Testers needed.

I tried playing the first mission on "Hero" difficulty. I lose without a chance. I replayed it several times – it's pretty much the same every time. The time limit is very strict, and given the limited resources and reduced experience gained in battles, there's nothing to rely on. The Orc has an incredibly large army. The hero's life depends heavily on the number of random resources found. This isn't ideal. Finding 8 or 10 stones on this map makes a huge difference.

Yeah)) On that map, Veteran is equal to Hero. On Hero, you need a lot of luck with battlefields and resources to succeed, but even then, it's not guaranteed. Heroes have a lot of units. It's easy to pass on Veteran.

The defense of the archer tower seemed excessive. On "Hero" difficulty, it can be captured with minimal losses, given a certain amount of luck.

It's captured normally. The point isn't the tower, but the 2 friendly squads. You should recruit them in the early 4th week. Kill the guards at the end of the 3rd week. The losses will be minimal, mostly in the Berserkers. The infantry and archers are worth it.

In this battle, all magic is closed to me; even the Inquisitors can't cast spells, but Vlad does.

I had the same problem)) On the 2nd playthrough, I revised my development strategy. It's optimal to meet Vlad outside the castle and upgrade the infantry at the mine – the army's efficiency increases dramatically. I didn't build a Stronghold or a Fort.

P.S. I looked at the thread about the campaign, and it seemed to me that it would be better to have a separate topic for each map. Otherwise, it becomes a mess – some are talking about the second map, others about the first, etc.

There are only 5 players here)) The author will figure out who is talking about what)))

Added 3 minutes ago
On the 2nd map, there's an imbalance. It was quite difficult with the Elves, and I'm having fun with the Dwarves – Vares has 2000 infantry + vampirism, Berserker, mass slow, slow, blind, and so on. The rest of the army is useless – just infantry clears the map. Luckily, I put on a ring that reduces mana consumption + I got a lot of mana when leveling up – he turned out to be a kind of semi-mage.

Added 55 seconds ago
Do the combined artifacts carry over to the next missions? Is it worth the effort to defend them?

Added 2 minutes ago

The amount of ore in all piles is fixed and totals 37.

It's not about the first mine. The first time I played, I got 5 sulfur, the second time 4 sulfur. The difference of 1 mine didn't allow me to build infantry.