Posts from The Return, Part 2

I completed the mission on "Hero" difficulty in 82 days and received "Thunderstrike."
I want to commend the author – I really enjoyed the mission; it's much more interesting than the first one.
Here's a brief battle report:
First, I gathered a large number of archers who could shoot without penalty and cleared the entire right bank (peasants were expendable, covering the archers from close combat). Then, with four Archangels, a hundred archers, and several dozen peasants, I breached the entrance to the Dungeon without any losses.
Next, I sailed across and cleared the left bank, captured a pendant along the way, exchanged it for a crown, and chatted with the monks about rebuilding the city. I didn't spend time searching for the Tear of Ashera.
Upon returning to my bank, I gathered all the garrison forces accumulated in the city (total forces: 10 Archangels, 20 Champions, and so on...) and went to restore order on the lower level.
I passed the outpost without losses and captured the first Necromancer Castle.
And then I discovered that the main Blue hero (Vlad the Impaler) had approximately four times more troops than I did (over 450 High Vampires, about a hundred Banshees, 22 Astral Dragons, and almost a thousand Skeleton Archers; there were also a sufficient number of Zombies, Ghosts, and Healers). I had to resort to guerrilla tactics. I fled from the captured city, having hired four new heroes there, and started harassing them, taking advantage of my high mobility (I fully developed Logistics and Pathfinding). I eliminated all the minor heroes of the Necromancers and recaptured all three of their cities and all the mines, although Vlad immediately retook one of the cities and a couple of mines and hired new satellites, but the other two cities and the mines adjacent to them remained under my control.
After that, it was just a matter of technique – over the course of a month, I accumulated enough forces to achieve victory over the enemy in an open battle. I rebuilt the city on the island, slightly improved it, but as it turned out, I didn't need it. The following happened: when I was preparing to transfer another batch of troops from my main city to the main hero and the first batch of troops from the rebuilt city on the island, the panicked Vlad (whose army was still approximately twice as large as mine at that moment) himself attacked my main hero, who was stationed in one of the Necromancer cities, and... he was completely defeated!!! And my hero lost only Griffins (and even then, only because the enemy Banshees were constantly trampling on their corpses and preventing the Archangels from resurrecting them). Realizing that the battle was lost, Vlad shamefully fled, and I captured his last city the next day.
If you're interested, I can upload screenshots of the most significant battles that I saved.

Thank you for your feedback, even if it's just a few words. Based on the battle report, I concluded that Necromancers are strong enough and don't need to be buffed.
And you missed out by not going for the Tear of Ashi – you lost a significant part of the game.

I checked which replays I saved:
1. An assault on the entrance to the Dungeon; it turns out I was wrong – I had run out of peasants by that time, and I was defending myself with swordsmen who had just joined;
2. Defeating Vlad.
Regarding the Tear of Ashi – I had the idea to send one of the hired heroes to search for it while engaging in guerrilla warfare, but I felt that it would be a waste of time (as it would be with restoring the city).

As for the Necromancers – they don't need to be strengthened, and making them more aggressive is not a good idea, because if they start attacking within the first two months, it will be difficult for one hero to withstand, and if you allow them to build a tavern in the city, it will be a completely different story.

I replayed the end of the war scenario – I managed to provoke Vlad into attacking a week earlier, which shortened the game time by another six days. This time, I didn’t even bother rebuilding the town.

They shouldn't have gone after the Tear of Asch for nothing – they missed out on a big part of the game.

It depends on what the player wants – to finish the game as quickly as possible, or to enjoy it. It's possible to win without the Tear, and it might even be faster, but with the Tear, it's more interesting.

It depends on what the player wants – to finish the game as quickly as possible or to enjoy the process. You can win without too much difficulty, and it might even be faster, but winning with a challenge is more interesting.

In my opinion, defeating superior enemy forces with a small army is the most rewarding experience. :smile49:

And the time (real time, not in-game time) spent on strategic maneuvers is no less than the time spent searching.

Yes, me too. At first, I cleared it without using the "Tears of Achaea" artifact; the passage simply didn't open for me. Then, I used the artifact. The first time took less time, but the second time was more enjoyable. It's like reading a book – you can read the first and last pages, or you can read it all.

In my opinion, this is an excellent map, worthy of the first part of the series /topic/9221/
but I would like it to be slightly more challenging

Walkthrough of the "Return, Part 2" scenario (hero difficulty): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TdfD1bYG3g

Once, I was playing. First, I walked around, then I swam, then I walked again. I went down into the Dungeon, got ready to fight the undead, and they (the strongest AI opponents) left at the start. My mood was ruined. That's what kind of victory it was. I was playing on Logistics, I don't remember the rank anymore. I always try to get the Thunderblade. Most likely, I had it here too.

I remembered something else. The hero's specialization is barely noticeable. I even forgot about it. And when it activated at the beginning, I was even surprised, wondering where it came from, and then I remembered that it existed. It was just there for show.

A strange map... Without collecting all of Iss's artifacts, I went and beat the Necropolis. I also leveled up all three castles a bit, bought one decent one, and that was it. I received the Cyclops badge. Overall, it's a bit boring, but the idea is good.

The idea is good. But! There's a bug with the quest (script) for obtaining the Sar-Issa set. If there's a specific order for obtaining the items, the author should have mentioned it. That's why I probably missed half of the quests. I don't even know how many times I had to reload and backtrack to figure out the order of collecting the set (and even then, it's not certain that it would work). So, I just went and beat up all the Necromancers.
P.S. And judging by the fact that I'm not the only one here (I read the comments), the map is buggy, but passable. Please fix the script (the map itself is okay). The Necromancers were heavily training vampires, so they were strong opponents against my hero (Vlad and Lucretia).

I encountered the problem that was mentioned earlier regarding the passage in the mountains. I decided to return to the prophet's hut with the artifact set already collected, and it worked. Apparently, there's some kind of checkpoint in the script there.

I collected the artifacts in a random order.

I read that you need to take the hat last, but I took it second or third. I took the staff last.

For some reason, I intuitively decided to swim to the prophet's hut, and the quest was completed as soon as I reached it.

Maybe this will help someone.

upd

I completed the scenario. It's very interesting and beautiful, especially the mountains and the spiral-shaped ascent).

Same here, I went back to the hut and the quest was completed.