Nightmare difficulty SURVIVED! 🔥 | Age of Darkness: Final Stand Survival Gameplay Part 17 (2025)

[@StratHub]

Pikeman no longer have armor?!?! Hello?!?! 😲 What do you think about this? Let me know below!👇

[@TheDeathbrlnger]

Naniiiiiiii

[@crunchy_weasel]

Haha surprise by the devs!

[@StratHub]

What's crazy is that I can't even find it in any of the patch notes. 🤨

[@linkedx]

noooooooo

[@StratHub]

Right?! Crazy!

[@robertquilindo8853]

Well done . Good job.

[@StratHub]

@robertquilindo8853 Thank you very much! 😀

[@fireflysk9517]

great job! u did it !

[@StratHub]

Thank you! 😀

[@dmytro.sereda]

Congrats!

[@StratHub]

Thank you! 😀

[@catfacecat.]

good job man. took you so many tries, it was insane. i also beat horrific difficulty, so im right behind ya mate. better start going for those 8.8x runs.

[@StratHub]

Thank you man! Good job on Horrific! 😎 What pissed me off the most in the 4 failed attempts was the fact that I lost of them during The Final Stand. 😅

[@StratHub]

Honestly, I think I'm really far from 7.7x or 8.8x runs. I'd be happy to just do normal Nightmare with all the heroes first.

[@catfacecat.]

​@@StratHubi understand, personally im just iffy on going nightmare. the no pausing dosent let me go in my pace at all, which tingles my slow ad planned aproach. ill definitely give it a try though!

[@StratHub]

Sure, definitely go for it, see how it feels. Good thing at least you can pause using ESC just in case you need to step away.

[@catfacecat.]

@@StratHub yeah, but I also found a weird big when I was playing in horrific. when I go to the main menu or leave the game, it automated on horrific, and did not reduce my saves. so in theory, you could re launch the game every time you wanted to save; or in case you just had to go it works?

[@meddready1361]

You fucking did it brother

[@StratHub]

Took 5 tries but yeah, finally!! 😅

[@meddready1361]

@ I was worried about that south part where you didn’t close the opening with the wall. Especially when u put balista in there and nightmares started to crawl there.

[@StratHub]

Very true, the South defenses were definitely the weakest links. Thanks to the Impalers and their insane knockback we managed to hold those lines. 😂

[@TheSuperColonel]

Gz on your victory. You were clearing on DN 4,5, FS timer so only 102 left alive which is okay. Still removing light and horrifying likely would have made defense much stronger eg. horrified Impaler 1 shoots crawlers. Crusher likely dies much faster as 50% dmg might cause him to die before the wall. Yeah, more than 2-3 Below towers are not that good as DOT will refresh duration but only impact dmg stacks. (when it fires the furnace). Usually, 2 is fine to cover the whole wave. Other factions never need to macro horrify so are easier to play as emboldened is a 25% dmg boost over in light volatist. Auleria is a better hero unless she got stealth changed without any notes. She is(was?)the best hero with melee map clearing but pikemen got hard nerfed...

[@StratHub]

Thank you very much! 😉 Yeah, couldn't clear entirely but honestly still happy with the results especially how bad everything looked after DN4.

[@pauldesilets6005]

So, other than challenge runs for this game, have you considered playing "From Glory to Goo"?

[@StratHub]

I haven’t heard about that one, might check it out. Thanks for the suggestion! 😉

[@TheSuperColonel]

Game got a big balance update and released the patch notes. Of course Vizargo got a big buff, maybe this playthrough was still pre- buffed but who knows.

[@StratHub]

Yes, this was on version 1.0.1.3 and I think Vizargo got the buff at 1.0.1.4 (today).

[@MarshallEden]

Unpopular opinion maybe. But I'd prefer if you would not spoil the outcome of the game in the title or thumbnail. That way I want to watch, now since I know you won I just skipped the entire video and only watched the end fight.

[@StratHub]

Not an unpopular opinion at all! Difficult to balance going for search results and going for not spoiled videos. I only do “spoiled” titles when it’s the first time something “amazing” (well, amazing for me) happens, like winning for the first time on a specific difficulty. Now that we have our first victory I can go back to no spoiler titles and thumbnails. 👍 Thanks for watching!

[@fireflysk9517]

can u summarize pls, what skill tree do u use(siege/arch)? and how many markets do u have

[@StratHub]

Sure! - For siege: I usually go with Knockback 1 -> AoE 2 -> Knockback 3 -> Concussive Shots In this and previous episode I went with 1 Speed upgrade and 2 Knockback upgrades Speed seems to be good for clearing the map but knockback and AoE are fantastic for wave defense. - For ranged units: Damage 1 -> Damage 2 -> Damage 3 -> Critical Cover (50% extra damage in towers) - By market I assume you mean the Trade Bazaars. You always want to reach the max (4) Bazaars and put them next to resources you would like them to boost. (Trade Bazaars next to resources will boost the gathering of those resources inside the Bazaar). It's also a good idea to put unit production buildings next to them as Bazaars boost production speed for military buildings.

[@catfacecat.]

mine is pretty much the same as strathub, but I'd make a few changes: for siege, i either go 1 engine 2 bulwark 3 aoe; 1 bulwark 2 bulwark 3 aoe; or 1 bulwark 2 aoe 3 aoe. for archers, I go with full dmg, but if I feel like not putting towers optimally I use eyesight for 3rd one(this is not optimal, only better than damage in very niche situations) the bazaars, try to go for whatever gives you the most resources, but I usually lazy it off and build 2 only.

[@Bandit-do4ko]

The unit spawns seemed a little off. The ones that attack your base in the mornings spawn at the edge of the map (if not illuminated) at the end of the night. What you saw did seem a bit more aggressive than normal. GG. Do you think you'll push the modified difficulty or are there any other games you're planning on tackling?

[@StratHub]

Yeah, the unit spawns especially the ones I “caught” by literally looking at a place and seeing a ton of units spawn was weird, never saw that before. 😂 To answer your question: my goal is to win with every hero on Nightmare difficulty so that’s something I’ll need to do. After that I might try the modifiers (the score multiplying things). As for other games, absolutely, I’m behind on a few series which is a problem so now that we have won on Nightmare finally I can focus on those series as well. 😉

[@jakubducak9863]

Hi, if you want to know which path they take during DN, just sent a troop over to the crystal

[@StratHub]

Hey! Unfortunately that’s not too reliable as there can be subtle differences in the distance depending on which side of the keep you start from. Got burned by this many times, that’s why I wait for the Veil to appear and just set up my defenses. Thanks for watching! 👍

[@jakubducak9863]

@@StratHub if the unit starts its movement from the keep, its much more reliable :) but yes, it also happened to me that they used different path but from the correct direction (the way split into two later on and they chose the upper route)

[@StratHub]

I know but as I said previously the Keep is a big building so even starting from a different side of it can make the difference between the unit choosing a different path to take, this is what makes it unreliable and I don't think it's worth taking the chance especially on higher difficulties. Not to mention you always have time to build your defenses during the first stages of DN1.

[@catfacecat.]

​@@StratHubI relate. my horrific run(that I finished yesterday) had this happen to me at dn 1, depending on the place I placed my troops on, they went 2 directions😭

[@crunchy_weasel]

Anyway pikemen have 2 less armour shred, no armour and I think they have a tiny bit more upkeep? Anyway now you might want a 10% hp to start with, so you have more than 90 ho and survive an extra spitter shot.

[@StratHub]

Looks like they just snuck in these changes with the hotfix and performance update. Weird decision not even mentioning these. I'll be honest, at first glance they (Pikeman) just feel like crap atm.

[@crunchy_weasel]

​@StratHub They did a lot of secret changes. Soldiers hp buffed a lot, they now got 10 armour. Rogues dmg gutted from 7 to 3. Knights +1 armour shred. I think those are the immediately obvious ones. There definitely are more.

[@StratHub]

Damn those are significant 😮

[@kingsgambit7098]

Should have gotten a achieve for no embolded units. Lol That in itself is ridiculous to me.