Flame_Haze
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen. Well, I FINALLY managed to beat mission #2 - "The Outcast's Path" and I want to share my vision of completing this scenario. In short, two feelings were fighting inside me: damn, this is BRILLIANT, and damn, I'm so SICK of it... Let's go through everything in order...
Lore-wise: our protagonist's actions, while effective, actually yielded little results — humans and elves united in an alliance against Ig-Shail, and Sigrif, despite all our efforts, is exiled to the lands of outcasts, where supposedly there's no way out, and we'll be stuck there until the end of our days...
At the start, we're greeted by a nice cutscene, and as a farewell gift, our bro Sinitar (who, oddly enough, really did play a significant role for me in the previous mission) gives us the Boots of the Swift Journey. Right off the bat regarding starting bonuses — feel free to skip the green boots, since you'll find them later anyway, so just ignore them...
From the start, we're offered two paths. One that's supposedly easier, and one that's supposedly harder (though it turned out to be exactly the opposite)
Let me start with the option that seemed easier (at least at the time)
From the start, there are a few small fights, a mini-quest to increase your army from the prophet's hut — if we bring him some clover, which happens to be right on the path before him. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: right from the start, we're asked to choose between the simple version of the game and the hard one. I chose the tougher one, so I can't tell you how it plays on normal — probably fewer stacks guarding various loot, but who knows, maybe someone who played the easy version can chime in
Well, whatever, we don't look for easy ways...
And further on, we can either go through the portal (which lets us get to the surface immediately — I did that the first time and regretted it, eventually finding it easier to restart) or take the outcast's path and go through the labyrinth
There's nothing particularly difficult there — just beating up 4 stacks of pigs (Minotaur upgrade). Just in case, here's the battle
vs 4 stacks of Minotaurs
And after that, our hero gets heavily downgraded, turning our imba into this. And on top of that, stats like a level 1 hero...
But at least it leads straight to the surface exit, bypassing the labyrinth. And it would seem — hey, that's great, right? Our main goal is to get out of here ASAP, not wander through labyrinths. Well, I paused there and decided to quickly check what happens if I choose the other path
Turns out, as it seemed to me at the moment, it was even worse... namely, same stats, but they took away even more levels
Looking at that, I thought — nah, this is nonsense, they made him even dumber. Better reload where I am near the exit and explore the labyrinth — why did the author bother making it if you can just skip it? Gotta explore it...
THE UNDERGROUND LABYRINTH
Actually, it's very well done, as much as possible in a turn-based strategy. If it seems too easy (it's actually not hard), you can skip the minimap and then have fun wandering around blind. What I liked is that, roughly speaking, we clear it in one day — specifically, movement in the labyrinth is unlimited (well, you will stop when running full distance, but whatever). And here's immediate advice: before getting "zeroed," save up as much mana as possible, because stat-wise we'll be a level 1 hero. Sure, over time we'll gain something back, but conserve it for now. This can later be abused with "Dark Ritual" — when you've spent all your mana and have some amount of knowledge, and although wells exist, they can only be used once, whereas here you can use the ritual as much as you want
Continuing — why my choice was wrong, but nevertheless... I don't know if it's a bug or a feature, but if we explore the labyrinth from the exit rather than the other way around, the level-ups we collect don't give us stats right away somehow. Why am I saying this? In the end, my Sigrif came out at about level 28 with very low stats, and I realized there was nothing for us on the surface, especially since there'd be an obstacle there that would annoy us quite a bit early on...
And if you skip the labyrinth, you'll miss a pretty interesting site quest — "Chronicles of Dominance," a story about some Dominion. Won't spoil further; let's just say an old acquaintance will meet us and conditionally help us with this matter.
Anyway, underground there are, I think, 4 such places where you need to find the lore pieces, and honestly, it's useful to remember the info because it'll come in handy.
And the underground itself ends up looking like this...
And here's the hero I ended up with when I explored the entire labyrinth from the exit. At that point, I wasn't losing hope and kept moving forward...
Agreed, a very, very powerful guy, almost level 30....(
Moving on to the next part — the surface, and this is something else... MILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF QUESTS — which are cool, but the running around got a bit tiring. I tried to complete everything, but to keep it simple, I only failed a couple. Maybe someone who played can help:
1. Where the alchemist (adept) in the human city needed three ingredients — two of them are obvious (meadery, winery), but WHERE ARE THOSE DAISIES? (southwest of the castle) — searched and searched, clicked and clicked, couldn't find them...
2. Stealing the ARTIFACT from the centaur sentinel — also couldn't figure out how to do it. Maybe because my brain was already fried. No matter how you approach, he always goes "oh you scoundrel" etc...
3. Finding "Sita" (I think) — some thief who stole a cool artifact
4. Joining the thieves' guild (probably if I had stolen the artifact from the centaur and found this "Sita," the quest would have completed.)
That's jumping ahead though. For now, let's continue from the moment we reach the surface
The surface, briefly lore-wise: nobody knows the lands of outcasts or how to escape from here. Humans, Elves, and Orcs continue to fight over this patch of land.
In a nutshell, there's a VERY COOL (almost bug-free) system here where we build reputation in each city to progress further in the story. But why work for anyone when we could just leave immediately and finish the mission? That would be simpler if it were possible...
On my first attempt, I basically found the exit right away and met our old acquaintance Dawson (the monk from the previous mission, who is anything but a monk — but that's not for this mission), who kindly explains what's what and what to do...
In short, there's a portal that will lead us out of these lands, BUT — the portal requires 4 stones (can't remember the name). Simply put, we need 4 stones, one from each faction:
- From Humans
- From Orcs
- From Elves
- From Demons (easiest to obtain in my opinion)
To get them, we need to achieve high standing with one of the sides to access their final quest. You can't be friends with everyone, since some tasks inevitably conflict with another race, forcing us to choose where to earn reputation points — with these guys or those...
Let me show a few battles from the first attempt, and what Sigrif looked like the first time...
stack Harbingers/Banshees
undead stack
And a battle where there's nothing difficult except it takes SOOOO long (like most battles up to a certain point)
kiting 200000 peasants/conscripts/landlords
Everything would be fine, all fun and games, until a certain point — when Deleb comes out and we absolutely cannot break her down with this kind of hero. Honestly, I tried many different options. There are safe zones where she won't follow you, and you can farm her a bit (if you capture the gold mine in the center with the humans' help), but at that moment none of it helped me, and I realized I needed to go a different route — namely, doing the labyrinth from the START instead of the END
A minor note: the perk = secret reward (or however it's called) in the character tree isn't worth taking because it won't give us the bonus a second time — I already had it from the previous mission. On that cheerful note, I skipped it and started over via the other path...
Without beating around the bush, let me show the protagonist you get if you take the outcast's path (from the beginning of the labyrinth)
Now THIS looks like a proper boss-slaying daddy, much nicer and more playable, if you will)
for the green key
200k peasants ver2
Now for the most interesting part — the gameplay on the surface with the more playable version of the protagonist
Long story short, I went the Human+Elf route. If I understood correctly, it's nearly impossible to max reputation with all three, but with two it's totally feasible.
Jumping ahead based on feel — reputation built fastest with the elves, then humans, then orcs.
The first town where I settled in more deeply was the human one...
Along the way I completed a couple of quests just sitting on the map — namely, taking the gold mine from the orcs, and completing the Sphinx's riddles. I'll try to go in order as much as possible...
Yeah, there are actually plenty of small quests where we simply choose one side or another while traveling the map
Most such locations have a leader you can talk to, and he'll tell his story and what he wants from you. Either way, if you have a quest involving these objects and haven't talked to them before — meeting them fresh — after the dialogue you'll be offered to attack or not; the choice is yours...
After entering the heroes' town, we walk around picking up quests everywhere they're given (and they're not given everywhere — to get more advanced quests you need higher reputation, but they'll tell us that when we approach the building)
With the humans I picked up:
Quest from the meadery owner — "go check things out, what's going on, haven't you tried my honey?"
- The meadery is close to the castle; approaching it we see trappers burning it. Nothing complicated overall — just wipe them out, then water elementals spawn, and after killing them the fire goes out and the quest completes. Just need to return to turn it in and get the reward (mostly reputation)
Right nearby, the Adept (Alchemist) has a quest to poison weapons that will slay orcs outright (which I didn't do) — the easiest-to-find ingredient I found, but the daisies, no...
Also a quest from the monk — "we ran out of booze, go to the winery and bring some"
- Again, nothing complicated — just head to the winery east-center. They'll tell us they only have so many barrels; the rest were stolen by bandits. Those bandits are Hunters located not far from the portal (the one we ultimately need to enter). We take the barrels back and deliver them to the client
Quest from the quartermaster
- "We're low on provisions, could you gather some crates and bring them to me." Also simple — if you look closely, near the farms there are crates that don't highlight as targets, but when approached they disappear and we get a corresponding message. Collect them all and deliver
Don't remember whose quest it was — "a peasant owes money, get it back"
- That peasant is near the winery, with different options: a) kill the elementals near the elf city, pay off more than my debt, keep the rest; b) or jump the guards (orcs) and be done with it (I think I did both)
Arena (every town has one)
- Since the human one was first, it was relatively tough, but oh well, I'll come back later
Ore quest
- Don't remember where I got it, but I remember needing to give the guy 200 ore. Nothing hard, but lots of running
Weapon delivery
- As far as I remember, pick up weapon crates in the elf city and bring them to the humans
Alright, grabbed all that stuff, completed the meadery quest, then went to do the Sphinx quest since in my opinion it's a must-have for effectively fighting Deleb. To reach it, you need to break through a portal — I might insert the wrong replay now (either the breakthrough to the Sphinx or to the demon fortress + other battles I didn't mention but saved)
vs Hunters (I think at the druids' request)
1200 Assassins (for the gold mine, not sure though)
When reaching the Sphinx, he says "I won't help you just like that — destroy the demon fortress, then we'll talk." We're like "okay, with great pleasure" (one of the easiest battles probably)
demon fortress
And here we get the first sphere (needed to activate the portal)
Taking advantage of Deleb being dumb and wondering whether to take the mine or not, we maximize muscle growth. Anyway, what about the Sphinx — without beating around the bush, I'll attach all the answers below...
And after answering all the questions, we get a hefty boost — exp, stats, doubled army, and most importantly (in my opinion) reducing suffering — we get the Tome of Darkness, which spawns near the destroyed demon fortress. By that point we're already fairly beefy, and Deleb doesn't target us yet, so we go grab the tome. It's good on its own (though strangely there's no skill chain — probably a map feature). Whatever. Then I realize we don't really need Chaos here — why not embrace Darkness, since the opportunity exists...
Don't remember the exact timing in my playthrough (earlier or later), but near the human city there are two trees giving +level, and I really wanted to crack them open — which I did
vs 500 Phoenixes (for the tree closer to the meadery)
vs 800 Elf Dragons (for the tree north near the peasant dwellings)
Some periodic battles before meeting Deleb:
- After the meadery, I headed down the western side, so to speak. There was a mage stack I couldn't defeat yet, but artifacts that would eventually form the Empathy set — really wanted them, but not yet available...
vs 10k Griffins
vs dwarf stack
Came back to the arena and managed to beat Irina, but Dougal still wouldn't fall
Sigrif vs Irina
50k softie dwarves
vs 5k Ents
Let me pause on this battle a bit — it's not hard, but again quite lengthy, especially since I didn't have Darkness yet (had the tome but no magic).
I wiped them out and moved on, and then — ambush! And I'm out of mana(( and didn't save after the battle. Spit on it, decided I'll redo it another time...
Battles closer to the Mentor (although I think the Mentor was guarded by 10k griffins, but whatever)
vs 2k Devils (for the Staff of the Netherworld)
vs mage stack (for the Empathy set)
And after these battles, I finally face Deleb
- A word on tactics: honestly, the first fights mattered; later you could just ignore her... Through Hunters + Pendant of Frozen Embrace + armor for spellpower. All so that on the first turn, an empowered Ring of Cold could take out the ballista — since that's one of Deleb's main assets, wiping out ~100 Hunters on turn one. Berserking her stacks is NOT recommended — the bot isn't stupid and casts Vampirism almost immediately (sometimes instantly), and goodbye berserk. Take out the ballista, then Arcane Armor + Vampirism on the Hunters and grind the enemies down. Can also summon Phen (got Phen and the shield from the mage tower — or however it's properly called, you get it)
A serious lady indeed. But to avoid dwelling on her any longer, let me dump all the fights with her that raised any questions, so we never have to revisit this. Looking ahead, I'll say this: if we don't deal with her, she maniacally marches toward our castle (yes, there will be one later). Since I didn't have Town Portal yet (guild not upgraded), and even later when I did, having captured one human town but being far away, I couldn't make it back in time — thus losing 50-60 dragons, though I wasn't using them anyway.
vs Deleb 1
vs Deleb 2
vs Deleb 3
After the first battle with Deleb, I reached the Mentor and it became clear that Chaos wasn't really needed here, so we respec into Darkness, and so on, piece by piece
Spoiling ahead: leveled to 35 running with the Robe of Enlightenment, then took those two trees I cracked earlier, and from then on ran with half the Sar-Issa set (ring + robe)
Next, after the Mentor, there's an option to go to the bottom-left corner (I think there's a dwarf there who gives 200 ore), there are dwarves and castle ruins, then heading right we meet druids who give a quest to capture mines. Further along the path there's a Dragon Utopia, across from which is a portal containing a Naga city...
Oh, we'll have meat growth — HURRAY! Though resources are quite limited, but as they say, slowly but surely we expand it...
At this stage I'll have fewer precise details and will describe approximately how it went...
A battle that caught the eye and gave stats
vs 500 Colossi/Titans
Then returned to the human city to punch Dougal in the face, whom I previously couldn't beat without losses
vs Dougal
By then we have enough reputation, and they give us the human city + Elana, with nothing recruited in the castle. So we buy up Conscripts, and presto — almost no money problems...
We also approach the leader, and he gives a quest to wipe out the orc army standing before the city. Nothing hard at this stage — auto-battle handled it easily
Next, we can take the Order of Paladins quest — initially they don't trust us much, but our argument that Sigrif has done plenty for humanity settles it
- His task: find the Tears of Asha and locate paladins on the map — I think there are 5 stacks, fighting someone. Watch carefully; after defeating whoever they were fighting, a fragment of the map reveals. There are 5 total (I think). Find the tear, hand it over — he's delighted, grants combat stats and raises reputation
If I'm not mistaken, by this point we already have enough reputation to go to the leader, and we could storm the orcs — but more on that later...
Next, I approach the elven city. Honestly, I didn't remember their quests since I unknowingly completed most of them without even taking them.
Naturally, at this stage when our hero is a real big boss, the arena was trivial
vs Wyngaal
Though their main guy refused to talk to me until I cleared all arenas — human, elf, and orc.
Anyway, I should mention another quite interesting quest chain — the Temples of Ancient Evil (pyramids, 4 of them, holding parts of the Sar-Issa set)
- The quest itself is simple enough; the only thing I didn't bother with was collecting all keys first, and only then visiting the pyramids
Can't fail to mention one imba building, in my opinion)) Yes yes, the one that increases troop growth by up to 15 percent depending on the League town's level... Thanks for that, truly imba))
Another interesting battle — or rather, long one — is for the Cloak of Death's Shadow
5k Mummies, 2k Knights
So, the last city I visited was the orc city. Plenty of quests there too, though I didn't study it in detail...
Right at the entrance there's a fence with prisoners; you can take a quest to watch the prisoners
- Here there are a couple options: either rat out the one asking for help, or free him
Before reaching the orcs, we picked up a quest on the map to find a human spy in the orc city. And it's kinda cringe watching Sigrif tell everyone "I'm from Axel..." etc. Let me stop right there — the human spy is Daughter-of-the-Sky, who also gives quests. Through the chain, you can free the prisoners by luring them out of the castle under the pretext of hunting, then slaughtering them like fools
Portal repair
- I think it's just bringing a certain amount of resources
Arena (no problem)
Sigrif-Hagesh
Sigrif - Kigan
Steal the artifact
- Didn't understand how to do it and gave up
Arrows for the centaur
- Got them from the elves at the machine recruitment building
Deliver weapon crates for squads
Cleanse the cemetery of evil spirits
- Need the Ring of the Unrepentant for this; it can be taken from a crypt not far from the portal (the one we need to exit through eventually)
Hunting guild
- Bring bear, griffin, and wolf hides (somewhat hidden but findable)
Get boat blueprints for the logistician
- Actually a whole chain: go to the shipyard in the elf city — he's not there; ask the elf leader — he says his friend, the head of the human arena, might know where he is; go to him, he tells us the location, we find him, rescue him, and receive the blueprint in return.
Quests with artifact merchants
- They'll ask you to check what happened to the shop west of the castle. We saw it earlier, but nobody was there. After receiving the quest, go there again, return to report the situation to the client. He suspects it's his competitor — we don't think twice and kill him
Also, Urok asks us to explore the ruins in the bottom-left corner of the map for an artifact. We go there, kill an undead stack, get a feather cloak, return — and in the end he says "I don't need it, keep it"
Centaur riddle quest to squeeze money and a golden horseshoe out of him
And at this point I figured it was time to wrap up and move toward the finale...
So to speak, you can still take more quests, get an additional orc hero, then Krag + castle, then Gashak + castle — it all boils down to kill, kill, etc. There's variety, but I'm summarizing broadly...
With the elves you can take a quest to destroy orc camps — there are two on the map (with buildings), etc., etc. It tired me out a bit, so I went to the humans, took the final quest, went to the elves, secured their help. Though a bug popped up: "yes, we'll help," but step one tile away and it offers to destroy the orc camps again (impossible now since movement is restricted)
Then a beautiful scene plays — in front of the orc castle appear all those we helped (we don't need them at all, but Elana gathered everyone)
Entering the city, we auto-battle this
Wipe out everyone inside without issue
Sigrif vs Tilsek
And obtaining the final portal piece, we head to it...
There we meet Ylaya, who tells us that Igg-Shail has fallen and everything is terrible (how she ended up here is a good question)
Also, if instead of charging in sword-first you backtrack a bit, you can learn the final fragment of the "Ring of Supreme Power" story
Eventually we move toward the exit — there's a demon fortress that falls to auto-battle, and the gate to Hell guarded by 8k Devils, which we likewise won't even feel
because by the end of the game Sigrif looks like this...
So, let's sum up: Did I enjoy the second scenario of this campaign? Honestly, very much so. But despite all the positives, it's exhausting. Even just limiting Deleb so I'd slap her 3-4 times and done — sometimes I wanted to delete her with cheats rather than chase her around. But those are trifles. A huge number of quests — which can't help but please, and on the other hand, can't help but exhaust. And naturally, the scourge of it all is that in mission 3 they turn us into an AMOEBA again — except now we don't have the option to boost ourselves the easy way. And that's genuinely annoying. I'll probably take a break from the campaign altogether... Yeah, obviously you don't have to play on Hero difficulty, but damn — once you start on Hero, you want to finish on Hero. Running around for a couple days, I realized… it's hard. Well, that's mission 3
And maybe before tackling it, I should try completing what I missed in this one, just for completion's sake — or maybe someone can tell me where to do what I couldn't find. Overall, very cool — incredible challenge in my opinion, teetering between awesome and insane. Good or bad — to each their own. Well, someday I WILL beat it))
p.s. Minor bug, but still: even if Sigrif dies, the mission doesn't fail...)) (hope I don't get banned for this many posts))
p.p.s. After resting for a while, I want to correct a few things about mission 2 (addendum)
- Found that thief's corpse — turns out it was near the sphinx, and all I had to do was right-click the skeleton to see it was the very corpse
- Then returning to the thieves' guild, they said to catch the elusive one (forgot his name). The gimmick is he respawns in a different place every day, and to catch him you need the Shackles of the Last Man, which we get from that guy's corpse. I caught him near the peasant huts — the key is catching him within one turn, otherwise he bolts the next turn..
- Then following the guild chain, visit the Dragon Utopia — nothing hard
- Return and pay them money upfront — all good at that point — and afterwards they grant a stat bonus to the army and some items I believe
Regarding quest chains — in this case for the humans — no matter how hard I tried, my reputation ended at 96 (including the final quest). Although I still don't understand why they wouldn't let me into the treasury with a ton of rating. My only guess is that I never got to the orcs and didn't steal the gold — I lacked rep and couldn't farm more. But if I had been farming orc reputation, how would I have achieved such high numbers elsewhere...? Ah well, that's definitely it for this mission — onward to mission 3.