Posts from Colonization

Question for the author: did he really test the map on "Hero" difficulty? The thing is, even if you play optimally, without losing a single unit, and capture the city in the first week, you will have a maximum of 109 ((13+12)*3+7*3+13) archers, 66 ((10+12)*3) swordsmen, 32 peasants ((22*3)-(7*3+13)), taking into account that they are converted into archers, and three knights at the end of the third week. Even after destroying all the monsters in the area, the hero only reaches level 7. In your arsenal of spells, you only have "Surveillance," "Haste," "Slow," "Mines," and "Magic Bolt," which you get after defeating the griffins (which, by the way, you can't do without losses – at best, you'll lose 5 peasants).

These forces are clearly not enough to defeat the Necromancer with 250 archer skeletons, 30 ghosts, 4 Death Knights, and a hundred zombies, especially since he knows "Raise Dead" and has 70 mana points.
If the Castle could be upgraded to a Stronghold or a Castle could be built, or at least archers could be converted into ranged units, there would be some chance, but as it is, even if you manage to destroy the enemy's catapult before it breaks through the walls and cut off the infantry, the constantly resurrected ghosts and skeleton archers will wipe out your entire army.

Of course, there is an idea – not to take the Castle for two months – until you have accumulated several hundred archers and swordsmen, but this is not logical and boring.

You need to calculate each move so that you use everything available on the map before the Necromancer arrives.

Well, you definitely can't use the lair of strong creatures; 36 monks will destroy at least 50-70% of your army, so I don't think there will be much benefit from a couple of strong creatures.

I used everything else that was on the map (I didn't try to swim, though), and the losses were minimal: a couple of dozen swordsmen, a dozen peasants, and a couple of archers.

Today (or rather, yesterday evening) I found some time to try the new version of the first mission (I've been very busy lately).
In my opinion, this time you seem to have gone too far – now you can complete the mission with the "hero" with almost no losses (the save is attached); I also managed to accumulate almost as much power as last time (advanced peasants don't count; they weren't there last time – perhaps that was your intention this time, and they only helped by stepping on the corpses of ghosts and preventing them from being resurrected).
And, of course, the hero leveled up to the maximum by the time Graham arrived and became three levels stronger.

How do I complete the second mission? Where do I get the quests? I can't find them!