Pyr0Texnic
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I finished the mission (on the second try). Here are some observations (maybe they'll be useful):
1. The main striking force is archers + druids + ents. The key magic is phantom + teleport. I didn't have much luck with resurrection – it wasn't available in the magic schools. By the way, the first time, resurrection was available, but it didn't help much. I tried not to lose any archers or druids from the very beginning until the battles with the Nikolaev gang, and to lose as few ents as possible. Ents are very effective when paired with teleport – you teleport them next to the legions of archers and they root themselves in the ground – the AI gets very upset right away:)
2. The native lands should be cleared without Faidaen's participation – in general, don't throw Faidaen into minor battles. Because when Talanaar and Dirael reach level 20, this will be very helpful. Especially Dirael – I don't know about you, but for some reason, she was the only hero who walked (and sometimes even with the archers) ahead of the enemy skeletons. Talanaar was completely helpless in these battles, despite all his true luck. In any case, the battle for the underground was won by Dirael.
3. Dragons need to be defeated. I don't know how much this affects Nick's survivability – I defeated him with phoenixes, but I'm sure it greatly affects the number (and its sudden increase) of the necromantic armies. The first time I failed, I neglected them, and on the fourth month, legionary armies were wandering around the map, and it reached the point of absurdity – Talanaar encountered Ravenna, lost, surrendered, but severely battered her troops, after which he went to chase her with Faidaen – he chased her across half the map, after which she turned around and it turned out that she had twice as many troops as she had before Talanaar. The second time, I immediately destroyed the dragons on the orange island, to the left of the portal (by the way, the Mage's Eye doesn't show them), and I was shown a cutscene with more verses, after which the plot clearly changed somehow, and the necromancers became somewhat despondent. As a result, in the final battle at the end of the sixth month, Comrade Nick attacked me with only 5K skeletons, 1K zombies, 500 vampires, and 100 dragons, and this was the strongest army on the map – fortunately, I was able to open up almost all of it.
4. The underground should be conquered from the central city, and as quickly as possible (I managed it around the beginning of the third month). When I took it, Orson was walking around the underground with 4K skeletons – so he didn't even engage Faidaen after capturing the city, although he defeated Faidaen in open battle (I checked). He went around to Dirael, who was collecting the items lost by the gnomes, and I was able to transfer the army to her with Faidaen, and she defeated Orson. Moreover, neither the terrible Nick nor his generals even bothered to go down and help. Moreover, I then started to behave very rudely – I cleared the underground slowly, leveled up the heroes, collected a collection of twilight dragons – I took the second city of the underground only in the fifth month – and there was Vladik, completely naked (although I hadn't met him before), and with exactly the army he had managed to gather – he had been sitting there for two months and hadn't even stirred. And at the end of the fourth month, I became even more brazen – I appeared on the surface with Talanaar, a weekly garrison, plus 500 zombies and 300 ghosts, and took the central city, where I found Ravenna with a small army. True, I immediately gave it back, but I took a lot of artifacts, which I distributed to the people.
5. As a result, inspired by my successes, I gathered an army of 700 archers, 300 druids, and 150 ents, and went to the surface (deciding to conquer the whole world). True, as always, I got carried away with leveling up, which Nick apparently could no longer stand – he caught up with me through the Astral Gate and gave me the final battle. In the battle, the computer, of course, cheated with the arrangement of forces – it put the skeletons and liches in one line, under the attack of the dragons (there were 30 of them). Therefore, it immediately lost all the liches and 3K skeletons. And although then, thanks to the duplicates and my idiots, the situation evened out (I even thought that the computer would win – I had ents, druids, the remnants of archers and ballista, and Nick had half of all the armies, except for the liches, and the duplicated zombies were crawling towards me with their last strength), but I was able to root the ents in the ground, and with a mirage of druids, break away from the vampires and shoot them from a distance, after which Nick decided to flee in disgrace, which, as it turned out, he shouldn't have done:) That's how the story ended:)
1. The main striking force is archers + druids + ents. The key magic is phantom + teleport. I didn't have much luck with resurrection – it wasn't available in the magic schools. By the way, the first time, resurrection was available, but it didn't help much. I tried not to lose any archers or druids from the very beginning until the battles with the Nikolaev gang, and to lose as few ents as possible. Ents are very effective when paired with teleport – you teleport them next to the legions of archers and they root themselves in the ground – the AI gets very upset right away:)
2. The native lands should be cleared without Faidaen's participation – in general, don't throw Faidaen into minor battles. Because when Talanaar and Dirael reach level 20, this will be very helpful. Especially Dirael – I don't know about you, but for some reason, she was the only hero who walked (and sometimes even with the archers) ahead of the enemy skeletons. Talanaar was completely helpless in these battles, despite all his true luck. In any case, the battle for the underground was won by Dirael.
3. Dragons need to be defeated. I don't know how much this affects Nick's survivability – I defeated him with phoenixes, but I'm sure it greatly affects the number (and its sudden increase) of the necromantic armies. The first time I failed, I neglected them, and on the fourth month, legionary armies were wandering around the map, and it reached the point of absurdity – Talanaar encountered Ravenna, lost, surrendered, but severely battered her troops, after which he went to chase her with Faidaen – he chased her across half the map, after which she turned around and it turned out that she had twice as many troops as she had before Talanaar. The second time, I immediately destroyed the dragons on the orange island, to the left of the portal (by the way, the Mage's Eye doesn't show them), and I was shown a cutscene with more verses, after which the plot clearly changed somehow, and the necromancers became somewhat despondent. As a result, in the final battle at the end of the sixth month, Comrade Nick attacked me with only 5K skeletons, 1K zombies, 500 vampires, and 100 dragons, and this was the strongest army on the map – fortunately, I was able to open up almost all of it.
4. The underground should be conquered from the central city, and as quickly as possible (I managed it around the beginning of the third month). When I took it, Orson was walking around the underground with 4K skeletons – so he didn't even engage Faidaen after capturing the city, although he defeated Faidaen in open battle (I checked). He went around to Dirael, who was collecting the items lost by the gnomes, and I was able to transfer the army to her with Faidaen, and she defeated Orson. Moreover, neither the terrible Nick nor his generals even bothered to go down and help. Moreover, I then started to behave very rudely – I cleared the underground slowly, leveled up the heroes, collected a collection of twilight dragons – I took the second city of the underground only in the fifth month – and there was Vladik, completely naked (although I hadn't met him before), and with exactly the army he had managed to gather – he had been sitting there for two months and hadn't even stirred. And at the end of the fourth month, I became even more brazen – I appeared on the surface with Talanaar, a weekly garrison, plus 500 zombies and 300 ghosts, and took the central city, where I found Ravenna with a small army. True, I immediately gave it back, but I took a lot of artifacts, which I distributed to the people.
5. As a result, inspired by my successes, I gathered an army of 700 archers, 300 druids, and 150 ents, and went to the surface (deciding to conquer the whole world). True, as always, I got carried away with leveling up, which Nick apparently could no longer stand – he caught up with me through the Astral Gate and gave me the final battle. In the battle, the computer, of course, cheated with the arrangement of forces – it put the skeletons and liches in one line, under the attack of the dragons (there were 30 of them). Therefore, it immediately lost all the liches and 3K skeletons. And although then, thanks to the duplicates and my idiots, the situation evened out (I even thought that the computer would win – I had ents, druids, the remnants of archers and ballista, and Nick had half of all the armies, except for the liches, and the duplicated zombies were crawling towards me with their last strength), but I was able to root the ents in the ground, and with a mirage of druids, break away from the vampires and shoot them from a distance, after which Nick decided to flee in disgrace, which, as it turned out, he shouldn't have done:) That's how the story ended:)