Posts from Unicorn Empire

What should I do if the game crashes during the second mission, specifically when the dwarves start uniting their armies? Do I really have to replay the mission and avoid destroying the last elven city?

After completing and deleting the map (following all instructions), the game broke and started crashing when loading any save and when attempting to click the modification button. How do I fix this? Besides the mod that adds a mana bar under the portrait, there is nothing else installed. It's a clean Heroes 5 version 3.1. Reinstalling does NOT help.

I had the exact same problem, I agree! I installed a campaign for testing, then deleted it. Now, save files don't work, and the modification button also doesn't work.

RedHeavenHero, it seems the problem is still with your campaign.

The solution that helped was simple – I created a new profile, and loading works there. However, it's a pity that the settings and progress in the original campaigns have been reset.

I had the exact same problem, I agree! I installed a campaign for testing, then deleted it. And now saves don't work, and the modification button also doesn't work.

RedHeavenHero, it seems the problem is still with your campaign.

The solution helped: I created a new profile, and saves work there. However, it's a pity that settings and progress in the original campaigns were reset.

Thank you, it helped.

Apparently, these download issues are somehow related to installing and uninstalling the NCF mod. I've added recommendations for fixing the bug in the first post in the "installation and uninstallation" section.

3 out of 4 missions are bugged; the game always crashes at the end.

RedHeavenHero, hello!)

When will the continuation of the campaign be released? I just finished the Unicorn campaign again, and the ending hints at a continuation...
=)

Hello everyone!
I have a problem. I can't retrain new recruits. It constantly loads, and then nothing happens. Maybe someone has encountered this.
And also, the third mission doesn't start; it immediately kicks me out of the game.
Thank you!

The vicious knights (tier 3) from the first and second garrisons (3 missions) one-shot my stacks, dealing some unbelievable damage numbers. I haven't used them in battle myself, but it doesn't work that way for the neutral creatures.

(There was also some hero that appeared after the second one, but I haven't checked if it works for him yet)

Hello. I wanted to play a campaign. I can't download the archive from mail.ru. It's possible that the problem is that I'm from Ukraine. A VPN doesn't help me download it. What should I do?

Dc_Paradoxx
Here you go:
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/R2ppIllo8wq9Zw
http://file.karelia.ru/4wgsnt/
Or here https://dropmefiles.com/6L8PL, but then add the extension .exe

Dc_Paradoxx
Here you go:
https://disk.yandex.ru/d/R2ppIllo8wq9Zw
http://file.karelia.ru/4wgsnt/
Or here https://dropmefiles.com/6L8PL, but then add the extension .exe

Thank you. I was able to download it.

Greetings, I started playing this campaign and want to share my opinion. I'll likely split it into several posts, since this isn't just one map but a campaign, and in this post I'll try to cover the first two missions

Mission 1 - The Prisoner
- The story says Varens is captured somewhere, and we need to free him. He fell into the hands of pirates (orcs), because Archbishop Dominic needs Varens and his knowledge of the Book of Changes to destroy demons as a class...

Let's call this the introductory mission. In this mission, our main character is Andrias (with Victor's specialty), we have a level cap of 12, and since he's an Artificer, we'll be leveling Artificer...


Before the battle for the castle, I ran around a bit, tried what I could to go into the castle slightly leveled up)

A few battles from this stage for your viewing
VS Daughters of the Sky (don't know why I saved it)

Andrias VS Stefan (castle guard)

Overall, it wasn't a problem. The main challenge is to rescue him within 2 months, level up to the development cap, and not miss a guy named Vladimir, who is Stefan's teacher and reaches the castle in a couple of days (most likely), and we can't give up the castle. In the open field, of course, I'm no match for him because I missed the timing a bit, unloaded a bit earlier, and when I returned to the castle, I met him there.
Andrias VS Vladimir

After repelling the attack, the second month began, and I thought it was time to look for those pirates. After sailing around a bit and being confused, I found the entrance to the blue player's lands and beat him without much trouble. By the end of the first mission, my main character turned out like this


And we meet a familiar hero from the "Ambassador" scenario



Moving on to the second mission, a short and concise beginning, seems all fine, we move to the second mission and here we go

Mission 2 - In Search of Changes...

To say you can have a blast here is an understatement. In short, it's just AWESOME. I really liked it. Let me try to go through it in order
The start gradually introduces you to the situation and tells you about new troops "stronger, more obedient." In this mission, we play as both Andrias and Varens


And here the interest gets even more fueled. I won't attach screenshots of all troops, I'll just go over what stood out to me. First of all, you can't just hire them — you need to retrain them. Fortunately, the cost isn't that high. The only downside is you need a free stack and any tier, but say you have 7 upgraded stacks — you won't upgrade them all in one go; you'll need to do it twice. Not that it's critical, but still. Fortunately, this action doesn't cost a turn — you just need to stand at the castle and use the retraining ability in the spellbook. Another downside: these green guys are "NOT creatures of the Order of Order." Why am I saying this? Because if, for example, you upgraded the weekly growth (conditionally) and forgot to train the troops, the castle won't let you train that new army. Seems like a small thing, but it can be counted as a downside...




Let's briefly go through them in order:

1. Recruits — slightly better stats, the main plus is Assault + Stunning Blow. Under different circumstances, you can stun twice, and that's cool...

2. Imperial Marksmen (almost imba, especially under Varens and with the volley that silences) — lack direct shot and precise shot but have double shot, retaliate against shooters, shoot volley, and sometimes shoot volley twice. Try countering that))

3. Squires (also almost imba) — have everything Squires and even Zealots have, only better — Infinite Retaliation, double attack, stunning blow. Same as with Recruits, you can stun twice, which is also nice

4. Scout Griffins (didn't use them much, but still) — a mix of Battle and Royal Griffins + bear paw strike — all the best, namely Strike from the Skies, Royal's initiative, Battle Frenzy from the red ones, plus the bear paw strike. Also interesting characters.

5. Priests — well, these are outright imba. Shooting without penalty and spells: Haste/Blessing/Regeneration/Cleansing. What else can I add? And at Expert level

6. Cavaliers — also cool guys, but here's a different philosophy: Knight's Charge and Charging Strike (more damage + defense mode) + heal. If only they had some kind of piercing strike like Isabel's Knights, it would be totally awesome, though they're good as is

7. Elrath's Angels — also imba. The only ones who can compete are Fallen Angels (since I didn't remove the mod from the previous map). 2 resurrections in the spellbook — one standard for 0 mana, another a spell — plus if you take Secrets of Light, you can resurrect twice with them, and if the Might and Magic week falls, then 4+1 = 5 times total. Not bad. On top of that, Child of Light deals decent 60 damage. Fallen Angels (only because of the mod and Drain) are the competition


A great idea, well implemented. The only thing to nitpick is Cavaliers and Squires — their icons look too similar and I sometimes confuse them. But these are all minor things. So, done with troops, moving on to the game itself.

Naturally, since Andrias is slightly leveled, we play as him, and we'll level Varens later. The level cap is 28, though it could easily be 30 given there are plenty of fights...

According to the scenario, we need the Book of Changes, but we're in a diplomatic alliance of elves-dwarves-humans. To pass through their lands, we use the pretext that there's no news from our city (everything is detailed in the quests), but the bluff didn't work, and we have to fight the elves. Despite being an Artificer, the fights are quite tough at the start, and I had to cheat in places. The first to meet us at the border is Wyngaal


Andrias VS Wyngaal

All would be fine, but the next day Dirael arrives with 500+ fairies, and we're like "good evening, and what does this mean..."

Andrias VS Dirael

And she resurrects — more precisely, they buy her back from the tavern almost every day. After running around a bit and building up troops, we capture the first castle. More precisely, we take out the hero, then we're told we can't destroy it — it stays with Irolan and just becomes a neutral town, and no one comes from there anymore. And Dominic, seeing our success in finding the books, sends reinforcements of new troops + resources for each castle, of which there are 4 (though I didn't capture the last one, because an evil fleet arrives there and we're told it's better not to fight it to get a bonus, and there's no point anyway since both heroes are leveled by the end)

And honestly, for the first while the elves are a nuisance until we build up mass, because they already have mass)

Andrias VS Vinrael

One of the hard battles that was tough was against Anwen, because it shows High danger level and we don't have enough troops. Well, I cheated here and met her at the garrison. In the open field, she rolled me into a salad, but with walls I almost got out unscathed

Andrias VS Anwen

Then, after leveling up a bit and gathering an army, we just run around grinding Andrias. Along the way, we see Lake Island, the one we need to capture per the quest, but I'm in no rush to get there — I need to explore everything and collect everything)


And then, as they say, it's smooth sailing. A couple more replays with elves, level Andrias to 28, take Mentor, teach Varens, give him the army, and level him)

Andrias VS Gilraen

Andrias VS Ossir

After leveling, Andrias turned out like this


What to say about Varens — a cool specialty that hasn't changed from the "Ambassador" map. He got his level from Mentor and went to fight mostly Dwarves, because to get to the Book of Changes, we need Rune Stones (keys) which are obtained by breaking through Dwarf castles and visiting a building (you can't just visit it because we're directly told that to get the stone, you need to defeat the castle). Here the situation differs from the Elf castles — we're given the opportunity to capture and keep the castle under our control, and that's good)

At this stage, I stopped taking screenshots and just saved replays, so all of Varens' battles are for your viewing...

Varens VS Ingvar

Varens VS Tariel

Varens VS Wyngaal

Varens VS Galib
- Here I should explain: there's a neutral mage guarding the spell library, quite strong and should be taken out quickly because his stats are very high. I gave Clone to Elrath's Archangels, then he hit with Divine Vengeance and resurrected with double resurrection. After defeating him, they give the Sar-Issa set, and I think besides the library itself, that's a pretty good bonus

Varens VS Helmar (3rd castle)

And the final castle is the battle against Svea. Then a day later, the brown player's fleet appears. Here we could have left Andrias near the place where the key is given, but even without that, we easily make it there in time to get the Book of Changes and see the final cutscene. But before that, let me show what Varens turned out like

Varens VS Svea



And the finale where we reach the location of the Book of Changes and Varens successfully masters it. Only here our heroes' opinions diverge. During the dialogue, Andrias says it's time to take the book to Dominic to destroy all demons. But Andrias knows it won't help, because it will only destroy the prison and release all demons into the wild. And Varens decides to run away to find Arantir, so that he in turn would destroy the book's power... The next mission — The Chase — I'll cover in future posts)


Let's sum up: If the first mission is relatively short, an introduction, more or less chill and relaxed, then the second is already a big map, cool underground, new troops, plenty to do on the map until you're exhausted. In short, I really like the campaign. Different arenas (I'll even attach one + a couple of bonus battles with strong stacks, in my opinion). And hopefully the fact that I left the Log to Andrias won't play a cruel joke on me, because in the third mission (judging by the description) we need to run away from him, but we'll see when we actually play the mission)



VS League stack

VS 865 dragons

Mission 3 - The Chase

Well, let's continue the series of posts about this campaign. I won't ramble too much here, as the mission is quite fast-paced; in my understanding, there are two paths: charging headlong into garrisons (and in the end, Bertrand will likely meet us and crush us) or the one that the author most likely intended via quests—let's call it that.

The essence of the scenario is that after our discussions with Andreas, we flee from him with the Book of Changes to bring it to Arantir, who in turn will strip it of its power.

Well, I don't know if it played a role that Andreas has a lag, but it seemed to me he moves quite fast; well, let's take it in order.

At the start, we can try things out a bit and build up an army. The first quest that meets us is in the peasants' hut—basically, "guy, kill the demons and we'll help," which is exactly what I did, and as a result, a small number of Landlords join us.

Then you can go left through the garrison, or up; I went up. There is a tasty Cloak of the Underworld, Sandals of the Saint, and barracks where an army can join us for money (I don't remember how much gold).

Further on, you can enter the prophet's hut; he lost a tome of summoning. On the surface, it just looks like it's lying there, but in reality, there are a couple of battles with wolves. Overall, no problems: horses-regen-mass slow and plague, and we observe a funny picture where a bunch of wolves take damage from the plague while they run; the horses hold up fine.

At this point, Andreas appears, and the next day he briskly covers half the map in one turn. Well, we return the tome and are TP'd past the outpost (meaning you didn't even have to fight through the dragons).

Oh right, I rushed and forgot to mention one character, namely Jir, who appears on the third day and will boldly attack us.



Varens vs Jir
Here, as they say, a couple of tries, we got a result close to ideal and move on...

Then the prophet will tell us that there will be an ice wall; you need to appease the fire elementals with sulfur.


And here we enter the underground. Meanwhile, Andreas goes for the key to open the red key-holder to chase after us. In the meantime, we see a market; maybe you need to exchange gold for sulfur here, but there's no need to rush, because there are 2 stacks (sulfur for fire elementals + a shop where I bought a ring for minus morale + a cloak—a pretty good combo) and for the Dragons (which you basically don't have to fight through, since there is more sulfur in the mine), we need 10 sulfur.

We approach the tower, the elementals join us (you can already use them to clear the mine), and then we approach the portal and see how beautifully the ice cube burns away.


My only mistake was that I spent too much mana and had to go back a bit and be more economical, because when we exit the underground, a stack meets us, and without mana, there's no way to deal with them.

After Lorenzo emerges onto the surface, they give us a moment to breathe—something like "guy, I'll give you some time..."


Here we have plenty of space and good artifacts, and there is the Tree of Silana, and finally a well to replenish mana. However, the key keeper is a klutz; his key was stolen by local bandits (orcs), so he asks to return the artifact (Belt of Elementals). Actually, I didn't make it in time because Andreas had already blocked the path...
Beat Goshak, returned the key, and move on...
Varens vs Goshak

And there is nothing more to tell here, as we run forward a bit and are met by Bertrand, which is essentially the finale of this mission.
Varens vs Bertrand (yes, it says Andreas in the replay, that's a typo)

That's the ГГ at the end of the mission

To summarize: A good dynamic scenario that was pleasing; it plays more or less easily and effortlessly, the mini-quests are interesting, and overall everything is cool. Well then, on this happy note, I will move forward

Greetings) Well, I'll continue the series of posts about this campaign, and now it's time for mission 4, where I had a blast)) Let's go through everything in order

Mission - On the Edge of Balance
In short, we have the Book of Changes, and we're going to visit Lord Erish to give it to him so that he, in turn, destroys it. We're given a month for all of this (if playing with logistics, that's more than enough, and even without logistics I don't think there will be problems). Right from the start, we're greeted by an unpleasant "bonus"



I'm like, well hello there, things were going fine, why did this have to start — but once you open the objectives, they explain it to us in plain language: "dude, your army doubts you, prove that your cause is just and your morale will return." Speaking of which, right from the start we get +1 level (because we completed the quest in the previous mission not to fight the fleet), and immediately a hut where they show us Zellgrad (where Arantir awaits us) and the approach to it where an undead army is fighting a human army. And since I wasn't in a hurry to get there, I decided to squeeze out as much as possible and somehow push through.
At the start, there's a sign saying something like "to the north is a human castle." The idea was: quickly take the town, make a cockroach hero to do stuff there, while I go see Arantir (can't send the cockroach there)
All would be fine — the garrison isn't overly strong, but -10 morale plays its part, and those IMBA CAVALIERS that can neither be berserked nor dominated, plus they have Lay Hands on them. I made several attempts and realized it was futile (despite having Dark Magic), so I moved on — let me drop by the witch and see what she has to offer?

On my way to her, a dialogue starts, and we're conditionally taught "Necromancy." Varesh is like, "well, this isn't exactly what I wanted, but still..." For a while I couldn't figure out how it works; turns out if our stack falls, and it's the hero's turn, and the corpse lies there (not blocked by some unit), then Varesh raises undead of the corresponding level and grade — though, as I understand it, only for that battle... Which looks kind of meh...

Moving on, clearing everything clearable along the way, and here comes an interesting twist — behind the garrison there's a battle between humans and undead, and here, as they say, two paths:

Along the way there were cavaliers whom we defeated more or less successfully (maybe a bit unsynchronized, but I'll attach all battles against cavaliers below)

Varesh vs Robert

Varesh vs Alexander

Varesh vs Valeria

Varesh vs Fernando

Varesh vs Iris 

Varesh vs Victoria

Varesh vs Felix

Varesh vs Benedict

- Help the humans (I played this variant) — which, frankly speaking, allows completing the side quest, and the army believes in our priest again and morale normalizes, which in my understanding is cool, because after all I built my character around humans. After victory, a small stack of humans joins us. But then we won't be given control of Zellgrad, and it will remain a neutral town for the whole game...
- Help the undead — which I also did as a test. Morale doesn't return to us, the side quest about restoring the army's trust fails, an undead stack joins us, and when we come to visit Arantir, Zellgrad will be under our control, but the -10 morale stays + an extra line in the cutscene...

And that's really cool — it's nice that there are conditionally two ways to play out this scenario, but I went down the human path... Next, we go to Arantir and hand over the book so he can destroy it...

We show the book, and they tell us: wipe the dust off the cover — "Fundamentals of Necromancy for Dummies" by Markal (I laughed hard). Along the way, we met Menelag, Arantir's "friend," who swiped our little book and swapped it. Also interestingly, it turns out that in the first mission with the pirates (orcs), we weren't there just for nothing — it was part of a plan that failed to materialize...


And besides, not only the book was needed, but also the Rune of Flame, which we accordingly don't have...

If we had helped the undead, we would have been taught something like "Expert Necromancy" 
During the dialogue, Arantir urgently needs to do great deeds, and we must escort him. Here we meet the first conditional stumbling block — quite tough one, Benedict — in the sense that we're still weak while he's strong. Well, a couple of attempts, I fumbled a bit, and figured out how to deal with him (replay above). And overall, looking ahead, there are 3 spots on the map from which Benedict and Victoria (like Ornella) emerge, and they seem to have Logistics + logistics specialty, which was somewhat annoying. But there's one legal cheat to take them out feet-first: you can simply stand on their spawn spot, and then even a cockroach with 5 peasants will finish them off...



Well, that's me jumping ahead. After talking with Arantir, he needs to be escorted — he walks on his own, you just need to let him get from the bottom-left corner to the right one and not let him die. Overall, not a difficult task, but if he dies before leaving, the mission is failed...

Along the map, I found a strange resource; honestly didn't understand what it was for and why... But later they'll tell us about it


Afterwards, we no longer need to babysit anyone — we just keep moving across the map. In due time, our side quest with the witch updates, and she needs the Mask of Justice to weaken Dominik, the main antagonist holed up in Ivane with the Book of Changes... That's exactly when we need 10 kg of sand + the mask... The mask is guarded by Vayshan. Before fighting him, I captured all castles, made cockroaches, and started producing priests/cavaliers. Too bad the castles aren't very logistically connected, and caravans travel quite slowly, but these are just production costs))

After capturing the castles, I went to Vayshan — a fairly strong caster. The main principle here is: the faster you kill him, the better (since at that moment I thought that to perform the ritual with the Mask, you'd need to unlock the keymaster...)

Varesh vs Vayshan

So it seems the whole map is cleared, and I already want to visit Dominik, but there stand 10000 phoenixes saying "no chance." I'm like, what do we do with this... Well, let's break through)) And thanks to the author that they're in one stack — although if they're in one stack, could've cranked it up to 50000-100000 units, why not, everyone knows how to beat them anyway. First time I fumbled a bit, then remembered the imba tactic: Domination + Raise Dead... And then, well, you win once, they write you a message that they rose from the ashes — go find another solution, especially since they give you a side quest right away...
10k phoenixes (here I was being dumb, but then it got rolling)


Well, any normal person would go complete the quest. But I'm like, oh, so I can farm! And in the end, I abused it... up to level 39)) and raised 40 on the tree, and then went and completed the quest — go do this and that: the Ring of Exile, help the mage, and grab the Orb of Light in the monastery, guarded by a neutral hero whom I killed earlier (didn't know why back then), but in the end, that's what he was guarding. Went and grabbed the orb, returned to the prophet, and in the end, he just banished him)) Wait, that was allowed?!)) Okay then, the path is open, moving on

Let me check what's what there — I haven't activated the mask; is it really harsh there? Seems not really, everything is passable even without changing your build, roughly speaking. Approaching the city, we see a cutscene: mages are like "the defense is breached, we're bailing and stole the spheres." Andrias thinks they gave chase (mission 5), and we're left face-to-face with Dominik. With such an army, taking him out wasn't a problem. Cool concept with two battles — he seems strong, but overall I didn't feel it. Probably if you play on tempo, there'd be a difference, but since you're given the opportunity to stretch it out...

Varesh vs Dominik (without mask) Battle 1

Varesh vs Dominik (without mask) Battle 2

After the battle, there's a cool cutscene — in the battle you can even see us using something like necromancy. Man, seems like a small thing, but it's awesome


During the dialogue, we tell them that the Book of Changes won't solve the problem, and Dominik sees the light — and then, boom, Elrath's Angel transforms into an Archdevil and kills Dominik, and we finish him off with Divine Vengeance....

The book is ours; we go to the witch, and here's a dialogue: "Ah, it's you" — didn't catch who they meant, but in the end, together we safely destroy it, and they tell us this isn't the end....

Summary: a cool scenario, I liked it; rich choice variety, good map, dragon set we gradually collect — in short, everything's top-notch, everything's fire, moving on...

BONUS: Don't know why, but I felt like squeezing out maximum — namely, seeing how much in-game time it takes to BUY OUT THE ENTIRE ARMY from everywhere + train 50/50 (priests/cavaliers)
Let's just say it's a useless activity, but I wanted to; in the end, it took about 23 months)) And since we're already partying, might as well use the mask too) Anyway, screenshots to the studio showing what came out... To pull this off, you need lots of money, and in the end, to break even income-wise to buy everything, it was like this...





With the mask, it's even easier) but auto-battle probably would've handled it too)) (no point posting replays, I think)

+ Noticed a funny bug: Ornella can take out Andrias and Menelag. Though I don't know how that affects the game, I didn't bother checking