Posts from Demon invasion. Auto-translated

Is the scenario localized in English or only in Russian?

In my opinion, only the Russian language

Added 7 minutes later
I think the third campaign will be either about the Necropolis or the Haven, because the demons have almost won, and it wouldn't make sense to make a campaign about them, and it would be boring. But a campaign about the forces of light would be very interesting. Master, if you're reading this, please make a second mission there about the resurrection of Duncan and Wolfstan. It would be interesting in terms of the plot, as Freya is kind of the chosen one of Erathia, and at some Gate of Erathia, she could resurrect Duncan, and Wolfstan would come along with him. And I think many people would like that, because I don't want to lose the most charismatic and beloved heroes forever!!!

After a long break, I felt the urge to create a small map as a continuation. I think I'll upload it soon, although I don't have time for a proper test of the neutral creatures' strength.

welcome back! will there be any updates to this campaign?

Yes, welcome back! Could you reveal which faction the scenario is for? Or will it be like before, with 5 scenarios in a row, followed by one campaign?

I'm replaying the campaign and encountered a major bug in the first mission: Wulfsten decided to ignore Sigrif and went to capture the demon castle. When he took and destroyed it, a cutscene with him and Urgash played, after which Wulfsten disappeared with all his legions, and the quest to eliminate him was completed...

Replay the invasion from the underworld? You must be crazy!!!

yes, after finishing the first campaign, I decided to replay the second one, so to speak, to get a complete impression of the whole story.

Welcome back! Will there be any updates to this campaign?

It is planned, but later.

Campaign file updated.

Changes:

- In the first mission, the composition of neutral creatures and artifacts has been changed (randomness removed at the start), and additional objects have been added at the start (mentor, garrisons).
- In the second mission, randomness has been removed from some artifacts, and the armies of some heroes have been changed.
- In the fourth mission, the cutscenes are played again at the end.
- In the fifth mission, the "Summon Ship" spell has been added to the Necromancers.
- The icons of the added heroes have been adjusted.

I'm actually replaying the campaign right now on Hero difficulty (I had one playthrough on Veteran). I completed the first mission without any major problems; the underground section can actually be completed almost regardless of the circumstances. You just sometimes defeat the computer-controlled enemies, and sometimes you just run around, trying to make them fight each other. The only downside is the lack of any motivation to complete the underground section quickly, because the neutral creatures on the surface are initially large and don't grow, meaning it's more beneficial to spend more time collecting upgrades (after the transfer, my stats were 4-1-6-3), so it takes 3-4 months to complete the underground section, which is a long time. But the surface is completed almost without problems once you know what the enemies are like; I only needed 2 attempts for Hangwul and Wolfenstein, so I spent a total of 12 months on the mission, which is much faster than one playthrough. In the second mission, I was simply amazed by the Necromancer's army on Hero difficulty (which is 2.5-3 times larger than on Veteran). I defeated him with great difficulty after several hours of attempts, and that was with a fairly good starting position (11 spells + Trident) . I hope the Necromancer is one of those who got nerfed)). But everything went very well on the surface. I developed Nimue, and her special ability + building Chaos Gates in all castles = 100% Chaos Gates by the time the first Knight arrives. This allowed me to keep all 5 castles. Sigrif also had a good start; I had a starting hero with a Mage skill, and I learned all the high-level Dark magic spells from the demons in Shi'o while they were allies. After the ritual, I accumulated some troops + summoned reinforcements from the surface and easily defeated both strong demons in the Dark castle. I didn't accumulate troops for Kha-Beleth for long; I defeated him mainly thanks to the powerful Chaos Gates (8 demonic castles!!!) . And in the final battle on the surface, Faydaen again gave all his good troops to Duncan (including his own archers, which made his special ability useless), and the battle with Duncan was very difficult , but Faydaen himself was defeated without problems. In total, it took 9 months and 2 weeks to complete the mission; I think it can be done even faster. In the third mission, so far, the only good starting position was ruined by a week of doubled growth, which made it impossible to rush the Brown hero. Of course, there can also be very unpleasant neutral creatures that can be randomly generated, but it's tolerable; however, the random nature of the skill progression is unforgiving. I think it's necessary to guarantee protection in the Witch Hut. And I don't know if this AI behavior will repeat, but last time:

UPD. I think I figured out the reason for Grok's stupidity in the underground section. He either doesn't have the Ship Summon spell, or he doesn't want to use it for some reason. I just checked - I brought a secondary hero's ship to the exit to the surface, where there were Emerald Dragons, and he immediately ran there and sailed to capture my castle.

In general, I'll write more about this later

well, as expected, the Orcs don't use movement abilities, don't summon ships, and don't bother defending cities. although the necessary building is present in all cities, and their level allows it. I don't know, is this a local bug, or is the map simply not working correctly...?

I specifically checked by solving the secret, and the Orcs simply don't have movement abilities at all - https://i.imgur.com/wB1Qnxl.jpg, even though all the conditions for learning them are met. because of this, the entire tactic boils down to luring enemies into the Dungeon, capturing cities without a fight, and waiting 7 days for them to self-destruct.

Yeah, I barely made it through this campaign on a hero (it took over 3 months). I'm curious when the sequel will be released? And please, make it less hardcore.

Downloaded the new version to replay mission 5 properly, and noticed that Sigrif's ability damage was also increased. IMO, it's unnecessary; it would have been better to just have two versions like before, as increasing the chain damage by 1.5 times is an overcorrection.

I completed the fifth campaign in 3 months and 3 weeks. Perhaps it was the only mission where the difference between a veteran and a hero was very noticeable. I didn't level up very effectively (and it turned out to be extremely critical here), so the first Necromancer that appeared didn't give me a chance and destroyed the Demon Castle (he also disappeared for some reason). Sandro's cloak also wasn't among the attacking mages (last time it dropped almost immediately). In general, everything was leading to a replay, and I decided to just go to the enemy cities as a test, and unexpectedly, I was able to turn everything around and achieve victory. The coveted cloak was right at the first Mage Castle, guarded by 25 Astral Dragons, but the enemies apparently didn't care. Thanks to this, I was able to defeat 10,000 Titans on the portal with 7 Gargoyles , and then survive in a hopeless battle with the last mage .

Overall, replaying the campaign took 859 days (Astral Dragon), for comparison, the first playthrough took as much as 1404 days... I think I can still improve this result significantly; in each mission, I have ideas on how to complete it faster. And once again, a huge respect to the Master for this masterpiece; I never cease to be amazed by his ability to balance the maps on a fine line between simple difficulty and super hardcore, which at first glance seems impossible to overcome :smile20: