Bold highlights the vital stages of this walkthrough variation
I replayed this wonderful scenario again! This time I decided to slightly change the approach to some quests and improved it for the better. Key stages of the walkthrough (on Hero difficulty, with the fixed AI):
1. Escaping the Lieutenant.
In this walkthrough I chose the path of sorcery, but the battles themselves didn't change much: we kite everyone with elementals. I couldn't kite only the shamans under Elrath's buff, but they don't guard anything important anyway. Everything that can't be kited is broken through with wolves. Despite the Lieutenant practically breathing down my neck, I not only managed to reach the camp but also broke through the stack of djinn guarding the elemental belt. This is important because killing the djinn gives us fifth-level souls. The ring also came in handy.
Upon arriving at the camp, I decided to hoard souls, so instead of making a deal with Claire I sent the Lieutenant to the Castle of the Dead. Spoiler: this is the best walkthrough option.
2. Nico's Quests
After chatting with Nico and obtaining the mummy catalyst, I craft nine mummies. By this point in progression, defense and BDP were already well-developed, but unfortunately no saves from this period remain. We unload the entire army into the garrison, split the mummies into four stacks, and run to smash everything in sight. All groups on the way to the village and the station were cleared immediately to save time. The mummies hold up under BDP, elementals are summoned and phantomized (Phantom Creation can be obtained from the Temple of Spells along the way). At this stage of progression, the main priority is to max out summoning and unlock fire warriors as quickly as possible. I also took logistics to save days. By the time we reached the station, 53 fire elementals were being summoned, so there's no point in discussing individual battles — they were all cleared in the most boring and identical fashion. In this regard, all my previous walkthroughs followed the same script.
Nico sends us to the Witch, who in turn sends us to cleanse the cemeteries. All battles are solved with mummies and fire elemental summons we smash everything in sight and collect souls. Basically, there's no need to spend them now, since from previous walkthrough experience we already know that this strategy can clear absolutely everything up to the King of the Dead.
If the ghosts killed in the Witch's quest counted toward the "Phantom Advantage" scenario by Ogo-I, I would have won it twice already: the most tedious part of the scenario, in my opinion. After winning eight identical battles with mummies and elemental summons, we return to the Witch,
Story Spoiler
receive the mirror, and run to ask Nico where to get the heart of the fire dragon. Be sure to buy both potions from the Witch after the quest, which increase all stats by 3. Then Nico sends us to the dwarves, who unfortunately will have to be killed.
To the Author
By the way, it would have been really cool to have alternative ways to complete this part of the quest. For example, bribing one of the priests or pitting them against someone else. The branch points with the Lieutenant are pleasantly surprising, and the dwarf quest is practically begging for an alternative completion method.
Also, to save time, we make full use of the portal to the camp, which allows us to clear one area, replenish movement points (they replenish to maximum in the camp), and clear the next one. The logistics skill, maxed by this point, greatly enhances this strategy. By the time we meet the dwarves, we have a level 26 hero, with learning and sorcery added to the previously mentioned skills. These were taken to later unlock the center perk, but even now mystic knowledge and volatile mana save a large amount of mana, and learning and magic attraction the bald perk are supplemented by the Tome of Power found on the map. Logistics, the stable buff, the torn flag, and the traveler's boots are enough to reach the holy spring in the south in one turn, double the mana pool, and return via the camp portal. This proves very useful later.
Unfortunately, one mummy was lost due to carelessness, so we send a mere eight mummies to face the solid dwarf army, which however poses no threat at all. The only issue was that to resurrect all mummies by the end of the battle, I had to fiddle with the turn order for a very long time, otherwise the priest hero killed mummies at the same rate we resurrected them.
I recommend turning off the hero specialization right at the start of the walkthrough to avoid unexpected losses
I'm attaching the save before the battle, the progression, artifacts, and also a screenshot of eight mummies.
After obtaining the quest item, we return to Nico, and he sends us to the elves. They aren't willing to help for nothing, so they ask us to kill a necromancer and send us to the same place as the Lieutenant — the southeast. Along the way, we encounter a large pack of devils that drain three hundred seventy mana in one go — so we abuse the camp portal, doubling mana at the spring (totaling over a thousand), and smash through all groups up to the Castle of the Dead using the same strategy of eight mummies and over a hundred summoned and later phantomized elementals. In the walkthrough, I missed the corner with the Sylanna tree, which should be put off until the very end. And lo and behold, in the Castle of the Dead we were greeted by
Story Spoiler
the cursed Lieutenant!Unfortunately, fire arrows and the ballista perfectly countered the BDP on mummies, so a strategic decision was made to return to the camp and respec for the final battle.
During the clearing, the following important artifacts were found: the Ring of Sar-Issa (spells cost half price), the Cloak of Deadly Shadow, the Greaves of the Dwarf King (bought in the shop for the Dwarf set), the Shield of the Dwarf King, and other important items. Generally, already knowing that the Staff of the Abyss would be obtained at the end, I wanted to collect the Dwarf set + half Necro set + Ring of Speed + Ring of Sar-Issa, and fill the rest with whatever. But neither the Crown of Sar-Issa nor the other Dwarf set pieces were found by the end of the game. However, the finale will show that we can manage without them.
During the process, the Phoenix Catalyst was found, which will be the key to our victory, so we break all souls below level 7 into small ones and craft 49 phoenixes
Finale impossible to describe without spoilers
3. The King of the Dead's Bane.
Unfortunately, during the process of acquiring the center perk, an unwanted attack skill was obtained, and there wasn't enough money to respec it. To the center perk, which includes learning, sorcery, and machine management, were added dark magic with mass slow, weakness darkness, and seal of darkness. The Lieutenant welcomed us warmly, gifting us a ballista thanks to the forced machine management perk, but the stack of phoenixes with crazy initiative devoured his entire army in a couple of turns. The main hero casts mass slow, and the rest is up to you. After defeating the Lieutenant, we merrily clear the Castle of the Dead — unfortunately, in this new walkthrough I forgot that the castle generously rewards us with souls and that crafting phoenixes should have been done later, but we still clear the monotonous undead hordes. The main hero casts mass slow and random buffs on the phoenix, just to not sit idly, which in this build variation cost 1 to 3 mana. I didn't feel like solving the puzzle a third time, so I quickly looked up its algorithm in the script and, after running through the mechanisms, entered inside.
In this walkthrough, I again chose to fight the King of the Dead, since this walkthrough variation yields more experience, and weakness darkness was taken specifically for him.
The King of the Dead surprisingly turned out to be a helpless wimp with small stacks of wights and dragons, which the overbuffed phoenix devoured in three of their turns. Hooray, victory! Now we'll be allowed to the Festival of Elves. We also got the Staff of the Abyss. We return to the Forest King, receive his blessing, and head to the festival. The agility contest is completed by splitting the druid stacks so that their light thorn pricks cripple the fairies. The archers peck at the oaks and horses; in short, idyll. Having Arcane Omniscience, it would have been a sin not to try blasting something from Chaos — but unfortunately, Meteor Shower, which killed five stacks in one go, somehow broke the scoring logic and only 25 points were awarded for the contest. So we reload and cripple the stacks the normal way. Since the fairies don't fight back, they should be dealt with last, but generally, 81 points and we move on to the next contest. We are asked to win while losing as few creatures as possible and are given two squads of forest sharpshooters. We finish off any enemies that survive the first turn with Chaos and get a natural 100 points for a no-loss victory. However, the hero has resurrection, which can (probably) fix any losses. The next contest requires spending the minimum number of turns to kill the opponent, trying to scare us with two stacks of oaks. But the oaks are hit with paralyzing cold, and the stacks with 220% damage finish them off. We score 281 points total (though the game somehow calculated 282 total) and win the festival with ease. Applause, and the King grants us the needed Star Silver.
4. The Battle Against the Bane.
Last time, the Bane annihilated my phoenixes with a bunch of debuffs and constant phantoms (but I got to see the "bad" ending), which is why I chose the center perk. After stacking a thousand mana and crafting 6 more phoenixes, we go to Nico and... stop: firstly, after the finale starts, the hero's clock will stop ticking; secondly, we won't need gold and resources anymore. So we sell everything, drop the attack skill and replace it with light with righteous wrath (unfortunately, not enough experience for Storm Wind), and also skip days to buy the needed artifacts in the shop. I had 53 days left, meaning I could skip an entire month, which I did. This also allows rolling the desired week for the finale; for example, I went on the Week of Sword and Magic to cast spells for free (which worked out). If you have money left, buy a tent, because thanks to expert machine management it will remove the Bane's debuffs from the phoenix.
Nico performs the ritual, and we find ourselves in our subconscious. After solving the puzzle, we go to collect various Personalities — it's best to collect all of them. Whether on the second or third playthrough, none posed any difficulty; the Patience quest was solved... with patience and brute force, the Sloth quest with persistence, and all other battles with vampirism, which is cast on the phoenix on the first turn. Then we set auto-combat and the computer finishes itself off perfectly and quickly. Having collected all personalities, we head to face the Bane. From one personality (Prudence) we get a forty-percent health bonus, which is very important, and from another, as I understood, a strong army reinforcement. Instead of eight mummies we get 31, and instead of 55 phoenixes — 73.
And unfortunately, in this walkthrough the Bane turned out to be a punching bag. This was largely helped by the battlefield being heavily covered with mushrooms, preventing the necromancer's army from all rushing the phoenix stack at once. The mummies played a decorative role, since without BDP they died from cursed ground, random enemy strikes, and gusts of wind. The phoenix acts three times per enemy turn, so first thing we start pecking at liches so they don't shoot. I could have cast evasion for 39 turns and forgotten about both the liches and skeleton archers, but I forgot about evasion itself. The Bane casts haste on the first turn, so first we cast heaven shield or any other buff on the phoenix, and then, thanks to sorcery, we overwrite the haste with mass slow. After finishing off the liches, we fly the phoenixes back to enjoy the mummies' demise. They heroically self-destructed against a stack of vampires, simultaneously debuffing them to the ground. I summoned a phoenix, but it was one-shot; meanwhile, the phoenix continued pecking vampires and enduring attacks from dragons, which killed a significant number of birds. So I placed a heal regeneration for 275% health on the phoenix, allowing them to heal faster during waiting than they died from enemy strikes. The Bane cast buffs and debuffs, which were often resisted by the combination of Armor of the Forgotten Hero and the half Dwarf set, and the main hero, using divine aid and divine vengeance, cut down the dragons. Despite the abundance of actions in battle, I had a persistent feeling that two regens would have been enough for the entire fight. After that, the main hero just pressed defense, and the opponent quickly and painlessly died.
The Curse is lifted, victory, hooray!
Bugs
- If after defeating the priest you don't enter the temple but leave the camp and re-enter, the cutscene will restart, as will the battle script, which however won't break anything.
- If you approach Courage not from the end but, for example, from the side, the game will crash, and not because of the MoveHeroRealTime function, which was replaced with SetObjectPos back at the Ivy stage due to a known bug.
- Before the battle with the Bane, you can use a hotkey to switch to Nico, who turns out to be controlling our hero, and check his backpack. Fortunately, it doesn't affect anything.
- At some point in the broken relay, the conducting element started bugging: first it said there was no fuse and the circuit was directly connected, but after the conducting element broke, it started saying there was a fuse and it could be broken. I broke it too, and the quest was completed.
. I would like to know if the author drew such nice portraits of the heroes himself, or not; the appearance of Morgan seemed familiar. I tried to complete the final using the established tactic that I used to complete the scenario, namely mummies + summoning, but it didn't work. I tried to complete it with the Death Knights, thinking that I would now "halve" the stacks, but that didn't give any results either. Thank you, Khottabych, for sharing the tactic through Light and Phoenixes, thanks to which I was able to complete the battle on the first try.
