Flame_Haze
Greetings) Well, I've completed this scenario and want to share my vision, opinion, tell what and how I did it, and so on) In short, the scenario was good — I'd rate it somewhere between excellent and good, because it appealed to me less than the author's previous works, based on the overall gameplay feel... But let's go through everything in order.
In my head, this scenario clearly divides into 3 stages. Start (the underground), Mid (after the underground we go to the humans and elves), Finale (we head to the rift).
Start — people wrote above that you need to rush/tempo, but I don't know how; or rather, if really needed, I could, but basically I try to squeeze everything out of the map, take everything, destroy everyone...) but luckily finding Jorgen, passing by the Faceless guards for the most part, and meeting their leader.
You can't defeat him, don't even try))
- Logistics is a must-have in my opinion, although someone wrote that you can get through without it too, probably yes, but I'm certainly not going to test that) but there are no problems here — it's taken from witch huts where there's a Lady of the Night who has some quirks, but she gives us Log, and we take it. The only thing worth noting: don't take it on the first day (and this is possible if after the demons you don't collect the dolmen and two chests). Why? Then the Faceless guard won't move to the right position, and we won't collect everything here (and that's not right)
And right off the bat I'll mention — I noticed something like a bug: if the guard doesn't reach one tile, the day passes, your turn begins, and you go somewhere, then eventually he still attacks anyway, even though I'm not doing anything...
well, whatever, but that's probably not right... If you dig deeper, the start can be divided into roughly three zones: starting zone, after the portal, and closer to the inquisitor...
- nothing complicated, the main thing is to understand which zone the guard won't aggro on you from, and run around points where he can't reach you; after you break through the passage further (Cyclopes I think) he'll start running clockwise, which will give you the opportunity to clear up what was lying near him. But don't rush — maximize clearing tiles (down to one) after the passage before activating the script when they warn us to leave early, and that's not for nothing, because if we dawdle, a nice guy guard will come out of the portal and smack us on the head)) Right there near the portal there are boots that won't be superfluous (though I wasn't lucky enough and there was also an upgrade there, well, we pushed through)
- next zone — they let us relax a bit and run around before the bridge to clear things up, and complete a side quest that rewards obsidian giants, then enter a kind of labyrinth where we play cat and mouse, with one Faceless guard chasing us. There are plenty of places worth visiting; you can run through it pretty fast, but I collected everything)) There's an outpost where, for a certain fee, they offer us certain units (Assassins, Blood Furies, Hydras, Dark Riders). So I thought, yeah, I see resources, I'll gather them and take everyone, but nooo — after choosing one stack, they say "that's it buddy, get out of here," while I wanted to take all of them or at least most
- along the way in the labyrinth, don't forget to grab the key — not that it's super important, but still; from the labyrinth (if I understood correctly) two portals lead out, only one goes straight to the other side, and the other goes through the dwarves (where they'll give a side quest, just the keyholder for this). This quest actually I didn't complete because I lacked resources, since we spent part of them on troops, but later when surplus resources appeared, I figured I'd do it — well, such as it is: for 25k and 25 of each resource, could have been more, although I understand it's tuned more toward the starting zone before the "battle" with Jorgen...
- next we have the zone before the portal; here's another guard who won't let us pass to the needed portal, but thankfully earlier we were given the chance to take Boots Of Levitation, and there's a small lake with islands inside where you can hide. And it's a bit illogical that a Bishop stands near the portal and the Faceless guard doesn't touch him — he should've already smacked him upside the head, seeing as he's just grazing there)))
- build before the bishop
The BISHOP himself
- after this battle, the scoundrel, villain, bastard steals Ylaya from us — what a blunderer Raelag is! Only why does he need her, I have no idea..., oh well, we'll find you, and we move on. After about one and a half [months], the last altar (of Faceless sacrifices) — I didn't mention those earlier — we make a sacrifice and get bonuses. This was the last one; they gave 5 Black Dragons, except there's nowhere to put them — had to kick out the pigs((
They also give one quest to get a few more Giants; however, while we're dawdling, the guards activate and start actively running toward us. As I understand it, if you somehow stall for an extra week, skipping days probably, they'll come and slap you)) And right there is a mentor — one of two on the map)
- build after the mentor; actually it stayed the same for the whole game (looking ahead). More precisely, not quite — first attempt I took Chaos instead of Defense, but after playing around with it I realized that wouldn't work... And naturally I took Darkness. Could have also taken Mentoring, since later they'll give us a castle and a couple of guys, but that's not so important; still, I think it wouldn't hurt)
- afterwards we meet Jorgen, and after his instructions like "go, no time to wait, the hour has struck," etc., on that note we can end the first stage.
Summary: an atypical beginning for this author's scenarios, somewhat confusing at first, but it doesn't affect gameplay at all; if you tempo-rush, everything becomes easier. Without LOGISTICS in my understanding, no way, so ignoring it is definitely not wise. As the author himself noted above, Chaos makes it easier; my choice fell on Summoning, and accordingly wherever spells were offered as choices, I took: Crystal, Phantom, Hive (although all these spells will be available in the castle later, but that's beside the point). A bit tedious with lots of reloads to balance against being caught by those guards. In the battle with Jorgen, the main thing is to quickly kill the "Dark Assassins" because I think they gate different troops (or so it seemed to me), and better to have a partial Necro set, because then these guys act from the first turn; and sure, unit stats may not be wow, but the abilities of both Puppet Masters and Assassins are something else)
Moving on to MID game)
Here we already have all the conveniences for gameplay — they give us a castle and a couple of roaches too; just go win everything (though they don't say that) and complete the main objective. That's not so simple, especially in my case when I started this stage on month 4, which I understand is quite late, and I ran into a specific problem — namely, a strong Victor comes and breaks faces. And here's a twofold situation: sitting back and building up an army won't work (and if you also completed the dwarf quest, you don't even have resources for that). I tried every which way to wriggle out of it, but no matter what, he dismantles me too fast...
In our castle, mostly Chaos and Summoning — no Darkness at all... There's Berserk and Blind in the library; I thought they'd be enough, but no. So I strained my brain a bit and came up with the idea of kiting him, and for that I needed a roach — mine was Sorgal, who got lucky with 2% logistics and helped me with this task, namely distracting Victor while Raelag ran around collecting all the essentials, let's call it that...
- after leaving the underground there are two paths, conditionally: right and up. Better to go up immediately, because if we go right (through the garrison) and a few tiles closer, a script activates and Talanar aggros on us as well (maybe not 100% accurate info, but that's how I understood it)
- I really liked the quest chain with the thieves' guild — 3 tasks I believe, and overall it holds up, and we get good bonuses in the end.
- About the path upward: eventually we'll reach the underground, and there's another Dungeon castle, albeit with the ability to hire Faceless +2 big dwellings with the same Faceless and Soulless ones. At first I underestimated them, but then realized they're a must-have, and this castle also has all the Darkness magic, which is also quite important
- getting back to Victor — by the way, he looked like this; there was also Talanar there, but he didn't cause as many problems as Victor
with a bunch of meat respectively (replays will be at the end). While the roach entertained him, I cleared the underground with Raelag, built the fifth guild, and after another escape by the roach, I bought him out at the Faceless castle, and slowly led Victor to him. Thought, let me try to beat him there using Assassins... And yes, it worked, thanks to the fact that they're IMBA and have TWO INVISIBILITIES (well, check the rest in the replay)
- Also upstairs there's a side quest for 25k I think that gives a bunch of third-tier units — Black Knights; plus there's a small external dwelling (where mercenary camps are) and you can hire them there, but I didn't use them because there was nowhere to put them) (they rode around in my sacrificial pit)
- after I figured out the trick and felt the power, I realized I could go to the computer now — easy peasy, left foot, done. Well, almost everything went that way, just not on the first try; as the song says, once again, and again, many many times — namely redoing battles to achieve results without losses...(yes yes, it's possible
- per the Thieves' Guild quest, we also need to kill Rutger — also a fairly meaty guy, but knowing the tactics, no problems arose either
- also later you can turn in the Boots Of Levitation and exchange them for Ring of Speed; even in the description he says, like, "let's trade, you won't need them anyway." I looked for a catch, but the ring is cool, and combined with Raelag's specialty, very tasty indeed
- later, approaching another garrison, we'll see a cutscene where two old sages (of Humans and Elves) will hand us our asses and fight together like in the good old days: Frederick (Knight) — on Darkness, with darkness suppression, and Orin (light elf) — on Light with chaos suppression (as if I knew Chaos wouldn't be needed)
- worth adding (the author said above that they get bought out): these guys are essentially immortal, so to get rid of them you need to capture all castles; if you complete the side quest chain with the thieves' guild, they'll show you all of them on the map
- also worth noting another important factor: upon capturing the main cities of the Senior Warlords, namely Dartran - Frederick, Lailos - Kyrit, the next day helpers will come to reinforce these cities — namely Maeve and Ylthin. What you need to know about them is that they're even meatier than the main "Generals", so it's better to meet them at the castle...
- after clearing all the castles (although again, we don't actually need that), we collect the remaining bonuses, and there's a mentor before the garrison. I threw together two or three different builds, and ultimately realized that not everything is so simple, and there's an obstacle ahead that will require some head-scratching, but more on that in the final part. Looking ahead, the build remained almost the same as when I mentored the first time.
Summarizing: in this part there's a hellish meat grinder in my understanding, no matter what happens — without abusing tactics with the Faceless, I wouldn't know what to do, and without Darkness, how would you even get through this... Lots of meaty battles, and no matter how hard I tried to fight "fairly," meat vs meat (lost little, converted a lot to boost growth), it all amounts to nothing anyway... And overall, you don't need much army — no matter how much you gather, before entering demon lands they'll take everything away and give a fixed army, though at least they leave the items, and that's good. Because here they're quite sufficient; what I lacked (in my opinion) was the Staff of the Netherworld and a couple of pieces from the Sar-Isa set, so that at the mentor I could drop, say, a trinket and take something else. Forgot to mention various other items like Medals of Valor, but I only used the bird +4 to everything — not bad, but if it were pocketable, that'd be great)
Moving on to the finale.
A march of 4–5 days on average, with a very unexpected twist in my opinion, but okay, in order...
- as I said earlier, I didn't need the second mentor, and I didn't even drop logistics? Actually no — turns out it's useful here too; I'll explain why later...
- All the troops vanish into oblivion, and we get a fixed squad. Yes, almost all battles until the final played out the same: Phen summoned, defeated everyone, except one — more details on that soon. We immediately see red boots and think, why would I need those, what else could happen here, might as well go smash the red GG VP (though there's no goal, but I figure why not); but I don't take them since I have the Dragon set, and of course we abuse it, switching to what's needed when walking around (same green boots for example, etc.)
- but already at this stage we encounter an obstacle in the form of a demon who is Agrael's old "friend"...
Not a small fry, huh? No matter what, despite all the imbaness of Phen, he extinguished him in one hit, but regardless, the tactic is one (in my understanding): Wall of Swords + Fire Warriors. I tried different builds — on Light, on Attack/Defense — none of it works, none of it's right)
- after defeating this little guy, you think, what else could there be — and then an old acquaintance shows up saying he needs me. Who could it be? Correct, this guy
As much as I'd like to bend him over, he's way too imba — unless with cheats, just to break the map)) All accompanied by an atmospheric cutscene...
- and remember I mentioned logistics — because this devil will catch up to you in about 3–4 days I think, so don't get distracted; gather our army that fights the demons and keep moving. At some point I thought I needed to push the red guy back, but no — I checked the objectives, and phew, just get through. And I thought, so I'll walk to the end of the road and win? Of course not...
- and who do we meet here — beloved Isabel, who no matter how hard we tried became a demon under the influence of her sonny boy (at least that's how I understood it), and naturally tries to lure us to the dark side; for this reason (probably) Soret is also chasing us, and naturally the final battle
Again, this lady is on Chaos + Warrior, so again we take her down in a not entirely fair way, and in the end we see a cutscene where Tieru rescues us and says you must reach the place.... Which means someday there will be a continuation, am I right?)
Summary: A very interesting finale, an unexpected plot twist, and generally — please continue the story)) I want to smack Saret, but that's unreal (unfortunately). Want to clear out the demon, but they don't give us time for that. Maybe make Saret appear closer to the end of the path, appearing a day before the battle with Isabel?)) (thinking aloud) If you don't care how many days it takes, go ahead and abuse 100–500 days and that many dragons — then Isabel can be beaten on auto-battle. (Soret won't work — his stats are too close to fantasy, and even if you abuse 2000, it won't help)
Oh right, forgot to show what my Raelag looked like before the finale; the only thing missing from the screenshot is the Tome of Power — I equipped it to have Antimagic, but it didn't particularly help me, because I forgot that without Light, it only nerfs level 1–2 casting, and Izabelka hits with Shock
Overall verdict: I'd give it 4.5–4.6 for the reasons stated above. Overall, the author keeps up the standard, so to speak, and you want to play this, you want to finish it, you want to win, you want to see it through to the end. Too bad about Ylaya, possessed by Elisara — unclear why and for what reason, but most likely they'll tell us in another scenario. Thanks to the author and everyone who contributed to this creation — it was awesome, despite some rough edges)
P.s. I probably don't know the lore that well, but why is Raelag such a cool character in the campaign (overall), yet here before meeting Jorgen he's some kind of sniveler, talking about how he failed somewhere, that Arantir was killed (but they brought him back)? What should I play to grasp the flow of this storyline, because I'm a bit lost...
(if saves are needed, that's easily another 2–3 posts, write and I'll upload)