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For now, I must admit that this campaign looks much cooler than the Grey Alliance, even though it was released earlier. Interesting and challenging. Right now I'm on the second mission, but the yellow forces are already defeated, his cities are in my hands, and a lull has seemingly arrived for Orlando to level up—who, in general, did very little while Menelag fought the mages. It turned out quite funny there: the mages were led by a demon; he abandoned his cities, and while I was capturing them by killing mages with substantial armies, he ignored my capital, jumped into a portal, captured my demonic city, and Orlando got backed into a corner (the demon had a large army) and barely survived until Menelag himself jumped into the portal and reclaimed the demonic cities, subsequently finishing off the traitor-demon. Moreover, the final battle took place near Orlando, and I actually got lucky that the AI somehow stopped pursuing him and switched to neutrals. Overall it was fun, but I basically didn't do any restarts: only a bunch of loads in one spot when I was trying to take the far mage city without losing my own. Logistics boots helped VERY much.
More details on the first two missions after completing the second)
Added after 3 hours 21 minutes
Well, the first two are behind me and so far I am very satisfied.
First mission. A short exploration with two heroes, of whom only Alaric really needs to be leveled up, ending with a full city assault. Unlike the similar mission in Grey Alliance, it requires maximum tactical skill to bring an army to the finale in fighting condition. I passed on the second attempt, but left several particularly nasty neutrals alive, including the artifact shop guards. I leveled exclusively Alaric and was not mistaken: Orlando stays as a Knight only in this mission and does not progress further. Alaric reached level 17 and some kind of power build with a reserve for Dark magic. Whether it will be useful in the future is a big question. I liked the mission; I had to really rack my brain in several battles. The final battle is difficult, and I even waited a bit to accumulate a small squad of Zealots. Although the dwarf's number of Mountain Defenders grew from the watchtower, this worked, and with a few extra Zealots I won, whereas without them I lacked the strength to kill the last enemy unit. 25 bears can be quite a problem.
Second mission. Reading the comments, it seems like this is a Master-level hardcore mission. But no, technically I only restarted the mission from scratch at the very beginning, deciding to distribute the starting troops between Menelag and Orlando differently. In the end, Menelag got the Abyss Lords, who, although they demoralized every second turn, helped break through the same difficult initial neutral squads typical for the author. A challenging mission, but after defeating all active forces of the yellow mage, a state of grace and world peace ensues. I already described the walkthrough details earlier; after saving Orlando from the clutches of the last mage hero, I calmly leveled him to the mission maximum of level 30. The battles for the green city and with the final boss seemed very simple, as neither really casts spells. And I was very surprised when, on the last Thunderers, Faiz suddenly cast a slow on me. Where he kept it the whole fight is unclear) I dug up Ashi's Tear at three obelisks. The location is quite easy to find by the reveal on the right, and it reveals first. However, I built it only after crushing yellow. In the struggle against yellow himself, the main problem is the central city, as his enemy guards it perfectly. The far one is a piece of cake to capture, but as soon as you head for it, they come out from the center. In the end, I gave up on that and decided to surrender the capital in exchange for both of yellow's cities; there was a surprise when the AI ran past the capital and chased Orlando, for whom I had only built the magistrate and the first four tiers of units at that time. Quite difficult but fascinating mission. I liked it. Before taking the initiative into my own hands (which happened after building Titans), I repelled two mage attacks. The first was an army that broke through the garrison, though fortunately it suffered huge losses and Menelag successfully finished off the remnants. And the assault on the capital by the mage with all units and upgrades. Here, thanks to the alternative gremlin upgrade and the catapult block. With the appearance of Titans, even more powerful AI armies became "low" to me, although in reality I would have still lost to half of them in an open field.
A few other things. It's nice that after the second mission, where the city portal was banned, Orlando deservedly has it at the start of the third) There are almost no typos in the dialogues, but instead there are punctuation errors. Extra commas, to be more precise.
Those are the results for now)
Added after 20 hours 27 minutes
Continuing)
Third mission. The strangest mission of the campaign. It feels like it was clearly made for a lower-level hero, because level 30 Orlando simply steamrolls through the map, leaving the little people no chance. Plus, the boss is weaker than the previous one even in level and his army doesn't grow over time. It can only be perceived as a relaxation after the sweaty second mission; there's nothing more to say.
Fourth mission. Simple on its own, but then you come to a lovely lady in full confidence that you're doing great and get smacked by her) An exploration with a large number of troops and solid neutrals—three thousand bone warriors each. At first glance, the boss doesn't possess special power, but still takes you out easily. If the author himself hadn't suggested a tactic using Divine Retribution, which forced me to part with Logistics in favor of Light magic, I probably wouldn't have won. And even then, I eventually won by a miracle with 10 griffins at the end) IMHO, the lovely lady is way too strong and the spectrum of builds capable of defeating her is too narrow. However, there was a certain challenge in victory, which, however, I essentially didn't overcome. Separately, I'll note the atmospheric design of the map itself)
Fifth mission. That very battle with Kurak, which for some reason chronologically comes after Arantir's campaign. And it always seemed to me that all PO campaigns (excluding the prologue) take place after Kurak's death. But here it's as if Gotai rushed to become chief while the previous chief was still alive. Either I forgot something, or I didn't understand. The mission is simple: a large beautiful map, seemingly many enemies, but all of them are nothing. The Orcs tried one foray toward me once, but it was very weak and right under Alaric's nose, and all his cities eventually fell simply to Seraphs under vampirism—level 1 heroes on guard, what can you expect from them. Necromancers spawn simply if you get closer to their magic hill with ruins. Moreover, the first two are level 17 and 20, while the last two with decent armies are somehow level 1. Therefore, the tactic there is simply to stand Alaric by the portal, while a scout hero runs ahead. Necromancer appeared, necromancer died) For the dark elf you get a funny reward and he also fell to Seraphs under vampirism. True, I made a mistake there and lost several anyway, so Sorgall guarding the yellow player's city is a worthy opponent) But essentially, it's easier to ignore the dark elf. Trading the Cloak of Deadly Shadow for crystals (or gems, I don't remember) is a maximally questionable quest. Not only is the cloak way cooler than resources, but I didn't even find it during the mission. I can't say I was looking, but it clearly doesn't lie in a visible place so you could quickly get those coveted crystals) Blue simply guards the second city for the player and thus isn't worth mentioning. Orc ambushes are frankly redundant. They act exclusively on Alaric and represent zero threat to him, while slowing down other heroes. I would remove the camera when the joke caravan appears, but add it when necromancers appear. For the final crusade against the orcs, Kurak himself calls you to a showdown. The first time I lost to him because I chose the wrong tactic, but the second time he offered no resistance. So I wouldn't call him difficult. But overall the mission is quite good, except that running from human cities to Kurak takes very long. Especially with Alaric)
Everything else. I want to mention that our favorite Red Haven made a movement animation fix for both red knights and Alaric. But in the campaign they are default slowpokes. Alaric with Logistics is quite a meme, because logically this perk doesn't fit him XD Just adding a couple of files to the archive would do it) In terms of the campaign, there is a connection between scenarios, but it's still rather thin. Again, the timeline of Kurak's death. But overall I liked the campaign much more than Grey Alliance. The problem with dialogues here is different; these are actual errors, not typos. Missions are more interesting, some are even quite difficult and tense, although the easiest one is also in this campaign. The plot explaining the state of affairs at the start of the PO campaigns is a very decent idea. If only the dialogues were polished, it would be perfect)
Thanks for the campaign)
8 red Isabelles out of 10
Sincerely,
AstralLein
