|
Thread: Some help in Campaigns... | |
|
regnus_khan
Responsible
Supreme Hero
[ Peacekeeper of Equilibris ]
|
posted January 28, 2004 08:02 AM |
bonus applied. |
|
Some help in Campaigns...
Which do you want? Which? I've got some walkthroughs: here...
Armageddon's Blade 1: Catherine's Charge
Map Type: HOMM3 Campaign Map
Date of Strategic Notes: May 25, 2000
So here were my notes for the first scenario in Armageddon's Blade.
- Take a moment to check Catherine's strengths
- Pick 20 Archers as bonus although it does not really matter what you pick
Build Orders
1) Marketplace
2) City Hall
3) Citadel
4) Castle
5) -
6) Stables
7) Training Grounds
1) -
2) City Hall
3) Citadel (Buy extra heroes)
4) -
5) Castle (trade Mercury for Ore)
6) -
7) -
- Make Cat enter towns and get spells
- Upgrade Archers to Makrsmen, Swordsmen to Crusaders, Pikemen to Halberdiers
- Set close formation for her troops
- Just give 100 Marksmen to Cuthbert. Split in two
- Demon stacks that should normally have fled chose to fight (not all but most)
- Buy spellbook for Sorsha, give her the 50 Crusaders.
- Make both Sorsha and Cuthbert visit Observatory Towers
- On day 2, have Cat take the chests southwest of her town.
- Against fast flyers, block pocket with Champions (block on second turn?)
- Mostly used Slow and Haste as spells
- Decided to wait on Silos
- Take down red invader, even if it's with Cuthbert & 100 Marksmen (Actually= wait on day 1)
Week 2
- Cat can take red knight town on day 1 (better if day 7)
- Bought troops at Cuthbert's
- University and skills
- Cat went back towards south town to clear out niche protected by Efreets
- Don't put Marksmen in middle, might be Sultans who can reach you in one turn.
- Bought new hero in new town= went east
- Day 2-3: Bought 3 Resource Silos
- 70 Earth Elementals joined for free
- Give 2 Royal Griffins to scout
- Take gold from chests in niche (Cat was already level 16)
- Did not really buy troops in week 2
- Bought Portal of Glory by end of week
- Cat in south town= Mage Guild 3 and 4
Week 3
- If red comes at the center town, buy all troops and flee west. What I did: give troops to Cat
- Cat got Town Portal but she did not have enough wisdom
- Sultans are most dangerous: Cat fought Fiona
- Decided to check on Conflux instead of going east.
- Bought troops for Cuthbert (north town) who also went for Conflux.
- Keep a secondary skill slot free for Wisdom.
- Magic University at Conflux to learn what you want.
- End of week: 2 Confluxes in my control
- Cat reaches border guard and charges Inferno
Week 4
- Day 1: Took 1st Inferno
- Always enter towns after capturing them
- Bought all Inferno troops there to protect the town.
- Nope, just buy Sultans and flag stuff around.
- Don't bother much getting troops from external dwellings except perhaps the free Pikemen
- Center town (Goldenton?) is more vulnerable to attacks.
- Cat took 2 Infernos, Cuthbert took the norheast one.
- If you're attacked, don't do like the AI, stay inside the town!
Week 5
- Hunting down last red heroes
- Had Conflux to take back to knight town
- Need good: trade wood and ore
Score: Month 2, week 2, day 4
Armageddon's Blade 2: Shadows of the Forest
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy Notes: May 26, 2000
This is a scenario of medium size, the first featuring that fashionable albino half-vori snow elf Gelu with the nifty black costume. On my first play, I finished on month 1, week 3, day 4.
Starting bonus: I suggest taking the 20 Marksmen because Gelu can upgrade them to Sharpshooters.
Week 1
1) Gelu's specialty is upgrading Archers, Marskmen, Elves and Grand Elves to Sharpshooters who can shoot any distance, even through walls, without penalty. As an extra bonus, they look darn cool in your army. The only problem is that is costs quite a bit of gold to upgrade those shooters so they become sharper... So my advice, pace yourself and don't upgrade everything right away.
2) Here are some upgrade costs:
- From Marksmen to Sharpshooters: 250 gold each
- From Elves to Sharpshooters: 200 gold each
- Grom Grand Elves to Sharpshooters: 175 gold each
3) Those shooter stacks around Gelu will join him for free.
4) Build orders in week 1:
1) Marketplace
2) Blacksmith
3) City Hall
4) Citadel
5) Skip or Dendroid Arches (see tip 16 on why)
6) Castle
7) Dendroid Arches or Saplings
4) Make sure to buy a spell book for Gelu
5) Hire 2 heroes.
6) Don't buy troops in town just yet.
7) Make 2 armies to cover more ground. One army (led by Gelu) with Rampart troops and Sharpshooters and the other with Marksmen and Archers.
8) Gelu should go south
9) Your second hero (Mephala in my case) should go northwest towards a sawmill.
10) Check formations so 2 shooters stacks are not next to each other.
11) Against red garrison, target Magogs first, then Pit Lords. Use Slow or Haste. Blind on Magogs if you have it. Garrison has 15 Pit Lords, 25 Horned Demons, 60 Magogs and 100 Imps.
12) Split Wood elves in two. Make two 1-unit Silver Pegasi stacks in Gelu's army.
13) Upgrade 15 Wood Elves to Sharpshooters after City Hall is built.
14) Take gold from chests
15) Just flag external creature dwellings for now, don't buy
16) Boots of Speed are southwest of a Crystal Cavern (with my luck, they cost me 2500 gold and 3 sulfur, I skipped a build to have them but they're worth it. If you have them for free build the Dendroid Arches on day 4)
Week 2
17) Visit Hug of Magi with secondary hero
18) Was possible to take an Inferno in week 1, it's just south of the eastern garrison. I did not because I did not know the layout.
19) I kept upgrading Elves to Sharpshooters each turn.
20) Split Sharpshooters in two when you have 50 of them. Change to 3 of 30 eventually.
21) Put Sharpshooters at extremities (first and seventh slots)
22) Took Inferno on day 3. Bought Mage Guild level 2
23) Complete the builds in the Rampart
24) Could have probablly reached second Inferno in the southwest but chose to explore instead. Little did I know there was another Inferno near the center, northwest of the first Inferno I just took.
25) There's a Forsaken Palace in the southeast corner
26) Pick up the Golden Bow hidden in foliage north of Rampart, left of Homestead. With the Golden Bow, it makes Grand Elves almost the equal of Sharpshooters for a much more reasonable cost. However, since Gelu never went back to the Rampart, it did not help me much with the Wood Elves I already had.
27) Started buying troops from exernal dwellings on grass terrain
28) Did not bother doing anything with the Inferno. I could not stand their smell anyway.
29) Bought an extra hero at Inferno
30) Took a Conflux, west of the Rampart also.
Week 3
31) Capture Inferno in the southwest corner with Gelu.
32) Build Order of Fire in the Inferno right away for the +1 spell power
33) There's a pack (10) of Sharpshooters around who join for free and give you gauntlets to improve your speed even more
34) 2 Infernos taken, 2 to go. One is between the Infernos you have but a little more to the north. The other is nearer the northwest part of the map. With your amazing movement rate, the order you take those Infernos should not matter much.
Week 4
35) Took last Inferno. Hunted down remaining red heroes
36) Make sure Gelu is level 12 before finishing
37) Gelu's skills: Expert Leadership, Archery, Water Magic, Wisdom and Tactics.
38) You could leave an Inferno to Red so game lasts longer and so you can build up Mage Guilds and visit stat-boosting structures.
Armageddon's Blade 3: Seeking Armageddon
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy Notes: May 26, 2000
With this medium-sized scenario, we start seeing the Armageddon's Blade saga from the other side. You lead Xeron, a Devil specialist. On my first play I finished on month 2, week 3, day 3.
Starting Bonus: Take the Equestrian Gloves
1) You start with 3 Infernos. The Castle Gates are already built so you can teleport between them as much as you want.
2) Have Xeron enter for a spell book
3) Building orders:
Blackpool (near where Xeron starts)
1) Citadel
2) Fire Lake
3) Cages
4) Order of Fire
5) Birth Pools
6) Marketplace
7) Upgraded Imp Crucible
Mourningdale
1) Blacksmith
2) City Hall
3) Cages
4) Order of Ifre
5) Resource Silo
6) Hell Hole
7) Citadel
Havoc Peak
1) Blacksmith
2) City Hall
3) Cages
4) Birthing Pools
5) ---
6) Upgraded Kennels
7) Citadel (had to trade for 3 ore)
4) Have Xeron go through all 3 Infernos for spells.
5) How to beat swarms of Sprites ? I did not know exactly how right away. I'm not too comfortable with Inferno troops but I thought I would experiment sacrificing lower-end troops so Pit Lords could raise more and more Demons. There's a more detailed article on how to use this Inferno-specific strategy at our School of War. It's written by Charles Watkins.
6) On my first battle, I lost 118 Imps and only got back 3 Demons.
7) Split Imps in 2 or 3. It makes things easier.
8) Waiting Devils can kill 2 stacks of Sprites/Pixies in consecutive turns. Imps can be used as baits. You got to decide whether you want to get them all destroyed and raised as demons first or to simply use single Imps as baits. A squire can carry the extra Imps if you don't want to get them killed.
9) Casting Slow on the Sprites/Pixies is quite useful. You slow one stack then the other.
10) In other battles, I lost 86 Imps and gained 6 Demons. In another, I lost 11 Gogs but gained 4. In yet another, I lost 60 Imps and got back 6 Demons. The number of Demons gained did not seem stable. I wonder what it was based on. Fortunately, I found a partial answer at Cristoph Nahr's excellent Manual addenda available at http://pweb.de.uu.net/christoph.nahr
"Each Pit Lord can raise up to 50 hit points of Demons once per battle. As Demons have only 35 hit points each, it follows that a stack of n Pit Lords can raise up to n x 50/35 Demons, or roughly 1.4 n Demons ".
10) The above tells you how many Demons a stack of Pit Lords can potentially raise but it does not tell you how many Demons will be raised based on the stack that was killed. I'm pretty sure it's based on the total number of hit points of the stack vs their equivalent in demon hit points (which is 35). For example, you'd need at least 9 Imps (36 total hit points) or 3 Gogs (39 hit points), or 2 Hell Hounds (50 hit points) to raise one demon. In simpler terms, if you want to know how many Demons a stack of troops can wield, calculate the total hit points of the stack and divide by 35 rounding down. For a rough and quicker estimation, you might remember instead that 9 Imps are worth about a demon, 3 gogs are worth one, etc.
11) How come I only received 3 Demons when 118 Imps were lost ? It should have been 13 Demons that were raised right ? Well I don't remember the details but it's likely this happened because the Pit Lords were split in two and the Imps killed were also split in two. I considered all this a learning experience.
12) You cannot raise more Demons than you have Pit Lords.
13) White and Purple keymaster tents are northwest of Blackpool
14) Visit Observatory Tower in the southwest corner of the map but don't go too near Fiur, the Energy Elemental.
15) Alchemist Labs are a priority.
16) By trading extensively, I could have made the Forsaken Palace (Devils) on day 7 but decided not to.
Week 2
17) You just need to upgrade dwellings in one town out of 3. Much money saved.
18) Objective of this week is to flag more mines and build one Forsaken Palace.
19) Bought 2 Resource Silos early in the week
20) You can gain extra movement for Xeron by giving slower troops to a squire.
21) Don't forget to get the Castle in your main town.
Week 3
22) Hired 36 extra Pit Lords and 2 Devils
23) Split Pit Lords in 2 stacks of 21.
24) It's possible to beat Sprites/Pixies with only Cerberi and a few sacrificial baits such as Imps. Something to keep in mind if you want a second army later on.
Week 4
25) Bought lots of Imps, Devils and Efreets, as much as I could afford.
26) Went into the grass section to invade the Elementalist's territory. I did not enter near Fiur.
27) Against Elemental army, watch out for Sprites. Try to wait.
28) Do not forget the Library of Enligtenment (+2 to all stats)
29) Built second Forsaken Palace
30) Possible to take your first Conflux in week 4 but I didn't.
Month 2, week 1 (Week 5 overall)
31) Build Magic University to learn the missing magic schools.
32) The blue tent opens up a clearing of goodies in the northeast corner
33) The Shield of the Damned (one of the 3 items you need to win) is south of the southwestern Conflux beyond a purple barrier.
34) Took my second Conflux.
Month 2, week 2 (week 6 overall)
35) Attacked Fiur.
36) 2 Confluxes left to take.
37) Lost a town I had not garrisoned properly.
38) Bought all Imps, sacrificed them against a Swarm of Sprites. Also bought a bunch of Cerberi, Devils, Efreet Sultans. I did not hire extra Demons or Pit Fiends. You could make these purchases before tackling the last 2 towns if you wanted. You're likely to need some reinforcements before capturing the last town even if you did not need it for the next-to-last town. In any case, it's always safer to bring more troops than less.
39) The last Conflux is in the northwest corner.
Month 2, week 3 (week 7 overall)
40) For the last big battle, I had 41 Pit Lords, 41 Efreet Sultans, 119 Demons, 24 Devils and 205 Cerberi.
41) Cast Meteor Shower around the Efreet Sultans.
42) The Sword of Hellfire is in the northwest corner.
43) The Breastplate of Brimstone is a few days south of the northwest Conflux.
44) The 3 items you need are all behind purple border guards.
45) Xeron was level 12 and had the following skills: Advanced Leadership, Expert Tactics, Expert Offense, Advanced Logistics, Advanced Wisdom, Basic Air, Basic Earth and Basic Fire.
Armageddon's Blade 4: Maker of Sorrows
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy Notes: May 26, 2000
In yet another medium-sized scenario, you have to reach the Grand Forgesmith Kazandar so he can forge the Armageddon's Blade. On my first play I finished on month 3, week 4, day 2.
Starting Bonus: I took the 5 Pit Lords. The bonus is not particularly significant here.
Week 1
1) Flag everything before the green garrisons.
2) I have to build up FOUR Infernos... Arrgghhhh, what happened to the simpler, funner scenarios where you only had 1 starting town to deal with ? Why did I get the impression this would grow worse before it got better? I can deal with multiple towns much better than any AI, gives it even less of a chance to defeat me.
3) Check the skills of your starting heroes.
- Rashka has Expert Logistics and is an Efreet specialist. - Nymus (who is female believe it or not) is a Pit Fiend specialist. - Calid gives you 1 sulfur per day and is also expert at scouting.
4) Now came the more tedious part, checking out the 4 towns. I sure hope the town names are chosen, otherwise this will become confusing... ;-) The towns below are classified from top to bottom in the vertical town list:
Azrael
1) Birthing Pools
2) Hell Hole
3) ---
4) ---
5) Marketplace
6) Cages
7) ---
Vandal Hall (the one I had chosen as future Capitol)
1) Fire Lake
2) ---
3) ---
4) ---
5) Citadel
6) Castle
7) ---
Dagger Peak
1) Blacksmith
2) City Hall
3) ----
4) Hell Hole
5) Fire Lake
6) Cages
7) Birthing Pools
Scorch
1) Marketplace (because 2 high level dwellings built already)
2) Birthing Pools
3) Blacksmith
4) City Hall
5) Citadel
6) Kennels
7) Castle (had to trade gold for ore)
5) Structures that did not require rare resources to build were ok
6) Visit towns by Castle Gate for spells
7) Xeron had 30 Demons, 60 Gogs, 19 Imps and 10 Pit Fiends
8) Buy 4 extra heroes by the end of the week. Building structures should go first doh
9) Rashka can learn spells from Xeron
10) Do not bother with Demon accumulation trick here.
11) Trade Sulfur first
12) Wood is what you will need most followed by Ore
13) Let secondary heroes pick goodies in niches. Always keep Xeron moving and fighting.
14) Flag dwellings even if you don't hire any creatures in them.
15) Day 6: Even stealing your resources. - 4 Wood and Ore, - 2 of the rare resources
Week 2
16) Xeron was still in the north area
17) Objective: Get a second Forsaken Palace by the end of the week
18) Build City Halls, Resource Silos and Castles in towns that do not have them. Complete the exploration of your home territory.
19) No troops bought in towns
20) You could probably use XBuild City Halls, Resource Silos and Castles in towns that do not have them. Complete the exploration of your home territory.
19) No troops bought in towns
20) You could probably use Xeron with just a few quick troops and his spells.
21) I thought of summoning a boat at the south lake but there were NO boats. Never forget this little spell, you never know when it might come in handy.
22) Traded Crystal, Sulfur, Gems for Ore.
23) Managed the second Forsaken Palace at my Capitol
Week 3
24) Upgrade dwellings all in the same town because it's easier to handle.
25) Upgraded Forsaken Palace
26) Rashka gave troops to Xeron as well as items and war machines.
27) Prepare for an assault in week 4.
28) There's an external Forsaken Palace beyond a stack of Psychic Elementals. When you flag it, this will improve your devil production by 1 each week in each town.
29) An enemy elementalist might come through the gate. Use Town Portal to cut him off.
30) I was wondering if I was wasting gold upgrading Devils to Archdevils. The +6 speed increase is worth it but the added cost is prohibitive. It only gained 40 extra hit points also. In hindsight, I think players might do very well with simple Devils until they had more gold.
Week 4
31) Trade resources for gold
32) Tactic: Use Imps as bait, bring back as Demons.
33) Send Calid (the expert scout) through opening in cleared garrison (if any) with 3 split Efreet Sultans.
34) The hero cannot take troops from garrisons.
35) Used 15 Archdevils, Demons (not any bought this week), Imps and Pit Lords (41 is plenty) to defend. I also cleared the northernmost garrison with those troops.
Month 2, week 1 (Week 5 overall)
36) Xeron's army at this point comprised 22 Arch Devils, around 50 Pit Lords, 58 Demons and 595 Imp Familiars in 2 stacks.
37) Use squire trick with Xeron to maximize his movement but be wary of ambushes. Cast View Air.
38) 3 Efreets with Calid can take mines protected by Sprites...
39) Use View Air to locate where each enemy town is. Xeron still did not have expert skill in Air (although he had it in Earth magic) so I had to make educated guesses as to where they might be along with using scouts.
40) I had 2, then 3, scout heroes exploring around the Confluxes.
41) I took 2 Conflux towns during this week.
42) Do not build a Mage Guild of level 5 intentionally. Keeping towns will be hard enough and you don't want the Conflux heroes to get their hands on Dimension Door or Fly.
43) 300 familiars nets 32 Demons. About a 10 to 1 ratio
Month 2, week 2 (Week 6 overall)
44) Look for keymaster's tents and visit them
45) Formed an army for Rashka: 89 Efreet Sultans (split in two), 484 Magogs and 76 Cerberi.
46) From my experience, you can usually walk easily in front of towns.
47) All 3 Confluxes before "ground" bridges were taken.
Month 2, week 3 (week 7 overall)
48) Took 2 more Conflux towns
49) The last Conflux is well-hidden in the northwest corner. I had trouble finding it.
Month 3
50) You will have to explore the underground to finish your quest.
51) Trade most of your resources for gold. Buy practically all your high-level Inferno troops. I personally bought Cerberi, Efreet Sultans, Pit Lords and Arch Devils. I was pretty certain they would be more than enough.
52) Don't forget to visit the Dragon Utopia before going down. They're sure to welcome you with open claws.
53) Swarms of Elementals are 300 in numbers.
54) Against Storm Elementals, cast Lightning, it does double damage. Logically they should be immune to that but they're not.
55) Against the Energy Elementals, cast Icebolt although it might not be good enough.
56) Those 2 tunnels (the ones going roughly southeast) only lead to mines. You might as well skip them. The right tunnel is the northwest one.
57) Oh by the way, you did not really have to destroy the Conflux towns to win but isn't it more fun having done so anyway ? ;-)
58) The big battle against Inteus should be relatively easy. I'll let you deal with him in your own personal yet sadistic way :-)
59) The hut of the blacksmith you're looking for is behind Inteus. Give him 30,000 gold (further proof that wizards are corrupt if you ask me). He gives you the Sphere of Permanence then tells you to find his apprentice. How nice of him to make you waste your time even more.
60) You have to trek back through the tunnel back to the Subterranean gate and then go southwest from there. If you see lots of Phoenix then you're on the right path. Simply cast Mass Slow to win easily.
The maximum level Xeron can reach is 24. His 8 skills were at expert including the magic school of Air, Fire and Earth.
Armageddon's Blade: Return of the King
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy Notes: May 26, 2000
This is a scenario of medium-size where you shall play as Roland and General Kendall. On my first play, I finished on month 2, week 3, day 3.
Starting bonus: Start with the upgraded monastery. Often better to get the means to pump your own water than having a few flasks of water that shall run out and leave you dependant. Please excuse the sidetracking. 4th strategy in one day, I'm getting delirious ;-)
1) Roland is in the southwest corner, Kendall is in the northwest corner. Almost everything is already built in the towns.
2) Five starting towns to deal with... Oh joy... (sigh)
I'll spare you all the details but you want the City Halls as soon as possible in your three Castles along with Resource Silos. In the Conflux towns, you want the Castle structures, Altar of Thoughts and Pyres. Yes, it's possible to build all of those and more. If someone wants the detailed day by day building orders, just ask and you shall receive :-)
3) There's an Ore Pit just north of your northernmost town. Do yourself a favor and get it early unlike me who got it on day 7
4) Against wandering stacks, wait and cast Slow or Haste, your best low-level spell buddies.
5) Against shooters though, you want to shoot with your own shooters first.
6) Buy 2 heroes on day 2 (one in the center)
7) Buy a spellbook for Kendall! Easy to forget since he's higher-level.
8) The Cape of Velocity (excellent item btw) beyond the lots of Pit Lords is protected by an unseen Throng of Pixies.
9) Bought 2 more heroes on day 3. Buy 2 low-level fast units for each scout (1 might do if you're stuck for gold)
10) Exchange gold for ore as needed.
Week 2
11) Don't bother recruiting from external sites
12) Have Roland visit a Conflux and learn Earth, Air and Water magic.
13) Build Resource Silos in the Conflux towns.
14) Bought 10 Firebirds, combined armies on Roland (upgraded Griffins of Kendall & Monks of Roland first) and have him go through the lith.
15) My plan was delayed. Fiona came out of nowhere, more precisely the northeast garrison near my Conflux.
16) What to do ? I could not reach her in time, she would buy the accumulated creatures... Hired an hero, bought all the Birds and half the Psychic Elementals and hightailed it out of there. I would have brought more troops with me if I could have.
17) I used an hero chain from Roland to Kendall with whom I planned to defeat that meddling Fiona.
18) Fiona attacked Kendall first when he was waiting for the troops. Should have kept him farther away. Consider this a warning in your own adventures.
19) Your troops will all be faster than hers if you're lucky.
20) Kendall lost but crippled Fiona's army.
21) I knew from the Den of Thieves, she was tough.
22) Stables upgrade cavalry free of charge.
23) After Roland took back the lost Conflux, he went through the garrison to pay a visit of his own to the red side...
24) Shipyard can be bought at the second Conflux (the southern one).
Week 3
25) Roland was in infernal territory, he was attacked first near the second Inferno
26) In case you wondered, Roland's army was still mostly composed of his starting troops and Kendall's plus remaining Firebirds. If Kendall's was not caught unaware, you might have even more troops than I had. Split your Champions in 2 stacks of 30
27) Even though Roland was attacked first, meaning the enemy thought it could defeat me, I won anyway, simply losing most of my Marksmen in the process. Score one for the superiority of castle troops.
28) It was getting a little too hot and risky so I did bring castle troops as reinforcements to Roland.
29) I took the 3 Infernos in the northeast quadrant during this week.
30) Use Castle Gates to protect your new acquisitions
31) Practice with the double-hex breath of the Firebirds during battles. When there are 7 stacks on the field, the 3th to 5th stacks will be clumped together and vulnerable. Fire at stacks 4 and 5 from above or stacks 4 and 3 from below.
32) You can use War Machines also to avoid retaliations.
Week 4
33) Added Phoenix to Roland's army.
34) Enemy towns are roughly opposite those on the good side.
35) I was concerned about Roland not reaching level 24 because I was too quick.
Week 5
36) A few days into this week, the only town left to take was the one on the center island.
37) I only gave Phoenix to Roland to max out his movement. I since learned that beyond speed 11, you did not really get a bonus on the adventure map so you might as well bring other fast troops if you want.
38) A little bay, south of the second Conflux, containing 4 chests, has an hidden ambush with 20 Magic Elementals, 42 Storm Elementals and 50 Ice Elementals. That's 4150 experience points, perhaps enough to gain an extra level.
39) Roland was level 20 by the time I finished.
40) The trick to this map is to attack soon with your starting troops, be it by going through the garrison or by using the 2-way lith that will bring you in the center of the enemy's territory. Even if you have trouble and get repelled in your assault, you have the town production to eventually overpower red
Armageddon's Blade 6: A Blade in the Back
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy: May 26, 2000
This is a medium-sized map featuring Gelu which is supposedly of expert difficulty but in reality is not. I would evaluate it at hard difficulty at best. On my first play, I finished on month 2, week 3, day 3.
Starting Bonus: Does not really matter. I picked the Angel Feather Arrows which gave Gelu +15% Archery.
Week 1
1) Make sure to enter towns to get spells and spell books
2) You have 3 starting heroes: Gelu, Ciele and Erdamon.
3) For the building orders, start with Resource Silos, one in the Rampart and the other in the second Conflux. Build Garden of Lifes and upgrade the Magic Lantern in the first Conflux (one at the top of the list). The Rampart will be mostly ignored as far as builds go (I only built Dendroid Arches on day 7). In the Confluxes, try to get the Altar of Thoughts in both, the Pyre in one town and the Castle in the other by the end of the week.
4) Flag external dwellings but don't buy troops from them just yet.
5) Ciele is your best spellcaster, expert in Water and Fire, not to mention *the* Magic Arrow specialist.
6) Buy 2 heroes on day 2, go in directions the 3 main heroes don't.
7) Give a few Sprites to scouts.
8) I lost 8 Fire Elementals to an horde of Gogs for a minor item. Don't make the same mistake.
9) You could form a temporary army with only shooters for Gelu.
10) Have Erdamon go southeast by the dirt path after taking the Ore Pit. You'll soon realize it seems risky. Buy 2 heroes at the tavern by the road and make Erdamon come back.
11) Ore Pits are important to get early: One is and above and to the right of the Rampart. One is south of the southern Conflux.
12) In my game, I used hero chains to take Ore Pits with secondary heroes because my main heroes had gone the wrong way.
13) Upgraded my Grand Elves to Sharpshooters on day 4. I could have waited but I had plenty of gold.
14) Do not buy troops from towns in the first week.
15) Found 6 Ore in a small firecamp. It helped a lot! Probably compensated for the lost production of the ore pits.
16) The Golden Bow makes Grand Elves almost as good as Sharpshooters for a lesser cost. Since I had plenty of gold however, this was not an issue at the moment. You might decide to stick with Grand Elves with Gelu if you really really want to save gold and hire more troops in later weeks.
17) After one week, I had visited most of the green area.
Week 2
18) Build the last Resource Silo on day 1. This week, I wanted to get a second Pyre.
19) In the Rampart, upgrade the Dendroid Arches, upgrade the Enchanted Spring and build the Unicorn Glade.
20) In one of the Conflux towns, upgrade the Air and Water Altars. Build the Magic University.
21) Being the generous sort, I wanted to let Inferno troops grow a little so Gelu would have more experience.
22) Beyond the red border guard, there are lots of piles of resources and items. You should send a scout to pick them up. Notice the Orbs. Leave treasure chests for Gelu.
23) Have Gelu visit the Conflux where the Magic University is erected and have him learn his missing spheres of magic.
24) Gelu cannot learn Fire magic for some reason.
25) Remember where the sanctuaries are...
26) Checking the Den of Thieves, I noticed that red had more towns but a weaker army overall and very weak heroes compared to mine.
27) Decided to go for Phoenix instead of more Firebirds so I upgraded the existing Pyre instead of contructing a second one. Whatever you decide should be fine.
28) It's possible to clear an Imp Cache with a bunch of Sprites and a good spellcaster with Magic Arrow. Try it for yourself.
29) I split Gelu's sharpshooters in 3 stacks.
30) Gelu went beyond the red border guard and had around 90 Sharpshooters, 64 Ice Elementals (in hindsight, I could have left those behind but better safe than sorry) and 121 Sprites.
31) Weaknesses of AI I noticed, it will often let enemies (your heroes) pass in front of its towns unchallenged or it will flag mines instead of going straight for your town. This might be explained by the fact it might not know the area but it does like to flag mines even if the town is already visible. Perhaps it's because it prefers to wait until day 7 but then it gives you more time to buy troops and prepare.
Week 3
32) Brought 10 Phoenix to Gelu.
33) The first attacks in Volcano territory (Eofol) should occur.
34) Took center Inferno first but not before killing a big Inferno army outside. Target Gogs and Efreets first. Use Sprites as baits. Wait with Phoenix. High morale can inflict a lot more casualties especially on first rounds. Let enemy cast first or he might constantly Blind you. Mass Cure helps.
35) In that battle, I lost all Sprites and 25 Sharpshooters.
36) Construct another Pyre just in case.
37) Check out what new spells are available in towns.
Week 4
38) Red only has four towns in total.
39) Could have used secondary armies to finish faster but Gelu would not have gotten enough experience.
40) Use Town Portal to cut down on travel times (I forgot I had it for a while)
41) Buy all Sprites, Storm Elementals, Grand Elves, Silver Pegasi and Psychic Elementals and bring them to Ciele (from Conflux 1)
42) Ciele was protecting holdings from intruders.
43) Buy Ice Elementals and Sprites and give them to Gelu who should be going southwest.
44) One you get your 4th town, the balance of power is shifted.
45) It's possible to box in units with Force Field
46) There's a Cartographer south of the Center Inferno
47) This felt like a normal difficulty map...
Month 2, week 1 (week 5 overall)
48) Took a third Inferno. Actually left him a little more time to hire troops (more experience for Gelu)
49) Another weakness of the AI: it will not pass turns without attacking so arrow towers could do more damage next round. As an intelligent player, you should learn to defend (passing turns) as often as possible during castle sieges especially if your attacking stack would only scratch the enemy. If one unit survives the next round, you have another round of Arrow tower fire to inflict losses. To maximize arrow tower damage, you should also always keep 7 different stacks in your town even if 6 of them only have 1 unit :-)
50) When all the towns are taken, the AI knows where every town is and how they're defended. Keep this in mind because it will search for your most vulnerable closest spot.
51) You can sometimes block enemies' ways with expendable heroes so you have 1 more day to prepare. Each unecessary battle fought by the enemy drains movement and spell points.
52) Put heroes in hometowns, on the garrison row (that's the top one) so you can hire more than 8 heroes.
53) You have lots of Rampart troops in reserve if you want to take more time or if something goes wrong. Just make sure you don't lose Gelu.
54) Lost about 8060 experience points because enemy attacked a town while Gelu was away.
55) Gelu was 18 at the end, level 18 that is ;-)
Armageddon's Blade 7: To Kill a Hero
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy: May 26, 2000
On my first play, I finished on month 2, week 1, day 1.
Starting Bonus: Pick the Sword of Judgement (all four primary skills +5) unless you don't already have Town Portal (which is unlikely). The 5 Firebirds seem nice until you realize you can get them yourself fairly early.
Week 1
1) Visit the towns with the 3 heroes using Town Portal to gain extra spells.
2) About 200 Sharpshooters near Gelu will join for free
3) By casting View Air, you will see that there is a periphery of 4 Infernos (in pairs) with one other in the middle. We can all guess where Xeron might be.
4) Upgrade all troops within the first 2 days.
5) There's a choice here as to how to split the troops between the 3 heroes. After leaving the Castle-native troops in town, here are some options:
a) Keep starting troops with each hero
b) Fast army (Phoenix, Sprites, Magic Elementals) and a slow army
c) Put all troops on the same guy
d) Create an army immune to fire (Energy Elementals, Magic Elementals and Phoenix), i.e. immune to Armageddon also, and give the rest of the troops to another.
6) What I did:
Gelu: Left him the Sharpshooters and 2 Firebirds so he could go first in battles.
Catherine: 120 Energy Elementals, 19 Magic Elementals and 6 Phoenix (fire-immune army, relatively fast)
Roland: 39 Storm Elementals, 68 Magma Elementals, 36 Ice Elementals and Sprites (secondary shooter army)
7) There are piles of gold on the ground with 7500 gold in each, near the 2-way lith.
8) Hire an hero, send through the 2-way lith. You'll see it connects the southwest and northeast corner. I used a secondary hero because if the design had been the least bit devious, there could have been more than 2 liths connected like this and losing one of the 3 main heroes was unacceptable.
9) Use Mass Slow and Mass Haste extensively to minimize casualties.
10) Roland was a more versatile spellcaster than Catherine in my game but she seemed more suited for direct offensive than her husband (She had leadership, archery, logistics, diplomacy, offense and luck all at expert)
11) I considered splitting the Sprites between Roland and Catherine to act as baits but since she was going to be on the front lines, I decided to leave them all with her. This was a change to my original armies as presented in tip 6. Her army would not be immune to fire anymore but she'd be stronger and still pretty fast. I also preferred to have another flying stack instead of a big walker stack like the Magma Elementals. An alternative would be to leave the Sprites with Roland and give the Magma Elementals to Catherine.
12) Keep in mind no spells work on Magic Elementals, not even beneficial ones like Haste.
13) So we had Catherine acting as the main assault force from the southwest, Gelu in the northeast corner and Roland protecting the home territory. How appropriate, the Final Countdown by Europe is playing on the radio...we'd need a motivating uptempo music like that in Heroes whenever the situation seemed dire and hopeless, not necessarily rock but well you get the idea :-)
14) It's possible to change the mp3 musics to whatever you like if you didn't know already. You just need to change the names of the files to the default ones used in Heroes 3. The music playback in Heroes 3 sucks but at least you can customize the tracks to whatever you like ;-)
15) Keep track of enemy heroes almost every round with View Air.
16) Catherine went to take her first Inferno (ShadowDen)
17) Do not buy extra troops at the northeast town until the end of the week.
18) In battles, let the enemy come to you. Don't attack with Phoenix first, wait.
19) On the second round, pull back Phoenix if there are still too many troops on the enemy side.
20) Buy a City Hall at the Inferno then send a scout (or two) out in the bad, bad world.
21) Remember: Wood Elves to Sharpshooters...
22) Roland took second Inferno (northwest of the pair) called Tormentalis. It seemed safe enough to do.
23) Could have bought a Pyre by trading a little but didn't.
24) Could have also bought a Forsaken Palace in one of the two Infernos but why help out the demonic forces who might just stumble back upon their town ?
Week 2
25) At the garrison: Efreet Sultans can be dangerous if they get lucky. Berzerk might be good but the problem is that although you can cast it on them, they will not be affected (Efreets are immune to all spells of the Fire magic school remember) In any case, you have Gelu and he has Firebirds, you can slow the Efreet Sultans and shoot OR if you want to show off, you can always Implode them into little bits of molten lava.
26) Gelu was going south from the northeast town to conquer the 3rd Inferno. I don't remember why I did not make him attack in the first week. Perhaps because I was concerned about attacking too soon on 2 different fronts.
27) In the southeast corner of the map, there are 3 Relics beyond a purple border guard.
28) Roland took stuff in the northwest corner.
29) Be careful when you use Dimension Door, you might be caught unaware and you cannot lose Roland, Catherine or Gelu.
30) Bought my Pyre on day 7
31) Gelu protected the northeast corner, he went to get Phoenix and Magic Elementals with Town Portal.
Week 3
32) Take the last town to the northwest with Catherine. Prepare the assault on Xeron.
33) Don't forget the Library of Enlightenment west of the northeast Conflux. Have all your heroes visit before finishing.
34) Give all troops and good items to Gelu because he was the best hero in terms of secondary skills. In your game, this might be different.
35) There's an Orb preventing spellcasting in the northwest corner. That means no Armageddon for Xeron. Isn't that special, you went through all the trouble to get the Armageddon's Blade for him in previous scenarios and now it's basically useless ;-)
Week 4
36) It's the assault on Xeron
37) Trade resources for more gold
38) The final combat can either be without magic or against Xeron's Armageddon.
39) With Mass Slow, Xeron has a pretty wimpy army. Armageddon did 1320 damage to each of my stacks that was not immune to fire. Armageddon did not hurt Xeron's own troops because the blade itself conferred immunity to every creature under his command.
40) In this battle, blind a stack when 3 or 4 are left on the second round. Proceed to resurrect dead troops then kill the last stack. Sorry but resurrect doesn't work on Elementals since they're not actually alive.
41) I could have easily left the Storm and Ice Elementals at home. In the Xeron battle, they were basically the only losses: 88 Ice Elementals and 105 Storm elementals.
42) I was actually surprised to find out the Magma Elementals were immune to Armageddon! This makes the top 4 troops in the Conflux immune to Armageddon and fire-based spells! Fire/Energy Elementals, Magma Elementals (not sure about Earth), Magic Elementals (not Psychic) and Firebirds/Phoenix.
43) You might want to kill the remaining garrisons before finishing to gain more experience.
44) After finishing, I replayed the battle against Xeron without using the Ice and Storm Elementals. I still won and only lost 3 Phoenix.
At the end, Gelu was level 23, Roland was level 21 and Catherine was level 19
Armageddon's Blade 8: Oblivion's Edge
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy: May 29, 2000
On my first play, I finished on week 3 day 4 but if you finish as quickly, you'll miss out on several very cool timed events hinting at Gelu's fate. You might want to do the same with the previous scenario also, reloading your last savegame and skipping turns for a while, I think there were extra events there also.
1) The 3 heroes, Gelu, Roland and Catherine carry over with all the items they had at the end of the previous scenario.
2) Gelu can cast Armageddon with the Armageddon Blade equipped. It won't hurt his own troops.
3) Leave knight-troops in town.
4) There are free troops to gather in each town
5) Gelu has 140 Sharpshooters, 20 Psychic Elementals and 10 Magic Elementals in the towns near him in the northwest corner.
6) Try to buy at least a City Hall each day, the most you can afford until all are built, then focus on Resource Silos.
7) You also want to buy extra heroes with the spare gold until you are maxed out by mid-week.
8) Keep track of enemies with View Air
9) Important: in week 1, stay on the borders with your 3 main heroes. The biggest risk of losing is having one of your heroes ambushed.
10) Send scouts first to uncover terrain. That's wise advice on any unknown scenario.
11) I did not bother recruiting from external dwellings except perhaps Pyres and Treetop Towers (that give Sharpshooters)
12) Could have bought an extra Pyre on day 7, but we already had 4. Why be greedy ?
13) Dirt roads lead to the last town.
Week 2
14) Got killed on week 2, day 2 by going in a clearing I should not have.
15) Try to hire Sharpshooters from Treetop Towers every week.
16) Don't go for the Library of Enlightenment on the west side, that's where I got ambushed.
17) Gelu can Town portal between towns to get troops.
18) Gelu can Fly or Dimension Door to the last town avoiding a lot of opposition if you so desire.
19) Remember that Armageddon's Blade makes you immune to Armageddon.
20) One-way lith exits are *very* dangerous. Don't let Roland and Catherine near them, at least not too long.
21) Start by buying Firebirds, Phoenix and Magic Elementals.
22) Trade resources for more gold
23) As a little bit of trivia, that mysterious Tamar character looks a bit like myself, the Quebec Dragon, in blue elfin form, at least physical-description wise. I do think I have a much more charming personality though ;-)
24) Enemies seem to have a limited patrol radius. I sure won't complain.
Week 3
25) Buy troops, prepare for the final assault.
26) Decided not to bring Halflings, they would slow me down too much.
27) Army of Gelu: 91 Sharpshooters, 70 Phoenix, 91 Magic Elementals, 789 Sprites and 90 Sharpshooters.
28) It's possible to catch Xeron outside the town (isn't that guy supposed to be dead already?). I could have avoided him easily but decided to defeat him once more for good old time's sake. Never let it be said I'm not a sentimental fellow... :-)
29) I lost 76 Sharpshooters, 709 Sprites (ouch), 5 Phoenix and 4 Magic Elementals against him. Wondered if I should have split the Sprites but I don't think it would have made much difference.
30) I rearranged troops after Xeron.
31) You cannot cast magic in the garrison.
32) For the final battle, I split off the remaining Sprites and planned on using them as lures. The Phoenix took care of the Archdevils. The Sharpshooters shot the Magogs.
And there we had it, Armageddon prevented due to your heroic efforts.
I finished the campaign in 318 days for 1600 points and a rating of Scorpicore.
Basically, these walkthroughs are not mine. I found them on the net and thought, that if you need them I can copy them here. So I copied. Here, use this if you want.
____________
|
|
Hexa
Responsible
Legendary Hero
|
posted January 28, 2004 11:19 AM |
|
|
Although this ain't probably the BEST way to do the campaign its nice u shared it. so qp applied!@
____________
If you want to realize your dreams >>> you have to wake up!@
|
|
kuma
Promising
Supreme Hero
u can type so much text in her
|
posted April 01, 2004 09:41 PM |
|
|
*Bump*
____________
People used to call me crazy, but now that I'm rich I am excentric.
|
|
this_other_guy
Famous Hero
{0_o} heh...
|
posted April 02, 2004 01:42 PM |
|
|
since when did ppl start to get qps for stuff copy&pasted off the net -_-
____________
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
|
|
doomnezeu
Supreme Hero
Miaumiaumiau
|
posted April 02, 2004 02:58 PM |
|
|
yeah, i'll just copy-paste Che guevarra's biography here, maybe i'll get one also
____________
|
|
regnus_khan
Responsible
Supreme Hero
[ Peacekeeper of Equilibris ]
|
posted April 03, 2004 08:19 PM |
|
|
Quote: since when did ppl start to get qps for stuff copy&pasted off the net -_-
I posted this long times ago.
And BTW, angelito got his QP for immunities by copying to. So, useful info or help - QP, I presume.
____________
|
|
Evil_Wizard
Tavern Dweller
|
posted July 03, 2004 02:32 PM |
|
|
I'm new here, so hi to you all!
Regnus, I was just wondering could you put a walkthrough about Playing with Fire campaing, cuz i'm stuck in the Burning of Tatalia part.
Or if any1 else knows how to finish that stage?
____________
|
|
angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
|
posted July 03, 2004 05:41 PM |
|
|
What is your problem in that scenario?
|
|
Evil_Wizard
Tavern Dweller
|
posted July 03, 2004 06:17 PM |
|
|
The problem is that i can't destroy all my opponents! There is just 2 many of them!
I run with 1 of my heroes to nearest garrisons to pick up some additional army, and also I take a couple of towns for myself, and then I destroy the ornage and the light blue dudes, but soon after that purple and blue just overrun me with heroes that have like zounds of this and legions of that! I tried searching for artifacts or heroes that will help me (like Crag Hack in Dragon Slayer campaign), but the only hero is in a prison, and to get there I have to kill a lot of Ghost Dragons (plus I tried cheating to get to that guy, and he attacks me after I release him).
What is the best course of actions to do?
____________
|
|
angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
|
posted July 03, 2004 07:17 PM |
|
|
Long time ago iīve played this campaign.
Am i right, that u start with your heroes on the very right corner on the bottom of the map?...This is what i remember of the last scenario of that campaign.(If this is the one you are referring to..)
If this is wrong, then please tell me the starting conditions, then i will prolly remember better and give u some hints..
|
|
Evil_Wizard
Tavern Dweller
|
posted July 03, 2004 10:11 PM |
|
|
Yes, u start with your heroes (I have 6 of them) I the right corner, you have no towns and you gotta kill 4 opponents, whic already have 2-4 heroes and 2-4 towns each.
Whatever I do, start slowly by exploring and taking my part of terrain or fastly moving to garrisons and killing as many of enemies I can I always end up the same way.
____________
|
|
angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
|
posted July 03, 2004 11:08 PM |
|
|
As far as i remember, i splitted my heroes in 2 parties at the start.
First party went north to conquer first towns (included the main hero...the fire-expert girl) and went down the underground very early to kill the orange necro guy....donīt remember well, but i think i killed orange latest in īmiddle of week 2. Thatīs important, coz he will come up after week 3 very annoying..
Second party goes west, conquers town behind the garrison (the town to the VERY left, not the one u can see to the south very soon...this u will get some days later).
Try to get ALL armies from the garrisons and kill teal (i think itīs teal, the color who starts at the very left of the map).
If u have done that, it will be about end of first month, or end of first week second month, u will have a bit of time to conquer all towns and stuff around your home area.
After that, it should not be a big problem to kill the other enemies..
|
|
Evil_Wizard
Tavern Dweller
|
posted July 03, 2004 11:32 PM |
|
|
Well, that's the exact thing that I did, but I can't do 2 things:
1. I can't make it to the Purple in time to pick up reinforcements
2. About orange, ussually I kill him, sometimes happens that I make a wrong move and he kills me etc., but the point is, how to survive when purple, and sometimes even blue attack?
Here is a map to refresh ur memories:
_______________________________
|.............Purple guy.......|
|..............................|
|....Blue guy .................|
|.....................Orng guy.|
|..............................|
|..............................|
|..............................|
|.Teal Guy.....................|
|............................me|
-------------------------------
Blue is on the island that has a way to underground, orange has also a town beneath it, purple is the one causing trouble, teal isn't even worth mentioning.
____________
|
|
Evil_Wizard
Tavern Dweller
|
posted July 03, 2004 11:57 PM |
|
|
For some reason i can't draw a map...
So just to let u know, Teal is in the left down corner, blue i near the middle of the map on the island, purple is in upper middle and orange is in the right middle + has a town beneath it.
____________
|
|
Lord_Woock
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Daddy Cool with a $90 smile
|
posted July 04, 2004 01:16 PM |
|
|
You can draw a map, just use dots instead of spaces. Now go and edit that post!
____________
Yolk and God bless.
---
My buddy's doing a webcomic and would certainly appreciate it if you checked it out!
|
|
Evil_Wizard
Tavern Dweller
|
posted July 04, 2004 04:43 PM |
|
|
Well, now it looks retarded >_<
____________
|
|
angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
|
posted July 04, 2004 07:13 PM |
|
|
Yeah, i remember it very well now....
There are BoneDragons near your first or second town, which guard a teleporter, or at least a tent, right?
First of all, i have to mention, that i had learned "townportal" in the first scenario, which helps much in this last scenario.
Second, as far as i remember, the blue guy was the last enemy besides me at this scenario. I know that i placed a hero at the "beach" of that small island (which is affected by the cover of darkness a bit), to see if blue sends a hero to land on this island.
Try to go through that mentioned teleporter very soon, coz this leads to a small island with some dwellings (gorgons, hydras(?) and basilisks...me thinks) and at least 1 town.
So when u have this 5 towns and these dwellings, and townportal of course, i really doubt u could get in trouble with this purple guy....u would have a real strong army.
But perhaps u could send me your last autosave before u were killed, and i could see what went wrong..
My email-addy is: angelito@onlinehome.de
|
|
Evil_Wizard
Tavern Dweller
|
posted July 04, 2004 11:22 PM |
|
|
Yey, I completed that scenario today.
It was just a matter of where do u send ur heroes at the beginning.
I read ur post after I completed the scenario, but tnx anyway Angelito.
____________
|
|
Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
|
posted February 04, 2005 05:29 PM |
|
Edited By: Consis on 4 Feb 2005
|
This Is My Favorite Campaign
Angelito has covered much of the detail thus far. I'll add some more:
1. Make sure you have as many heroes as the last map allows. Make sure these heroes are as high level as you can get them. Make sure at least one of them has logistics.
2. Make sure Adrienne has expert Sorcery/Air magic + Chain Lightning spell. By the time you start the last map, her spell power will be extremely high. This is the key to her initial direction of travel.
3. The key (as Angelito mentioned) is getting to those garrisons the farthest away from where you start before the computer does. You and your secondary heroes start in the South-Eastern corner. The interesting thing about this map is that it actually has many islands. But donot be tempted to island-hop! It is very alluring because of the security but you can't win with this strategy. The key is to think like the legendary French General, Napoleon Bonaparte. You must conquer the continent first. So here's a viable strategy:
(Reconnaisance/Theft Team)----->As Angelito has already stated, splitting your army in half is a good way. But I disagree slightly. My strategy has always been to take only two heroes northwest while the main bulk and power of my armies slowly drudges steady northward. The two heroes heading northwest will need all of your starting troops. Leave your main forces empty because they will be instantly resupplied as they move north and collect from generators. The strategy for your special forces-duo should be one of troop theft. Stay away from military engagements/confrontations with opposing heroes. The Deadly-Duo's mission is to greatly reduce opponent expansion to nearby cities that are sympathetic to your cause. Target the farthest northwest garrison first! Go straight for it and then hastily retreat backwards; collecting from all the generators you passed. That small two-hero team is going to be the ultimate re-enforcements for Adrienne and your main forces.
(Main Force Reclamation/Troop Advancement)----->Here is where you want your powerful Adrienne and her Chainlightning spell. As you move north, have your remaining heroes do the collecting while Adrienne captures/claims/defeats the random monsters and cities. The key tactical strategy for moving is this:
DONOT go too far north! The swampy section to the north of your starting point is what you want to focus on. Above that is a strip/path/road of burnt swamp/dirt terrain(it's brown-colored ground). Don't be tempted to cross into that area. It's a costly mistake. Within that first swampy area that your main forces moves lies a subterranean gate to the caves below. This should be your main threat. Not but a few paces from that door lies a Necropolis ready to attack/invade your newly-acquired cities. The best tactic is to claim all of the nearby area but leave that subterranean monster guarding the gate. Inside this relatively small area is a secretive well-guarded two-way teleporter. This leads to a very defendable/powerfully guarded city that actually has Hydra generators in the area. Gather the forces you need to defeat the monster(bone dragons I think) guarding that two-way portal. Almost as soon as you capture the city behind that portal, you'll be getting attacked from the North(where I told you not to go) and from the Subterranean Gate. This is major pressure but don't sweat it. As Adrienne is finishing off that city, she will be more powerful than both of those armies. This is only the first wave of opposing forces. Bring her back out, utterly obliterate these threatening forces, and then travel through to the underground to take that Necropolis. This strategy must be absolutely followed up to this point. Once you've taken the underground Necropolis, you have VERY little troops left. This is where your re-enforcements from the northwestern recon comes into play. By this time your team should be about half-way coming back to you. During this time you will probably be attacked again from the north. Usually the second wave is the most difficult to defeat. DONOT engage the second wave of enemy heroes until you've been resupplied! You will undoubtedly lose your two northern-most cities of that area. Just make sure you get all the troops out before they are over-run by the enemy. Once Adrienne is resupplied she'll be almost unstoppable.
At this point you get to make your own judgment-call. You have two options:
A. Push northward and claim the cities that lay in your wake.
B. Push deep underground claiming the successive cities that lay in your wake down there.
My own personal judgement has led me to try both options with a higher degree of success going underground. I usually take the underground and move to the gates that connect to the northwest surface where your original expeditionary team hastily gathered troops for you. That(in my opinion) is the most defendable surface area and you have a seaport from which to launch naval attacks/harassment. The rest of the map should be a fun Cat-and-Mouse game where Adrienne avoids Lord Haart until she is powerful enough to defeat him.
A minor note is to remember the computer has the pendant of Negativity(immune to Lightning). The first few waves, usually 1-3, won't carry it but the following ones will. Summoning Elementals becomes very helpful once the computer starts to bring in that damn pendant. Another thing to keep in mind is that this whole campaign was made before moats did damage to attacking armies. The Town Portal spell is nice to have but you can do well without it as long as some of your heroes have logistics.
____________
Roses Are RedAnd So Am I
|
|
|
|