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Right. I liked the third mission more than the other two... and I also disliked it more than the other two. Let me tell you why.
The first half is actually solid; running away from all the guards is more or less simple, except for the second one—that's just brutal. You can't even enter a single turn even with level 3 movement and green boots; he immediately squeezes you into a vice and there's NOWHERE to run.
I chased him for about 3 weeks, got tired, turned on cheats, completed all activities, and zipped into the portal. I played through the rest of the "first part" without cheats and without any particular difficulties. Chaos on Railag is just wild. I really liked the bit with the dwarf city, how the Faceless tricked Railag again. But as for the final battle with Jorgen, it made me scream, disappointed, and angry all at once. The battle itself is very simple—after all, you only have to kill 200 Faceless in 2 squads; they just crumble from a meteor strike as if they were made of clay. I put ONLY jarl golems in the corner and simply pelted those poor souls with meteor strikes—I lost only 5 golems in the end.
And then I was very surprised to find that, as it turns out, the mission is only just beginning... and only then did it hit me that I had removed movement from the old man and removed the mentor in education—since I thought the mission would be over. AND THE OLD MAN IS NOT IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE MAP. Oh, what I suffered, oh, what I suffered. Railag barely plods along, and the idiots on his payroll—a pathetic level 1—can't even protect the Castle. To top it off, there are no reinforcements... I would have put a mentor at the first castle purely out of pity, rather than by Jorgen.
Breaking through neutrals was hard, but possible. In general, the elf army near the bow and those guarding the underground city—I only broke through these two armies... after about 40 attempts probably...
But overall everything went smoothly and I liked the mission more and more. And then I stepped onto the lands of men, and that was it: darkness, nightmare, and gloom. The game surprised me with a most unpleasant surprise. Priest Pederaast didn't leave the caves—he settled in the nearest castle and respawned EVERY time he died. I suffered absolutely brutal losses from his divine vengeance, because the creature just wouldn't stay dead. BUT THE WORST PART is that after this man's death EVERY SINGLE TIME!!!! a cutscene from the caves played, which skipped 50/50, because sometimes if I skipped it, the game crashed to hell! https://imgur.com/a/ZVDCvsD
Oh, how angry I was at this Hamburg rooster. Just trash. And as a bonus—after I captured both human castles, those two guys appeared with Laslo's icon and Tiera's icon. It really made me smile that the general with Laslo's icon wanted to "die with honor," because these scumbags ALSO RESPAWNED. Ugh, I suffered with those two even more than with Priest Pederaast. https://imgur.com/a/ZVDCvsD - the 3rd screenshot is a battle that I replayed about 80-90 times, for 1.5 hours straight. I was starting to have a breakdown over it. But eventually, I managed to play perfectly... losing my entire army except for those loser black guards from Dark Messiah. Then Miv appeared, and I also activated Ruthger's appearance...
Anyway, the end of the game came for me... would have come, if I hadn't discovered the fact that if I only have a hunter in invisibility in my squad—the enemies start grouping up under my meteor strike, gathering in a bunch. I discovered this when there was absolutely nothing left of the army, not even the black losers. Somehow I cleared out all this rubbish, and then the druid and Laslo respawned again... I lost it, but I managed to defeat them. Under-Laslo started casting berserk on his warriors while my hunter was in invis, and I simply defeated the elf with 4 groups of Cuckolds using hypnosis.
Reached the hellish land. Very tired and already wanted the ending, so I just ignored the neutrals too; hope I didn't miss any interesting interactives. Didn't feel the boss—he flew off from ONE ultra-freeze for 25k damage. You can see it in the chat log on the screenshot. And that's without even collecting all the boosts for the caster. Running past Sareth is too easy, especially if you don't try to collect the scattered idiots. For interest's sake, I turned on cheats and killed Sareth—(I was shocked that 10,000 witches were not enough, had to cheat in 100k), nothing happened after his death... oh well. Rolled back the save, captured the demon castle—laughed at how they give 100 dragons. And just stomped Isabel—100 dragons are too many for such a battle. Especially when with a lucky enhanced meteor strike, 5 out of 7 units of Isabel's army fly off)) I wondered how Tiera as a spirit managed to hold back the enemy, which wasn't shown in the cutscene, and that's basically the end.
So, plot-wise, I really liked the whole campaign, although in my opinion, if Sareth had opened the hell prison—it would be like a gamma-ray burst, everything living would have died within a week or two from constant demon raids. But that's just nitpicking.
I really liked the references and jokes. I REALLY liked the models and animations of the new creatures, especially the soulless ones and dark guards, but I didn't like the scumbag knights with earth shock. There is some kind of fucking imbalance here. These are practically tier 8 creatures. I'm afraid to imagine what army this Angel lady wants to take in mission 4—it's scary to even imagine how she'll kick my ass in the future.
I really disliked the technical execution; I watched the cutscene with Priest Pederaast too many times, it burned me out completely. And even without it, for some reason the mission sometimes crashed when loading a "quick save." Just brutal.
I feel very sorry for Agrail; in one mission they made him some kind of pathetic loser—lost his love, saw the fruit of cuckoldry with Kha-Belekh, and lost his battle companion. And through all this, he seems to not care at all, didn't even bat an eyelid)))) Just drifting with the current.
