Posts from Walkthrough of HoMM3: SoD Campaigns Auto-translated

New Beginning (New Beginning)
1) Clearing the Border
Size: M, two-level.
Conditions: defeat all enemies, do not lose hero Jem.
Jem starts in the south of the map. The player controls 2 castles; there are also castles to the northeast and north of your starting position (Rampart). The opponent will have 2 Necropolises located in the northeast and northwest corners of the map, and they will capture another 2 Necropolises. Somewhere in the central part of the map, roughly on one line, there will be two castles: a Rampart and a Necropolis; you can get from one to the other via a tunnel (this tunnel contains a portal that leads to a separate area where you can level up your hero, but it is guarded by 7th-level beasts). Near the Rampart (down from the center of the map) there is a Dungeon with a green keymaster's tent, and in the south of the map is a portal through which you can reach an enemy castle in the northwest corner, but only if the enemy visits the red tent and opens the passage to their portal, so don't worry too much about it. It only makes sense to use this portal toward the end of the mission. The starting Necropolises are also connected by portals. In principle, the mission is not difficult and straightforward; fight to your heart's content and be sure to train Jem in earth magic, as she alone will carry over to the next scenario.
2) After the Amulet
Size: M, two-level.
Conditions: find the undertaker's amulet, do not lose heroes Jem and Clancy.
The game begins near the town of Cliftree. Jem is well-trained in magic, but you can't rely much on Clancy. Heading north along the road, you will find a Rampart; capturing it will not be a problem for you. In the south, in a Dungeon, you will find a red keymaster's tent, which must be visited. To the east of the starting town, the road is blocked by 14 vampires, and slightly further north are 8 black knights. Breaking through them to another part of the map, you will discover two human castles, with the upper one having a fort. North of it is an anti-magic garrison; the garrison's guard consists of: 40 skeletons, 24 dead, 12 vampires, 4 bone dragons, 6 black knights, 14 guardians, and 10 liches. Beyond this garrison, you will encounter another human castle and a garrison. This garrison, like the one west of the central human castle, will have the following guard: 60 skeletons, 18 vampires, 10 black knights, 12 liches, 6 bone dragons, 30 guardians, 34 dead. Beyond the garrisons are 2 Necropolises; the lower one has a same-way portal exit, and the upper one has a passage underground where there is a gold mine. The one-way portal leads from the Necropolis in the northwest corner of the map (a hero with an army can be placed on the portal trigger tile to cut off all enemy heroes as they approach). You can get there by going underground from the central human castle. When you are finished with the red player, go north from the last Necropolis through the red border guard, then west. Passing a well, you will hit a trap. 40 bone dragons and 20 ghost dragons will attack you. Further down, you will find an artifact guarded by 76 ghost dragons. If you have leveled up the first hero well, it makes sense to level up Clancy on these dragons. By the way, earth magic wouldn't hurt him either.
3) Return the Robe
Size: M, two-level
Conditions: bring the vampire's robe to the town of Hall of Leaves, do not lose heroes Jem and Clancy.
This scenario is more interesting than the others. You have one city and two heroes; clearly, you will develop this city first. Look around. To the north is a mage's hut; visiting it will reveal your objective. To the west, a path leads away, winding through a Dungeon and emerging at the town of Hall of Leaves. Near this town, you will find a scroll with the "Town Portal" spell—now, you REALLY need this! Try to get it as soon as possible. You will also find a portal there leading to the dragon cliffs. It makes sense to capture them and obtain additional dragons; they will be useful. To the east, you will find another Rampart, but it is very underdeveloped; you likely won't have enough money to develop it. Along the northeast road from the starting town are necessary mines; this way you can reach that same third Rampart. Now let's talk about your starting castle and the difficulties of its location. Slightly further south is a one-way portal, from which enemy heroes will occasionally jump out and attack your castle, so it's unlikely you'll be able to lead a large army away from the starting castle. But as soon as you get "Town Portal," you can travel wherever you want. Two roads lead south from the starting castle, codenamed "left" and "right." Taking either of them will lead you to the red player's starting castles. The enemy has 4 castles in total, but you are not obligated to capture them. The same one-way portal is on the "left" road. But to complete the mission, you must take the "right" one. Fight through the garrison and reach a Necropolis (you will find another castle to the north, but you don't need it), which you can either capture or simply ignore. Follow the road south and west; you will see a passage to the underworld. That's where we need to go. To free Terrek, you will have to pay 40,000 gold; the Barbarian will have the item you seek. You can take the artifact and teleport to the Hall of Leaves, after which the scenario ends, or you can fight some more, leveling your heroes up to the maximum—level 20.
4) Quest for the Boots (hello, BotINKi!)
Size: L, single-level
Conditions: bring the dead man's boots to the starting town, do not lose heroes Jem and Clancy.
Now this scenario is truly interesting. The map is large, but there isn't much open space on it. So, you have a starting city and two heroes. To the east, you will find mines and a seer who requires you to bring 25 ghost dragons in exchange for the holy sandals; this task must be completed. Visit the blue keymaster's tent, assemble a more or less decent army, and break through the garrison, then capture the pink player. This won't take much effort; the opponent is weak. From the former pink Necropolis, go west and capture the first Rampart, then north and take another Rampart. Nearby, you will find a scroll with "Town Portal" guarded by ghost dragons, and a green keymaster. At the same time, quickly build up the Necropolis to ghost dragons and start working on one of the new Ramparts. Assemble (again!) a somewhat decent army and head almost across the entire map south through the orange garrison, then capture the orange castle. Now, only the red player remains. But that doesn't mean the battles with him will be easy. He can be defeated on low difficulty levels, but on higher ones, it is problematic. The red player is well-leveled; his heroes know "Explosion" and "Town Portal," but for some reason, he is in no hurry to attack us and lingers by his castle. Continuing the conversation: we have a blue tent, and we need to find a dark blue one, a red one, and the holy sandals (25 ghost dragons). Build up the orange city to ghost dragons (if it wasn't already) and go to the center of the map to the university. Here we have 2 options. Go west to the red castle (it is in the center of a black circle :); if your troops are strong enough, the enemy will lock himself in his town and won't attack. Slightly north of his Necropolis, you will find the red keymaster. Return to the university (after replenishing your army) and go east. The dark blue tent will be south of the red Necropolis. Collect 25 ghost dragons, exchange them for the holy sandals (in the north), and teleport to the former orange city. Go east, where you'll find a portal and appear in the southwest corner; take the boots, at which point an army will attack: 70 powerful liches, 60 death knights, 60 vampire lords, 25 ghost dragons. But is that even a guard! In the second mission, there were 76 ghost dragons. Take the artifact, teleport to the starting town, and celebrate victory.
Result: Jem decided to become a druid; Sandro disappeared with the artifacts. Everyone is happy.
I will finish writing the walkthrough for the other campaigns soon.

Elixir of Life (Elixir of Life)
In my opinion, the easiest campaign of all.
1) Graduation from the Academy
Size: S, two-level
Conditions: defeat all enemies, Jelu must survive; Jelu and his two henchmen will carry over to the next scenario.
After Armageddon's Blade, we have the rare pleasure of playing on the smallest map. The player begins the adventure in the northeast corner of the map. Take your henchmen and head south along the road, then west, where you capture a castle. Start building it up, recruit elves, train them into snipers, and capture the nearest mines. To the south will be a Barbarian stronghold, which Jelu can easily capture in the first week. The stronghold can be left as a source of income while you continue to develop your Rampart. Accumulate troops and head west; there you will find Necromancers (in the bottom left corner of the map). Capturing the Necropolis won't be much trouble, as the player hasn't had time to build up yet. Then go underground and capture the Dungeon. Most importantly, build all the mage guilds and try to maximize the level of all three heroes; this will come in handy.
2) Thugs
Size: M, single-level
Conditions: obtain the ring of vitality artifact, Jelu must survive; Jelu and his two henchmen will carry over to the next scenario.
You start in the upper left corner of the map. You have 2 options for completion. 1: fast. Assemble a more or less normal army for Jelu, visit the purple keymaster's tent, and go south to the first enemy town, DaggerCourt; from there, turn west and find the blue keymaster's tent. It is guarded by 100 centaur captains, but their number may increase by the time you arrive. Then proceed east to the mountains, staying slightly above the enemy towns, find the courage token, and take it. Then go northwest through the blue border gates; the elves will not put up serious resistance and will likely flee; enter the corner of the map and receive angel wings from the seer. Now fly to the opposite part of the map (i.e., southwest), and the seer there will give you the ring. 2: quality. Start capturing enemy towns, first DaggerCourt, then two more cities located east and north of the first. The brown player may die if they fail to capture the Necropolis in the far east. The red player is in the southeast; he is quite weak since he has only one castle at the start. And that Necropolis in the east is neutral at the beginning of the game. After killing them all, develop earth magic (there is an opportunity to learn Meteor Shower and Explosion), including for Jelu. Among other useful spells, you will encounter Chain Lightning. There are many different modifiers on this map; there is even a sacrifice altar. You can maximize all heroes by giving them excellent spells and fish out additional experience from the artifacts, which are plentiful here. Additionally, at one of the brown player's Ramparts (slightly right of the center of the map), you will find a green keymaster, and in the upper right corner—a dark blue keymaster. This means you can also get the angel wings.
3) Alley of Dragon Lords
Size: M, single-level
Conditions: find the ring of life, Jelu must survive; he alone will carry over to the final scenario.
The player starts the game in the northeast corner of the map; against him is an orange opponent whose castles (only Ramparts) are scattered across the other three corners. By default, the opponent already has stables, dwarves, and dragons built (all upgraded, of course), but this doesn't make his life easier. You can go for it and weed them all out—your heroes know what "Explosion" is! But on the other hand, only Jelu will carry over to the next scenario, so there's no point in leveling others, although visiting modifiers still makes sense here. Fast completion: capture mines with "empty" heroes; they are all good mages, so a fast start is possible. Visit the green keymaster west of the starting town and the red one in the center of the map. You can explore your piece from the castle to the center without fear of attack: the opponent still has far to go to reach you. There's reason to capture the central Rampart; there you can hire additional elves and a green dragon per week. Accumulate a more or less decent army and take the easternmost road south, capture the orange player, upgrade dragons, then head further west, and without any problems, passing the border guards, reach the ring of life.
4) Thief in the Night
Size: M, single-level
Conditions: find the vial of vitality, Jelu must survive.
You have two Rampart castles in the upper right piece of the map, and the towns are slightly developed. Assemble a small army for Jelu in the upper town, clear out the mine guards, hire additional heroes, and collect everything left after the guards. Once your territory is cleared, the opponent may launch an attack. Don't forget to use secondary heroes to transfer troops to Jelu. Repel the attack with Jelu. If the opponent goes north through the far western garrison, you have the opportunity to capture all his castles (three in total, all in the south at equal distances from each other) in just a few days. Vokial is in the central one, but the battle with him won't be difficult. The third Rampart is in the northwest corner of the map; if the enemy captured it, you'll have to run there too. If you decide to capture it at the start of the game, you will face a neutral garrison with guards: 130 wood elves, 50 guardian dendroids, and 40 silver pegasi. After defeating the red player, the headache begins. Go south from Vokial's castle, kill liches, and visit the blue(!) keymaster. Then go strictly north to the border gates, proceed further, and two portals will appear before you. Enter the left one and kill red dragons—you'll get the sentinel's shield. Return, enter the right one, kill black dragons, and receive the titan's gladius. Return, go to the upper right corner to the seer, and receive the vial of vitality.
Result: Jelu is happy with his border service, strengthens AvLi, and becomes a local hero.

Added after 19 hours 42 minutes
Hack’n’slash (Hack’n’slash)
A fairly brisk campaign that brings variety to all this fuss with elves. What does a Barbarian need for complete happiness? Advanced Offense is already there; we take Tactics, Armor, Logistics, Wisdom and earth magic (yes, yes, Craig will have a real opportunity to learn Town Portal in chapter 2!) or water (Necromancers will curse and slow you down), and spell resistance. Of course, the player might end up with a completely different setup, but this is just an example.
1) Skull Crusher
Size: M, two-level
Conditions: find the skull helmet, Craig Hack must survive.
You start without a city. Go west along the road, kill the enemy hero and capture the town; this is the town we will develop. Hire additional heroes, circle around the town collecting everything that isn't bolted down, and also capturing mines. Somewhere in the center of the map, you'll find 3 goblin barracks; the guard consists of 100 goblins who are more likely to attack than not. Now orient yourself by this area. Go west as far as possible; there will be a dark blue keymaster—visit him. Then you can go north, where 5 green dragons are guarding. Now we are in the upper half of the map. The red player has 2 castles: the first is north of the passage with dragons (if the red player kills the dragon first, you'll still notice the passage), and the second can be found by following the road east from the first. Nevertheless, there is a neutral Erathian castle on the map, southeast of the second Barbarian one. Now let's return to the barracks in the center. If you go east from them, you'll find the tree of knowledge, then a fort on a hill, and slightly further—a passage guarded by 4 gold dragons. Right above the passage is an Erathian castle; after that, everything is clear. Now the red player is dead. From the central upper stronghold, go north to find the red tent. Return. Above the central goblin barracks, on the other (northern) side of the mountain range, we find a dungeon entrance. Descend there, kill trolls, and head northeast to the keeper of the question. Only the brown player remains, who possesses the artifact we need; he is locked in his own territory and is successfully building up while waiting for us. Capture the castle, get the artifact, and wait for the next assignment from Sandro.
2) Black Sheep
Size: M, two-level
Conditions: obtain the dead knight's blackshard, Craig Hack must survive.
We start in the upper right corner of the map, build up, and loot this entire quarter of the map. Generally, it's better to always hire a hero; your strong hero will kill the guards, while the second one collects resources and subordinates mines. In this way, you save a lot of time. Then assemble an army and go west, capturing a Barbarian stronghold along the way. From there, follow the path and find the light blue keymaster's tent, guarded by 2 magic dragons. Then you can go south through the light blue border guard; 60 swordsmen and 1 crusader will attack you. Soon you will see the player's far western castle. A path leads north from it; follow it and visit the green keymaster—now you can capture the castle. You'll find the next castle in the very center of the map (from your newly acquired one, heading along the eastern road). Its guard is weak, and it is poorly developed. After capturing it, only the last one remains, which you will reach via the southeastern road. BUT first, visit the red keymaster—from the central castle, go south as far as possible. There we go, castles captured; finish off the red heroes, they'll still be around after the capture of three castles. There is another castle underground, but you won't be able to reach it. Now from the central castle, go south and west to the portal guarded by about a hundred griffins. Cross to the other shore. Head south and west. Along the way, 140 lizards will ambush you; you'll encounter 35 cavalrymen and 30 black riders; the grand finale: a battle with hero Marzet, who has 70 death knights and 70 crusaders. After defeating him, we get the artifact and go for a new assignment.
3) Cage in Hand
Size: M, two-level
Conditions: find the ribs, Craig Hack must survive.
Follow the road and you'll see a castle; you won't be able to capture it. Travel further south, then at the fork turn southwest, visit the keymaster, go back to the stronghold and capture it. Now you have a castle and your quarter of the map; start looting, and don't forget to look into the same-way dungeon near the town for the black keymaster. From the south, the red player might disturb you, but as long as the exits from your piece of the map are guarded by basilisks (40 per passage). There are conditionally two such passages: one leads south, the other east. First, kill the Necromancer from the south and capture his castle; his main striking force consists of skeletons and ghosts. Next, you face a long march to another Necropolis in the east of the map, or to a human castle north of your second conditional exit. This is where Town Portal will be very useful, as the enemy has many heroes—he might sail to the southern town or attack others. Capture the eastern city, catch your breath, teleport for reinforcements, and break through the garrison. Its guard: 45 vampire lords, 50 powerful liches. Then go east and south into the very corner of the map, cutting off any particularly curious enemy heroes where possible. There, pass through the border gates, kill about a hundred liches, and take the ribs.
4) Grave Robber
Size: M, two-level
Conditions: obtain the shield of mourning dead, Craig Hack must survive.
Now this is a real stealth mission. Just kidding, of course, but nevertheless, you will have one human castle while the player has three Necropolises; by the time you develop, he'll have accumulated such an army... But it's not all that scary: southeast of your starting castle, you'll find another neutral one—and it isn't developed at all. Capture mines, build up an army, and pay attention to the artifacts in the upper left corner of the map; they are beautiful, aren't they? They will come in handy later. Sandro will send 4000 gold every week as aid. To find out more details, particularly curious red heroes will penetrate your area through a portal south of the second city. From your starting castle, there are dungeons to the south and east; in the southern one, you'll find the blue keymaster, and in the eastern one, the red. As soon as you feel ready to perform feats, go through the southern dungeon, emerge on the surface, then head south and east along the edge of the map. A hero sits in the town who blatantly ignored my secondary heroes and only attacked Craig—I have no idea why. Don't even try to defeat him; capturing any enemy castle won't work either—they are guarded by keymasters, and you know they are more serious than 100 azure dragons. Moreover, red heroes also know "Town Portal." But defeating a single hero is quite realistic. In any case, one such hero attacked me; I barely managed to fight him off, but his losses were far more severe than mine. Behind the lower castle, we'll find a shipyard (slightly further east); cross to the other shore. The green keymaster is guarded by: 120 skeleton warriors, 90 ghosts, and 10 powerful liches. The quest in the south of the map is guarded by: 200 skeleton warriors, 150 ghosts, 20 powerful liches. Sail back, head to the southernmost part of the map to the dungeon guarded by a green border guard. Pass through it, come out, proudly walk past gold deposits, and meet hero Charnat. Her troops: 330 dead, 250 zombies, 110 ghosts, 80 vampire lords, 30 ghost dragons. If you lack troops, it's better to teleport for backup. Defeat her, visit the island, tell the keeper of the question what great guys we are, and receive the long-awaited artifact.
Result: Sandro fled without paying; Craig Hack is indignant.

Birth of a Barbarian
A heartbreaking scenario. The main character Yog has long studied magic and now possesses it in all its manifestations, but you won't even see first-level spells. The entire campaign is played without a spellbook; there is no need to level up magical skills or knowledge/power. The adventure takes place on snow, swamps, rocky terrain, and mud, so we need to take abilities that modify movement. Additionally, magic resistance, armor, and ballistics won't hurt either. It is the shortest campaign of all.
1) On the Move
Size: M, single-level
Conditions: capture the city of Groa within 5 months, Yog must survive.
The hero starts in the eastern part of the map near the red player's castle. Capturing the city now makes no sense, but we simply need a city. Pay attention to the witch's hut near this city; get Logistics or Pathfinding. Cross the entire map heading southeast; at the first blue outpost, find a monk who can teach us Pathfinding, then find the city and capture it. The little town, of course, needs to be built up, so free Terrek or hire a hero in the tavern and pick up everything that isn't nailed down. The enemy hero Ain tends to move south, so while she is gone, you can capture the castle and recruit creatures. Eliminate this hero at the first opportunity. These skirmishes will take about 4 weeks of game time. Next, we need to go down from the city of Kalarnen, capturing mines and monster dwellings, visiting attack and defense modifiers. But our goal is the blue keymaster, curse him. He is initially guarded by 15 nagas, but by the time you arrive, there will be about 30-40. Now you can capture the castle located behind the blue border gates without much trouble. In theory, Yog should be fleeing from Bracada, but in practice, Yog is hunting Bracada's troops. There is a shipyard near the city. Rest assured, the enemy has already crossed to the other side and is waiting for you. Gather your troops and sail north. And here—STOP! It is very important that you keep your composure because during my first playthrough, the landing zone was cluttered with ships, I didn't have the "Sink Ship" spell, and none of my heroes wanted to summon them. If there is nowhere to land, try to find a hero with water magic and then recall some ships, or wait until the red player sails to you. If everything is fine, move forward. North of the landing zone will be a city. Then go, winding your way into the mountains, hitting all modifiers for attack/defense. You need to reach the upper right corner of the map. Along the way, you will encounter 35 ancient behemoths, and the city itself will be guarded by these troops: 80 hobgoblins, 56 raiders, 50 orc chieftains, 45 thunder birds, and 40 cyclops kings. After taking the Stronghold, you can celebrate victory.
2) The Meeting
Size: S, two-level
Conditions: capture Ulgak, Yog must survive.
Once again, we are given a chance to play on grass. However, the map is terrible; 6 castles on grass is too many. But the map can be completed at 180% (I played it) without much trouble. The player starts in the lower right corner; gather an army and slowly build up. Know that we cannot break through the garrison, and the purple player will first be held back by neutral monsters. Therefore, assemble a detachment, deal with your own territory, and go underground. The portal leads to an area with a crystal mine and orc towers, but upon exiting, thunder birds will attack you. Exit the Dungeon in the west of the map, head south, and capture the Stronghold, which we also begin to build up. You can even be bold and capture the northern city, but you won't hold it for long: you must hurry back to your starting castle. Build up to behemoths, gather an army so that monsters of the first three levels are within 100-200 units, and set out on a campaign toward the castle in the same Dungeon we know. Give the player some more troops from the southwestern Stronghold, capture the northwestern castle, head east and underground, then further east to exit to the surface. Keep in mind that the enemy is already capturing your castles, and you won't be able to help them. Then go sharply down to the next Dungeon; there is only one road, at the end of which 20-30 behemoths will oppose you. Exit to the surface and attack the castle—that's it: victory is ours. By the way, in a quick battle I couldn't take the Stronghold, but when I restarted the turn and played myself, I had 130 orc chieftains and about twenty thunder birds left, so you will succeed too.
3) A Difficult Beginning
Size: M, two-level
Conditions: obtain the same courage charm, Yog must survive.
Yog is in the service of the Barbarians; he needs to scatter parts of the Angel Alliance artifact around the vicinity. Apparently, the developers decided to compensate for the lack of a spellbook with a powerful artifact. Build up your Stronghold and gather creatures; we need beasts of levels 1-3. There is only one way east from your territory; that's how we get out. There will be no attacks from the sea. Hire another hero to collect monsters and resources. Slightly north of the exit, you'll notice a Fortress of swamp dwellers. Capture it and, if possible, eliminate all enemy heroes. Start building up the city; in your adventures, gorgons, basilisks, and wyverns are indispensable. Gather a small army and move south along the path; the castle there is the weakest, so build that one up too, take a hero, and periodically move monsters to the central swamp city. Now a bit about the central city—it is our mainstay. There is a portal nearby, but you don't really need it yet. It's better to deal with the enemy first, then quests, etc. Enemy Fortresses are located in the northwest (along the road) and northeast (past the monks). Pay special attention to gold mines, as there are many here, and serpent hives to obtain a large number of wyverns. One hive is in the south on same Barbarian territory; another: along the road south to the sawmill, then east. Upgrade gorgons and other creatures whenever possible and set out against the enemy. The enemy far from us (in the northwest) is weaker; that's who we will kill, while the closer one is stronger, but they have a nasty spell like expert-level Slow. It's better to kill the enemy outside the castle—it will be easier; your Stronghold troops will likely be heavily depleted, so move to the swamp. Then focus on the nearby city. After several awkward moments (battles without magic!), start building chaos hydras and save up 15 of them. Sulfur can be obtained by teleporting from the central Fortress to a separate piece of territory where there are 2 mines. Move the hydras northwest (to the former enemy castle) and give them as payment for entry. Free a hero from the Dungeon and take 7 chaos hydras, 15 gorgons, and 24 dragonflies. Ahead is a shipyard. 20 guarding hydras are no problem for us; buy more troops and sail to the island. There, collect all spheres, which will be guarded by elementals in squads of a hundred—each territory has its own elemental. Then sail south as far as possible, find the seer at the portal exit, and exchange the elemental spheres for the sphere of banning. Take the sphere of banning to the seer on Barbarian territory to receive the hell sword; take the sword to the center of the map to the Dungeon, exchange it, descend, defeat 35 chaos hydras, disassemble the alliance, and give the magic armor and holy sandals to the seer; they will give you the courage charm as proof that you did everything correctly. And one more thing. In the south after the teleporter, you'll find a well-built city which they will exchange for a clover of luck, but where to find the clover is the question. The clover lies slightly east of this castle, just above the sulfur mine, and it looks so much like a tree that you won't even notice it when you first pass through here. This is probably a joke from the developers.
4) Falor and Terven
Size: S, two-level
Conditions: obtain the courage charm, Yog must survive.
Another small map; by the way, it's also the easiest in this campaign. Build a castle, capture mines; a tea (in some versions turquoise) player teleports to us, whose heroes are very weak and who is easy to kill. Repel 2-3 attacks, take a boat, and cross to the other shore toward the castle. Capture the castle; the blue keymaster is right under it, guarded by 30-40 monks. Then quickly visit the second castle to rid yourself of the annoying player. If some overly curious hero dared to capture your castle on the other side, teleport after them and finish them off. Sail to the central island, go underground, and eliminate a dozen archangels at the green keymaster's. Have one of your heroes visit the red keymaster at the Stronghold, while Yog eliminates another dozen Archangels and gives the necklace and shield to the seer's hut.
5) Return to Bracada
Size: S, two-level
Conditions: obtain the courage charm, Yog must survive.
Ain is waiting for Yog to catch him and hand him over to the authorities of Bracada. Still, Yog is keeping something secret. She isn't hunting him for no reason. You will be told that it's better not to encounter Bracada's armies, but this is impossible, so set difficulty to 80-100% and don't show off. Build up the city very quickly, using the advantage in resources: creatures of levels 1-5, Stronghold, buildings up to the capitol, upgrades. Pick up everything that isn't nailed down, recruit creatures: goblins at the castle, orcs by the road, cyclops in the upper left corner. After defeating champions, get 20 crystals from the seer; don't overextend, wait for the enemy. But there is no point in sitting around for more than three weeks, as an army could arrive that would be overwhelming. The enemy has two vanguard heroes: Ain and Astral, each leading an army. You need to achieve a position where you can take them out one by one (with relatively small armies). I only defeated Astral on the third attempt. Mages have Chain Lightning and Blindness, so if you didn't level up magic resistance (I didn't!), it will be very rough. It is also necessary to visit the white keymaster—his guard consists of 25 ancient behemoths—and break through along the road to the Dungeon, then in the Dungeon to the purple keymaster, then exit and move east along the bottom of the map. Visit the seers and celebrate victory!
Summary: Yog discovers new horizons. Meanwhile, Sandro gets to work; soon truly interesting campaigns will follow, with spellbooks.
To be continued.

You can also download a walkthrough of the first four campaigns from *The Shadow of Death* as an MSWord document (with pictures of the minimaps). I am currently playing the *Rise of the Necromancer* campaign. As soon as I finish it, I will post the walkthrough.

Please refrain from discussions in this thread and only post walkthrough descriptions.

P.S. Well done, SandroXLL, excellent topic. It now has the status IMPORTANT!;

Sincerely, VDV_forever

I've decided to add my two cents as well—while the esteemed Sandro is still finishing the walkthrough for Campaign 5, I'll post my thoughts on Campaign 6: "Unclean Alliance." This opus does not claim to be the final word; during the playthrough, the emphasis was not on record speed, but rather on a calm game for pleasure. All scenarios were completed at 200% in the "Heroes 3 - Complete Collection" version. Criticism and objective remarks are welcome in DMs :smile01:

1. So, the most difficult mission in my opinion is "In Search of the Legionnaire" (with Craig Hack). The peculiarity is that at the start you are given only one miserable little village where all somewhat valuable buildings are blocked. Craig Hack, you see, was touring Erathia and suddenly decided to engage in charity—to collect a whole statue of the legion for the local peasants. We are offered to start with a built-up lone guard tower, upgraded pokemon, and a level 25(!) hero. In light of this, a level 2 magic guild seemed like the most convenient bonus to me. Gloves are also great, however—but there are several development options here, so choose for yourself. Since the poor Craig's secondary skills are determined randomly by the machine, quite some time will be spent initially picking the required set. IMHO, you can bet on a few options: when expert earth and slow appear in the guild, when blindness appears in the guild, or when expert diplomacy and visions appear in the guild (of course, there is always earth and wisdom). I chose the latter (obviously, if you choose the bonus—the guild; if we decide to get gloves—it doesn't matter at all), but I failed to win logistics in this lottery =(.
The main thing in this mission is efficiency. There are 2 AI enemies: blue to the south and brown to the west; they each start with one castle without build restrictions (unbuilt) and a village slightly better than ours. Each has a formidable knight (level 20-25) near the castle, and believe me, these knights aren't planning on just sitting around. On the contrary, they strive to arrive by the end of week 4, wipe out the archangels from below, and beat everyone in this village. So what needs to be done? Correct: beat one of them first, and be back home by the end of week 4 to joyfully meet the second. The path to the blue adversary is blocked by a horde of wizards who hit hard, so it was decided—we're visiting brown! To do this: on the first day, take some wood to the right; you can get some gold even further right—it will be useful if you were given artillery and need to build a forge and buy a ballista—it does significant damage in battles here. Build a tavern (don't forget to stop by and learn magic), hire a lackey, and run to the peasants on the left. These unfortunate souls, probably out of desperation, will join us (indeed, who in the village is going to feed 300 healthy men with pitchforks? Better to come to us—here there's three meals a day and all the perks of an army!) and then you can capture the external dwelling of horses. Meanwhile, the lackey collects archers from below (they are unguarded) and soon Hack, with archers and 2 horses, breaks 200 halberdiers (split peasants into ones and distract them while the ballista, magic, and archers do their work) to the northwest of the village. Next—to the swordsmen from the southeast, and there you can also take back the gold mine from the dendroids near the archers. Thus, by the end of week 1, everything except the griffins above will be captured and collected by lackeys. And here is the first good news—the villagers aren't just sitting around waiting for a miracle; it turns out they build something tasty every week! In week 1, these are archers (non-upgraded—yuck!), in week 2—griffins, and so on. In week 2, we gather the army into a fist, go to the griffins above—with diplomacy, they should join; worst case, scatter. Over 50 upgraded griffins are a significant addition to our frail army, and after taking out the pegasi at the second gold mine, we head for the exit on the left. There are 22 champions there; these bastards definitely won't join, so you can kill off various trash like peasants on them. There is also a blue tent above to the right; they ask for 8000 gold for passage—better leave it for now, we aren't in a rush, and 8 kilobucks will come in handy. So, in the middle of week 2, with 4 horses, 24 swordsmen, about 60 archers, and a bunch of griffins, we bolt for the exit. Then quickly move among the trolls to the west, straight to the "cans" (angels). You'll have to sacrifice quite some meat here, but angels! Slightly below the cans will be a passage even further west; there is a horde of evil trolls. We rip through them, and to the west is already the AI city! Having captured it, immediately go down on foot, along the path to the main brown castle; I managed to wipe it out in week 3 without problems, especially since the main hero with offspring was sitting there. Meanwhile, lackeys at home painstakingly visit every external dwelling—every unit counts! It makes sense to build the guild in the AI's city to the max; I got resurrection there. That's it, brown is finished. Collecting what you can in the castle, race back along the same path, having previously sent a lackey with the third week's growth to meet you. Meet him somewhere near the upper brown city, and here you can grab utopia on the way. Or get beaten up by dragons yourself—depends on how meaty the utopia is and the presence of angels and meat. Better not take it with heavy losses—it will cost more. Around this time, a horse's face from the blue should start appearing on the southern horizon, so let's quickly reach the mages below the trolls (the guys joined me for about 20 units) and give him a warm welcome! There are also 2 cans there, by the way. If you managed to take them first—good; if not—there will be losses in battle. As an option—don't run headlong toward blue, but stop by the wizards—they aren't picky either, maybe they'll join. But here is the risk that the blue villain breaks into the village in the meantime and starts committing atrocities.
Overall, if everything is done correctly and seasoned with a healthy dose of luck, the battle with blue won't cause much trouble, and Craig Hack will calmly march south to finish off the AI. After a couple of days, it's done, the AI is defeated, and you can relax. Slowly build all guilds (a town portal must appear somewhere, and we happen to have expert earth—oh, what a coincidence!), visit all the leveling external dwellings scattered sparingly across the map (the arena behind the crystal dragons in the west—you might miss it sometimes!) and remember the mission's goal. Ah, yes, the legion! The head is kept by some local crime boss who hangs out on his island. And so that the enemy doesn't die from the capture of all castles, taking the valuable relic to the grave, there is a hidden blue city in the same dungeon (Were you not bothered that the blue flags on the mines didn't go out a week after wiping blue? Exactly...). To get to him, buy a ship at the shipyard in the center of the map and land on his island through one of the whirlpools. The scoundrel has gathered a decent army, but we have Craig Hack himself! In principle, there is both the sword of justice and the helmet of celestial enlightenment on the map (all in the southern part, near enemy castles), and if you're interested in smashing the bastard's helmet in all its glory, you can collect those. Although it doesn't change much. By the way, the thug is prudently equipped with handcuffs, so there's no escaping us. Taking the legion's head from the mortal body, don't forget to run to the red tent and dive into the dungeon on the island near the shipyard. There you can mock the evil dwarves to your heart's content as they attack any army over a couple of piles of gold, and then enter the teleport behind the small red tower. There, 25 and 50 spectral dragons await us, guarding the limbs, buttocks, and breasts of the legion. Before collecting the whole statue and taking it to the starting city, run through the map and all guilds one more time—did you forget anything?


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2. Now for the second mission—"Requiem." This time it's a heart-wrenching story about Gem, whose buddy was brutally killed (guess by whom? surprise, surprise—necromancers!!!), and of course, Gem must figure out all the intricacies of the enemy's cunning plan. And how do we usually figure out the enemy's plans? Correct: wipe the enemy out root and branch, and then see what happened. Well, this time the task isn't particularly original—find and beat Lord Fayette, Gem's former mentor, now a slightly pale death knight in the service of necromancers. The layout is as follows: we have 2 unbuilt castles in the northern half + there is a neutral city slightly south of the right castle, as well as 2 (!) level 25 heroes—Gem and her eternal lover Clancy. With skills, it's simple—almost everything for Gem is fixed; with restarts, literally one or two slots change, resulting in 3 magics, wisdom, plus, for example, logistics, and the rest is junk. For the Necropolis: 2 castles (unbuilt), one neutral on southern territory, and a cozy little town in an underground cave where our dead guy has settled. The culprit has locked himself behind a blue tower blocking the entrance to the underworld, and left the tent with the key above behind a pile of gold dragons in the bottom right corner of the map. The AI doesn't like gold dragons, and for the first month you can be calm—no one will approach them, meaning Fayette is securely locked up. The AI's troops at the start are purely nominal; however, the main bad guy has about fifty death knights, and by the end of the 2nd month they turn into about a hundred upgraded ones, so it's not that simple!
But, in order. For the first couple of weeks, without hesitation, we run around and reclaim the mines: boys to the left, girls to the right; don't forget the cave in the northeast with the gold mine and the neutral city. As a bonus, we choose elves, of course; Gem has lightning written in her book from the start (hurray!), Clancy has arrow, there's enough mana, and everything generally proceeds smoothly under the pompous messages arriving every day. There are no particular problems, except for minerals; building 3 cities from scratch consumes them simply immensely, so whenever possible, don't be lazy and build resource warehouses (there is a cyclops dwelling in the forest behind the neutral city that might help if needed). Of course, the map is designed so that you can't get to the desired hero without wiping out all necromancers; our lands are connected by only 1 narrow passage in the forest, but maybe it's for the best—at least no one will be getting underfoot. By the beginning of the third week, we have over a hundred upgraded elves, plenty of Centaurs, and as an addition, boards with horses. I didn't mention trees by accident—the passage is guarded by black dragons and archdevils, so for these battles, we leave the elves out and use the dendroids as meat. Next, it makes sense to first wipe out the enemy's bottom right castle, and then push through the garrison (the guards are total trash) to the western part of the lands. Almost no resistance is encountered; one serious hero might flash by, but he is quickly liquidated under a hail of elven arrows...
That's it, smoke break. The second phase begins—building guilds up to level 4-5 and gathering all troops. It is highly desirable to have a city portal—it always comes in handy. But at level 5, there will be nothing tasty besides explosion. Having visited the blue tent behind the gold dragons and gathered all troops into a fist, we slowly descend into the dungeon. There, taking a deep breath, we press on Fayette's castle, attack, and are surprised by the number of his sinister knights. In principle, the main thing is not to let this stack leave the castle—place some meat under the gates and shoot them down slowly with magic and elves. It is highly desirable that the catapult breaks a breach and our knights show their faces in there—then the elves hit with direct arrows. But if they did come out—put any meat in the way just to delay them and keep them away from the shooters. If it doesn't work—try taking Clancy with Armageddon and giving him five or ten gold dragons; let him fly around and thin out the enemy stacks, and then Gem will arrive with the main forces. If Armageddon isn't found—just buy up Necropolis troops from everywhere and give them to Clancy—overall, it should help. Sooner or later the last knight falls, funny falling on his side along with the horse, we are congratulated on victory, and Gem with all her bells and whistles moves to the next round!

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3. Mission 3—"Harvest"—again suggests that we destroy all the Necropolis bastards without losing the main hero—Yog. Here is where I had a total mess—I played Heroes 3 Complete Collection and instead of Yog, they gave me some random level 25 hero. Accordingly, bonuses don't work, Yog isn't there (although when I played on SoD 3.2, everything was ok there, I remember clearly). Otherwise, you should choose birds. What does the map have in store for us? At our disposal is a full Stronghold (zeroed out, though); the enemies to the northeast have the same castle and a city nearby. They were given only 3 heroes at the start: 2 around level 25, 1 approximately level 30. And the entire eastern part is dotted with Necropolis—there are as many as 4 neutral ones! Therefore, on this map, truly, delay is akin to death. To the south of our castle, about 3 days' journey away, there is indeed another barbarian town; however, the developer clearly overdid it here—in a shabby village, the guards are 5 cyclops and 10 ogre mages and thunderbirds each—that's just too much! And for what? To then spend a bunch of money building up the fort and then build a zeroed castle? Money is already desperately short! Once during a playthrough I fell for this lure, built both cities in about 3 weeks, and on the 4th started slowly buying troops—but alas, by this time the AI already had 5 castles and nothing helped me—the AI heroes are very strong, plus they have excellent mages. So don't repeat my mistakes—build up your home castle as quickly as possible and forward, into hand-to-hand combat right-up along the path. By the way, the map is equipped with a device popular in SoD: a two-way teleport blocked for us by a blue barrier; where is the tent? Logically, with the AI! So from week 3 on, he will be able to send his scouts to you without hindrance, and you won't be able to stop it—another argument in favor of rushing on this map.
First things first, sort out the skills for our leader—logistics and ballistics for sure, preferably earth magic and as many military skills as possible. He'll never become a mage. Then I recommend making a small trip north of the castle; there are many crystals and a mine guarded by about 15 griffins—not even a problem with starting troops. Meanwhile, lackeys collect resources and as much gold as possible—it will be very needed here. Next, there are two paths: if your map didn't glitch at the start and you were given Yog with 4 birds—you can build the guild and immediately push south to the champions (10 units) who guard a mass of resources, an external dwelling of hippogriffs, and a +4 shield (which can be exchanged in the seer's hut north of the castle for a +5 shield, but why on earth waste time?). Ideally, slow appears in the guild immediately. If you start without birds, taking out the champions will involve too many losses; better to carve up the group of crusaders on the left, who guard the gold mine. And then in week 2, get after the horses. On the way down, don't forget to buy a ballista if you have artillery—it will be very useful. Then at the beginning of the third week, with 5-7 hippogriffs, run for it toward the fanatics who separate us from the AI. In the two main castles, you likely won't encounter resistance; usually, the AI goes down the map with all heroes. I strongly recommend wiping out the black knights in the north—there are many of them, but they guard gloves and boots; our hero simply needs to run around like a maniac; I was too lazy to go for the gloves and regretted it for a long time afterward. Then begins the tedious running around capturing castles—three enemy villains race across the map, we follow them, and pray that the AI is as stupid as possible so we can kill him sooner...
Under heart-wrenching descriptions of necromancer atrocities arriving in messages, enemy castles fall one by one, skeletons crunch, and goblins who eternally serve as meat groan. All this causes nothing but yawning and swearing interjections; eventually, the exhausted AI, deprived of offspring, huddles in a castle where he is reached by the mighty punishing hand of the barbarian. That's it, wipe the sweat from your brow and watch the next cartoon.

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4. "In Search of the Killer." This mission is perhaps the easiest of the first four. Gelo suddenly discovers that one of the local representatives of authority was poisoned, and what's more, he was a vampire! The matter requires his immediate intervention, and our hero decides to resolve this thriller using the well-known method—kill everyone.
Gelo rules as always—6-10 snipers + a whole green dragon (clearly the coolest of bonuses) at the start, and you can boldly set off to clear the nearest territory. However, skills. I recommend getting earth, wisdom, and logistics; the rest—as it happens. Intelligence would be good too—a stupid elf constantly suffers from a lack of spells, but such luxury, despite all attempts, never dropped.
The disposition is as follows: a wide river horizontally divides the land into upper and lower continents. The upper one—a narrow strip of land—contains your castle to the west and 2 castles to the east: a Necropolis (AI) and an elven one (neutral, guards are either absent or symbolic). The lower one—4 unbuilt Necropolis castles with two upgraded heroes (level 20-25): Aislinna and Galtran. Starting troops are symbolic. Since Gelo level 25 with such a force is quite a mature self-sufficient man, I recommend using the nearest chests on the first move to buy a second hero—a loot collector—and quickly moving east. On the way, wipe out any zombies or other trash getting underfoot. Our loot collector follows Gelo, obediently capturing mines and grabbing resources. The goal for week 1 is the elven castle, the one at the very left border of the map. Don't forget to hire peasants in a hut on the way—they will serve as excellent meat for towers. Having captured the castle, we find that elves, pegasi, horses, and (hurray, comrades!) a level 3 guild are already built there. But I don't recommend venturing to the necros at first—the unholy ones managed to cram 40 liches, 5 ghost dragons, and 100 skeletons into the castle guards! Moreover, they behave quietly and don't stick their noses out of the castle. Meanwhile, we calmly put a lackey on a ship (shipyard below the elven castle) and quickly clear the river before the AI thinks of it. In my case, Gelo didn't have ballistics, and I managed to capture the upper Necropolis castle only at the beginning of week 3 (but how he annoyed me by smoking for those 3 weeks! =)). But the bonus is a free Capitol. Unfortunately, gem mines are not provided on our continent; you'll have to descend into the dungeon for that. Well, whatever. It's on our way anyway.
I recommend going to the enemy specifically through the dungeon; it's more convenient if you have logistics. In the dungeon on the way down, there is an exit to the island above; it makes sense to take the gold mine and the blue tent—without it, you can't get to the enemies. Also, toward the bottom, the road splits into 3: one goes down with an exit to the left necro-continent, one goes right to the right continent, and a teleport will throw us into a separate cave where, besides a gold mine and a +1 spell power ring, there's not much to catch. Except for the red tent—it only serves to open a nook in the northwest of the map—there, by the way, is a gem mine and a couple of decent artifacts: +4 defense and +6 attack. But I didn't spend time on this tent, remembering that the AI's troops from 4 castles and dwellings grow like weeds. Otherwise, there's not much to tell—just walk around and wipe out AI heroes who scatter from us into castles and dungeons like cockroaches. Only Aislinna is dangerous with her rain—she'll pour and wash away, pour and wash away... Having wiped out more or less all the heroes, leave one castle locked by a lackey with a strong army and repeat the standard procedure—a tour of the map (two +1 knowledge will be extremely useful) and castles (I managed to collect city portal, explosion, resurrection, dimension door, and fly! don't be lazy and build guilds—you will be rewarded!). All pumped up? Forward—knock out the last necromancer's kidneys and watch the next cartoon!

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5. "The Secret Revealed." The 5th mission tells how two brutal men met, united by a common goal—to give some undead a beating. This mission is where the most interesting part begins: now we have both barbarians at our disposal. Although for me this mission became a continuation of the mess—Yog was given level 5 for some reason—I had to level him up again, though now to my own taste.
Remembering past failures, the dead guys have barricaded themselves tightly—to rush their headquarters in the southeast corner of the map, you'll have to pass as many as 4(!) barriers, the tents for which are scattered across the entire map. The enemies—2 AI—have one fully built castle each in the barricaded HQ, one city south of us, and there are another 2 neutral Necropolis cities to our right and left. For themselves, those monstrosities have set up a teleport system that allows movement to almost any area of the map, and they've blocked these teleports with a black screen, placing a black tent at their home. And we can't get there until we collect the first four. So get ready—you will be constantly annoyed by enemies popping up from everywhere, striving to grab an unattended castle. We were given 2 castles, located in the north in a cozy rocky valley, and they put a small starting squad in the castles, by the way. Minerals seem like the most reasonable bonus—building two barbarian castles is no joke. The AI has 4 upgraded heroes right away; the most frightening of them are Nimbus and Moandor.
So, the global goal is to visit all 4 colored (blue, red, green, cyan) tents as quickly as possible, which are located in 4 areas around our valley; each is guarded by bone or spectral dragons in significant numbers. Accordingly, one passage from our valley leads to each of these areas, and from the necro HQ—a teleport behind a black barrier. The approximate development plan is this: Craig with his diplomacy (remember the first mission?) goes around all monsters, having previously scanned each with visions to determine if they'll join for money, for free, or just run away. Don't forget to take back 2 external dwellings of hippogriffs and 2 external dwellings of cyclops to the south—it will be very useful. Yog is on errands and collecting. At the end of the first week, Craig manages to gather a decent army, and with the help of town portal in the second week, he can actually visit two tents: blue in the right part of the map, cyan in the left. If there's no diplomacy, development will be slightly delayed—the required army will be gathered a bit later. By the way, above the right castle is huddled a horde of 250 orcs zealously guarding their gold—50 thousand. Beating up weak orcs isn't hard, and the money will be very useful in building and hiring. Around week 3, the dam breaks and enemy heroes start pouring out of teleports like a dirty stream—be careful, usually the most upgraded ones come first. Roughly halfway between our castles is a seer's hut—there we are asked to smash the face of the enemy necromancer Nimbus. Considering that Nimbus himself usually rushes in first, he's usually the first of all enemy heroes to get hit in the jaw, so don't forget to collect the reward later—20 thunderbirds. In these terrible conditions of constant necromantic pressure, you'll have to manage to pass through two more lower passages and reclaim tents there as well. The only thing that pleases is a small reinforcement in week 3—at least there was something to buy new recruits with. Better not worry about captured enemy castles—you're unlikely to keep them; the main goal now is the tents. Yog will fit the role of quartermaster here; occasionally he can be cautiously sent into battles, leveling up bit by bit. Craig Hack with his portal is much more mobile. I repeat—be extremely careful wandering through enemy lands—the opponent's troops multiply at a rabbit's pace; it's possible that on the next move an upgraded bastard will roll out from around a corner and you won't be able to fight him off—not a single battle can be lost. Save often. Another point: when you go right-down for the red tent, immediately after leaving the valley, you can notice a group of grey hippogriffs in the bushes—you need to wipe them out on the way, because slightly lower we'll be offered a quest to destroy them, and as a reward, they'll present 25 real bald cyclops! By the way, there's a cool story with those four upgraded enemy heroes—for some reason they don't run away in battle; that is, it's enough to knock them out once, and then they are gone. However, they love to leave beautifully—wiping half an army with Armageddon. I don't even know what's worse =(.
And after three or four weeks of crazy running, our time comes—4 tents are collected (by the way, behind each colored barrier awaits a bonus of 50000 gold, so don't rush into battle—first walk around and collect all the gold and buy an army), and fierce Craig Hack flies into the necromancer base, tossing everyone right and left to hell. Having visited the black tent, we basically reduce the rest of the game to a calm mopping up of remnants. However, also remember about leveling—surprisingly, there are many useful things on this map; there's even a library near the red tent. Ideally, at the end of the scenario, both main heroes have explosion, city portal, resurrection, and all visited upgrades on the map in their arsenal—everything will be useful in the future.

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6. "Vengeance." From mission 6 in this campaign, it's basically a rest. We are given two upgraded heroes (Gem and Gelo), carefully raised by us in previous missions, and offered to finally not grind everyone into powder, but capture some city called Crypthem—a local strategic point. The opponents—there are two of them—have settled comfortably each in two castles; their lands are separated from ours by our own garrisons of as many as 12 gold dragons each, so everything is okay—the AI won't be able to break these garrisons in its life for the first month. Two orange castles are located accordingly to the southeast and southwest of us; between them is the first red one. To the south of the red one is the second, actually our sought-after Crypthem. Near each castle is an upgraded hero, but they aren't particularly own savage.
A small catch—there are absolutely no free resources or chests on this map at first. Like, absolutely none. Near the mines under monster guard lie lonely piles (of resources=)), and for the first week we sit almost without money. True, this gap is quickly filled by two gnome dwellings and pit fiend pits, but you have to run to them first. Otherwise, everything is trivial—Gelo to the left, Gem to the right, quickly reclaim all mines (as a bonus it doesn't matter what to take—both elves and pegasi will be useful in the household), treasuries, several artifacts; immediately capture cities on the right and left (it's better to build magic guilds in them first so heroes can restore spells; for the first week we fight mainly with magic). Above you can see a couple of tents—but they play absolutely no role in this mission; they just open passage to dendroid dwellings in enemy territory, so don't waste precious move points. Don't forget to take elves and centaurs from huts and descend into the underground cave—there are 2 sulfur mines there. There is one more "but"—the approaches to the orange AI are blocked by 2 garrisons, and in them sit 50 black knights, 20 bone dragons, and 600 skeletons; but if you honestly built all guilds in Gelo's mission, you surely have either fly or dimension door in your pocket, so why wait? In week 3, having 50-100 snipers as an asset, Gelo stands close to the garrisons and teleports/gracefully flies with his horde onto enemy lands. Here we find that we are not expected at all; the AI is weakly developed, and by week 3 you can take both castles from orange; Gem with her town portal controls everything wonderfully, and thanks to expert air and celestial eye she also serves as a local intelligence service—constantly monitoring the location of enemy heroes and how close they've come to our castles.
Having captured the upper three castles and awaited the fortunate demise of orange, we go down and find that necro is not so simple: his last and most important castle for us is locked by a garrison in which 100 spectral dragons, 80 liches, and 60 vampire lords meet us. The garrison stands close to the castle; you can't jump over it or fly over it. Well, what to do—you'll have to wait, accumulate strength for another 2-3 weeks, and at the same time run around the map, leveling up a bit. By the way, excellent meat for breaking the garrison is found in the lower underground cave (entrance to the right of Crypthem)—these are crystal dragons. Don't be lazy, open the dragon external dwelling in the dungeon, and you will have a reliable strong unit that also brings crystals. A separate unpleasant moment is when you hesitate at the start of the mission and the AI first captures the crystal dragon dwelling—2-3 units in the skilled bony hands of an upgraded necromancer become dangerous weapons. Otherwise, if everything is done correctly, by the middle of the second month you will have a quite sufficient army for breaking the garrison, and what you encounter after that in the castle will seem like child's play.

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7. "Sandro's Wrath." In the seventh mission, they suggest a sharp change of scenery and feeling yourself in the skin (or rather, in the skeleton) of our old acquaintance—the necromancer Sandro. Bonuses are equal; you can choose either +3 knowledge or +3 spell power.
The theater of operations is a small (the only one in this campaign) map where you start with an absolutely zero-level town in the southeast, while the enemy is represented by three castles: a Dungeon in the center of the underground, a Necropolis in the upper right, and an Inferno in the upper left. The castles are almost fully built up, and near each one stands a buffed guy on a horse. This, however, doesn't stop this mission from being even more of a breeze. Not only do we have the Cursed Armor and the Cloak of the King of Undead at our disposal, as always, but they also gave us level 25! One flaw—in the spellbook, instead of the usual magic arrow, we find some slow spell (why? the armor casts it anyway at the start of battle). First, let's decide on skills—wisdom, air, earth, and logistics are quite enough; the rest are optional. In principle, even our beloved earth isn't particularly relevant here—slow is cast by an artifact, they won't give you town portal anyway, and you can raise the dead perfectly well without earth magic. Well then—to business! First and foremost, it's necessary to get some basic magical support in battles; for this, we collect gold and wood/stone on the first or second day for the first level of the guild. Having obtained the same magic arrow in the book on the second day, boldly rush out to beat the enemies' faces, while clearing all neutrals encountered along the way—to replenish the army. Practice shows that the most trouble arises with the underground dwellers because of the black dragons, so we hit them first. To get to them—take the path to the left through the teleport (on the way, don't forget to drink from the spring to double spells), and then right-up to the center of the same Dungeon. Sometimes it's even useful to take a small detour to kill a neutral standing aside and raise five or ten liches. By the seventh or eighth day (this is important—so the enemies don't have time to buy up the growth), you need to be near the castle with about 30-40 liches and capture it; there, we get full magic and once again double spells (Mana Vortex). Then it's convenient to move right-up to the teleport that will take us above. You don't have to worry about the Dungeon—the castle brings both gold and sulfur, and a weekly growth of two black dragons can handle almost any enemy. Above, before rushing to take the enemy Necropolis, I recommend visiting the cluster of skeletons near the gold mine: there are about 500 of them; victory will significantly strengthen our army. Then we invade the nearby Necropolis and learn raise dead and possibly dimension door (sometimes they give it) there.
A small remark: every time before upgrading Sandro and teaching him powerful spells, think—you'll have to fight him in the last 2 missions. Maybe you shouldn't turn him into a complete killer monster?
Next, follow the path to the center of the map and left-up to the last enemy castle—the Inferno. By this time, it will be around the end of the second week or beginning of the third, and the situation will be as follows: both AI players are left without castles, but one managed to capture your starting town and is relatively calm, while the other got no castles and is panicking, storming the first towns he comes across. As soon as the second one dies, you can boldly go take the starting town and finish off the enemy. If there was a delay somewhere, or if an enemy captured a castle—you'll have to race all over the map, rattling bones and finishing off the remnants of the enemies—the cunning developers blocked the town portal in this mission, so it's quite tedious. There is also a red tent in the same Dungeon that opens access to a brown tent in the upper center. Now, behind the brown barrier (southeast, underground) lies an unremarkable vial with blood of life, and it's completely unclear why one should waste precious movement points on it—so don't bother with the tents. That's all from me regarding this mission.

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8. "Invasion". Mission 8 is slightly more difficult than the previous one. Sandro, sudden as a bout of diarrhea, having barely managed to reclaim his native lands, decides to invade the enemies. On the map, we are given a couple of zero-level castles; the enemies have 2 Barbarian castles from the west and two elven ones from the north, with several neutral towns between them. The build-up is complete, and even (unheard-of cheating!!!) two Capitols per AI player! Opposing us, alas, are 4 well-known heroes that we so diligently buffed in previous missions: Gem, Gelo, Crag Hack, Yog.
I would recommend immediately running toward the Barbarians and wiping them out within the first week—this is quite realistic; they have very few troops, and we'll pick up a good amount along the way. As for your own castles—decide for yourself whether to build them up or not, but every time I played this mission, they didn't make much of a difference—if Gelo comes from the north, nothing will help except Sandro himself. And if he doesn't come, so be it. After dealing with the Barbarians immediately, we head north, where Gem should be encountered somewhere along the way. She is the most dangerous opponent here, but by this time we should have a decent number of liches, and if everything is done correctly, she will quickly settle down (be laid to rest?). In any case, saving hasn't been cancelled. On elven land, a fairy tale begins: the stupid inhabitants constantly set up some ambushes, unaware that they serve as nothing more than a source of new recruits for us. Having captured Gem's castle in the upper left corner, we go right to visit Gelo, and along the way, another squad of mad elves gifts us a sniper bow—now there will definitely be no problems in the final battles.
But this is only one of the possible routes. You can go to the elves first, or use the teleport south of the castle to get straight to Gem—in any case, by the 4th-5th week, victory should be ours.

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9. "To Strive and Seek". In mission 9, we successfully switch back to the side of the forces of light and begin scouring for components of the angelic alliance. I recall that in the 4th campaign Yog successfully pawned all the parts to some petty speculating dealers, and now, naturally, these artifacts have long since spread among new wealthy owners. Gem and Gelo (and where did they even come from? we just turned everyone into liches!) must collect the boots, necklace, and helmet.
The map seems to be the pinnacle of ease. We have 4 castles; two outer ones, however, only allow the build-up of pegasi and centaurs among troops, but both are present there from the start. The other two are full-fledged but initially zero-level. Enemy land consists of 3 islands separated by narrow rivers and having passages between them. The enemies' approaches to our land are blocked by our own garrisons; decent troops sit there, which won't let the foes sneak up on us for at least 2 weeks. The enemies themselves are represented by two AI players: blue has 3 castles on the central island, built up to the 4th upgraded troop level and castle, and not a single hero. Turquoise has 1 castle on the left and 2 on the right; nothing is built up, but there are 3 heroes of level 20. The sought-after artifacts are located behind quest towers, one per island; they only let Gem and Gelo through. In principle, blue could be potentially dangerous, but not before the 3rd week when he buys more troops. And this mission can be played in different ways—let the AI develop, play for pleasure, and then kill them all; it depends on what's more interesting to you.
I chose a rush strategy—why bother, there have been plenty of long missions already. Fortunately, Gelo had both teleport and fly. The strategic task of the first few days is to gather wood and money. Gelo goes for the elven settlement and chests right above his castle; Gem grabs the sawmill also above the castle and collects artifacts, then portals to the castle on the left—there, two days' journey north will be a gold mine behind some pegasi. In the main castles, I built up elves—no more are needed. On the 5th day, Gelo, having gathered 20-25 elves, takes the artifacts from Gem and advances through the central garrison. Behind him near the well, an ambush of 125 thieves will meet us, but such trifles of life mean nothing to Gelo. With a full stock of spells, we capture both blue castles (turning elves into snipers along the way), carefully raising all those killed during the siege. Further, one can act in two ways: go home for reinforcements or buy archers in the AI's castles and turn them into snipers. Then we move down to the last blue castle. There might be some slight resistance, more like death throes, and it's over with blue. For the remainder of the second week, you can also beat the second AI—his castle build-up is in an embryonic state. After that, just lazily run around for experience, build up magic, and enjoy the funny messages telling you how well the enemies guard the artifacts. Finished with all business? Ok, remove all towers, steal the artifacts, and move to the next stage.

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10. "Barbarian Brothers". Mission 10 is perhaps the most interesting in the entire campaign. Largely due to the conditions: our heroes are separated by a stream of water; they go along different banks, each waging war separately. According to the plot, it's required to find the sword, shield, and armor from the alliance of angels. Rumor has it that 3 barbarian brothers who keep these artifacts oppose us. Indeed, on the surface of the map there are 3 Strongholds: brown, blue, green. The castles are reasonably built up (at least a Capitol flag sticks out of each), and near each one stands one of the three brothers. These ones apparently played sports since childhood and have now turned into real tanks (stats over 20 including artifacts!). All this estate is located in the upper left half of the map, separated from our lands by a diagonal mountain range. The blue ones also have a secret headquarters in the same Dungeon with a one-way teleport up—meaning enemy heroes can climb to us as much as they want, but we can't get to that castle at all. You can be glad at least that taverns in the three upper castles are blocked, so the three brothers won't run away much—there's nowhere to go. Exception—the blue ones; they have a tavern in the underground. Passage to the brothers' lands is possible in four places: either through anti-magic garrisons in the central part (30 cyclopses, 40 ogres, 100 orcs, all upgraded), or along the edges at the top and bottom—150 scorpicorns (that's at the start; they breed quickly!).
We, on the other hand, are given nothing in terms of real estate at first—everything is DIY as always. Near Crag stands a castle guarded by 60 up-wolves; all military buildings in the castle have been demolished (they even got rid of the goblin hut), however, a magistrate has been placed. Yog was dealt the fate of capturing an elven town (for this you must go up, then turn left, and go until you hit fifty enraged silver pegasi). And if Hack captures his castle without much trouble (bonus, naturally, orcs!), I recommend Yog stock up in nomad tents along the way—the pegasi guarding the city fly in on the first try; they're tough. 14 healthy men with sabers on horses are a great counter-argument. Yog is better off not messing with surrounding monsters for now—they're extremely aggressive. Upon arriving at the elven town, we find that buildings there are even worse—same as in the Stronghold, but without fort walls!
Meanwhile, Crag Hack turns on visions, scans the territory with eagle eye and determines which neutrals are ready to join. If it's visible that someone will ask for a lot of money, it's better not to attack yet, but save up—there's plenty of gold in this mission (lying around in piles), while things are much worse with the army. In light of this, Yog is better off teleporting to the lower castle immediately after capturing the elven one and gathering goods there, and Crag should move accordingly to the green continent with new recruits and search there for friendly neutrals.
In the first few days, building up the Stronghold (don't even touch the fortress—you could go bankrupt on just the fort alone; minerals definitely won't be enough for 2 castles) moves with a creak—too little wood and especially stone. To the north of the elven town, by the way, there is a sawmill and an ore mine—I discovered them very late, then cursed for a long time... Don't repeat my mistakes. Also useful and tasty: near Yog's starting point, a Golden Bow is under guard—it will be quite handy; many castles are to be taken. Replenishing resources can be helped by the cyclops dwelling to the west of the Stronghold (though it's guarded at the start by 75 such cyclopes and neutral growth hasn't been cancelled!). To the northwest is a human town—this one should be captured around week 2-3 and slowly built up—fortunately, part of the military buildings are already erected, and nearby you can find an external dwelling of angels and 2 tents with champions(!). An unpleasant moment—you won't be able to hire laborers for gathering immediately; taverns are blocked. However, they are encountered separately somewhere on the map.
Around week 3-4, having dealt with all neutrals, gathered resources and an army, you can slowly send Crag on a conquering campaign. Anti-magic garrisons never inspired sympathy, so I preferred to kill the cats. But see for yourself. If you didn't have diplomacy and failed to replenish the army for free at first—be extremely vigilant; enemies have powerful heroes and decent armies; it's not unlikely that an enemy brute will jump out from around a corner and then you'll have to load a save. A couple more unpleasant moments—as a rule, enemies come visiting from the upper continent to the Rampart, so Yog with angels must be ready; secondly, enemy heroes we had beaten will immediately end up in blue's tavern at headquarters, and he won't hesitate to release them again through the teleport. So be mentally prepared to beat the restless barbarian brothers 2-3 times until blue's army is completely exhausted. Otherwise, everything isn't so bad—stroll through enemy lands, slowly level up, don't forget to sip from the spring that doubles spells. Blue, of course, cannot be quieted down—it's easier to leave one of the heroes with an army near the teleport exit (the far northwest of the map) and then he won't even show his nose. And send the second buffed hero into the dungeons in search of necessary artifacts—they are scattered across three caves, guarded by monsters (crystal dragons, red dragons, minotaurs) and barricaded by colored towers. We have the red key (there was a tent at the very beginning of the game near Hack); others are opened one by one. By the way, don't forget to build up 3rd level magic in the human castle—there will surely be destroy undead, which will be very useful later! Once the artifacts are collected, we are congratulated and invited to the next mission.

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11. "Unification". Here it is—the long-awaited moment! All four have finally met on one map, all components of the Angelic Alliance are in hand—it's high time to settle scores with the zombies for all the hardships that befell us: thousands of killed civilians, a sea of innocent blood spilled, fucking chimneys that plague us from mission to mission...
However, stop, everything from the beginning. We have: 2 zero-level towns (upper left and lower left corners), three components of an artifact each; among heroes are 2 enraged barbarians, 1 own half-blood elf, and a no less desperate sorceress with a long-gone roof (always carries a first aid tent for some reason...). Neutral towns—2 human. They have: 7 (!) castles: 4 Necropolises, 1 human castle, 1 elven, 1 barbarian (all of varying degrees of build-up), and elite tuned necs of about level 30 wander nearby. The enemy occupies the entire right half of the map. The AI has no troops at the start, thanks for that. It seems a gorgeous slaughterhouse mission from the "Armageddon's Blade" era is before us—cool heroes, crowds of meat clashing in bloody massacres, a victory barely snatched...
But no. In reality, everything is more prosaic. The most useful bonus is archers; there are more of them, so you can make more snipers out of them too. On the first day, portal up with the barbarian and give Gelo the archers and everything necessary for the Angelic Alliance. In my opinion, it's more convenient to give the sword specifically to Gelo; he is the most mobile with his teleportation spells. Then give all barbarian troops to Crag, and he clears everything at the bottom, slowly advancing toward the neutral human town (north of the Stronghold). Yog follows him—picking up the freebies. At the top, Gelo performs the clearing on the way to the enemy elven castle (to the right of spawn), while Gem scours around for resources. By the way, so much loot is lying around that even building two towns from scratch won't be a problem. This loot is guarded by clumsy dead things—skeletons and ghosts—who are always getting underfoot, and battle usually boils down to a single cast of "destroy undead"—all creatures are swept away instantly. Meanwhile, Crag, having captured the human town and gathered small fry from dwellings, turns right toward the Necropolis castle. Capturing it will also be no trouble, and somewhere above synchronously Gelo will reclaim the Rampart. Next goal is the Stronghold at the bottom, south of the castle captured by Crag. Here some slight difficulties may arise—Sandro, having some dimension door in his book, might flutter there by the end of the first week, so you can connect Gelo with the blade to this area for a while. Cool skirmishes result—both have small armies, magic power over 20, and the first cast of chain lightning sweeps away all enemy troops, so battles here resemble classic western duels—the one who shoots first wins =). By the way, a minus for the developers—Sandro has no artifacts (apparently left them on a hanger at home and only wears them on important occasions). Quickly quieting the necs wandering around and taking the Stronghold, we thereby solve the troop problem for the barbarians. This is where it turns out that no bloody battles are in sight. Stunned by our rapid invasion, the dead things hit the brakes and start playing the fool. All that's left for us is to buy up growth and methodically visit all castles, hitting the villains settled there over the head. Of the local attractions, I can only recommend the library in the middle of the eastern border—everyone should visit. The mood is spoiled only by eternal elemental ambushes appearing periodically, and sometimes problems with resources—they take either wood or gold. In short, nothing interesting—it reminds one of beating children, that's all. All this mouse-fiddling smoothly concludes by the beginning of the 2nd month and we move with relief to the final mission.

brovach described everything perfectly, so I'll just add a few words about the "Harvest Gathering" mission with Yog, because I completed it in a completely different way, and maybe it will be useful to someone. (This mission is the most difficult, by the way; the others are very easy). Unfortunately, Yog won't get Wisdom and Earth, so you can forget about the portal. brovach focused on strength when completing the mission; I focused on magic. This was greatly helped by the necromancer locked in the dungeon in the south (at the very bottom edge of the map, in the middle) with Earth, Wisdom, and other magical abilities. He also has a small necromantic army with him. Nearby, there is a Seer who will give you Angel Wings for a paltry 15 Royal Cyclops. We free the necromancer, give him wings, and immediately fly to the right, across the ridge - there is a neutral necromantic Castle with a small guard and a decent army inside that can be recruited. We conquer the Castle, recruit troops, and go to destroy the evil. In the necromantic Castle in the northwest, I found a Town Portal (and if I remember correctly - I played it a long time ago - it was there both times I completed the mission). With the portal, defeating the bot is just a matter of technique. In general, my path is: we build a Stronghold up to Cyclops in the first week, gather 15 of them + a small army (money will be needed to hire the necromantic army) - we free the necromancer, give him wings and the portal - and we're good to go :-)

Yes, that's a good option. However, I always found that if you wait until week 4 or 5, the computer starts to struggle, so I tried to finish it earlier! And in your campaign, were there no glitches, and did you get the real Yog, who, with his skills, would move on to mission 5?

2brovach: In your walkthrough, mission #11 is repeated twice.

Please do not engage in discussions in this thread; only post descriptions of walkthroughs!

I apologize, but I couldn't resist. :)

(Yes, yes, Craig will have a real opportunity to explore the city portal in Chapter 2!)

Well, we’ll see how you use the City Portal in 2-2. :)

Sincerely, K0Lb@zzeR.

P.S. The topic is relevant and useful; those participating in the Race can help if someone has never played through the campaigns before.

12. The Fall of Sandro:
Played through everything on 130% difficulty.

The mission is extremely simple: eliminate all enemies, including Sandro. Sandro is none other than the necromancer we leveled up in previous missions, so I didn't level his Air Magic, so he wouldn't use Dimension Door too much.

At the start, you are given 4 zero-level towns. I'll say right away – there is no point in developing "Stronghold" beyond the municipality level. I built the Capitol in Rampart. To begin, I decided to clear the entire territory of undead and capture all the mines. Thanks to the fact that all mine guards are undead, and the heroes are fairly leveled up – all mines are captured in the first week. When capturing a mine, one cast of "Destroy Undead" is often enough. Literally on the second day, I discovered ghost dragons on my land. They can be killed in the first week. To do this, I transferred Gelu's archers through the "Town Portal" to my uber hero, Crag Hack. The difference in Attack between the Barbarian and the Ranger was about 20 with roughly similar values in other skills, which determined the choice to use the Barbarian Crag Hack as the meat grinder. I moved Crag Hack through the portal to the town closest to the dragons, picked up 4 ogres along the way, and on the 3rd day I attacked the dragons, having first placed some units one per stack. The main thing here is to survive the first strike. Then we summon Earth Elementals and GG)) While the dragons are killing themselves on them, we resurrect the most important stacks. Naturally, the artifact – Angelic Alliance was on Crag Hack. The Attack was around 60 at the start of the mission... Next, we go east to the Seer, who, as a reward (on the 5th day I think) for killing the dragons, gives another very good artifact (+25% to HP and regeneration for all units, something like Vial of Dragon Blood), which can be equipped without interfering with Angelic Alliance. By the end of the first week, beginning of the second, our territory should be clear of undead and all mines should be ours. At least the most essential ones. I used only 2 heroes to defeat the enemy: Gelu and Crag Hack. I left Neela and Gem to defend the towns and collect elves from nearby buildings. I used Gelu as a troop collector, who could gather soldiers from all towns in one day and deliver them to almost any point on the map. I only hired upgraded elves into Snipers, upgraded Pegasi, and upgraded Unicorns, and after saving up resources, also green dragons. I built municipalities in all towns, so I only went on the attack in the 3rd week. The subsequent defeat of the enemy is a matter of skill. From time to time, when Sandro and company's end is near, funny messages about the Seer's artifact and how to obtain it will appear)). Earth Elementals did most of the work. Sandro has the Armor of the Damned, which doesn't affect him at all, since his main strength comes from summons. In the very first battle, I removed it by using Blind on a "living stack." :smile13: Our luck is that he doesn't have the Cloak of the Undead King in this mission.

Next, the campaign "Ghost of Life" opens, in my opinion – the most interesting campaign. I'll try to write the walkthrough by evening.

All your comments, wishes, and suggestions – send to PM.

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"Ghost of Life"
We start playing again as the well-known necromancer. After Sandro's defeat, he doesn't lose heart and wants to conquer the world again. .

1. Poison for the King.

In my opinion, the most interesting mission in the campaign. According to the plot, you need to capture a town within 5 months. We are given three absolutely zero-level towns and, most importantly, a level 1 Sandro!!! Oh well, we'll level him up, not our first time. The computer has one hero ~level 10, 4 towns. The path to the enemy is guarded by a blockade with a fairly strong garrison. Our garrison is much weaker((. A rush won't work because of the garrison. So we'll have to build up and gather an army. First, we build a Mage Guild, since all spells were taken away. We hire 2 more heroes. We capture the wood and ore mines literally on the first and second days, not forgetting to pick up gold and resources. In one town, I started building up to Vampire Lords, in others I built Municipality/Capitol. At the beginning of the second week, having 8 Vampire Lords, I went to clear the gem/sulfur/crystal/mercury/gold mines, simultaneously building up the towns. It is advisable to learn Wisdom/Earth Magic/Fire Magic/Attack/Intelligence/Logistics. I learned Air Magic instead of Fire, thinking I would use "Dimension Door", but apparently the spell is excluded on all campaign maps, so I was disappointed. But Chain Lightning with Sorcery and without Expert Air Magic still deals plenty of damage. However, Fire Magic will be very useful indeed. (Blind/Berserk/Inferno/Bloodlust/Fire Shield). But in the first mission, we are limited to only level 10, so we start by learning Wisdom/Earth Magic/Intelligence. You must have Advanced Wisdom at the end of the mission, because in the first mission, unlike the subsequent ones, Town Portal is NOT locked! I messed up again and simply didn't have time to get it. I needed to spend at least 2 weeks walking, when it was already the end of the 4th month. Anyway, that was a small digression. The computer seriously attacked me at the beginning of the first week of the second month, when I captured one of its towns. Its army is twice as large. 250 Griffins/140 Crusaders/40 Champions... Without Blind, to put it mildly, things will be tough. I advise being ready so that if something happens, you can immediately bring all the cripples like Zombies into the main army and strike at once. Otherwise, GG. My army with Zombies, the computer, apparently having Expert Logistics and stables, had about twice as many movement points and simply ran away. By the beginning of the second month, you need to capture at least 1 computer town, preferably the 2 central ones. Otherwise, it will be like with me. One week after the enemy hero ran away to replenish his army, he returned not with 250 Griffins, but with 550 Griffins/280 Crusaders, 120 Zealots, 500 Marksmen, 86 Champions, and ~700 Pikemen. That's about twice the size of my army, even though I was buying all available stacks, and the towns and heroes had no more than 100 Skeletons... Blind/Berserk + Intelligence decided the battle in my favor. I had 16 Power Lich left... Throughout the mission, I couldn't shake the feeling that the computer had a Colossus in its main town. After destroying the enemy's main army, you can go capture first the 2 middle towns, and then the computer's far right town. Further play after replenishing the army turns into a beating of the helpless computer. By the beginning – middle of the 3rd month, the computer should have only 1 town left. Everything else is clear)
You might ask, why not just capture the town by playing a stealth mission? I will answer – Town Portal)). After you corner the computer in 1 town – take the main hero to improve skills and learn spells – most importantly, that coveted Town Portal. By this time, the guilds should be built so that when Sandro approaches the town, a level 4 guild is available.
I played with 3 heroes. 1 for attacking (Sandro), 1 for defense, 1 for scouting + a courier for capturing freebies. For scouting, it's best to take some Lord, so they have Logistics and Navigation. In one of the missions, Navigation will be useful. I see no point in taking all heroes to every building. It only makes sense to intensively level up, besides Sandro, one other hero – for me, it was Aislinn. In the second mission, he helps quite well.
For the second secondary hero, it's enough to level them up to be able to open external dwellings and capture mines almost without losses with small armies. I'll let you in on a secret: in the last mission, all 3 of my heroes, except Sandro – leveled up and taken to all the best spots, running around and gaining experience, having wasted not one hour of my time – disappeared without a trace.

to be continued...

Hey everyone, I need some help. I'm playing the second campaign as a Barbarian (hit hard, smash everything – something like that), and I've defeated everyone, but the purple tent is behind purple gates, and I can't access it. I don't have any flying spells or a jump ability in either of the two Necropolis castles. How can I solve this problem?

Guys, help me out. I'm playing the second campaign as a Barbarian (hit hard, smash – something like that), I've defeated everyone, but the purple tent is behind purple gates, and I can't access it. I don't have any flying spells or a jump ability in either of the two Necropolis castles. How can I solve this problem?

Which mission is it? If it's the third one, you can simply find the ribs on one of the liches in the swamp.

decided to revisit the old days and play Heroes.... started playing through the campaign, and your description helped me out a couple of times :) but I got stuck for 2 days on one mission :( please help... The Birth of a Barbarian (a difficult beginning).... I think I did everything correctly, at the end in the dungeon I killed the hydras and took the sandals, but I can't find where to take them :( the text is very poor - it's just a bunch of symbols... so I couldn't figure out where this third seer is located :( maybe someone can help...

If I remember correctly, right after the hydras, there’s a seer’s hut; you need to dismantle the artifact and give them what they ask for.

how do you disassemble an artifact? :( I haven't played in a few years and I don't remember anything...

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they require sandals and armor... again, it's not clear where to get them :(

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I think it's not allowed to post things that are not related to the description here:( I already figured it out((( it turned out to be much simpler than I thought! )))))))))) thanks to everyone!