I have another little something to add here today. My next medal to shoot for is the one with the Idols. Since I practically never use Idols, I decided yesterday to first play a game against one of my weaker AI characters to see what the situation is like with so many Idols on the board. I chose Ursula, my AI in the female Witch's model. She mostly has undead and scroll critical creatures, the only items are scrolls, and I gave her a few middling spells like Fog and Babble (she normally has spells like Tempest and Plague, but I dropped those for the time being). She's also an extremely timid attacker, so as long as I had Talisman and Magus Shield in my inventory, I knew she would never try to knock over my Idols. So the game was going pretty well and I had most of the Idols on the board on Humongous (all except Iron, Brass and Jade), and just as I was getting used to the cumulative effects, Ursula pulled out the very last card in her deck, I card I haven't seen used in months, a card I honestly didn't think would affect my little scheme.

Acid Rain, which deals 30 points of damge to Defense creatures.

Well, the Clay Idol reduced it to 20, but as I'm sure you know, it wasn't enough.

Still, I feel that I learned enough about how the more obscure Idols (Basalt, Granite, Ivory) work to try the real thing this weekend. And, since my neighbor says he wants to use Idols in our next game, I know the best way to surprise him.

[Shadowshear]

You have a neighbour?

Argh, I think I'm one of three Cepters in Michigan. And the other two aren't as obsessed as I am.

Yeah, I got the idol medal facing Mullyn on Cratos II The big # map Mullyn literally avoiads all possible encounteres, as long as you have something like a gaseous form.

You said you had talisman, which means you have 45 medals! Wow, any tips on the harder ones? I have 38. Currently my hardest is Wings of Swiftness (victory before round 20) and the Denier of Articles (no items, take 10000 G in tolls.) And the Defend 20 times and invade 20 times sucessfully ones.

[TheSynapZe]

Shadowshear,

Yes, I've done a marginal job introducing my game to my two neighbors, Steve and Jess. They sound like they would be up for the occasional game now and then. However, yesterday I had a chance to display it to my two new D&D buddies J.R. and Shawn. J.R. said he liked it, and I think it spawned the germ of an obsession in Shawn. When he first arrived he said he had to be home by midnight or his girlfriend would be mad; after two games he practically begged me to spend the night so he could play it until dawn and was visibly crestfallen when I told him that it wasn't available for X-Box. If I play my cards right (so to speak), I may be able to get them all together for a Steve & Jess vs. J.R. & Shawn match, that would be a memorable sight.

I happen to be in possession of the four medals you mentioned. Let me try and remember how I picked those up.

For the Wings of Swiftness, you're going to need speed, money, and luck. Choose the smallest map (Dunnan) and put the goal at the smallest amount possible (I think 5000). Use cards that help you lap (Holy Words, Haste, Teleport, Word of Recall) and make money (Manna, Feast, Selenear, Golden Goose, Barometz, Golden Totem) and use very cheap creatures that will help you snag territory (Goblin, Giant Rat, Kobold). It doesn't matter if they can defend well (that's what the Golden Goose is for). Finally, you're going to need some luck. If I recall, on my 19th round, I was out of Holy Words and needed a 6 to reach the castle and win. I rolled a 6. The best thing about this one is, if you don't succeed, the game will be over quick and you can try again.

A while ago, I answered a post in the Medal Hunting board about the Destroyer of Articles medal; it should still be there. If not, I can say that there is a misprint in the medal description. "Get 10000G in tolls" should read 1000G in tolls, and I don't think that means at once. I think you need to receive 1000G or more in tolls total (so you don't also get this one during the "No Creatures" medal). After that, consider using buffing spells (Vitality, Wing), creatures that have special abilities in lieu of items (Master Monk, Pyro Drake), the Living Swords/Shields/Spears that can be used in place of items, and Support Creatures (Dryads, Clerics, Grimalkins). It wasn't too hard for me.

The Scythe of Insanity takes a bit more micromanagement than it looks as games with 20 successful invasions don't often happen on their own. Consider fighting Mullyn on Cratos 2 and allowing her the time to claim some land. First use some cards to soften up her defense (Fire Explosion, Magic Bolt, Anti-Element, Disease, Binding Mist, Shatter, Rust) then move in for the kill (Telekinesis, Chariot, Revelation, Fire Giant, Flame Tongue, Masamune, Claymore). The fulcrum of this scheme is to give her enough space to keep setting up enough targets for you to knock down, so don't fill up too much of the map and try not to bankrupt her with exorbitant toll fees.

The Solid Defense medal is probably the easiest to get. Just pick a big map (the Heavenly Alter or Humungous), set a high win amount, bring some sturdy defense cards (Walls of Stone and Ice, Cait Sith, Plate Mail, Gaseous Form, Counter Amulet, Buckler, Knight Shield, and maybe Quicksand and Kelpie and Old Willow), and finally invite Zagol (who will always try and invade even when he has no chance of even busting through the bonus HP). After my first try, he was like 3-for-57 and I won the medal handily.

If you'd like more advice then that, you should be able to find some on the Medal Hunting board. Good luck, Shadowshear.

P.S. I tried some coffee last night for the first time in years. I still don't really care for it.