Posts from The Necromancer's Path. Auto-translated

It’s neither a bug nor a consequence of using cheats. It’s a consequence of not taking into account this line in the topic header: “The map is a clean mod! A clean version of the game is recommended!”. This is a very common situation. You can find mentions of it in the comments several times.

These demons are from my own map, “Shades of Darkness,” which is best not to be played simultaneously with “The Path of the Necromancer” and “The Price of Loyalty.”

By the way, your brother seems to know the game quite well, judging by the tricks he’s pulling.

You are most likely launching the game through H5_Game.NCF. Try launching it without the mod.
If that doesn't help, clear the folder with mods and maps.

Please tell me how to launch a map step by step; I can't figure it out, but I really want to play.

UPDATE!

v3.0 (01/13/2025)
— Now, Wessel's army doubles after the sixth month of the game to prevent it from being too easy with a very long timing.
— Now, on Veteran and Hero difficulties, Wessel casts Counterspell only once, and in the final phase of the script (or if it breaks), he casts something from the Chaos school. The latter is also relevant on Recruit and Warrior difficulties.
— Benedict and Kagrag's armies have been slightly reduced after their redemption following defeat.
— You can now enter the Easter zones and even find the Tome of Dark Magic there.
— The level requirements for some Avatar of Death abilities have been reduced.
— An explanation has been added for the Endless Bundle of Wood, stating that it does not require an artifact slot.

THE LINK REMAINS THE SAME

It's time to write a review of The Necromancer's Path, as promised. And I'll say right away – I suffered. I got angry, I was frustrated, I hated everything that moved on the map. I experienced pain and the algorithms of the fifth level. But the worst thing is that I played as my favorite faction, and even on recruit difficulty. But Wessel and Bertrand reminded me that I'm a complete noob. It was impossible to play as a Necromancer the way I was used to. But let's go through everything in order. Plot: After the author's previous scenario, the quality of the plot in The Necromancer's Path has improved significantly. Although during the game, I started to forget what I was even fighting for (Yes, yes, the final battles took me longer than the rest of the scenario). I suppose the whole plot is a reference to the war between Angels and the Faceless Ones. That's cool. I also want to note that the character of Aranthir is portrayed quite well, very canonically. Except for the fact that the Servant of the Spider Goddess called Sareth a demon-wannabe. I was laughing out loud at that moment :D Like... The original plot revolved around the fact that all of Ashan was trying to prevent the appearance of the Dark Messiah. And here, Aranthir, with one phrase, simply devalued the events of two hundred years ago. Funny. I liked that Lucretia was running around with Giovanni in the hero-couriers. I made my hated little sister collect skeletons on the shore, hahaha :D Overall, I liked the plot, I give it a solid 7 out of 10. Map Design: It also became a little better than in the first scenario. But it was still possible to see the awkwardness of some parts of the map. This is especially noticeable in the mountainous areas and in the swamp near the witches. Otherwise, the landscape is not bad. The rating is the same - 7 out of 10. Gameplay: And here I will probably dwell on it in more detail. If in the previous scenario there were not so many quests with a choice, then here there are more of them. Moreover, the player is also given a difficult choice, which made me very happy. Almost from the very beginning, you are given to understand that you can assemble a Necromancer set for yourself, which is very cool. But! Want the Staff for the set? Okay, no problem, but please, in return, give something not useless... But a whole Sar-Iss ring (Sar-Iss Ring, Karl!). And then I thought, "Well, author, you're cunning... You know what a difficult choice is." And indeed, the choice is extremely difficult. But that's not all! In addition, the author has introduced such an interesting mechanic as blocking the portal for Giovanni. And for this, it is necessary to give the witch a cloak from the Necromancer set. And the most wonderful thing in this situation is that the choice of priorities remains with the player. You are not forced to do this. Don't want to give away the ring or cloak? Please, play as you like, but keep in mind that you won't get everything at once. Great. My rating for gameplay features is 9 out of 10. Difficulty: Also, as in the last time, I will not put a rating on this aspect. For each player, it is different. And we should not forget that the scenario is quite passable. However, for me, it turned out to be the HARDEST. Last time, I suffered so much in the battle with Sans (Hello from Undertale :D). And as I said earlier, the main difficulty was, in general, Wessel and Bertrand. I spent a good 6-7 hours on both of them (Yes, I'm a noob). Giovanni, Benedict, and K'rag represented some difficulty only at the beginning, later they just ran away from me and pressed the portal button in the city (except for the orc). One of the most pleasant moments was my trick against Jhovanno (Giovanni) - in the main city, Naadir sat and gathered troops, not allowing the vampire to attack. But then there was a problem - Jhovanno gathered a good army and went to visit me, while Aranthir successfully cleared the territory of the blue. Naturally, I press the portal button in the city. And since this spell consumes all movement points, I could not attack him. And in his turn, he would have fled. But I decided that I couldn't just let him go and transferred all the troops to Naadir. Yes, Giovanni was 20 levels higher than the ghost lover, but his army was 10 times smaller. And I defeated the vampire with minimal losses. Moreover, Naadir rose to level 17, which in the future allowed me to keep the cheater Necromancer on his territory and not go anywhere at all. But then came the time to meet Wessel... And after the first battle (I lost it, in fact, in one fell swoop), I started gathering troops from all the cities. Three weeks of growth allowed me to hold out in a battle with the inquisitor a little longer, but he still crushed me like a twig. With his antimagic, I could not do anything. It was extremely difficult to fight such a monster, but I gradually developed a tactic. A couple of times I managed to cast Subdue and once Berserk. Then I had to work with phantoms. After a couple of dozen battles, I finally managed to defeat him. And then I was already happy and thought, "Hooray, finally a victory, yee!"... And then Bertrand comes out from behind the scenes... After the battle with Wessel, I had nothing left, and gathering a new army from the cities was not an option. There was a great risk of losing the main city to Bertrand himself. I panicked. I don't understand what I should do. The situation is bad. But... I decided to go all-in. I pull Naadir back into the city, and Aranthir follows him. Bertrand is behind. I transfer all the troops to Aranthir and go myself in pursuit of the imperial. The city is bare, which means the risk of Jhovanno attacking has increased. Moreover, Bertrand, even with low danger, defeated me better than Wessel. And this turned out to be the point of no return. The last save was before the battle with the first boss. Bertrand humiliates, and I can no longer return to the main city, because Aranthir was near the former castle of the people. And Jhovanno is nearby. Literally two moves. I had to fight Bertrand... I don't even remember how many battles I fought, but I definitely spent about 4 hours. He defeated all my detachments with one or two hits, Subdue and Berserk often flew into the void. And only by some miracle I managed to defeat him. The biggest threat to me was the zealots of faith, who destroyed my 3k zombies in two moves. I defeated everyone else, already knowing the algorithm of the battle by heart. But I had only zombies left. And how happy I was when the zealots were caught in Subdue. Five minutes of fighting and victory! After a funny cutscene, a message appeared - the victory will be counted the next day. And Jhovanno needs only one move to capture the city. At that moment, I wanted to throw the laptop out the window. "Damn it, were all my sufferings in vain?!", I couldn't stand it. But the confusion was not long. It was enough to take the hero-dummies out of the city, move them away, and the city is safe, thanks to the stupid AI :D In conclusion, I want to say that the scenario is great, but I do not recommend playing it for such noobs as me. First, you should learn how to play, and only then move on to hardcore projects. Huge thanks to the author for the work done and the tears I shed :D

I love the smell of players suffering in the morning)

The need to skip a turn at the end is a workaround. If you give the victory immediately after Bertrand's defeat, the game will crash under certain circumstances. Unfortunately.

Against Bertrand, the Staff of Sar-Issa is effective, which is given in the hut in the deepest parts of Benedict's domain. It is assumed that the main boss of the dungeon is Vessel, and Bertrand is just there to give you a hard time, but sometimes it happens differently)

Thank you for the walkthrough)

You're a sadist, hahaha :D And I did have the Staff of Sar-Isis. But I confess, I forgot about its existence. And in general, for most of the playthrough, I was making things harder for myself. Veselia could have been defeated much easier if I hadn't stretched the playthrough to a year and a half. I like to explore the map as thoroughly as possible, periodically ignoring the enemy. There, the blue AI could have been defeated within three months of the start of the game. But instead, I didn't touch them, and simply cleared the map of neutrals and valuable resources. That's why, while you're developing alchemy, the Draugr is leveling up :))) By the way, a question about Patchwork and the second neutral hero - how do you interact with them? They are on the map, but I haven't noticed any activity from them.

You need to approach Aranthir the Patch and at the end, you would find... another talbox that wouldn't work because of the "check the Board topic" reason.

What a nuisance. Just download a new repack. It’s a pity.
But never mind, it’s not that critical. But if there are such plot twists in the fourth scenario, then it will definitely be impossible to complete it: D

Oh, the Necromancer path. Well, since it's Necromancers, you're bound to win against everyone, because Necromancers are overpowered. And that's exactly what happened this time; the map was completed without much difficulty. From the very beginning, Arantir cleared out all the neutral creatures thanks to his Avatar of Death, which also levels up along with him. Throughout the entire game, I only visited the main city with the main hero once, to learn all the spells. The army consisted only of vampires and ghosts, and maybe a few skeletons, which I used only a couple of times. The whole game was played using only vampires and ghosts, with the exception of the final battle, where I gathered a lot of troops.
  
  When I was clearing the territory, everything was fine, but I didn't manage to clear it completely, and Giovanni appeared. So I decided to quickly take out this fool and, at the same time, capture the second Necromancer Castle, although I had originally planned to start with it and then go fight the humans. But then I was in for an unpleasant surprise. There was a barrier there that prevented me from reaching him. So I had to constantly endure his raids, and therefore I continued to clear the territory near him. I got rid of the swamp with the ghosts; I got tired of constantly running into them, so I waited for Giovanni to take the artifacts. Along with Giovanni, the Blue player also started coming here as if it were his home. But only when I returned to catch him, the human would immediately teleport home, while the orc always stayed; I defeated him. On the way, I ran into a Witch and gave her a cloak to block Giovanni, so I could finally finish all my tasks and go to the Blue player (I regretted giving away the cloak later). I went to the Blue player and started attacking, captured the city, and then Giovanni became active again because the time limit expired. This time, I brought my second strong hero with the entire army; it was Ravenna, and I just stood near the portal, not letting him out. After that, I also took out the orc. Then I prepared well and went to the final boss. He cast Anti-Magic, so Darkness didn't work very well for me; I had to defeat him that way. It turned out that he wasn't the last one, and after Vesel, Bertrand also appeared. I met him in the field, and he had huge stats; I could only defeat him that way. Well, I charmed the horses and, as always, used the Avatar with its insane damage, and I also summoned a Phoenix to help, and that's how I defeated him.

  Overall, I enjoyed the game; it was great as always. It's always a pleasure to play as Necromancers; I've always loved this powerful faction. And it's good that Arantir is back. I hope there will be more games with him. By the way, will Anastasia appear in future projects?

You can’t complete this map by simply visiting a town once. The artifact in the ghost lands is unattainable. And Anastasia isn’t the right choice for this task.

Thank you for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed my humble work. If there's a next map, then yes, Anastasia will appear there.

Added 2 minutes ago

It's impossible to complete this map by entering a town only once. The artifact in the Ghostlands cannot be obtained. And Anastasia doesn't fit in this setting.

1) It's quite possible to complete it as a Warrior. 2) The artifact can be obtained; there's a path, but it's less tedious through Giovanni. 3) Anastasia is mentioned on the map, so she does fit in this setting.

I completed this scenario on Hero difficulty.

Walkthrough

You can't lose the starting town, so I tried to learn the portal to the town as quickly as possible. Experience from neutral creatures was reduced, so I took chests for experience. On day 15, I obtained a +20% experience chainmail. On the fourth week, Giovanni arrived and chased my secondary heroes, then went to his territory. I learned the portal to the town, and Benedict (medium difficulty) arrived. I prepared to defend the castle, but he just killed Naadir and used the portal to the town himself. Then I killed Giovanni in his territory (losses: 30 ghosts, 5 zombies, 5 liches). He was resurrected with a large army and also increased his stats. I quickly returned to the town because the orc Kagraag was already running there. The following situation arose: there are three strong enemy heroes who don't want to attack Arantir in the castle, and fighting them in the field... I didn't even want to try. The Knight kept reaching my castle and using the portal to the town, and Giovanni killed the orc and also returned to his town (if Arantir approached him). Arantir only had time to go and defeat some neutral creatures and was forced to return to the town again. This happened several times, but then the Knight arrived again and this time finally attacked the town. He has a large army, with 186 horses. I defeated him using Darkness, and in the end, I spent a long time raising troops, resulting in losses of 2 liches. I had very bad luck with mentorship; after 27 levels, I still didn't get it. Only the "mentor" helped (who also sells spellbooks, a trading post, and keys... interesting). I trained additional heroes, leaving only vampires for Arantir, and Kaspar took the rest of the army and blocked the exit from the portal for Giovanni. Benedict and Kagraag were already being killed by a single squad of vampires at this stage. I captured Mortred (killed Benedict in the castle), and the orc was distracted by a caravan from Mortred, which allowed me to capture his town (there is a huge army there, but it's easy with Darkness). Then I defeated the orc in the field. This was already in the middle of the eighth month. I went to Vessel, looked at his combat cheats, used load games to determine the growth formula, and... went to build up my army. It's as if he gets an army from four towns. We only have three towns, but we have many dwellings and necromancy, so we are ahead. Then a purely necromancer-style game of attrition began: we calmly explore the map, defeating neutral creatures, strictly one squad per week, to raise more from necromancy. Before that, I took the trophies (removed Summoning) to ensure that there was enough money to buy back all the troops. This is how I killed all the neutral creatures, with only the witches in Giovanni's territory remaining, and they are far away. Giovanni, by the way, was building up his army all this time. I released him from the portal, and Arantir easily killed him, with almost no losses. I left 50 messengers and 100 liches for Kaspar to continue blocking the exit for Giovanni, and he could also summon reinforcements from the town. Arantir changed his skills with the mentor, taking into account the size of the army, and went to Vessel. I punished the cheater, even without using Berserk and Subdue . Bertrand appeared, with low difficulty, but it's better not to fight him in the field; he has huge combat stats. He didn't attack the town, so I left Arantir with all the vampires + 100 liches + 5 ghosts, and hid the rest of the army in the mine. Now Bertrand agreed to attack the castle, and I managed to win without losses, but this was the final battle. Victory in 395 days. It's a lot, but I often skipped turns at the end to restore dark energy; in real time, it's quick.

The walkthrough was long, but quite comfortable, surprisingly. Yes, the enemies force you to play slowly and defensively... But I chose the path of the necromancer: with BD=0, I looked at this situation and just built up my army . My impressions of the scenario are positive: good additional quests, the plot is well-developed, there are many cutscenes, and there were also interesting battles. I saved the replays; I know you like that.
Thank you very much for the map!

Thanks for the walkthrough! The essence of Wessel's army is that after a few months, the multiplier of his army increases relative to the base value. This is because the map was originally designed for a tempo-based playthrough. The increased growth rate in the later stages is intended to prevent Wessel from being completely overwhelmed by Necropolis armies from three cities, not counting Necromancy)

Otherwise... more often than not, Benedict besieged the city upon the first encounter, but the paths of AI are unpredictable).

Otherwise... more often than not, in my experience, Benedict besieged the city upon first encounter, but the AI's ways are mysterious.

I have a save file from this situation. We launch it and immediately end the turn (Naadira doesn't move). Benedict attacks Naadira, then captures the lumber mill, and after that, uses the portal to enter the city. I'm posting it so you can investigate why Benedict is playing this way here.

I played through this scenario on Hero again. I always thought my first playthrough wasn't very successful because I chose a too defensive strategy, and accumulating an army at the end was also unnecessary. This time, I decided to complete the map faster.

Walkthrough

As before, I tried to gain experience as quickly as possible and learn the portal to the city. This time, I got the chainmail on the 12th day. I visited all the upgrade locations not only with Arantir but also with Ravenna (I already had a plan ). On the fourth week, Giovanni arrived; I almost immediately killed him in the field (the battle went well, with losses of 16 ghosts). Arantir learned the portal to the city, trained Ravenna, went forward, and on the 32nd day, captured the outpost. But then Benedict attacked, and I realized I couldn't defeat him, so I retreated for a while. Arantir went to complete the quest with Patch, but during that time, Benedict, Krahg, and Giovanni approached the city and were already killing my additional heroes. This situation was resolved as follows: Giovanni used the portal to the city, fearing Benedict; Arantir also returned to the city through the portal; Benedict attacked Ravenna with ghosts, she managed to say four "words" and escaped; Benedict also used the portal to the city. But an orc remained. Ravenna attacked him, killed part of the army, and escaped; after that, Arantir killed him without losses. Arantir with the main army and Ravenna with 14 ghosts went forward; Benedict arrived with a large army. He attacked Ravenna, and the battle turned out such that he was left with only horses... which he has nothing to kill with, and he's out of mana, and Ravenna doesn't have a mark . Ravenna escaped, but Benedict also ran away somewhere. Then Arantir fought on enemy territory, and Ravenna stayed at home and continued to attack Giovanni with 14 ghosts to prevent him from accumulating a large army (for this, I bought Meteor Shower in the library). On the 61st day, Arantir attacked Mortred, where Ben was... but no, it was Krahg for some reason . He fought him with his full army; it was a good battle, and he won without losses. Soon after, Benedict attacked (an army of orcs + a horde of horses); Ravenna attacked once and escaped, and won the second battle. Arantir captured the orc city and killed Krahg on the 81st day. Then he simply prepared for the battle with Wessel, gathered troops with Arantir from two cities; by that time, Giovanni was already running around with almost no troops (thanks to Ravenna), so he could safely take the entire army from Nar-Shain (he left only dragons and a few ghosts there). He changed Arantir's build with the mentor (Darkness, Light, attack, defense, magic) and went to Wessel. He used Zoltan to break through the phoenixes and elementals in front of the Sanctuary so that Arantir wouldn't waste mana (505/220 after the mentor). The battle with Wessel turned out to be unexpectedly easy: this time, Wessel, for some reason, didn't use that cheat with vampirism, although he used ordinary mass spells (haste, slow). In close combat, Arantir's undead were much stronger than Wessel's troops. Bertrand appeared with high danger; Arantir met him in Mortred. Of course, it was won easily, but for the sake of interest, he left the entire army at the sawmill, except for 14 ghosts, and defeated Bertrand without losses. The scenario was completed in 119 days.

I found a bug: in the library, they offered to buy Armageddon, although it is forbidden on the map. Then I checked in the editor; you just need to remove the checkbox in Spells. But I played fairly and didn't buy this spell. There's also something wrong with Wessel's combat script; maybe it needs to be checked.

Now, regarding my playthrough: yes, this time I defeated Wessel at the beginning of the fifth month, but it is important to note that:
1) I set myself the task of killing Wessel before his army doubled (that is, this is already a challenge, not a normal playthrough).
2) Some important decisions (and the entire strategy in general) were based on the fact that I already knew the map.
3) I played very thoughtfully for the first three weeks, thinking through every move of every hero as if it were a chess game, the outcome of which depends on a lot.

Perhaps it would be worth adding a message that "in six months, the guard of the dragon scrolls will be strengthened"? So that the player at least thinks about the fact that there is a point in a fast playthrough (there really is a point).

I played well; it was interesting; I watched the videos without skipping, although I had already seen them. The scenario is interesting from a strategic point of view; there is something to think about and show ingenuity; I didn't pay attention to this during my first playthrough.
Thank you very much for the map again!