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| Thread: Campaign Help |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · «PREV |
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guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted November 29, 2004 05:45 AM |
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Another game wasted
Thank you for the useful advice, once again.
I didn't make it, though. We've gotta admit that some of this campaign stuff is a bit bogus, considering all the stuff they pit you against. I was so close this time. So irritatingly close!
-Sent Crag Hack to capture western town; defeated mediocre AI hero within vicinity.
-2nd hero ferried one last supply of troops to C.H. just as my territory got invaded by a toughie from the south.
-C.H. went south and west, visiting the green tent, taking a castle, and claiming the Sword of Judgement.
-C.H. went east; took second castle. Heads south and into the portal to island. By then, the two Strongholds up north were in enemy hands.
-Made way to the underground and fought a losing battle with the objective enemy hero:
*Crag Hack: 30A 14D 7SP 5K
Orc Chieftains: 66
Ogre Magi: 56
Marksmen: 16
Thunderbirds: 23
Ancient Behemoths: 5
Royal Griffins: 17
Cyclops Kings: 10
*Marzeth: 10A 7D 7SP 6K
Dread Knights: 70
Vampires: 24
Crusaders: 70
Note the fiendishly large Dread Knight stack. They can take out >35% of my Ogre Magi without their Death Blow. The Vampire and Crusader stacks are no big deal, but the DK's alone pose the problem. I thought my superior attack and defense would succeed; it's hard to smash through [120hp x 70 + Def,etc] with my army!
Say, was that around the same army you faced?
-guitarguy
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Shenjairo
Known Hero
Simsalabim
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posted November 30, 2004 01:29 PM |
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Were all of them in the same stack? Pretty sure I faced 5 or 6 stacks, not sure if the vampires were splitted or not but the others were. No idea of what stats Crag Hack had, but his skills should have been this at the time:
Expert Offense
Expert Armorer
Expert Earth
Expert Archery
Advanced Wisdom
Advanced Leadership
Advanced Logistics
Army I'm not really sure of either, but I had more knight troops. Something along the like of (very big guess, but the races are right):
40 Orc Chieftans
50 Ogre Magi
60 Marksmen
15 Thunderbirds
5 Ancient Behemoths
40 Royal Griffins
15 Champions (had a cavalier stack join)
I fought on ground that was split in the middle and opened with expert slow, one of the knight stacks got held up for a while since there was no room for him to fight in, there were also some other minor obstacles. I walked forward with my behemoths to block the battlefield up for a while along with my ogre magi that would get there the next turn, the thunderbirds would later replace the behemoths once they died. The computer hasted one stack of knights and killed a behemoth or two and I got to shoot it will full arrows. Next round full attack on the knights after expert shield, behemoths about dead, but so is the dread knight stack. One crusader stack killed too after the good morale champions got it. Computer hastes vampires. Next round expert stone skin, not sure what computer does. After this round the only threat left really is the unharmed 35 dread knight stack. Retreat a little, kill off the reduced vampire stack that got to the archers killing a few of them, reslow, clean up and suffer a lot of casualties. The griffins died for sure, had a bunch of ogre magi, some thunderbirds and most of the shooters left. Since it was the endfight it's a victory if you win with 1 army left, could have been done one week earlier at least (the castle didn't have full production, possibly 2 weeks)
The ground really helped, if my army is too large for him to use more than 3 stacks I guess I had a smaller army, if army size doesn't matter and he always uses 5 stacks I may have had more. Gonna start to keep late save games so I can give more specific information if it's needed. As for endfights this went ok, the gem endfight on map 2 I had larger troubles with:
112 Centaur Captains
86 Battle dwarves
83 Grand Elves
1 Silver Pegasi
26 Dendroid Guards
12 War unicorns
3 Green Dragons
Vs 76 Ghost dragons, fought on grass. Some fights really get easier since the computer splits itself up. If I had fought against a single stack I probably would have lost, but now I faced 6 stacks of 14 dragons instead. Had 42 elves left when the fight was over. If you still have that save and you face 3 stacks, try to dismiss a few units to see if he splits them up. If it's always 5(6) stacks, wait for one more week of castle creatures and that should do it. Also try standing at different spots when attacking him to see if the ground change. How close are you at defeating him?
If you want to you can send me the save at ganior@hotmail.com so I can see if anything can be done to save you from replaying the map. I'm not a good strategist and I'm mediocre at troop movement, but I fight rather well.
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guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted December 01, 2004 03:28 AM |
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Will try another attempt soon
Yes, there were those three stacks. Marzeth resided at the vampire dwelling when Crag Hack reached him, and the guy doesn't seem to want to move elsewhere. I will try your advice and attack from different directions. It's too bad Marzeth has the Shackles, or else I could exit out of battles and save time when testing for a split army.
Oh, and I forgot to mention one major setback from my previous attempts: Marzeth's love for the Blind spell. He might've used it on you also, but man it's major crap to have my orc/cyclops or crucial ogres blinded when I need them. My Crag Hack wasn't particularly blessed in the magic department, artifacts, skills, or whatever. He's got enough spell points to cast about four 15sp Anti-magic spells before he's left dry. The bad thing about this is that I cannot use Exp Slow on the enemy nor can I cast Exp Defensive spells on my now magically-protected units. And each turn that goes by means my troops will get murdered by the DK's. I suppose I'll have to play around with the terrain as you said.
I hope this works.
-guitarguy
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guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted December 01, 2004 07:45 AM |
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Oops!
Beat it, just now.
Thanks,
guitarguy
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Shenjairo
Known Hero
Simsalabim
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posted December 01, 2004 10:34 AM |
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Woo, grats  Yeah it's a lot harder without any magic school at expert. I try to get either earth or air if I have crag hack, and sometimes I end up with both but that depends on what skills I get offered. Like this time, if I had gotten air offered as 8th skill I would have taken it instead of ballistics which I got stuck with. Wisdom isn't always needed, but it did help being able to town portal around on map 3 and 4. Sometimes you just don't have any luck with skills though and there's not much you can do.
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guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted December 01, 2004 06:41 PM |
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Sounds right to me
When I said I was unable to cast my Exp spells, I was correct: I was thinking of the wrong game! I was playing a damn good Single Player whilst doing the campaigns and had all the good skills and stuff. I can't stand it when I confuse between the two and get utterly disappointed. I could only attack Marzeth from four sides, and no change of battle structure occurred. It took a lot of luck, I think. That fact alone made victory very sweet.
Crag Hack #3 is the one I never got past two years ago. I tried to break the curse last night but did poorly at it. Wasted too much time not attacking. Minor pointers are very welcome!
-guitarguy
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Shenjairo
Known Hero
Simsalabim
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posted December 02, 2004 09:59 AM |
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Forget about the ground changing if attacking from different spots for now, bad advice. Can't seem to replicate that it seems. Maybe that was from heroes 4, I thought I was sure but maybe not.
As for map 3 I first visited the two blue tents, then took the town and decided to walk south through the basilisks. Without expert slow that may suck, so not sure if it's possible. I was able to take Thant's (Tönt's  ) castle week 2 day 1 and it was practically unguarded. I waited a day to replenish spellpoints and then wanted to take him out, but it just didn't work even though he had about an equal army. He starts with 35 wraiths and 40 skeletons so it's that vs the troops you chose at the start, but in the fights I tried on day 9 he went ballistic with his animate dead spell and I couldn't really counter it since my spell power without artifacts really blows. I had to let him go and hide in a corner instead and took him out some days later when I had a few more troops (Town portaled home to restock, but otherwise 2 day journey). The second time he didn't even cast animate dead even though I cast the same spells. He fled, so I replayed the fight since I didn't want him around. He's one of the 3 main heroes the computer has and it gets a lot easier with each of them gone (Thant, Vidomina to the east, Straker around his main castle SE).
You don't need to go through the white border guard unless you really want the dragon utopia, I suggest skipping it. Turn your attention east instead and try to take as much resources etc that you can before Vidomina hogs it all. I took the knight castle, but then had to hop back to defend my south necromancer town. This map will be a lot harder for you than it was for me. Restocked after that, hopped back to the knight castle to take the castle slightly SE of that which is Vidomina's starting castle. You can't kill the computer in this map unless you have DD or Fly, and I think those spells are banned by the mapmaker so you have to find the right lich. I really don't know if it changes or not, but it's probably the lich down in the very SE corner since that's the largest stack and it was the one for me. If it isn't you may have to reload a few days and try another one, since you will have a harder time and can't afford to lose troops since Straker will probably have a better army than you and he and his dang castle with cover of darkness is in the middle of the swamp.
If you have an army strong enough to defeat the garrison to the right which has something like 45 vampire lords, 50 power liches and 10 dread knights, you can win the map. (Need enough of the army to survive so Straker won't beeline for you and to be able to defeat 70 or so power liches).
We really can't play the same way here, I still suggest you trying to take out Thant asap though. If it isn't possible not much time is lost since it will take around two weeks.
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guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted December 03, 2004 03:59 PM |
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Your prowess is needed once again
You're right; the lich stack at the extreme SE corner won that game for me. Thank you for that.
I tried my hand at the final Crag Hack mission and was startled by all the Town Portal-ing enemies and colored tents. Up front, Vokial is one mean sucker. Not to mention the time I got to the objective and was told to get rid of a hero blocked by border posts I haven't even the right of passage to. Another disadvantage is the lack of a tavern to recruit scouts in this map. I've only got C.H. and that Slash guy whose sole use is giving his troops to C.H. I pretty much can't move out of my territory without someone coming in and taking over, much more move anywhere and get attacked 4:1 by some fast-moving Necromancer. The shroud doesn't help, of course, since I often get disoriented whilst maneuvering Crag Hack.
Your expertise is needed here once again!
-guitarguy
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Shenjairo
Known Hero
Simsalabim
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posted December 03, 2004 05:41 PM |
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Up in the left corner there's some ghost dragons guarding a town portal scroll, you will need it before you leave home for more than a few days. Thankfully earth magic isn't really needed since you will only have max 2 towns and sometimes just the starting town and they are rather close to each other anyway.
Two of the tents are in the underground, one each in the underground entrances close to you, one south and one east. The last tent you saw when you went to the island to get the shield. There you really need town portal or there's a big chance an enemy hero will attack you before you get off the island again. There's no need to go here early, go just before you start the final assault. Buy out everything you have and then go back to that area. A half screen below where the shipyard was is another underground entrance which leads to the hero in the right. The computer has two major heroes, Septienna and Vokial. As I wrote early in this thread I was able to defeat Septienna after I lured her into taking the city with cursed ground in, out into the open you don't really have a chance to defeat her. Even in the cursed ground it was rather hard since she had a huge army, but she seemed to lack offense and defense and the losses were worth it. However as you noted Vokial is mean and has better skills. I may have been able to defeat him if I hadn't lost 2/3 of my army when I got Septienna (met him a lot later when I was out searching for the shield and had gotten a bigger army again and had about equal army to what I had before, which was too small).
The final fight is vs Charnath who got this:
24 24 15 14, expert tactics at least, dunno rest.
330 walking dead
250 zombies
110 wraiths
80 vampire lords
30 ghost dragons
The fight is worth about 21000 exp, which was much easier than the fight vs Septienna which gave me 38000ish exp. After that it's just to sneak back to the shield without getting caught. It's not too important to walk all over this map, I don't think I visited more than half of it. Do a mix of taking things and defending your area and try to hold the second castle for some troop increases until you have a solid army. (Enough so that the Charnath fight is rather easy)
Edit: What skills did you end up with? Doing this without logistics would be very painful, and I hope you got archery since the marksmen are important on this one.
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guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted December 04, 2004 03:38 AM |
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Crag Hack Info
Here's what I got as of Month 3, Week 2:
Crag Hack: 30a,21d,9sp,10k
Level 20
Marksmen: 299
Halberdiers: 470
Champions: 29
Royal Griffins: 210
Arch Angels: 13
Crusaders: 90
Zealots: 46
Spells used often, among others (no magic schools):
Lightning Bolt, Teleport, Shield, Stoneskin, Weakness, Disrupting Ray, Anti-Magic, Slow, Haste
Skills (all expert):
Offense, Logistics, Ballistics, Wisdom, Sorcery, Pathfinding, Leadership
Artifacts:
Ogre's Club of Havoc, Equestrian's Gloves, Dragon Scale Armor, Dragon Scale Shield, Dragon Wing Tabard, Golden Bow, Inexhaustible Cart of Lumber, Town Portal Spell Scroll, Dragonbone Greaves
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Vokial: 28a,35d,30sp,39k
Level ?
Power Liches: 170
Wraiths: 366
Bone Dragons: 18
Dread Knights: 82
Vampire Lords: 241
Ghost Dragons: 8
Spells used often:
(assorted spells), Exp Implosion, Blind, Frenzy, Town Portal, etc
Skills: ?
Artifacts: ?
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Had the past two missions been more combat-friendly, I swear Crag Hack would have leveled up to 25 by now. You can see from the above that it's in my best interest to avoid Vokial as much as possible. Which isn't always possible. All the AI's tough heroes are very mobile and undoubtedly see through the shroud. If they take over my territory while I'm heading SE, they'll usually teleport back to their southern-most Necropolis and I'll get caved in. There's a border guard (that I can't pass) blocking the surface Sub-Gate underneath the Shield island that the enemy only opens *after* I pass beyond it east. That's usually curtains for Crag Hack. I assume Vokial has exp earth magic, given the massive damage from his Implosion spells, but then again his Spell Power is considerable (Sorcery, maybe). I didn't bother typing about the other AI heroes because they're just lesser versions of Vokial that could still wipe Crag Hack off the map.
A minor annoyance that occurred early in the game was that the AI got a good hero back soon after I defeated that one in combat. I jumped Xsi during month 1, where she had only one wight and one lich. She had great spellcasting skills, but she lost fair and square. A look through the magi hut a week later revealed that the AI recruited Xsi back! I didn't even let her retreat! So then she had a full army that I'd later learn to avoid. Argh.
Assuming I've been recruiting creatures and the enemy is well away, what is your general advice on when to make my move to get Charna and take the Shield? Month?
-guitarguy
PS: I've tried this one on Hard.
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Shenjairo
Known Hero
Simsalabim
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posted December 04, 2004 04:18 AM |
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I'm slightly surprised you haven't reached 25, I do know I reached the level cap on all missions, so that doesn't help. I feel bad over your crag hack that had to pick sorcery and still has no magic school. That you are lacking armorer is probably the worst part.
I had offense, archery, earth magic, wisdom, armorer, leadership, logistics and ballistics at expert at this point so our fights are of differing difficulty.
I do think you have enough to win the map though if you can only avoid the major heroes. The green tent that you are looking for is on the island with the shield, the top part of it, so you must visit that before you go underground. You must calculate your steps carefully and try to get into the boat without him reaching you, then hope he doesn't attack you when you disembark so that next turn you can reach the tent and town portal home again (Could always try going back on the boat again since the cave is so close, but that never worked for me). After that it shouldn't be too hard getting down into the underground cave and escape his heroes, the tricky part may be getting back on the shield island again without him catching you after you have defeated the hero in the corner.
An alternative that involves a lot of luck is building your level 4 magic guild and hope you get water walk, I think I did get that but forgot to use it since I didn't think about it until afterwards. It makes it a lot easier to get to the island.
Edit: I really do hate it too when you have defeated a hero fair and square and then two days later you see them again. In one campaign it was rather amusing though, I think it was the Mutare one from AB, I was able to buy a level 31 hero just a day after I got him and he carried over to the next one so suddenly I really could fight with two heroes that were actually good instead of some weak level 12. And F those one way portals too, worst aggravation in this game!
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guitarguy
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Rockoon.
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posted December 07, 2004 07:21 AM |
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Progress report
My second go at Crag Hack #4 was a lot shorter than my last, unfortunately. A tough Vokial landed in my territory and took my Castle town. Since then, the AI's been morphing in Septiennia and other nasties with their superior armies and just made it impossible to ward them away from Crag Hack and my main Castle.
Too bad, too. Because I actually managed to get Earth magic (advanced) this time around. If only the Necropolis towns were more capturable, then I'd be able to sacrifice my northern towns and just claim victory early.
-guitarguy
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