The Tale of Igor's Campaign

Well, as promised, I've decided to write a full battle report. ;)
I completed this mission twice—both times in hero mode.
The first time it took 133 days. I played the map classically: put things in order at home, explored everything within the gates, learned four spells, and then set out on the campaign :smile17: .
I defeated the first enemy without losses; he didn't even have time to retreat, so I didn't save the battle log. I captured the first human city without any problems, but discovered that a third of my army had vanished—I had to replay it. I left the entire army guarding the nearest mine and stormed the city with 8 Wyverns. The assault was lossless; five of them remained after the storm—the rest vanished. Then I met a peasant, killed some demons, and got a pitchfork.
Next, I caught another enemy hero with a roughly equal army—he foolishly charged at me, but didn't even make it two steps before I summoned everything I had accumulated on the next turn and attacked him (luckily he was standing right there) :cool: .
I took the other three cities using only one Cyclops (so that he wouldn't vanish) :smile01: .
After taking the fourth city, a script triggered and three strong heroes appeared. I took the outpost without losses and the port city as well, killing the last of its defenders along the way. Then I sailed and sneaked through the dungeons back to my city, but realized the path was blocked by elementals and the main enemy. From there, I started guerrilla warfare—fortunately, my logistics were maxed out, and I could easily evade pursuit. It helped a lot that Rosenbaum gave all his troops to his partner and holed up in the city with a single unit; as a result, Botan wiped him out without even letting him make a single move. While playing guerrilla, I completed all other offered missions—the duel with Strict, the goblin's request, and destroyed the ballista; the human city changed hands periodically. Having accumulated the army needed for the final fight, I headed to battle. I defeated the elementals without losses using only Wyverns; the battle took nearly an hour. The fight with the main Red hero, Otair, was uninteresting—a "head-on" collision, as they say—and Botan's head proved stronger :smile22: .
I wasn't satisfied with the result :mad: , so I decided to replay.
This time, while traveling, Botan spent almost no time gathering loot; he even freed the circus animals, but didn't bother delivering them to the circus :rolleyes: .
After taking all the Castles, I returned to my Castle through a hole near the mercury laboratory. I hired two Orc heroes there, drove them down to the water, and they ran back and forth along the slope (it turns out you don't even need to swim—just descending to the water is enough). Each time, elementals attacked Botan and he wiped them out, gaining experience and additional movement points—I leveled him up to level 36. (I got so practiced that I could kill an elemental in three minutes without losses). And if you place Botan near the flag at that moment and visit the flag after every victory, you accumulate so many movement points that after all the battles, you'd have enough movement to cross half the map in a single day. :smile09:
In the port city, I also hired heroes who finished the quests for Botan—they challenged Harsh to a duel and returned the animals to the circus (Botan received all the bonuses anyway). But most importantly, in this city, I grew a Dark Elf pest (my favorite character) :o . By slaughtering all unnecessary human beings on the sacrificial altar, I leveled him up to 20, and this little brat, by attacking and retreating, destroyed almost the entire active Red army :eek: (Botan buried the last hero as an afterthought). But I decided to go further, and the brat attacked the main Red hero, Otair (who was guarding the gates), and as a result, Otair was left with almost no army—in one version only 398 Fallen Angels, and in another 100 Angels, a couple hundred Knights of Izlbel, and some riffraff. But, as it turned out, all this was unnecessary—the main knight in the final battle attacked Botan with his entire planned army anyway.
The mission lasted 114 days.

So, that's how it went :smile01: . If you're interested, I can post almost all the logs (from the battles with elementals to the brat's fight with the main Red hero)