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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted November 22, 2006 11:23 PM |
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INFERNO HEROIC SCORE RUSH
TOTAL NUMBER OF DAYS: 41
TOTAL SCORE: 194190
As I already said, the campaign didn't prove too difficult (but it did surprise me when I entered mission 3), but it offers MUCH more space to make choices than the first, especialy regarding skill choices. So here goes…
MISSION 1
DAY 1
WEEK 2
First, my ultimate goal in this campaign: I wanted by all costs to get Summoning Magic and byso the Fire Elemental spell coupled with decent Spell Power. I believe this not to be neccessary, but I simply wanted it (however, I realised later in mission 3 that it is not possible, in my opinion at least, to finish that mission in 5 days without the Elementals – theoriticaly, the only other option I can think of, but probably not too realistic, is to learn Meteor Shower on mission 1 and try with that). But, on the other hand, I believe there are so many ways you can build Agrael that it's beautiful! Anyway, as for Summoning Magic, it proved to be extremely difficult to acquire - you need to get Adv Log, Exp Log and Summoning/Enlightment or Luck (for which you have 2% chance) in exactly that order so that you have some space to bum pup your hero (I actualy got Adv Log, Bas Summ, Exp Log, in that order but was still able to reach the level cap). My skill selection was at the end Expert Logistics (Pathfinding), Basic Gating, Expert Summoning (Master of Conjuration, Fire Warriors), Basic Luck, stats 7/2/2/3. I was unable, unfortunately, to pick up +1 Attack/Knowledge objects - didn't have time for it. Also, I entered the final exit with my last movement tile.
MISSION 2
DAY 5
WEEK 1
Again, a very easy mission – the reason is simple: at first, I tried real hard to win the final fight thinking of all that experience I would get, however, as a sign of incredible stupidity, even if you win you get nothing – zero, nada, nula. So I played again and concentrated on getting experience, spell power, and good skills. So, I now have Basic War Machines, Ballista, Consume Corpse, stats 7/2/4/5. Not taking Enlightment is a real pain, but I simply had no choice. I tried mission 3, and the last fight with Gilraen simply cannot be won in reasonable chances – there are too many things that have to fit in, and I simply cannot afford to play the game for the next ten years. The skill is a total waste for the last two missions, but, then again, they are easier.
MISSION 3
DAY 5
WEEK 1
The first harder mission, but it depends how you play it. If you just make Agrael tour the map and take towns one by one, it's a actualy almost easy. However (naturaly), there is another faster way to play this, but also much much MUCH harder (and because of how I am, this was the way I played it). It involves making a secondary hero capable of taking the western castle at the same time when Agrael assaults Gilraen in eastern castle. This is very hard because of lack of troops – there are three possible joins at the beginning: two level 1 random stacks guarding mines (naturaly, you need to get Familiars), and a Cerberi stack (very hard, almoust imossible to join without Diplomacy), however (another however) the space to play this mission is so limited that it is maddening, and you cannot hope for any join except MAYBE the stack that guards the Ore mine. By exploring I found out that the fastest way to finish this is day 5, but only if these conditions are fulfilled:
1) You have very little room to manuveur Agrael. You can afford cca two «stops» during your path to the eastern town. Also, after you pass the Cerberi you have to go straight north through the grass, not follow the road because it is faster. On your way there is 2xMana Fountain and this is likely that one stop…
2) … the other idealy should be the first random level 1 stack guarding the ore mine, where you really want Familiars (or Imps) to join you. Then you can continue towards the town and take it Day 2 and give all your troops except one stack (horned demons are the best to leave imo because you really need all else to beat the Magi) to…
3) … Grok. ****Unrelated: I have no idea how the game determines who the 3rd hero in the Tavern will be. It seems that the position of your heroes on the map somehow is a factor, but how it is calculated I don't know, if someone knows please post here****.
There is another, much easier option: instead of Grok you can take Deleb, and get Ballista ability before the fight with the Earth Elementals. Deleb then takes care of her side easily, but you cannot finish on day 5 but on 6, because Grok is much faster than her.
4) The first fight with Gilraen isn't hard. There is a way to make it almoust unharmed, but the essence to that is following: Agrael MUST act as soon as possible, so if possible before the Hunters, Druids and Gilraen. You can choose how you want to enter the fight: with all troops (that way you can get the full loadout from your secondary), or with 7 imps i.e. (that way you need your secondary by your side so you can return all the troops to Agrael after the fight, and you have no time to take the Imp dwelling with secondary, so minus 16 imps). It is important to act first because 25 Fire Elementals are a much more attractive target than one imp, and the AI targets them mostly.
5) The same principle applies to final fight as well – you won't have a lot of troops because you will need to give them to Grok.
6) The same principle applies to Grok's fight with Magi – you really want to Teleport (not Assault alas) something (Pit Fiends) before they get to act. This is a very difficult fight, and if you can somehow get them not to fight, it would be superb (dunno if it's possible though). Also, the number varies a lot – there is a HUGE difference wether you get 30 or 45 Magi.
7) Grok's siege is also quite difficult – you need to take out 20 Hunters asap and the War Dancers are also a menace. The best way to do it is Hellfire + multiple Succubi stacks + acting first. However, you must get Hellfire AFTER the fight with Elementals, otherwise you'll end up with 0 mana in endfight. The Elementals fight is also very hard, you need to manuveur very cleverly with Hell Hounds, or try with Pixies (but, low morale is a pain). You cannot allow yourself to lose to much before the Elementals because you will get more stacks of them, and if you get 4 you're as good as dead (3 is managable). Superb would be to somehow get the hero out of the town and take the town when it's lightly guarded (that's how I did it  .
8) You need good Agrael development, so you are more capable to fight 9 Emeralds. With my 5 SP and 25 Fire Elementals it is insufficient. Also, there is no way you can pull this off without a good terrain formation, because the Elementals will simply wipe out your Demons before you can kill them. However, there is a terrain formation that allows no loses, and that is what I got.
9) Again a fight with Gilraen, and again you want to act as quickly as possible, extremely difficult, perhaps impossible with fodder only and no ballista.
Even if I have forgotten something you can see why this is an incredibly difficult mission, and it proved to be by far the most difficult mission so far. Anyway, this is how I did it, step by step:
Day 1¸
Took Pit Fiends as bonus – there can be no question of this, since you cannot Teleport the Overseers within town's walls without Expert Light which makes them useless. Nightmares are also not such a good choice in my perspective.
Agrael fought Gilraen, lost nothing, Deleb immidiately gave him all troops. I didn't want to wait for Grok to appear as 3rd hero, he was immidiately in the Tavern.
Day 2
Agrael took Obelisk, conquered Sylvan town, got Adv Luck, gave Grok all troops except 19 Horned Overseers. Grok took Obelisk, got Hellfire, fought Treants, lost nothing..
Day 3
Infernal Loom. Agrael fought Unicorns, lost 4 Demons. Grok fought Magi, lost 50 Familiars, 2 Hell, 3 Succubi, 1 Pit Fiend, Advanced Logistics.
Day 4
Grok fought 60 Earth Elementals, lost nothing (I deployed Hell Hounds only, morale (how can Elementals get morale???) is a great threat, the battle lasted >20 minutes). Agrael visited 2xMana Fountain, battled 60 Vampire Lords, lost 2 Demons, fought Emeralds, lost nothing, got Scouting (also, I couldn't consume Emeralds, if someone knows why please write here).
Day 5
Agrael fought Gilraen, very difficult, won with 2 Demons left, stats are 7/2/5/6. Grok conquered the town when there were only Sprites guarding it (YES!). Endmission.
MISSION 4
DAY 1
WEEK 2
This, and the fifth mission are much easier, so in short this is how I did it: I went immidiately northwest towards the underground entrance, then towards the Spectrals, defeated the Spectrals, went trough the garrison, took Cerberi as join, conquered Sylvan town. My stats are 9/2/6/6, I have Navigation, Expert Luck, Advanced Attack.
MISSION 5
DAY 6
WEEK 3
I am convinced that I played the first four maps perfectly and that they cannot be made faster. The fifth, however, is a bit more complicated. I don't know did I do it the best possible way, but in short I did the following: First, landed north and uncovered the map, sailed right, defeated the Dancers, uncovered as much as possible (Scouting!), went underground north and left, uncovered the map on the NW island, entered the boat, sailed to the island were the Emeralds are, beated them (12), bought the map, I couldn't land on Tieru's island because it was in the fog, so I landed on the island just west and uncovered the spot, and then sailed to Tieru, defeated 12 Emeralds again, campaign over. Agrael is level 19, his stats are 9/2/7/6, skills Basic Gating (Consume Corpse), Advanced Attack (Battle Frenzy), Expert Summoning (Master of Conjuration, Fire Warriors), Expert Luck, Expert Logistics (Pathfinding, Navigation, Scouting), Basic War Machines (Ballista).
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted November 25, 2006 11:40 AM |
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I am on thje last mission of Necro campaign, and I know that I will do it in three days, but I wont be at my pc till tuesday so you could in the meanwhile post your walkthrough, until I am able to write and post mine. Dont worry, it will reveal me nothing  Just a word of caution: do not post any info on stats, skills etc. for ANY hero, because I will replay the campaign anyway after I finish Dungeon and Sylvan one, by that time, hopefuly, Ill figure out how to develop my Godric and Markal for the big showdown.
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted November 29, 2006 12:00 AM |
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Once again, wow! I didn't think the inferno campaign could be done any quicker but you proved me wrong again. I'll post soon, probably on Thursday. I'm extremely busy right now.
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted November 29, 2006 12:49 AM |
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Flattering, but your time is still "normal best", realisticaly the best possible. Imo I was extremely lucky on 3rd mission (terrain formation with Emeralds, no hero to guard western town...), if I wanted to repeat it (God forbid!) there is no telling how long would it took me to succeed.
Anway, so is the difference between us only the 3rd mission or is there some glitch on the 5th as well? If we played the 5th the same than I believe that my time cannot be beaten without the movement weeks.
But you said that you have Necropolis already written? So you probably have Inferno as well? No matter, post when it suits you, I wrote my Necropolis walkthrough but now I am not sure wether it's meaningful to post it, since I'll replay the campaign anyway. I guess I could post my times without info of hero development, but that would still be stupid... So, what say you that we do not post anything until I am ready? I plan to finish Dungeon and Sylvan than tackle with Necro.
Oh, and how about you tell me how much did you lose vs the Pit Lords? I am telling you my strategies (if they can be so callesd )
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rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted December 04, 2006 12:19 PM |
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Blink, are you still with us on this blue pebble?
I didn't have time the last four days, I am still figuering out my skill selection (very hard to figure out!) for Raelag. So far I have three certain skills, and I am having thougths on the last slot.
In one way I really love Raelag because of his tremendous special, on the other his starting skills are crap
p.s. Your Shadya was insanely developed on your last run, you really spent ohoho time on the second mission... As a proof that you were right about posting strategies before all finish  .
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 04, 2006 03:20 PM |
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Yup, I'm still here. I'll post my Inferno walkthrough soon. I'm just lazy. It's hard to get up the motivation to keep reopening save files to write down what I did each day but I'll get around to it eventually. I figure it's no real rush because I don't have anything outstanding to contribute to that campaign since you did it faster than me, but yeah, I promise I will get to it in time.
As for Dungeon, I've restarted it twice now because I've been unhappy with the skills I've chosen for Raelag. At this rate I'm assuming you'll beat it before me so if you do, just say you beat it and don't post your time until I'm done with it too.
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted December 05, 2006 11:41 AM |
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Still, I am very interested. Sure, it's nice to play this way just for fun, but communication with you is a big factor that still makes me going So I'm always interested. And you still haven't answered the Pit Lord question
Aaa, you think that I'll do Dungeon before you I am also on my third restart LOL!
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted December 08, 2006 04:46 PM |
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I finished Dungeon and I'll post it after you post yours, but I can't do it before tuesday, because I won't be close to a computer.
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 12, 2006 06:50 AM |
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I'm sorry I still haven't posted my Inferno walkthrough and I'm only on level 2 of Dungeon but don't worry, I'm still playing through and haven't lost any interest. I'm just in the middle of law school exams right now so I'm pretty much working every waking minute. In fact, I wasted 20 seconds I don't have writing this response. I know I keep saying this, but I'll post my walkthrough soon. I'll be done with exams in a little over a week, and then I'll really try to get my walkthrough out the day after exams end.
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rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted December 12, 2006 01:29 PM |
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No worr, I study also but my exams are yet to come. Whenever you catch some time, no matter, I am behind you anyway because of Necropolis.
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 18, 2006 11:47 PM |
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Inferno Campaign in 45 days (Score: 165, 982):
Mission 1: Finished on Week 2, Day 1
Finished stats: Level 8; 7, 0, 2, 3; selected expert logistics (pathfinding and swift gating) and expert gating (hellfire).
I got the boots and got basic logistics from the witch hut and then my next two levels were advanced and expert logistics, which were necessary. I then went south, attacking the unicorns to get to the stables and then continued south and east past the earth elementals and footmen or squires. I took out the skeleton archers and got the +1 knowledge from the adventure object and continued east and then south. From there on there’s no real choice of where to go. I also finished the mission using my last movement tile. I tried going east right from the start (instead of going after the unicorns but I still finished on week 2, day 1 (albeit with about half my movement points left), so I figured I’d take the slightly longer route that gave more experience and had the +1 knowledge booster.
Mission 2: Finished on Week 1, Day 5
Finished stats: Level 11; 8, 0, 5, 3; added basic summoning (master of conjuration) and navigation
Okay, nothing exciting here. You just run for the finish line as fast as you can. I also did not bother trying to defeat the inferno hero at the end since you get nothing for doing so. The only thing I had to do was restart a few times to make sure I got basic summoning and that my next two skill choices weren’t total wastes. I didn’t spend very long on this mission.
Misison 3: Finished on Week 2, Day 2
Finished stats: Level 16; 10, 0, 6, 7; added expert summoning (fire warriors), consume corpse, and mark of the damned
Day 1: Built a tavern in the inferno town and recruited Nebiros (and recruited him all the imps in the town). Agrael attacks the garrison (losing only 2 familiars ) and levels up (picked consume corpse). He then took advanced summoning from the witch’s hut and grabbed 1000 experience from the treasure chest, then continued south. Nebiros chases after Agrael as best he can.
Day 2: Agrael took out the stack of blade dancers just south of the treasure chest, leveling up (fire warriors, the absolute necessity of this campaign) and then continued along the path, going north when he had the opportunity. Nebiros takes out the Sylvan castle and I recruited Lethos from it and sent him after Agrael.
Day 3: Agrael continues north, takes out the magi. Lethos continues chasing after him and Nebiros just spends the rest of the mission running around getting treasure.
Day 4: Agrael takes out the earth elementals (I briefly tried to take out the stack of emerald dragons but assumed this was impossible; guess I should have kept trying) and went after the northwest Sylvan town. Lethos continues to chase Agrael.
Day 5: Agrael takes the northwest Sylvan town but doesn’t have enough movement points to enter it. I built a mage guild level 1 there. I now realize that Lethos will have no real point in this mission so I just send him off after random treasure.
Day 6: Built a mage guild level 2 (got wasp swarm and ice bolt which were both of moderate help in the campaign but certainly not necessary). Agrael enters the town to learn the spells and then kills the wraiths and grabs the +1 knowledge booster from the adventure object. He continues along the road.
Day 7 and 8: Agrael continues along the road toward the northeastern Sylvan castle, picking up the +1 attack booster adventure object on the way. Recruited Grok from the Northwestern Sylvan town for no particular reason and had him get some treasure.
Day 9: Attacked Gilraen (he was in the final castle) and finished the mission with just a few movement points left (and just a few troops too). This was an enormously annoying fight, as you said.
Mission 4: Finished on Week 2, Day 1
Finished Stats: Level 19; 12, 0, 6, 8; added basic defense (evasion) and excruciating strike (I chose these skills because I figured it doesn’t really matter what I get at this point)
Much like level 2, nothing exciting here. I just charged for the underground (picking up the 34 elder druids on the way and then once underground, raced to the shadow dragons, killed them, and continued north until I popped up on the surface again. From there I ran for the Sylvan town, stopping only to pick up the cerberus stack. The final fight was very easy.
Mission 5: Finished on Week 3, Day 6
Finished Stats: Same as previous mission; I was 330 experience points away from a level up
As far as I can tell I did the same thing as you in this mission with a few tiny exceptions. I did not have scouting so I had to hit the watchtower on the island you land on where you first enter the underground because otherwise not enough of the sea would be exposed for me to sail through the area north of there a little later. While this was probably an extra 10 steps I had to waste, it didn’t end of changing the number of days I completed the mission in because I’m assuming the next time I entered a boat, I did it with almost no movement points left and you probably had a lot. Also, at the very end when I landed on the island just northeast of Tieru’s island (you said you landed on the island just to the west to uncover Tieru’s island but you must have meant just to the northeast because the western one is too far away to uncover the shore to Tieru’s island, even with scouting), I went underground and ran through there, popping up on Tieru’s island. I know you just got back in the ship and went to Tieru’s island that way but I guess both routes turned out to take the same amount of time because I also finished the mission on the same day as you (with just 3 cerberus left!).
So in the end we did all the missions in the same amount of time except you destroyed me on Mission 3, finishing it 4 days faster.
Sorry, that took so long for me to post. If you have any questions, let me know. I'm still in exam period so I haven't gotten any farther in the Dungeon campaign but I'll be done with exams soon.
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Arabia_vn
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 19, 2006 02:45 PM |
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Beautiful , very beautiful , i dont think it can be done any better . Dont know that such an interesting topic exists . Compare to ur run , my playing sucks  . Even if in mission 4 i did it in 9 days and i thought that it was the best but now i realize that i was wrong ( i went through 2 gates , dont know that killing those shadow dragons is allowed , stupid me ). I'll join ur race on Sylvan campaign even i dont think im good enough . By the way ur run does really make me excited , i've learnt alot from that , thank you .
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rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted December 19, 2006 06:37 PM |
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Mission 1:
I admire you for being able to take that +1 Knowledge. I only briefly tried it and concluded wrongly that it's not possible. Stupid. I hit the level cap here and presumed it's good enough.
Mission 3:
As I said, I had really TOO much spare time when I played this. I would NEVER try to do it again, considering the enormous difficulty. So, your time is incredible in total as well. Or, the other way, if I played this entirely on my own, with no conversation whatsoever, I would never make it in this time I did.
Mission 5:
Yes, I had plenty time to enter boat, but I really did not think that it's possible to remove the fog without scouting. I guess I calculated here wrongly (again), but it didn't make too much of a difference, as you said, skills after mission 3 are largely irreleveant.
You are right ofcourse, I landed on island NE not W.
Honestly, it didn't even cross my mind to go underground to Tieru. I just reasoned without thinkingit out. I could have well deproved my time here. The Emeralds were pretty hard too, but still much easier than on mission 3 because there are no other conditions that need to be fulfilled here, just kill them, so it's all about the terrain mostly.
Because of your exams I decided that I'll finish Necro first and then go on Sylvan so we can level. So, I'll try to finish it by the time you finish Dungeon so we can discuss both.
I guess we did the campaign perfectly  I don't think that it can be done faster without movement weeks (which are so rare that it's ridicilous. Anyone knows the chances for specific week appearences?). This most certainly will not be the case with the rest of the campaigns
Arabia_VN I'm really glad someone joined us! Stick around, I also think this is hell of an interesting topic lol. Just wait with your thoughts on the so far unfinished campaigns so we can all post together.
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Arabia_vn
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 20, 2006 01:51 PM |
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Doing first Sylvan mission right now and i find a bug , lol . I guarded the gate and then the demon attacked and of course she lost and i could not finish the mission , damn . That means we have to wait till the gate is attacked and defetated , so can not save 1 day by guarding it  .
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted December 21, 2006 01:24 AM |
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Quote:
NECROPOLIS HEROIC SCORE RUSH
DAYS: 46
SCORE: 166614
A so sickly difficult campaign… Especialy because it's all about the first two missions which are the pinnacle of how hard the game can be. Also, making this «perfect» is imo next to impossible, but I do think that my time is close to perfect.
MISSION 1
DAY 2
WEEK 2
Extremely difficult – actualy, to me at least the most difficult mission of the campaign. I cannot believe that this was easy to you Blink (on your first run).
I played it twice: first time I didn't get Skeleton Archers and Necromancy. Didn't stand a chance in endfight. The second time I did the following:
I took the Armor as bonus, went straight right, Stables, then north, Skeleton Archers join and +1 Attack, north again, fought Golems (Logistics), stopped just where the patrol doesn't see me, Minotaurs (Adv Log), Boots, Djinns, down the road, Ice Bolt (deviation from a perfect path, but there is space for this), Vampires (8), Magi. The last fight was so damn hard with my first attempt that I actualy took the Vampires north of here – it was still almoust impossible, but PLUS it was a week with -20% initiative to Necropolis so I guess that MIGHT had been a factor .
This (second) time I didn't take the Vampires and still managed BARELY: so, Rakshas (Exp Log – getting Exp Log in first three level ups is maddening and you MUST get it), again Rakshas, Skeleton Archers, Archmagi, underground, Minotaurs, Assassins, Blood Maidens, +1 Defense, Hydras, Matriarchs, Minotaurs, mana well, underground exit, Archers, final fight with last movement barely.
I was level 7 before endfight and had Expert Logistics, Skeleton Archers, Advanced Necromancy, Navigation. For the last level ups I got Expert Necromancy, Dark Magic and Pathfinding. I was VERY lucky that I got Skeleton Archers 4th level and Necromancy 5th level - it helped me a lot.
Still very hard, however, the terrain formation in endfight was really bad, plain with no obstacles, so that didn't help either. I did it in my 6th attempt .
Markal level 10
Expert Logistics (Pathfinding, Navigation), Expert Necromancy, Basic Dark Magic. Ofcourse, it was possible for me to take Luck or Battle Frenzy and own the endfight, but the point is that you really do not want fight Markal with Luck later in the game (Battle Frenzy isn't a problem of that sort, but you can't afford to take Attack). You have to make him good – but still not very good . I have a precise plan how to develop him at this point, but that is a explanation for the future.
My stats are 3/4/8/3. 3 to knowledge was just enough and Ice Bolt really helped. The whole goal here is to get as much to SP as possible, but I couldn't control that on this mission because I had so many other conditions to achieve.
MISSION 2
DAY 7
WEEK 2
Also quite difficult, but managable. Godric was joined by 70 Archers. Day 1 both entered the Boat. With the help of little maneuvering, Godric disembarked north Day 3, and Markal east Day 4 (fastest possible). Godric was again joined by 65 Archers. He cleared the area, 30 Death Knights joined him. What follows, I built every possible day (resources weren't too much of a problem) and finished the mission Day 7 Week 2, I don't think that it's possible to do it faster.
Markal (16) now has Basic Summoning, Advanced Enlightment (Scholar), Expert Dark Magic, 3/6/14/6.
MISSION 3
DAY 4
WEEK 2
If it wasn't for Al-Safir this would be a joke… especialy compared to the first two. In short, Markal entered boat east Day 1. He departed on N continent in two days. There he picked up necro stacks, and took Boots of Swift Journey behind the Bone Dragons . He then first conquered S town, W town, and headed for Al-Safir. This fight is more difficult than life but I had to do it, although it isn't really required for this campaign. If I was ever to repeat this I would make Isabel a worthwile hero with some magic: I believe she would be better taking the Al-Safir then Markal, with proper skill support ofcourse.
Also, I had a -20% initiative to Academy week 2 It helped. A lot.
Markal level 24:
Expert Summoning (Master of Conjuration), Expert Enlightment (Intelligence, Lord of the Undead), Master of Curses, Mark of the Necromancer.
5/9/21/10.
MISSION 4
DAY 7
WEEK 2
Some serious fighting here, but still, an easy mission¸ but enjoyable. There is only one way to follow, but there is one catch: at the beginning there is a Major artifact guarded by Archers, and it can turn out to be any Major, so you can get Boots of Journey or Boots that neglect penalty. Because I have Pathfinding it can be shown that Boots of Swift Journey are more efficient, so I took them.
Markal level 27
Expert Leadership (Estates) (yes, I am screwing him up , I most certainly won't give him Master of Mind).
6/10/25/10
MISSION 5
DAY 3
WEEK 1
Not much to say here. Easy. Stats unchanged.
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 21, 2006 09:20 AM |
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Necromancer Campaign in 44 Days!
Score: 254, 473
Mission 1: Finished on Week 2, Day 2; Chose “Suffering” Starting Bonus
Finished Stats: Level 10; 1, 4, 9, 4; selected expert logistics (navigation), basic dark magic (master of curses), basic enlightenment, and advanced necromancy (skeleton archers).
Markal runs east and hits the stables and then goes north. He skips the +1 attack structure but goes out of his way to get the boots, which are obviously necessary. I also went out of the way to get the +1000 experience structure because it leveled me up, powering up logistics, so the wasted movement was made up for in that manner. I continued along the route toward the end of the mission (there’s no real choice of where to go) picking up the stack of vampires and getting ice bolt. The only other troops I picked up for the rest of the mission were the stack of skeleton archers just before the underground and the other stack of skeleton archers that you get just after coming out of the underground. I had one extra movement tile to spare when I beat the mission. I also found the final battle to be pretty hard but I honestly thought the fight with Gilraen was harder.
Mission 2: Finished on Week 2, Day 7; Chose “2 Liches” Starting Bonus
Finished Stats: Level 17: 2, 4, 14, 7; added eternal servitude, expert dark magic (mark of the necromancer), pathfinding and death march, and scholar.
My Godric (without giving his build order away) did not have navigation and only had basic logistics. Anyway, he entered the southern boat and Markal entered the northern boat on Day 1. Markal landed on the eastern shore and Godric landed on the northern shore, both on Day 4 because they had to dodge annoying enemy boats that are impossible to defeat at this point, otherwise I think Markal might have been able to land on Day 3, but I’m not sure. In any case, Godric ran for the death knights since they always join (I waited until Week 2, Day 1 to pick them up since they grow from 30 to 33 at the start of the new week). Markal ran for Lorekeep and built every day, so unless it’s possible to land on the shore on Day 3, I think we both did this mission as fast as possible. Many of the fights in this mission were pretty hard and you need some luck with the archmagi stack. If it’s split in 4 groups, you have no chance. I beat it when it had 2 stacks with quite a heavy casualty load but I had enough troops to take Lorekeep and that’s really all that matters since the death knights are the main force for the final battle. Mark of the Necromancer was gained in this level which is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. No archers joined me in this mission but the nice stack of liches on the north island did (they’re programmed to always join).
Mission 3: Finished on Week 1, Day 7; Chose “Curse of the Netherworld” Starting Bonus
Finished stats: Level 24; 4, 9, 22, 8; added expert enlightenment, expert sorcery (arcane training), and master of pain
Day 1: Recruited Lucretia and moved her just one step south of the Necromancer castle. Isabel picks up the stack of 75 footmen, then goes east, killing the next group of footmen; she continues east picking up the campfire (6 sulfur, 600 gold) and goes east until she runs out of movement points. Then she casts Town Portal and warps to the Necromancer’s castle. Lucretia turns around and picks up the 83 footmen from Isabel. Lucretia then runs south, taking out the 57 Steel Golems (lost 21 footmen and 2 skeletons). She moves east until she is one step away from the Djinns. Then Markal runs south down the path, leveling up at the Sylanna’s Tree or whatever it’s called for 2000 gold (selected Basic Sorcery). Markal then attacks the Djinns, losing 2 skeleton archers (but 22 are raised after the fight (21 from necromancy and 1 from eternal whatever-it’s-called). Markal then runs to the shore, picking up the Liches (got 23 of the stack of 27). Lucretia goes to the shipyard and recruits a boat and picks up the stack of wood (4 wood) sitting there. I was unlucky; if that pile had been at least 5 wood, I could have built a blacksmith in the Haven town and given it to Isabel because she’d still have exactly enough movement points to move into the town to pick it up, and I have the spare gold. Markal enters the boat. Built a town hall in the necromancer’s town. End of turn, everyone used exactly all of their movement points.
Day 2: Lucretia runs to Markal and transfers him all her undead troops except her zombies. Markal moves north in the sea, picking up the flotsam (5 wood) right near him and the flotsam nearest north of that (10 wood and 500 gold). You don’t need this much wood, you only need a total of 10 from the pile next to the shipyard and these 2 flotsam piles but I’ll take the extra and be happy. Markal continues north until he’s out of movement points. Lucretia then recruits another boat, picks up the two gold piles near her, and moves slightly off the road. Isabel buys a first aid tent, runs south, leveling up at the Tree and getting her remaining footmen back from Lucretia (Lucretia is the one who uses her movement points for this), and then enters the boat that Lucretia recruited for her.
Day 3: Lucretia runs west to pick up the exposed treasures on the starting island. I won’t mention her anymore since she spends the next few days doing this and then buys a boat on the western side of the island and spends the rest of the mission just picking up treasure in the sea. Markal moves north and lands on the shore of the main island. Isabel begins moving north in the sea.
Day 4: Markal moves north, picking up the ghosts (stack of 42 out of 49 ghosts joined) and then killed Rakshajas, leveling up (selected Master of Pain, that’s right I’m not getting Master of Mind in this campaign because I have no opportunity to learn Confusion and Mass Decay and Curse of the Netherworld can actually be put to great use in a speed run). Then I go northwest to pick up the bone dragons (stack of 25 out of 28 joined) and then picked up the BOOTS OF THE SWIFT JOURNEY. This was the only pain in the ass part of the mission. I had to restart a few times before this artifact was the boots and the first two times the boots DID show up, there were only enough dragons, that by the time they joined and the penalty for not having reached level 25 yet (and therefore being able to recruit 100% of an undead stack) was evaluated, I could only recruit 19 dragons. Markal then spends the rest of his movement points getting as close to the enemy castle as possible. Isabel lands on the shore of main island.
Day 5: Markal runs along the road until he’s just passed the academy castle. Isabel runs up to meet him, takes his troops, and uses them to capture the academy castle. She then gives the troops back to Markal and he continues north, hitting the oasis, killing the djinns, hitting the oasis again, hitting the stables, killing the earth elementals and stopping when he runs out of movement points (4 spaces north of the lucky fountain). Isabel gets a ballista from the academy, and heads north after Markal, hitting the oasis and stables. Recruited Raven from the academy and had her (him?) run North, hitting the oasis and stables. Raven got just a little farther north than Isabel but not as far as Markal. I ended my turn and then Narxes comes through the teleporter and attacks Markal. This is a LONG LONG LONG fight, and you only get about 30,000 experience and 250 or so skeleton archers. Oh well, leveled up twice (chose advanced enlightenment and advanced sorcery).
Day 6: Markal runs north, hits the oasis, hits the +1 attack structure, continues north, takes out the djinns for no particular reason, then takes out the first enemy garrison. Markal levels up (chose arcane training). He continues along the road for about 7 more steps and then stops, even though he has more movement points left. Raven runs north, stopping when she’s at the intersection where the road splits north or goes west. Recruited Naadir and had her run as far north as she could, hitting the oasis and stables. Isabel ran west, hitting the tattered flag, taking out the air elementals, hitting the tattered flag again, and then continuing west.
Day 7: Isabel ran west and took out Havez. This was actually a pretty annoying fight because he had his war machines and puppet master, frenzy, summon phoenix, and summon elemental (air) and he actually used them pretty intelligently. I only had 64 footmen and 8 archers (plus my ballista and first aid tent). Then ran north, hit the tattered flag and took the castle, getting the undead cloak of something-or-other. She ran back toward Raven, hitting the tattered flag along the way. When she had run as far as she could, Naadir ran to meet her, picked up the cloak, and then ran and handed the cloak off to Raven. Raven took the cloak and ran and handed it to Markal. Markal, ran and took out the second (level up, chose expert enlightenment) and third garrison, and then followed Cyrus through the teleporter finishing this crazy mission.
By the way, why did you attack Al Safir? It’s not part of the mission objectives and there’s no reason to do it unless you want the spells in the mage guild. Its garrison was almost completely empty for me because Narxes had already attacked me with all the troops that had been garrisoned there but I couldn’t spare the movement points to go after it.
Mission 4: Finished Week 3, Day 3; Chose “Puppet Master “ Starting Bonus (Obviously)
Finished Stats: Level 28; 4, 11, 25, 10; added expert necromancy, lord of the undead, dark revelation, and magic insight
Nothing exciting here. You just run to the end as fast as you can. Unfortunately for me I didn’t know that boots could appear in this mission so I lost some days there.
Mission 5: Finished Week 1, Day 2! Chose “1 Bone Dragon” Starting Bonus
No Leveling or skills added
Day 1: Isabel recruits all the haven troops available except the archers and heads east taking out the 2 monster stacks along the cobblestone road. She continues running east until she’s out of movement points. Markal runs to meet her and learns TOWN PORTAL from her! He runs as close to the haven town as he can and then portals to it. I built a stables there so Markal gets a few extra movement points even after he uses the portal. He uses those points to go get Freyda and continue east. Isabel teleports to the necromancer town. I built a shrine of the netherworld in the necromancer town and converted all of Isabel’s level 1-5 troops into undead. I then recruited Irina and had her take all those troops (plus recruiting any undead I could afford) and had her run back toward the haven castle.
Day 2: Markal continues along the path, taking out the angels and getting the angel wings. Isabel recruits the rest of the undead that she can afford and runs them to Irina. Irina meets up with Markal and gives him all the undead troops. Markal then flies to the final battle with Godric, which wasn’t all that easy, but certainly wasn’t as hard as many of the other battles in this campaign. Finished with 1 or 2 movement points left.
So If I had known about the boots, this campaign could have been finished in 41 days. Oh well. By the way, are you sure you finished the campaign in 45 days? The total you have listed actually adds up to 46. Let me know if you have any questions.
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted December 21, 2006 09:22 AM |
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Also, I just noticed that even though we were only 1 or 2 days apart, our scores are almost 100,000 apart!!! I really wonder how the scoring works...
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted December 21, 2006 06:50 PM |
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Congratulations Blink! Hat's down. Here are my thoughts:
mission 1
Oh yes, the fight with Gilraen was harder, much, especialy for me that had a few dozen Demons only , but I don't know, this was very hard for me. Maybe you're just fighting better? Or that Master of Curses helped? Heck, I don't know.
mission 2
I am pretty certain that it's impossible for Markal to disembark day 3. I didn't wait for the week for the Death Knights, I found that 30 were more than enough for endfight. Without them, it's hardly possible to win the endfight in this time. Uh, you beat the Archmagi with starting troops only? I'm impressed. I knew that the archers are a good option for join, especialy with Godric, so I wanted to get them to make my life easier.
mission 3
You crushed me here(smiley for bowing ). But I do have an excuse We played the first part pretty similiarly on the first island, but I never used Isabel in this mission. Why? Because of my false reasoning. When I tested this map I tried taking the western town with Isabel and the other two with Markal pretty much the way you did. However, because of my stupid error, I thought this to be impossible. I did not get objective completed confirmation so I falsly concluded that Markal has to take out all three towns (I didn' even remember to look into my inventory so maybe to figure out that I just need to transfer the artifact to Markal ). I also lost one day picking up a bit more of Necro stacks so that I can take Al-Safir. I don't know about the garrison; it was heavily guarded in my case, and yes, I attacked it because I wanted spells, but I can't tell you why, yet  The difference in score between us is really tremendous and I really have no clue why. Mission 3 is very big so it should award a lot of points, but 80000?! That is pretty strange. But you deserved it, brilliant play, I don't think it can be beaten.
mission 4
lol this saved my honor I guess I could call it stupid mistake, but mine was much dumber if you ask me...
mission 5
I would have never thought of this. Isabel with TP, because of this you earned your score here. My impressedness (I am not native english) here by far exceeds my impressedness on mission 3 (lol this sounds loony).
True, my total is 46 not 45 days. I pressed the wrong type and I simply copied the score on page 1 of the topic. You can see that I was quoting instead of posting, I guess I was disoriented while doing it. I guess I'm lucky that you didn't find the boots in mission 4, it would become humiliating then (joking ). Then, maybe I wished you found it anyway because that may well have been the perfect score.
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Arabia_VN it isn't a bug. The whole point is that you have to beat the Inferno hero AFTER he enters your land, and if you are guarding the entrance he obviously never does I do wonder one thing though: what happens if the Inferno hero stops 1 tile before the garrison and you attack it there (that you can do without losing the mission). Logicaly the mission would not end because he didn't pass through, but I don't know, I wouldn't be surprised to see another bug there. But enough of this talk, it has to wait till we finish sylvan.
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Arabia_vn
Tavern Dweller
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posted December 21, 2006 08:14 PM |
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Guess so . But plz dont do it too fast cause i cannot play on Saturday and Sunday , other days i dont have much time either , so we can post together . Right now im still stuck on mission 2 , havent found any methods to build up dragon cliff on week 2 yet and still thinking of it . You know , in order to get a perfect result , it may take a lot of time , so when you finish , just wait for me for a while .
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted December 21, 2006 08:38 PM |
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Blink still has to finish Dungeon so don't consider yourself pressed. I will wait with Sylvan if we finish before you.
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