The Lord is more alive than dead

I played through this scenario on Hero difficulty again. This time, I used version 1.3; previously, I had completed it on Hero using version 1.0.

Walkthrough

On the first day in the tavern, I hired Lucretia and decided to play as her. On day 12, I captured Abi-Libur without any losses and started developing Nicholas. In the third week, I also began developing Kaspar. With three heroes, two of whom have logistics, they quickly seized mines and dwellings. On day 31, Ora arrived. Nicholas broke through the orange garrison, stopped there, and Ora didn’t move because she was weaker. I leveled up Kaspar to level 20 and positioned him to block Ora instead of Nicholas. When Robin appeared, I immediately placed Lucretia with all her troops (except those taken by Kaspar) near the portal. Robin had a medium threat level but was afraid to attack and remained stationary. A situation arose where the best strategy was to skip turns. More precisely, not exactly skipping: Nicholas still won one battle per week to spend 1000 units of dark energy. Then, I redistributed the army: I left only death knights, 20 new vampires, and 220 zombies for Kaspar, and on day 87, I left only skeletons and zombies for Lucretia; this was enough to continue blocking Robin. Nicholas, with ghosts, vampires, liches, and heralds, set off for the Dungeon. I captured the first human town, killed Glen in the field, and defeated Talanar as well, all without losses. I returned home immediately because Caldwell was catching up to Nicholas. I went back into the Dungeon, captured the second human town, and Caldwell approached with a large army. He stood still, but I hid part of the army in a mine, leaving Nicholas with only vampires, heralds, and 10 ghosts; now he attacked the castle. Due to the high speed and initiative of his army, I had to think carefully. Griffons were killed by troops, archangels were disabled with a hive, and then, using Darkness, I achieved victory without losses. The second time, I killed Glen in the field without losses. Next, I headed towards the elves; the enemies had low threat levels and were afraid of Nicholas. I attacked Gilraen in the castle and won without losses. I removed logistics from the mentor and took Light instead. After that, I defeated Ilfina and Ossir in their towns without losses. Faidaen appeared with a medium threat level and attacked Nicholas in Abi-Libur. Faidaen surprised me with a new script :), but even so, the battle wasn't difficult; in the end, I resurrected everyone and won without losses. The scenario was completed in 176 days, and the final statistics showed "Battles lost: 0."

This is one of those scenarios where knowledge of the map significantly influences strategy selection (but not as much as AstralLein’s “Path of the Necromancer”). Playing it for the second time was generally easier, even with the ban on vampirism, which didn't exist in the early version. I don't know if there will be any more balance changes after my playthrough. As before, my opinion is that everything is excellently thought out and done: scripts, plot, design. Thank you very much again for the map!