It's surprising that there isn't a thread about this campaign. Or about most campaigns, for that matter. I spent a long time thinking about where to turn for help, other than YouTube walkthroughs, which didn't help... I somehow didn't think to check this forum.
Anyway, I've been stuck on the second mission of the campaign for a week. I've tried save-scumming and using a bunch of different strategies, and I've restarted it several times. Nothing helps. The problem is that I have three opponents, and each of them has an advantage in terms of army size (at a certain point) and has CASTLES in their cities. And Draegon also has "Armor" and higher stats than me. Not to mention the ridiculously strong dragon he has in the first turn.
So, naturally, I went looking for walkthroughs. I watched this one:
It looks like he beat it on his first try, but he had almost no guards in his Stronghold castle and no hero. He had significantly fewer troops than his opponents. I don't know what's going on. I thought it was random AI behavior, but I've tried it so many times, and they always beat me. Sometimes I kill them, but they escape, preserving their stats. And then they come back with a huge army, and I lose even when I'm sitting in my castle. I mostly lose to Draegon in the castle. I have a good army, fully upgraded, with 70-80 priestesses at most. But he also has a significantly higher troop growth rate than me, for one of his opponents. Even with goblins. Or ogres. Or gnolls, for example. In terms of T1 units. I've tried collecting the entire map, increasing my stats. And I even captured one city, but it's strategically impossible to move away from my starting town, because you can't lose it even once. Well, it was captured when I was sitting in the city I had captured.
I even arrived at the Stronghold one day earlier than the Antiquarian. But there was a hero with an army that I couldn't defeat in a siege. Right on that day. Or, I was ambushed in the open field by the main force from the Stronghold.
I don't know how to beat it. Has anyone else beaten it? Has anyone encountered this?
I'm playing on 200%, but the Antiquarian is too. The Antiquarian plays very well, at least in single-player. You can see for yourself. I'm doing everything he does, or even better. But in my case, they have 2-3 times more troops. I can't understand what's going on...
By the way, even if you put a single unit there, the situation won't change. You can see why.
Maybe this campaign was made more difficult in update 1.7? And they made the number of opponents' troops dependent on the difficulty level? Or something...
Added 2 hours 15 minutes ago
Okay... This time, when I reached the Antiquarian's town, he had almost no army. I captured it. True, he hadn't built a Capitol yet, unlike the Antiquarian's town. Well, he's at 2,000. But only 2,500 per day, when it could have been 4,500!
The orange (Stronghold, which I captured) lost. The others aren't attacking the center yet. Apparently, it's scripted so that if you beat one, the others back off.
It seems like I need to restart it many times until I finally get lucky. Isn't that a bit silly?
And I also got the SHIELD OF THE GUARDIAN in a shipwrecked town!!! And that's considering that Jeremy has much higher ATTACK stats to begin with... Nice.
Added 14 hours 48 minutes ago
No, Draegon ambushed me in the open field a little later. I had 70 priestesses. True, not in the castle.
