Posts from The Necromancer's Path.

I finally managed to beat this Necromancer campaign, after trying countless times (probably around 8, on the hero level). Overall, what did I learn? I defeated the first Giovanni (on my 8th attempt) and thought, "Wow, I'm so good, I did it!" I was inspired by this event, confidence filled me, I could do it! But when I saw three Giovanni's attacking after 3 days, I rage-quit and went back to Windows. I opened Nicks' stream, not to study his tactics, but just to watch the battle, and I saw that it was possible to win. So I started trying. Nicks was luckier; he had a smaller army, and Giovanni attacked his Castle. Giovanni was afraid of me and just kept destroying all the mines and other resources. So I went out, killed him, and I was just shocked at how easily I did it. I thought, "I'm a champion, I'm the lord of the world!" The next day, an Orc and a Human came with an army that was probably 10 times stronger. That was a disaster. I kept reloading until the Orc's catapult, by chance, fired not at the wall/gate, but at the tower. We destroyed the catapult, spent 40 minutes resurrecting our units, and killed a hundred leaders while we only had 32 vampires (doing almost no damage, it was like poking with a toothpick). We leveled up Dark Magic to level 3, and the map ended. I enjoyed playing as Raileigh more because there were just incredibly complex tasks to solve in order to complete the map without using Subjugation. Here, the map ends after getting that perk. Well, legions of darkness and hordes are coming at you, but what difference does it make if you control the strongest stack? It mows down the others, and then you resurrect a full army using the Necromancer's mark, and so on, in a loop. I trapped Giovanni with twins, and I was happy because he was annoying. I think the idea that he resurrects his army every day is a bit strange; why not once a week? I killed the Human city, and the Witch threw a curse at me (damn!). I gathered an army for the twins so that Giovanni would be afraid of them, and I went to kill the Orc, even without Dragons and Messengers (because why bother when there's Subjugation and Berserk?). I reached the Temple of Dragons with auto-battles, thinking there wouldn't be any more fights, and I regretted it. I killed the Monk guy after about 3 tries because his AoE purification spell was just insane. I didn't even think about the losses; I was sure this was the last boss. But it wasn't. Another batch of legions advanced on me. I ran to the Castle, took the army that defeated Giovanni, and crushed the Human through Subjugation. Of course, his army was just insane. 300 horses with full immunity and 2 attack, plus 15 more skill slots – that's crazy. They're not level 6 units; they're level 7-8 units. I killed them with Subjugation using Seraphs and Isabel's Knights. The point is: the map is about surviving until you get Subjugation, and everything else is just a matter of technique. Is it difficult? Only for the first month; after that, the map becomes very easy. I understand that it's impossible to kill such legions without Subjugation, but it feels like such legions aren't even needed. Remove Subjugation, remove the 123456789 units, and it would look less monotonous. 25 battles with the same scenario. I'll give it a 9 out of 10 for the frustration caused by Giovanni (my desk suffered from this playthrough).

P.S. It's a pity that the map doesn't let you kill that disgusting vampire; my revenge didn't find its target.

P.S.2 Why do the enemies always have such high stats? It's unfair to my hero, who has to level up while the others are born as cyborg killers.

Actually, I never had any problems with the first Giovanni. And I personally played through the current version on Hero mode. When he first appears, he doesn't have a particularly strong army. And by the second time, when he's already taking everything from his city, you're usually prepared with your build and troops. In any case, the fifth guild is a very important objective in the early stages. Sometimes Giovanni can even be defeated by humans. It's not a reliable method, but it happens.

However, Wessel has a powerful vampire on all difficulties. But you didn't even mention him! How is that possible?

You can't punish Giovanni because... he'll appear on my maps again.

The cyborg assassins are just a convention. If Arantir unexpectedly turns out to be the enemy, he'll already have mega-stats from the start.)

Thank you for the walkthrough. It seems like "The Price of Loyalty" is left. A walkthrough in reverse order.)

The gods favor me; Wessel didn't use mass vampirism for some reason in the last attempt to kill him. The problem with Giovanni isn't that he defeated me, but that he wiped out a large part of my army. There's simply no damage against conditional undead units (and against all others, the damage is generally poor on this map). He casts Ice Ring and Spike Traps constantly. My army doesn't regenerate with a snap of my fingers, so I lost even half of it. I already see that this is a loss because he will come again and again and again. Giovanni was more challenging than the Orc and Human, those simply get destroyed by Darkness, but Giovanni acts like a kamikaze, launching himself with the intention of a prolonged war (genius). Resurrecting isn't very effective; he casts spells constantly, and at level 19 with a maximized Education skill, I only had 6 knowledge points. In battle, I don't have time to regenerate mana, he deals more damage, and he has 20 attack. Maybe I'm having difficulties on early timings due to inexperience, but for me, Giovanni was the most challenging opponent in the game.

Ring of Cold? That’s really unlucky. He probably got it from the Wisdom skill.

The fact that Vessel didn’t use the Vampire skill is quite strange... but we won’t find out the reasons now. So, he was lucky.

Let it be. In The Price of Loyalty, there is also a memorable Necromancer.

By the way, regarding the name, I don't remember if I wrote about it before in English... I remember that I was going to write about it... in short: **Necromancer' Way** is not correct... the correct translation is **The Necromancer Path**!

Maybe, but the map has been named that way for years in all files, paths in text files, etc. It's too late to change anything now.

Question for the author:

When can we expect the next map to be released?

Over the course of several months.

Giovanni, Giovanni, when did our feelings fade, when did they die out?..

Major plot and gameplay spoilers below

The traitor Kirdan paid the price for his blind, treacherous love (well, at least he sniffed the angelic girl before he died), and it was time to walk the Path of the Necromancer. And let me tell you: serve the Empire, guys, drink beer, and march bravely as part of the red legions (in the literal and in-game sense of the word). Because being a Necromancer is a sad valley.

As I mentioned in my review of "The Price of Love," the author has his own interesting vision of the further history of Ashan. And here it is: after the events of "Dark Messiah of Might & Magic," Ashan resurrects Arantir, which all the other characters are quick to be surprised by, since people usually don't come back after getting beaten by Sareth. So, the legendary Arantir, and not some Anastasia, even though she is regularly mentioned in the dialogues, which warmed my heart, is in charge of Erathia and interferes with the plans of the angels again. The old enemy, Giovanni, has also returned, and I personally didn't enjoy defeating him again. It felt like the spirit of games and movies from the 90s and 00s, when something like this appeared in every third sequel, because you know, you have to come up with something for the sequel, and the box office won't fill itself. And who is Giovanni anyway – a vampire count who appeared in only one mission and was killed not even in a side quest, but in a cutscene. But that's just a matter of taste. Someone might actually enjoy a full-fledged battle with the ambitious count.

Unlike "The Price," I played the easier v2.2 here. I'm a good, law-abiding boy, and after reading about the high difficulty, I assessed my skills and played on "Warrior." My main impression: AstralLein deliberately collected all the annoying and uncomfortable solutions and mechanics. Or he wanted to create an unusual, challenging scenario for himself and experienced fans of the game, it depends on how you look at it. I got the feeling that the author specifically wanted to confuse the player. Not in a bad way, I'm not talking about poor game design or unclear quests. But here's what happened to me: in the intro on the first week, I'm shown a conversation between Arantir and Giovanni, and I start preparing for a battle with the undead. I know that there is also an enemy human hero on the map (and, damn it, I don't know anything about the orc hero, thinking that everything will be limited to orcish ambushes in the style of "The Price"), but I'm sure that the first opponents will be necromancers. And I level up accordingly – Summoning, Chaos, and almost no Darkness. I didn't check the top of the map with the observatory – I rushed to the right, quickly to give the vampire his final death. So when the knight Benedict, geared against Summoning, emerged from the darkness from above, I was completely unprepared for it. I fought off the knight in the city, which dampened his fighting spirit, throwing "Grief" and catching him on demoralization, and it was still difficult. This was the first of two times I had to fight Benedict – the second was during the siege of Mortred (where this jerk managed to ruin my mood again, despite the numerical superiority and complete readiness). Then only the orc Kagraag came, who, despite the boosted resistance to Darkness, is defeated easily (although sometimes he can also spoil your mood). And then comes what I meant at the beginning: endless backtracking and annoying battles with the strengthened Giovanni and Kagraag. You will defeat both at least ten times, I guarantee it. I cursed, seeing the inscription "The 'Subjugation' spell was reflected" again. I gnawed my knuckles, realizing that the magic barrier was preventing me from dealing with Giovanni. I looked for a way to remove it – and I dragged leather cloaks to the BDSM witches, and then I still fell into their trap (I didn't reload – by that time, I had already started to enjoy the pain and re-leveled Arantir). I groaned when the orc entered my lands the very next day after another army loss. As I said, I think AstralLein did this deliberately. To make life not seem like a bee's week. But I'm also to blame – I thought I could lazily run through everything on "Warrior" with just one Arantir. In this scenario, it is strongly recommended to have at least two more heroes with full leveling.

I came to Vessell only with higher liches, bone archers, and higher vampires, expecting a boss like Tashlak. I got a full-fledged fight against the second improvement of Order, whose abilities I had already gotten used to. I had to go down to meet Zoltan, who until recently was driving the orcs with the main forces, pick up the infantry, and go up to the Sanctuary again. I liked the mountain plateau where the epic final battle takes place. I said "final"? I lied to you

Completing the scenario took me almost a year and a half of game time and a month of real time with breaks. Yes, I'm that slow. By the end, I was morally and physically exhausted, and when this glorious Saturday morning, after defeating Vessell, it turned out that this is not all, I burst out laughing – I'm not exaggerating now – I screamed something incoherent, but definitely obscene, and shouting "ARANTIR IS COOL," barely thinking, I rushed to Bertrand. I suffered a predictable defeat (150 Servants of Justice, and with cosmic stats – no joke), picked up the artifacts, carefully arranged the troops, and... "goodbye, my beer." Mission completed!

I also completed all the found side quests (I counted 8 of them). Most of them are "fetch quests," exchange x for y, nothing interesting. The really interesting ones are the quest of Patch and the Witches' Sabbath (don't trust the oaths of dark elves!). In general, there are many unusual moments, as the author promised.

Catapult

I didn't understand about the catapult with liches. Was it possible to get there?

The map is beautiful, full of and diverse, the landscape is awesome. It would be fun and pleasant to explore if it weren't for the constant backtracking.

The text is good, the descriptions are, as always, detailed and fascinating. It would be ideal if, after the cities turned into necropolises, their description would also change, even if only one line was added. But that's just a small detail.

My Giovanni also got the "Ring of Cold," just like Leonard535. It hurt. Vessell was having a lot of fun with "Antimagic," but he never used "Vampirism."

I will definitely replay it on higher difficulty levels later. And if the upcoming "Dark Facets" develops the ideas of masochism – I'm ready

As always, I thank AstralLein for the painstaking work and the great, interesting scenario

On Warrior difficulty, some things work differently. Giovanni seems to be afraid of the border and arrives later than the blue player, while the opposite happens with the hero. Wessel uses antimagic instead of vampirism, also due to the difficulty level. He has a simplified combat script there. And almost all variables depend on the difficulty, including Bertrand's army. On Hero difficulty, it's twice as large, but always fixed: it doesn't depend on the game date, unlike Wessel. Thanks for the walkthrough and the pain! Of course, deep down, I'm a bit of a sadist, but who isn't? And anyway, the map is easier than the Master's, I guarantee it!

On Warrior difficulty, some things work differently. Giovanni is apparently afraid of border guards and arrives later than the blue player, while the opposite is true for the hero. Wessel uses antimagic instead of vampirism also because of the difficulty level. He has a simplified combat script there. And almost all variables depend on the difficulty level, including Bertrand's army.

And that's right. Otherwise, what's the point of having difficulty levels at all?

Thank you for the Walkthrough and the pain)

You're welcome ^_^ This is the pain of a casual player who has not played much besides the original Campaigns and your scenarios. Someone like Remix would find it funny to read

Of course, deep down I'm a bit of a sadist, but who is without sin?

I confess, I am also guilty; I lied – my penchant for masochism developed during the playthrough of the infamous "add-on" "Volkodav"

I wish you inspiration and strength for a new scenario/scenarios!

P.S. Yes, I completely forgot. I think the "Bundle of Wood" didn't work properly for me. The game didn't let me put it in a slot. I got it, as far as I remember, by killing another hero.

The bundle is used from the inventory; it doesn't need to be equipped.

Thank you. I liked the maps. I also liked the scenarios. We're looking forward to the next map.

Thanks for the walkthrough! I'm also looking forward to the next map.

I downloaded this map and let my brother play it. Being a very clever person, he activated cheats (created an army for himself, removed enemy heroes, and one of the outposts and the city of Giovanni) and generally had as much fun as he could. When he entered Benedict's lands, I came to watch how the map was progressing, and we saw some strange black creatures of level 8 from the city on the tents, resembling dungeon lords. I don't remember all the characteristics and the name (and I even forgot to take a screenshot of them), but I remember that they had 15k HP, more than 100 attack and defense, 7 speed, 25 initiative, magic immunity, and infinite retaliation. Going into the map editor out of curiosity, I concluded that Servants of Justice (level 6 knights who cast Earth Shock and have double strike) should have been in their place. I'm curious, is this a bug or a consequence of using cheats? There is a photo of this creature on the map, it is attached.