Posts from “Elia’s Quest” – “The Showdown” [Campaign 3, Mission 5]

One of the most challenging missions when playing for speed. The King of the Dwarves was defeated by Wolfenstein. I remember giving him all the allied troops and immediately launching an assault. I recall a bug with almost infinite mana (for Tolgar and the priests). The endless fire walls were very annoying!

Here's an old message I found:

Usually, by the last mission, Wolfenstein should already have "Resurrection," which is very helpful. We give everything to Wolfenstein, break the first and second garrisons, and within the first or second week (I don't remember exactly, it seems there was logistics on expert difficulty), we take Tolgar's castle. I remember how angry I was that the king had infinite mana and runes (a cheater!). Yes, and his priests also had infinite mana. Several fire walls are brutal...

Those endless fire walls were so annoying!

But they never cast "fire walls" on me (during the entire playthrough of the expansion!), and I didn't use them myself either, as there are more effective spells. Regarding Tolgar's mana, I can only say that he had 90 mana points in his castle, while my Frida had around 240, if I remember correctly.

No one ever cast "Fire Wall" on me.

I wonder, what did the Priests do then? Did they just shoot and cast "Evasion"?

I wonder, what were the priests doing then? Were they just shooting and casting "Evasion"?

Exactly :rolleyes:

Hmm, guys, I don't know, I completed this map in 2-3 weeks. On the first day, I lifted the siege. On the second day, using my Human heroes, I concentrated all my forces on Freya (she was my strongest hero). I used Wolfenstein to break through the first Dwarf garrison, and Freya broke through the second. Behind them, Ilaya was following, gathering all the best archers (crossbowmen, Rune Priests, Inquisitors, Assassins – their poison is very useful :P) and Shadow Lords) + all the Archangels and Black Dragons. With Ilaya, I crossed myself and headed for the Dwarf Castle. The battle was tough, but Ilaya had 130 mana, and an enhanced Meteorite spell dealing 810 damage (and Lightning and Fireball spells dealing the same amount) + Ice Block and a Ring of Cold dealing 670 damage (this is for the dragons). The stupid king mostly cast Dodge for his troops (because I had a lot of archers). I finished him off with almost all the Rune Priests and Inquisitors surviving, and even then, if it weren't for the constant anti-morale, I could have done it with even fewer losses.
THAT IS, I broke through the castle WITHOUT CAPTURING ANYTHING. I decided to go all-in, because Duncan and Isabel were already being chased from two sides – a Demon on the left and a Knight on the right.

I sacrificed all my strongest units to Ilay (paladins, archangels, inquisitors, Black Dragons, Mistresses, Archdevils, and Imps!), so they could drain Tolgar's mana and transfer it to Ilay. She had all the Chaos spells and spell power, so the siege of the castle didn't cause any particular problems.

I played the patched version on "hero" difficulty.
First, Ilia lifted the siege on the city. Then, Wulfsten (expert logistics + pillaging) broke through the garrisons at the top, captured all the mines, and collected the artifacts. Meanwhile, Frida and Ilia captured the Inferno cities. Two weeks before the deadline, I hired a demon hero (Grok) in Inferno, leveled him up to level 12 (expert logistics, skilled dark magic, skilled gate opening), gathered Inferno troops from three castles, and with the help of "berserk," weakened Tolgar's army (17 dragons, watchtower gnomes, and 130 berserkers remained). Ilia, with skilled chaos magic, took troops from the human city and finished off Tolgar.
Tolgar's mana somehow doesn't run out, even if imps steal it before the battle. It's constantly 162/180. And the Archdevils couldn't find a place to summon cave lords. Does the patch add glitches?

Uzas, cto to ne to u menja
V nacale missiji u menja vsego Ilaija i Izabelj, drugih geroev net, i daze vozle Horkresta nikto ne pojavljaetsja :-(
Pocemu tak?
Mozet iz za togo, cto v predidushej missiji ja ne pobedila Talstaja, a on sbezal? no rolik pokazali

Probably a bug. Due to the mechanics, the scripts shouldn't have been disrupted in the next mission. Did Horncrest come under your command? Then the heroes should have joined you. If you have Horncrest and the task is to capture Tor Thrall, but the heroes haven't appeared, you can try to complete the task with what you have :). If not, try starting this mission, or even the fourth one, from the beginning. What version of the game are you using? Is it a licensed copy?

I completely crushed the king, but lost half of my griffins in the process. By that time, Frida was level 30, and she also had various artifacts. It was very easy to complete. Frida destroyed the garrison with the Landlords, and then she captured the second castle. Meanwhile, Ilaya was fighting the demons, and then Frida helped her. Wolfsten cleared both of the dwarf garrisons, and then Frida defeated their king. Now I'm going to tackle Haven; I hope it will be as enjoyable as Stronghold was.

I'm having trouble with demons. The thing is, when I capture a Castle with Ilay and Isabel (Isabel just stands around and waits), a demon appears with about 14 Archdevils. But that's not the real problem. The issue is that 150 demonesses can wipe out my entire army with a single shot... What should I do?

I wanted to add a few nuances regarding the very beginning of the mission. At the very start, there are only 2 heroes, so you have to choose between Ilia and Isabel. And the most important thing: the other heroes join after lifting the siege of Horncrest, but ONLY if you take the first demonic Castle in the Dungeon on day 2 or 3. If you don't do this and rush straight to Horncrest, lifting the siege will still be counted, but the heroes won't join after the cutscene; instead, 2 or 3 powerful groups of orange enemies will immediately emerge one after another and easily crush the meager remnants of your starting army, and that's game over. I did that at first and then had to replay because these three don't join, and it's impossible without them. Since Isabel had better combat stats, I assigned her to take the first demonic Castle, leaving Ilia with 2 knights and 4 units of Fury in the front row. With this setup, she easily overcomes the obstacles on the way out of the Dungeon towards Horncrest because the Furies distract the enemies, and on her turn, she casts Fireball, Ice Storm, or Meteor Shower, depending on how the computer-controlled neutral Cerberuses and other units are positioned. And when Isabel clears the demonic Castle, they manage to switch places, and Ilia goes to Inferno, while Isabel goes upstairs and deals with the siege. Although "deals with" is an overstatement, because for some reason, the battle with Lorenzo resulted in very heavy losses, but in the end, she was left with 4 Twilight Witches and eliminated all the besiegers. Next, I stationed her in Horncrest, sent old Wulfstan to capture the mines in the region for now, gave Duncan's troops to Frieda, and now I'm sending her to the Dungeon to deal with the remaining demons. And during this time, our Horncrest forces should gather. :smile13: I saved the game at this point. P.S. Version 2.1, difficulty level "recruit".

This is a bug. The remaining three heroes should join immediately after the siege is lifted, regardless of the demon cities. In fact, the entire Dungeon faction (3 demon cities and one Dungeon city) is captured by Ilia with her starting army and Chaos units without any problems. Duncan and Isabel train troops for Frida, and Wulfsten's army is used as expendable, as he doesn't mind losing it. Frida, with a huge army, defeats the gnome. That's how it works on the hero level. The end.

This is a bug. The remaining three heroes should join immediately after the siege is lifted, regardless of the demon cities. In fact, all of Dungeon (3 demon cities and one League city) are captured by Ilia with her starting army and Chaos without any problems. Duncan and Isabel train troops for Frida, and Wulfsten's army is used where it won't be a big loss. Frida, with a huge army, defeats the gnome. Something like that, hero-style. The end.

Bug or not, that's exactly what happened to me. I immediately went to Horncrest, lifted the siege, and... the cutscene played, but they didn't join. That's why I replayed, taking one demon city beforehand, then everything was fine.
I didn't even see the Dark Castle at all, and I didn't take the Fortress or the Red garrison. Andreas did emerge from there, but Wulfsten, who was standing at the fork in the road just in case, defeated him. After Frida returned from the Dungeon, where she took 2 demon cities, I gave her all the human troops, and she went to Thor. Wulf cleared out the first gnome garrison, and then she did the rest herself. After taking the second one, the cutscene about Alastor played, and he kind of escaped through a portal. Then Thor had Tolgar with a decent army, but Frida defeated him with heavy losses. And that's it :) We're watching the story about the treacherous Biara and the whole group of heroes. Next, we move on to the Campaigns of the Prophecy.

Although I say she "crushed" it, that's an overstatement because, for some reason, the battle against Lorenzo resulted in very heavy losses. However, in the end, she was left with 4 Twilight Witches but eliminated all the siege units.

I cleared more than half the map with Ilia's troops, and her losses were minimal, as always :) I just like to come out on top, what can I say? I played on Veteran difficulty. I was very lucky with Ilia because she had Wizard Luck, which is just amazing for a Warlock. And, by the way, unlike Raileigh, whom I also leveled up in the original campaign, Ilia's Wizard Luck worked perfectly, it triggered very often! And overall, I liked her so much that I decided to use her to siege Tolgar's Castle. Although I initially wanted to do this with Wolfenstein and his super ability, so Vadimh, you can rejoice!:D

In my opinion, you can get more out of Frida in the final stages, she conveniently levels up Light/Dark magic, has a useful special ability, a morale boost, and more combat stats. Although the final battle is easy, and any hero with decent stats shouldn't have any problems.

I don't disagree, Frida is leveled up like a terminator, and she will be better than Wolfenstein in terms of combat parameters, but she is far from Wolfenstein's super ability, so my choice is obvious :) because I would feel bad not using Wolfenstein in the final battle, otherwise, what was the point of leveling up his super ability for so long?

In general, I played for these two months and attacked Tolgar on the last day. During this time, I cleared 90% of the map, completely built up the Shadow League castle, although I didn't take any troops from there in the last month. My main heroes were, of course, Ilia and Wolfenstein, with Frida. Ilia crushed the neutrals in the Dungeon and the Demon cities, Frida cleared everything on the surface, plus the human garrison and their castle, plus she cleared all the lands of the dwarves, I only used Ilia to break through the Library of Knowledge, and Wolfenstein broke through both dwarf garrisons and was left with 25 Archpriests, 15 Tanam, half a hundred Bear Riders, and Mountain Guards. Throwers and Bone Throwers were in the front lines.

I entered the final battle with Tolgar with the following army:

I - Archers - 666 - Computer - Mountain Guards - 430+720 - Garrison
I - Griffins - 151 - Computer - Throwers - 338
I - Inquisitors - 197 - Computer - Bear Riders - 199
I - Shadow Lords - 34 - Computer - Berserkers - 178
I - Paladins - 99 - Computer - Archpriests - 100
I - Black Dragons - 7 - Computer - Jarls - 67
I - Archangels - 19 - Computer - Magma Dragons - 22

The losses were 73 Griffins, 6 Shadow Lords, 2 Archangels, 13 Paladins, and 59 Archers. I could have lost fewer Griffins, but this Tolgar kept hitting my Griffins with an explosion from his infinite mana, then I finally lost my temper and, with a boosted explosion and Wizard Luck, dealt more than 4K damage to the Jarls and immediately wiped out half of his squad)) and then I did the same with the dragons, in short, Wizard Luck is awesome, guys)))