AstralLein
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It would have been fine, but there's a city on the map where you can farm as many troops as you want.
Added 20 hours 21 minutes ago
So, the walkthrough has been successfully completed!
Fourth mission. It's long, and again, it's the level design. By the time you find a way to the main elven island, ages will have passed! And why there's no way to sail around the top of the map is unclear. There's a real snag there. Still, it's not that easy to notice the path along the very edge at the bottom. At the same time, I must say that I liked the look of the local dungeons. Especially the elven one. It's small, but I really liked it, it's beautiful. I would have liked to have an entire map in that style.
In this mission, we face an active AI for the first time with three cities, but the huge distances on the map make it somewhat passive. We fight the first city 1 on 1, because by the time the heroes of the other two decide to come to the sea, an eternity will pass. In general, there was only one not-so-easy battle with the elves, namely with the main stronghold of the green player. The dragonlings and archers were overwhelming me without a chance, with total superiority in initiative and speed. There are no artifacts for initiative and speed. Somehow, I lured him into attacking the city, but he only agreed to do so when I gave up almost my entire army. Cowardly elves. And there was nothing else that particularly stood out. The main boss is essentially an ordinary hero with a lot of defense, a bunch of fixed units (but the allies brought him a few squads of their own, such as upgraded ents and unicorns), and, unexpectedly, Chaos spells. He can even be killed with auto-battle. So, we defeat the elves and start collecting stats and artifacts all over the map for a very long time.
Only the archer set is valuable, and it drops from the boss. But the archer set is very strong in fire elements, and they are the main feature of the updated protagonist. Although I sometimes forgot about summoning elementals on the global map, they can be called the main striking force. But it would be worth adding that the summoning is refreshed on Mondays. And why the animation for casting, suddenly, is Plague?
Regarding the side quests. The dragon quest is too far away. By the time it's completed, the player will have already almost defeated the elves. I killed the druid barrier before getting the quest for, well, that barrier. I let the demon go. I dug up the Tear of Ash and placed it in Inferno. The location is easy to read and can be guessed even at the first obelisk, but I was let down by the scouting in the east. So, I dug it up quite late. And the elves were destroyed by one army. As soon as I left the dungeon, I fought them until the end, only replenishing the elementals.
In the end, I got a level 30 hero with a completely weak and useless Chaos, but with powerful Darkness, stats, and Fire elementals. Although he was still weaker than the previous Ignifer, the elementals compensated for that.
Fifth mission. In one of my last playthroughs, I also smashed Kha-Beleth's face... or he smashed mine... Considering the time limit and the concept of the mission, I did something very simple. I took all the troops, including the forces of the bonus demon, and went to rush the orange player. And I won from it completely. Because the very first city was built to the max, while my city was mediocre. Finding these cities is quite a challenge, though. There's a peculiarity: in the first city of the "Biara Live" fans, upgrading the pits is banned. I didn't see any logic in this. The only difficulty was the first demon, namely Marbas, with good magical defense and a lot of regular defense. Nevertheless, fresh purchases in the newly captured cities, and especially fire elementals + Darkness, allowed me to crush the orange player in just under a month and half an hour of real time. I didn't even kill a single neutral in the process. If I had logistics or at least boots, it would have gone faster, but it's good enough as it is. For the rest of the time, I cleared the map with pits, vampires, and fire elementals. I didn't clear everything. Only the part of the map that belonged to the AI. Logistics were still lacking. Then I gathered all the troops from the cities and went to beat the Overlord. And I beat him. There's nothing to say, that's how my valiant demons crushed Kha-Beleth. The difficulty of the mission is directly proportional to the hero's level. And I found the archdemon-bribegiver... after I already owned all the orange cities. Nevertheless, he still offered me to bribe them.
Conclusion. The campaign is average. The plot leads nowhere. It seems that for four missions, some tricky plan was being nurtured by the Lord, but what that plan was, only he knows. In the end, he's just a pawn and hardly really hoped to resurrect the seemingly already living primordial dragon. Urgash is sleeping in Shi'o. He is not dead. This is mentioned in the description of one of the cities of Inferno. It seems to be the capital of Kha-Beleth. And Ignifer, after everything he did... didn't end up very well. What Kha-Beleth was trying to achieve is a question for the ages. The only interesting moment in the plot, I already mentioned to the author in a private message. It is related to a careful playthrough of the second mission. Plus, the default Lord was spoiling the picture, and he appeared in every mission except the first.
The campaign has a good design. In some places, it's very good, in some places it's original, and in some places it's gray mountain spirals (the second mission is the worst in this regard). In terms of gameplay, it's not too exciting. In the first mission, you have to run around like crazy and look for reinforcements, or just suffer in vain, fighting strong neutrals with starting forces. In the second, everything is extremely boring, just go from point A to point B with a castle and without an active enemy (the purple lord who runs out doesn't count). In the third, the time limit is very questionable (it could just as well not exist), but the idea of the final boss is cool. In the fourth, the distances are too great. The fifth is the most interesting in terms of gameplay, because here you feel the power of your hero, the pace, and you actively fight. On the other hand, if the hero is like mine, the difficulty is minimal. And Kha-Beleth is weak. The player can gather a lot of troops in three months from five cities, one of which has the Tear of Ash. Even without counting the starting city, I didn't take anything from it, it wasn't even fully built. The voice acting is okay. In principle, it's quite good for everyone. I just didn't like the Lord. He's kind of quiet, and his voice is very ordinary, while the others have a demonic feel, so to speak. And the one who voiced the druid did a very good job imitating the original Russian voice of Tieru, although he wasn't voicing Tieru. Well, that's how it seemed to me.
I would also work on the balance of the neutrals. And on which of them grow in number, and which don't. Sometimes the logic is very strange.
Overall, it's not bad. But I can't give it special praise either.
7 out of 10
Added 20 hours 21 minutes ago
So, the walkthrough has been successfully completed!
Fourth mission. It's long, and again, it's the level design. By the time you find a way to the main elven island, ages will have passed! And why there's no way to sail around the top of the map is unclear. There's a real snag there. Still, it's not that easy to notice the path along the very edge at the bottom. At the same time, I must say that I liked the look of the local dungeons. Especially the elven one. It's small, but I really liked it, it's beautiful. I would have liked to have an entire map in that style.
In this mission, we face an active AI for the first time with three cities, but the huge distances on the map make it somewhat passive. We fight the first city 1 on 1, because by the time the heroes of the other two decide to come to the sea, an eternity will pass. In general, there was only one not-so-easy battle with the elves, namely with the main stronghold of the green player. The dragonlings and archers were overwhelming me without a chance, with total superiority in initiative and speed. There are no artifacts for initiative and speed. Somehow, I lured him into attacking the city, but he only agreed to do so when I gave up almost my entire army. Cowardly elves. And there was nothing else that particularly stood out. The main boss is essentially an ordinary hero with a lot of defense, a bunch of fixed units (but the allies brought him a few squads of their own, such as upgraded ents and unicorns), and, unexpectedly, Chaos spells. He can even be killed with auto-battle. So, we defeat the elves and start collecting stats and artifacts all over the map for a very long time.
Only the archer set is valuable, and it drops from the boss. But the archer set is very strong in fire elements, and they are the main feature of the updated protagonist. Although I sometimes forgot about summoning elementals on the global map, they can be called the main striking force. But it would be worth adding that the summoning is refreshed on Mondays. And why the animation for casting, suddenly, is Plague?
Regarding the side quests. The dragon quest is too far away. By the time it's completed, the player will have already almost defeated the elves. I killed the druid barrier before getting the quest for, well, that barrier. I let the demon go. I dug up the Tear of Ash and placed it in Inferno. The location is easy to read and can be guessed even at the first obelisk, but I was let down by the scouting in the east. So, I dug it up quite late. And the elves were destroyed by one army. As soon as I left the dungeon, I fought them until the end, only replenishing the elementals.
In the end, I got a level 30 hero with a completely weak and useless Chaos, but with powerful Darkness, stats, and Fire elementals. Although he was still weaker than the previous Ignifer, the elementals compensated for that.
Fifth mission. In one of my last playthroughs, I also smashed Kha-Beleth's face... or he smashed mine... Considering the time limit and the concept of the mission, I did something very simple. I took all the troops, including the forces of the bonus demon, and went to rush the orange player. And I won from it completely. Because the very first city was built to the max, while my city was mediocre. Finding these cities is quite a challenge, though. There's a peculiarity: in the first city of the "Biara Live" fans, upgrading the pits is banned. I didn't see any logic in this. The only difficulty was the first demon, namely Marbas, with good magical defense and a lot of regular defense. Nevertheless, fresh purchases in the newly captured cities, and especially fire elementals + Darkness, allowed me to crush the orange player in just under a month and half an hour of real time. I didn't even kill a single neutral in the process. If I had logistics or at least boots, it would have gone faster, but it's good enough as it is. For the rest of the time, I cleared the map with pits, vampires, and fire elementals. I didn't clear everything. Only the part of the map that belonged to the AI. Logistics were still lacking. Then I gathered all the troops from the cities and went to beat the Overlord. And I beat him. There's nothing to say, that's how my valiant demons crushed Kha-Beleth. The difficulty of the mission is directly proportional to the hero's level. And I found the archdemon-bribegiver... after I already owned all the orange cities. Nevertheless, he still offered me to bribe them.
Conclusion. The campaign is average. The plot leads nowhere. It seems that for four missions, some tricky plan was being nurtured by the Lord, but what that plan was, only he knows. In the end, he's just a pawn and hardly really hoped to resurrect the seemingly already living primordial dragon. Urgash is sleeping in Shi'o. He is not dead. This is mentioned in the description of one of the cities of Inferno. It seems to be the capital of Kha-Beleth. And Ignifer, after everything he did... didn't end up very well. What Kha-Beleth was trying to achieve is a question for the ages. The only interesting moment in the plot, I already mentioned to the author in a private message. It is related to a careful playthrough of the second mission. Plus, the default Lord was spoiling the picture, and he appeared in every mission except the first.
The campaign has a good design. In some places, it's very good, in some places it's original, and in some places it's gray mountain spirals (the second mission is the worst in this regard). In terms of gameplay, it's not too exciting. In the first mission, you have to run around like crazy and look for reinforcements, or just suffer in vain, fighting strong neutrals with starting forces. In the second, everything is extremely boring, just go from point A to point B with a castle and without an active enemy (the purple lord who runs out doesn't count). In the third, the time limit is very questionable (it could just as well not exist), but the idea of the final boss is cool. In the fourth, the distances are too great. The fifth is the most interesting in terms of gameplay, because here you feel the power of your hero, the pace, and you actively fight. On the other hand, if the hero is like mine, the difficulty is minimal. And Kha-Beleth is weak. The player can gather a lot of troops in three months from five cities, one of which has the Tear of Ash. Even without counting the starting city, I didn't take anything from it, it wasn't even fully built. The voice acting is okay. In principle, it's quite good for everyone. I just didn't like the Lord. He's kind of quiet, and his voice is very ordinary, while the others have a demonic feel, so to speak. And the one who voiced the druid did a very good job imitating the original Russian voice of Tieru, although he wasn't voicing Tieru. Well, that's how it seemed to me.
I would also work on the balance of the neutrals. And on which of them grow in number, and which don't. Sometimes the logic is very strange.
Overall, it's not bad. But I can't give it special praise either.
7 out of 10