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| Thread: Walkthroughs of second campaign AB | |
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regnus_khan
Responsible
Supreme Hero
[ Peacekeeper of Equilibris ]
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posted March 24, 2004 08:20 PM |
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Walkthroughs of second campaign AB
Some other help in campaigns...
Culling the weak
The first scenario in this campaign is of medium-size and hard difficulty. Throughout this campaign, you will assume the role of Mutare, an ambitious female Overlord (Overlady?) in her bid for greater power. Most of her adventures will take place underground and involve Dungeon towns and troops since you are in Nighon, the native land of Warlocks and Overlords. You should pay particular attention to the development of Mutare especially in regards to which secondary skills she picks or not. She is limited to level 10 in this scenario but will transfer over to the next one. On my first play, I finished "Culling the Weak" on month 2, week 3, day 3.
The starting bonus does not really matter much here. I chose the Pillar of Eyes.
Week 1
1) Hire 3 heroes. Combine the troops on Mutare except those that might be undead (because of the morale penalty). One hero should stay near your home Dungeon to ferry troops later on.
2) Here are my suggested building orders:
1) Mage Guild Level 1 (so heroes have spellbooks)
2) Town Hall
3) Warren
4) Harpy Loft
5) Chapel of Stilled Voices
6) Citadel
7) Mushroom Rings
(Had to trade a little to achieve certain builds) 3) Do not take the gold mine in week 1. It's too well protected.
4) Have Mutare enter the Subterranean Gate after visiting the Harpy Loft.
5) On the other side, there's a second Dungeon called Sinkhole which you should capture (took it on day 5).
6) If you sent a scout northwest of your home Dungeon (and you should), it's likely you'll be ambushed by a green enemy seemingly coming out of nowhere, near a third Dungeon named Shade. Don't sweat it too much if you lose the scout. Their job is to clear out the maximum amount of shroud possible while exploring and it is indeed a risky job. In other words, they're expendable. I usually give them 2 or 3 fast low-level units (split in 1-unit stacks) so those scouts can surrender before being defeated. Sometimes, as in this case, I will only give 1 unit and take my chances. I did not rehire my ambushed scout.
7) Oh yes, before I forget, only buy Troglodytes and Beholders in week 1 (Beholders bought on day 1). Transfer them to Mutare by hero chain.
8) Develop Tactics for Mutare. Do your best not to pick skills like Learning, Eagle Eye, Scouting, First Aid and Scholar for her. Those skills (and Estates, which she starts with) are skills better suited for secondary heroes not main ones. Jump on any elemental magic skills (air, earth, fire, water) you might get.
9) In the second Dungeon (Sinkhole), buy a Tavern and Town Hall.
10) Send an expendable scout through that one-way lith. Always remember to send expendable heroes through unknown liths first to map out their destinations. You never know what might be on the other side. This is even more important in this campaign, because if you lose Mutare, it's game over. You cannot even flee or surrender with her.
Week 2
11) Take Mutare back to her home Dungeon: Death Kiss (how quaint by the start of week 2.
12) Buy troops in that town before constructing anything new in either town. Upgrade the Harpies to Harpy Hags (it's not really new, it's an upgrade ;-), buy more of them and Beholders too.
13) If you're lucky, an enemy hero (Jeddite I think) will be dumb enough to attack you. I managed to defeat him before he could flee and got some very handy Equestrian Gloves he was wearing (boosting Mutare's movement).
14) How did I prevent him from fleeing? It was a combination of Tactics, wait and Haste on the Troglodytes.
15) As for Death Kiss' construction, I built the Upgraded Harpy Loft on day 2, then built the Academy of Battle Scholars and the Castle near the end of the week. The Academy is a disputable choice. Mutare will reach her limit in experience long before the scenario is over. However, other starting heroes can benefit from that early experience boost. If I replayed that map, I'd be very likely to pick the Mana Vortex instead and I'd have built the Marketplace on day 5.
16) Go for the gold mine (did it on day 5)
17) Buy the Harpy Loft and the Pillar of Eyes in Sinkhole (the second Dungeon) by the end of week. It's only 2000 gold and a few scattered resources.
Week 3
18) Mutare should go roughly west from her hometown and conquer the dungeon Shade. Let troops flee if they want to do so. Build Tavern and Town Hall in Shade.
19) Buy your City Hall by day 3 or 4 in your starting town (you'll need to build the Blacksmith and the Marketplace if you haven't already done so).
20) I managed to build the Capitol on day 5, and then I built the Manticore Lair and the Labyrinth. Traded a little to reach those objectives.
21) That group of Beholders protecting the Sulfur Dune joined me. I do not know if they were set to join me but I'll suppose they were. That Sulfur Dune was needed in any case.
22) I attacked the Medusa Stores for the Sulfur. I had 50 Beholders. I'm not sure if I'd have attacked it without the free joiners (perhaps but I'd have had more losses). I lost about 2/3 of my Troglodytes in that battle but it was worth it. It allowed me to buy the Capitol sooner.
24) Remember that you can know what you're going up against before visiting special structures with protectors such as Medusa Stores or Dwarven Treasuries. On your first visit, say no, then right-click on the structure; it gives you an estimate of what you'll fight. If you want to fight, you just press spacebar and pick yes.
25) Continue west with Mutare after taking the Dungeon Shade and that Sulfur Dune. It's possible to take your fourth Dungeon (Harpy's Rock) by the end of the week. I built a Citadel because several of the low-level creature dwellings were already constructed.
Week 4
26) My objective for this week was to get the Dragon Caves. (turns out I did not need the Dragons but it's good to get the structure for practice purposes and as a reserve :-)
27) Stay in town with Mutare until day 1 and buy troops. I upgraded the Medusas to Medusa Queens because having only 4 shots is too limiting.
28) Always send scouts in unknown territory before your main hero if you can. Mutare was in front up to Harpy's Rock I admit but it was a calculated risk.
29) I built a Resource Silo in my main town. Sooner you build, the sooner the sulfur accumulates.
30) Visit the Imp Cache for your Mercury needs. Imps are arguably the weakest level 1 creatures in the game after Peasants. The high numbers in their Caches often intimidates me but I usually do well.
31) Went north with Mutare and captured my first blue town called Deepshadow (the other towns before were "neutral".
32) I made the mistake of not garrisoning properly Harpy's Rock and an enemy took it back.
33) I suggest taking the Subterranean Gate, taking the town on that level, before going back down (or up, who knows what is what with 2 underground levels?) and venturing in the north passage towards Deepshadow. It might save you a panicked trip back to Harpy's Rock.
34) When you manage to find empty enemy towns with your main army nowhere near, it's a good idea to hire one or two new heroes straight away so they can explore the surroundings. You might use the same hero that took the town, but if there are any enemy heroes roaming around, they will make a beeline to recapture the town and destroy the scout whose movement points are exhausted.
35) If one of your towns is about to be attacked and you cannot hold it, leave with the troops and give them to another hero.
36) By day 7 of week 4, I had 6 Dungeons and a revenue of 11,950 gold per day. Death Kiss (your starting town), Sinkhole (the second town you took) and Harpy's Rock are the Dungeons you should concentrate on for creature production.
Month 2, week 1 (or week 5 overall)
37) How to defend towns when you have several? Hire creatures at the "frontier" towns first, the towns that are under greater danger of invasion. Often, I will only hire those troops when I see an enemy army approaching but there's something to be said for intimidating invaders... In other words, the computer enemies might go for an easier target if your newly garrisoned town was several days or weeks away, but if you're just one day away, they might already be committed to attack your town. On the other hand, buying at the last minute also has the advantage of baiting enemies that might not survive the assault with the new troops you added. Do not worry too much about keeping towns that have no forts.
38) In this particular scenario, it's obvious Harpy's Rock is your most vulnerable Dungeon with 2 different ways to reach it.
39) Most scouts you send ahead in unknown territory will get attacked sooner or later. Why not rehire them at towns where you can uncover more of the black shroud or towns where they could serve as the first link in a hero chain?
40) In my game, I bought all the troops at Harpy's Rock for Mutare who was going back to Death Kiss (the starting town). The problem in this map being the defense of Harpy's Rock, I should have left those troops there and contented myself with the extra troops of my starting town. However, if I had not decided to make Mutare come back and if there had been only one way to reach that frontier town, the better choice would have been to keep those extra troops with Mutare, have her continue the incursion in enemy territory and bring reinforcements by hero chains.
41) The AI just loves targeting Troglodytes. You could call them your bait or sacrificial troops. Do not worry too much about losing droves of them as long as you have some to soak up damage.
42) By that time, Mutare had already reached level 10 and could gain no more experience in this scenario. She was expert in Tactics, Wisdom and Earth magic. That struck me as being a bit early for being maxed out.
43) As implied previously, there was a choice to be made after taking back Harpy's Rock the second time: going back to the main town for reinforcements or continue the assault. I was careful and went back but not all the way back. I used a little three-hero chain (heroes transferring troops at the limit of their movement so troops can move more than a day's worth) to bring troops to her.
44) This is important. Even though you have Scorpicores and Minotaurs accumulated, only buy the first 4 level of troops (i.e. : Troglodytes, Harpy Hags, Beholders, Medusa Queens) as reinforcements for Mutare. You could field another army later on with higher-level Dungeon troops although I personally never needed to do so.
45) At that point, only Mutare's side (red) and blue were left.
46) Mutare went northeast in a counterclockwise direction through the tunnels (Coldshadow being the first town on that route), taking towns one by one and ignoring mines that will be flagged by secondary heroes.
47) It is much easier to steal mines from under the computer enemy's nose than you might think. It will very rarely buy heroes just to intercept you as a human player certainly would.
Month 2, week 2 (or week 6 overall)
48) Since Mutare is busy steamrollering through blue, it might be wise to remember that there's a Seer Quest near the second town you took (Sinkhole). Buy troops at Sinkhole to clear out the Vampire Lords protecting it. Notice that they never grew in numbers, meaning that this stack was set to be that way in the Editor.
49) The Seer Quest guy asks for 13 Sulfur, 17 Crystal and 13 Gems. It's easy to make by trading resources or you could simply wait a while for your mines to produce those. The reward given is rather lousy: the Charm of Mana. But wait, don't throw it away just yet! In the map description, it is said that if you find that particular item, you'll carry it over to the next scenario and be able to access a bonus area (if you don't believe me, press I for scenario information). As a side note, that item does not necessarily need to be on Mutare to carry over.
49b) After that army has completed the Seer Hut's quest, it should take the one-way lith and then the two-way lith to capture 2 enemy towns on that level (one of those should already be yours, the one near Harpy's Rock and the Subterranean Gate). Make sure you have 2 weeks worth of troops, just in case, but I would not expect much of an opposition.
50) Please remember that with the expansion pack, the spacebar can be used to reenter the same place over and over again. It's very convenient when you want to reach a particular place through liths.
51) Mana Vortex are very nice. They do not just double your spell points, they actually replenish them to maximum before doing so. If there was no level cap, I might have been more tempted to build Academies of Battle Scholars in newly-captured Dungeons but in this scenario, Mana Vortex make for a good immediate buy when Mutare captures a new town. Higher-level mage guilds are also nice to buy. Often, I like to spend the night over in a newly captured town be it Dungeon or not. That way, the main hero inside can benefit from 2 possible builds. Say a level 2/3 Mage Guild, or an Academy/Mana Vortex, or any other such combination improving the hero. Another interesting possibility is to upgrade one of your existing stacks (say Beholders to Evil Eyes), upgrading the needed dwelling if it wasn't already done.
52) The biggest battle I had to face was the one just before the last in the northwest corner. It was my 183 Troglodytes (which I never bothered to upgrade), 141 Evil Eyes, 189 Harpy Hags and 46 Medusa Queens VS 66 Beholders, 233 Infernal Troglodytes, 34 Medusas, 89 Harpy Hags and 2 Manticores.
53) The battle did not require much strategy. I just moved my troops in front of the walls with Tactics. Most of the enemy troops and the turrets concentrated their attacks on my Trogs. I did lose most of them and a score of Harpy Hags but other than that, I was left mostly unscathed.
Savaging the Scavengers" is the second map in the Dragon's Blood campaign. It is of large size and hard difficulty. Mutare needs to "dispose" of two rival Overlords, nipping at her heels, before following Ordwald in the Deeper Caverns, who will hopefully lead her to the vial of Dragon's Blood. In gameplay terms, this translates into finding and destroying the 2 enemy factions. On my first play, I finished on month 3, week 1, day 5. I reloaded early in the game when I realized that Mutare had not taken the path she should have taken in the first place and that was proposed by a timed event I got a few days too late.
Starting Bonus: The bonuses being minimal in benefits, I decided to take the Dragon Wing's Tabard: the best item offered. I do not usually take extra troops as a starting bonus unless it's a choice between several. Extra troops will only help you in the starting game; an item can help you throughout all the game.
Week 1
1) You start without a town. First of all, split your Harpies in 2 equal stacks.
2) There are 3 choices of wandering stacks to kill. Do not attack shooters. Cast Magic Arrow (or Frost Ring/Fireball if you have them) while the Harpies fly around avoiding trouble. The right-most stack seems easier than the others (I restarted a few times after I finished the scenario to confirm it) so take on that one even though it looks like a dead-end.
3) Follow the road and take the Dungeon around day 4.
4) Buy a tavern and hire 2 heroes. I hired 3 myself and it was not necessary. Without that third one, you'll be able to make an extra build in week 2. Put back your Harpies together.
5) Buy Troglodytes, Harpies and Beholders. Give them, and the starting troops of the other heroes, to Mutare.
6) There are 3 tunnel branches leading out of your home territory. Send Mutare through the northwest one (a timed event will even tell you there's a neutral town to take over in that direction). Send the 2 other scouts in the other branches: west and north, that we'll call secondary branches even though they are not really so.
7) I suggest buying the Pillar of Eyes, the Chapel of Stilled Voices and the Citadel in your main town.
8) Each secondary branch has a Keymaster's Tent. Your problem will be that you might be ambushed before then or not long after.
Week 2
9) Mutare will pass in front of a Subterranean Gate, do not enter it right now. Instead, continue northwest and capture your second Dungeon. I took No Quarter (the second Dungeon) on day 2.
10) After you've taken that town, Mutare can go back and explore the other side of the Subterranean Gate. There is a nice bonus section protected by a Quest Guard that can only be passed if you got the Charm of Mana from the first scenario. It contains an Orb of Driving Rain (this might be a random major artifact) and a Library of Enlightenment you can spend some quality time in (will boost your 4 primary stats by +2)
11) Take notice of the Trading Post west of No Quarter. It's supposed to trade as if you had 3 Marketplaces, but in reality it trades as if you had 5 Marketplaces. Thanks to Dark Kittin for pointing that out to me.
12) The building orders in week 2 were a bit weird to say the least... I had to buy troops earlier on than usual to repel a surprise enemy assault.
Savaging the scavengers
1) Marketplace
2) ---
3) Town Hall
4) Mushroom Rings
5) Blacksmith
6) ---
7) Mage Guild Level 1
13) Those troops I bought to repel the enemy assault, it wasn't everything available in the town. In fact, it was probably the bare minimum to win: just 10 Beholders. The hero inside already had a Harpy and 14 free Troglodytes taken from the nearby Warren.
14) Oh yes, those 2 scouts you sent in the two secondary tunnels earlier? It's quite likely you'll lose them like I did. Not a big deal, at least now you can see your enemies approach from farther away. And there's another unexpected benefit to "pulling" enemies like that (see paragraph 57 for more details on why but I suggest reading the rest of this article first).
15) In the second town (No Quarter), I bought a Tavern, a Marketplace and a Town Hall.
16) Through greater glory, a group of 21 Demons and 16 Lizard Warriors joined me for free. They were indeed helpful but not critical to my progress so don't worry too much if you don't get any free joiners.
17) There is an important item to get in the Subterranean Gate section near the University. It's the Dragon Scale Shield and it's important because you'll be able to use it in the next scenario. It is well protected though. Even though I had decided to use the Demons as bait, the losses were more minimal than I'd have thought. I'm sure that my nasty Icebolt spell, cast each turn helped in minimizing casualties too (Ice Bolt was better than Lightning because of that special Orb). If you do not feel confident enough to tackle the monster stack in front of the Shield right now, just come back later.
Week 3
18) I bought an additional hero in my first Dungeon. Two enemies were roaming around so do try to be careful. You don't want to lose that Dungeon of yours or Mutare would get mad and believe me you don't want an evil redhead with a fiery temper mad at you for any reason whatsoever ;-)
19) In the main Dungeon (Gloom Cave), I built a City Hall (that was on day 4, not right away), an Upgraded Harpy Loft, a Castle and the Manticore Lair.
20) In the second Dungeon (No Quarter), I built a Blacksmith (day 3), Mage Guild, City Hall and Citadel.
21) Have Mutare clear out the Dwarven Treasury, Crypt and possibly the Medusa Stores although that last option was too risky for me due to the high numbers of Medusas (horde). Keep in mind that the number of guardians in those structures is random.
22) I strongly suggest you go to the School of War page (on the AW site) and check out a complete list of locations I compiled, a list suitable for printing. It is a reference tool I often use when I play.
23) Due to Mutare's expert skill in Earth Magic, I used Mass Slow a lot.
24) You first town could be attacked again this week and this time, the invaders will be stronger. I made the conscious decision not to buy more troops because I thought the Castle Turrets would be enough. This turned out to be riskier than I thought because the hero who attacked had the Ballistics Skill and the rough stats of a level 5 (more or less).
25) Basic battle tactic: Wait with shooters that are blocked by enemy flyers. Have your Troglodytes kill them and then your shooters can fire unobstructed at the target of their choice.
Week 4
26) Send scouts in the 2 tunnel branches leading out of the No Quarter's cavern (that's the north and west branches) and possibly one other hero in the one-way lith. I admit I did not have a hero enter the one-way lith until much later in the week. It's always safer to send in scouts before your main hero, especially if you can't afford to lose her.
27) My objective for this week was to get the Capitol and possibly the Dragon Cave (more on this later on).
28) Keep buying troops at Gloom Cave whenever an enemy gets within one day. Buy Beholders and Medusas first.
29) There is a town west of No Quarter that could potentially be very easy to take with but 2 Harpies and Magic Arrow. I played it safe and waited.
30) Always remember to check your taverns when weeks start. I got Lorelei, a level 10 enemy, which I only used as a scout because there was no way to predict if you as the player would get a similar kind of strong hero through sheer luck.
31) Contrary to my usual philosophy, I think I might have been just a little too careful when trading and this consequently hurt the construction of my towns.
32) Have Mutare go west from No Quarter and capture that easy-to-take Tan town if you haven't already done so earlier with the scout.
33) By the end of that week, the Capitol had been built and the Dragon Cave was not for lack of sulfur. In the second town, I built a Castle.
Month 2, week 1 (or Week 5 overall)
34) I was planning on taking out Tan completely first but you could have easily decided to take out Green first by going through the north tunnel. I'm pretty sure their forces are roughly the same in power.
35) The last Tan town is in the southwest corner.
36) I had captured both Tan towns by day 2 of this week but there were still enemy heroes of that color to hunt around.
37) It might sound surprising but I took all those towns with my initial week 1 army plus those Demons and Lizard Warriors that had joined. More precisely, the army before I took the second town included 8 Harpies, 25 Gnolls, 14 Beholders, 76 Troglodytes, 16 Demons and 13 Lizard Warriors. If you were not as lucky as me in the joiner department, I suggest investing in some additional troops at No Quarter and ferrying them by hero chain to Mutare.
38) Earlier on, I had sacrificed a scout to probe the defenses of that second Tan town. I was amazed to find out that no turrets were to be found! When I arrived a few days later with Mutare though, that town now had a full assortment of turrets. I wonder if that last minute defense buildup might not have been due to my main hero approaching. Probably.
39) Mercury was a problem by that point. I wished I had attacked that Imp Cave earlier.
40) Bought 4 Resource Silos this week. Turned out to be a big waste of gold because I never needed to use Dragons.
Month 2, week 2 (or week 6 overall)
41) Mutare was heading back home (the first Dungeon) but it was quite a long trek. I also had her deviate a little from the direct path to explore one of the little niches. I intended for her to get reinforcements and then attack the green enemy in the northeast corner. Before going home though, I gave a few reinforcements to Mutare, just in case, from that former tan southwest town. She now had 27 Beholders and the Harpies, now full-fledged Hags, were 24. The Trogs were almost a hundred.
42) Here's a nice shortcut for your heroes. They can take the one-way lith, which will teleport them to the northwest corner on Magic Plains. Then they can go east, take another one-way lith and end up in a passage between the southwest town and Gloom Cave.
43) The Dragon Cave was finally bought.
44) Mutare arrived at Gloom Cave at the start of month 2, week 3 (week 7 overall). I bought more troops; I also upgraded troops that were not already upgraded. I almost hero chained troops to Mutare without her having stop at the Dungeon but I thought better of it and decided she might need some higher level spells (build that Mage Guild to level 3 or 4). I decided not to buy Manticores or Dragons.
45) From No Quarter, I had a second army go north while Mutare was going through the north tunnel towards the northeast corner.
46) In hindsight, we could say that resources given by mines were a problem in this map. Those mines were few and out of the way. You had to rely on trading and resource-giving locations instead (such as Imp Caves or Medusa Stores).
47) With View Earth or just by viewing the map, take notice of how the mines were placed because there is a pattern to it. They're in dead-end niches forking out of the main paths and they always go like this: gem-sulfur-gem.
48) I took the first Green Dungeon (ironically called Red Spider in my game) on month 2, week 3, day 1 with my army from No Quarter.
49) With Mass Slow and enough shooters, the dangerous Cyclops Stockpiles and Naga Banks shouldn't cause any problems.
50) You might want to practice the squire trick to maximize your movement. It consists of temporarily giving the slower troops of Mutare to a secondary hero at the end of a day, then giving back those troops to Mutare at the start of the following day. The movement of the hero is based on the slowest troop she has at the start of the day; it does not matter if during the day itself you lead slower troops as long as you don't start with them. In close games, this little advantage can save you a few steps each turn that make all the difference in the long run.
51) The No Quarter army could have taken out the last green town on month 2, week 3, day 7 but Mutare still had 3 levels to go. Therefore, I intentionally delayed victory so I could get Mutare to level 18. It also made me realize that perhaps I should have let less stacks flee away from her wrath ;-)
52) Actually, you could take down that last town with Mutare and still not have her "maxed" out. If so, I suggest leaving 1 green hero alive, going west, taking the one-way lith and attacking the Dragon Utopia. That's what I did.
53) If you want to make your battles easier, I suggest using the "Lure Enemy Hero out of town with the Wimpy Hero" trick. Computer heroes who are about to be invaded by a superior army (yours) should logically stay in their castle walls to benefit from the protection of the turrets. However, if you have a low-level hero with very few troops, not far from your main hero, the computer will find it very tempting to go kill it even though it might not have enough movement to go back inside the town. At least it won't split its main army in half like it did in HOMM 2 :-)
54) In the Dragon Utopia, I got lucky and fought the maximum number of Dragons I could. This gave Mutare 5,700 experience points.
55) If you like, you could develop Mage Guilds before finishing the scenario and have Mutare visit those towns but it's definitely not necessary.
56) So at the end of that scenario, Mutare had Expert Tactics, Estates (those two being her starting skills), Earth, Fire, Wisdom, Archery and Basic Learning. This gives you an idea on what skills I considered most important for a main hero. I would have picked Logistics if I could have but probably not Diplomacy because I consider it too unbalancing (in the player's favor). I would not have wasted a precious secondary skill slot on Learning but it was either that or Eagle Eye ;-)
57) Someone who did not play that scenario might rightfully wonder how taking out Tan was so easy (with such a barebone army). There's an easy explanation for this... Tan wasted most of its armies in trying to take out my main town. This was an unforeseen advantage of sending in scouts in the tunnel branches early in the game. It pushed tan and green to keep sending heroes to capture my seemingly defenseless main Dungeon.
Dragon's Blood 3: Blood of the Dragon Father
Map Type: HOMM3 ExpansionCampaign Map
Date of strategy: December 10th, 1999
The objective in this large map is to find the famed Vial of Dragon Blood before Ordwald. With it in her possession, Mutare could potentially, if the legends proved true, transform into the pinnacle of sentient perfection: the magnificent and powerful Dragon (amazing how someone goes to such lengths to achieve what most of us strategist dragons do naturally :-) On my first play, I finished on month 5, week 2, day 2.
Starting Bonus: I would recommend taking the Red Dragon. Makes for a quicker starting game.
Week 1
1) Leave the starting troops of Mutare in the town for a second hero. Only give the Red Dragon to Mutare. Remember that Dragons are her speciality. Led by her they will have a bonus of attack +5 and defense +5.
2) Buy 3 heroes (you could probably be fine with only 2)
3) Let scouts move before Mutare on day 1. That way you can survey the best potential route.
4) Try to get the item west of your Dungeon first.
5) Use Fireball, Meteor Shower and Summon Elemental to keep your Red Dragon alive (those are carry-over spells).
6) Here were my building orders in week 1:
1) Mage Guild
2) Town Hall
3) Pillar of Eyes
4) Harpy Loft
5) Chapel of Stilled Voices
6) Manticore Lair
7) Citadel
7) There is a blue town west of your initial Dungeon. Which tunnel you take does not matter. Try to take it by the end of the week with Mutare. It is even possible you could waltz in without opposition.
8) Goes without saying you should visit the Blue Keymaster's Tent.
9) In the second town, I bought a marketplace.
10) Remember to use View Earth and View Air if they are at advanced skill or higher.
11) My second army (with extra troops from other hired heroes) did not actually fight any battles in week 1.
12) Attack Imp Caches and Dwarven Treasuries with Mutare. Be sure you have enough spell points though (you do not need to visit all of them in week 1, I'm not even sure if that's possible! :-)
13) There is an Abandoned Mine easy to overlook in the third passage from the bottom.
Week 2
14) Build up to City Hall in your second town a.s.a.p.
15) In your hometown, here are my suggested building orders.
1) Nothing (due to lack of wood and because I wanted City Hall in other town sooner)
2) Mushroom Rings
3) Marketplace
4) Blacksmith
5) City Hall
6) Labyrinth
7) Castle
16) Have a scout go west past the blue border guard. (Always remember it is best to send an expendable hero in unknown territory before risking the hero you cannot lose)
17) Meanwhile, Mutare will clear up the starting area before that blue border guard.
18) Always trade at the Trading Post. It was supposed to have the exchange rate of 3 marketplaces but it actually has the exchange rate of 5.
19) Save the spell points of Mutare for when you need it.
20) Added Harpy Loft, Mushroom Rings and the Citadel in the second town.
21) You likely are pretty good at this by now but do try to practice hitting 2 targets at once with dragon's breath while the fights are a bit easier.
22) Trade gold for missing resources (most likely wood and gems)
Week 3
23) Your objective this week is to get the Capitol, the Resource Silo and the Dragon Cave (do not hesitate to trade extra resources you do not need that much, such as crystal and mercury, for Dungeon towns).
24) From the shipyard, send a scout west by boat.
25) I was lucky enough to have 19 Serpent Flies join, decided to keep them with Mutare since they would not really slow her down that much.
26) I had two Resource Silos on day 2. You can never have too many Sulfurs when going for Dragons.
27) Remember that you need a Mage Guild Level 2 to get the Dragon Cave. Then you still need to have 20 Sulfur and 30 Ore.
28) Don't go below 5 units of each resource while trading, trade gold for missing resources (if any) on day 6.
29) Try to buy Chapel and Castle in the second town by the end of this week if you can.
30) Naga Bank could provide some much-needed extra sulfur. (If you found it soon enough, I bet you could potentially get the Dragon Cave finished in week 2).
31) Wood won't be so lacking once you're navigating.
32) Buy creatures in the Summoned Portals (when you build those structures) each week or else the summoned creatures will be wasted.
33) How does one clear out an external Dragon Cave with 1 Red Dragon against 3? Cast Meteor Shower. Red Dragons are not immune to level 4 spells like they were in HOMM 2.
34) Got my Dragon Cave on day 7 and I also had 5 heroes wandering about.
Week 4
35) Buy Red Dragons and Scorpicores and hero chain them to Mutare who shall board a boat around day 4.
36) Mutare led a pretty decent force of 7 Red Dragons and13 Scorpicores (the Scorpicores are same speed as the Red Dragons so she will move as far each turn). If you're strapped for cash, just buy the Red Dragons.
37) Your navigating scout will be ambushed just beyond the whirlpool.
38) I had just remembered about Summon Boat and tried to use it to save 10 units of wood, however there were no boats to summon. (If in another scenario, you need Summon Boat and your mage guild doesn't give it, try to hire Gem the druid. She starts with that spell)
39) Build Portals of Summoning in both towns.
40) Don't forget to visit windmills each week.
Month 2, week 1 (or week 5 overall)
41) Could have hired a level 12 hero named Gunnar but I did not. I suspected he was an enemy hero that was not supposed to be there.
42) Rescue Alamar from the Prison and take the gold mine. You will want to "groom" him as one of the heroes you will carry over.
43) Have Alamar learn Mutare's spells by "trading" even though you might not need to. Alamar is a scholar.
44) Slowly start upgrading structures in your main town.
45) You could potentially build a second Dragon Cave this week but myself I waited until next week. (actually I did not think of even building it until next week ;-)
46) Give a sacrificial unit (low-level) to Mutare for her to pass through the Whirlpool safely. Whirlpools in HOMM 3 will almost always split the stack of the weakest unit in terms of individual hit points. Believe me, you do not want to lose half your Scorpicores to the whirlpool so be careful :-)
Month 2, week 2 (week 6 overall)
47) After the Whirlpool, before continuing east, disembark and explore the 2 little side caverns to the north and west. One has a War Machine Factory (buy all of them) and the other has a Dragon Cave plus the Green Keymaster Tent.
48) Want to have 2 extra guaranteed Red Dragons each week? Do not flag Harpy Flags and Warrens in your home territory... but by then it is probably too late to do that unless you completely read my strategy before starting instead of reading as you go ;-) By flagging only the Dragon Caves, you insure that the Summoning Portals will summon only Red Dragons (in this case, one in each town)
49) You might need to trade gold for gems.
50) During the course of this scenario, I came one step short for embarking-disembarking boats about a dozen times. It is very frustrating but not that much you can do about it.
51) I realized by now that with Armageddon's Blade (and patch 1.2), you were certain to have at least 1 native hero in your town each week!
52) Mutare and Alamar should follow the river east and disembark. Send Alamar in the northeast fork. There is a red keymaster tent over there.
53) I had a small problem by then. Boats were blocking me from having further reinforcements and I did not have Scuttle Boat to destroy them. If you do have it, make sure either Alamar or Mutare destroys a boat so another hero can bring fresh troops later on. Otherwise, you will need to hire a hero from the first town you take in this area, move him all the way back to the boats and have him board one. It's a big hassle
Month 2, week 3 (week 7 overall)
54) Mutare was invading blue territory in earnest. She took another blue Dungeon on month 2, week 4, day 1. (I did not know exactly where it was)
55) I upgraded to Black Dragon Cave (I suggest upgrading it in your second town, your troops have to pass this way to reach the shipyard anyway)
Month 2, week 4 (week 8 overall)
56) Traded resources for sulfur.
57) A Seer Hut in this area will give you Dragon Scale Armor for having killed the Wyverns near the Green Tent.
58) Naga Banks are an excellent way to gain sulfur (at least if it's not fixed by a patch to give gems like it was supposed to). Just Mass Slow the Nagas and Naga Queens.
59) There is a Hill Fort near your third town.
60) At the end of month 2, I started bringing 30 Black Dragons to the front using the "red" passage. The red passage is a one-way lith beyond a red border guard next to the river. You navigated in front of it earlier.
Third month
6!) Bought troops for Alamar at the third town, he went north while Mutare was clearing the area.
62) Do not forget to visit windmills! :-)
63) Managed to get a Tome of Fire Magic (giving you all Fire spells) from Gunnar, the hero I had not hired earlier and defeated now.
64) I could have just used the good old Dragon-Armageddon combo (only use Black Dragons with your main hero and cast Armageddon over and over) from now on but what is the fun in that... Besides, there is no guarantee you would get that Tome of Fire Magic or the Armageddon Spell so it was better not to rely on it too much to win.
65) Mutare had about 37 Black Dragons.
66) North from the third town, unlock the green border guard WITH a secondary expendable hero.
67) Beyond the Subterranean Gate lies an ambush by super-hero Ordwald. He has stats of around 14,17,12,111 and an amazing army.
68) I admit I was actually surprised when he attacked. I had been foolish enough to send in Mutare first through the Subterranean Gate thinking my Black Dragons could handle practically anything. Well I was kind of lucky Ordwald decided to attack Alamar instead of Mutare but not that lucky since I lost Alamar and all the non-Dragon troops he had. What is the morale of this story? Expect the unexpected and if possible try to have a secondary hero open the way for you. If that is not possible, keep your forces together on your main hero (instead of splitting them between 2 heroes to maximize movement). If you have 2 heroes close together, an enemy waiting in ambush might go for the easier target giving a chance for your main hero to get the hell out of there. In my playing experience such nasty ambushes are rather rare.
69) Did I forget to mention that Ordwald actually wore some kind of cloak preventing me from casting Armageddon even if I had wanted to?
70) After Alamar had fought Ordwald (killing about 188 Trogs), I decided to be bold and attack him yet again...this time with Mutare and her Black Dragons.
71) I managed to defeat him with only 10 Black Dragons in casualties. Unfortunately, he fled with 80 Medusa Queens before I could finish him off.
72) Tactics I used in this battle: My first attack was the 2-hex dragon breath hitting the Manticores and Minotaur Kings (his troop order might be different, if he has 7 stacks, you want to hit stacks 4 and 5 from above or stacks 6 and 5 from below). Use Blind extensively combined with Mass Slow and Mass Curse. If he casts beneficial mass spells, try to counter them with the opposite kind (Mass Curse for Mass Bless for example) or Mass Dispel.
73) Having lost Alamar, I bought about a dozen heroes trying to get him back with no success. I would have to hope the enemy would not hire him before I could.
74) On the other side of the Subterranean Gate, take notice of a one-way lith exit partially hidden. This is where enemies are coming from but you cannot block it.
75) There are 3 possible tunnel branches out of the Subterranean Gate. I arbitrarily decided to take the west one. Each tunnel leads to a different blue Dungeon (there are three in all). You could also decide to go by the tunnel that has the nearest enemy heroes. Cast View Air and View Earth to help in your decision. (In hindsight, I learned later on that taking the northwest one might have been best because in my game it was most powerful Dungeon).
76) Wherever Mutare goes, send two scouts in the other branches.
77) Managed to get Dace (a level 11 hero) in my Tavern. This time, I did hire that former enemy hero; Ordwald owed me for defeating Alamar after all.
78) Ignore secondary tunnel branches for now. Go towards the Dungeons, they're in bigger caverns at the ends of each main tunnel.
79) Ordwald came back to annoy me on month 3, week 2.
80) I took one enemy town then went through the gate to beat up Ordwald. (The one-way liths near the enemy towns all teleport you next to the Subterranean Gate)
81) By default, if you pit Black Dragons against Black Dragons (units of the same speed), the attacker (yourself) will go first, however if you have Tactics, the enemy will move first (even though you will get to place your troops with Tactics first). If you absolutely want to go first and your fastest unit is the same as the fastest unit on the other side, disable tactics in the hero screen.
82) Eventually bring in more Black Dragons and Scorpicores through the red passage.
83) Lure Ordwald out of town with secondary heroes if he seems intent on staying in. If you're clever, you do not have to deal with enemy turrets if you do not want to. You see enemy heroes like to kill targets of opportunity around their town even though they might not have enough movement to get back behind the walls of their town.
84) If you really do not feel like going all the way back to a town you just took with Mutare (after taking the lith back to pursue Ordwald), might I suggest leaving a few Black Dragons there as garrison combined with the troops you can buy there?
85) Once Ordwald is taken care of, refocus your efforts on taking the remaining blue towns. Blue was completely eliminated by month 4, week 1, day 7.
Fourth month and beyond
86) Take the Subterranean Gate in the Northwest corner, you will have to fight a Throng of Bone Dragons but before you do, wait for reinforcements.
87) Trade most of your resources except sulfur to get troops sooner.
88) Bring all the Minotaur Kings and Scorpicores you can afford to Mutare from your two initial towns (for me it was 115 Minotaur Kings and 40 Scorpicores).
89) I also transferred extra troops by hero chains from the last 3 towns I had captured (but not everything)
90) For those interested, here was my army before venturing further underground: 190 Minotaur Kings, 123 Scorpicores, 113 Black Dragons and 166 Harpy Hags. It was overkill so you do not really need that strong of an army. Keep in mind that I did not know what I was going to face in the Hall of Dragon Father.
91) I suggest splitting the Black Dragons in 2 stacks and keeping the Harpy Hags together (easier to resurrect that way).
92) You now have to pass a string of Dragons one after the other from weakest to strongest.
- Throng of Bone Dragons (They would have fled but I decided to attack anyway. Use Mass Slow and Resurrect. You could probably kill them in first round but wait for second round so you can cast Resurrect.)
- Throng of Ghost Dragons (Same)
- Horde of Green Dragons (Mass Bless or Mass Bloodlust or even Slayer)
- Lots of Red Dragons
- Lots of Gold Dragons
- Lots of Black Dragons
- Lots of Faerie Dragons (be careful, they have an innate Magic Mirror ability)
- Lots of Rust Dragons (They will all go before your own troops because of their high speed. Black Dragons hit first then Scorpicores and Minotaur Kings. Cast Resurrect on Harpy Hags)
- Lots of Crystal Dragons (Cast Mass Slow)
93) Your last battle will be when you open the Pandora's Box. You will face seven different Dragon types (except Azure) with 14 to 30 Dragons in each stack. I used Slayer.
94) Mutare and your 2 other highest-level heroes will carry on to the last scenario in the campaign. She was level 29 when I finished.
Dragon's Blood 4: Blood Thirsty
Map Type: HOMM3 Expansion Campaign Map
Date of strategy: December 17th, 1999
Talk about devious... Even though Mutare found the fabled Vial of Dragon Blood and turned into a Dragon herself, she is still far from safe because Ordwald, that old treacherous bastard, lied to the other Nighon Lords and made them believe that by drinking her blood, they would be transformed into Dragons also. This last map in the Dragon's Blood campaign is of large size, has 2 layers (both subterranean like all the other scenarios) and you will play at expert difficulty. On my first play, I finished on month 3, week 3, day 4.
Starting Bonus: Decided to pick the 2 Crystal Dragons but the other two choices are about equivalent. I picked the Crystal Dragons because they were the most powerful overall and I wanted to try them out.
Week 1
1) In my game, the carry-over heroes were of level 29 (Mutare), level 14 (Dace, a former enemy hero) and level 10 (Alamar rescued from the prison in the last scenario).
2) Keep only the Crystal Dragons with Mutare. The other troops will just slow her down.
3) Hire an extra warlock or overlord.
4) Building orders in week 1:
1) Town Hall (usually it would be Mage Guild but my heroes already had spellbooks and spells)
2) Harpy Loft
3) Pillar of Eyes
4) Chapel of Stilled Voices
5) Citadel
6) Marketplace
7) Mushroom Rings
As you can see, I had resource problems near the end of the week, otherwise either the Manticore Lair or Labyrinth would have been built. I think that was due to the expert difficulty where you have less starting resources.
5) In the east branch, do not clear out the monster stack before the War Machine Factory. It can provide protection against enemies coming through the one-way lith.
6) Those Crystal Dragons are pretty amazing; you can clear out practically anything with just them.
7) There are neutral towns to the northwest and southeast of where you are located. You can pinpoint their exact position by casting View Air.
8) Mutare should go south while the other army (comprised of roughly Harpies, 19 Beholders and 150 Troglodytes) should go north.
8b) See paragraph 20 before flagging external dwellings. There is a small spoiler there.
9) Both neutral towns were taken on day 7.
Week 2
10) In the new towns, you should build Taverns and Town Halls when you have enough gold to spare. The main town should always have priority.
11) Building orders in week 2:
1) Blacksmith
2) Mage Guild Level 1
3) City Hall
4) Labyrinth
5) Manticore Lair
6) Castle
7) Hmmmmm... I'm afraid I did not write it down. It is possible nothing was built ;-)
12) I have played quite a bit of HOMM3 by now and I noticed that certain building tendencies kept coming back. a) I rarely try to go for the level 7 dwelling in week 1. b) I build the Mage Guild on day 1 of week 1 and the Citadel on day 7. c) I go for the City Hall early in week 2. d) I try to get the Castle by the end of week 2.
I seem to be doing pretty well with that kind of starting game strategy but it is true that my playing style is rather aggressive, that I mostly pick gold from chests in the first 3 weeks and that I buy very few troops in my starting town preferring to adventure with what I got from initial combined armies for as long as I can.
13) Usually, my toughest building decision is to go for either the Capitol or the level 7 Dwelling first. I guess I usually go by what resources I have available.
14) There is a Sulfur Dune (always call them mines because of HOMM 2 ;-) southwest of your starting town. You need Sulfur for your Dragon Caves so flag it ASAP.
15) Before going for the Sulfur Dune, do take the gold mines next to the 2 previously neutral towns.
16) In the secondary towns, it is likely wood will be lacking. It did for me.
17) Nevertheless, I managed to afford the Pillar of Eyes and Mushroom Rings in both (days 3 and 4) and the Citadels on day 7.
18) Hire an extra hero in the southeast town.
Week 3
19) I spent that week in the first layer (the one of your starting town).
20) Try to visit the external Dragon Caves. There are 2 of them. If those Dragons Caves are the only external dwellings you flag, then you are assured of having Red Dragons appear in your Portals of Summoning each week. I did not do that in my own game so don't worry too much about it.
2!) Buy your Capitol and a Resource Silo early in the week for your main town. Your main objective however is to build your first Dragon Cave by the end of the week but it should not be too difficult.
22) For your information, I still had not bought any troops from any town (except some extra Trogs on day 1 of week 1).
23) Also try to get City Halls and Resources Silos in your secondary towns.
24) Trade crystal for wood and ore if you need them.
25) Try not to forget visiting external structures and the Windmills in particular.
Week 4
26) Having explored most of this layer, I was seriously thinking of going topside (i.e. the other layer)
27) Mutare was in the northeast section. I had flagged the second external Dragon Cave on day 7 of last week by transferring her Crystal Dragons to another hero temporarily.
28) There's a pair of Boots of Speed in a side cavern near an Alchemist's Lab. Take them. All artifacts improving your movement rate are very desirable. It's not for nothing that the Nomad Boots and the True Compass in HOMM 2 were always near the top of the "Best Of" in the favorite artifact category. The Boots of Speed are doing pretty well in the HOMM 3 "Best Of" also.
29) Check out the Thieves Guild for the weakest color in terms of number of towns. With that and by casting View Air to determine where every faction was, I decided that the Teal color would be my first victim.
30) Upgrade the Manticore Lair and the Chapel if you haven't already done so. I suppose you already upgraded your Harpy Loft. The Harpy Loft is usually the first upgrade a Dungeon player makes.
31) Buy 5 Red Dragons, 13 Scorpicores and 24 Beholders. Transfer them to Mutare to boost her invasion army.
32) You should visit the Dragon Utopia even though it's still fairly early in the game. How do you defeat it? Use 5 stacks with 1 Troglodyte each, your 2 Crystal Dragons and the Red Dragons. The enemy Dragons won't necessarily hit the sacrificial Trogs each time but they might. Cast Summon Elemental to provide extra targets for the Dragons. Resurrect your Red Dragons near the end of the battle (they are not immune to it!). I had an abnormal number of luck events in my battle, which probably made it easier than it should have been.
33) The artifacts given are random and their power levels (treasure, minor, major, relic) will be different depending on how many Dragons you fought. I would suggest visiting our School of War page at the AW site to download and print out my handy Location Reference Guide.
34) If I had had too many relics from the Dragon Utopia, it would have surely unbalanced the difficulty of the map in my favor. However it wasn't too bad (or good depending on the interpretation :-) and I only got the Dragon Scale Armor, the Golden Bow, the Bowstring of Unicorn Mane and the Helm of Heavenly Enlightenment. Depending on what you received from the Dragon Utopia, you might win your game right then and now.
35) Build up your creature dwellings up to level 6 (Manticore Lair) in one of your secondary towns.
36) Mutare took the northeast Subterranean Gate on day 6.
37) Remembering the ambush by Ordwald in the last scenario, I decided to give all nearby available troops to Mutare just in case. That army was composed of: 64 Beholders, 15 Swordsmen (joined for greater glory), 13 Scorpicores, 2 Crystal Dragons, 213 Troglodytes and 8 Red Dragons.
Month 2, week 1 (week 5 overall)
38) Mutare took her first Teal (or turquoise or aqua... take your pick ;-) enemy Dungeon on day 2. Without the Trogs slowing her down, she would probably have reached it on day 1 with one week less worth of enemy troops to contend with. In multiplayer games, the colors get their turn according to their positions on the scenario information screen, from top to bottom. In other words: red, blue, tan, green, orange, purple, teal and pink. In singleplayer games, human players always go before the AI.
39) Going to external dwellings became a much lesser priority.
40) Don't go in the west branch from the Subterranean Gate with a secondary hero just yet. It might attract unwanted attention while Mutare is busy elsewhere. You can keep track of enemy heroes with View Air.
41) In your new town, buy a new hero to explore around. Upgrade your Trogs to Infernal Trogs and the Beholders to Evil Eyes. (Check out point 43 before doing so if you want to save money)
42) I was looking for Teal heroes to finish up that enemy color (I had somehow overlooked there was another Teal town to the south). I ended up going towards the purple towns by a tunnel going roughly northwest.
43) There is a Hill Fort west of the former Teal Dungeon. Level 1 troops are upgraded free of charge and the other troops, up to level 5 inclusively, cost less to upgrade than if you did at a town.
44) I bought everything except the Minotaur Kings at the main town. Wanted to transfer them to Mutare.
45) A little later, a very strong blue hero appeared in the Southwest Subterranean Gate. Lo and behold it was Ordwald! If I had taken that gate instead of the Northeast one, I could have indeed been ambushed. If I ever replayed that scenario, I would try going through that Southwest gate first to see if it would make things better. I doubt it because by doing that, Mutare could not have had the artifacts from the Dragon Utopia unless she had taken 1 or 2 extra weeks to go to the Dragon Utopia then back.
46) Ordwald seemed to be going straight for my main Dungeon... I was worried because I only had the Minotaur Kings to defend.
47) Mutare and the "hero chain" met and transferred troops (just after Mutare took a purple town). I gave Mutare the Dragons and the Scorpicores. I was torn about giving her the Evil Eyes. On one hand, they would slow her down and she would probably not need them. On the other hand, they could have soaked up some damage, provided some shooting power and having a stronger army is never a bad idea because who knows what she might come up against. Mostly, I was concerned about losing my main town and if it happened, I needed a strong enough army to get it back. I also wanted to field two effective armies. Taking all this into consideration, I finally decided to leave the Evil Eyes with a secondary hero instead of Mutare. 47b) A somewhat easier way to defend towns and generally go quicker around the map would be to use Town Portal if you have it. For some reason, I completely forgot about that spell.
48) Something peculiar happened. Ordwald returned to the Subterranean Gate instead of going for my rather weakly defended main town. Perhaps the 33 Minotaur Kings I had hired had intimidated him away but I think it might just have been dumb luck.
49) If I had lost that town, it is likely I would have brought Mutare to capture it back while the secondary army (with Evil Eyes, Infernal Troglodytes, Medusa Queens and Harpy Hags) would have tried to defend the newly-captured towns from Purple and Teal.
50) I lost my Teal town on day 7 before being able to buy more troops there.
51) By the end of this eventful week, I still had 4 Dungeons to my name.
Month 2, week 2 (week 6 overall)
52) I bought even more troops at the main town to intimidate Ordwald and his cronies away. Enemy heroes kept pouring through the southwest gate.
53) My secondary army took back my lost Teal town (on day 2, which was 1 day too late yet again ;-)
54) At this time, I had 2 armies busy in enemy territory plus my garrison force at home (mostly comprised of Minotaur Kings). The main army led by Mutare was composed of 13 Red Dragons, 2 Crystal Dragons and 20 Scorpicores. Her job was to take out Purple. The secondary army led by Dace was composed of 35 Medusa Queens, 95 Harpy Hags, 120 Evil Eyes and 460 Infernal Troglodytes (I did wonder if I should have used Alamar because of his Resurrect True specialty). His job was to finish out Teal.
55) By using View Earth, I had noticed that territory of Purple-Teal was cut off from Blue and Orange. What this meant is that invasion forces from Blue and Orange would only come from that Southwest Subterranean Gate and possibly that one-way lith east of my main town.
56) As you can no doubt guess, my objective was to eliminate both Purple and Teal completely before taking on Blue and Orange.
57) To minimize casualties inflicted by turrets in town assaults, I suggest casting Earthquake or Meteor Shower or Teleport on the first round then Resurrect on the second. Inferno might also be useful provided the enemy stacks are weak enough to be killed by it.
58) A little trick: If you are a few steps short of bringing troops to one of your towns that's about to be attacked, hire a new hero in the town and have him (or her) transfer the troops to the town to protect it. It is likely the good hero who was a few steps short of entering the town will be attacked but it's not a worry because you can easily have it flee or surrender. You can then rehire the hero on the next turn. Of course, you should not try that with Mutare or you will lose :-)
59) Cast View Air on almost every turn to see which towns are in danger. Buy troops there.
60) I built a Dragon Cave near the Hill Fort (which in hindsight was a waste of gold :-)
61) I also bought another Dragon Cave in one of my 3 initial towns. I think only having two Dragon Caves overall is fine in this scenario.
Month 2, week 3 (week 7 overall)
62) Berserk, already a great spell in itself, is excellent to prevent heroes from fleeing. Try it and you'll see.
63) Both Purple and Teal were eliminated at the start of this week.
64) Mutare eventually went back toward the Northeast Subterranean Gate. I wasted time going to the Hill Fort when upgrading at the main town would have been just as good.
65) I saw Arlach, a level 34 hero, available for hire in my town's tavern. I did hire him, so the computer opponent would not get it back, but I did not really use him. Always remember to check which new heroes you get in the tavern each week. You never know what you might get.
66) I had the resources and gold to build even more Dragon Caves but I decided not to.
Month 2, week 4 (week 8 overall)
67) Got Dragons (upgrade to Black), Scorpicores and Minotaur Kings for Mutare from the main town.
68) I started by killing orange and blue heroes in my territory (used Mass Haste a lot).
69) I did not bother with external dwellings at all anymore.
70) My army was so strong; combats rarely lasted more than 2 rounds.
Month 3 and beyond
71) The assault on the blue and orange territories started in earnest.
72) There was a second army led by Alamar (Evil Eyes, Medusa Queens) who followed Mutare through the Southwest Subterranean Gate not long after she went through.
73) I built up Mage Guilds in the new towns even though my heroes already had most of the spells.
74) You can use War Machines when your Dragons breathe their 2-hex wide attack to avoid retaliation.
75) It came upon me that an army comprised only of Crystal Dragons or Red Dragons with Counterstrike cast on that stack would be quite devastating.
76) Believe it or not, I managed to beat Deemer, a hero with stats of 9,22,21,17 with Berserk and Alamar (4,3,8,7). I do not remember all the details but I do know the army of Deemer was stronger than mine and attacked Alamar first. Berserk is definitely one of the most powerful spells in the game.
The Dragon's Blood campaign was completed in 301 days for 1465 points and a rating of Minotaur King.
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I promise, I'll find some more soon. I hope I helped ya'.
P.S. This was taken from AstralWizard ans was originally made by Quebec Dragon.
P.P.S. I tested these tactics. Worked fine to me. Though it is better to use your own mind, but if you don't have any, better use this 
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regnus_khan
Responsible
Supreme Hero
[ Peacekeeper of Equilibris ]
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posted March 27, 2004 04:24 PM |
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I copied this from an old topic now (made by myself), just to have both of them here, in the same topic. First campaign now. Same Quebec Dragon's tactics.
Armageddon's Blade 1: Catherine's Charge
Map Type: HOMM3 Campaign Map
Date of Strategic Notes: May 25, 2000
So here were my notes for the first scenario in Armageddon's Blade.
- Take a moment to check Catherine's strengths
- Pick 20 Archers as bonus although it does not really matter what you pick
Build Orders
1) Marketplace
2) City Hall
3) Citadel
4) Castle
5) -
6) Stables
7) Training Grounds
1) -
2) City Hall
3) Citadel (Buy extra heroes)
4) -
5) Castle (trade Mercury for Ore)
6) -
7) -
- Make Cat enter towns and get spells
- Upgrade Archers to Makrsmen, Swordsmen to Crusaders, Pikemen to Halberdiers
- Set close formation for her troops
- Just give 100 Marksmen to Cuthbert. Split in two
- Demon stacks that should normally have fled chose to fight (not all but most)
- Buy spellbook for Sorsha, give her the 50 Crusaders.
- Make both Sorsha and Cuthbert visit Observatory Towers
- On day 2, have Cat take the chests southwest of her town.
- Against fast flyers, block pocket with Champions (block on second turn?)
- Mostly used Slow and Haste as spells
- Decided to wait on Silos
- Take down red invader, even if it's with Cuthbert & 100 Marksmen (Actually= wait on day 1)
Week 2
- Cat can take red knight town on day 1 (better if day 7)
- Bought troops at Cuthbert's
- University and skills
- Cat went back towards south town to clear out niche protected by Efreets
- Don't put Marksmen in middle, might be Sultans who can reach you in one turn.
- Bought new hero in new town= went east
- Day 2-3: Bought 3 Resource Silos
- 70 Earth Elementals joined for free
- Give 2 Royal Griffins to scout
- Take gold from chests in niche (Cat was already level 16)
- Did not really buy troops in week 2
- Bought Portal of Glory by end of week
- Cat in south town= Mage Guild 3 and 4
Week 3
- If red comes at the center town, buy all troops and flee west. What I did: give troops to Cat
- Cat got Town Portal but she did not have enough wisdom
- Sultans are most dangerous: Cat fought Fiona
- Decided to check on Conflux instead of going east.
- Bought troops for Cuthbert (north town) who also went for Conflux.
- Keep a secondary skill slot free for Wisdom.
- Magic University at Conflux to learn what you want.
- End of week: 2 Confluxes in my control
- Cat reaches border guard and charges Inferno
Week 4
- Day 1: Took 1st Inferno
- Always enter towns after capturing them
- Bought all Inferno troops there to protect the town.
- Nope, just buy Sultans and flag stuff around.
- Don't bother much getting troops from external dwellings except perhaps the free Pikemen
- Center town (Goldenton?) is more vulnerable to attacks.
- Cat took 2 Infernos, Cuthbert took the norheast one.
- If you're attacked, don't do like the AI, stay inside the town!
Week 5
- Hunting down last red heroes
- Had Conflux to take back to knight town
- Need good: trade wood and ore
Score: Month 2, week 2, day 4
Armageddon's Blade 2: Shadows of the Forest
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy Notes: May 26, 2000
This is a scenario of medium size, the first featuring that fashionable albino half-vori snow elf Gelu with the nifty black costume. On my first play, I finished on month 1, week 3, day 4.
Starting bonus: I suggest taking the 20 Marksmen because Gelu can upgrade them to Sharpshooters.
Week 1
1) Gelu's specialty is upgrading Archers, Marskmen, Elves and Grand Elves to Sharpshooters who can shoot any distance, even through walls, without penalty. As an extra bonus, they look darn cool in your army. The only problem is that is costs quite a bit of gold to upgrade those shooters so they become sharper... So my advice, pace yourself and don't upgrade everything right away.
2) Here are some upgrade costs:
- From Marksmen to Sharpshooters: 250 gold each
- From Elves to Sharpshooters: 200 gold each
- Grom Grand Elves to Sharpshooters: 175 gold each
3) Those shooter stacks around Gelu will join him for free.
4) Build orders in week 1:
1) Marketplace
2) Blacksmith
3) City Hall
4) Citadel
5) Skip or Dendroid Arches (see tip 16 on why)
6) Castle
7) Dendroid Arches or Saplings
4) Make sure to buy a spell book for Gelu
5) Hire 2 heroes.
6) Don't buy troops in town just yet.
7) Make 2 armies to cover more ground. One army (led by Gelu) with Rampart troops and Sharpshooters and the other with Marksmen and Archers.
8) Gelu should go south
9) Your second hero (Mephala in my case) should go northwest towards a sawmill.
10) Check formations so 2 shooters stacks are not next to each other.
11) Against red garrison, target Magogs first, then Pit Lords. Use Slow or Haste. Blind on Magogs if you have it. Garrison has 15 Pit Lords, 25 Horned Demons, 60 Magogs and 100 Imps.
12) Split Wood elves in two. Make two 1-unit Silver Pegasi stacks in Gelu's army.
13) Upgrade 15 Wood Elves to Sharpshooters after City Hall is built.
14) Take gold from chests
15) Just flag external creature dwellings for now, don't buy
16) Boots of Speed are southwest of a Crystal Cavern (with my luck, they cost me 2500 gold and 3 sulfur, I skipped a build to have them but they're worth it. If you have them for free build the Dendroid Arches on day 4)
Week 2
17) Visit Hug of Magi with secondary hero
18) Was possible to take an Inferno in week 1, it's just south of the eastern garrison. I did not because I did not know the layout.
19) I kept upgrading Elves to Sharpshooters each turn.
20) Split Sharpshooters in two when you have 50 of them. Change to 3 of 30 eventually.
21) Put Sharpshooters at extremities (first and seventh slots)
22) Took Inferno on day 3. Bought Mage Guild level 2
23) Complete the builds in the Rampart
24) Could have probablly reached second Inferno in the southwest but chose to explore instead. Little did I know there was another Inferno near the center, northwest of the first Inferno I just took.
25) There's a Forsaken Palace in the southeast corner
26) Pick up the Golden Bow hidden in foliage north of Rampart, left of Homestead. With the Golden Bow, it makes Grand Elves almost the equal of Sharpshooters for a much more reasonable cost. However, since Gelu never went back to the Rampart, it did not help me much with the Wood Elves I already had.
27) Started buying troops from exernal dwellings on grass terrain
28) Did not bother doing anything with the Inferno. I could not stand their smell anyway.
29) Bought an extra hero at Inferno
30) Took a Conflux, west of the Rampart also.
Week 3
31) Capture Inferno in the southwest corner with Gelu.
32) Build Order of Fire in the Inferno right away for the +1 spell power
33) There's a pack (10) of Sharpshooters around who join for free and give you gauntlets to improve your speed even more
34) 2 Infernos taken, 2 to go. One is between the Infernos you have but a little more to the north. The other is nearer the northwest part of the map. With your amazing movement rate, the order you take those Infernos should not matter much.
Week 4
35) Took last Inferno. Hunted down remaining red heroes
36) Make sure Gelu is level 12 before finishing
37) Gelu's skills: Expert Leadership, Archery, Water Magic, Wisdom and Tactics.
38) You could leave an Inferno to Red so game lasts longer and so you can build up Mage Guilds and visit stat-boosting structures.
Armageddon's Blade 3: Seeking Armageddon
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy Notes: May 26, 2000
With this medium-sized scenario, we start seeing the Armageddon's Blade saga from the other side. You lead Xeron, a Devil specialist. On my first play I finished on month 2, week 3, day 3.
Starting Bonus: Take the Equestrian Gloves
1) You start with 3 Infernos. The Castle Gates are already built so you can teleport between them as much as you want.
2) Have Xeron enter for a spell book
3) Building orders:
Blackpool (near where Xeron starts)
1) Citadel
2) Fire Lake
3) Cages
4) Order of Fire
5) Birth Pools
6) Marketplace
7) Upgraded Imp Crucible
Mourningdale
1) Blacksmith
2) City Hall
3) Cages
4) Order of Ifre
5) Resource Silo
6) Hell Hole
7) Citadel
Havoc Peak
1) Blacksmith
2) City Hall
3) Cages
4) Birthing Pools
5) ---
6) Upgraded Kennels
7) Citadel (had to trade for 3 ore)
4) Have Xeron go through all 3 Infernos for spells.
5) How to beat swarms of Sprites ? I did not know exactly how right away. I'm not too comfortable with Inferno troops but I thought I would experiment sacrificing lower-end troops so Pit Lords could raise more and more Demons. There's a more detailed article on how to use this Inferno-specific strategy at our School of War. It's written by Charles Watkins.
6) On my first battle, I lost 118 Imps and only got back 3 Demons.
7) Split Imps in 2 or 3. It makes things easier.
8) Waiting Devils can kill 2 stacks of Sprites/Pixies in consecutive turns. Imps can be used as baits. You got to decide whether you want to get them all destroyed and raised as demons first or to simply use single Imps as baits. A squire can carry the extra Imps if you don't want to get them killed.
9) Casting Slow on the Sprites/Pixies is quite useful. You slow one stack then the other.
10) In other battles, I lost 86 Imps and gained 6 Demons. In another, I lost 11 Gogs but gained 4. In yet another, I lost 60 Imps and got back 6 Demons. The number of Demons gained did not seem stable. I wonder what it was based on. Fortunately, I found a partial answer at Cristoph Nahr's excellent Manual addenda available at http://pweb.de.uu.net/christoph.nahr
"Each Pit Lord can raise up to 50 hit points of Demons once per battle. As Demons have only 35 hit points each, it follows that a stack of n Pit Lords can raise up to n x 50/35 Demons, or roughly 1.4 n Demons ".
10) The above tells you how many Demons a stack of Pit Lords can potentially raise but it does not tell you how many Demons will be raised based on the stack that was killed. I'm pretty sure it's based on the total number of hit points of the stack vs their equivalent in demon hit points (which is 35). For example, you'd need at least 9 Imps (36 total hit points) or 3 Gogs (39 hit points), or 2 Hell Hounds (50 hit points) to raise one demon. In simpler terms, if you want to know how many Demons a stack of troops can wield, calculate the total hit points of the stack and divide by 35 rounding down. For a rough and quicker estimation, you might remember instead that 9 Imps are worth about a demon, 3 gogs are worth one, etc.
11) How come I only received 3 Demons when 118 Imps were lost ? It should have been 13 Demons that were raised right ? Well I don't remember the details but it's likely this happened because the Pit Lords were split in two and the Imps killed were also split in two. I considered all this a learning experience.
12) You cannot raise more Demons than you have Pit Lords.
13) White and Purple keymaster tents are northwest of Blackpool
14) Visit Observatory Tower in the southwest corner of the map but don't go too near Fiur, the Energy Elemental.
15) Alchemist Labs are a priority.
16) By trading extensively, I could have made the Forsaken Palace (Devils) on day 7 but decided not to.
Week 2
17) You just need to upgrade dwellings in one town out of 3. Much money saved.
18) Objective of this week is to flag more mines and build one Forsaken Palace.
19) Bought 2 Resource Silos early in the week
20) You can gain extra movement for Xeron by giving slower troops to a squire.
21) Don't forget to get the Castle in your main town.
Week 3
22) Hired 36 extra Pit Lords and 2 Devils
23) Split Pit Lords in 2 stacks of 21.
24) It's possible to beat Sprites/Pixies with only Cerberi and a few sacrificial baits such as Imps. Something to keep in mind if you want a second army later on.
Week 4
25) Bought lots of Imps, Devils and Efreets, as much as I could afford.
26) Went into the grass section to invade the Elementalist's territory. I did not enter near Fiur.
27) Against Elemental army, watch out for Sprites. Try to wait.
28) Do not forget the Library of Enligtenment (+2 to all stats)
29) Built second Forsaken Palace
30) Possible to take your first Conflux in week 4 but I didn't.
Month 2, week 1 (Week 5 overall)
31) Build Magic University to learn the missing magic schools.
32) The blue tent opens up a clearing of goodies in the northeast corner
33) The Shield of the Damned (one of the 3 items you need to win) is south of the southwestern Conflux beyond a purple barrier.
34) Took my second Conflux.
Month 2, week 2 (week 6 overall)
35) Attacked Fiur.
36) 2 Confluxes left to take.
37) Lost a town I had not garrisoned properly.
38) Bought all Imps, sacrificed them against a Swarm of Sprites. Also bought a bunch of Cerberi, Devils, Efreet Sultans. I did not hire extra Demons or Pit Fiends. You could make these purchases before tackling the last 2 towns if you wanted. You're likely to need some reinforcements before capturing the last town even if you did not need it for the next-to-last town. In any case, it's always safer to bring more troops than less.
39) The last Conflux is in the northwest corner.
Month 2, week 3 (week 7 overall)
40) For the last big battle, I had 41 Pit Lords, 41 Efreet Sultans, 119 Demons, 24 Devils and 205 Cerberi.
41) Cast Meteor Shower around the Efreet Sultans.
42) The Sword of Hellfire is in the northwest corner.
43) The Breastplate of Brimstone is a few days south of the northwest Conflux.
44) The 3 items you need are all behind purple border guards.
45) Xeron was level 12 and had the following skills: Advanced Leadership, Expert Tactics, Expert Offense, Advanced Logistics, Advanced Wisdom, Basic Air, Basic Earth and Basic Fire.
Armageddon's Blade 4: Maker of Sorrows
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy Notes: May 26, 2000
In yet another medium-sized scenario, you have to reach the Grand Forgesmith Kazandar so he can forge the Armageddon's Blade. On my first play I finished on month 3, week 4, day 2.
Starting Bonus: I took the 5 Pit Lords. The bonus is not particularly significant here.
Week 1
1) Flag everything before the green garrisons.
2) I have to build up FOUR Infernos... Arrgghhhh, what happened to the simpler, funner scenarios where you only had 1 starting town to deal with ? Why did I get the impression this would grow worse before it got better? I can deal with multiple towns much better than any AI, gives it even less of a chance to defeat me.
3) Check the skills of your starting heroes.
- Rashka has Expert Logistics and is an Efreet specialist. - Nymus (who is female believe it or not) is a Pit Fiend specialist. - Calid gives you 1 sulfur per day and is also expert at scouting.
4) Now came the more tedious part, checking out the 4 towns. I sure hope the town names are chosen, otherwise this will become confusing... ;-) The towns below are classified from top to bottom in the vertical town list:
Azrael
1) Birthing Pools
2) Hell Hole
3) ---
4) ---
5) Marketplace
6) Cages
7) ---
Vandal Hall (the one I had chosen as future Capitol)
1) Fire Lake
2) ---
3) ---
4) ---
5) Citadel
6) Castle
7) ---
Dagger Peak
1) Blacksmith
2) City Hall
3) ----
4) Hell Hole
5) Fire Lake
6) Cages
7) Birthing Pools
Scorch
1) Marketplace (because 2 high level dwellings built already)
2) Birthing Pools
3) Blacksmith
4) City Hall
5) Citadel
6) Kennels
7) Castle (had to trade gold for ore)
5) Structures that did not require rare resources to build were ok
6) Visit towns by Castle Gate for spells
7) Xeron had 30 Demons, 60 Gogs, 19 Imps and 10 Pit Fiends
8) Buy 4 extra heroes by the end of the week. Building structures should go first doh
9) Rashka can learn spells from Xeron
10) Do not bother with Demon accumulation trick here.
11) Trade Sulfur first
12) Wood is what you will need most followed by Ore
13) Let secondary heroes pick goodies in niches. Always keep Xeron moving and fighting.
14) Flag dwellings even if you don't hire any creatures in them.
15) Day 6: Even stealing your resources. - 4 Wood and Ore, - 2 of the rare resources
Week 2
16) Xeron was still in the north area
17) Objective: Get a second Forsaken Palace by the end of the week
18) Build City Halls, Resource Silos and Castles in towns that do not have them. Complete the exploration of your home territory.
19) No troops bought in towns
20) You could probably use XBuild City Halls, Resource Silos and Castles in towns that do not have them. Complete the exploration of your home territory.
19) No troops bought in towns
20) You could probably use Xeron with just a few quick troops and his spells.
21) I thought of summoning a boat at the south lake but there were NO boats. Never forget this little spell, you never know when it might come in handy.
22) Traded Crystal, Sulfur, Gems for Ore.
23) Managed the second Forsaken Palace at my Capitol
Week 3
24) Upgrade dwellings all in the same town because it's easier to handle.
25) Upgraded Forsaken Palace
26) Rashka gave troops to Xeron as well as items and war machines.
27) Prepare for an assault in week 4.
28) There's an external Forsaken Palace beyond a stack of Psychic Elementals. When you flag it, this will improve your devil production by 1 each week in each town.
29) An enemy elementalist might come through the gate. Use Town Portal to cut him off.
30) I was wondering if I was wasting gold upgrading Devils to Archdevils. The +6 speed increase is worth it but the added cost is prohibitive. It only gained 40 extra hit points also. In hindsight, I think players might do very well with simple Devils until they had more gold.
Week 4
31) Trade resources for gold
32) Tactic: Use Imps as bait, bring back as Demons.
33) Send Calid (the expert scout) through opening in cleared garrison (if any) with 3 split Efreet Sultans.
34) The hero cannot take troops from garrisons.
35) Used 15 Archdevils, Demons (not any bought this week), Imps and Pit Lords (41 is plenty) to defend. I also cleared the northernmost garrison with those troops.
Month 2, week 1 (Week 5 overall)
36) Xeron's army at this point comprised 22 Arch Devils, around 50 Pit Lords, 58 Demons and 595 Imp Familiars in 2 stacks.
37) Use squire trick with Xeron to maximize his movement but be wary of ambushes. Cast View Air.
38) 3 Efreets with Calid can take mines protected by Sprites...
39) Use View Air to locate where each enemy town is. Xeron still did not have expert skill in Air (although he had it in Earth magic) so I had to make educated guesses as to where they might be along with using scouts.
40) I had 2, then 3, scout heroes exploring around the Confluxes.
41) I took 2 Conflux towns during this week.
42) Do not build a Mage Guild of level 5 intentionally. Keeping towns will be hard enough and you don't want the Conflux heroes to get their hands on Dimension Door or Fly.
43) 300 familiars nets 32 Demons. About a 10 to 1 ratio
Month 2, week 2 (Week 6 overall)
44) Look for keymaster's tents and visit them
45) Formed an army for Rashka: 89 Efreet Sultans (split in two), 484 Magogs and 76 Cerberi.
46) From my experience, you can usually walk easily in front of towns.
47) All 3 Confluxes before "ground" bridges were taken.
Month 2, week 3 (week 7 overall)
48) Took 2 more Conflux towns
49) The last Conflux is well-hidden in the northwest corner. I had trouble finding it.
Month 3
50) You will have to explore the underground to finish your quest.
51) Trade most of your resources for gold. Buy practically all your high-level Inferno troops. I personally bought Cerberi, Efreet Sultans, Pit Lords and Arch Devils. I was pretty certain they would be more than enough.
52) Don't forget to visit the Dragon Utopia before going down. They're sure to welcome you with open claws.
53) Swarms of Elementals are 300 in numbers.
54) Against Storm Elementals, cast Lightning, it does double damage. Logically they should be immune to that but they're not.
55) Against the Energy Elementals, cast Icebolt although it might not be good enough.
56) Those 2 tunnels (the ones going roughly southeast) only lead to mines. You might as well skip them. The right tunnel is the northwest one.
57) Oh by the way, you did not really have to destroy the Conflux towns to win but isn't it more fun having done so anyway ? ;-)
58) The big battle against Inteus should be relatively easy. I'll let you deal with him in your own personal yet sadistic way :-)
59) The hut of the blacksmith you're looking for is behind Inteus. Give him 30,000 gold (further proof that wizards are corrupt if you ask me). He gives you the Sphere of Permanence then tells you to find his apprentice. How nice of him to make you waste your time even more.
60) You have to trek back through the tunnel back to the Subterranean gate and then go southwest from there. If you see lots of Phoenix then you're on the right path. Simply cast Mass Slow to win easily.
The maximum level Xeron can reach is 24. His 8 skills were at expert including the magic school of Air, Fire and Earth.
Armageddon's Blade: Return of the King
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy Notes: May 26, 2000
This is a scenario of medium-size where you shall play as Roland and General Kendall. On my first play, I finished on month 2, week 3, day 3.
Starting bonus: Start with the upgraded monastery. Often better to get the means to pump your own water than having a few flasks of water that shall run out and leave you dependant. Please excuse the sidetracking. 4th strategy in one day, I'm getting delirious ;-)
1) Roland is in the southwest corner, Kendall is in the northwest corner. Almost everything is already built in the towns.
2) Five starting towns to deal with... Oh joy... (sigh)
I'll spare you all the details but you want the City Halls as soon as possible in your three Castles along with Resource Silos. In the Conflux towns, you want the Castle structures, Altar of Thoughts and Pyres. Yes, it's possible to build all of those and more. If someone wants the detailed day by day building orders, just ask and you shall receive :-)
3) There's an Ore Pit just north of your northernmost town. Do yourself a favor and get it early unlike me who got it on day 7
4) Against wandering stacks, wait and cast Slow or Haste, your best low-level spell buddies.
5) Against shooters though, you want to shoot with your own shooters first.
6) Buy 2 heroes on day 2 (one in the center)
7) Buy a spellbook for Kendall! Easy to forget since he's higher-level.
8) The Cape of Velocity (excellent item btw) beyond the lots of Pit Lords is protected by an unseen Throng of Pixies.
9) Bought 2 more heroes on day 3. Buy 2 low-level fast units for each scout (1 might do if you're stuck for gold)
10) Exchange gold for ore as needed.
Week 2
11) Don't bother recruiting from external sites
12) Have Roland visit a Conflux and learn Earth, Air and Water magic.
13) Build Resource Silos in the Conflux towns.
14) Bought 10 Firebirds, combined armies on Roland (upgraded Griffins of Kendall & Monks of Roland first) and have him go through the lith.
15) My plan was delayed. Fiona came out of nowhere, more precisely the northeast garrison near my Conflux.
16) What to do ? I could not reach her in time, she would buy the accumulated creatures... Hired an hero, bought all the Birds and half the Psychic Elementals and hightailed it out of there. I would have brought more troops with me if I could have.
17) I used an hero chain from Roland to Kendall with whom I planned to defeat that meddling Fiona.
18) Fiona attacked Kendall first when he was waiting for the troops. Should have kept him farther away. Consider this a warning in your own adventures.
19) Your troops will all be faster than hers if you're lucky.
20) Kendall lost but crippled Fiona's army.
21) I knew from the Den of Thieves, she was tough.
22) Stables upgrade cavalry free of charge.
23) After Roland took back the lost Conflux, he went through the garrison to pay a visit of his own to the red side...
24) Shipyard can be bought at the second Conflux (the southern one).
Week 3
25) Roland was in infernal territory, he was attacked first near the second Inferno
26) In case you wondered, Roland's army was still mostly composed of his starting troops and Kendall's plus remaining Firebirds. If Kendall's was not caught unaware, you might have even more troops than I had. Split your Champions in 2 stacks of 30
27) Even though Roland was attacked first, meaning the enemy thought it could defeat me, I won anyway, simply losing most of my Marksmen in the process. Score one for the superiority of castle troops.
28) It was getting a little too hot and risky so I did bring castle troops as reinforcements to Roland.
29) I took the 3 Infernos in the northeast quadrant during this week.
30) Use Castle Gates to protect your new acquisitions
31) Practice with the double-hex breath of the Firebirds during battles. When there are 7 stacks on the field, the 3th to 5th stacks will be clumped together and vulnerable. Fire at stacks 4 and 5 from above or stacks 4 and 3 from below.
32) You can use War Machines also to avoid retaliations.
Week 4
33) Added Phoenix to Roland's army.
34) Enemy towns are roughly opposite those on the good side.
35) I was concerned about Roland not reaching level 24 because I was too quick.
Week 5
36) A few days into this week, the only town left to take was the one on the center island.
37) I only gave Phoenix to Roland to max out his movement. I since learned that beyond speed 11, you did not really get a bonus on the adventure map so you might as well bring other fast troops if you want.
38) A little bay, south of the second Conflux, containing 4 chests, has an hidden ambush with 20 Magic Elementals, 42 Storm Elementals and 50 Ice Elementals. That's 4150 experience points, perhaps enough to gain an extra level.
39) Roland was level 20 by the time I finished.
40) The trick to this map is to attack soon with your starting troops, be it by going through the garrison or by using the 2-way lith that will bring you in the center of the enemy's territory. Even if you have trouble and get repelled in your assault, you have the town production to eventually overpower red
Armageddon's Blade 6: A Blade in the Back
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy: May 26, 2000
This is a medium-sized map featuring Gelu which is supposedly of expert difficulty but in reality is not. I would evaluate it at hard difficulty at best. On my first play, I finished on month 2, week 3, day 3.
Starting Bonus: Does not really matter. I picked the Angel Feather Arrows which gave Gelu +15% Archery.
Week 1
1) Make sure to enter towns to get spells and spell books
2) You have 3 starting heroes: Gelu, Ciele and Erdamon.
3) For the building orders, start with Resource Silos, one in the Rampart and the other in the second Conflux. Build Garden of Lifes and upgrade the Magic Lantern in the first Conflux (one at the top of the list). The Rampart will be mostly ignored as far as builds go (I only built Dendroid Arches on day 7). In the Confluxes, try to get the Altar of Thoughts in both, the Pyre in one town and the Castle in the other by the end of the week.
4) Flag external dwellings but don't buy troops from them just yet.
5) Ciele is your best spellcaster, expert in Water and Fire, not to mention *the* Magic Arrow specialist.
6) Buy 2 heroes on day 2, go in directions the 3 main heroes don't.
7) Give a few Sprites to scouts.
8) I lost 8 Fire Elementals to an horde of Gogs for a minor item. Don't make the same mistake.
9) You could form a temporary army with only shooters for Gelu.
10) Have Erdamon go southeast by the dirt path after taking the Ore Pit. You'll soon realize it seems risky. Buy 2 heroes at the tavern by the road and make Erdamon come back.
11) Ore Pits are important to get early: One is and above and to the right of the Rampart. One is south of the southern Conflux.
12) In my game, I used hero chains to take Ore Pits with secondary heroes because my main heroes had gone the wrong way.
13) Upgraded my Grand Elves to Sharpshooters on day 4. I could have waited but I had plenty of gold.
14) Do not buy troops from towns in the first week.
15) Found 6 Ore in a small firecamp. It helped a lot! Probably compensated for the lost production of the ore pits.
16) The Golden Bow makes Grand Elves almost as good as Sharpshooters for a lesser cost. Since I had plenty of gold however, this was not an issue at the moment. You might decide to stick with Grand Elves with Gelu if you really really want to save gold and hire more troops in later weeks.
17) After one week, I had visited most of the green area.
Week 2
18) Build the last Resource Silo on day 1. This week, I wanted to get a second Pyre.
19) In the Rampart, upgrade the Dendroid Arches, upgrade the Enchanted Spring and build the Unicorn Glade.
20) In one of the Conflux towns, upgrade the Air and Water Altars. Build the Magic University.
21) Being the generous sort, I wanted to let Inferno troops grow a little so Gelu would have more experience.
22) Beyond the red border guard, there are lots of piles of resources and items. You should send a scout to pick them up. Notice the Orbs. Leave treasure chests for Gelu.
23) Have Gelu visit the Conflux where the Magic University is erected and have him learn his missing spheres of magic.
24) Gelu cannot learn Fire magic for some reason.
25) Remember where the sanctuaries are...
26) Checking the Den of Thieves, I noticed that red had more towns but a weaker army overall and very weak heroes compared to mine.
27) Decided to go for Phoenix instead of more Firebirds so I upgraded the existing Pyre instead of contructing a second one. Whatever you decide should be fine.
28) It's possible to clear an Imp Cache with a bunch of Sprites and a good spellcaster with Magic Arrow. Try it for yourself.
29) I split Gelu's sharpshooters in 3 stacks.
30) Gelu went beyond the red border guard and had around 90 Sharpshooters, 64 Ice Elementals (in hindsight, I could have left those behind but better safe than sorry) and 121 Sprites.
31) Weaknesses of AI I noticed, it will often let enemies (your heroes) pass in front of its towns unchallenged or it will flag mines instead of going straight for your town. This might be explained by the fact it might not know the area but it does like to flag mines even if the town is already visible. Perhaps it's because it prefers to wait until day 7 but then it gives you more time to buy troops and prepare.
Week 3
32) Brought 10 Phoenix to Gelu.
33) The first attacks in Volcano territory (Eofol) should occur.
34) Took center Inferno first but not before killing a big Inferno army outside. Target Gogs and Efreets first. Use Sprites as baits. Wait with Phoenix. High morale can inflict a lot more casualties especially on first rounds. Let enemy cast first or he might constantly Blind you. Mass Cure helps.
35) In that battle, I lost all Sprites and 25 Sharpshooters.
36) Construct another Pyre just in case.
37) Check out what new spells are available in towns.
Week 4
38) Red only has four towns in total.
39) Could have used secondary armies to finish faster but Gelu would not have gotten enough experience.
40) Use Town Portal to cut down on travel times (I forgot I had it for a while)
41) Buy all Sprites, Storm Elementals, Grand Elves, Silver Pegasi and Psychic Elementals and bring them to Ciele (from Conflux 1)
42) Ciele was protecting holdings from intruders.
43) Buy Ice Elementals and Sprites and give them to Gelu who should be going southwest.
44) One you get your 4th town, the balance of power is shifted.
45) It's possible to box in units with Force Field
46) There's a Cartographer south of the Center Inferno
47) This felt like a normal difficulty map...
Month 2, week 1 (week 5 overall)
48) Took a third Inferno. Actually left him a little more time to hire troops (more experience for Gelu)
49) Another weakness of the AI: it will not pass turns without attacking so arrow towers could do more damage next round. As an intelligent player, you should learn to defend (passing turns) as often as possible during castle sieges especially if your attacking stack would only scratch the enemy. If one unit survives the next round, you have another round of Arrow tower fire to inflict losses. To maximize arrow tower damage, you should also always keep 7 different stacks in your town even if 6 of them only have 1 unit :-)
50) When all the towns are taken, the AI knows where every town is and how they're defended. Keep this in mind because it will search for your most vulnerable closest spot.
51) You can sometimes block enemies' ways with expendable heroes so you have 1 more day to prepare. Each unecessary battle fought by the enemy drains movement and spell points.
52) Put heroes in hometowns, on the garrison row (that's the top one) so you can hire more than 8 heroes.
53) You have lots of Rampart troops in reserve if you want to take more time or if something goes wrong. Just make sure you don't lose Gelu.
54) Lost about 8060 experience points because enemy attacked a town while Gelu was away.
55) Gelu was 18 at the end, level 18 that is ;-)
Armageddon's Blade 7: To Kill a Hero
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy: May 26, 2000
On my first play, I finished on month 2, week 1, day 1.
Starting Bonus: Pick the Sword of Judgement (all four primary skills +5) unless you don't already have Town Portal (which is unlikely). The 5 Firebirds seem nice until you realize you can get them yourself fairly early.
Week 1
1) Visit the towns with the 3 heroes using Town Portal to gain extra spells.
2) About 200 Sharpshooters near Gelu will join for free
3) By casting View Air, you will see that there is a periphery of 4 Infernos (in pairs) with one other in the middle. We can all guess where Xeron might be.
4) Upgrade all troops within the first 2 days.
5) There's a choice here as to how to split the troops between the 3 heroes. After leaving the Castle-native troops in town, here are some options:
a) Keep starting troops with each hero
b) Fast army (Phoenix, Sprites, Magic Elementals) and a slow army
c) Put all troops on the same guy
d) Create an army immune to fire (Energy Elementals, Magic Elementals and Phoenix), i.e. immune to Armageddon also, and give the rest of the troops to another.
6) What I did:
Gelu: Left him the Sharpshooters and 2 Firebirds so he could go first in battles.
Catherine: 120 Energy Elementals, 19 Magic Elementals and 6 Phoenix (fire-immune army, relatively fast)
Roland: 39 Storm Elementals, 68 Magma Elementals, 36 Ice Elementals and Sprites (secondary shooter army)
7) There are piles of gold on the ground with 7500 gold in each, near the 2-way lith.
8) Hire an hero, send through the 2-way lith. You'll see it connects the southwest and northeast corner. I used a secondary hero because if the design had been the least bit devious, there could have been more than 2 liths connected like this and losing one of the 3 main heroes was unacceptable.
9) Use Mass Slow and Mass Haste extensively to minimize casualties.
10) Roland was a more versatile spellcaster than Catherine in my game but she seemed more suited for direct offensive than her husband (She had leadership, archery, logistics, diplomacy, offense and luck all at expert)
11) I considered splitting the Sprites between Roland and Catherine to act as baits but since she was going to be on the front lines, I decided to leave them all with her. This was a change to my original armies as presented in tip 6. Her army would not be immune to fire anymore but she'd be stronger and still pretty fast. I also preferred to have another flying stack instead of a big walker stack like the Magma Elementals. An alternative would be to leave the Sprites with Roland and give the Magma Elementals to Catherine.
12) Keep in mind no spells work on Magic Elementals, not even beneficial ones like Haste.
13) So we had Catherine acting as the main assault force from the southwest, Gelu in the northeast corner and Roland protecting the home territory. How appropriate, the Final Countdown by Europe is playing on the radio...we'd need a motivating uptempo music like that in Heroes whenever the situation seemed dire and hopeless, not necessarily rock but well you get the idea :-)
14) It's possible to change the mp3 musics to whatever you like if you didn't know already. You just need to change the names of the files to the default ones used in Heroes 3. The music playback in Heroes 3 sucks but at least you can customize the tracks to whatever you like ;-)
15) Keep track of enemy heroes almost every round with View Air.
16) Catherine went to take her first Inferno (ShadowDen)
17) Do not buy extra troops at the northeast town until the end of the week.
18) In battles, let the enemy come to you. Don't attack with Phoenix first, wait.
19) On the second round, pull back Phoenix if there are still too many troops on the enemy side.
20) Buy a City Hall at the Inferno then send a scout (or two) out in the bad, bad world.
21) Remember: Wood Elves to Sharpshooters...
22) Roland took second Inferno (northwest of the pair) called Tormentalis. It seemed safe enough to do.
23) Could have bought a Pyre by trading a little but didn't.
24) Could have also bought a Forsaken Palace in one of the two Infernos but why help out the demonic forces who might just stumble back upon their town ?
Week 2
25) At the garrison: Efreet Sultans can be dangerous if they get lucky. Berzerk might be good but the problem is that although you can cast it on them, they will not be affected (Efreets are immune to all spells of the Fire magic school remember) In any case, you have Gelu and he has Firebirds, you can slow the Efreet Sultans and shoot OR if you want to show off, you can always Implode them into little bits of molten lava.
26) Gelu was going south from the northeast town to conquer the 3rd Inferno. I don't remember why I did not make him attack in the first week. Perhaps because I was concerned about attacking too soon on 2 different fronts.
27) In the southeast corner of the map, there are 3 Relics beyond a purple border guard.
28) Roland took stuff in the northwest corner.
29) Be careful when you use Dimension Door, you might be caught unaware and you cannot lose Roland, Catherine or Gelu.
30) Bought my Pyre on day 7
31) Gelu protected the northeast corner, he went to get Phoenix and Magic Elementals with Town Portal.
Week 3
32) Take the last town to the northwest with Catherine. Prepare the assault on Xeron.
33) Don't forget the Library of Enlightenment west of the northeast Conflux. Have all your heroes visit before finishing.
34) Give all troops and good items to Gelu because he was the best hero in terms of secondary skills. In your game, this might be different.
35) There's an Orb preventing spellcasting in the northwest corner. That means no Armageddon for Xeron. Isn't that special, you went through all the trouble to get the Armageddon's Blade for him in previous scenarios and now it's basically useless ;-)
Week 4
36) It's the assault on Xeron
37) Trade resources for more gold
38) The final combat can either be without magic or against Xeron's Armageddon.
39) With Mass Slow, Xeron has a pretty wimpy army. Armageddon did 1320 damage to each of my stacks that was not immune to fire. Armageddon did not hurt Xeron's own troops because the blade itself conferred immunity to every creature under his command.
40) In this battle, blind a stack when 3 or 4 are left on the second round. Proceed to resurrect dead troops then kill the last stack. Sorry but resurrect doesn't work on Elementals since they're not actually alive.
41) I could have easily left the Storm and Ice Elementals at home. In the Xeron battle, they were basically the only losses: 88 Ice Elementals and 105 Storm elementals.
42) I was actually surprised to find out the Magma Elementals were immune to Armageddon! This makes the top 4 troops in the Conflux immune to Armageddon and fire-based spells! Fire/Energy Elementals, Magma Elementals (not sure about Earth), Magic Elementals (not Psychic) and Firebirds/Phoenix.
43) You might want to kill the remaining garrisons before finishing to gain more experience.
44) After finishing, I replayed the battle against Xeron without using the Ice and Storm Elementals. I still won and only lost 3 Phoenix.
At the end, Gelu was level 23, Roland was level 21 and Catherine was level 19
Armageddon's Blade 8: Oblivion's Edge
Map Type: HOMM3 Armageddon's Blade Campaign Map
Date of Strategy: May 29, 2000
On my first play, I finished on week 3 day 4 but if you finish as quickly, you'll miss out on several very cool timed events hinting at Gelu's fate. You might want to do the same with the previous scenario also, reloading your last savegame and skipping turns for a while, I think there were extra events there also.
1) The 3 heroes, Gelu, Roland and Catherine carry over with all the items they had at the end of the previous scenario.
2) Gelu can cast Armageddon with the Armageddon Blade equipped. It won't hurt his own troops.
3) Leave knight-troops in town.
4) There are free troops to gather in each town
5) Gelu has 140 Sharpshooters, 20 Psychic Elementals and 10 Magic Elementals in the towns near him in the northwest corner.
6) Try to buy at least a City Hall each day, the most you can afford until all are built, then focus on Resource Silos.
7) You also want to buy extra heroes with the spare gold until you are maxed out by mid-week.
8) Keep track of enemies with View Air
9) Important: in week 1, stay on the borders with your 3 main heroes. The biggest risk of losing is having one of your heroes ambushed.
10) Send scouts first to uncover terrain. That's wise advice on any unknown scenario.
11) I did not bother recruiting from external dwellings except perhaps Pyres and Treetop Towers (that give Sharpshooters)
12) Could have bought an extra Pyre on day 7, but we already had 4. Why be greedy ?
13) Dirt roads lead to the last town.
Week 2
14) Got killed on week 2, day 2 by going in a clearing I should not have.
15) Try to hire Sharpshooters from Treetop Towers every week.
16) Don't go for the Library of Enlightenment on the west side, that's where I got ambushed.
17) Gelu can Town portal between towns to get troops.
18) Gelu can Fly or Dimension Door to the last town avoiding a lot of opposition if you so desire.
19) Remember that Armageddon's Blade makes you immune to Armageddon.
20) One-way lith exits are *very* dangerous. Don't let Roland and Catherine near them, at least not too long.
21) Start by buying Firebirds, Phoenix and Magic Elementals.
22) Trade resources for more gold
23) As a little bit of trivia, that mysterious Tamar character looks a bit like myself, the Quebec Dragon, in blue elfin form, at least physical-description wise. I do think I have a much more charming personality though ;-)
24) Enemies seem to have a limited patrol radius. I sure won't complain.
Week 3
25) Buy troops, prepare for the final assault.
26) Decided not to bring Halflings, they would slow me down too much.
27) Army of Gelu: 91 Sharpshooters, 70 Phoenix, 91 Magic Elementals, 789 Sprites and 90 Sharpshooters.
28) It's possible to catch Xeron outside the town (isn't that guy supposed to be dead already?). I could have avoided him easily but decided to defeat him once more for good old time's sake. Never let it be said I'm not a sentimental fellow... :-)
29) I lost 76 Sharpshooters, 709 Sprites (ouch), 5 Phoenix and 4 Magic Elementals against him. Wondered if I should have split the Sprites but I don't think it would have made much difference.
30) I rearranged troops after Xeron.
31) You cannot cast magic in the garrison.
32) For the final battle, I split off the remaining Sprites and planned on using them as lures. The Phoenix took care of the Archdevils. The Sharpshooters shot the Magogs.
And there we had it, Armageddon prevented due to your heroic efforts.
I finished the campaign in 318 days for 1600 points and a rating of Scorpicore.
Basically, these walkthroughs are not mine. I found them on the net and thought, that if you need them I can copy them here. So I copied. Here, use this if you want.
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LordZXZX
Famous Hero
Overfished
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posted March 28, 2004 01:30 AM |
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Nice post. Unfortunately, I've gotten half blind after straining my eyes for too long.
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KingofMinota...
Known Hero
Ruling the minotaurs below
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posted March 30, 2004 07:56 PM |
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Holy cow man! That is waaayyy to much to read. Can you ever make a shorter thread? Im just like Lord, my eyes are breaking
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Be who you will be who you are but i'm the King of the Minotaur.
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Dingo
Responsible
Legendary Hero
God of Dark SPAM
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posted March 31, 2004 05:39 AM |
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Quote:
Holy cow man! That is waaayyy to much to read. Can you ever make a shorter thread? Im just like Lord, my eyes are breaking
Your not supposed to read this thread! It's only intended for people that are having trouble. They come to HC, find walkthough, and actually read it.
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The Above Post/Thread/Idea Is CopyRighted by, The Dingo Corp.
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KingofMinota...
Known Hero
Ruling the minotaurs below
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posted March 31, 2004 06:48 AM |
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well here's a walkthrough good enough no matter what scenario you are playing and it is shorter too. Read what you have to do, and do it
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Be who you will be who you are but i'm the King of the Minotaur.
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regnus_khan
Responsible
Supreme Hero
[ Peacekeeper of Equilibris ]
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posted April 04, 2004 10:43 AM |
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Hmmm... have you tried them?
I used them to play the campaigns, but it wasn't easy to follow these hints, since I'm not a native english speaker and sometimes mistaken the words.
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KingofMinota...
Known Hero
Ruling the minotaurs below
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posted April 06, 2004 06:31 PM |
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Yes I have done all of the campaigns just by reading them and doing what they say. I am an english speaker so it's all relative to me. But I don't understand how ppl gte QP's for cut & paste work. I bet once I try I won't get any. People have been getting QP's just because of a certain opinion on how to beat a scenario. I thought QP's were for maybe a certain successful strategy you use, or helping some1 with problems that actually gives info. Not cut & paste stuff I can find myself.
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Be who you will be who you are but i'm the King of the Minotaur.
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regnus_khan
Responsible
Supreme Hero
[ Peacekeeper of Equilibris ]
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posted April 06, 2004 06:52 PM |
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This was the last cut I made from h3trio
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Ram
Tavern Dweller
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posted April 07, 2004 01:52 PM |
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Thanx for those walkthroughs, just what I was looking for!
Currently playing Blood of the Dragon Father.
Luckily I built up mageguilds in previous map so I got Town Portal and Dimension Door. No more tedious chaining and easy to avoid Ordwald. (Or am I not a true hero now?)
And I also had the chance to hire a 12th level hero (in my case Ajit) so I guess that's not a mistake.
Why not hiring as you can take him with you to the next map and give all the chances to level up to Mutare (and Alamar)?
Anyway, I came to this board to ask if anybody has, or knows where to find, walkthroughs for AB:
Festival of Live
Playing with Fire
Foolhardy Waywardness
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
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IRh
Famous Hero
Lizard
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posted April 08, 2004 09:01 PM |
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Heh... In that last Mutare campaign the main is SPEED! Your tactics is BLITZCRIEG. Hmmm... The error in that walkthru: You MUST defeat that 7lvl stack to the left of your first castle 1st day - 2 Crystal Dragons can do it (may be, unless there's ABehemoths) - and you'll be given a choice of units via an event.
I'd prefer to have two main heroes for blitzkrieg - Mutare with CD's and 2nd one with the rest. Or may be it'd be useful to have three - is 1 Crystal powerful enough to counter enemies? I dunno, considering replaying this map.
MMM, CDs rule, except that battle with Mighty Gorgons... I was feeling myself so tough that forgot about smth... 
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