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| Thread: Help on Dragon's Blood campaign |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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Fool
Hired Hero
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posted May 20, 2012 03:02 PM |
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Help on Dragon's Blood campaign
Apologies if this isn't the right place for this, but I can't find a walkthrough anywhere else, so...
I need help on the third map, the race to get the vial of dragon blood. I can get into Ordwald's territory (at the end of the river), but once I get there, he destroys me. No matter what I do, he seems to always have twice as many troops as Mutare, and outrunning him doesn't seem possible.
So, what exactly am I supposed to do? Am I just supposed to take the dragon and blitz him as soon as possible? Am I supposed to turtle until I amass an army of equivalent strength? It occurs to me that Town Portal would be useful...
(It's a pity that the Armageddon's Blade campaigns are so difficult, they seem to be the most interesting.)
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NoobX
Undefeatable Hero
Now, this is a paradox...
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posted May 20, 2012 03:47 PM |
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AB campaigns are tough, but not impossible. I remember my dad playing this map and he won. Sadly I can't remember how, but secondary heroes are a must.
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Ghost said:
Door knob resembles anus tap.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted May 20, 2012 05:49 PM |
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Scholar gave water skill, water is the power  For me, making the same..
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NoobX
Undefeatable Hero
Now, this is a paradox...
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posted May 20, 2012 06:11 PM |
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I think that water is the key thing in this map.
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Ghost said:
Door knob resembles anus tap.
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Fool
Hired Hero
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posted May 20, 2012 06:22 PM |
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...So you need water magic?
ARGH
My Mutare only has one skill slot left, but doesn't have Logistics. Does that mean I'll have to forfeit such a vital skill?  If only there was a way to forget skills...
Anyway, in what way is water magic important? Summon Boat? There is a spell scroll of that in front of the gold mine, but I don't see why it's so important, exactly. Will it help me get to Ordwald faster, before he amasses a gigantic army?
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted May 20, 2012 06:26 PM |
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Hm AB or SoD? You can buy to a new hero.
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NoobX
Undefeatable Hero
Now, this is a paradox...
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posted May 20, 2012 06:35 PM |
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There isn't a Market of Time in AB, so you can't unlearn the skills and you've made a mistake not learning logistics. You should start over and take only good skills (logistics, etc.)
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Ghost said:
Door knob resembles anus tap.
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Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
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posted May 20, 2012 06:41 PM |
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NoobX
Undefeatable Hero
Now, this is a paradox...
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posted May 20, 2012 06:42 PM |
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Maybe...
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Ghost said:
Door knob resembles anus tap.
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Fool
Hired Hero
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posted May 20, 2012 08:47 PM |
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...What, seriously? I should restart the entire campaign because I'm lacking one skill?
I suppose the problem is that I got one of the dreaded "choose two new skills, neither of which you want" choices at the end of the previous map...my choices were Navigation or Fire Magic, I chose Fire Magic.
Alright, I'll post my Mutare's skills to see if it's salvageable: Tactics, Estates, Pathfinding, Earth Magic, Wisdom, Fire Magic, Ballistics.
To be honest, I think it's a fairly good build -- Earth Magic, Wisdom, and Ballistics are all vital skills, and Pathfinding was the best substitute for Logistics I could get in the early game. Tactics and Estates aren't very useful, but she starts with them, so...
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NoobX
Undefeatable Hero
Now, this is a paradox...
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posted May 20, 2012 08:50 PM |
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Dump the Ballistics.
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Ghost said:
Door knob resembles anus tap.
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Fool
Hired Hero
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posted May 20, 2012 10:21 PM |
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Really? I always considered Ballistics pretty important, since I hate arrow towers. I got that pretty early on, though, so I doubt I can dump it without starting over again...
What exactly is water magic necessary for, though? What does Expert Summon Boat do that regular Summon Boat can't?
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kringled
Hired Hero
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posted May 20, 2012 10:26 PM |
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Edited by kringled at 00:01, 21 May 2012.
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The skill set I ended up with on Mutare was as follows: Tactics, Estates, Offense, Earth magic, Wisdom, logistics, water magic, and air magic. Water was from a witch hut on the 2nd map; I found it useful in a couple of places but I don't think it's absolutely essential. My last choice was air vs. First Aid, so I went with air. On the third map, you should be able to go quite fast indeed, and I suspect not going fast enough is your problem. I had cleared the enemy castle near my starting castle week 1, was setting onto the boat journey on week 3 of month 1, and had taken 2 more enemy castles by week 1-2 of month 2. I faced Ordwald just after that time (this is when water magic came in the handiest,breaking a siege with expert teleport). I had wiped out the enemy by early in Month 3, and then I could just focus on building forces for the dragon armies guarding the vial. When are you facing Ordwald? Do you have Town Portal and earth magic? It's an invaluable help in terms of your resupply of troops once you've gotten through the boat trip and is available in the mage guilds of map 2 if you build them up enough (and aren't too unlucky).
Edited to add: Expert Summon boat will create a boat out of thin air if necessary. If you strand Mutare on the little cave where you release Alamar from the prison, for example, and can't get anyone to the shipyard anytime soon,no worries. This can be very handy on other maps but I didn't find it necessary here.
As far as your skills go: Ballistics is not necessary but it is a good way of breaking a siege quickly (although there are others). It's not as necessary for Dungeon as for some other towns as the only troops that can't attack through the walls are your minotaurs and your trogs. I don't think pathfinding is likely to be useful on these maps, as almost all (maybe absolutely all?) of the terrain is underground, which does not have a movement penalty, and which Dungeon troops are native to anyways. However, the maps are probably still quite doable with the skills you have.
Keith
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Fool
Hired Hero
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posted May 21, 2012 12:23 PM |
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Thank you very much! So the strategy is simply blitzing? I guess I'll take the red dragon bonus and go for it, then.
If worse comes to worse, I have Anti-Magic and Armageddon. That should annihilate any early mobs. There's also a witch hut right in front of the starting area, so I can just restart until I get Logistics.
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kringled
Hired Hero
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posted May 21, 2012 12:44 PM |
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I took the minotaur dwelling - since there's a Dragon cave near the water, and the portal of summoning is easy to build, I used that to end up with a fair number of dragons relatively early (I did not flag any dwellings but the dragon dwellings). There's a hill fort near the town at the end of the water journey, which can allow you to upgrade to blacks before you can afford the upgraded dwelling.
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angelito
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
proud father of a princess
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posted May 21, 2012 04:10 PM |
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Rushing is the key to victory for nearly all maps of all campaigns. The longer you wait, the stronger the AI will become.
Do not be afraid of any neutral creature. You will kill them easily with your stats. Try to get as many creatures out of the dwellings as possible.
I can't remember having water magic or not, but that's not essential. You have enough ships and ports around. Water Walk is nice, but other skills like logistics are the much better choice.
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Fool
Hired Hero
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posted May 22, 2012 03:11 AM |
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By the way, what happens if Ordwald gets the Vial before you? Can you never get it back from him?
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laucian
Hired Hero
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posted May 22, 2012 04:09 AM |
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Quote:
By the way, what happens if Ordwald gets the Vial before you? Can you never get it back from him?
I believe you loose the scenario if Ordwald get the Vial first.
I replayed the AB campaigns a few months ago. For this map, I had Mutare avoid battles with Ordwald. I took his towns, he would take them back, I would take them again. I kept recruiting heroes and sending them on raids. Eventually Mutare had a powerful enough army that I had a good feeling of success, and Mutare plowed forward into the quest area.
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kringled
Hired Hero
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posted May 22, 2012 05:00 AM |
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I would definitely hope that water magic isn't essential, as Overlords can't normally get it. I personally find it useful enough that I chose to take it from the witch hut when I found it, but I'm fairly sure I would have managed without.
When are you meeting Ordwald, and can you give some numbers on your stats and his vs. your army? For example, in the game I played (just a couple of months ago), Mutare was at 14 15 7 8 (without artifacts - with them it's 24 22 7 8), and had an army of 99 evil eyes, 113 harpy hags, 12 black dragons, 26 minotaur kings, 24 scorpicores, and 40 medusa queens. This is at month 2, week 3, day 6, within about a week or so of when I confronted Ordwald - I might have been able to pick up another week or so of towns production by the time we faced off. The army he was carrying is described was 213 beholders, 329 trogs, 58 medusas, 33 minotaurs, 114 harpies, and 100 harpy hags. His stats are listed at 7, 15, 12, 11. He definitely has more harpies and beholders, but only a slight edge on minos/medusas; I had all upgrades and the scorpicores and most importantly the blacks.
The reason I'm asking is trying to figure out if you're going fast enough or not - compared to the maps I played more recently, this actually seems fairly slow, probably because Mutare is doing most of the fighting herself, and because the water journey adds a lot of overhead. You also have a lot of control over when you face off with ordwald because of the border guards, assuming you can go fast enough to keep Malekith from getting to the green tent.
I try to generally rush as much as possible against the AI, although if it looks like an army gets cuts to ribbons but squeaks through I might not do that. However, in the campaign setting, you may want to hold off just before vanquishing the enemy to allow you time to get any heroes that carry over to get spells or stat/skill boosts, and there are quite a few of those available on the previous map, including a pyramid (which gave me Fly), as well as ending up with Town Portal.
I will also say that except on the last of the 4 maps, where I had Mutare running with just black dragons, Tactics came in very handy, and I would rate it as usually a fairly important skill.
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NoobX
Undefeatable Hero
Now, this is a paradox...
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posted May 22, 2012 07:06 AM |
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I think that Expert Cure will be a must-have spell because you need to remove Curse, Blind, Slow, etc.
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Ghost said:
Door knob resembles anus tap.
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