Posts from Verzhak’s company is on the champion.

I've wanted to complete all the campaigns in Heroes 4 on Champion difficulty for a long time, and I recently almost did it. Currently, I've completed all campaigns except for Verzhak's campaign (Might, original heroes). I remember a long time ago, I was searching for information on this topic and came across the opinion that it's impossible (if you don't know, try it). However, someone did mention that they completed this campaign on Champion difficulty, but they didn't say how they did it. Yesterday, after struggling for 2 hours, I finally found a way to capture the first Castle on Champion difficulty and have already completed the first mission. I'm interested in who else has tried this, what conclusions they've come to (is the myth of its impossibility still true, or not), and if they succeeded, I suggest they share their tactics later (there might be different ways, but I've only found one so far). But please, don't immediately write how you completed it, so that those who haven't tried or haven't succeeded can figure it out for themselves. P.S. Hello everyone, I'm new to your forum. Sorry if this topic has already been raised; searching for "Verzhak" didn't yield any results. P.P.S. The Heroes version is "Whirlwinds of War," but it seems there's no difference in this case.

Hmm... I guess I created a pointless topic since no one was interested, but since I said A, I'll say B. The main problem in completing Verzhak's campaign on Champion difficulty is the first mission, or rather, capturing the first town. In most campaigns in the original Heroes 4, playing on Champion difficulty makes the first mission the most difficult because the hero is not yet leveled up and often doesn't even have a starting town. In this regard, Verzhak's campaign is perhaps the most difficult. The army consists only of a level 1 Barbarian hero, poorly controlled Berserkers, and semi-ranged Centaurs. With this completely untactical group, you need to capture 1 town, or rather, complete a quest to open the passage. The quest is simple – bring a cart of ore guarded by pirates on an island. To do this, you need to fight at least 2 battles – kill the pirates guarding the shipyard, and then sail to the island and take the cart from the main group. The problem is that there are simply more of them initially, and their numbers increase every day. It's unlikely you can win by brute force (I couldn't), so I started looking for other ways, and here's what I came up with. Instructions: 1) Start the campaign. Save immediately for the first time. Run down the road (you don't need to collect anything or kill anyone). 2) Run past your future castle and continue to the right; there you will meet skeletons that patrol a small area and guard a cart with potions. They immediately caught my attention because, unlike the other neutral creatures, they aren't just standing around. 3) Our task is to take the cart without fighting the skeletons. Wander around, see how the skeletons react, and find the right moment to steal the cart. (How much time you spend now doesn't matter). 4) After taking the cart, see what potions are in it. We need 1 – a potion that poisons weapons; 2 – a potion that lowers morale (a slowing potion might also work). 5) The potions in the cart are generated when the game is created, so saving and reloading is useless. If you don't get what you need, you'll have to start a NEW game and save again at the beginning. 6) Let me explain why you need to save at the beginning. It may take a lot of time before you get the right potions. Buying Berserkers in the 1-2 barracks each time, visiting the fountain, etc., is quite tedious. Therefore, at the beginning, just run and check what awaits you in the cart, and when the desired combination appears, load the save. 7) Now, after N attempts, you know what awaits you in the cart, and you can start completing the campaign. Turn 1 – sell resources at the market, buy Berserkers in the barracks, visit the fountain of strength or whatever it's called. Turn 2 – run down the road. Turn 3 – you will see a stable of Centaurs, but they are guarded, strangely enough, by Centaurs. It's not worth fighting them because it will result in big losses. In fact, the Centaurs guard only 1 of the dwellings and gold, so just approach and hire Centaurs in one of the dwellings. Turn 4 – run to the skeletons and save. Turn 5 – you need to steal the cart as quickly as possible; if you can't "rob" the skeletons in a few turns, load and try again (you should already have some experience doing this =)). Turn 6 – save and fight the pirates guarding the shipyard (don't use the potions yet). The battle will be quite difficult; splitting the Berserkers into several squads of 1 Berserker each and one main squad of these thugs may help. Turn 7 – You won, but little remains of your army, and on the island, you will find an even larger group of pirates. Congratulate yourself on your first victory and save just in case. Now, the only option is to wait for the dwellings to replenish. During this time, capture a couple of mines, a sawmill, visit the mercenary camp, the fountain, collect everything that's lying around, but don't fight anyone. How long to wait is up to you. I waited for about 3 weeks, and my army had about 120 Berserkers and 50 Centaurs. I don't know which turn – after accumulating your army, buy a ship and sail to the island. Did you arrive? Save, and preferably in a different slot, just in case you waited too long. Now comes the main battle. The first thing you need to do is split up the army, but not like last time. There will be only 4 squads – Berserkers, the hero, Centaurs, 1 Centaur. I'll explain why later. The next step is the attack. Here, too, it's not that simple. The terrain of the battlefield (landscape, stones, snags, etc.) depends on the cell in which the battle takes place. We need a terrain where there will be an obstacle around which it will be convenient to run =). For me, this was the attack cell closest to the gate. So, you attacked. The algorithm is as follows. As soon as it's the hero's turn, immediately throw a vial that lowers morale. In my case, it turned out that it hit everyone, but the most important thing is to hit the squad with the pirates because there are the most of them (I had 300-400 of them). Don't shoot with the Centaurs; just wait or carefully approach, but don't get into melee. On the next turn, the hero drinks the poison potion (O_O well... I guess he coats the axe). Our goal now is to kill all the bandits and the hero; they will come faster than the pirates. The hero just waits. When the pirates approach, you need to do the following – use the squad of 1 Centaur to attack the pirates and take damage, then approach and hit once with the hero (he must definitely use wait before that), and then immediately run away with the hero (if you didn't use wait, the hero will most likely be killed, and you will lose, unless you got a third potion, a vial of immortality, like I did =)). Now, all that's left is to run around in circles away from the pirates until they die of poison (about 300 turns...). That's basically the whole battle tactic; if you execute it successfully, your Centaurs might even survive (Mine survived =)). After winning, save, take the cart, and go to your first town (a good group will join you there). Further progress should not cause any particular problems for a sufficiently experienced player. I'll just add that it's better to complete the entire plan to capture 1 castle as soon as possible; otherwise, the Blue computer will accumulate a large army, and problems may arise. And yes, in each new town that joins you for help (completing the quest), you will find a good army, so it's worth focusing on this, and you can clear the neutrals later. That's all, I hope someone reads my rambling. Maybe it will even be useful to someone. If anyone managed to defeat the pirate horde on the island in some other way, I would be interested to read how you did it.

This map in this campaign has already been discussed on various forums.

Turn 7 - You won, but not much is left of your army, and an even larger group of pirates awaits you on the island. Congratulate yourself on your first victory and save the game, just in case. Now, the only option is to wait for the dwellings to replenish.

Alternatively, you can immediately build up a decent army so as not to lose on the shipyard.

2 Wanderer

As an alternative, you could immediately build up a decent army so as not to lose in the shipyard.

The growth rate is too high; I would even say that there are more pirates added than soldiers in the dwellings. And since you need to fight two battles, it is better to eliminate one group of neutrals right away. This could work if you only had to fight once, but there is another problem. Because the growth rate of neutrals and soldiers in the dwellings is approximately the same, regardless of the army size, the losses after the first battle (time-army ratio) will also be approximately the same. That is, if you had 100 soldiers, you will be left with 25; if you had 1000, you will be left with 250. But since you also need to fight a second time, prolonging the first battle is not profitable, because it is better if, after the first battle, you have 25 soldiers left, and there are 150 pirates on the island, than if you have 250 soldiers left, and there are 1500 pirates on the island. If you prolong the first battle, it will take more time to replenish the army, and the Blue player is also developing. Moreover, if you delay too long, he may even come, and then you will have to fight him too (and he has Ogre Mages). Although I killed him a couple of times and leveled up the hero to level 7, after that, there were 1500 pirates on the island, and I was left without Berserkers after each battle. Well, I described the situation very approximately; try it yourself; this approach did not work for me.

This particular map in this Campaign has already been discussed on various forums.

I didn't really look for discussions; I entered the word Verzhak in the search here, and there were no results. Google also didn't give much, so I decided to post my version of the walkthrough here...

That is, there were 100 soldiers – now there are 25; there were 1000 – now there are 250.

Don't you have a save with a large accumulated army? Did you want to try defeating two neutral factions in one go? :)

No save file. I kept overwriting saves whenever I managed to capture a Castle =). Even if you somehow manage to break through with a thousand-unit army, problem number 2 will arise – what to do with the blue player who has been developing and accumulating troops all this time. When I tried to build up my army, it turned out that when I landed on the island, the blue player showed up right then. So, even if I had killed the pirates, I wouldn't have been able to defeat the blue player with his ogre mages =). Added: http://webfile.ru/5730651 - link to an archive with save files, I made a test base for you =)
rezerv - save after the first battle (decided to capture the second centaur dwelling), the battle was quite successful, I lost 16 berserkers and killed 45 centaurs.
Month № / Year 1 - saves at various stages of army building.
BlueArrive - the blue player showed up, he already had 250 ogre mages, but for some reason, he didn't attack me. Moreover, he captured the nomad dwelling, but I noticed this a little late. You can try loading this save and immediately take the nomad dwelling. =)
Battle 1 / Battle 2 - battle for the shipyard and the war chariot (during the first battle, I lost many berserkers, but I wasn't too worried, as I don't think this will work). Good luck =)

Spending a year building an army – I wouldn’t have the patience for that. The fact that Blue showed up with an invincible army is a direct result of the long wait. I haven’t tried completing it on Champion difficulty – it’s not my turn yet, and I haven’t analyzed it – but the trick here must be something else, but definitely not just prolonging the game. It allows you to win a battle, but lose the war. As for the step-by-step instructions – it’s written quite well, the essence is clear, and for complex games, such a guide is very useful. And the topic is quite normal, because the tactics for such a battle are really very complex – pure brute force, no support from the hero, and the hero’s death means the end of the game. By the way, make a request using the campaign name, not the hero’s name, and to refine the search, try entering clarifying words – sometimes it helps.

I haven't tried passing it with a champion yet – it's not my turn, and I haven't analyzed it – but the trick here must be in something else, but definitely not in prolonging the game.

No other methods for completing this map on champion difficulty have been suggested yet.

Kjukecke
On a two-month-old save, both guards are defeated in one go. After the war with the pirate Krik, about 80 centaurs remain.

No other methods for completing this map on champion difficulty have been suggested yet.
...On a two-month save, both guards can be defeated in a single attempt. After the war with the pirate Krik, approximately 80 centaurs remain :)

Two months - not 12 - that's what I meant. Accumulating an army for 1-2 months, I think, is a common situation in single-player mode.

I admit, I was wrong. I tried it myself on a 2-month-old save, and there were 104 centaurs left. Why didn't it work before...? I remember reading somewhere (but I don't remember where) that they can't be killed that easily. I tried it myself back then, but I was a complete noob, so I also came to the conclusion that it wouldn't work. Now I'm a little less of a noob, but the idea that it's impossible to win by brute force was firmly stuck in my head, so I came up with this twisted method =). Well, at least I managed to beat it =P. P.S. 2 dnaop-wr, thanks for the encouragement!

Decided to try and break through the defenses, but not on saved games; I started a new campaign (I still wanted to complete it!). On day 213, with 47 Centaurs and 116 Berserkers, and with the spells "Cloud of Disappointment" and "Firestorm" (they appeared in the treasure chest right away), I took the Shipyard (losses: 4 Centaurs and 26 Berserkers). I added 2 Centaurs and 8 Berserkers and on day 221, I cleared the island and boarded the return ship. Remaining after the battle: 38 Centaurs. Total losses: 11 Centaurs and 124 Berserkers. Total enemy losses: 183 + 147 Rogues, 183 + 294 Pirates, and 1 Rogue level 3. I thought it would be worse.

Since I started playing the Campaign, I decided to finish it. The most difficult battles in the Campaign are precisely those described above. Besides a couple of useful potions and the right strategy and tactics, there is another trick here that I noticed only after winning, when I remembered how I almost lost my entire army, and often the hero as well, even on Master difficulty. I also encountered an inaccuracy in the scenario – it says that to win, you need to capture all the cities, but I only defeated the blue one, and I immediately won, so I had to replay. In general, I wasn't playing for speed – Verzhik didn't miss a single tavern or a single… pardon, a single skill-boosting location, and he beat up all the neutral creatures if they had anything useful, until he leveled up to the maximum possible level, after which he went to beat up the main enemy. The first scenario was completed without a Town Portal and, it seems, without any defeats, so I considered myself cool (level 12 with skills 5531), and in the next scenario, with nothing, I rushed to fight hordes and hundreds of neutral creatures, got beaten a couple of times, and became more cautious. I started defeating those who were within my power, and over time, I built up my forces and bought a Town Portal. In total (at the beginning of the scenarios), there were several battles with fatal outcomes, when I had to reload and either change tactics or leave the neutral creatures alone ("these are the wrong bees, and their honey is wrong"). For example, I remember a situation when, after a battle with 15 Manticores, there were immediately 2 corpses left on the field (the Town Portal wasn't available yet) – and that was the end of the game, so I had to change tactics. And when I went to fight 45 Vampires guarding a gold mine, and on the 2nd turn, I didn't even have time to escape – I didn't go back to them, I saved time. And in general, throughout the entire Campaign, I didn't feel any problems with resources. I guess I've learned how to play now... :D This is what my hero looked like at the end: :smile10:

I also play campaigns at a leisurely pace; my main goal in each mission is to max out the hero's level, and then everything else will fall into place.

I decided to try and break through the defenses, but not on a save, I started a new campaign (I still wanted to complete it!). On day 213, with 47 Centaurs and 116 Berserkers, and with the spells "Cloud of Disappointment" and "Fire Storm" (they appeared in the spellbook right away), I took the shipyard (losses: 4 Centaurs and 26 Berserkers), added 2 Centaurs and 8 Berserkers, and on day 221, I cleared the island and boarded the return ship. Remaining after the battle: 38 Centaurs, total losses: 11 Centaurs and 124 Berserkers. Total enemy losses: 183 + 147 Rogues, 183 + 294 Pirates, and 1 Thief of level 3. I thought it would be worse.

I did even better :) I captured the Centaur dwelling, stole a Skeleton and a cart from the Skeletons, and got a Horseshoe (which didn't really help), a Potion of Luck, a Fire Storm, and "Reduce Speed," I don't remember the exact name.
I defeated the first Pirates, you could say, with my starting army, losing 3 Centaurs and 10 Berserkers, then I gathered a bit more of an army and defeated Tomi Kreek, losing another 4 Centaurs and 81 Berserkers (I saved screenshots before the battles). Total losses: 7 Centaurs and 91 Berserkers, but I got more in the city :)
On day 36 of the game, I took the city :)

Hello everyone. I know it's not good to revive old threads, but I couldn't find a more suitable topic. I recently decided to replay Heroes 4. I started Lysandra's campaign on Master difficulty and easily completed the first mission. It was too easy. I started again, opened the entire map with a cheat, and started watching what the AI was doing. And it's acting strangely. It's building something, gathering something, but it's doing everything extremely inefficiently. At the same time, I remember how it used to make me rage in childhood on "Normal" difficulty (which is right after "Beginner"). It doesn't seem like a bug; the AI even uses portals to attack. But its indifference to mines and failure to use the obvious advantages of a level 24 hero are concerning. What do you suggest? I installed the game clean, without any add-ons or the Equilibrium mod, but I definitely remember that even without them, the AI was good in childhood and by the end of the second week, it would try to attack me with a large army. Could it be due to Windows 10?