Posts from Demon invasion. Auto-translated

http://c2n.me/3PQE46r

though, at level 36, it won't make much difference)

It took me about 40 minutes to defeat the lava dragons; the machine broke down, so I had to struggle a bit.

Instant win - only the Blind spell and the best armor are needed.

true, at level 36, it won't give you anything)
It took me about 40 minutes to finish off the lava dragons.

Some kind of masochism. I guess I don't understand the subtle perversions.

Started the 5th mission, and on the 3rd month, I lost.

It's my fault; I ignored the main hero's defense, took the castle too late, and simply didn't have enough money to buy out the hero and the ballista.

I'll replay with the "fight to the last" option, and I'll try to take the castle and build the Capitol faster. I didn't see the mentor nearby, but it's sad without the "fight to the last" option.
I chose the starting bonus – the tunic – which was the right choice; without it, there's no chance.

There's a funny thing in the last mission of the campaign. After a certain point, the Necromancers stopped coming. Mages didn't either, they didn't even buy a hero (maybe I killed all the heroes, and they don't have a tavern). Necromancers probably don't come simply because they don't have enough wood to buy a boat (they should have gold, though, since there's a Necropolis nearby). Here's the army they managed to gather: http://c2n.me/3Q03pYO. I checked the tavern; their army consists of 248-436-682-1178-1922-2480-3411 (+2 heroes with 1 archer-skeleton each). They have 19 wood and ore, 6k gold, and 26 artifacts. Behind them is a Library. Want +4 stats? Take down the Necromancer!) They have Sandro's Cloak, so I'll take the Library. And in the end, you have to defeat either a garrison or 10k Titans at a one-way portal, or are those Titans going to leave?

In the fifth one, I played for a little over 3 months. I lost once — couldn't break through the garrison, the build didn't work out; the second time I messed up at the start and arrived at the tavern without gold, so in the end, I wasted an extra week just to hire the second hero, and by the time I reached the underground, Ora was already on my tail within one day, and I had to skip most of the clear-outs; as a result, after wiping out the garrison and Ora, I simply had nothing left to defend against the next mage.

The third time everything seemed to go right. I reloaded until I rolled Sorcery on the first upgrade, cleared the first three islands, met Hafiz at the tavern, and dealt with him while losing a dozen imps. I hired the second hero and sent them after me. I cleared the underground using groups of three imps, keeping the main army with the second hero. I broke through all the dwellings and both Sorcery upgrades, and encountered Ora closer to the garrison. With proper leveling and Sorcery, I wiped her out without any problems , though she killed some imps with magic. I broke the garrison and everything behind it except for the Temple, then took the city. Thanks to selling artifacts, I managed to build the magistrate, fort, warehouse, and succubi before Nazir arrived. The fight against Nazir was very tough ; he killed everyone except the demons, but by the time the next one, Razzak, arrived, I managed to bring in the army from the dwellings and defeated him without much trouble. I looted a bunch of artifacts, sold several again, built horses, the capitol, and the Castle, and once more brought up reinforcements from the dwellings. A cinematic with Necromancers played; they aren't visible yet, but Haggesh on high difficulty and Narhiz on medium have appeared on the horizon. We'll see what happens next...

Basically, I defeated Haggesh while keeping my dogs and demons, and Narhiz was wiped out, taking the remaining imps with him. And right then, two Necromancers appear with hordes of dragons, hundreds of heralds, and so on. And among the mages approaching is Jalib with a "no chance" danger level. I don't even know what to do; maybe I dragged it out too long, but it's only the third month, and there's absolutely no time to venture anywhere—I only have time to fend off attacks. In theory, of course, you can defeat everyone on berserk by locking yourself in the Castle, but there definitely won't be enough meat to survive the enemies' magic...

I almost managed to kill Jalib; a dozen rakshasas were left the last time, plus a couple of times the berserker went into the magic mirror. For some reason, the Necromancers didn't attack, which gives me at least some hope...

Here, to fight effectively, it’s essential to fight to the very end. Berserker is good, but you need to build it up, and resources are scarce. So, you can generally skip the Necromancer faction at the beginning and focus on building a 3rd-level Ballista, Fire Arrows, and a Tent, then burn everything with Hellfire and Chain Lightning, and then quickly move on. The problem is that moving on is expensive; you need to build the Capitol as quickly as possible, and fight with your hero against Imps, buying only a War Machine and a Tent, or just a War Machine. The Necromancer faction will only be a burden at the beginning; luck will be more useful. As for me, I haven’t encountered the Barbarian faction; I’ve only encountered Mages and Necromancers. And as far as I understand, if you eliminate a Mage hero, it’s permanent. And artifacts mainly drop from these Mages. Considering that there is no sawmill on the Necromancer island, the Necromancers will also run out, as in my case

Jaliba managed to win despite having ten times fewer troops . He was very lucky that he didn't have gargoyles, and he was casting random spells, considering he had antimagic, with which he could have easily countered my berserker. And Sandro's cloak, obtained from one of the mages, is very helpful.

To fight effectively, a battle to the last is essential.
Berserkers are good, but they need to be built up, and resources are scarce. So, you can skip the Dark faction at the beginning and focus on building a 3rd-level ballista, fire arrows, a tent, and burn with hellfire and chain lightning, and then move on.

BDP is definitely one of the most important perks in this campaign. But without the Dark faction, it's hard to know how to play, because without mass dispel, the archers simply destroy everything. And you can't defeat gargoyles, golems, and djinn with chain lightning and hellfire.

For some reason, the Necropolis faction doesn't want to attack me in the Castle. One of them even has fewer troops than Jaliba. I could have defeated them in the same way, even easier, because they don't have any artifacts for initiative or a magic mirror.

Now, one of them has given his army to the other, but even with that army, he sailed away on a ship instead of finishing me off. So, I'm getting monthly reinforcements from the dwellings. Now I'll gather resources for the 5th-level mage guild for a city portal and try a raid.

The raid wasn't very successful. I only managed to clear the lower level of the dungeon, get an upgrade, and get the Dwellings of Horses. Then Faiz arrived with a bunch of titans, but he was defeated on the first try, although with some losses. He was probably the last hero of the Mages, and after him, Waishan appeared with fifty titans and an earthquake spell that kills 50 dogs. And on the horizon, there are two more Yellow heroes, a knight and a dwarf. Well, in principle, you can fight even with large armies if you don't have artifacts for initiative...

I decided to reload and try the raid again, and this time it was very successful. I went to the surface in the center, took a quest from the sphinx, cleared the first pyramid, then a hundred and fifty cyclops nearby, and got the Amulet of the Blood Claw. A Necropolis hero appeared on the right, so I started running to the left, overtaking him by finding a path. Along the way, I captured two mines, reached the second pyramid, got a mask there, a mentor was on one side, and the Staff of the Underworld was on the other side with decent guards, but the Necropolis hero was right behind me, so I went straight to Utopia, cleared it, and teleported to the Castle. During the raid, I got a lot of dragon artifacts and the Greaves of the King of Dwarves, and this time Faiz was defeated without a chance, with only imps taking losses (his gremlins moved before everyone else in any case + a couple of lightning bolts from the titans).

I also defeated Waishan, who came after him. The losses were significant due to magic, but I saved almost all the demons and horses. I got some reinforcements, restored the dogs more or less, the Yellow hero is nowhere to be seen, a dwarf with twenty titans and good magic appears in the tavern, but after the battle with Waishan, I have almost a full set of the King of Dwarves, so it will be easier against magic. And another hero joined the Necropolis, so now he has legions, up to a hundred dragons. But since the area behind the garrison is probably safe from the Necropolis, I can fight in raids without problems and increase my strength. The Yellow hero will only become weaker without heroes and magic. Without artifacts for initiative, their army is not very strong

The Dwarf, Karli, whom I saw in the tavern, arrived a couple of weeks later, but he had no chance, despite having a decent army. After the battle with him, my army in the tavern appeared stronger than the mages' army, so I decided not to delay, waited for both Necromancers to go out to sea, left the underground through the center, summoned a ship to the left of the lighthouse, and sailed to the mages' cities, overtaking the Necromancers by a maximum of a couple of moves. Along the way, I encountered a weak Lucretia with a two-week-old mage army, and the heroes in the cities themselves were very weak. I reached the Titans, received the quest, but the Necromancer was right behind me, and there was no way to return, so I reloaded. I didn't capture the city near the Titans, but immediately took the quest, teleported to the first mage city, went out to sea, sailed a little to the east, landed, and flew to the demon castle. I gathered the largest possible army and headed to Utopia. Along the way, I visited the mentor and the library of the Conflux, bought the "Subdue" spell, and obtained the Staff of the Underworld. I returned to the castle, used the old maneuver to overtake the Necromancers, returned to the lands of the mages, and easily captured all the cities. https://imgur.com/a/myBNo I was disappointed that it all ended there; I thought the word "hold" in the quest was not just for show. And the final cutscenes with a hint :)

Overall, the campaign is excellent; I would rate it 9/10. I might later detail what I liked and didn't like

That's right, with the capture of the wizard cities, it's mission 4...

this is the fifth one. the fourth one is against humans and features a different main character.

a necromancer attacked me in the castle.

True, after my two raids on him, he had 20 dragons, about 200 zombies, and a small number of other units left in his army. I defeated him without any losses; I deployed 33 imps for the battle (this was relatively recently, 2-3 months after the start). I didn't have enough gold for a proper army, and the threat level was moderate for these remaining units. But he attacked the castle, so he has the range to attack the garrison.

Yeah, that’s strange. He didn’t attack me even when he was only a couple of squares away from my Castle, while I was running away from him. But inside the Castle, with Sandro’s Cloak, you can defeat him. Hopefully, the author will show up soon to clarify this and a few other things.

or are those titans going to leave?

Yes, as Gerter already mentioned, the titans will give a quest.

Added 2 minutes later

it would be good to clarify this and some other things

a Necropolis can reach a Castle if it was captured by a player. As for its strange behavior, it's hard to say; Necropolis AI doesn't have any specific instructions for behavior, so it's just inexplicable AI stupidity.

Will there be a story-driven continuation of the campaign?

If I understand correctly, this is a continuation of "The Beginning of the End"? Then I'll join in!