Posts from World history

Title: A World's History
Game Version: Warlords of the Wastelands (stability in Equilibris is not guaranteed)
Number of Scenarios: 26
Campaign Difficulty: Medium, 3/5 (for Champion difficulty) (this is my rating, not the author's)
Campaign Author: Gong Zigoton
Description: Twelve years have passed since the Reckoning. While momentous events unfolded on Iranis and the world was transformed by the influx of refugees from Enroth, on a distant western landmass called the Continent, everything was just beginning.
By this time, the Continent had been thoroughly explored by survivors of the Reckoning from all three islands around the ocean of the planet Enroth – Enroth itself, Jadame, and Antagarich, as well as the actual islands around the three giant landmasses of the planet, which perished due to the mistakes and ambitions of two great warriors from Antagarich.
But this story has become much more significant than its prequel, which tells about the exploration of the Continent itself. And it begins with a wise, but solitary wandering knight, helping those in need. And the name of this knight is Krilon.

This is a campaign by my friend, who helped me test my maps, and I tested his, including this campaign. I am uploading it with his permission because he is not comfortable doing it himself. The campaign has a very well-developed plot for a fan-made work; I would even dare to say that it does not inferior to the original plot (over 400 pages of text, if you're curious). Therefore, I believe that this is a unique case, and people who still play Heroes IV should not miss it. The design also closely follows the original. The plot is well integrated into the canon, so it is almost an unofficial spin-off. In general, this is a must-play for those who love this installment in the series.

I'll write back,

the campaign is good, but not difficult. The opponents are more static; it focuses more on eliminating neutrals, at least when playing as a hero. The campaigns differ in that skills carry over. I don't know about Equilibrium, but it should be much easier – Tactics and Life are overpowered there, and the game revolves around tactics. It's best not to drag it out too much so that the opponents don't destroy your altars.

The first one has a simple start: level up, buy lords, and gain experience on free stones to passively generate gold. The hero is a tactician, with an experience limit of 12. At the end, I had a full tactician, Life 2-0-0-1, 1st Nature without perks, Order 1, and a bit of combat (8-10 stats from altars).

At the beginning of the walkthrough, you can use a cheat to check out the seminaries and external trainers for skills, to see what's available. They give you an ally, the only one with 4th-level units already built – angels – 2 cities of Life with seminaries, which you can't preview in advance. It would be better if you could eliminate him, but oh well. However, he stays in his city and doesn't wander around. He didn't even take the Life altars. When I approached him, he had only broken the garrison. I had to send him to harass the Chaos hero, from whom I had already taken a city, because by the time I arrived, he had become interested in my Life altars. The Chaos hero's city and outposts are surrounded by two garrisons, which gives a great opportunity to trap this foolish ally so that he doesn't do anything stupid. I had to take the Life altars to my base and for resurrection – the ally's city only had healing, and his sudden aggression towards the altars allowed me to grab them only immediately – I couldn't make it to the distant city in the seminary. But at the base, I was able to resurrect, and that was a good thing.

After reaching the experience limit, I bought additional heroes – one Order hero (and also got a city gate scroll), and a Life hero. With the 5th-level Tactics skill, overall accuracy of the Order hero, and overall blessing, they simply crushed everything.

In terms of buildings, I chose the 2nd level. It was quite important while the tactician wasn't leveled up. There's a random external dwelling. I got a stable, so I decided to build it. If I had gotten a workshop, I would have built that instead. After leveling up, the stables crushed everything with morale and retaliation, even dragons in the city – the battle with the dragons was the last one, and the artifacts were valuable, but not that important before the finale.

The 3rd level is definitely monasteries. In Equilibrium, it would be churches (they're overpowered), but I don't build them in the regular game, so as not to lose on neutrals. 3 strategic objects, 2 at the main castle, 2 monasteries, and a magic shop, give spells. It's a shame it's not for a mage, as he's not a spellcaster. But I cast the overall misfortune spell from a scroll. I also got a berserk spell to learn, and I taught it to the mage, but in addition, there was a 4th-level spellbook guarded by ogres and harpies on the starting location, and overall slow and spell reflection were more useful. I wondered if I had chosen the right Nature skill without perks; I could have had 3 scouting skills + 1 altar instead, but the scout skill from the 1st-level spellbook was useful.

The second one is a similar scenario with some nuances. At the beginning, you need to take the cities at any cost (but preferably without getting completely killed). This is achievable: 4 Vampire tactics, Necromancer ghosts. 2 halves of the map, one almost without magic, the other full of magic (up to 3rd level). The cities have units up to 2nd level, which is also difficult to choose from: dogs or ghosts. I built dogs for the warrior, and ghosts for the Necromancer – both ghosts were very expensive, but I built dogs with the intention of clearing my location without losses – but as it turned out, that wasn't important. The city army of the tactics hero was useful for a maximum of 1-2 objects before fleeing to the mage. When the heroes returned to this city, there were already a hundred vampires. The ghosts from the Necromancer's city were a little useful.

We take the cities and a couple of easy objects. Then we do this: the warrior loots artifacts and flees from the army near the city to the mage – it's essential to take the city on his location before that. Thus, in the Necromancer's camp, we have two main heroes. We buy lords, and run them to harass the Necromancer, there are free 1000 experience points.

We level up the Necromancy skill for the main hero; there are enough altars. We beat everything, take the external magic university, and level up a little. We get Necromancy 5. 2 trees on the map greatly facilitate the leveling of the main heroes, so as not to waste experience that will go to the auxiliary heroes.

We bought 7 lords (this is more than enough for gold and future nobility), then we take the Chaos heroes, in the university we get the Order magic (guilds up to 3rd level, there is a city portal), we level them up in Chaos and Order 3, as much as possible – from 4 Chaos heroes, I got two with portals. In the army, we leave only vampires.

There is an external vampire dwelling. There's a random 4th-level unit there. I was extremely unlucky – 13 black dragons and 32 goblins appeared. I managed to slow down and debuff the Chaos heroes and the Necromancer, there weren't many blessings on the vampires, only +50% damage against dragons, and they didn't need acceleration. I had 22 vampires, a tactician with 40% attack + another 20% from the ring on the skeleton, 20% defense, a mage, and 4 small Chaos heroes, all on nectars. Nevertheless, I killed the Necromancer and his active nectars in 10 tries. I took the treasury with mines and the external vampire dwelling, but it wasn't that important anymore – Necromancy did everything.

We level everything up, we beat everyone, we devour everything, we go to the purple portal, and through the portal we teleport to the starting location of the warrior. We quickly clear everything and take the Sword of Gods. The story says that it's the reason for the victory, but it turns out not quite – it gave +50% attack to a hundred vampires). Fewer strategic objects, 1 magic shop in the finale, and 1 death conservatory, the Hand of Doom didn't appear, I took the vampire raising spell. The 4th-level spells are overall sadness/weakness and vampires; it could have been better, but I'm grateful for what I got.

I messed up the tactics by 1 skill point in Death, I bought it in the university without noticing the magic school on 56-86, but I don't think it's a big deal.

The main Necromancer is 5th level, no perks, Order 1-1, all Death, 1 Chaos, 1 Nature with 1 summoning. The tactician is almost full, with 4 leadership, 2nd level without perks, Order/Chaos 1 each without perks, Death 2/1/1 – all crystals go to the Necromancer, I miscalculated the Death altars, so 2-3 on the upper part of the map went to the tactician. There could have been a 3rd if I had noticed the magic school on 56-86, but alas. If I hadn't miscalculated the Death altars, I could have tried to get the Order 3 skill for the Necromancer for the portal and forgetfulness, but it's too late now. The finale is 153 vampires against that small force).

If there were no city portals, it wouldn't be a problem – around the Necromancer's city, we SPECIFICALLY don't touch the guard of the tree. There's nothing valuable there, resources, chests, one experience tree; you could teleport the tactician to the starting location without vampires, buy troops, and raise vampires here.

The third one is more interesting in terms of aggression).
Given: a small map, 3 months, Dwarves and Golems, a mage with nobility. Eliminate everyone. In the city, there's a 2nd-level tower with an ice arrow, but that's not enough, so combat should decide. After taking the combat skill from the beastmaster, I spent all the levels only on it. A month passed. I reached the limit. Leveling up: 5-4-1-0 in combat, 1-1 nobility, 2-1 Order, but there are still skill points and altars left. Sometimes, I reload to get the right skills. In a month, I cleared the right half of the map, took all the dwellings, except for 2 dwarves in the center (I already took them a couple of days later) and one on the lower left (I haven't been there yet), and the gold mine, dozens of archers and hundreds of peasants are a lot. I thinned them out with one raid of 8 archers and a hundred peasants, just to quickly escape – the mine isn't needed. I bought healing potions and gases in the forge for the extra gold; there's plenty of it here. 43 golems, 177 dwarves on the 5th day of the 2nd month, I cleared the blue tent, there's still a book of Order left, 2 tents. I didn't get lucky with the central shrine; it gives banishment, but that's okay, the book will help. I need to clear the remaining altars and start on the hydras. Without combat, there's not much to gain, all battles are with small losses. And with combat, the mage solves everything on his own, 1st level and some 2nd level units.

Okay, this part triggered me purely because of the plot, as the Sword of Gods will not actually be the reason for victory later on, because my plot doesn't contradict the canon, you know).

Regarding the Necromancer strategy, I didn't even realize it. This is a minus for my beta tester on similar mechanics - Psay, who made a Dark Priest in the first scenario of Kryl.

Also, they didn't waste time leveling up Nature for Kryl, which might be useful in the future.

I'm glad you described everything for the first three scenarios. I also want to note that for this campaign, it's not actually critical, but you can avoid maxing out Tactics, because there will be enough altars for each hero.

Regarding the third scenario and Menvad, as Psay said (but not Cold, because Cold is a superhuman who was yawning even before the balance was adjusted to be easier), it turned out to be brilliant by chance, because Menvad can inflict "Bad Luck" with a melee attack due to his very powerful MAGIC. The amulet of fear allows him not to take damage in return. For the Champion, it is indeed important to level up combat, as it says on the sign (more for new players). But for the third difficulty level, for which all the maps were intended (but so that it can also be completed on Champion, of course), you can complete it by leveling up Nobility/Order while remaining a Wizard King (Wizard King suits Menvad better, in terms of character).

Regarding the difficulty of the first scenario, I'm using the same curve as in Worms 4 Mayhem (I know, it's an unexpected comparison): in battles without rules, you only have equal strength with the computer by the 4th battle/scenario (although there is a positional advantage, but that's not the point), and before that, it's easier for the player.

Thanks again for leaving feedback! I was recruiting beta testers like you a year and a half ago, and thanks to them, I was able to balance the game. Although, if using certain features is not critical, then they can be left as is, if it's easier for the person or if it's simply impossible to complete otherwise - this is my approach to map design. Although, in the prequel, everything will be stricter with this. But when it will be... (At least in the form of 6 posts, because I won't be making 26 scenarios in a row, no, 5 campaigns and the 6th as a separate scenario, he-he).

P.S.: No, I will still post maps here through Cold, even though I just registered.

It was enough for about halfway through. Mission: The Great Mage's Crown. The given hero is Iskanderel, an archmage. He is weak and slow, as he has no combat skills or tactics. In the fortress that needs to be captured, there is a third-degree tactician with phoenixes. And he's wearing the Robe of the Guardian. So, I can only move the hero around a maximum of two times. Among the high-level spells, I only have Nature and Chaos. I can summon about five devils at a time, or use Choke, which is basically it.

It was enough for about halfway through. Mission: The Great Mage's Crown. The given hero is Iskandirel - an archmage. He's slow and has low combat skills and tactics. In the fortress that needs to be captured, there's a level 3 tactician with phoenixes. And he's wearing the Robe of the Guardian. So, I can only move the hero around a maximum of two times. Among the high-level spells, I only have Nature and Chaos. I can summon about five devils at a time, or use Strangulation, which is basically it.

Strangulation is a bad move, but devils are generally a good solution. In general, Iskandirel's scenarios are tasks that require logical combat and magical power. Try using single vampire units as cover, forming a square formation, summoning devils, using a charm if it appears against nature, or using general zeal/general sorrow, general fortune, drinking from fountains before the battle; overall, this might help.

if anything, the Death Hand spell pierces through the Guardian's robe – but I don't know how it works with resistance; I haven't reached that point yet – it's about a month before the end of the mission for the Chaos faction.

just so you know, Death's Hand pierces through the Guard's robe - but I don't know about the resistance, I haven't gotten there yet - it's about a month before the end of the Chaos faction mission.

Iskandirel definitely doesn't have Death's Hand; you'll encounter him in the next scenario. He has a very limited set of spells, but Cold specifically mentioned which spells are mandatory and which can be randomized, so I assume you can't lose against all AI players, because the further you go, the less the enemy army matters. I hope the difficulty isn't too high; at least about 10 beta testers completed an even more brutal version of the campaign on all difficulties except the easiest... But I'm not sure.

Generally, Iskandirel's scenarios are puzzles that test your battle logic and magical power.

This mission is very different because I breezed through all the previous ones without even thinking. In the end, it was just luck. It took me about five tries to catch the moment when the enemy hero ran off somewhere, leaving the town unguarded.

I completed the third one. Basically, almost everything was already decided there. I took the book, and then there was a rather difficult battle with the army for the halberd and the useless staff – the only one where there were wizards and halflings, which the hero simply couldn't defeat on his own. The halberd isn't an altar or a crystal, but I wanted to take it, especially against the garrison, even though it doesn't really go with the book. I lost 12 gold golems – a week's worth of production from all 4 buildings on the map (I've never lost so many anywhere) and a few dwarves – I immediately teleported the golems and started fighting the wizards, and then it depended on luck, either healing with potions, which luckily were in the forge, or breaking the halfling's bow. If the wizards had been everywhere, I would have had to start over, but here the army wasn't really needed. Sometimes in other battles, I had to remove the amulet so that the hero could deal damage, withstand a hit, but not the whole battle, so you can't do without an army at all – you can't just run to the city, there's still time. I took everything, got Order 3, and was 1 or 2 points short of 4, which would have made the wizards easier, of course. But here I was optimizing for the campaign, not for a single battle. The garrison attacked in two waves. The first wave cleared the beholders, a couple of hydras, and half of the bandits, and the second wave finished them off with the halberd, and that's how I passed. The fourth one has a rather difficult start, with 3 ifrits that can't really do much. But luckily, there's a Grail, which solves all the gold problems and allows you not to scrimp on every penny. At the end of the first month, I built and bought a dragon. The game changed before and after that. Before the dragon, I went to the city, placed medusas, and later ifrits. Carefully clearing the first level of defense, and not all of them, only the ones I could. It's very important to capture the mine here, you really need it – 2 cities with medusas, 2 ifrits already give 60 units. You need to build ifrits, they are weaker, but they can't fly around the map like nightmares, which is important. There's no point in building goats, they'll get lost among the neutrals and won't do anything special. Only the capital allows you to place dragons, and that's what we're going to do, no matter what. However, I managed to take a neutral city of Life, which immediately provided a noble in one of the Chaos cities. There's an outer market there, which is guarded by level 1, but you can send a bandit. This market is essentially what gave me the dragon. When the dragon was bought, the need for caution in every battle simply disappeared, you shouldn't rush into anything, but with it, we cleared the starting location, opened the passage to the second castle (the medusas from there weren't needed), and then we started flying around on the dragon and ifrits, clearing the map. I made a big mistake – I was tempted by pyromancy in the outer university, so I was leveling up in combat and chaos without pyromancy – combat wasn't unnecessary before the dragon, but nevertheless, in battles, I really missed lightning, which was in the castle. In the end, I still got that pyromancy – but, since I spent so many levels on combat, I had to give 5 or 6 altars of combat to secondary heroes. It's like one skill blocked 5, you shouldn't do that, I should have leveled up chaos, and because of this greed for one skill, I lost 5-6 – the problem is the same – I needed to count the altars. (level-ups gave 5-5-5-0 combat, 1 ranged was bought). With ifrits and dragons, I leveled up to 16 without much difficulty, took two trees, and took the secondary heroes that I had bought in advance (luckily, there's enough gold from the Grail to just buy them in advance and wait until they're needed), 3 chaos heroes, and a necromancer. I explored everything, took everything I could, it's not very difficult with dragons. The whole battle, life 3-3-3-4, order 2-1-1-1, chaos 3-3-3-5, nature 3-2-2-1. I'm missing one in order and chaos to have both the portal and forgetfulness/teleport, and almost all of chaos 4, or life, but it was all maxed out after the limit, as was order. So, having all of chaos 4 and almost all the skills up to chaos 5 is a pity. Greed, unfortunately. I'm finishing off the last one and ending the mission. Added after 5 hours 25 minutes The fifth mission, where did the phoenixes and tactician come from? He has a dozen griffins, elves, a group of unicorns, and the rest. I have 43 vampires, 15 ghosts, 14 air elementals. The only rather difficult battle was for the tent – it generated 18 magic dragons. Green crystals helped me go first, the nature book gave me antimagic, and then, on the second try, they didn't overwhelm the hero in melee, I summoned magic dragons for distraction, and then I gave them antimagic. I was lucky that a random "not very valuable artifact" was a protective cloak, my dragons deflected the mirror image, otherwise, I would have had to restart, just because of this tent guard. But I managed to pass. All that's left is to finish off the water near the green passage and take the city, which is not a problem. I realized, it's not that mission yet. Added after 6 hours 45 minutes The sixth one. Champion. We reached the city. We took the city. We sailed. There's no Grail here, it takes a long time to wait for money, we can't attack anyone. We gathered our strength, built medusas. We took the mine from the bandits. The pirate's stealth 2 didn't drop. We can't do anything else. All that's left is to click and wait for money and build, sitting without a wood mine, we can't break through the defense yet. But it's not all that bad, we're playing as Chaos. Bandits, with stealth 2, can live on this island. They can't capture the shipyard without a hero. The hero can't approach the shipyard, 3 pirates immediately interfere. We place a bandit from the city. We aim at the shipyard. We lure the pirate hero out of the city to the bandit, we run without stopping and capture it. This is how we pass where it's impossible to pass, we put our flag on the shipyard, we buy a ship. Of course, the pirates attack the stunned hero-pirate with the bandit. We run away. Our flag is on the shipyard. If we haven't bought a ship, we buy one. We send another bandit on it. The bandit on the ship will guide the ship where it needs to go, and the main heroes will get on it. Something like that http://c2n.me/4eb9Uch. This bandit will guide the ship where it needs to go, the main heroes will get on it, and we'll pillage the sea. I'm not sure if we have enough strength to attack Vince's castle with 11 fire mages, 2 sorcerers, a dozen orcs and bandits, and a few goats – I have 7 medusas, 20 of each of the smaller units. However, I think we can pillage the sea for nightmares or ifrits without much effort and visit Vince and the neutral castles. The choice is difficult, I think we'll go with nightmares – they're stronger, and they travel on the sea just as well. As it turns out, this wasn't necessary – the heroes were 900 experience short, I built an academy, which gave them a second stealth – the hero can do this himself now – but maybe it will be useful to someone.

A couple of weeks have passed now)

I’ll write about what I’ve completed before I forget.

So, in the pirates campaign, the hero picked up Stealth 2 (the brigands still brought the ship, but it was useful), then we board two ships — the thief separately, everything else separately. The fast thief scavenges wreckage and such, while the combat hero hits the small fry. Still, the combat hero is very slow, so the thief soon joins up, and the brigands stay behind to finish sweeping the sea. We capture the second city up top, build Nightmares (Ifrits aren’t available there I think, but we don’t need them anyway). We prepare to take on the fight. In principle, Hydras were already built but not yet taken; I decided to fight the Chaos Hero. It didn’t work. Still, we captured his castle while he was away, bought a couple of Nectars, and took him down at nearly the cost of the entire mini-army. I gave the thief the fight, and then the caravans brought Medusas, Nightmares, and Hydras, making the army even bigger than before. I got the Necromancer and one Chaos Hero — the guilds weren’t great, but I saw the Book of Chaos under the bottom castle — (not much use from it, except maybe for the final fight with my army advantage). Still, the Chaos Hero came in handy, Knife on the Nightmare (and Hydra), Bad Luck.

The Barbarian maxed out in Combat. Had a chance to buy Tactics, thought about it but didn’t take it, which I regretted — -1 skill in the next scenario, oh well. The thief leveled in Combat and Scouting; Chaos didn’t reach level 3, but there are no guilds either, so no big deal.

With the troops, everything gets cleared, built up, cities taken; the bottom city was taken without much trouble.

Two armies were left to break through level 4. Breaking through is a must — good artifacts, but most importantly, crystals. Near the Fire Arrow were Phoenixes and Griffins, maybe Earth or Unicorns, I don’t remember anymore — the combat hero’s Web Arrow, the Chaos Hero’s Question Mark, and then Medusas / Hydras took care of everything.

The second one, right near the bottom city, I first thought was optional, then saw +3 Defenses for each hero — so it was mandatory. There were 4-slot stacks — the Hydra solved everything. The final battle was with my 5+ times larger army and strong heroes against weaklings, I won quickly; the level 4 guards were more problematic.

Next map — City Defense — they give me my Knight-turned-Powerhouse (almost a powerhouse) and a zero-level Elf. They also give a Mage, who is an ally, but he can’t be lost. And his city has no University, with resource-rich terrain but no Seminary and no freedom to retreat, which will be a hindrance — you can’t escape from certain positions — it’s pretty annoying. Oh well. Here problems with gaining experience start — there’s enough, but just barely. There are two trees; we quickly level the Knight (he couldn’t beat Phoenixes near his castle at the start of the campaign, cleared everything else alone). In the center, I found a very good Seminary, but it was guarded by Goblins and Medusas, who kept stoning the Knight until I raised Resistance from 2 to 3. Cleared it, bought skills, leveled Combat, Nature, Order to 3. There was no Town Portal.
Leveled up to level 16, quickly ran through the trees trying not to engage anyone so as not to waste experience, took the Elf along to level up. Yellow was just starting to try and get aggressive, so everything had to be done quickly. However, since the heroes and Fairy move fast, Yellow was afraid to leave the tent and didn’t cause trouble.

Later, I leveled the Elf. Managed to level the Elf to Order level 4, Warfare and Archery to 5 (0 Resistance and Melee), a couple of Nature skills, and Life 1 with nothing (messed up on Resurrection). In the guild, I learned Blind and Forgetfulness; these spells were EXTREMELY helpful in the next General mission. Would have been tough without them. Leveled the Elf too.

Almost done leveling, Red showed up. With a considerable army that I might have had to run from and finish later, he chased Yellow, but Yellow successfully ran away. Red appeared quite late, which is good — castles aren’t active since besides leveling, I also had to protect the weak, uncontrollable Mage.

Only at the end of the mission did Yellow dare to leave the tent (the Necros drove him out), where he was defeated. Skills are boosted, heroes all leveled except the Mage, mission completed.

But the next Necro mission I played relatively poorly. It should have been done with a fast rush — Tactics and Necro-Vampires allowed it, maybe even ignoring the starting city. But I decided to take it slow, clear the territory, take the gold mine. Not much time was lost, but it cost several Chaos Altars and crystals. Here, in turn, I took the Necro city, cleared the territory (shouldn’t have), went and beat Green, then the Knight, then the Chaos Hero, then scavenged everything possible, and won. Leveled Chaos to 4, found a portal, Order 3 or 4 — forgot. Necro-Vampires and Tactics make the mission easy, but I managed to mess up.

Next mission is again for the Barbarian and Thief. The Barbarian smashes everything and everyone, first takes a city, then clears the top. The Thief, unexpectedly with almost 5-5-5-5 Scouting, can barely handle one army a day and not all (level 2, max 1 fight per day), but we don’t take crystals, saving them for the Barbarian. Still, the Thief had enough strength for the city, didn’t touch the Hydras in the garrison (and wouldn’t have beaten them), nor the strong guards around the city. The city is taken and we wait for the Barbarian.
With the Barbarian, we clear everything, hit Chaos Heroes along the way (but don’t take their cities, no need), then run to the Thief — quickly gather the crystals the Thief left, finish levels, and return. Meanwhile, Chaos Heroes stick their noses out again — but — we’ll flee from the Thief’s territory into the Chaos city, having first blocked the Power city — that’s why we didn’t take other cities. We buy skills from magic schools and the University on the map, level the Thief. He barely managed to level Chaos to 3 — almost missed it, but it was enough. Then we simply destroy the cities. We only carry Ifrits (and of course, only build them). The Power city remained locked by Hydras — after the Barbarian’s visit, it didn’t need a second visit, and we had enough power with just Ifrits — birds would have been nice but didn’t fit the route. We also clear all cities, take stat boosters, win, buy out Dragons and everything.
The Thief ended with Combat, full Scouting, Chaos 3, Order, and, I think, Nature. The Barbarian ended with full Combat, lots of Tactics, Order, Nature, and Life or Chaos. Forgot)

Next, the map is called “At Each Other’s Houses.” Upon entry, we have a dominating Knight, a strong Chaos Hero, a somewhat competent Elf, and a scrawny Mage with 2 Dragon Golems. The Knight dominates everything, takes a city. The Mage absolutely cannot delay; we take a city. Wait an extra moment, and he won’t manage it. The Chaos Hero clears, kills many Dragons solo. Life + artifacts from previous victories allow this — first a Dwell of Dragons, then a city, then map locations for artifacts. We move with Dragons and Ifrits. We do NOT take the city. Just clear everything around. Managed to catch Green outside his city, beat him (though taking the city with the Chaos Hero is no problem at all) — but still don’t take the city. It will interfere, so just clear the territory. The Elf has a relatively long run to his city, so capturing it is not urgent (but will be briefly postponed anyway).

The Knight cleared everything. We bought the Mage a Lord; he scavenged Knowledge Stones and Word Interpreters, then fled to the Knight. Soon the Mage also fled to the Knight, leaving the Dragon Golems at home.
We level him, build up. Troops include Angels in the castle, Champions nearby; we also buy Lords. Clear the Knight’s location. Caught a Necromancer on the map, killed him. Got a notification that one Necro died. Raised the level cap for both heroes, don’t take the Necro city. Visited everything; the only thing was I should have bought Mage scrolls at the Seminary for growth, but overall, level 2 spells are a minor loss.

After that, we go to the Necro city (and we have no Town Portal there) — Knight, Mage, Angels, Champions, Lords. Outside the city, we deploy the Knight and Mage separately, block the Knight’s city with 4 Squires, attack, sacrifice almost the entire army, and flee to the Mage’s territory. Then the Lords with Angels and Champions take the city. The Knight and Mage won’t return there; Blue is no longer there.

Meanwhile, while the Chaos Hero is spreading out, the Elf passes by Vampires, doesn’t touch them — lacking strength — finds the Armor of Regeneration guarded by Poisonous Creatures — Blinding, Forgetfulness, Slow, buffs, took the armor; similarly a mine; somewhere dug up a Web Arrow; then we return to the Mausoleums and Vampires, now we take them. By luck managed to use all the Altars without triggering Summoning — leveled Nature. Skipped a location with a Dwell of Griffons — no crystals or stat boosters. Nothing interesting, and up top the Necros eat crystals. We don’t take the Elf city until the Knight’s territory is cleared — scared Green, and then went to scare the Necros, eating crystals along the way. As soon as the Knight and Mage left for the Mage’s territory, we return and take the Elf city without issue, then wipe out the Necros. Very lucky with artifacts (Armor of Regeneration), so we managed without armies.
Immediately after the Knight leaves, the Chaos Hero takes our city, builds what we hadn’t finished.

With the Chaos Hero, there was one conditionally glitchy difficulty. The Necros were killed by neutral Wasps. This would have prevented winning the scenario, even by completely killing Blue. So I had to beat up the Wasps for the Necros and flee far away, waiting for the minor Necros to resurrect them. Two heroes were lying there — one of the main Necros and a minor one. I didn’t immediately notice why they were trampling him, but they did take the main Necro and resurrect him. Hooray. We resurrected an enemy Necro, or we wouldn’t have won. The Chaos Hero has Order 3, Life 3, Nature 3 or 4. In the Menhir, I got a Spell Scroll Town Portal — none of the other heroes had it except the Chaos Hero. With the Chaos Hero, we attack the Necro with Ifrits and Dragons, sacrifice the army, use Town Portal to flee to the Knight’s territory into the Necro city, where through 2 stat boosters we get Life 4 and 4 spells, attack a deliberately left army around the Life city, block the Necro city, and fly back to our Asylum. The Chaos Hero won’t visit anywhere else.

The Knight and Mage clear the Mage’s territory (had the Mage been alone and unleveled, it would have taken long), approach the Necro city, wipe out the army, flee (no Town Portal) to the Necro city on the Elf’s territory. Gather everything on the Elf’s territory, link up with the Elf, run to his start point, there flee from the Mausoleum — back to the Mage’s territory — with three heroes — Mage, Knight, and Elf together.

Due to the abundance of Tactics Altars and the Mage’s sojourn across 3 locations, I leveled him in Tactics, at least 3 in each. Three heroes kill the Necro, then the Chaos Hero finishes off our own Necro, and victory.

Next up is that difficult mission for the Elf-Archmage. Truly difficult and very dependent on starting monsters. Right at the start were Magic Dragons with Earth, which clearly indicated that path was blocked. I had to go through the Water Portal. There were no more Magic Dragons anywhere, which was very lucky — I couldn’t have gotten past them.

We clear the territory, face a mana shortage, try to conserve. Gather Vampires and Ghosts. A total of 9 or 10 Ghosts were gathered, and this was critically important — only 2 remained; without them, there would have been no victory.

First level 4 guard: Phoenixes and Unicorns. Ghost, Vampires, Berserker, got through at the cost of one Ghost. Mana at zero, need to hurry to the city before he gets the Robe of the Guardian — but without mana, nowhere to go. So there’s time to eat some crystals near the gold mine and mill. The mine was guarded by Gargantuas, but if you don’t get greedy and don’t touch the gold, you can take the mine from above, and the Gargantuas will be blocked by the gold and can’t attack. No need to fight them — hurts, and no mana. Took the mine without a fight, and 2 blue crystals with a fight — defense is very needed. Return to the Unicorn Dwell — there are Phoenixes and Earth there. Again, killed them with 1 Ghost, took the crystals. Head to the bridge.

The bridge battle was incredibly difficult. Previously, we were fighting an average of 26 Phoenixes and level 3 units, but on the bridge there were 42 Phoenixes, and they were alone, and they could fly far. Tried fighting with Water and Ghost. Did win, but always lost the hero to burning. Finally, somehow, with 5 Ghosts (and Vampires, of course), with 1 Healing Draft from the Forge, almost no HP, managed to take them down. Guards breached, bridge clear.

Regarding the Elves, I initially had a group of Phoenixes; he was losing them in every fight, it was obvious. He passed neutrals, losing Fairies, Phoenixes became few despite all his tactics. He didn’t manage to get the Robe, wasn’t hurrying much; it was guarded by Air Elementals with someone. But as soon as the Phoenixes on the bridge fell, he rushed to the castle so fast that he ran past the Air Elementals to save time, leaving very few Phoenixes; he didn’t grab the Robe in his haste — it fell to me. We finish off the crystals, experience, and Vampires here, and that’s it.

The Ring of Health, Mana, and the Elven Cloak were guarded by Mantises; I thought about fighting them and going for him. But he relaxed and started wandering around his castle, plans changed; the Mantises survived. I go for him, capture the Phoenix building, he locks himself in the castle. Don’t take it — need to lure him out and get inside. 3 mana and the guild wouldn’t hurt. Managed to lure him out, took an Earth Elemental, stood one tile away from the castle, he chased the Phoenixes, we unloaded Earth, took the castle, entered the guild, bought some Nectars, and waited for him. He approached the castle but didn’t attack.

Had to attack myself. The field battle was the worst, because had he been in the castle, the first Strangle would have removed the hero and then Devils would play, but in the field he is hidden from Chaos and can withstand Devil attacks. So another 3 Nectars were spent with the Robe of the Guardian; I knocked him out.

Next campaign against Fire creatures. The Elf, with Order, Berserker from the Mage’s city, boosted Combat and Nature, plus the basic Robe of the Guardian, feels pretty good. From the start, beat everyone, eat Altars, try to reload on Summoning to avoid getting the wrong thing — just beat everyone, place flags, collect artifacts and potions, rest where needed after fights with Dragons or Ifrits. Have enough strength, roam, boost Combat. Prepare for the final battle, where there are many creatures. The hero alone can’t handle it. Buy a Dragon — it distracts a lot of attention, Phoenixes (2 or 3), Fires, Water, Leprechauns; before the battle, gather all Spirit and Luck buffs. I think I also took Ifrits. In the battle, first shot with Web Arrow by either the Berserker at the Phoenix, Leprechauns give Luck, others avoid engagement as much as possible but protect the hero. Berserkers, Fire Resistance potion, Heals or Healing spells and Divine Shield, with a Guardian, left the hero without an army but victorious. That’s how I won.

Next mission — a light and fast walk, with further leveling of a strong Knight in levels and skills, and of course the story of the Elves and the prophecy)
Then — another difficult mission for the Elf-Archmage. He couldn’t tear the Guild Compendium from the Magic Dragons — they wiped him out; I decided to leave it for later. Lost the first fight to Red, but won on the second try. Then I collected spells, buffs, and Vampires one by one, defeated them one after another, then the city, and victory.

I’ll write the rest sometime later; I’ve gotten to the mission for capturing the Archmage’s Codex.

Well, it's been a couple of weeks, and I was just writing to someone on VK that no one is commenting anymore, and then I see you guys here. I really like your detailed descriptions – they're a pleasure to read. If you have a VK or Discord, I wouldn't mind appointing you as a beta tester for the prequel. It will be shorter, but only because it's divided into several campaigns (as soon as I figure out my own novel with mechanics from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure =/), but otherwise, it's still the same 26 scenarios.

Thanks again for your responses. They warm my soul. I hope that's not just me, out of all the people who read everything above.

P.S.: In general, the entire 7th scenario is a kind of workaround, where on Champion difficulty, you can just sit there and do nothing. Here, the difficulty is reversed – the lower the difficulty, the crazier the AI and the more aggressively it attacks the player if it doesn't see their army. So yes, it's all broken. And the Sorcerer's troops and the Necromancer don't get along; that's how it was designed. It was also intended that in the first month, Chaos would be a problem, then Death, but the AI is too stupid to do what it's supposed to do :)

And yes, there's barely enough experience there; first, you need to level up on neutral creatures, then start attacking the trees; it's one of the most mediocre scenarios in terms of experience. There's also scenario 22, but that's a long way off. (If anything, you need to level up and then you can visit the trees – it's enough until level 40.)

By the way, the red faction has an orange army in the underground; I don't remember exactly, but in the release, on all difficulties, there's one army that the AI breaks through around the beginning to middle of the second month. I tested this map for a long time for AI behavior.

P.S(2): Yes, with Isabella and Craig Hack, you could get a partial upgrade – almost equal levels in Scouting/Combat for both, but the Barbarian also needs Tactics, and the Rogue needs Chaos. And without this upgrade, you have to wait on Champion difficulty, but luckily, Craig Hack HATES everything.

P.S(3): Scenario 10 in your version is an improved version of scenario 2. It's a perfect example of how, if you can do it this way, then do it; I don't mind, honestly. It doesn't affect the walkthrough that much; I'm not that hardcore to make maps like that. But I'm not forbidding it either; it's not a bug, but a feature :D

> The Necromancer was taken down by neutral wasps. This wouldn't have allowed you to win the scenario, even if you completely killed the blue faction.

In general, I noticed that saving, restarting, and after a battle or some other action that the game recognizes as such, it recalculates the killed enemies and says: "Hey, he's either dead or in prison, everything's okay, here's your victory." At least, this trick often worked for me. But this is in Warlords; here, the AI doesn't one-shot neutral creatures like in Armageddon's Blade.

> ...if there was only one un-upgraded mage, it would take a long time...

Yes, this is so that all messages with text appear on easier difficulties, uh-huh.

P.S(4): > ...the battle on the bridge was incredibly difficult.

Yes, this is a kind of mid-boss of the scenario.

P.S(5): > ...and of course, with the story of the elves and the prophecy)

I thought you hadn't been reading all this time 0-0 Glad I was wrong, hehe.

Thanks again.

No, staying put won't work; you could actually lose that way.

At the moment Red appeared, he had a pretty large army (hundreds of dogs, dozens of vamps, a decent amount of skeletons, and later another group of goblins was added). If he hadn't been chasing Yellow, he could have caused some serious trouble, considering that the Mage's city is just in the way, some spots are impossible to escape from, and the Mage himself needs guarding because he is uncontrolled and unlikely to flee back to his own city. There is also no portal to the city, meaning you have to haul the entire army from the cities to fight back.

You need to level up the Knight for full combat, and the Elf, who has two difficult locations (the Elf city in the counterattack is far away, Necromancers are roaming there before the hero arrives, and neutrals will simply wipe out an unleveled Elf on the way—he simply won't reach the city), and if you know about the fire army, it's even worse there.

Regarding the Barbarian, I didn't level his scouting (combat-tactics-order-life-nature); there's no point in it, since he already has map movement, and with the tactics slot, he'd be under-magical. Of course, if I had known how many altars were where further on, I would have put fewer level-ups into scouting for the Thief and more into chaos or combat; almost all scouting altars went to waste, much like the tactics altars in the Knight and Elf campaigns.

The Mage would have struggled for a long time not because of the messages, but because he is weak. He has combat 4, some order magic 3, and couldn't even handle 700 bandits guarding. The troops in the Castle—nagas, titans—are slow, and they still need to be built, and you have to wait for reasonable growth and so on; 2 dragon golems is only 2. Every battle would be a problem, with losses and all that, plus waiting for growth. But I visited the Knight, leveled up, bought what was missing, and then returned home with him—a quick passage of monsters without much trouble)

As for what comes next
The Necromancer scenario—basically, by analogy with other Necromancer scenarios, tactics/vampires, cleaning up one by one. I maxed out the tactician (even though it said their paths would diverge later), there were plenty of extra death altars left, so I maxed out the vampire too; all crystals went to him, as before. I even had to run away from Yellow to take the crystals before defeating him, as well as visit his castle, since both heroes leveled up magic in this scenario. Basically, the Mire and that's it.

Next, the Chaos Druid scenario. At first, boots, 7 efreets, and a bit of magic. It would have been very sad without the efreets, but they are there, so while not without effort, I cleared the starting location and altars. Obviously, losing efreets is not an option. We only build griffins (though they didn't come in handy, despite my hopes), I also built elves for castle defense (found a little wood; I didn't notice the external tiger dwell in time, but it doesn't matter). We level nature; in spells, I took griffins and, I think, owls.
The guards on the path to the Chaos caster—titans and djinns—made it clear we didn't belong here. I cleared the terrain and went to take down the Knight. The lower castle—no problem. After taking the lower city and something nearby, nature 4 leveled up; I retreated home without efreets from some neutrals, then reunited. Problems with gold; I bought 1 nectar and almost regretted that it was so little.

The second city—tacticians, catapults, monks, ballistas in the castle, very nasty. Tried to zero them out, didn't really work. From one life castle to another it's relatively far, about 4-5 moves; knocking out 1 catapult at a time isn't great. I bought mage potions at the forge on the map, took summoned wolves and efreets, and decided to take the city. Almost regretted drinking only 1 mage potion before the battle. It took about 10 tries to take the city; the first lightning strike took out the tactician, then it seems a miss on the catapult, while the troops defended. When the efreets ran out, I summoned griffins; no catapults were left, and the griffins stayed in defense until the monks ran out of ammo, while the hero gulped mana potions without nectar and with almost no hp, just so the griffins wouldn't run out.
Ammo ran out, the griffins went to bash the ballistas, and that's how I won. No efreets left, but they aren't needed anymore; champions are taking their place. A decent amount (around 20) accumulated relatively quickly while I cleared the terrain, then I went underground—after all, titans and djinns are not a passage.

Underground, I came across the Mage's city, took it, and heavily leveled order (buying 4 skills in total, not counting charm), ultimately reaching the 3rd level. A portal was also found.
I wanted to go home for new champions, but plans changed abruptly—the Chaos caster approached the nightmare dwell, knocked out the guard, and there were 2 chaos altars. I had to load a save from a couple of days earlier and go hit the devils—the guards of the passage from the Order caster to the Chaos casters. He did break through the guard, but I arrived in time; he fled and the altars went to me. Then clearing the cities, we leave him one with a garrison of dragons, level nature 5 (magic dragons), order, combat, life. But something didn't work with the leveling; it seems he ended up with chaos 3 and without 4 spells.

With a difficult battle and full buffs, I defeated the dragons, lured the army out of the city, entered the city using spells and 3 attacks, and finished off the remains.

Next, back to the Elf-Archmage. For now, he can't defeat 1500 ghosts—there is hypnosis, but no crown, no general slow, so the spearmen will go first, then the Necromancers.

Added after 14 minutes
Regarding the messages, in the Knight and Elf mission, the Mage asked for the Amulet of Fear, but it was nowhere to be found. Perhaps the enemies have it, but I didn't look at what I took from Yellow, and it was almost right before the finish

Regarding the messages, in the mission for the Knight and Elf, the mage asked for the Amulet of Fear, but it wasn't anywhere to be found. It might be with the enemies, but I didn't check what I looted from the yellow faction, and it was almost at the very end.

No, the amulet is with Menvad, until the Counterattack, when he leaves it in the city so they can pass through the gates. Therefore, in the defense of Murgrind, it's impossible to reach the city itself (which is the point of Menvad's defense, as he took this family relic with him so that Murgrind wouldn't be stormed until all positions, except for the gates themselves, are fortified enough to withstand the forces of Chaos and/or Death in the 7th scenario). Therefore, in "Counterattack," Menvad also doesn't have the amulet, and he won't have it in his next solo scenario either – the 17th, I think.

P.S.: Oh, yes, the scenario with Bru and the 7 Ifrits is considered one of the most difficult and challenging for this stage, because again, the hero, although level 15, doesn't have the Warfare skill, and the enemies are powerful and grow quickly. In Equilibrium, the troops of Charazir-Rognar can break through Tier 4 (and sometimes even Menvad's rebels can break through Rognar's troops themselves; I saw this on the final text in Whirlwinds 0-0), so there are two possible paths: you can get rid of the paladins of Glorion, or you can build up an army (on a lower difficulty) and break through Tier 4, intimidate Chaos, and generally ignore the surrounding factions. But, if you don't ignore them, the purple faction will eventually become more dangerous than the orange-yellow one.

P.S(2): You can capture the gold mines if you want, if you really try. Usually, one of the six is enough to reach the maximum level for the scenario, if there's even a need to capture them, I've kind of forgotten that detail after three or four months.

I also completed this one.
I didn't have to try very hard – first, I defeated the knight and got the robe, then the necromancer – and got the ring and the book. The ring is effective against ghosts (but there's enough experience for level 25 even without them, though with 3*1500 pikemen + 3 dryads).
The ring allows you to take the mines, so you don't have to leave ghosts for the already defeated turquoise player. The ring isn't needed for the final battle; the mage has no resistance, only the robe. He casts Dragon Strength on himself, gets Hand of Death from the book, and wins in one turn.

Without the ring, yes, the ghosts are impenetrable without slowing effects.

Added 13 minutes ago
I just got a campaign for the Rogue and the Barbarian, so I can see what skills they have.
The Barbarian has all combat skills, all tactics skills, but only two leadership skills, life 1, order 2-2-0-0, nature 1.
The Rogue has all scouting skills, all combat skills, but only two resistance skills, order 2-2-0-0, chaos 3-3-1-5, nature 1.

And no double scouting for the pair.

Added 2 hours 2 minutes ago
I completed another campaign in the sea. In principle, I cleared everything, leveled up the Rogue's Chaos to 5, and the Barbarian's Order to 3. I managed to capture a city and collect nearby buffs, letting the enemy hero go out to sea with 8 dragons, 25 horses, and some minor units, where I eventually defeated him. I didn't get very lucky with the universals on the map; it only gave the Barbarian resurrection, but that's okay. The heroes did all the fighting; I didn't need troops from the Dwarves – I created them with caravans, but they didn't even have time to leave before the final battle. I found a level 1 book somewhere, which allowed me to capture the enemy king faster.

The Mage – he entered the previous campaign as a weakling, but after spending some time there, he came out quite strong.
Tactics 3-2-4-5
Combat 5-5-3-5
Nobility 2-2-2-2
Life 2-1-0-0
Order 4-3-5-3

There are many altars of life and universals on the map, but the problem is that there's an ally. I can't defeat him, and he will eat my altars. I need to come up with something to do with him.
And there's also a minor lord who needs to be leveled up, giving him a lot of experience (besides the mage), considering the bad ally with a hero focused on tactics and defense.

In my city, I immediately get Mysticism and Resurrection; all that's left is to consume as many altars as possible

I completed this one too. Unlike the others (except for the Elf), it has a fairly large final map. The Mage entered without a level 5 Archer, which sometimes caused problems. The second hero scavenged artifacts from the wandering guards on level 4, stole the Amulet of Misfortune, the Vampire Blade, and a regeneration armor, which made the main Mage much stronger. He used Djinns and Sorceresses, and for the final map, he took regular Golems and Dwarves. On the first day, he sent 4 Golems to an ally with a special mission – to defeat the enemy. The road was guarded, so he had to go around it, which took longer. He fiercely explored the map until he lost his Angel. He managed to summon a small army of Pikemen before finally being trapped. He didn't manage to cause much trouble – he stole a Leprechaun artifact, a Mage artifact, and a couple of Dweller artifacts. The Gray Guard quickly devoured the altars from the start, so it wasn't immediate. The Mage quickly leveled up Hypnosis, but he fell behind afterward – he mainly decided the battles. Later, Sorceresses, Djinns, and a hero joined. As a result, he leveled up quite well – full Order, full Tactics, full Logistics, Nobility 5-5-3-5, Life 3-3-1-4, and he only lacks the Portal spell from the Order spells. The second hero also leveled up. Battle 4, 1 Archer skill, no Melee or Resistance, Nobility 3-2-2-4, Life 2-1-1-1, full Order except for one Charm, Death 2-2-0-2. He lacks three spells – Portal, Teleport, and General Slow. The final map, with the hero as a tactician and artifacts providing +60 attack/defense, a Leadership Helmet, a Chalice, the Amulet of Misfortune, an Amulet of Fire, 30 Titans, 300 Golems, a thousand Dwarves, 184 Djinns, and 13 Sorceresses, should be no problem. The map is small, but I had to explore it – there was no Nature (I found a scroll later), the Boots of the Sands were found late, and I had to constantly look for the Yellow resource and keep an eye on the Green resource. Added 4 hours 1 minute ago I also completed it with the Necromancer. The Necromancer, who entered with full Tier 3 Order, full Death, Tier 4 Chaos, Archer, and Defense skills, started gathering Vampires. He received the first enemy castle and 3 arrows on the first day. The Monks and Crusaders were there for some reason, and they went to the mine and stayed there. The Necromancer and the castle were defeated on the third week, on the first day. There was no Tent, it was far away and surrounded by dozens of Devils. He decided to risk the garrison, first taking health, damage, and cold potions. With the help of Freezing, Web, Teleport, and buffs from Chaos and Nature, he defeated everything. He immediately attacked the Necromancer, who didn't reach the castle due to the swamp. At the time of the attack, he had approximately 45 Vampires, lost a couple, and exited the battle with 17 HP – there was no healing or nectar, and the HP slightly damaged the garrison, which could have played a role. On the same day, he also took the castle, remaining with 6 HP from the Phoenix. After that, it was a tedious process of gathering experience, crystals, and altars. He took the city on the third week, won the map on the third month and second week, while he was gathering everything. The battle never appeared, Resistance increased from 2 to 4, he leveled up full Chaos (but without the main spell) and a little Order. There were no Order guilds, but that was okay. What is noteworthy is that he was severely lacking gold for the army (he had 350 Vampires, but he wanted more skeletons). Even the -10% gold artifact didn't help much. 11 Champions, 23 Skeletons, and about 150 Ghosts are what he managed to buy. He didn't take the gold mines because he didn't want to make the already long map exploration even longer