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phinex
Adventuring Hero
for sylvan
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posted March 16, 2007 06:32 AM |
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Well done.
But I have a problem,I remember my score is about 240000,and I finish it at least 100 days.
Are the days aren't the most important factor to determine the score?
How about your heroes's stat.
And I think rainclar must post your score now.
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted March 17, 2007 06:24 PM |
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32 days, score 143236. I am eager to hear your walkthrough.
phinex: beats me, maybe the missions' scores somehow added together? btw, days are the ONLY factor that determines the score.
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phinex
Adventuring Hero
for sylvan
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posted March 18, 2007 05:51 AM |
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Quote:
btw, days are the ONLY factor that determines the score.
I don't think so.Heroes' stat is a factor I guess.
I had used console to finish the campaign at 1 days,the score is about 100000,lower than yours.
Maybe I should ask sfidanza the formula of the score.
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted March 18, 2007 02:36 PM |
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I stated miscorrectly, difficulty and days, as far as i know, are the only factors. Number of towns conquered surely isn't, I tested that.
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 19, 2007 01:41 AM |
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I had to do a lot of cutting and pasting from my different playthroughs to put together this walkthrough, so if there's some obvious mistake in it that makes no sense (like I suddenly refrence a hero I recruited in one playthrough, but who didn't show up in my next one, let me know and I'll fix it). Here it is:
Academy Campaign in 31 Days!
Score: 153,175
Mission 1: Finished Week 1, Day 5 (4 days); Chose “5 djinns” Starting bonus
Finished Stats: Level 10: 1, 3, 5, 7; Basic Artificer, Expert Summoning (Master of Conjuration and Banish), Basic War Machines (Ballista), and Expert Logistics (Pathfinding)
This mission was kind of annoying just because it took so long for the computer to decide to offer me logistics, and the first 2 times it did, the rest of my level ups kept offering me the dumbest skills possible so it took a few restarts. Anyway, it’s also important that the treasure chests have a lot of experience in them since you need to get to level 10 to finish the mission. Level building must be very fast here. I gained basic logistics on level 3, pathfinding on level 4, advanced logistics on level 7, and expert on level 10. While obviously gaining them on levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 would allow you to move faster, I don’t think this will allow you to finish the mission a full day faster than how I did it. It’ll probably just give you enough movement points to stop at both planetariums, which could be useful, but it’s definitely not worth the amount of restarting it would take to get that offering.
Day 1: Killed the imps right near me and grabbed the treasure chest (all chests in this level should be taken for experience because there’s only enough time to spend 2000 gold anyway (to build a mage guild level 1 when you capture the necromancer’s town). Then I headed north.
Day 2: Killed the familiars and took the chest, went east, killed the zombies, hit the rally flag, and continued north, stopping just southwest of the stack of ghosts.
Day 3: Killed the ghosts, hit the planetarium (+1 spell power) and then killed the skeleton archers guarding the magic well (but don’t use the well or you won’t have enough movement points to finish this mission on time unless you were lucky enough to build up your logistics faster than me). Then continued south, took out the stack of skeletons, grabbed the chest, and continued south.
Day 4: Broke through the garrison and continued south toward the necromancer’s castle.
Day 5: Attacked the stack of zombies just to the southeast of the necromancer castle, grabbed the treasure chest, and then attacked the castle, which was guarded by Deirdre. She had 28 skeleton archers, 5 vampires, 16 plague zombies, 26 zombies, 43 skeletons, and 10 ghosts. I lost 30 master gremlins and 1 djinn. I entered the castle, built a mage guild level 1 (learned stone spikes, slow, and fist of wrath). I then attacked the stack of skeletons to the west of the castle and picked up the treasure chest, giving me just enough experience to finish the level. I had one movement point left.
Mission 2: Finished Week 2, Day 5 (11 days); Chose “Breastplate of Eldritch Might” Starting bonus
Finished Stats: Level 19: 5, 5, 11, 13; added Expert Sorcery (Arcane Training), Expert Enlightenment, Navigation, and Magic Mirror
This is a mission that might be able to be completed a day or two faster if you can figure out how to capture the 2 necropolises without Zehir, allowing him to run right for Al Safir. Still, this would make you miss the boots but I think the artifact guarded by the level 7 stack just beyond the first garrison can also be a set of boots, so this should allow for somewhere between 1-3 days of time saved. Still, I think it's impossible to get a strong enough secondary hero that quickly to take out the two castles. Maybe you can lure the enemy heroes out and do something that way but I didn't bother trying this.
Day 1: Built tavern and recruited Nur. Recruited all troops and a ballista and takes all of Zehir’s troops except 3 gremlins. Nur takes out the zombies guarding the sawmill and ore pit (but doesn’t waste movement points flagging them), then takes out the stack of skeleton archers guarding the stack of gold. Zehir starts running north and when he passes by Nur, she gives him the ballista. Zehir continues north, taking out the liches that are just off the path and then taking out the skeletons blocking the way toward the teleporter. He then continues on toward the teleporter. Nur follows.
Day 2: Nur defeats the demons guarding the sulfur mine (again not wasting time flagging it) and then runs to Zehir, giving him all the troops except 7 gremlins and 5 gargoyles. Zehir defeats the garrison and runs through the teleporter. It took quite a bit of manipulation (entering and exiting various town screens seems to change the random seed number that the teleporter uses) but eventually I was able to get the teleporter to take me where I wanted without wasting any movement points doing the re-entering thing until it takes you to the right one. So Zehir comes out at the western teleport exist (not the northwestern-most one) and starts running toward the western necropolis. He runs out of movement points 1 tile south of the tattered flag in the desert. Nur runs toward the teleporter.
Day 3: Nur goes through the teleporter, coming out in the east. She runs west, picking up a stack of 200 gold and runs toward the pit lords. Recruited Jhora from starting town. Her only purpose, at least for awhile, is to flag mines and pick up treasure so I won’t mention her again until she does something important. Before taking the northwest castle, Zehir attacks the stack of 30 cavaliers (10 of which were paladins) just to the southeast of the castle (lost 2 gremlins) and picks up the boots of the swift journey sitting behind them. Then he attacks the castle, which is guarded by Zoltan (lost 11 stone gargoyles). Zehir then enters the Necropolis, builds a mage guild level 2 (needed to learn wasp swarm) and starts running south again.
Day 4: Nur’s weakass (she’s level 3 at this point) attacks the 16 pit lords. Holy crap, this was a…well it was a lot harder than I expected. I fought with 7 gremlins and 5 gargoyles and came out with 1 gargoyle…after many attempts. This was kind of ridiculous. Anyway, Nur then picks up the Dragon Teeth Necklace (+3 spellpower and +10% initiative to all casters), SKIPS the Sextant of the Sea elves, and starts running northwest. Even though I need that sextant, she’s skipping it because if she doesn’t, she won’t be able to make it to the oasis on the next turn, in which case she’ll be way too far behind Zehir to give him either of these artifacts. Jhora will come by and pick up the sextant shortly. Zehir then runs toward the first undead garrison, stopping off at a tattered flag and the oasis.
Day 5: Nur hits the oasis, and runs out of movement points 1 step behind Zehir. Zehir turns around to take the Necklace from her and then attacks the first garrison and continues along the path toward Al Safir, taking out the 10 angels, half of which were archangels, along the way. He ends his turn very close to the well just south of the next garrison.
Day 6: Nur follows Zehir as best she can. Jhora picks up the Sextant of the Sea elves and then suicides herself on the stack of blade dancers just to the south. She retreats from this battle and I will re-recruit her at my starting castle next turn. Zehir attacks Al Safir (lost 9 djinns, 28 gremlins, 20 steel golems, and 7 gargoyles). Zehir has 17 mana left. Zehir enters the castle, upgrades his troops (and learns summon phoenix and instant travel  ). He buys troops till I’m out of money, then starts running toward the teleporter to the east.
Day 7: Re-recruited Jhora at the starting castle and had her run off to the east so she can meet up with Zehir next turn and give him the Sextant of the Sea Elves. Nur continues running toward Al-Safir. Zehir runs toward the one-way teleporter, defeating the 27 unicorns guarding the gold mine, and the emerald dragons on the way. He also picks up 3 chests (experience) and a stack of gems that are in the way of the teleporter. He doesn’t pick up the armor of the forgotten hero because he won’t have enough movement points to enter a boat at the end of day 9 if he does. When he goes through the teleporter, he defeats the vampires and pit fiends and then moves one more step southwest before running out of movement points.
Day 8: Jhora runs to Zehir and gives him the Sextant, she then runs a little north and holds position there. Zehir runs south taking out the archdevils, and continuing toward the shipyard at the south end of the continent. Nur enters Al Safir and waits there. Built a marketplace in starting town, traded all resources that I won’t be using for gold. Recruited Nathir from starting town and had him pick up a few more resources near the town.
Day 9: Zehir runs south, hitting the rally flag, defeating the blood maidens, hitting the flag again, then defeating the spectral dragons, buying a boat at the shipyard, and boarding it with the final movement point. Nur buys all the troops she can afford at Al Safir and runs toward the one-way teleporter. Nathir runs a little north of the starting town and positions himself there.
Day 10: Zehir sails south and lands on the southern continent (the first time I beat this mission, I didn’t have a sextant and I didn’t learn navigation; the next time I learned navigation, but this time I was able to avoid getting navigation because I got the sextant and navigation will have no use for the rest of the campaign…or so I thought! I was incredibly pissed off to learn that getting the sextant was a complete waste of time because it allows Zehir to sail just far enough to finish his turn 1 tile away from the shore, so I had to have him learn navigation anyway). Nur runs through the teleporter to Jhora, stopping to pick up the Armor of the Forgotten Hero, and passes all her troops and artifacts to Jhora. Recruited Razzak, built a gremlin manufactory at the starting town, recruited and upgraded all troops, and bought a first aid tent and ammo cart. Jhora runs toward the starting caslte. Razzak takes all her troops and artifacts and runs and gives them to Nathir, who sets off after the Necropolis in the middle of the map.
Day 11: Zehir teleports over the swarm of cavaliers (!) and attacks the Haven town. Built a citadel in the Haven town and stayed there. At end of turn, Rutger attacked (30 vampire lords, 20 wights, 67 ghosts, 115 skeleton archers, 45 zombies and 35 plague zombies).
Day 12: Zehir runs east and attacks Lorekeep with the last of his movement points. Even with my tiny army this was a relatively easy fight. Rutger was the hard one. Then Nathir attacked the final necropolis, guarded by Narxes (way to go with the logic, Nival, way to go…) who had 83 skeleton archers, 5 wraiths, 59 plague zombies, 31 vampire lords, 24 gremlins, 8 gargoyles, and 41 specters. This fight was incredibly difficult. Even with my fairly large army I had some trouble here. I had no level 6 or 7 creatures because I wasn’t able to afford them when Nur was at Al Safir. Anyway, once this fight was done, so was the mission.
Mission 3: Finished Week 2, Day 5 (11 days); Chose “4 rakshasa rani” Starting bonus
Finished Stats: Level 22: 5, 5, 15, 15; added Expert War Machines and Counterspell
Days 1-3: Zehir races toward the castle that’s south of where he starts. He beats the garrison on the first day (lost 1 gremlin), hits the stables on Day 2, and takes the castle on Day 3 (lost 2 gremlins). Built a tavern and recruited Grok (it took an insane number of restarts before Grok was offered; I would have taken Rutger too but he was never offered either). Bought him the 3 war machines and had him give all 3 to Zehir. He then bought another ballista for himself (now I’m out of gold and the computer said I wasn’t allowed to recruit another hero in this mission anyway; I would have recruited the other hero instead of rebuying the ballista if I had been allowed). I hate this crap. Why are you never allowed to recruit more than 1 hero on maps where the computer gives you another hero as part of the mission? Freakin’ bugs…Anyway, Zehir then runs east and Grok hits the stables and then runs toward the underground.
Day 4: Grok continues running toward Godric’s prison. The only stop off he’s going to make is to pick up the first treasure chest in the underground because it’ll level him up, allowing him to learn advanced logistics. I won’t mention him again till he gets to Godric. Zehir breaks through the eastern garrison (no losses) and picks up the 67 conscripts on the other side. It’s a sad day when getting 67 conscripts basically doubles your army’s strength. He then continues toward the northeastern castle.
Day 5: Zehir takes the northeastern castle (lost 1 conscript) and then runs south, going for the Haven castle that’s in the middle of the map.
Day 6: Zehir continues toward the middle castle, stopping off at the tattered flag.
Day 7: Zehir takes the central castle (no losses) and runs back toward the south, stopping off at the tattered flag again.
Day 8: Zehir runs toward the redwood tower (thing that clears a large circle of fog of war) in the south.
Day 9: Grok frees Godric and gives him a ballista. Godric just runs around leveling up and getting power ups for the rest of the mission. Zehir defeats the inquisitors guarding the redwood tower and then hits the tower, which uncovers Findan. Findan then runs back to Zehir, gives him 10 ancient treants and 3 anceint druids, and takes the rakshasas, the conscripts, and the gargoyles, and continues west, toward the last Haven castle.
Day 10: Zehir runs to the heavily guarded garrison and ends his turn almost out of movement points but can’t attack it yet because I haven’t conquered all the Haven towns yet. Findan runs toward the last Haven town.
Day 11: Findan takes the final Haven town, buys all the war machines, and then runs back toward the town in the center of the map. He continues this run on day 12 and teleports when out of movement points and then puts some ancient treants in the garrison for Godric to summon. Godric meanwhile has been running toward a well that’s underground. On Day 12, he summons 10 ancient treants, 15 silver unicorns, and 15 elder druids and then refills his magic at the well. Zehir attacks the undead garrison and then continues toward Markal, stopping off at the planetarium and getting as much experience as possible while still being able to reach Markal by the end of the next day.
Day 12: Zehir gets as much experience as he can this turn, then attacks Markal, triggering the 3 part fight that ends the mission. Zehir’s fight wasn’t too hard. I just summoned a phoenix, 54 elementals, and went crazy laying fire traps. Godric’s fight was kind of a pain. After figuring out the number of troops he needed to win his fight, I needed to figure out a pattern of how to cast magic immunity at the right time on the right creatures so that none of my stacks would fall under Markal’s puppet master. He’d still get a chance to cast it, but I had it timed so that I would be able to get in an anit-magic spell before that unit would act. It was also important to get retaliation strike on my ancient treants very early and to maneuver my creatures appropriately to get the treants to the stack of archliches as quickly as possible. This was fairly difficult because of all the troops Markal keeps summoning every 2 seconds. Findan’s battle was actually not all that hard; it was just a pain because it took about 30 minutes to get through the previous 2 fights so it was frustrating to lose a couple times in this fight. At first I thought the key would be to imbue my ballista with fireballs and just go crazy. This plan failed miserably because I ran out of mana so fast. Instead, I relied on 4 key elements to win this fight: mass deflect missile, my stack of 109 conscripts, resurrection, and the fact that the idiotic AI stays in its castle as long as it has a strong enough ranged army and my army is sufficiently weak. At the start of the fight, most of my units are killed very quickly by Markal (who only uses physical attacks for some reason in this fight), the liches, the skeletons, and his ballista. Meanwhile, I cast mass deflect missile to give my troops a little more time and let my ballista take out 3-4 archliches per turn. Findan also can take out a couple archliches each turn. Once I got him down to 4 archliches, I spend out turn having the ballista shoot the skeleton archers, and one turn having it kill Markal’s ballista. At this point, if I take another shot at his liches or his skeletons, he’ll send his troops out of the castle and completely annihilate me so I ignore the shooters and have my ballista take out his low level creatures and Findan take out the high level creatures. The only stack I’m worrying about at this point is my stack of conscripts. When they’re in danger of being killed off, I resurrect them, and when deflect missile expires, I recast it. I had almost exactly what was necessary to get through this fight. I won the battle with 23 conscripts and 0 mana.
Mission 4: Finished Week 1, Day 6 (5 days); Chose “6 treants” starting bonus (none of the bonuses are helpful anyway)
Finished Stats: Level 23: 5, 6, 15, 16; added catapult (because it’s kind of helpful in the next mission, and because it doesn’t really matter at this point)
I feel like this mission could have maybe been done faster if I had taught Zehir scholar and had him learn town portal from Findan on the previous mission. This is because there’s a set of boots of the swift journey that Zehir can reach on Day 2, and then he could teleport to the necropolis that’s slightly northeast of where Findan starts (Findan would have to attack and take the castle for this) and then give Findan the boots. Still, I’m not all that sure that this would allow Findan to reach Raelag a full day earlier. I was able to get him the boots by Day 3 and it looks like even if he had gotten them on Day 2, he still might have been a couple tiles short. I’m really just not sure. The final fight with Raelag against Isabel wasn’t a piece of cake, but it’s hardly worth mentioning compared to some of the fights we’ve been through earlier in this campaign and in the previous ones.
Mission 5: Finished Week 1, Day 1 (0 days ); Chose “6 titans” starting bonus
Finished Stats: just gained one level and learned march of the golems. It doesn’t matter at this point because Zehir knows Banish so he’s all powerful in this mission
All the fights here were easy. Findan’s final fight was a little bit tricky, but nothing really all that hard. I just find it kind of funny that you can beat a mission in what the computer considers zero days.
I think I did the 1st and 3rd missions as fast as possible, I'm not so sure about the 2nd and 4th, and obviously the fifth can't be completed faster than 0 days.
I'm looking forward to your walkthrough too. Wondering if we did things completely differently again.
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted March 19, 2007 03:57 PM |
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I will state my questions and comments regarding your walkthrough in red blink 
ACADEMY HEROIC SCORE RUSH
DAYS: 32
SCORE: 143236
If it wasn't for mission 3 this would actualy be a fairly easy campaign. Zehir is an ultimate hero: developed properly his Phoenix is a moving nuke, and, what is very important, he doesn't have a wasted skill like every other campaign hero (aside the race skill which is useless for most of them anyway). His special is also great, personaly I like Raelag's more but his is more useful in situations with low troops, and byso a big help in mission 1 and 2. This time I think I played every but perhaps the 4th mission to the maximum of my ability.
MISSION 1
WEEK 1
DAY 5
An easy mission, you just have to fight carefuly, even when I took Fire Trap as bonus (this is better because you can't rely to get it on the start of mission 2 with all those other requirements in that mission and you really need the spell. Ofcourse, you could get it Necro Mage Guild, but it didn't show up for me in this run). There is plenty of time to get stat boosters on the map. I agree, making this Day 4 isn't possible.
Advanced Summoning (Banish), Basic Enlightment, Advanced Dark, Expert Logistics (Pathfinding)
1/1/12/7
Stats are brilliant, skills also. As in Necro mission 1 you need to expert Logistics as soon as possible to be able to hit the level cap and take the Necro town in 5 days.
MISSION 2
WEEK 2
DAY 5
We played this TOTALY differently. I forgot about the Boots here.
A rather peculiar, but not insanely hard mission, at least to me. The point here is to rush on Al-Safir immidiately. The battle there is somewhat difficult, but one little spell called Fire Trap helps tremendously and ensures a pretty smooth victory. Now, the breaking point of the scenario and something very strange: I saw two types of Al-Safir – one was with Mage Guild 5, and one without ANY Mage Guild.
Maybe I can now think of a reason, it crossed my mind recently: this is something I have noticed back on Inferno 1 and several other missions. If you quicksave BEFORE the Mission Objectives flash on the top of your screen and then quickload strange things happen in some missions. Some of them cannot be finished i.e (Sylvan 1). On mission 1 Inferno you are unable to learn Logistics from the Hut i.e. I haven't tested Academy 2, but this might be the cause for the «problem» with Al-Safir Guild. If this is so I just want to clearify that I never intended to cheat (I consider this an unfair bug which I would never use if I thought of it when I played this mission back then), but now it is simply too late. The blame is still on the developers, and not on myself. As far as it goes I played fair.
Naturaly, you must get the former, but also, because of my Zehir's build, it was an imperative to get Frenzy, Puppet Master and Phoenix. Experting Summoning and Dark by the time I reach Al-Safir isn't hard. Navigation is required to make that one day faster time. Much greater problem than Al-Safir proved to be the western and eastern Necropolis, especialy the latter. Since you can't build the Tavern in Al-Safir you need to buy two preferably good secondaries at the starting town at day 2 LATEST. Then, you combine the week and a half army of Al-Safir with them (money is tight, but you can pick up some chests meanwhile), and send them each to their town. Both fights are extremely hard, you need to figure out exactly how to distribute troops and have decent spells, but it is possible. As for Zehir, when he gets the Phoenix he is pretty much unstoppable. After I conquered Al-Safir I headed SE and through the Teleport, than down to the boat. I sailed south and now Dark Magic excells, because it allowed me to kill all the Cavaliers without loss. This is maybe possible with Phoenix and Wasp Swarm alone if you get a good terrain formation, but the chances for that are realy slim, and there is a big purpose for Dark in the next mission anyway (and later).
Zehir level 20. I was able to reach the level cap. What probably helped is the +20% exp armor I found that was guarded by Archdevils on the main continent.
Expert Summoning, Expert Enlightment (Intelligence), Expert Dark (Master of Mind), Navigation, Advanced Luck (Resistance).
3/7/20/10
MISSION 3
WEEK 2
DAY 5
Now comes the time to reveal my Godric build, and my entire reasoning:
Mission 5 of Haven campaign Godric finished as level 14 with the following stats:
4/8/5/5
Advanced Counterstrike (Benediction), Expert Leadership (Diplomacy, Recruitment), Expert Light Magic (Master of Abjuration, Wrath), Expert Dark Magic (Master of Curses, Mind)
Haste, Divine Strength, Slow, Fist of Wrath, Endurance, Vulnerability, Wasp Swarm, Weakness, Deflect Missile, Suffering, Magical Immunity, Frenzy, Ressurection, Puppetmaster.
Mission 2 of Necropolis campaign Godric finished as level 18 with the following stats:
10/12/6/11
Advanced Counterstrike (Benediction), Expert Leadership (Diplomacy, Recruitment), Expert Light Magic (Master of Abjuration, Wrath), Expert Dark Magic (Master of Curses, Mind), Expert Enlightment, Basic Luck. He was the one that attacked the objective town, not Markal.
You didn't write your Godric's stats...
Now for my plan: this mission if played normaly is super easy: the Haven opponent is a weakling and Markal is passive meaning that you can simply assemble hundreds of paladins and destroy the endfight. However, if you are aiming to rush you need to beat Markal's FAR superior numbers with measarable starting forces THREE times with THREE different heroes. I do not think that this is normaly possible to do fast, so I reasoned like this: if I can get Markal to learn Phoenix and make his spell as powerful as possible, AND if I could learn Frenzy with my other heroes (but not with Findan for whom Frenzy is out of reach for my build), I could turn Markal's Phoenix against him. And considering Markal's pathetic A/D stats, maybe I could even beat him with Godric who will not possess the Phoenix spell (no way to learn it except the Mage Vault on Necro 2 which is very hard to beat and complicates that mission to insanity), while Findan and Zehir handle Markal with his Phoenix's. I though beforehand that Godric's will be the hardest fight, but Findan was also quite a swallow.
Recently I finaly learned a bit of map viewing, so I examined this map in the editor. Alas, my reasoning described up and below was actualy totaly flawed. Blink, remember when I went for Al-Safir in Necro campaign? And all the trouble I had trying to make Markal not to powerful with this particular mission in mind? It was all for nothing. With big help of sfidanza I learned something of Markal's behaviour in this mission. In the editor he is defined as a reserve hero; in the scripts there is, however, ANOTHER Markal meant to fight Findan. I will try to explain the difference beween the two.
1) The reserve Markal is the one that fights Zehir and Godric. His stats are 20/16/15/18, he has 40 Skeleton Archers, some artifacts (one gives him +1 to all stats), all War Machines, no spells, Expert Necromancy, Expert Leadership (Diplomacy) and 1 700 000 expirience points. The main script assigns to this Markal troops, depending on the fight, however, as far as I can tell, it does not assign him any skills or spells. I have tried to find those spells and skills, but have failed. Sfidanza proposed that perhaps Markal learns the spells from the Mage Guild in Necropolis. It would seem that Mage Guild 5 is built in Necropolis, so maybe it would allow Markal to learn Conjure Phoenix (which he had against Zehir and Godric when I played): how he was able to achieve it without Summoning Magic – beats me. Theoriticaly, his experience points could bring him to level 31 – maybe he learns the skills when the mission starts? I do not know, but what I do know is that he HAD the Phoenix spell so my tactic was successful nevertheless.
2) The Siege Markal hero's army that fights Findan is defined in spes.xdb. There are still lots of things I don't understand here, but I believe that this Markal has no chance of learning the Phoenix spell (so my tactic worked). I do know his skills though:
<Mastery>MASTERY_EXPERT</Mastery>
<SkillID>HERO_SKILL_DESTRUCTIVE_MAGIC</SkillID>
<Mastery>MASTERY_EXPERT</Mastery>
<SkillID>HERO_SKILL_DARK_MAGIC</SkillID>
<Mastery>MASTERY_EXPERT</Mastery>
<SkillID>HERO_SKILL_NECROMANCY</SkillID>
<Mastery>MASTERY_EXPERT</Mastery>
<SkillID>HERO_SKILL_LEADERSHIP</SkillID>
<Mastery>MASTERY_EXPERT</Mastery>
<SkillID>HERO_SKILL_DARK_REVELATION</SkillID>
<Mastery>MASTERY_EXPERT</Mastery>
<SkillID>HERO_SKILL_SUPRESS_LIGHT</SkillID>
<perkIDs>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_TACTICS</Item>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_MASTER_OF_MIND</Item>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_MASTER_OF_FIRE</Item>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_WEAKENING_STRIKE</Item>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_MASTER_OF_LIGHTNINGS</Item>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_MASTER_OF_SICKNESS</Item>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_MASTER_OF_ICE</Item>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_MASTER_OF_CURSES</Item>
<Item>HERO_SKILL_ANCIENT_SMITHY</Item>
So, the play: I choose Rakshas, nothing else even compares to them. Zehir went immidiately south through the garrison, took Stables and conquered the Haven town west. There I bought a secondary. There is a funny thing about this mission: you can only buy one secondary in the whole mission, and if you lose him you can't replace him. Curious. Anyway, went to free Godric with secondary. I left the Rakshas with Zehir who went E to the NE town and conquered it; on his way he took the Witch Hut that gave him Expert Luck (this was lucky, literaly). Then he just went straight to the south town, conquered the town and went south towards Findan. On Day 3 Week 2 secondary freed Godric which trigerred Findan's appearance as well. However, there was still a space gap between Findan and Zehir, and I needed to transfer some of Findan's troops to Zehir because he would be stranded without them in endfight, 4 Rakshas without Tent and without Ressurection are simply insufficient. So, Findan moved a bit towards Zehir and Zehir towards him, and Zehir took 10 Ancient Treants from Findan (that's all) and gave Findan Ballista and First Aid that he bought before. Findan went for Markal but attacking the Garrison isn't allowed because there is still one Haven town left unconquered so Findan tele'd through. Meanwhile Godric picked up +1 SP underground. Zehir finaly took the last Haven town Day 5 Week 2. The town was unguarded so Zehir also obtained +2 Luck and +1 Morale from map objects he took before. Somewhere in this mission Zehir leveled up (I forgot when exactly) and he got Resistance. Findan was able to attack Markal Day 5, but he had some couchine so he took +1 SP and he got +3 (great) to luck from two objects.
So here are my heroes just before the showdown:
Zehir 21
3/7/21/10
+5 Luck
It was all really about the Treants and the Phoenix. Zehir had all War Machines, three more things for the enemy to hit The fight was challenging, but less than I expected. I was right that Markal would be spamming his Phoenix immidiately and btw his Phoenix is much more powerful so you had to use Banish blink? so it is imperative that Zehir casts Frenzy on Markal's Phoenix before it moves - Mass Slow is a good start (because of all the initiative thing I didn't really want to see Markal with Sorcery here Blink – this I wrote when I thought that Markal's skills are transfered here). After that it's pretty much all about defending the Treants with everything you've got (that is, with your own Phoenix). I used Mass spells and Summon Elementals (which I also got from Al-Safir) mostly, and Banished there and then. All of my tactic was actualy based on my first run: then Markal was casting his Phoenix against Zehir and Godric but NOT against Findan. He repeated the thing here (it would seem that he again learned both Summoning Magic and Conjure Phoenix. Lucky me Or he always possesses the spell, don't know) and it was the base of my plan, luckily it worked, otherwise this mission would probably take at least 10-14 days more.
Godric 18
10/12/7/11
+1 Luck
You know, I restarted and tested these fights numerous times later, and Markal ALWAYS casted his Phoenix. It sounds pretty ackward that he failed to do that in your case.
This fight was much harder than first and you really need some luck to win this. I can think of really no way to beat 40 Archliches with starting troops with Markal's Phoenix on the field (so Frenzy is imperative), but I was able to wipe out the Vampires and the Ghosts. I arranged my troops so that the Vamps would come into the Precise Shot Range, and from there it's simply luck, literaly. I knew beforehand that only +1 Luck could very well compromise everything I did but I was pretty lucky and got it at crucial moments, in the beginning. Also, the Archliches didn't shoot at first but casted spells which helped also (gave me time to cast Deflect to hold out until the Phoenix does the job for me). I started here with Mass Slow, then Frenzied Markal's Phoenix, and then it's mostly keeping yourself alive with Deflect Missiles, Ressurection etc. And praying that the Phoenix will eventualy go for the Liches, which it did.
Findan 28
7/24/20/16
+3 Luck
Without those +3 Luck I wouldn't bet this is possible. Markal also had crazy stats here 21/19/16/19 – I really don't understand how the game determines these silly stats and what was the purpose of my Markal's build anyway, at least statswise? Fortunately, he didn't cast his Phoenix (as I hoped) but Findan's Phoenix isn't really top of the notch with 24 SP, although Findan's level helped A LOT to improve it (Phoenix's attack was 66). I don't know about you blink, but Markal, again, always rushed my forces with fliers at least no matter their size (and I varied my forces a lot), and no matter the status of his shooters. Odd.
Zehir got Resistance and Master of Curses, Godric Advanced Luck, Findan gained nothing.
Funny thing is, I am not certain is it perhaps possible to do this one day faster, but than I wouldn't have time to get those map objects and without the luck boost I don't know.
MISSION 4
WEEK 1
DAY 7
Please explain your play on this mission in detail, I'm interested to see how you made that 1 day time.
I don't know how to describe this mission but as STUPID. It is hilariously easy, even the endfight is a joke with Raelag, I tend to think I would be able to do it even without the Puppet Master with Phoenix alone. However, what is hard is to figure out how to play the mission to finish it as soon as possible. As far as I can tell, Boots of the Swift Journey cannot appear except at the merchant (where did you see them?).
I played by taking Zehir by road NE, I took Tattered Flag, fought Hydras to get through, up just underneath the Sulfur mine, from there I tele'd to the ground north where the vamps are, then headed for Garrison, took Tattered Flag, went for Teleport. I barely came out and didn't have movement left to take the town alas (not even close so I don't think it's possible). Meanwhile, Findan went through western garrison and came just south of the place where Markal tele'd. He was still slower so I used him to take the Haven town and build Stables, but even with that Zehir stopped exactly in front of the garrison the next day, and you need to be 2 steps inside for Raelag to appear. Now listen to this I wrote back then when I wrote the walkthrough: So I don't know, and I pretty much dislike these situations, but Blink excells here so I expect to hear the tale how to make it day 6 my friend LOOOL!! Anyway, Raelag defeated Isabel (took Frenzy from Zehir ) and finished the mission. I was able to level Godric up one level and get him a Witch Hut, so now he has Expert Luck and Resistance: he also got +2 A and +1 D from objects. Findan got +1 D just near the Haven town N he conquered. I didn't really bother to make the most of the heroes here, because I knew that the 5th mission is more than managable anyway.
MISSION 5
WEEK 1
DAY 1
What is there to say here? We've all been here, done that. I personaly think it is a good last mission, well devised, certainly not one of the more difficult but that is logical.
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phinex
Adventuring Hero
for sylvan
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posted March 19, 2007 04:56 PM |
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As rainclar said,Fire Trap is a good spell.With it,you can take Al-Safir in d5,and only lost 10+ gremlins.
I was sorry because I didn't explain clearly.
I finished the campaign in 1.0,and reload the saves in 1.2(the patch I could't recall) to view the score .Maybe it had something different.
BTW,you can download this file and finished the last campaign of Academy to see the scores.
http://www.heroworld.net/heroes5site/downloads/patchs/Campaign.rar
Serious Warding,backup your campaign.sav first,or you maybe lost all your effort.
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 19, 2007 09:55 PM |
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I'll answer the other questions in a bit but I'll get to a few of them right away.
As for mission 4:
I just used Findan. The other heroes can't get to Raelag fast enough. Findan takes a right as soon as possible on day 1. From this point, he just follows the road, through the enemy garrison, and continues north and eventually teleports through the one-way teleporter. He comes out and takes the Haven castle, builds a stables, and then runs off to get Raelag.
There are actually 2 separate locations where Zehir can pick up boots by Day 2. One involves just running Zehir eastward at the start. The other one involves Zehir running westward and then on day 2, teleporting north to an artifact guarded by some bone dragons (his teleport will place him right next to the artifact, so he doesn't have to fight the dragons, though they'd be very easy anyway). That artifact can be the boots (boots are a major artifact so any time you see a major artifact on the map that's not set in stone, it can be the boots. It actually was the boots on my first runthrough but since Zehir didn't know Town Portal, there was no way for him to get those boots to Findan until the next day. My plan would have been for Zehir to town portal to the necro town just to the north of where the artifact is, which Findan would only have had to have taken about 4 steps out of the way to conquer. Anyway, since none of this helped me, I just had Godric and Zehir run around grabbing power ups the whole mission while Findan ran off after Raelag.
Godric's stats for the fight at the end of level 3 were:
Level 16: 11, 10, 6, 6
Expert Counterstrike (Benediction, Retaliation Strike), Advanced Logistics (Pathfinding and Familiar Ground), Advanced Leadership (Diplomacy and Recruitment), Expert War Machines (First Aid Tent, Ballista, and Triple Ballista), and Expert Light Magic (Master of Wrath and Master of Abjuration)
The only spells he used in his fight were magic immunity and retaliation strike (if you consider that magic). He might have also used resurrection. I know I used it a few times in some of my playthroughs but I can't remember if he used it on my final playthrough. If he did, it would have only been used on the marksmen because that was the only stack I didn't have to cast anti-magic on. It's kind of lame that you can't resurrect a stack that has anti-magic on it.
Markal never cast phoenix in any of his fights. He did howerver make frequent use of puppet master. I only saw him use spells that I had actually taught him. I'm pretty sure the "reserve" heroes are there in case the game looses track of the Markal you built or you used a cheat to skip the Necromancer campaign. This is just guesswork on my part but I'm thinking it's true because the first time I ever played through the campaigns (back in version 1.0), when the game had many bugs, the game skipped Academy mission 3 for me and for mission 4, Godric and Findan had been replaced by weak pieces of crap that the computer had obviously randomly generated with stupid skills and with the idea that no stat enhancing structures had been visited.
Also, as I mentioned, Markal didn't cast any spells at all in his final fight against Findan. I wish he had though because his physical attack was ridiculously powerful and his dark magic spells would have given me more turns to attack his standing army.
I also had neutral luck in all my fights with Markal. And other than Godric, I even had bad morale in all of them. The reason Godric was able to kill the Archliches is because I was able to get them blocked fairly quickly by fast creatures, and once the treants got in front of them and rooted, I moved those creatures away. The archliches were then attacking the rooted treants which, as stacks began to die off, became very powerful with enraged, and had retaliation strike on them so that Godric would give them a few extra good smacks. When I won this fight on my final playthrough, I actually finished the fight with about 6 treants, a couple silver unicorns, and a couple elder druids left over.
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rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted March 22, 2007 02:49 PM |
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I'm not near my pc, I'll get to answer it in a week or so. Hear you
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rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted March 27, 2007 02:04 PM |
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Crap, I forgot to see your answers  I installed H4 and tried it a bit (never liked it before. Unfair as it may seem, H4 is the only game I played in my life that I failed to appreciate because of tehnicalities - graphical looks of towns and units, battle erspective etc. If it was just a bit more conservative it would have rocked the world...).
Anyway, I just completed first expansion campaign (of H5 ). Pure sickness in a few missions. Just one word, which you'll figure out yourself: DIPLOMACY
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rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted March 27, 2007 02:45 PM |
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I guess we can now make a summary of what we played:
CAMPAIGN 1
This is tricky.
Mission 3 we did the same and it cannot be done faster.
There is no way that Mission 4 can be done faster then in my run.
In Mission 5 we finished differently, but I believe that it can still be completed faster (would have to check the script though). I do not believe the hero appereances day is random, but is calculated in some way.
Mission 1 and 2 require testing. If it is possible to learn Diplomacy before reaching the Archers stack than your faster time on Mission 1 is a plus. Otherwise, there is no difference between us.
I would say that the minimum number of days here is 50-51. So we were 2-3 days short.
Stasticaly, this would correnspond to 95% percent completion, time concerning.
CAMPAIGN 2
Missions 1, 2 are obviously finished as fast as practicaly achievable.
I believe the same goes for Missions 4, 5. I wasn't sure for 5 at first, but since we played fairly the same it points out that it was finished perfect as well. Mission 3 was the only difference between us, and I am sure that there is no way that it can be finished faster.
So, conclusion, 41 Days is an unbeatable time in this campaign 
100%
CAMPAIGN 3
Mission 1 both finished perfectly.
Mission 4 I finished perfectly.
Mission 5 you finished perfectly.
Mission 2 is an upset. Dispite my expectations, with the discovery of Titans' beating tactics this can be done considerably faster. Didn't test how much faster though, but I presume perhaps even 5 Days or so.
I guess you finished Mission 3 perfectly.
I figure that there is a lot room for improvement here, you did it in 44 days, minus 4 for Mission 4, minus say 5 for Mission 2, so 35 days or so in total. In short, we sucked here
71%
CAMPAIGN 4
Mission 1, 4, 5 both perfectly.
Mission 2 and 3, as you said, are complicated and there is, I think, no way to figure what would be the fastest possible time, theory put aside.
I would estimate it to be somewhere around 53-55 days.
92%
CAMPAIGN 5
Mission 1 we finished the same but I wouldn't really but that faster is impossible. Script checking is required here.
Mission 4 both did perfectly.
My time in mission 5 can certainly be beaten by that 1 day.
Your time in mission 3 can hardly be beaten (druid week aside ).
Your time in mission 2 can be beaten by those few days as you said.
102 days minus 4 days for Mission 5, 2 days for Mission 2, say 1 more Day for Mission 1/3, so the best possible time would be cca 95 Days.
93%
CAMPAIGN 6
Missions 1, 5 both perfectly.
Mission 4 you perfectly.
Mission 2 both the same, but I would place 1-2 Days for precaution.
Mission 3 again, 2 Days as a safety margin.
So, fastest possible time would be 28-29 Days circa.
92%
1. Inferno 100%
2. Haven 95%
3. Sylvan 93%
4. Dungeon 92%
5. Academy 92% (it is likely reverse here, I would place Academy even on 3rd place)
6. Necropolis 71%
Your thoughts?
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 27, 2007 03:00 PM |
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Gotta think about those perfection issues for a bit. I'll get back to you on that.
As for the expansion, I just finished all the campaigns on a regular playthrough (not normal difficulty, I still used Heroic, I just mean normal in the sense that I wasn't going for any kind of time record). So now I'll be going back and doing the speed playthrough.
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rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted March 27, 2007 03:05 PM |
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ok, keep us posted
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phinex
Adventuring Hero
for sylvan
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posted March 27, 2007 05:33 PM |
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Great work!Thanks both of you.
Which patch you play the expansion,2.0 or 2.1?it's so different
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 27, 2007 11:35 PM |
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rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted March 28, 2007 04:19 PM |
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted April 15, 2007 06:30 PM |
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Just finished the Hammers of Fate Haven campaign.
51 days. It can be done slightly faster depending on luck, and maybe there were a few places things could have been done slightly faster with skill, I don't know. The luck issue is that the final town you capture in the final mission has to be built up to level 12 before you can build a shipyard and it's seemingly random what level the town is at when you capture it. I captured it once on day 9 and it was at level 7, and I captured it once on day 7 and it was at level 8. This is unfair as far as I'm concerned so unless someone explains how this can be predictably manipulated, I'm considering the number of days it takes to build up to level 12 to be an unfair/stupid/irrelevant factor.
I did so many different things here I pretty much have 3 full walkthroughs tangled together. Maybe I'll post all of them. Anyway, I'm not at my computer right now that has the walkthroughs on it but I'll post it/them as soon as possible. My skill selection was Attack, Light Magic, Logistics, Dark Magic, and Enlightenment.
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phinex
Adventuring Hero
for sylvan
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posted April 16, 2007 06:35 AM |
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Great!
I wait it for a long time.
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Rainalcar
Promising
Famous Hero
Heroji su zakon
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posted April 16, 2007 12:20 PM |
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I will be at my computer on saturday I think, so I can't post the walkthrough till then. I don't remember exactly the number of days it took me, low fifties I think.
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blink
Adventuring Hero
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posted March 07, 2008 10:48 PM |
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Wow, haven't looked at this in awhile. Anyway, I've been going through the ToTE campaigns and the Hall of Fame seems to have some completely new fashion of awarding points. I finished the prologue campaign in 12 days (on Heroic obviously) and I only received the rank of Hell Hound. Now I'm sure the campaign can be completed slightly faster (since I didn't bother hitting reset until being given only logistics skills on level-ups) but Hell Hound?! Seriously? I'm inclined to think that getting ranked even as high as a Slayer is probably impossible on this campaign.
So does anyone know how the new Hall of Fame works?
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