Flame_Haze
Auto-translated
Greetings) Well, I'll continue the series of posts about this campaign, and now it's time for mission 4, where I had a blast)) Let's go through everything in order
Mission - On the Edge of Balance
In short, we have the Book of Changes, and we're going to visit Lord Erish to give it to him so that he, in turn, destroys it. We're given a month for all of this (if playing with logistics, that's more than enough, and even without logistics I don't think there will be problems). Right from the start, we're greeted by an unpleasant "bonus"
I'm like, well hello there, things were going fine, why did this have to start — but once you open the objectives, they explain it to us in plain language: "dude, your army doubts you, prove that your cause is just and your morale will return." Speaking of which, right from the start we get +1 level (because we completed the quest in the previous mission not to fight the fleet), and immediately a hut where they show us Zellgrad (where Arantir awaits us) and the approach to it where an undead army is fighting a human army. And since I wasn't in a hurry to get there, I decided to squeeze out as much as possible and somehow push through.
At the start, there's a sign saying something like "to the north is a human castle." The idea was: quickly take the town, make a cockroach hero to do stuff there, while I go see Arantir (can't send the cockroach there)
All would be fine — the garrison isn't overly strong, but -10 morale plays its part, and those IMBA CAVALIERS that can neither be berserked nor dominated, plus they have Lay Hands on them. I made several attempts and realized it was futile (despite having Dark Magic), so I moved on — let me drop by the witch and see what she has to offer?
On my way to her, a dialogue starts, and we're conditionally taught "Necromancy." Varesh is like, "well, this isn't exactly what I wanted, but still..." For a while I couldn't figure out how it works; turns out if our stack falls, and it's the hero's turn, and the corpse lies there (not blocked by some unit), then Varesh raises undead of the corresponding level and grade — though, as I understand it, only for that battle... Which looks kind of meh...
Moving on, clearing everything clearable along the way, and here comes an interesting twist — behind the garrison there's a battle between humans and undead, and here, as they say, two paths:
Along the way there were cavaliers whom we defeated more or less successfully (maybe a bit unsynchronized, but I'll attach all battles against cavaliers below)
Varesh vs Robert
Varesh vs Alexander
Varesh vs Valeria
Varesh vs Fernando
Varesh vs Iris
Varesh vs Victoria
Varesh vs Felix
Varesh vs Benedict
- Help the humans (I played this variant) — which, frankly speaking, allows completing the side quest, and the army believes in our priest again and morale normalizes, which in my understanding is cool, because after all I built my character around humans. After victory, a small stack of humans joins us. But then we won't be given control of Zellgrad, and it will remain a neutral town for the whole game...
- Help the undead — which I also did as a test. Morale doesn't return to us, the side quest about restoring the army's trust fails, an undead stack joins us, and when we come to visit Arantir, Zellgrad will be under our control, but the -10 morale stays + an extra line in the cutscene...
And that's really cool — it's nice that there are conditionally two ways to play out this scenario, but I went down the human path... Next, we go to Arantir and hand over the book so he can destroy it...
We show the book, and they tell us: wipe the dust off the cover — "Fundamentals of Necromancy for Dummies" by Markal (I laughed hard). Along the way, we met Menelag, Arantir's "friend," who swiped our little book and swapped it. Also interestingly, it turns out that in the first mission with the pirates (orcs), we weren't there just for nothing — it was part of a plan that failed to materialize...
And besides, not only the book was needed, but also the Rune of Flame, which we accordingly don't have...
If we had helped the undead, we would have been taught something like "Expert Necromancy"
During the dialogue, Arantir urgently needs to do great deeds, and we must escort him. Here we meet the first conditional stumbling block — quite tough one, Benedict — in the sense that we're still weak while he's strong. Well, a couple of attempts, I fumbled a bit, and figured out how to deal with him (replay above). And overall, looking ahead, there are 3 spots on the map from which Benedict and Victoria (like Ornella) emerge, and they seem to have Logistics + logistics specialty, which was somewhat annoying. But there's one legal cheat to take them out feet-first: you can simply stand on their spawn spot, and then even a cockroach with 5 peasants will finish them off...
Well, that's me jumping ahead. After talking with Arantir, he needs to be escorted — he walks on his own, you just need to let him get from the bottom-left corner to the right one and not let him die. Overall, not a difficult task, but if he dies before leaving, the mission is failed...
Along the map, I found a strange resource; honestly didn't understand what it was for and why... But later they'll tell us about it
Afterwards, we no longer need to babysit anyone — we just keep moving across the map. In due time, our side quest with the witch updates, and she needs the Mask of Justice to weaken Dominik, the main antagonist holed up in Ivane with the Book of Changes... That's exactly when we need 10 kg of sand + the mask... The mask is guarded by Vayshan. Before fighting him, I captured all castles, made cockroaches, and started producing priests/cavaliers. Too bad the castles aren't very logistically connected, and caravans travel quite slowly, but these are just production costs))
After capturing the castles, I went to Vayshan — a fairly strong caster. The main principle here is: the faster you kill him, the better (since at that moment I thought that to perform the ritual with the Mask, you'd need to unlock the keymaster...)
Varesh vs Vayshan
So it seems the whole map is cleared, and I already want to visit Dominik, but there stand 10000 phoenixes saying "no chance." I'm like, what do we do with this... Well, let's break through)) And thanks to the author that they're in one stack — although if they're in one stack, could've cranked it up to 50000-100000 units, why not, everyone knows how to beat them anyway. First time I fumbled a bit, then remembered the imba tactic: Domination + Raise Dead... And then, well, you win once, they write you a message that they rose from the ashes — go find another solution, especially since they give you a side quest right away...
10k phoenixes (here I was being dumb, but then it got rolling)
Well, any normal person would go complete the quest. But I'm like, oh, so I can farm! And in the end, I abused it... up to level 39)) and raised 40 on the tree, and then went and completed the quest — go do this and that: the Ring of Exile, help the mage, and grab the Orb of Light in the monastery, guarded by a neutral hero whom I killed earlier (didn't know why back then), but in the end, that's what he was guarding. Went and grabbed the orb, returned to the prophet, and in the end, he just banished him)) Wait, that was allowed?!)) Okay then, the path is open, moving on
Let me check what's what there — I haven't activated the mask; is it really harsh there? Seems not really, everything is passable even without changing your build, roughly speaking. Approaching the city, we see a cutscene: mages are like "the defense is breached, we're bailing and stole the spheres." Andrias thinks they gave chase (mission 5), and we're left face-to-face with Dominik. With such an army, taking him out wasn't a problem. Cool concept with two battles — he seems strong, but overall I didn't feel it. Probably if you play on tempo, there'd be a difference, but since you're given the opportunity to stretch it out...
Varesh vs Dominik (without mask) Battle 1
Varesh vs Dominik (without mask) Battle 2
After the battle, there's a cool cutscene — in the battle you can even see us using something like necromancy. Man, seems like a small thing, but it's awesome
During the dialogue, we tell them that the Book of Changes won't solve the problem, and Dominik sees the light — and then, boom, Elrath's Angel transforms into an Archdevil and kills Dominik, and we finish him off with Divine Vengeance....
The book is ours; we go to the witch, and here's a dialogue: "Ah, it's you" — didn't catch who they meant, but in the end, together we safely destroy it, and they tell us this isn't the end....
Summary: a cool scenario, I liked it; rich choice variety, good map, dragon set we gradually collect — in short, everything's top-notch, everything's fire, moving on...
BONUS: Don't know why, but I felt like squeezing out maximum — namely, seeing how much in-game time it takes to BUY OUT THE ENTIRE ARMY from everywhere + train 50/50 (priests/cavaliers)
Let's just say it's a useless activity, but I wanted to; in the end, it took about 23 months)) And since we're already partying, might as well use the mask too) Anyway, screenshots to the studio showing what came out... To pull this off, you need lots of money, and in the end, to break even income-wise to buy everything, it was like this...
With the mask, it's even easier) but auto-battle probably would've handled it too)) (no point posting replays, I think)
+ Noticed a funny bug: Ornella can take out Andrias and Menelag. Though I don't know how that affects the game, I didn't bother checking
Mission - On the Edge of Balance
In short, we have the Book of Changes, and we're going to visit Lord Erish to give it to him so that he, in turn, destroys it. We're given a month for all of this (if playing with logistics, that's more than enough, and even without logistics I don't think there will be problems). Right from the start, we're greeted by an unpleasant "bonus"
I'm like, well hello there, things were going fine, why did this have to start — but once you open the objectives, they explain it to us in plain language: "dude, your army doubts you, prove that your cause is just and your morale will return." Speaking of which, right from the start we get +1 level (because we completed the quest in the previous mission not to fight the fleet), and immediately a hut where they show us Zellgrad (where Arantir awaits us) and the approach to it where an undead army is fighting a human army. And since I wasn't in a hurry to get there, I decided to squeeze out as much as possible and somehow push through.
At the start, there's a sign saying something like "to the north is a human castle." The idea was: quickly take the town, make a cockroach hero to do stuff there, while I go see Arantir (can't send the cockroach there)
All would be fine — the garrison isn't overly strong, but -10 morale plays its part, and those IMBA CAVALIERS that can neither be berserked nor dominated, plus they have Lay Hands on them. I made several attempts and realized it was futile (despite having Dark Magic), so I moved on — let me drop by the witch and see what she has to offer?
On my way to her, a dialogue starts, and we're conditionally taught "Necromancy." Varesh is like, "well, this isn't exactly what I wanted, but still..." For a while I couldn't figure out how it works; turns out if our stack falls, and it's the hero's turn, and the corpse lies there (not blocked by some unit), then Varesh raises undead of the corresponding level and grade — though, as I understand it, only for that battle... Which looks kind of meh...
Moving on, clearing everything clearable along the way, and here comes an interesting twist — behind the garrison there's a battle between humans and undead, and here, as they say, two paths:
Along the way there were cavaliers whom we defeated more or less successfully (maybe a bit unsynchronized, but I'll attach all battles against cavaliers below)
Varesh vs Robert
Varesh vs Alexander
Varesh vs Valeria
Varesh vs Fernando
Varesh vs Iris
Varesh vs Victoria
Varesh vs Felix
Varesh vs Benedict
- Help the humans (I played this variant) — which, frankly speaking, allows completing the side quest, and the army believes in our priest again and morale normalizes, which in my understanding is cool, because after all I built my character around humans. After victory, a small stack of humans joins us. But then we won't be given control of Zellgrad, and it will remain a neutral town for the whole game...
- Help the undead — which I also did as a test. Morale doesn't return to us, the side quest about restoring the army's trust fails, an undead stack joins us, and when we come to visit Arantir, Zellgrad will be under our control, but the -10 morale stays + an extra line in the cutscene...
And that's really cool — it's nice that there are conditionally two ways to play out this scenario, but I went down the human path... Next, we go to Arantir and hand over the book so he can destroy it...
We show the book, and they tell us: wipe the dust off the cover — "Fundamentals of Necromancy for Dummies" by Markal (I laughed hard). Along the way, we met Menelag, Arantir's "friend," who swiped our little book and swapped it. Also interestingly, it turns out that in the first mission with the pirates (orcs), we weren't there just for nothing — it was part of a plan that failed to materialize...
And besides, not only the book was needed, but also the Rune of Flame, which we accordingly don't have...
If we had helped the undead, we would have been taught something like "Expert Necromancy"
During the dialogue, Arantir urgently needs to do great deeds, and we must escort him. Here we meet the first conditional stumbling block — quite tough one, Benedict — in the sense that we're still weak while he's strong. Well, a couple of attempts, I fumbled a bit, and figured out how to deal with him (replay above). And overall, looking ahead, there are 3 spots on the map from which Benedict and Victoria (like Ornella) emerge, and they seem to have Logistics + logistics specialty, which was somewhat annoying. But there's one legal cheat to take them out feet-first: you can simply stand on their spawn spot, and then even a cockroach with 5 peasants will finish them off...
Well, that's me jumping ahead. After talking with Arantir, he needs to be escorted — he walks on his own, you just need to let him get from the bottom-left corner to the right one and not let him die. Overall, not a difficult task, but if he dies before leaving, the mission is failed...
Along the map, I found a strange resource; honestly didn't understand what it was for and why... But later they'll tell us about it
Afterwards, we no longer need to babysit anyone — we just keep moving across the map. In due time, our side quest with the witch updates, and she needs the Mask of Justice to weaken Dominik, the main antagonist holed up in Ivane with the Book of Changes... That's exactly when we need 10 kg of sand + the mask... The mask is guarded by Vayshan. Before fighting him, I captured all castles, made cockroaches, and started producing priests/cavaliers. Too bad the castles aren't very logistically connected, and caravans travel quite slowly, but these are just production costs))
After capturing the castles, I went to Vayshan — a fairly strong caster. The main principle here is: the faster you kill him, the better (since at that moment I thought that to perform the ritual with the Mask, you'd need to unlock the keymaster...)
Varesh vs Vayshan
So it seems the whole map is cleared, and I already want to visit Dominik, but there stand 10000 phoenixes saying "no chance." I'm like, what do we do with this... Well, let's break through)) And thanks to the author that they're in one stack — although if they're in one stack, could've cranked it up to 50000-100000 units, why not, everyone knows how to beat them anyway. First time I fumbled a bit, then remembered the imba tactic: Domination + Raise Dead... And then, well, you win once, they write you a message that they rose from the ashes — go find another solution, especially since they give you a side quest right away...
10k phoenixes (here I was being dumb, but then it got rolling)
Well, any normal person would go complete the quest. But I'm like, oh, so I can farm! And in the end, I abused it... up to level 39)) and raised 40 on the tree, and then went and completed the quest — go do this and that: the Ring of Exile, help the mage, and grab the Orb of Light in the monastery, guarded by a neutral hero whom I killed earlier (didn't know why back then), but in the end, that's what he was guarding. Went and grabbed the orb, returned to the prophet, and in the end, he just banished him)) Wait, that was allowed?!)) Okay then, the path is open, moving on
Let me check what's what there — I haven't activated the mask; is it really harsh there? Seems not really, everything is passable even without changing your build, roughly speaking. Approaching the city, we see a cutscene: mages are like "the defense is breached, we're bailing and stole the spheres." Andrias thinks they gave chase (mission 5), and we're left face-to-face with Dominik. With such an army, taking him out wasn't a problem. Cool concept with two battles — he seems strong, but overall I didn't feel it. Probably if you play on tempo, there'd be a difference, but since you're given the opportunity to stretch it out...
Varesh vs Dominik (without mask) Battle 1
Varesh vs Dominik (without mask) Battle 2
After the battle, there's a cool cutscene — in the battle you can even see us using something like necromancy. Man, seems like a small thing, but it's awesome
During the dialogue, we tell them that the Book of Changes won't solve the problem, and Dominik sees the light — and then, boom, Elrath's Angel transforms into an Archdevil and kills Dominik, and we finish him off with Divine Vengeance....
The book is ours; we go to the witch, and here's a dialogue: "Ah, it's you" — didn't catch who they meant, but in the end, together we safely destroy it, and they tell us this isn't the end....
Summary: a cool scenario, I liked it; rich choice variety, good map, dragon set we gradually collect — in short, everything's top-notch, everything's fire, moving on...
BONUS: Don't know why, but I felt like squeezing out maximum — namely, seeing how much in-game time it takes to BUY OUT THE ENTIRE ARMY from everywhere + train 50/50 (priests/cavaliers)
Let's just say it's a useless activity, but I wanted to; in the end, it took about 23 months)) And since we're already partying, might as well use the mask too) Anyway, screenshots to the studio showing what came out... To pull this off, you need lots of money, and in the end, to break even income-wise to buy everything, it was like this...
With the mask, it's even easier) but auto-battle probably would've handled it too)) (no point posting replays, I think)
+ Noticed a funny bug: Ornella can take out Andrias and Menelag. Though I don't know how that affects the game, I didn't bother checking