I gave it up... I don't really regret it, because Zephyr leaves later, and only humans remain. You need them to defeat a powerful demon, so it's very useful for quickly developing the city and building an army. (By the way, I advise you to only upgrade Frieda, as she will be needed in the 4th mission, while Duncan will be useless.) In the 3rd mission, you will need to defeat one hero in the final battle, but you will have to do it with Zephyr, because Wolfsten doesn't leave the dungeon. If I had the Tear, the city would have developed faster. But still, being not too picky, I fought with a mage against the gnome troops (if I had the Tear, I could have built a city of mages, accumulated a lot of troops, and added mini-artifacts, or I could have built it in the gnome city, and then the start would be very easy, and unwanted neighbors would quickly go to the afterlife).
By the way, has anyone managed to get higher than 4th place on the leaderboard in the Hall of Fame? In the 3rd game (SoD), I always came in first, but here I'm in 7th-8th place, at best 4th.