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12. The Fall of Sandro:
Played through everything on 130% difficulty.
The mission is extremely simple: eliminate all enemies, including Sandro. Sandro is none other than the necromancer we leveled up in previous missions, so I didn't level his Air Magic, so he wouldn't use Dimension Door too much.
At the start, you are given 4 zero-level towns. I'll say right away – there is no point in developing "Stronghold" beyond the municipality level. I built the Capitol in Rampart. To begin, I decided to clear the entire territory of undead and capture all the mines. Thanks to the fact that all mine guards are undead, and the heroes are fairly leveled up – all mines are captured in the first week. When capturing a mine, one cast of "Destroy Undead" is often enough. Literally on the second day, I discovered ghost dragons on my land. They can be killed in the first week. To do this, I transferred Gelu's archers through the "Town Portal" to my uber hero, Crag Hack. The difference in Attack between the Barbarian and the Ranger was about 20 with roughly similar values in other skills, which determined the choice to use the Barbarian Crag Hack as the meat grinder. I moved Crag Hack through the portal to the town closest to the dragons, picked up 4 ogres along the way, and on the 3rd day I attacked the dragons, having first placed some units one per stack. The main thing here is to survive the first strike. Then we summon Earth Elementals and GG)) While the dragons are killing themselves on them, we resurrect the most important stacks. Naturally, the artifact – Angelic Alliance was on Crag Hack. The Attack was around 60 at the start of the mission... Next, we go east to the Seer, who, as a reward (on the 5th day I think) for killing the dragons, gives another very good artifact (+25% to HP and regeneration for all units, something like Vial of Dragon Blood), which can be equipped without interfering with Angelic Alliance. By the end of the first week, beginning of the second, our territory should be clear of undead and all mines should be ours. At least the most essential ones. I used only 2 heroes to defeat the enemy: Gelu and Crag Hack. I left Neela and Gem to defend the towns and collect elves from nearby buildings. I used Gelu as a troop collector, who could gather soldiers from all towns in one day and deliver them to almost any point on the map. I only hired upgraded elves into Snipers, upgraded Pegasi, and upgraded Unicorns, and after saving up resources, also green dragons. I built municipalities in all towns, so I only went on the attack in the 3rd week. The subsequent defeat of the enemy is a matter of skill. From time to time, when Sandro and company's end is near, funny messages about the Seer's artifact and how to obtain it will appear)). Earth Elementals did most of the work. Sandro has the Armor of the Damned, which doesn't affect him at all, since his main strength comes from summons. In the very first battle, I removed it by using Blind on a "living stack." :smile13: Our luck is that he doesn't have the Cloak of the Undead King in this mission.
Next, the campaign "Ghost of Life" opens, in my opinion – the most interesting campaign. I'll try to write the walkthrough by evening.
All your comments, wishes, and suggestions – send to PM.
Added after 1 hour 43 minutes
"Ghost of Life"
We start playing again as the well-known necromancer. After Sandro's defeat, he doesn't lose heart and wants to conquer the world again. .
1. Poison for the King.
In my opinion, the most interesting mission in the campaign. According to the plot, you need to capture a town within 5 months. We are given three absolutely zero-level towns and, most importantly, a level 1 Sandro!!! Oh well, we'll level him up, not our first time. The computer has one hero ~level 10, 4 towns. The path to the enemy is guarded by a blockade with a fairly strong garrison. Our garrison is much weaker((. A rush won't work because of the garrison. So we'll have to build up and gather an army. First, we build a Mage Guild, since all spells were taken away. We hire 2 more heroes. We capture the wood and ore mines literally on the first and second days, not forgetting to pick up gold and resources. In one town, I started building up to Vampire Lords, in others I built Municipality/Capitol. At the beginning of the second week, having 8 Vampire Lords, I went to clear the gem/sulfur/crystal/mercury/gold mines, simultaneously building up the towns. It is advisable to learn Wisdom/Earth Magic/Fire Magic/Attack/Intelligence/Logistics. I learned Air Magic instead of Fire, thinking I would use "Dimension Door", but apparently the spell is excluded on all campaign maps, so I was disappointed. But Chain Lightning with Sorcery and without Expert Air Magic still deals plenty of damage. However, Fire Magic will be very useful indeed. (Blind/Berserk/Inferno/Bloodlust/Fire Shield). But in the first mission, we are limited to only level 10, so we start by learning Wisdom/Earth Magic/Intelligence. You must have Advanced Wisdom at the end of the mission, because in the first mission, unlike the subsequent ones, Town Portal is NOT locked! I messed up again and simply didn't have time to get it. I needed to spend at least 2 weeks walking, when it was already the end of the 4th month. Anyway, that was a small digression. The computer seriously attacked me at the beginning of the first week of the second month, when I captured one of its towns. Its army is twice as large. 250 Griffins/140 Crusaders/40 Champions... Without Blind, to put it mildly, things will be tough. I advise being ready so that if something happens, you can immediately bring all the cripples like Zombies into the main army and strike at once. Otherwise, GG. My army with Zombies, the computer, apparently having Expert Logistics and stables, had about twice as many movement points and simply ran away. By the beginning of the second month, you need to capture at least 1 computer town, preferably the 2 central ones. Otherwise, it will be like with me. One week after the enemy hero ran away to replenish his army, he returned not with 250 Griffins, but with 550 Griffins/280 Crusaders, 120 Zealots, 500 Marksmen, 86 Champions, and ~700 Pikemen. That's about twice the size of my army, even though I was buying all available stacks, and the towns and heroes had no more than 100 Skeletons... Blind/Berserk + Intelligence decided the battle in my favor. I had 16 Power Lich left... Throughout the mission, I couldn't shake the feeling that the computer had a Colossus in its main town. After destroying the enemy's main army, you can go capture first the 2 middle towns, and then the computer's far right town. Further play after replenishing the army turns into a beating of the helpless computer. By the beginning – middle of the 3rd month, the computer should have only 1 town left. Everything else is clear)
You might ask, why not just capture the town by playing a stealth mission? I will answer – Town Portal)). After you corner the computer in 1 town – take the main hero to improve skills and learn spells – most importantly, that coveted Town Portal. By this time, the guilds should be built so that when Sandro approaches the town, a level 4 guild is available.
I played with 3 heroes. 1 for attacking (Sandro), 1 for defense, 1 for scouting + a courier for capturing freebies. For scouting, it's best to take some Lord, so they have Logistics and Navigation. In one of the missions, Navigation will be useful. I see no point in taking all heroes to every building. It only makes sense to intensively level up, besides Sandro, one other hero – for me, it was Aislinn. In the second mission, he helps quite well.
For the second secondary hero, it's enough to level them up to be able to open external dwellings and capture mines almost without losses with small armies. I'll let you in on a secret: in the last mission, all 3 of my heroes, except Sandro – leveled up and taken to all the best spots, running around and gaining experience, having wasted not one hour of my time – disappeared without a trace.
to be continued...
Played through everything on 130% difficulty.
The mission is extremely simple: eliminate all enemies, including Sandro. Sandro is none other than the necromancer we leveled up in previous missions, so I didn't level his Air Magic, so he wouldn't use Dimension Door too much.
At the start, you are given 4 zero-level towns. I'll say right away – there is no point in developing "Stronghold" beyond the municipality level. I built the Capitol in Rampart. To begin, I decided to clear the entire territory of undead and capture all the mines. Thanks to the fact that all mine guards are undead, and the heroes are fairly leveled up – all mines are captured in the first week. When capturing a mine, one cast of "Destroy Undead" is often enough. Literally on the second day, I discovered ghost dragons on my land. They can be killed in the first week. To do this, I transferred Gelu's archers through the "Town Portal" to my uber hero, Crag Hack. The difference in Attack between the Barbarian and the Ranger was about 20 with roughly similar values in other skills, which determined the choice to use the Barbarian Crag Hack as the meat grinder. I moved Crag Hack through the portal to the town closest to the dragons, picked up 4 ogres along the way, and on the 3rd day I attacked the dragons, having first placed some units one per stack. The main thing here is to survive the first strike. Then we summon Earth Elementals and GG)) While the dragons are killing themselves on them, we resurrect the most important stacks. Naturally, the artifact – Angelic Alliance was on Crag Hack. The Attack was around 60 at the start of the mission... Next, we go east to the Seer, who, as a reward (on the 5th day I think) for killing the dragons, gives another very good artifact (+25% to HP and regeneration for all units, something like Vial of Dragon Blood), which can be equipped without interfering with Angelic Alliance. By the end of the first week, beginning of the second, our territory should be clear of undead and all mines should be ours. At least the most essential ones. I used only 2 heroes to defeat the enemy: Gelu and Crag Hack. I left Neela and Gem to defend the towns and collect elves from nearby buildings. I used Gelu as a troop collector, who could gather soldiers from all towns in one day and deliver them to almost any point on the map. I only hired upgraded elves into Snipers, upgraded Pegasi, and upgraded Unicorns, and after saving up resources, also green dragons. I built municipalities in all towns, so I only went on the attack in the 3rd week. The subsequent defeat of the enemy is a matter of skill. From time to time, when Sandro and company's end is near, funny messages about the Seer's artifact and how to obtain it will appear)). Earth Elementals did most of the work. Sandro has the Armor of the Damned, which doesn't affect him at all, since his main strength comes from summons. In the very first battle, I removed it by using Blind on a "living stack." :smile13: Our luck is that he doesn't have the Cloak of the Undead King in this mission.
Next, the campaign "Ghost of Life" opens, in my opinion – the most interesting campaign. I'll try to write the walkthrough by evening.
All your comments, wishes, and suggestions – send to PM.
Added after 1 hour 43 minutes
"Ghost of Life"
We start playing again as the well-known necromancer. After Sandro's defeat, he doesn't lose heart and wants to conquer the world again. .
1. Poison for the King.
In my opinion, the most interesting mission in the campaign. According to the plot, you need to capture a town within 5 months. We are given three absolutely zero-level towns and, most importantly, a level 1 Sandro!!! Oh well, we'll level him up, not our first time. The computer has one hero ~level 10, 4 towns. The path to the enemy is guarded by a blockade with a fairly strong garrison. Our garrison is much weaker((. A rush won't work because of the garrison. So we'll have to build up and gather an army. First, we build a Mage Guild, since all spells were taken away. We hire 2 more heroes. We capture the wood and ore mines literally on the first and second days, not forgetting to pick up gold and resources. In one town, I started building up to Vampire Lords, in others I built Municipality/Capitol. At the beginning of the second week, having 8 Vampire Lords, I went to clear the gem/sulfur/crystal/mercury/gold mines, simultaneously building up the towns. It is advisable to learn Wisdom/Earth Magic/Fire Magic/Attack/Intelligence/Logistics. I learned Air Magic instead of Fire, thinking I would use "Dimension Door", but apparently the spell is excluded on all campaign maps, so I was disappointed. But Chain Lightning with Sorcery and without Expert Air Magic still deals plenty of damage. However, Fire Magic will be very useful indeed. (Blind/Berserk/Inferno/Bloodlust/Fire Shield). But in the first mission, we are limited to only level 10, so we start by learning Wisdom/Earth Magic/Intelligence. You must have Advanced Wisdom at the end of the mission, because in the first mission, unlike the subsequent ones, Town Portal is NOT locked! I messed up again and simply didn't have time to get it. I needed to spend at least 2 weeks walking, when it was already the end of the 4th month. Anyway, that was a small digression. The computer seriously attacked me at the beginning of the first week of the second month, when I captured one of its towns. Its army is twice as large. 250 Griffins/140 Crusaders/40 Champions... Without Blind, to put it mildly, things will be tough. I advise being ready so that if something happens, you can immediately bring all the cripples like Zombies into the main army and strike at once. Otherwise, GG. My army with Zombies, the computer, apparently having Expert Logistics and stables, had about twice as many movement points and simply ran away. By the beginning of the second month, you need to capture at least 1 computer town, preferably the 2 central ones. Otherwise, it will be like with me. One week after the enemy hero ran away to replenish his army, he returned not with 250 Griffins, but with 550 Griffins/280 Crusaders, 120 Zealots, 500 Marksmen, 86 Champions, and ~700 Pikemen. That's about twice the size of my army, even though I was buying all available stacks, and the towns and heroes had no more than 100 Skeletons... Blind/Berserk + Intelligence decided the battle in my favor. I had 16 Power Lich left... Throughout the mission, I couldn't shake the feeling that the computer had a Colossus in its main town. After destroying the enemy's main army, you can go capture first the 2 middle towns, and then the computer's far right town. Further play after replenishing the army turns into a beating of the helpless computer. By the beginning – middle of the 3rd month, the computer should have only 1 town left. Everything else is clear)
You might ask, why not just capture the town by playing a stealth mission? I will answer – Town Portal)). After you corner the computer in 1 town – take the main hero to improve skills and learn spells – most importantly, that coveted Town Portal. By this time, the guilds should be built so that when Sandro approaches the town, a level 4 guild is available.
I played with 3 heroes. 1 for attacking (Sandro), 1 for defense, 1 for scouting + a courier for capturing freebies. For scouting, it's best to take some Lord, so they have Logistics and Navigation. In one of the missions, Navigation will be useful. I see no point in taking all heroes to every building. It only makes sense to intensively level up, besides Sandro, one other hero – for me, it was Aislinn. In the second mission, he helps quite well.
For the second secondary hero, it's enough to level them up to be able to open external dwellings and capture mines almost without losses with small armies. I'll let you in on a secret: in the last mission, all 3 of my heroes, except Sandro – leveled up and taken to all the best spots, running around and gaining experience, having wasted not one hour of my time – disappeared without a trace.
to be continued...