Quote:

---

In some cases, playing at a lower difficulty is harder than playing at a high difficulty. This is because the biggest effect of the difficulty level is the strength of neutral armies. The enemy CPU only gets slightly stronger compared to neutrals. The result is that on champion, the CPU may be unable to expand because of the neutral armies, whereas on novice/intermediate, the CPU may easily crush the neutrals, expand, and take the resources on the map. As a result, on lower difficulty, you will very soon be up against the AI armies whereas on higher difficulties, all you need to do is build up and wipe out the neutrals on the map and that's it.

Higher difficulty almost always results in a much harder first map. But later on, I think many maps are harder on lower difficulty because no neutral army can strategically really pose a problem to you.

---

Quote:

---

Lowering the difficulty is not likely to make this map easier if you didn't develop a combat hero because the AI is strong. In general, just keep outwitting the computer and you'll eventually get the troop advantage.

---

Quote:

---

For the Gathering Storm, I think these are the optimal builds (by the completion of each hero's individual campaign):

First of all:
- Don't get useless skills you don't need unless you've maxed out all the useful skills. Example: If you've gotten charm (which is useless here), then you will be more likely to ask to level up charm later on. Example: If you're Agraynel and got nobility, you will be frustrated when the mercenary guilds upgrade nobility and not a more useful skill like combat.
- Use the schools of magic, the university, and the life town's seminary to get skills so you don't need to spend level ups on them.

1. Dogwoggle - GM Combat skills (Combat, Melee, Archery, MR). Then, either Tactics and Offense (which would make him a general), or GM pathfinding/scouting/stealth. Since tactics has no effect on heroes, its sole purpose is to be used with Alita's necromancy (therefore, don't get leadership). The advantage of the pathfinding/stealth option, though is that you can finish his campaign faster, and you can use stealth to gain xp later on. Personally, I think the tactics route is slightly better for the final campaign, but it doesn't make too much of a difference because even if you are a ranger, you'll still have the chance to get some tactics skills anyways.

2. Bobh - First priority is GM life magic, so you can get the divine intervention spell. After that, it's up to you. By the last map you probably need the Hypnotize spell if you play it on Champion. But until then, you can probably have some fun with Chaos magic, which has some very good spells like mass misfortune, clouds of confusion, mass slayer, bloodfrenzy, etc. Lowest priority is death magic. I also don't find nature magic to be useful on Bohb because Agraynel has nature magic, and its too troublesome for Bohb to get to the dragon strength spell.

3. Agraynel - On the first map, make sure you get GM pathfinding from the scouting shrines. Don't get the nature magic shrines yet, because you'd probably want to turn into a ranger first to get your combat skills - and then you come back to get the nature shrines. You don't need to max out combat skills right away because on the last map there are mercenary guild buildings which can upgrade them, as well as a few libraries to upgrade nature magic. At completion of the last map, if everything goes right: GM Combat (all), GM Scouting-stealth-pathfinding, GM nature magic except summoning. If everything did not go right (such as if you maxed out combat too early and can't utilize the mercenary guilds on the last map), you can soon make it up in the last campaign. The dragon strength and mass fortune spells are useful.

4. Korzuss - Screw being a wizard. Korzuss should max (or nearly max) all of his combat skills because he goes through lots of Asylum/Might towns which upgrades his combat proficiency - making him as good as dogwoggle. Korzuss can start off leveling combat skills. After that, you'd have to chose either Order of Chaos magic. I chose chaos because it has a lot of good buffs for your army. Eventually, by the last map, Korzuss can have Chaos, Order, and Combat skills all GM.

5. Alita - First priority is GM life magic, which you should strive for by the end of the 2nd map. The spell divine intervention is important, but somehow I could only get the Guardian angel spell. Second priority is GM Necromancy (requires Expert Death Magic). Then, start getting combat skills. As you're developing combat skills, you may be faced with the problem of abandoning your Dark Priest class. The problem, of course, is that a Dark Priest is useless without melee/combat, but it's hard to develop melee/combat as a Dark Priest. I would keep the Dark Priest status and get just max out death magic. Avoiding the archery skill completely can help you remain as a dark priest. Don't get tactics, scouting, or nobility at all (even if those skills are free).

---

Quote:

---

Do you actually think that the Winds of War and Gathering Storms campaigns are easier than the original?

---

Quote:

---

I've never had that problem before.

---

Quote:

---

I think they are generally harder than the original, but shorter.

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

If I have to choose a favourite among the Wind's of War campaigns, I would say Spazz Maticus, because his name was the least retarded-sounding one and two of his scenarios where at least a bit challenging. But the rest of them where quite uninteresting, and in the last scenario you could kill everything with your super-hero as usual. Although I hope that Spazz was victorious!

---

Haha. I think Spazz Maticus is more retarded than Erutan Revol. But yep, all of the names and storylines were completely retarded:

Spazz Maticus - Spazz Mad-icus the mad witch king
Erutan Revol - the Revol-utionary eco terrorist (didn't we already have stuff like this before in the H3 bonus campaign).
Mysterio - the mysterious magician of order magic. This name is just too cliched with magic.
Mongo - movie name ripoff and ripoff of the Mongols (who were also barbarians which attached a place with a wall)
Baron Von Tarkin - Why does a sovereign of a kingdom call himself only a Baron? Of course, because it sounds cool with other German-like terms such as "Von".

In creativity, WoW was a disaster. It offered nothing new in gameplay either. When I first played the last map, I simply just soloed all the other heroes with Mysterio on Max difficulty and that was it.

---

Quote:

---

My favourite is the Price of Peace campaign. I love how it's built up; two Emilia-centered maps, then two Solymr-centered maps, then Emilia, then Solymr, then both on different quests, and at last both together at the final map. The three main characters (Emilia, Solymr and Tharj) have a great group dynamic, and the storyline is a classic. The dynamic between Solymr and Gavin Magnus is also interesting.

Map 7, "To Slay An Immortal", deserves a special mention. At the surface, you have 7 heroes, and no access to creature dwellings or towns. It's almost like an RPG party, with the different types of heroes and all the battle strategies you can use with them. Underground, you have 4 accessible towns and some external dwellings, but no taverns and only one hero (Solymr). This makes for a completely different playing style, although at this point, Solymr could surely win the underground map on his own.

Then, a little easter egg I disovered recently: at map 5, "An Unusual Betrayal", you rescue a hero named Reed, and integrate him into your army. Well, if you level him to level 15-20 (which takes some effort). The Reed from the Teal player in the last scenario is actually a carryover hero from scenario 5, and after Gavin Magnus captures him (which he will do), wait until Gavin Magnus is not in town. Capture the town and free Reed. Congratulations, you have a 4 man band consisting of Reed (lv. 15-20), Kodge (lv. 20+), Emilia (lv. 30+) and Solymr (lv. 30+). You won't need it, though. Emilia and Solymr alone should be overkill against Gavin Magnus.

---

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

My favourite is the Price of Peace campaign. I love how it's built up; two Emilia-centered maps, then two Solymr-centered maps, then Emilia, then Solymr, then both on different quests, and at last both together at the final map. The three main characters (Emilia, Solymr and Tharj) have a great group dynamic, and the storyline is a classic. The dynamic between Solymr and Gavin Magnus is also interesting.

Map 7, "To Slay An Immortal", deserves a special mention. At the surface, you have 7 heroes, and no access to creature dwellings or towns. It's almost like an RPG party, with the different types of heroes and all the battle strategies you can use with them. Underground, you have 4 accessible towns and some external dwellings, but no taverns and only one hero (Solymr). This makes for a completely different playing style, although at this point, Solymr could surely win the underground map on his own.

Then, a little easter egg I disovered recently: at map 5, "An Unusual Betrayal", you rescue a hero named Reed, and integrate him into your army. Well, if you level him to level 15-20 (which takes some effort). The Reed from the Teal player in the last scenario is actually a carryover hero from scenario 5, and after Gavin Magnus captures him (which he will do), wait until Gavin Magnus is not in town. Capture the town and free Reed. Congratulations, you have a 4 man band consisting of Reed (lv. 15-20), Kodge (lv. 20+), Emilia (lv. 30+) and Solymr (lv. 30+). You won't need it, though. Emilia and Solymr alone should be overkill against Gavin Magnus.

---

Yeah it was a good one because it was different. When I got to that map where you start with a bunch of heroes on the surface that put this campaign right up there. I think they could have been more creative with some of the other campaigns in doing things like this, but instead its usually just the same routine. Get or start with a castle, build it up, get or start with a castle build it up, ...

After doing the original campaigns a second time on champion, I had the most fun with the Elwin and Sheara campaign. On the last map I leveled up 3 other heroes to join Elwin, and by the time I reached the last battle with Lord Harke, I defeated that army with no losses. The army I had was 4 heroes, a large stack of fire elementals (and Elwin had the bow of the elf king), and two stacks of water elementals. The heores had pots of immortality also which is what probably helped me do this battle flawless.
It was funny because the storyline at the end mentioned that no-one could match up to Lord Harke, then I beat him without losing a single troop. Maybe because of this I was greatly over-prepared.

---

Quote:

---

What classes, levels and skills did your heroes have?

---

Quote:

---

Lastly, I've managed to fight (and win) the final battles of The Price of Peace, Elwin and Shaera, Glory of Days Past, The True Blade, and A Pirate's Daughter using my carryover heroes and nothing else. The final battle of Half-Dead, on the other hand, seems to be too hard for Gauldoth on his own, but I may still try.

---