For a week, I roamed my own territory, capturing mines and developing cities. By the way, someone gave some very sound advice here — at the start, build structures for hiring upgraded troops in only one town (the one closest to the portal). Otherwise, you'll run out of money. In the second week, I went out, wiped out the garrison, and reached the provost. I received the quest, and immediately Rowena ran into me. I managed to escape her and capture Orange; there were very few troops there. Rowena came back to retake the city, and I took her down while defending the Castle. Then I went into the Dungeon. While moving through the Dungeon, summoning creatures from elven towns becomes available in some places. This helped a lot. I cleared all the garrisons that held artifacts without any losses (thanks to resurrection) and equipped them. I took out the cities in the Dungeon; the heroes there were weak and had small armies. NO ONE attacked me first for the entire campaign. I went and traded artifacts for phoenixes. I visited home to gather an army and headed toward Nicolous. It's true that the longer you stall, the larger the enemy army becomes. Remember this axiom. The first time I wandered through the Dungeon, I didn't uncover it all, and on the way to Nicolous, I got a bit lost, which cost me a week. Eventually, I reached the castle where Vlad was stationed. Vlad stood at the gates with only one dragon. I wiped him out and began besieging the city. There was a rather impressive army in the city, but the lack of a hero took its toll, and the Stronghold hadn't even been built. In short, I conquered the castle, but not without losses. I built a Stronghold, and on the next turn, Kolya came to me. He had 5K skeletons and quite a bit of other undead. As soon as I saw his army and compared it to my own, which had thinned during the siege, I hit auto-battle and went to have a smoke, drink some tea, etc.
But! I saved before going to Kolya (generally, it's a very good habit to save before important events) and started over. In the Dungeon, I already knew where to go, and while heading to the portal, I summoned creatures from elven towns, first from the first one, then from the second. I came out to Vladislav's castle; as usual, he was standing at the gates, but I didn't bother him (and he didn't attack me either) and went to look for Kolya. Kolya ran into me near the Refugee Shelter (or something like that it was called), and the great battle began. He only had 3K skeletons, which didn't fail to please me, about 400 ghosts, and the rest was junk. The hero spent almost all his turns on resurrecting phoenixes because Kolya killed them with maniacal persistence, apparently sensing that they were his death. The very last ones I took down were the ghosts; when the enemy had no one else left, there were still 300 ghosts. That is indeed a problem.
And I had one "brilliant" plan that failed, which I want to warn you about. I thought it would be good to have more ranged units, and dryads are completely useless since the bee swarm doesn't affect undead. In short, I went to Orange and turned dryads into archers, unicorns into liches, and dragons, of course, into spectral dragons. In total, including those in Orange and other towns, I had 22 dragons instead of 12 emerald ones. Thus, among elven units, I only had archers, druids, and trees. But there is one big "but"! 1- morale drops and units constantly skip turns. 2- undead cannot be resurrected, and raising the dead was, of course, less effective, at least in Faendran's hands. Therefore, I fought Kolya three times; God loves a trinity :)
Added after 15 minutes
And one more thing, the phoenixes must survive not in a resurrected form, and it's also desirable to get the shackles so that Nicholas doesn't escape,
