I"ve been playing Caverns alot since the Mitternacht update introduced new monsters and heroes. In playing it continuously I realised a few key things that generally always help. I'll list them now, they are not hard and fast rules but the main thing is they make sense to you intuitively. If not, you need to play some more / pay more attention to your games! 1) At the start of the round, your first play is very important. I try to always make a move to expand my position (since zonal control is you know, a thing), unless I am facing tonnes of ranged enemies. Expanding your position is important for two reasons - you prevent enemy from easily surrounding your weaker characters, and you can focus on your opponents weaker enemies. Also see tips 2 and 3 below. 2) Have a little awareness of what you want to discard each round. If you get greedy sometimes, and just pass waiting for a move, and then sometimes the round might end! Are you prepared to discard one or even two good cards in your hand that could have otherwise been really useful? 3) Focus enemies that are the biggest threat first. THe less dmg you receive, the longer your party can last which means much better chance of winning. If you expand ur position with care you can usually easily access these enemies. Similarly, avoid enemies that don't do much damage to your team at the time. E.g you have reliable mail and facing a bronze golem =so what, big deal! \ 4) Use effective positioning to retreat your weakest characters. I"ll put a screenshot here shortly. Basically, you want your characters to be staggered, so that one can retreat behind another and then enemy can not easily finish your weakest off. 5) As always I believe in staying healthy, and stretch regularly and have a healthy daily life so your mind is clear and emotions calm These tips can often apply in multiplayer as well. Hope it helps! Cooldude
People complained that caverns was made impossible by the introduction of the (very difficult) Mitternacht mobs. I had a whinge myself. But it is still very possible to win the crown of chaos -- I've done it three times since CM dropped -- just a little more difficult than it already was. I started a fresh series of runs and recorded how far I got in each attempt and what ultimately killed me. Before that list, a couple of things to add to Christofff's post: 1) Know your characters. Like, you don't have to memorise all their cards, but you should be able to identify their primary type of attack, like the penetrating human war, the acid mage, and the lava wiz. This will help you decide which character to sacrifice and which to keep alive in tough levels, i.e. your fire mage would be the one to protect vs a level heavy with combustible trees. Character lists here and here. 2) Memorise the character's drawbacks, primarily when to expect things like trip and superstitious. It's easy to discard purges, but a well-timed purge when you're expecting the elf laser wizard to draw superstitious will help keep him alive. Knowing the elf vamp will draw a couple of loners saves you from ending his turn next to multiple enemies. 3) Know your enemies. Beech saplings look fairly harmless -- 14HP, combustible -- but they are programmed to seek a range of 2 from your characters so they can wreck you with 10 damage clubbing branches. However, they can't use clubbing branch on a character at range 1. Knowing this is the difference between seeing a war take a couple of light attacks, or getting clobbered for 20-30 damage in a turn. If you know the mobs, you can predict their actions. 4) Completing caverns is about playing well and trying again and again. Persistence will deliver luck which will see you get the crown; there's no other way around it. Run number, node reached, reason I died #1, Level 9, I'm a dumb-dumb and didn't read the card text properly. Twice. (Jump back/skillful dodge vs rook blasts.) Otherwise easy win. #2, L4, 26 turns of wounded priests chasing blinking wisps in circles around the trog wizard map, thanks BM #3, L5, zombie priests on a tiny map #4, L5, two worst mages vs endless trees #5, L5, double priest team vs armoured melee mobs #6, L8, when psi cats are the weakest mob, you have a problem #7, L4, all-mage all-star open map crapfest #8, L8, double priest vs wyverns on an open map #9, L6, fast melee mobs and bishops vs bad mages and a priest, still close though #10, L6, game refuses to give me wars except 'useful' jelly war #11, L8, after an amazing level 7 where two wars just took out zombie priests in Stafford's Main Hall map, four security bots on a completely open map was an equally amazing way to die in three turns #12, L9, easy run but got complacent with just how many moves tombstones have up their non-existent sleeves, cornered and wrecked. Honestly this and the first run should have gone to node 10, just bad playing on my part #13, L4, Hear Them Out on trogs, lizardmen and mutants vs triple wiz in the second round, trolololo #14, completed, Grendel, King Oggencot, 3 x goblin shredders and 1 x oak slinger vs Aloyzo + male dwarf fire/terrain wiz (invaluable) + original female human priest. Looked dicey on paper, but handled it easily. Oddly, the slinger only used one ranged attack for the whole fight, and the dwarf wiz drew both fireballs very early, then a heap of lava attacks, while Grendel helpfully drew combustible early too. Multiple loot fairy runs through Troll Tyrant had taught me how to control Grendel with terrain. Could've wrapped it up fairly early when Aloyzo drew festering by using him as a suicide bomber, but decided to take the slower, safer route
