Posts from Awakening of Evil

But you're almost there, you've already unlocked the entire map! Few have managed to get this far.

Thank you for the kind words :)
Happy New Year to you :)

After completing the Campaigns for the third time, I became interested in specific numbers regarding the completion of quests and their quantity, so I created a separate file for each mission (except for the first one, as there is nothing complicated or special about the quests there) with a brief description of them and the rewards. For the second mission, it seems I spent about a week and a half writing the text) + it might be useful for someone for speedruns if they manage to build an optimal route. And here are a few minor issues that I noticed during the playthroughs. Mission 2: 1) It is not possible to fight the human treasury guard when completing the second quest from Golor. If this is intentional, then the battle option can be removed, as it still interferes and is a bit misleading. 2) There is a significant typo: Gabriel says that to gain access to the human treasury, Sigrif's reputation with humans must be 65, but it only opens when 76 points are reached. 3) The one-way portal near the orc territory becomes unusable when accepting the quest to capture the human city. There is no point in this - by the time the quest is taken, the human army is large enough that a one-week increase will not affect the difficulty of the siege. 4) It is not possible to take quests to capture the human and elf cities at the same time because, after accepting Tilshek's quest, most of the map is blocked, even if the elf stone has not yet been obtained. You have to first capture the elf city and only then take the quest to capture the human castle. 5) If you refuse to give 25,000 gold to the Thieves' Guild, this offer will no longer be available. This means that completing further Thieves' Guild quests becomes impossible. There were also these points here, but they can be left out: 1) To join the hunter's guild, it is enough to kill griffins, not all three types of beasts. 2) The quest to kill the orc overseers on the farms is actually given by the peasants, not by Sindin. If one of the peasants is killed during another quest (tax collection) before or after taking the quest from the elves, the latter becomes impossible to complete. Therefore, the script or something similar for the possibility of attacking the orcs should be given to Sindin, and the peasants should only have texts about gratitude for help in the form of reputation with humans and reinforcements during the siege of the orc city (you should still be able to approach them to take the quest to kill the overseers). Also, in mission 4, the runes in the underground library cannot be bought when their cost reaches 200,000 gold. In mission 3, "Invasion from Inferno," the goblin dwelling directly under the castle on the southwestern island does not transform into Inferno if the surrounding area is turned into Inferno. And in mission 5, it is not possible to search the ship located under the central entrance to the Dungeon. I wrote how to enter the treasury in the file "mission 5." I learned this method from a message somewhere in this thread

So, hello everyone. I downloaded and started replaying this campaign, and the first mission went quite smoothly and was easy. But now, in the second mission, I'm having problems. I took a quest to capture a human town (I had already destroyed the elves), but when I get there... well, that's it. They don't pay any attention to me, I can walk around the town peacefully, and I have no idea how to start a battle. Basically, what can I do? Unfortunately, I don't have any saves before accepting the quest, and replaying after 7 hours of gameplay would be quite unpleasant.

Hello everyone. I downloaded and started replaying this campaign. The first mission went quite smoothly and was easy. But now I'm having problems with the second mission. I took a quest to capture a human city (I had already destroyed the elves), but when I get there... nothing happens. They don't pay any attention to me, I can walk around the city peacefully, and I have no idea how to start a battle. What can I do? Unfortunately, I don't have saves from before accepting the quest, and replaying after 7 hours of gameplay would be quite unpleasant.

I had a similar issue, but only with an Orc city; I wrote about it on the previous page (messages from 22.10.18 and 28.10.18) - I had to replay the mission from the beginning, and everything worked without problems.

Well, during the New Year holidays, I finally found the time to complete this campaign (it's almost a shame that it's over :mad:).
After reaching the surface (I described the process of reaching the surface above), the entire game boiled down to beating up baby creatures :cool: - storming neutral garrisons is generally "no big deal" (the battles of Sigrif in the second gate and Railag with the market garrison are a clear illustration of this - these battles were the most challenging). Battles with human heroes also went without any particular problems - 3 out of 5 ended in a complete victory (Sigrif's battle with the main hero and the other battles are attached).

In the end, I completed the surface part in 8 days + 3.5 months of "preparation" below. I didn't bother swimming across the river to the peasant farms on the other side, nor did I search for the dragon's treasure, saving time. I think that if you don't get carried away with raiding farms and running to the market, you can manage it in 6 days.

Overall, I can say that the 5th mission turned out to be too complicated - in the first stage, everything develops very dynamically - you constantly have to engage in complex and exciting battles with neutrals (5-10 battles per day). But after a couple of months, when almost the entire lower part of the map is already captured, a routine begins, which boils down to gathering forces in the castles, transporting them to the key hero so that he can, in time (4-5 days before the "deadline"), pass the "dark star" to the prophet and maximize the army he has gathered, and then increase it again by entering the tomb, and then, through intermediaries, manage to distribute these forces to the other main heroes. And then, ascend to the top, and everything is fast and dynamic again :)

The entire campaign took 695 days; I think the result can be improved by at least 50 days with a replay - I lost a lot of time in the first mission, going around the trees of knowledge and returning to them at the end to get more experience by the end of the mission (as it turned out later - "in vain") - the hero's growth was limited to level 36, and 2 trees remained "unused" :( .

Maybe I'm not the best player, but on the 4th mission, playing as the Warrior, by the end of the 3rd week, I was almost finished clearing the dungeon, when suddenly, literally, an Elf flew in with an army almost 5 times larger than mine and headed straight for me. With logistics maxed out, this Elf still flew almost a quarter of the distance further than I did, which ultimately led to my demise. Maybe I'm really slow, but HOW do you build an army identical to a hundred archers, dancers, and fifty druids by the 3rd week?! And it's not just one Elf; a second one with a similar army is already approaching the entrance. I'm far from a Heroes guru, and I specifically set the difficulty to Warrior just to enjoy the campaign and the story, but even with that difficulty, something isn't quite working out. At the beginning, everything was great; I reached the garrison and the city with almost no losses, but then assassins wiped out two-thirds of the Furies. In the city, the enemy hero again used spells to destroy 70% of the remaining Furies. I would be very grateful if someone could help me with advice on how to complete the map, perhaps with an optimal build or strategy.

Recently, I played through the campaign with a hero and used a 4-turn strategy. I would eliminate Furies in battles for the Town portal, but I would keep the scouts, upgrade them in the Hunting Lodge, and immediately head to the upper right Elven town, capture it, and when the strongest Elf approached, I would teleport through the Library to the beginning of the map and go to the lower Castle, while using the Trapper to lure the Elf into the Dungeon. As a result, I also captured the central Castle, gathered a couple of reinforcements from 2 Castles, upgraded the weaker Elves, and by the 2nd month, I had upgraded the strongest one as well. I leveled up Chaos, Sorcery, and Earth magic, focusing on archers and the Druid skill tree, and before facing Faidean, I only mentored Darkness – on the 3rd week of the 4th month, I defeated him without much difficulty. The mission isn't particularly difficult; the main thing is to play the beginning correctly and use the Town portal from the Library effectively.
P.S. I would really like to know which version of the campaign the respected Rambo was playing. My result on the latest version is 735 days, and I find it hard to imagine improving it by 100 days. Perhaps it's possible in the old version, without the changes to missions 1, 3, and 5...

HOW do you build an army that is identical to one hundred archers, dancing sprites, and fifty druids by the 3rd week?!

In a captured castle of the Afroknizhniks, you can recruit helpers to harass enemy heroes before the main battle. For example, a properly developed Letos, level 20, with a group of seven Griffins can easily halve that army, and if he has green boots, he can quite possibly defeat it.

P.S. In my message from 12/31/2018, 16:58, I posted an example of a similar battle between Shadia and Gabriel. Shadia had 5 Griffins, and Gabriel had more than 800 peasants and more than 300 archers, and so on, but Shadia won, and Shadia is not Letos; she doesn't know the "starting plague."
By the way, there is also a battle between Letos and Valeria; Letos doesn't have 5, but three hundred Griffins, but Valeria doesn't have a hundred archers either.

P.P.S. In general, chaos helps well only in the early stages, when the size of armies is still within a few hundred creatures of level 1; but when there are hundreds of creatures of level 6 and 7 in the armies, then darkness and summoning come to the fore.

I took a simpler approach in mission 4. In the first week, I captured the lower Elven castle. At the end of the second week, I captured the middle Elven castle. I waited for two more weeks, bought all the Elven troops from the two castles, and then I managed to defeat the Elf in about a month.

Decided to try replaying this campaign (of course, with a different hero), and today I finished the first mission. Knowing the map structure, it was significantly easier to play. At the beginning of the game, I got lucky – after the first victory, I received the Logistics skill, which became the key to success. I quickly leveled up the hero in the Dungeon, which allowed me to enter the library relatively easily, where I learned "Darkness" :smile09: and headed to the surface. At the top, I made my way to the nearest upgrade tower, where I could transform beasts into Furies, and then rushed to free the red witch :smile23:. After freeing her, Sigrif focused on collecting Necropolis artifacts, and after obtaining them, he passed them on to the red witch and, ignoring everything, ran towards the red gate :smile13:, and the gate guardian (in the tent) passed the artifacts to the red witch. After entering the red gate, the hero immediately ran to eliminate the Angel and Demon outposts :smile13:, ignoring the neutral creatures that were not directly in the way, as well as the resources and artifacts they guarded :cool:. As a result, already in the second month, he reached the main clearing (where there are two trees that increase the level) and immediately freed the white witch :smile23:, after which Sigrif rushed to the center of the map (to the prophet near the Phoenix outpost) to receive the quest to dig up the Tear of Ascha. Along the way, he eliminated neutral creatures encountered on the road (the "Path of War" skill only accelerated movement), while both witches collected the resources and artifacts they found, and also (if possible) completed some quests. With the help of "Berserk," Sigrif defeated the Phoenix outpost (the battle is attached), after which he spoke with the prophet, which provoked the appearance of Ossir's scout. The scout immediately rushed to the center :smile19: to kill Sigrif, but Sigrif and the white witch teleported to the area where they receive the quest to destroy the Orcish camp the next turn using a one-way portal. There, they managed to level up the white witch in a couple of battles (one of them is attached), then both heroes increased their stats in the library, gathered additional troops and useful artifacts, after which Sigrif ran through the four-way teleport to complete the quests to find the Tear of Ascha, and the white witch began to hang around in that area near the entrance to the teleport to distract Ossir (the scout), for whom she had a very "pleasant" surprise :smile54: (the Berserk spell). Ossir, as expected, also turned towards the four-way teleport to intercept Sigrif, and the red witch ran further to the center of the map (where the entrance to the Dungeon is), and also obtained (bought) a couple of hints. Ossir, reaching the teleport, got confused :smile07: and, instead of chasing Sigrif, rushed after the white witch, who began to retreat towards the Orcish camp, which gave Sigrif several days to complete the quests. Then she self-destructed :smile51:, destroying most of Ossir's army (the battle is attached). Meanwhile, Sigrif dug up the tear and rushed back to the center of the map, Ossir recovered, but it was too late. As a result of all these maneuvers, Sigrif reached the place without losses, passed the Dragon Utopia and the Elf Guard, and went into the Dungeon :cool:, and beforehand, he let the red witch into the same Dungeon. As a result, in the lands of the Traitors, there was not only Sigrif but also his companion, which greatly simplified the further war ;) (the key battles with Letos and Debilka are attached). Fortunately, the enemy heroes were eager to catch the red witch, and as a result, Sigrif caught them on the street, not in the castles. On the surface, Ossir, who was fiercely chasing Sigrif, realized that he had been tricked when the target disappeared from under his nose into the Dungeon :confused: and ran home, but it was too late, and Raylag managed to block his retreat and easily crush him :cool: (the battle is attached). As a result of this "blitzkrieg," I managed to complete the mission in three and a half months (which is three months faster than last time), but at the same time, I did not complete most of the optional quests, did not fully collect the Dragon set, did not visit most of the towers, camps, arenas (and similar places where you can increase stats), and even ignored one tree. But, I still reached level 36 ;) . P.S. I developed: magic, logistics (with an emphasis on melee combat), combat (with an emphasis on hand-to-hand combat), darkness (with an emphasis on pain), and summoning (with a jab into the ground).

Maybe I'm not the best player, but still, on the 4th mission, playing as a Warrior, by the end of the 3rd week, I was almost done clearing the dungeon, when suddenly, quite literally, an Elf flew in with an army almost 5 times larger than mine and headed straight for me.

With logistics maxed out, this Elf was still flying almost a quarter of the distance faster than me, which ultimately led to my demise.

Maybe I'm really slow, but HOW do you build an army identical to a hundred Archers, Dancers, and fifty Druids by the 3rd week?! And this isn't just one Elf; a second one with a similar army is already approaching the entrance.

I'm far from a Heroes guru, and I specifically set the difficulty to Warrior just to enjoy the campaign and the story, but even with that difficulty, things aren't going too well.

At the beginning, everything was great; I reached the garrison and the city with almost no losses, but then Assassins wiped out two-thirds of the Furies. In the city, the enemy hero again used spells to destroy 70% of the remaining Furies.

I would be very grateful if someone could help me with advice on how to complete the map, perhaps with an optimal build or strategy.

As I wrote above, I decided to replay this campaign; I've now reached the 4th mission (the final cutscenes of the 2nd and 3rd missions are attached; I wrote about completing the 1st mission above).

In the 4th mission, I started in the following way: instead of developing Sigrif at the start, I began to level up Tralsai with his starting Plague spell – as a result:
1. In the initial battle with the Fairies, I lost only 3 Hunters, 5 Scouts, and one Minotaur (the 134 Fairies, poisoned at the beginning of the battle, managed to cast "Oakenshield" twice, and then a Witch slowed them down, and they ended up under the pressure of Minotaurs enhanced with "Power Attack"; meanwhile, the Riders who managed to reach them were playing "tag" with them, biting them on the rear).
2. The remaining battles until the Orange Garrison, which Tralsai reached on the 10th day, went without losses. While Tralsai was leveling up on harmless neutrals and breaking into the underground, Sigrif went straight from the Prophet to the Library and learned three spells (two starting spells and one with the help of a Rune located nearby), and then followed Tralsai with a support group (the main army).
3. Tralsai stormed the Garrison on the 6th day with 2 Hunters and 4 Scouts, as a result, it was taken (the battle is attached).
4. After storming the Garrison, Tralsai remained with one Hunter and served as an excellent bait for the Orange hero, who was nearby; he rushes after Tralsai, while my hero retreated slightly from the Garrison gate back (see the screenshot at the beginning of the 7th day).
5. On the next turn, Sigrif transfers everything he received at the start and the saved army to Tralsai and goes into the Garrison gate towards the empty Castle, while Tralsai with the entire army blocks the gate, as a result of which the Orange hero does not dare to attack it (screenshot of the situation during the 8th day).
6. Sigrif enters the empty Castle (this happens on the first day of the week, when the harvest is ripe there).

I haven't played further yet – I will continue when I have time; in the current and near future, I want to hire another hero and use him to form a normal army – bring all the existing Hunters and Scouts to a common denominator, also do the same with the Furies and Beasts, as well as with the Riders. In the end, I will have: about 70 Furies, approximately the same number of Hunters, a couple of dozen Riders, and one Witch, considering that Tralsai is currently level 11 and knows the starting Plague spell, he can already now (on the 9th day) quite decently meet an army of "a hundred Archers, Dancers, and fifty Druids".

In the future, I plan to: first of all, crush the Orange hero and develop the Castle, and then I will transfer the army to Sigrif and start leveling him up (there are plenty of strong and stupid neutrals around that can be easily used to gain experience), etc.

Continued playing the 4th mission and discovered an interesting effect (I checked it twice):
If Sigrif enters an empty city of orange Afroknights while the orange player is still alive, all three outposts come under your control, and the number of units in them is more than enough to create a good military base for further combat :smile07: (screenshot attached, I also saved the game state at that moment and the daily saves leading up to this event).
There are over 200 hunters, almost 150 furies, almost 100 minotaurs, and several dozen riders at each outpost. And there are not one, but three such outposts :smile43: !!! And most importantly, these troops can be removed from the outposts and used in further warfare :smile03:
I wonder, is this a bug or was it intended by the author? If it's the latter, it's a mistake - after this (at least for me), the further Walkthrough of the mission turned into a walk in the park :smile18:
As a result, this "walk in the park" ended almost before it began - in the first three weeks, by transferring troops from Tralsay to Sigrif with the help of allied players, I cleared the Dungeon, captured all three elven cities, and freed Railag, and then made peace with the necromancers and completed the prophet's quests. I also defeated Faydan with units from the outposts: furies, hunters, and riders + a small support from the white witches that had accumulated and been hired in the "refugee camps" (screenshot of the battle attached).
I also posted a screenshot of the final cutscene.

It seems you are playing an older version; in the new version, you cannot recruit troops from garrisons.

Maybe I started playing it for the first time a year ago, then I stopped (didn't have time, I wrote about it above), and continued this autumn. Now I'm replaying it without updating. I was surprised that after entering an empty town, the troops in the outposts didn't just join me, but significantly increased in number – they even appeared in the outpost that I had already cleared. P.S. Yes, indeed! I just checked, and it turns out that there were troops in the outposts last time too! And I didn't even notice – that time I played without using them (I'm attaching a screenshot from the previous game – a view of the dungeon before the final battle – Faeiden's castle has already been captured, and the outpost troops haven't been touched). I'll replay it this time without using the outposts if I have time (I saved the save from that moment).

Well, this time I managed without troops from the garrisons. The result is, however, two weeks worse than with those troops, but at least everything was "fair and square" :). After capturing the Dungeon stronghold, the events unfolded as follows: the first thing I did was hire Leto in the stronghold, because with his "plague" spell, he was simply essential. Thanks to Tralsai's "learn and teach" ability, both Tralsai and Sigrif mastered this spell. Next, during the 2nd week of the game, Tralsai, and especially Sigrif, passed the army back and forth using Leto (and a couple of days later, Irbeth was hired to help). They gained experience on the neutral creatures. The orange hero (lizardman Sogral) was left without a stronghold and disappeared somewhere, and during this week, he eliminated himself. At the beginning of the 3rd week, Sigrif, with the main army, emerged on the surface near the burning pit, fought his way to the southeastern Elven stronghold, and captured it (the stronghold was captured with the help of "plague" and hundreds of demons who joined, and they were used as "cannon fodder"). Tralsai stayed to guard his stronghold. At the beginning of the 4th week, as expected, Vinrael with the main army of light elves descended into the Dungeon. Tralsai urgently mobilized all troops from the stronghold and creature generators and prepared to repel the aggression. But Vinrael only managed to capture a gold mine from the neutrals, after which he was forced to turn back, because Sigrif, with a forced march, reached the crossroads (near the teleport exit) and headed towards the main (northeastern) Elven stronghold. Tralsai, with the troops that had accumulated, followed Vinrael at a respectful distance. During the next two days, Sigrif, on his way to his goal, managed to defeat two auxiliary Elven heroes in turn and capture the northeastern stronghold. In the next turn, it was Vinrael's turn, who rushed to save his stronghold (the battle is attached). Then, on the first day of the second month, the third (central) Elven stronghold was captured, after which Sigrif, redistributing the troops with the arriving Tralsai, urgently rushed to recapture the plasma, free Railag, and then go to the prophet and necromancers to receive quests. Meanwhile, Tralsai, with all the available hunters (and his starting plague), stood "on guard" at the teleport exit, waiting for uninvited guests (one of the battles is attached). While Sigrif went northwest to form an alliance with the necromancers and talk to the prophet (while also freeing and exploring the turquoise and blue tents), Railag, with troops hired in the Elven strongholds, went to free other tents - the brown one (actually, purple, which is in the Dungeon), and then the purple one (actually, violet, which is at the top, between the eastern Elven strongholds). Then, Sigrif formed an alliance with the necromancers (for which he immediately gave money and mercury - the amount was already at hand), and received quests to capture resources (from the necromancers) as well as to visit the tents (from the prophet). After that, he went to the spell library, left it at the beginning of the map, captured and visited the last (orange) tent, captured wood and ore for the necromancers, and teleported to the southeastern stronghold. Then he visited the tree that increases the level and the tower for upgrades, and went north to the violet tent, where Railag was at that time, and, on the way, took the slowing staff from the dead knights (their main trump card against Fai'den), passed through the blue pillar without problems because he had already visited the blue tent (as he wrote above). At this time, the former main hero of the orange lizardmen, Sorgall, was hired in the necromancer's stronghold. He talked to them and gave them resources (wood and iron for building a catapult), after which he ran to the prophet to tell them about the capture of the tents (parts of the key to the Dragon Utopia) and receive instructions on how to restore it on the mountain (where Tieru is). Immediately after receiving these instructions, Leto, who had arrived there, "restored" the key to the utopia on this mountain. Meanwhile, Sigrif, meeting Railag, took all the Elven archers, druids, and fairies from him, and then gathered all the forces that had accumulated with the help of caravans from the strongholds and creature generators, and headed with the entire army to the Dragon Utopia. Despite the fact that even Tralsai had to requisition his hunters (all except 7), with the prospect of turning them into assassins, the army turned out to be more than modest: (less than two hundred furies, almost as many blue archers, about three hundred yellow fairies, almost two hundred scouts, six dozen druids, seven dozen riders, and a dozen and a half white witches). However, during all the previous battles (since the capture of the orange stronghold), not a single creature that was part of this army was lost. After visiting the Dragon Utopia, Sigrif, with the help of auxiliary heroes, passed the "dragon sword" and the "ring of teleportation" to Sogral, who brought them to the prophet, after which (again with the help of auxiliary heroes) he returned the activated ring to Sigrif. At the same time, Sogral received and upgraded all the creatures that needed improvement or change to be included in Sigrif's final army in the tower (which is not far from the blue tent) (these were: a couple of dozen beasts, half a hundred scouts, two hundred of Tralsai's hunters, several witches, and a dozen riders). And then, everything is simple - Sigrif, having received the ring and all the additional troops, teleported to Illa, took the ring of Dominion from her, defeated two Elven outposts without losses, captured the stronghold (for the last time defeating Vinrael and losing six druids under the fire of the stronghold), and defeated Fai'den in the stronghold (the battle is attached - it was also possible to conduct it without losses, if we do not count the fairies that Fai'den defeated before the start of the battle). P.S. Unfortunately, Sigrif only managed to level up to 32, did not visit one tree that increases the level, and several runes also remained unused.