Ranger – “Defense” [Campaign 5, Mission 3]

When I played the campaign about three years ago, I discovered a very interesting trick that doesn't seem to be described anywhere.
The approximate algorithm is as follows (I played a long time ago, so sorry if something is wrong:o): we take the Castle from Findan, the next day we destroy another purple Castle that appears in the vicinity, after which - attention! - we hire another hero, give him swordsmen (I have them translated as "blade ballerinas":D) and unicorns, and then we run with the hired hero along the path to the east and stand him RIGHT NEXT TO THE PORTAL EXIT. The point is that in this case, opponents with a very weak army will attack from the portal, which even an un-upgraded hero with a not-so-strong army can defeat.
In general, the second hero - the "defender" - remains on duty at the portal exit, Findan gets into the boat and lands on the opposite shore. In Sirius-Talla, we hire a third hero - the "porter" - he will bring unicorns and swordsmen to the "defender" every turn, and at the same time, using "Summon Boat," we return Findan's ship so that the enemy doesn't take it and attack the capital from the sea. Sirius-Talla is now practically invulnerable!:)
Findan easily defeats the nearest elves, after which we act according to the circumstances. While moving around the map, we don't forget to replenish our army with archers, druids, and dragons using Summon. As for what I did before - freeing prisoners or filling the garrison - I don't remember, sorry.:smile32:
P.S. I have a pirated version, version 1.0, I'm curious to know if the portal feature has been preserved in later versions.

In version 1.5, it is not. You cannot approach the portal closer than 3 steps. So, there is always a place where the computer can deploy its troops.

In general, it's a very interesting mission. I immediately upgraded the mage tower on the hero to get the "portal to the city." Then, for 5-7 turns before the next villain appears, I landed on the island and harassed the enemy, captured mines, and collected resources. In the first week, I captured the lighthouse so that I could land on the island to the right in one turn and in the port to the left in three turns. I kept doing this until I built the city and gathered 15 dragons, 100 archers, 50 treants, 80 unicorns, and 70 druids. Only then did I divide the army into two and went to conquer. As a result, the hero in the Castle lost half of his army in the first three waves.... But as soon as I got Light Magic and Mass Evasion (-70% from arrows), things started to improve. In one wave, I lost only 2-5 dragons, 2-20 unicorns, all the fairies, all the dancers, and 2-5 treants.

As a result of this tactic, I only encountered resistance in one case. When I was freeing the second hero - after some time, while I was looking for him, he was guarded by 200 titans. Therefore, I spent another 3 months gathering an army of dark dragons, green dragons, treants, and undead. The treants worked best against the titans; the rest of the stacks were destroyed in two breaths by each titan (4 stacks of 44). That's 20 green dragons, 20 dark dragons, 30 undead (level 2), 120 archers (level 2), druids (level 2), 40 liches (level 2), 105 treants (level 2). The ballista, cart, tent, and 18 treants remained alive, along with a cigar case, a suede jacket, and two tape recorders )))